At the Symonsposium

It's a decadent year for MHRA: our acclaimed series Jewelled Tortoise is making a splash, not least with Arthur Symons, Selected Early Poems (edited by Chris Baldick and Jane Desmarais), which we've blogged about before; and we've also reissued Walter Pater's Imaginary Portraits in hardback. Legenda has just published Decadence and the Senses, a collection edited by Jane Desmarais and Alice Condé, which includes some steamy poems about tuberoses, that most decadent of flowers; and we're already at work on Arthur Symons: Poet, Critic, Vagabond edited by Elisa Bizzotto and Stefano Evangelista, which will shortly be volume 44 in our Studies In Comparative Literature series.

This was also the year of the Symonsposium, a terrific symposium on Symons held at Goldsmith's on 21 July. Prof. Catherine Maxwell, one of the general editors of Jewelled Tortoise, said:

‘Our first volume, Walter Pater’s Imaginary Portraits, meticulously edited by Lene Østermark-Johansen appeared in 2014. Since then our Tortoise has been hibernating for a while, but has now reappeared resplendent in the form of two excellent new editions – Selected Early Poems and Spiritual Adventures – which we hope will do much to boost the reputation of Arthur Symons as a poet and prose writer.’

Completing the occasion, the serving of the memorable Symonsponge:

...and its very slightly ominous knife.