There is always a long list of projects at some stage in the process of production, from a twinkle in the writer's or publisher's eye to those which are about to be published. Here are some of the more advanced projects on the Callum James Books list of upcoming titles.
The Letters of Frederick Rolfe to Charles Kains Jackson
A Carnal Medium: fin-de-siecle essays on the photographic nude.
Some years ago CJB issued a reprint of an 1890s article on the nude in photography by Gleeson White in which he reproduced, for the first time in the UK, the photographs of Baron von Gloeden. That publication sold out very quickly. The article was only one of a number which appeared at about the same time in which various photographers discussed their work with the nude - often as a thinly veiled pretext to publish the undraped male form. These articles form a kind of 'conversation in print' and James Downs has now drawn them all together and they will be published along with an introduction and their accompanying photographs.
When Rolfe returned from Italy having been unceremoniously kicked out of seminary there, he made a home for a short while in the South coast town of Christchurch. While there, he worked to earn a living from photography and art. Eventually, this was to be unsucessful but during that time he corresponded with a London solicitor Charles Kains Jackson and the extant letters represent are fascinating in their insight into Rolfe but perhaps even more so because they are so very rare as examples of two gay men writing quite openly at this time. The letters are being edited by Callum James and we hope to have them published early in 2011
Edited by James Downs
