Monday, December 31, 2012

Chapbook Review: Ghosts I Have Seen



Ghosts I Have Seen: Chapter 1 - Silk Dress and Rumpus
by Violet Tweedale

20 pp / half letter / $4

Violet Tweedale (d. 1939) was the rarest of souls – passionate, literate, a spiritualist, artist, musician, with ceaseless energy. She wrote dozens of novels, short stories and essays with a depth of imagination rarely seen in today’s literature. This makes Joseph Carlough’s reprint of “Ghosts I Have Seen – Chapter One: Silk Dress and Rumpus” (originally written in 1919, the year both of my parents were born!) all the more refreshing, with delightfully fey / inspired drawings by Saint Beckett. Violet reveals herself and her spiritual experiences slowly, wrapping the reader in her philosophy and musings as the text expands. This may be a true ghost story or remembered childhood dreams and fantasies. Regardless, her writing is compelling and this chapbook is gorgeously printed and choreographed.

I fervently hope that Mr. Carlough follows through with his project to reprint more chapters from Violet Tweedale’s “Ghosts I Have Known” memoir in chapbook form.



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