Oswell Blakeston
Encyclopedia
Oswell Blakeston was the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 of Henry Joseph Hasslacher (1907 - 1985), a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 writer and artist who also worked in the film industry, made some experimental films, and wrote extensively on film theory. He was also a poet, and wrote in non-fiction areas including travel, cooking and pets.

Life

Blakeston joined the staff of Close Up
Close Up
Close Up is a half-hour long New Zealand current affairs programme produced by Television New Zealand. The programme airs at 7.00pm weeknights on TV ONE and is presented by Mark Sainsbury with Paul Henry as the back up supporting host.The show remains the country's most watched night news and...

, the magazine of the Pool Group
Pool Group
The Pool Group were a trio of interwar period artists, filmmakers and poets consisting of Hilda Doolittle, Kenneth Macpherson and Bryher . Their work has been studied by poetry and film historians as well as by scholars of mysticism, feminism, psychoanalysis and LGBT history...

, in August 1927, having previously worked as a cinema organist and studio clapperboy. While at Close Up
Close Up
Close Up is a half-hour long New Zealand current affairs programme produced by Television New Zealand. The programme airs at 7.00pm weeknights on TV ONE and is presented by Mark Sainsbury with Paul Henry as the back up supporting host.The show remains the country's most watched night news and...

, he very much became a protégé of Kenneth Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson was born in Scotland, 27 March 1902, the son of Scottish painter, John 'Pop' Macpherson and Clara Macpherson. Descended from 6 generations of artists, Macpherson was a novelist, photographer, critic and film-maker...

, the publication’s editor,and contributed more articles than any other single writer — a total of 84; he contributed to all but four of the journal’s issues. While writing for Close Up
Close Up
Close Up is a half-hour long New Zealand current affairs programme produced by Television New Zealand. The programme airs at 7.00pm weeknights on TV ONE and is presented by Mark Sainsbury with Paul Henry as the back up supporting host.The show remains the country's most watched night news and...

, he worked in a variety of capacities in the British film industry and was for a time an assistant cameraman at Gaumont Sudios.

In 1930, he made the short abstract film
Abstract film
Abstract film is a subgenre of experimental film. Its history often overlaps with the concerns and history of visual music. Some of the earliest abstract motion pictures known to survive are those produced by a group of German artists working in the early 1920s, a movement referred to as Absolute...

 Light Rhythms with Francis Bruguière
Francis Bruguière
Francis Joseph Bruguière was an American-born photographer. Friends with Alfred Stieglitz, Bruguière worked in San Francisco , New York, and London....

 , which is now extant.

He then edited the little magazine Seed with Herbert Jones, and wrote detective fiction with Roger Burford, under the pseudonym Simon. From 1929, he also published novels and stories under the Blakeston name, producing 15 books of fiction, as well as 10 collections of poetry. The novels are wide-ranging, and include a number of works that mix gay themes with suspense and detective plots.

Blakeston was a contributor to John Gawsworth
John Gawsworth
John Gawsworth , a pseudonym of Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong , was a British writer, poet and compiler of anthologies, both of poetry and of short stories. He also used the pseudonym Orpheus Scrannel...

's anthologies, and a collaborator of M. P. Shiel
M. P. Shiel
Matthew Phipps Shiel was a prolific British writer of West Indian descent. His legal surname remained "Shiell" though he adopted the shorter version as a de facto pen name....

. He also authored a number of travel books.

Blakeston's work was produced for small press and specialty publishers and is no longer in print. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin is home to an archive of Blakeston materials available to researchers (see external link below).

Many of Blakeston's books are dedicated to his longtime partner, the artist Max Chapman, who also provided illustrations for a number of the volumes.

Films

  • I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside (1929)
  • Light Rhythms (1930, with Francis Bruguière)

Under the pseudonym "Simon," in collaboration with Roger Burford

  • Murder Among Friends (1933)
  • Death on the Swim (1934)
  • The Cat with the Moustache (1935)
  • The Mystery of the Hypnotic Room (1949)

Under the name Oswell Blakeston

  • Extra Passenger (1929)
  • Few Are Chosen (1931, with Francis Bruguière)
  • Magic Aftermath (ca. 1932)
  • Jim's Gun (1939)
  • Danger in Provence (1946)
  • Priests, Peters and Pussens (1947)
  • Boys in Their Ruin (1949)
  • Pink Ribbon, as Told to the Police (1950)
  • Hop Thief (1959)
  • The Night's Moves (1961)
  • The Queen's Mate (1962)
  • Fingers (1964)
  • For Crying Out Shroud (1969)
  • Ever Singing Die, Oh! Die (1970)
  • Pass the Poison Separately (1976)

Poetry

  • Poems, a Single Word! (ca. 1930)
  • Death While Swimming (1932)
  • Oswell Blakeston (1956)
  • What the Dino-saur (1960)
  • The Greatest Romantic Poem in the World (1963)
  • How to Make Your Own Confetti (1965)
  • The Furious Futures Dying (1967)
  • Jeremy & Others (1971)
  • Some Essential Information (1975)
  • Journeys End in Young Man's Meeting (1979)

Cookbooks

  • Edwardian Glamour Cooking Without Tears (1960)
  • A Surprise in Every Dinner (1968)
  • Cooking With Nuts (1979)

Travel

  • Portuguese Panorama (1955)
  • Isle of St. Helena (1957)
  • Sun at Midnight (Finland) (1958)
  • Thank You Now: an Exploration of Ulster (1960)
  • On Film and Photography
  • Through a Yellow Glass (1928)
  • Cruising with a Camera (1939, with F. W. Frerk)
  • Phototips on Cats and Dogs (1938, with Edwin Smith)
  • Working for the Films (1947) (editor)
  • How to Script Amateur Films (1949)

External links

  • Oswell Blakeston Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
    Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
    The Harry Ransom Center is a library and archive at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the United States and Europe. The Ransom Center houses 36 million literary manuscripts, 1 million rare books, 5 million photographs, and more...

     at the University of Texas at Austin
    University of Texas at Austin
    The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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