The Curious Room

Last updated
Cover of the first edition, published by Chatto & Windus. TheCuriousRoom.jpg
Cover of the first edition, published by Chatto & Windus.

The Curious Room: Plays, Film Scripts and an Opera is a collection of dramatic works by English writer Angela Carter, published posthumously by Chatto and Windus in 1996.

Edited and with production notes provided by Mark Bell, with an introduction by Susannah Clapp, the contents include her original film screenplays for The Company of Wolves and The Magic Toyshop , both adapted from her own stories. Additional contents include a libretto for an opera based on Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf, as well as five radio plays: "Vampirella", which she then reworked as "The Lady of the House of Love" in The Bloody Chamber collection; "The Company of Wolves"; "Puss in Boots" (both reworkings of Charles Perrault's fairy tales); and two "artificial biographies", one of Victorian painter Richard Dadd, and the other of Edwardian novelist Ronald Firbank. The collection also includes the unproduced screenplays Gun for the Devil (based upon an earlier short work of hers, collected in American Ghosts and Old World Wonders) and The Christchurch Murders (based on the Parker–Hulme murder case, which also influenced the 1994 Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures ), as well a stage adaptation of Frank Wedekind's Lulu plays.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bluebeard</span> French folktale

"Bluebeard" is a French folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in Histoires ou contes du temps passé. The tale tells the story of a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of the present one to avoid the fate of her predecessors. "The White Dove", "The Robber Bridegroom", and "Fitcher's Bird" are tales similar to "Bluebeard". The notoriety of the tale is such that Merriam-Webster gives the word Bluebeard the definition of "a man who marries and kills one wife after another". The verb bluebearding has even appeared as a way to describe the crime of either killing a series of women, or seducing and abandoning a series of women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Carter</span> English novelist

Angela Olive Pearce, who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works. She is mainly known for her book The Bloody Chamber (1979). In 1984, her short story "The Company of Wolves" was adapted into a film of the same name. In 2008, The Times ranked Carter tenth in their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". In 2012, Nights at the Circus was selected as the best ever winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A. S. Byatt</span> British writer (1936–2023)

Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, known professionally by her former married name, A. S. Byatt, was an English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages.

Sir Michael de Courcy Fraser Holroyd is an English biographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norman MacCaig</span> Scottish poet

Norman Alexander MacCaig DLitt was a Scottish poet and teacher. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.

<i>The Bloody Chamber</i> Collection of short stories by Angela Carter

The Bloody Chamber is a collection of short fiction by English writer Angela Carter. It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1979 by Gollancz and won the Cheltenham Festival Literary Prize. The stories share a theme of being closely based upon fairytales or folk tales. However, Carter has stated:

My intention was not to do 'versions' or, as the American edition of the book said, horribly, 'adult' fairy tales, but to extract the latent content from the traditional stories.

<i>The Company of Wolves</i> 1984 film by Neil Jordan

The Company of Wolves is a 1984 British gothic fantasy horror film directed by Neil Jordan and starring Angela Lansbury, David Warner, Micha Bergese, and Sarah Patterson in her film debut. The screenplay by Angela Carter and Jordan was adapted from her 1979 short story of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blake Morrison</span> English poet and author (born 1950)

Philip Blake Morrison FRSL is an English poet and author who has published in a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. His greatest success came with the publication of his memoirs And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993), which won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. He has also written a study of the murder of James Bulger, As If. Since 2003, Morrison has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Dame Susan Elizabeth Hill, Lady Wells is an English author of fiction and non-fiction works. Her novels include The Woman in Black, which has been adapted in multiple ways, The Mist in the Mirror, and I'm the King of the Castle, for which she received the Somerset Maugham Award in 1971. She also won the Whitbread Novel Award in 1972 for The Bird of Night, which was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

<i>The Magic Toyshop</i> 1967 novel by Angela Carter

The Magic Toyshop (1967) is a British novel by Angela Carter. It follows the development of the heroine, Melanie, as she becomes aware of herself, her environment, and her own sexuality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irène Némirovsky</span> French novelist

Irène Némirovsky was a novelist of Ukrainian Jewish origin who was born in Kiev, then in the Russian Empire. She lived more than half her life in France, and wrote in French, but was denied French nationality. Arrested as a Jew under the racial laws – which did not take into account her conversion to Roman Catholicism – she was murdered in Auschwitz at the age of 39. Némirovsky is best known for the posthumously published Suite française.

Lynne Reid Banks is a British author of books for children and adults.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">P. J. Kavanagh</span> English poet, lecturer, actor, broadcaster and columnist (1931 – 2015)

P. J. Kavanagh FRSL was an English poet, lecturer, actor, broadcaster and columnist. His father was the ITMA scriptwriter Ted Kavanagh.

The Holy Family Album is a television documentary written and narrated by Angela Carter. It was directed by Jo Ann Kaplan and produced by John Ellis at Large Door Productions, London, UK. It was broadcast on the UK's Channel 4 on 3 December 1991 as part of the Without Walls series, commissioned by Waldemar Januszczak.

<i>Anagrams of Desire</i> Academic textbook about Angela Carters media writings

Anagrams of Desire is an academic textbook about Angela Carter's media writings. Written by Charlotte Crofts and published by Manchester University Press in 2003, the full title is Anagrams of Desire: Angela Carter's Writing for Radio, Film and Television.

<i>Burning Your Boats</i> Collection of short stories by Angela Carter

Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories (1995) is a posthumously-published collection of short stories by English writer Angela Carter. It includes stories previously collected in her other short story collections: Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974), The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979), Black Venus (1985) and American Ghosts and Old World Wonders (1993) as well as six previously un-collected stories. The book also includes an introduction by author Salman Rushdie.

John Fuller FRSL is an English poet and author, and Fellow Emeritus at Magdalen College, Oxford.

<i>Black Venus</i> (short story collection)

Black Venus is a collection of short fiction by Angela Carter. It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1985 by Chatto & Windus Ltd. and contains eight stories, the majority of which are concerned with re-imagining the lives of certain figures in history, with a particular emphasis on some well known through literature.

<i>American Ghosts and Old World Wonders</i>

American Ghosts and Old World Wonders is a posthumously published anthology of short fiction by Angela Carter. It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1993 by Chatto & Windus Ltd. and contains a collection of nine stories, one half of which deal with American folklore and the other with older myths and fairytales. It is introduced by Susannah Clapp.

This is a list of the published fiction and non-fiction works of British author Susan Hill.

References