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Charles Williams - book authorship question

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Charles Williams - book authorship question

Postby a_hnau » March 3rd, 2006, 8:08 pm

Hi, all. Wonder if one of the experts on the site can help me resolve a very strange issue. Someone on eBay is auctioning a book entitled "Queen Elizabeth", a historical biography attributed to the Charles [Walter Stansby] Williams who was of course a close associate of Lewis's. However, the photo of the dustjacket clearly shows this book as authored by a C.H. Williams - and a Charles Harold Williams was also a historian of Tudor England with other books by him on this period listed elsewhere. The complication is that at least one official biography, and - apparently - a letter by Charles W S Williams himself, attributes this book to CWS Williams. The National Library of Scotland has it attributed to CWS Williams, the Library of Congress had it attributed to CWS Williams but is inclined to change it following my enquiry, and the British Library has three copies, two assigned to CWS Williams and one assigned to CH Williams! If anyone can shed any light, I and some other folks would be very grateful.

P.S. The Bodleian has this assigned to CWS Williams; Cambridge UL doesn't seem to have it at all. Here's the image;

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Re: Charles Williams - book authorship question

Postby Karen » March 3rd, 2006, 8:56 pm

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re: Charles Williams - book authorship question

Postby a_hnau » March 3rd, 2006, 9:09 pm

Thanks, Karen. The thing that's really stumping me is that a lady named Alice Hadfield - who was a personal friend of CWS Williams - cites in her biography of him, a letter that he wrote to Anne Ridler in which he apparently quotes a review of his book on Queen Elizabeth by the Roman Catholic magazine The Tablet. If this is the case, clearly he cannot have been mistaken in thinking he wrote the book! The only 'out' I can think of is that the dustjacket was incorrectly printed, but the apparent confusion by some major libraries as to who to cite as the author of this book implies to me that it isn't at all obvious even when you have the book in your hand. The only other logical resolution to this is that both men wrote books about Queen Elizabeth - but published in the same year by the same publisher? Doubtful!

I've also found the Web site for the publisher who is still in business and submitted an email enquiry to them - I'll see if this elicits any explanation.
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Re: re: Charles Williams - book authorship question

Postby Karen » March 3rd, 2006, 9:37 pm

Fascinating stuff - let me know what you find out!
I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. -- Jorge Luis Borges
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re: Charles Williams - book authorship question

Postby a_hnau » March 5th, 2006, 9:21 pm

Here's an amusing thing (and Lewis-related, too, so we can justify this thread being on the Wardrobe :)); in his Oxford History of English Literature volume, Lewis recommends a book by C.H. Williams, England under the Early Tudors, as a good secondary source, then in a footnote refers to Charles Williams - obviously in context C.W.S. Williams, as Lewis is praising his poetry - hardly surprising that some confusion may have arisen, especially as CWS Williams also refers to CH Williams as a source for some of the material in CWS' book on Henry VII!
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re: Charles Williams - book authorship question

Postby a_hnau » March 5th, 2006, 9:56 pm

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Re: re: Charles Williams - book authorship question

Postby Karen » March 5th, 2006, 11:18 pm

I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. -- Jorge Luis Borges
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re: Charles Williams - book authorship question

Postby a_hnau » March 6th, 2006, 12:06 pm

Here's another quandary to add to the puzzle we already have. There is a book entitled "A Short Life of Shakespeare", abridged by - guess who? - Charles Williams from a longer work by the famous historian Sir Edmund K. Chambers. The BL has this attributed to CWS, as does the Bodleian; I wonder if anyone feels like helping me dig around to see if this is right? Something that makes me suspicious is that in this book, the word for a play or pageant is consistently spelt mask, where CWS Williams would I think naturally use masque as he did in all his own books...
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