Philip Henderson (1906–1977)

I ready only 1/3 short novels contained within this book. The Castle of Otranto is a Gothic novel-supposedly the first ever written. It has all the requisite components: castle, a villain, a helpless female, and a "ghost". I really do like my gothic less fantastical (such as Wuthering Heights). I read this because it was on the 1001 Books list. It was written much like Shakespeare so it was not an easy read. The preface states that it is much like A Midsummer Night's Dream. All in all I'm glad to have read this "very first" gothic novel. 192 pages .… (mere)

Among the many biographies of Christopher Marlowe that were published in the years following Leslie Hotson's watershed The Death of Christopher Marlowe, Henderson's is almost completely unremarkable. He adds nothing new to the study of Marlowe's life, and in a few cases his research is sadly deficient. Most notably, Henderson failed to recognize that J. Le Gay Brereton's "The Case of Francis Ingram" was a satire, and took Brereton to task for his fanciful claims. There are plenty of better biographies than this one.… (mere)