Marjorie Boulton (born 7 May 1924) is a British author and poet writing in both English and Esperanto.

[1] Author of Zamenhof: Creator of Esperanto— a biography of L. L. Zamenhof published in 1960 by

Routledge & Kegan Paul of London — she also wrote The Anatomy of Poetry, The Anatomy of Prose, The
Anatomy of Drama, The Anatomy of the Novel and The Anatomy of Language.

Marjorie Boulton taught English literature in teacher training and (from 1962 to 1970) as a college
principal for 24 years before turning to full-time research and writing. She is author of many books, and
is also a well known writer in Esperanto. Boulton is currently a president of two Esperanto organisations,
Kat-amikaro[2] and ODES.[3]

Biography

Marjorie Boulton was born in 1924, and was educated i.a at Oxford where she received a
doctorate in literary studies. She was for many years the director of a teacher' college, but
is now a professional writer, whose series of introductory texts in English on literaray
studies has been widely used. In 1949 she learned Esperanto and made her debut in the
Esperanto literary domain through the Belartaj Konkursoj (Fine Arts Competitions). Marjorie
Boulton is currently a member of the Esperanto Academy, an advisory body on language
questions.

Her first collection of poems Kontralte (In Contralto), was published byStafeto in 1955.

Further poetry collections followed: Kvarpieda kamarado (Four-footed friend), Cent
ghojkantoj (One hundred songs of joy), and Eroj (Bits and pieces), in 1956, 1957, and
1959 respectively. Virino che la landlimo (Woman at the frontier) - a collection of short
plays and stories, also appeared in 1959.

In 1960 (and again in 1980), Keegan Paul published Boulton's English language
biography Zamenhof, Creator of Esperanto, the Esperanto editon of which appeared in
1962. Two short story collections have apeared in book form: Dek du piedetoj (Twelve little
feet) and Okuloj(Eyes), in 1964 and 1967 respectively. In collaboration with William Auld,
she produced Rimleteroj (Rhyming letters), which was published in 1964. In 1983 her study
of the work of Gyulya Baghy - Poeto Fajrakora, was published, and in the following
year Faktoj kaj Fantazioj(Facts and Fantasies) - an intermediate reader drawing on folktales
from around the globe.

The writing of Marjorie Boulton is mature, socially engaged and infused with warmth,
sincerity and a profound humanism. A knack for finding the appropriate word or form of
expression is evident throughout. Her work is multi-faceted. She displays a keen sense of
humour and at the same time is not afraid to reveal her own private passions and torments.

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 To absent friends: remembering Paul Ableman
The avant-garde writer's death is a loss for the literary world and a reminder that it's
always worth picking up the phone to a friend, no matter how long it has been.
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Fascinating writer... Paul Ableman.

As I grow older, I've sadly changed the order in which I leaf through my morning newspapers. Where
I would once check first on the sports pages, followed by a longer look at the arts and review
coverage, I now find my initial port of call is the obituary section, half expecting and half fearing I will
come across the name of someone I know.

This was how I learned last weekend of the death of Paul Ableman - and experienced both sorrow
and guilt. Paul was not just a fascinating writer of books, plays and - later in his life - TV
novelisations, he was also once a good friend. But a friend I had been out of touch with for over a
decade, as everyday life and respective ventures somehow always took precedence and neither of
us found the time to pick up the phone and say hello.

I will leave it to the literary assessors to pass judgment on Paul's work. All I know from my personal
vantage point is that he was one of the first original authors to be published by the infamous but
legendary Olympia Press, with I Hear Voices. A piece of fascinating avant-garde writing which,
considering the imprint, was not even mildly erotic. A later novel, Tornado Pratt, bought by the
talented Liz Knights at Gollancz (an editor who also died much too young), somehow didn't connect
with the zeitgeist despite its wonderfully picaresque panorama with premonitory echoes of the later
John Irving extravaganzas. It was to be his last proper novel.
Paul then retreated into non-fiction and when I was still in publishing and running Virgin Books a
conversation we had provided me with the idea for a small list of short pamphlets in which writers
could freely pontify on a controversial subject of their choice. We called the imprint Bee in Bonnet
and Paul's contribution was The Doomed Rebellion, in which he extemporized on his view that
feminism was betraying its roots and just becoming gratuitously anti-men.
The book (and a companion volume by Michael Moorcock on the erosion of civil liberties) flopped
badly due to patchy distribution and the fact that few papers or magazines bothered to review them
seriously - apart from Auberon Waugh, that dire old extremist of the sex wars, who gave Paul's long
essay a whole page in The Daily Mail, coming to a favourable conclusion about the book but spoiling
the whole argument by indicating it did not go far enough, and that feminists should be drawn and
quartered or something to that effect ...

A year later, the book was actually nominated for the infamous Pink Pig Award, then given annually
by Women in Publishing. I suggested to Paul we should go to the awards ceremony in central
London together, but he sensibly declined, so on I ventured to the ceremony, forcibly escorted by all
my female staff for moral protection, hoping we might win the prize and it would help the book (all
remaining copies duly stickered with our nomination).

I think I was actually the only man present but the fix was in and the Pink Pig was given to, of all
things, a reprint of All The Girls, Martin O'Brien's saga of visiting the world's brothels, which had
somehow not attracted feminist ire in hardcover format. A few months later, the awards were
abolished as it was pointed out that unscrupulous publishers were subverting them for publicity
value!
In his final years, Paul limited himself to some theatre work, reviews and a legendary journal, which
runs to millions of words, but lived happily around the corner from Chalk Farm station in London with
his wife, Sheila, whom I had actually known before their marriage: we had met in a Soho restaurant
when she was going out with the bass player from the rock group Family and we discovered we
were all on our way to the same Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

A few years later, Paul and Sheila were the first to be told that Dolores and I were going to marry,
and when I now look at our wedding photos, there is Paul, with a familiar wide and impish beam on
his face, hair almost fashioned Afro-style and his bushy beard to the fore.

Paul: I am sorry I never picked up the phone again. Goodbye for now.

Paul Ableman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paul Ableman (13 June 1927 – 25 October 2006) was an English playwright and novelist. He was the writer of
much erotic fiction and novelisations, and a freelance writer who turned his hand to non-fiction.

Ableman was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, into a Jewish family, and brought up mainly in New York. He settled
in Hampstead, London in the United Kingdom. His father was a tailor and his mother was a small-time actress.
Ableman was married 2 times, first to Tina Carrs-Brown in 1958, they had 1 son, then divorced; then to Sheila
Hutton-Fox in 1978, they had 1 son, she was married to Paul until his death in 2006.

Ableman was of Jewish ancestry, Russian on his paternal side and German on his maternal side.
 Contents

 [hide]

1 Novels

2 Plays

3 Bibliogra

phy

4 External

links

[edit]Novels

 I Hear Voices (1958)

 As Near As I Can Get (1962)

 Vac (1968)

 The Twilight of the Vilp (1969)

 Bits: Some Prose Poems (1969, poems)

 The Mouth and Oral Sex (1969, psychology)

 Tornado Pratt (1978, novel)

 Porridge: The Inside Story (1979)

 Shoestring (1979)

 Shoestring's Finest Hour (1980)

 County Hall (1982, novel)

 The Doomed Rebellion (1983)

 Straight Up: The Autobiography of Arthur Daley (1991)

 Waiting for God (1994)

[edit]Plays

 Green Julia (1966)

 Tests (playlets) (1966)

 Blue Comedy: Madly in Love, Hawk's Night (1968)

Paul Ableman
Born: 13-Jun-1927
Birthplace: Leeds, Yorkshire, England
Died: 25-Oct-2006
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Novelist, Playwright

Nationality: England
Executive summary: I Hear Voices

His first novel, I Hear Voices was published by the Olympia Press.

Father: (tailor)
Mother: (actress)
Wife: Tina Carrs-Brown (m. 1958, div., one son)
Wife: Sheila Hutton-Fox (m. 1978, one son)

    University: Kings College London

    The Spectator Chief fiction reviewer

    London Evening Standard Chief fiction reviewer
    Jewish Ancestry 
    Russian Ancestry Paternal
    German Ancestry Maternal

Author of books:
I Hear Voices (1958, novel)
As Near As I Can Get (1962, novel)
Vac (1968, novel)
The Twilight of the Vilp (1969, novel)
Bits: Some Prose Poems (1969, poems)
The Mouth and Oral Sex (1969, psychology)
Tornado Pratt (1978, novel)
Porridge: The Inside Story (1979)
Shoestring (1979)
Shoestring's Finest Hour (1980)
County Hall (1982, novel)
The Doomed Rebellion (1983)
Straight Up: The Autobiography of Arthur Daley (1991)
Waiting for God (1994)

Wrote plays:
Green Julia (1966)
Tests (playlets) (1966)
Blue Comedy: Madly in Love, Hawk's Night (1968)
Donald Adamson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Donald Adamson

Born 30 March 1939

Culcheth, Cheshire, United Kingdom

Occupation author and historian

Nationality British

Spouse(s) Helen Freda Griffiths

Donald Adamson (born 30 March 1939 at Culcheth, Lancashire, now Cheshire) is a historian, biographer,

philosophical writer, textual scholar, literary critic, and translator of French literature. The books he has written
include "Blaise Pascal: Mathematician, Physicist and Thinker about God", and more recently "The Curriers'
Company: A Modern History".

Contents

 [hide]

1 Biography

2 Fellowships and

honours

3 Scope of his writing

4 Views on literature

5 Bibliography

6 References

7 External links

[edit]Biography

Adamson was born on 30 March 1939 in Culcheth. He was brought up in Lymm, Cheshire, the son of a farmer.
From 1949 to 1956, he attended Manchester Grammar School, before becoming a Scholar of Magdalen
College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1959, proceeding M.A. in 1963. He was Zaharoff Travelling
Scholar of the University of Oxford in 1959-1960. In 1962 he took the degree of [Link]. (proceeding Master of
Letters). Prior to graduating [Link]. he had the privilege of studying under Pierre-Georges Castex at
the University of Paris. His thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ([Link].), entitled "Balzac and the
Visual Arts", was supervised by Jean Seznec of All Souls College, Oxford.

Adamson spent most of his career teaching at university level, although he taught at his alma
mater Manchester Grammar School from 1962 to 1964 and then the Lycée Louis-le-Grandfrom 1964 to 1965,
where some students in hypokhâgne, khâgne, hypotaupe and taupe came
from Quebec, Mauritius, Martinique, Guadeloupe and other parts of the French-speakingworld. After a brief
time at J. Walter Thompson, the advertising firm, he taught from 1968 at St. George's School, in Gravesend,
Kent.

In 1969 Adamson joined Goldsmiths' College in the University of London, where he lectured for the next twenty
years, doing much to enhance London's standing in French academic circles. In 1971 he became a
Recognized Teacher in the Faculty of Arts of the University of London, and in 1972 a member of its Faculty of
Education, holding both appointments until1989. He served as Chairman of the Board of Examiners
from 1983 until 1986, when candidates for the degree of Bachelor of Arts included external students from
the United Kingdom, the European Union, as well as from countries as far afield as Singapore and Hong Kong.

In 1989 Adamson became a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge. His personal interests include
the history of religion and genealogy. He is also an enthusiastic art-collector, mainly of English, French and
Italian paintings and drawings of the 18th and 19th centuries.

He has been active in the field of public policy on the arts, libraries and museums.[1] By speaking, writing and,
through the Bow Group, submitting written and oral evidence to a select committee,[2] he worked for the
establishment of the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

Adamson was a judge of the Museum of the Year Awards from 1979 to 1983. He has donated to the National
Library of Wales.

On 15 October 2010 he was elected Renter Warden of the Worshipful Company of Curriers of the City of

London. He is also a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers.

[edit]Fellowships and honours

Over the course of his distinguished career, Adamson has received a number of honours and been elected as
a fellow of several prominent societies, including:

 Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

 Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

 Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists

 Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London

 Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes académiques

 Knight of Justice of the Order of St John of Jerusalem[3]

 Justice of the Peace of the City of London, later Cornwall.

[edit]Scope of his writing

The Genesis of Le Cousin Pons, substantially the text of Adamson's ([Link].) thesis, is a detailed study of
the manuscript and proof-sheets of this very late work. Tracing the progress of the novel through its various
editions, it reveals the full extent of Balzac's improvisation from novella to full-length masterpiece.

Illusions Perdues, a critical study of what is Balzac's most mature work, outlines its strong autobiographical
element, analysing contrasts of Paris and the provinces, the purity of the artist's life and the corruptions
of journalism, and the ambiguity of Balzac's narrative outlook. Major themes of the book are that in "fiction"
is truth and in "truth" fiction, and that Illusions Perdues is the first novel by any writer to highlight the shaping of
public opinion by the media, usually done in the pursuit of power or money.

Blaise Pascal considers its subject from biographical, theological, religious and mathematical points of view,
including the standpoint of physics. There is a chapter on the argument of the Wager. The analysis is slightly
inclined in a secular direction, giving greater emphasis to Pascal's concern with the contradictions of human
nature, and rather less to his deep and traditional preoccupation with Original Sin. Since writing this book,
Adamson has done further work on Pascal’s mathematical comprehension of God.

His historical writings fall into three categories: a monograph on Spanish art and French Romanticism, in which
the opening-up of Spain and Spanish art to travellers from France and other parts of Western Europe, and to
enthusiasts in those countries; articles on manorial and banking history; and, the modern workings of
a City livery company. Adamson has also written on travel in England and Wales in the eighteenth century.

He has completed a study of one year in the life of the artist Oskar Kokoschka,[4][5] as well as another on his
recollections of his friend William Golding.[6]

[edit]Views on literature

According to Adamson, literature does not necessarily fulfil any social mission or purpose; [7] yet, as with Émile
Zola[8] or D. H. Lawrence, there is no reason why it should not highlight social evils. A novel or novella – or
a biography – is not merely an absorbing story: in Matthew Arnold’s words, the best prose is, like poetry, "a
criticism of life".[9] This means that they convey some sort of philosophy of the world (in Arnold's words, "How to
live"[10]), though some writers, such as Adalbert Stifter[11] and Jane Austen (to whom, incidentally, he is related
through his mother [12]) do this less than most others, whilst on the other hand Samuel Beckett conveys a
philosophy of life which is one of profound negativism.
All too often, in Adamson's view, people go through their lives without living or seeking any belief. This, for him,
is the supreme attractiveness of Blaise Pascal, whose philosophy is of a unique kind: grounded in the vagaries
of human nature;[13] not essentially seeking to convince by mathematics; [14] and foreshadowing Søren
Kierkegaard[15] and 20th-centuryexistentialism[16] in its appeal to human experience.

[edit]Bibliography

Adamson has written numerous articles, as well as eleven books. In addition to the publications listed below,
he is currently working on a biography of A. L. Rowse.[17]

Translations

 1970: The Black Sheep (trans. Balzac's La Rabouilleuse)

 1976: Ursule Mirouët (trans. Balzac)

 1993: Bed 29 & Other Stories: an anthology of 26 of  Maupassant's short stories

Other books

 1966: The Genesis of "Le Cousin Pons"

 1971: Dusty Heritage

 1971: T. S. Eliot: a Memoir (ed.)

 1974: The House of  Nell Gwyn: the fortunes of the Beauclerk family, 1670-1974 (jointly with Peter
Beauclerk Dewar)

 1980: A Rescue Policy for Museums

 1981: Balzac:  Illusions Perdues. London: Grant & Cutler

 1988: Les Romantiques  français  devant la  peinture espagnole

 (1990: republished as Interprètes français de la peinture espagnole à l'époque romantique)

 1995: Blaise Pascal: mathematician, physicist, and thinker about God

 1996: Rides Round Britain: the travel journals of  John Byng, 5th Viscount Torrington (ed.)

 2000: The Curriers' Company: a modern history

 2001: Balzac and the Tradition of the  European Novel

Minor contributions

 1991: presented Old Goriot in Everyman Books

 2005: "Pascal's Views on Mathematics and the Divine"

 2009: "Oskar Kokoschka at Polperro" (and in Journal of Polperro Family History Society, 2011)

 2010: "William Golding Remembered"

 2010: "Researching Kokoschka"
[edit]References

1. ^ Weekly Hansard, no. 1054, Pt I, cols 325-336, 25 November 1976.

2. ^ Hansard, Expenditure Committee, Third Report, Session 1977-78, pp. 128-136, 30 November

1977.

3. ^ The London Gazette, 22 July 1998, p. 7984, col. 1.

4. ^ Oskar Kokoschka at Polperro, "The Cornish Banner". November 2009.

5. ^ Researching Kokoschka, "The Cornish Banner". November 2010.

6. ^ William Golding Remembered, "The Cornish Banner". February 2010.

7. ^ Donald Adamson, Reference Guide to World Literature, 1995, vol. I, pp. 434-437, 458-460, 509-

511.

8. ^ Émile Zola, Germinal, 1885.

9. ^ Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, second series, 1888, “Wordsworth”, p. 143.

10. ^ Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, second series, 1888, "Wordsworth", p. 144.

11. ^ Adalbert Stifter, Bunte Steine (“Colourful Stones”), e.g., Bergkristall (“Rock Crystal”), Turmalin

(“Tourmaline”), 1853.

12. ^ [Link].

13. ^ Donald Adamson, Blaise Pascal: Mathematician, Physicist, and Thinker about God, 1995, pp.

143-160.

14. ^ Donald Adamson, Mathematics and the Divine: A Historical Study (ed. T. Koetsier and L.

Bergmans), 2005, pp. 407-421.

15. ^ Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, 1843.

16. ^ Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being, 1951.

17. ^ Donald Adamson (February 2009). "A. L. Rowse: An Appreciation". The International Literary

Quarterly.