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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Opinions sought. Frank Kermode: A Critical Life? Kermode: A Critical Life? Rage for Order: A Life of Frank Kermode? Something else?

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Eleven down, one and an epilogue to go.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Faintly hysterical that this has been labelled "adult content". God save us all from late quattrocento nudity.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Getting to the stage where it is semi-justifiable to procrastinate by starting on bibliographies, lists of mss., and so on...

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James Bailey @drjamesbailey.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Oh hi there! Just me, casually appearing from a behind a big stack of US editions of LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK, because the book's out in America today! A huge thank you to @princetonupress.bsky.social 🐈‍⬛ Buy it here! press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Me, standing behind a large stack of copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark. The book has a red cover and pink spine, and features a photograph of Muriel Spark holding a black cat.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Paperback publication day. Cheaper, more portable, and with fewer typos. Thanks to @princetonupress.bsky.social

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Very sorry to read of Matthew Spender's death. He was exceptionally generous and helpful (and amusing) when I was trying to piece together the relationship between Kermode and his parents. RIP. www.thetimes.com/uk/obituarie...

thetimes.com

Matthew Spender obituary: sculptor and painter

Visual artist whose candid memoir included one of the most searching portraits written of his father, Sir Stephen Spender

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

A very good day at U Chicago, but slightly odd to have spoken while being glared at by Ezra Pound

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

A good spot for some early morning editing

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

I suspect that Kermode would have been entertained by responding to the young Edward Said’s adversaria in his copy of The Sense of an Ending.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Very much looking forward to giving my first talk on matters Kermodian (to the excellent people at @oxfordlifewriting.bsky.social) in a couple of weeks' time. oclw.web.ox.ac.uk/event/rhodri...

oclw.web.ox.ac.uk

Professor Rhodri Lewis, The Rules of the Game: Writing about Frank Kermode

Laura Marcus Life-Writing Workshop

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

V gratifying to see an advance copy of the paperback, courtesy of @princetonupress.bsky.social.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Grateful to Anne Bobis for giving Shakespeare's Tragic Art an extremely generous write-up in the new issue of Renaissance Quarterly.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

And then, through pure serendipity, an answer: Paul Howard-Flanders, professor of Therapeutic Radiobiology at Yale, who died in 1988.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Dear Colleagues, Having spent billions on questionably necessary construction projects over the past decade because of vibes or something, the time has come for hard choices. Yrs etc., College President

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

While tracking down a reference earlier on, I was reminded that so much AI is not even slop. (John Bayley's "Flexner Sonata" is in fact a long and frequently silly review of Kermode's S of an E.)

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

A treat to find this brilliant book, by Indira Ghose, waiting for me in hard copy. Strongly recommended.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

I confess that I didn't give legal theory or practice a second thought when writing my book on the tragedies--but I'm extremely glad, and grateful, that Gary Watt has made me think again doi.org/10.1017/S174...

doi.org

Shakespeare’s Tragic Art By Rhodri Lewis , Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2024. 381 pp. | International Journal of Law in Context | Cambridge Core

Shakespeare’s Tragic Art By Rhodri Lewis , Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2024. 381 pp.

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Gareth Watkins @garethwatkins.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

New from me in the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social: the media seem determined to mainstream the ideas of Eliezer Yudkowsky, but they can't reckon with his bizarre (and very unserious) ideas about death. www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/1...

newstatesman.com

The guru of the AI apocalypse

Eliezer Yudkowsky is confusing a very human obsession with death and a very modern fear of a techno-deity

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Marsh's Library @marshslibrary.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

Delightful doodles of some pipe smoking Georgians found by Maddock Fellow Danielle Magnusson on the works of Ben Jonson, printed in 1616 #Readers #Epigrams

Bottom corner of a 17th century book showing drawings

Title page of 'Epigrammes' by Ben Jonson, showing doodles at the bottom of the page

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

The young David, per Vignon, looking uncannily like Helena Bonham-Carter

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Lovely to see this in a sort of hard copy

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Jeff (Hot Type) Jarvis @jeffjarvis.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

Spot-on review by @rhodrilewis.bsky.social of Chernow's frustrating Twain, chocked with facts, lacking analysis\. My upcoming cultural history of the Linotype, Hot Type, has more literary examination of Twain's work than this. "Chernow loses the signal while amplifying the noise."

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Four stages of an archive trip. 1. Excitement/fear at all the new stuff you might find. 2. Relief that all is actually quite manageable. 3. Surely there’ll be something to show for my two days sifting these uncatalogued boxes? 4. It is what it is.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

So, if any of you have spotted typos in Shax's Tragic Art, I'd love to hear of them. (Am doing corrections for the paperback, and only have eight so far; there must be many more.)

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

"When Adam won Eve's hand, / He wouldn't stand for teasin'. / He didn't care about / Those apples out of season." Ambushed by Cole Porter on the train. Pleasingly.

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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

“‘Al’ is a marketing term. It doesn't refer to a coherent set of technologies. Instead, the phrase …is deployed when the people building or selling a particular set of technologies will profit from getting others to believe that their tech is similar to humans” Excellent & uncompromising. Read it!

A copy in my hand of The AI Con by Emily Bender and Alex Hanna

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

The sheer energy that the Leavisites wasted in hating.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Pleasing to learn that when Stephen Spender went to Paris to investigate the 1968 student revolt (staying with his friends the Rothschilds), he was repeatedly mistaken for Marcuse.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Good to have reason to be back in here for a day.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Trying to figure out who this character from Kermode's autobiography was. "Paul H-F", undergrad at Liverpool in late 1930s. Ends up directing a molecular biology lab at Yale (or similar, I suppose, as Kermode may have been shielding). Have drawn a thoroughgoing blank. Thoughts?

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Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · 18/06/2025

“Muriel Spark led an implausible life,” writes @rhodrilewis.bsky.social. Does Frances Wilson’s new biography, ELECTRIC SPARK, manage to capture the author’s complexity? www.prospectmagazine...

prospectmagazine.co.uk

Confronting the enigma of Muriel Spark

The novelist’s 1940s and 1950s resonated with mystical echoes of her past and future. Can a new biography capture this complexity?

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Am amused by Kermode's response to being informed of E. H. Gombrich's opinion that a renaissance specialist he planned to hire at UCL was "not a scholar and never will be".

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

NYC looking good yesterday evening.

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Dr Joanne Paul @drjoannepaul.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

It’s publication day for Thomas More: A Life and Death in Tudor England with Michael Joseph @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social! Pop by your local bookshop or order now - uk.bookshop.org/a/12264/9781...

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Another excellent new book delivery

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Lovely to see this in hard copy, too

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Should have added that the Secret Life of Books podcast that my interviewer does with Jonty Claypole is fabulous, and has lots of Sydney Writers' Festival content. Well worth a download from wherever you do your downloading: @slobpodcast.bsky.social.

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Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Had a really excellent time banging the Shakespearean tragic drum at the Sydney Writers’ Festival.

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Princeton University Press @princetonupress.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Hear PUP author @rhodrilewis.bsky.social‬ discuss his new book, Shakespeare’s Tragic Art, at the #SydneyWritersFestival on 21 May at 11 am AEST! He will be in conversation with Sophie Gee. For more details, visit: www.swf.org.au/program/seas...