Brunette Coleman was a pseudonym used by the poet and writer Philip
Larkin (1922–1985). In 1943, towards the end of his time as an
undergraduate at St John's College, Oxford, he wrote several works of
fiction, verse and critical commentary under that name. The style he
adopted parodies that of popular writers of contemporary girls' school
fiction, but the extent of the stories' homoerotic content suggests they
were written primarily for adult male titillation. The Coleman oeuvre
consists of a completed novella, Trouble at Willow Gables, set in a
girls' boarding school; an incomplete sequel, Michaelmas Term at St
Brides, set in a women's college at Oxford; seven short poems with a
girls' school ambience; a fragment of pseudo-autobiography; and a
critical essay purporting to be Coleman's literary apologia. The
manuscripts were stored in the Brynmor Jones Library at the University
of Hull, where Larkin was chief librarian between 1955 and 1985. Their
existence was revealed to the public when Larkin's Selected Letters and
Andrew Motion's biography were published in 1992 and 1993 respectively.
The Coleman works themselves were finally published, with other Larkin
drafts and oddments, in 2002. Larkin's Oxford years were for him a
period of confused sexuality and limited literary output. The adoption
of a female persona released him from his creative inhibitions; the
three years following the Coleman phase saw the publication, under
Larkin's own name, of two novels and his first poetry collection.
Thereafter his career as a prose writer declined, and despite several
attempts he completed no further novels. Critical reaction to the
publication of the Coleman material was divided.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunette_Coleman>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
416:
Unpopular among the senate aristocracy for his reform efforts,
Roman emperor Majorian was deposed and executed five days later.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorian>
1830:
His hand forced by the recent July Revolution, Charles X of
France was forced to abdicate the throne in favor of his grandson Henry.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_X_of_France>
1876:
American lawman Wild Bill Hickok was murdered during a poker
game in Deadwood, Dakota Territory.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bill_Hickok>
1980:
A terrorist bomb exploded at the Central Station of Bologna,
Italy, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_massacre>
1990:
Iraq invaded Kuwait, overrunning the Kuwaiti military within
two days, and eventually sparking the outbreak of the Gulf War seven
months later.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Kuwait>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
dolorous:
Solemnly or ponderously sad.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dolorous>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common
concepts; on
the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are.
It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the
respect for other people that these words imply.
--James Baldwin
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Baldwin>