We are currently working on a biography of Button Gwinnett by his descendant, Colin Gwinnett Sharp. Gwinnett was a signatory to the Declaration of Independence and his signature is now the most sought after in the United States.

Colin will be speaking to the Wolverhampton Historical Society, at the Old School, 73 Dudley Road, on 16 September at 14.30 pm, Wolverhampton being Gwinnett’s place of origin.

The talk will, among other things, examine the dubious means by which Gwinnett rose to become one of the largest landowners in the State of Georgia and leader of the Populist Party, before placing his signature on the Declaration of Independence and becoming successively Speaker, Commander-in-Chief and President of Georgia. He died an untimely death in a duel.

Kath Hirani’s moving account of her trans-racial life, treated in fictional form in Not Quite the Full Chapati,  has found unlikely endorsement on the back of the buses of the Island of Jersey. In addition there is a video which is now on LCD screens at the airport by the baggage conveyor belts.

A literary or dramatic (and cricketing), anniversary of sorts: seventy-six years ago today, Donald Duck made his  first appearance in The Wise Little Hen (although he did not achieve fame until two years later when he appeared in Orphan’s Benefit beside Mickey Mouse). It seems that Donald may have acquired both his forename and, indirectly, his surname from Australian cricket champion Donald Bradman who was out for a duck against the West Indies in 1932 while Walt Disney was in the process of creating his famous character. Disney was  intrigued by the strange (to American ears) cricketing expression.

The Heritage Lottery Fund granted nearly £60,000 in June this year for the digitisation of the Express and Star’s photographic archive. The Star was founded in 1880 as a liberal news paper and was joined with the conservative Express (founded 1874)  in 1889 under Andrew Carnegie, so the the archive contains over a hundred years of Wolverhampton’s history. Once digitised, will be of even greater value to researchers than it is already.

The Molineux Building, in which the Archives are now housed, is itself of historical interest. It was built for the Molineux family over three hundred years ago and became a hotel in the 1870s – the Oak Room was once used as changing room by the town footballers. It was derelict for thirty years from 1979 but, after an arson attack in 2003, it was bought and later restored by the City Council.

Those Were the Days, David Corbett’s meticulous history of BBC Radio’s old-time dance output from 1943 to 1991, is receiving glowing reviews. We’re planning a ‘launch ball’ for early 2015.

‘A real work of broadcasting scholarship as well as being a useful piece of social history.’ GILLIAN REYNOLDS, Radio Critic, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph.

Books in the News

With all the talk of Trojan Horse plots in Birmingham schools, we thought it might be useful to look back at the original. This edition was published by Penguin Classics in 1998 with Robert Fagles (Translator) and Bernard Knox (Introduction).

We have just published a new edition of Professor Philip Dark’s 670-page anthropological work Craftsmanship and Art. The work was left uncompleted when Professor Dark died some years ago and it was a labour of love to complete it. One of the strengths of this unique book is that much of the research was conducted in the period 1955-1980 and many of the practices it describes have since been abandoned. The following from the index gives a brief glimpse of its breadth and originality:

Ute Indians
basketry 320
currency of dessicated fingertips 440

Wodabe people
cicitrization 370
hair of women 411
pack oxen 294
stretching of children’s limbs 403

Professor Dark was a remarkable man, a hero of the wartime raid on St. Lazare. It was while in prison camp in Germany that he first became interested in anthropology.

We are planning to launch a new Imprint called Lives in Print .

This will be a collection of Self-Published Biographies, Histories and Memoirs.

If you would like to know more about Lives in Print,

get in touch by email at enquiries@youcaxton.co.uk