Lurid Talk

Publisher D-M Withers and queer literary scholar Jana Funke place Chase of the Wild Goose within the rich cultural and literary traditions of queer, feminist modernism. 

Chase of the Wild Goose was first published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Hogarth Press in 1936. Gordon's homage to the Ladies of Llangollen fell out of print in the 1940s and has remained so until Lurid's new Edition, published in February 2023. 

Jana Funke is Associate Professor of English and Sexuality Studies at the University of Exeter, and author of the co-edited volumes Sex, Gender and Time in Fiction and Culture (Palgrave, 2011) and Sculpture, Sexuality and History: Encounters in Literature, Culture and the Arts (Palgrave, 2019). She is currently completing three monographs: Sexological Modernism: Queer Feminism and Sexual Science (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), Sexperts: A History of Sexology (Reaktion Press, 2023), a book on the interdisciplinary history of sexology jointly authored with Professor Kate Fisher and the first ever critical edition of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness (Oxford University Press, 2023). 

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“Gordon’s spirited, romantic account of the lives of the Ladies of Llangollen is a fascinating piece of queer literary history in its own right. A claiming of kinship, across time, with two remarkable women, it’s a deeply feminist work, a celebration of courage and nonconformity. It’s also endearingly odd! Part biography, part novel, part spiritual memoir, it’s wholly bold and eccentric and I’m delighted to see it reprinted.” — Sarah Waters

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Theme tune 'Cushions and Blankets' by Annie Gardiner

Publisher D-M Withers in conversation with Nicola Wilson about the publishing histories of Mary Gordon's Chase of the Wild Goose.

Chase of the Wild Goose was first published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Hogarth Press in 1936. Gordon's homage to the Ladies of Llangollen fell out of print in the 1940s and has remained so until Lurid's new Edition, published in February 2023. 

Drawing on the rich histories held in the Hogarth Press archives in the Archive of British Printing and Publishing, University of Reading, Nicola Wilson discusses her new afterword to Chase of the Wild Goose. 

We talk about Chase of the Wild Goose as an example of what Woolf called 'the new biography' and situate the book within the context of Hogarth's publishing in the 1930s. We also discuss Nicola's other research, including the recovery of Lancashire writer Ethel Carnie Holdsworth and the Modernist Archives Publishing Project, a digital archive curating the archives of the Hogarth Press.

Shopping, Info, Socials

“Gordon’s spirited, romantic account of the lives of the Ladies of Llangollen is a fascinating piece of queer literary history in its own right. A claiming of kinship, across time, with two remarkable women, it’s a deeply feminist work, a celebration of courage and nonconformity. It’s also endearingly odd! Part biography, part novel, part spiritual memoir, it’s wholly bold and eccentric and I’m delighted to see it reprinted.” — Sarah Waters

Thanks for listening! Don't forget to subscribe, like and share with friends!

Theme tune 'Cushions and Blankets' by Annie Gardiner