I love you all very much. As mentioned, each and every one of you is a big research-loving book nerd (don’t be shy, I know my readers). In the last newsletter, I shared some stories that you shared with me about The University of Chicago People’s Press.

That has prompted two more stories to come in. The internet is great sometimes. Apparently I am not the only person to have lingering memories of the UCPP chapbook (?) called “Tenebrae”.

That said, I didn’t expect one of the other people to be my favourite artist, Jeffrey Alan Love:

I don't know if I've ever told anyone this, but I've spent years trying to track down the artist who did the woodcut for the cover of TENEBRAE - the signature is more a symbol than letters, and the artist wasn't credited within the book (of course...) A little bit Baskin, some Kollwitz, but uniquely its own. Someone (was it you?) once told me that the the image was but one from a series that they had created (or intended?).

That was not me!

But I immediately looked up Leonard Baskin:

and Käthe Kollwitz:

…and, yes, these are exactly the vibes. Trust an artist to paint a better word picture than I can.

Another Alan (no relation), in Bristol:

Struck a chord (pun intend) with‘Tenebrae’. Saw a Doom Metal band with that name at The Gryphon. I don’t remember much. Except they had DARK visuals. Upstairs room, hot, packed w 40 people. Special effects was 2 curtains and a poster. That poster tho. Abstract person surrounded in void. It spun thru the gig, on a wheel maybe so person was falling falling. Hypnotic shit. Can’t remember anything about band (your basic sad Cthulhu melodic stuff), but poster was world-class.

Alan knows a disturbing amount about Metal. Tenebrae is a pretty common band name, as you might expect. I have been to The Gryphon! It is glorious. According to this article, it started ROCKING around 2010. This doesn’t seem to fit the timeline of the UK band of that name. (Alan confirms it isn’t them, but says it was pre-Brexit, so we’re looking between 2010-2015?) I’m guessing bands come and go quickly in the Metalverse. I don’t understand music at the best of times, and Metal is particularly oblique.

That said, and despite the lack of (any) corroborating evidence, I have declared this to be ANOTHER PART OF THE MYSTERY. All joking aside, it doesn’t sound impossible that a band called ‘Tenebrae’ would utilise (and/or be inspired by) the art of ‘Tenebrae’, and the ‘figure in the void’ vibe, although broad, certainly seems to be a running theme.

And, finally, and perhaps most helpfully, with slightly more concrete evidence, something from Maryam, who tapped into the excellent resources of the London Library:

Unsurprisingly, nothing held by UCPP by the library, however, a bit about them in the records. They didn’t publish much. Records show them ‘active’ 1961-1965, works:

Despite ‘active’ designation, no further citations post-1964. Chapbooks, pamphlets, ephemera, etc., would not appear, unless they’re cited by another work. That extra year could potentially be working on something announced (but never published), or simply BAU (royalties / rights / reviews that would count as activity). But Computer Says UCPP ceased to function in 1965 for whatever reason. Maybe they got real jobs. Or drafted?

Maryam, who is now officially the Sherlock Holmes of deciphering clues about insignificant small presses, even found some reviews of the five poetry collections. All of which seem… fairly unexceptional. (I know even less about poetry than I do about Metal, so I’m deferring to Maryam and the contemporary journals on this one.) Further Corruption was definitely a case of the publisher straying further afield, and it picked up several (not just one!) comments from unimpressed academic journals. No wonder the University of Chicago proper got so cranky with it.

I’m sorry I’m not a Wikipedia editor, as thanks to Maryam, we could give the University of Chicago People’s Press a digital afterlife, and lend a hand to future researchers. That said, it sounds like - between Dark Academia, artists like Jeffrey Alan Love and bands like Tenebrae - the UCPP have already managed more cultural influence than most small publishers do!

(As a former small publisher, I write that with love in my heart!)

Keep the stories coming! The University of Chicago People’s Press, UC in the Sixties, Further Corruption, Tenebrae(!), Snyder and Sreyam, etc. etc. (Apologies if you’re bored to tears, but as a book geek, this is obviously my idea of heaven!)

MEANWHILE…

Opening weekend of Bradford Literature Festival is now (sadly) behind us. I wound up taking part in a few panels, including:

I also got to watch Amy Coombe chat with Sangu Mandanna about Cozy Fantasy, comfort, and the needs of readers. Shanon Shah is a phenomenal chair, and love watching him at work. It was a big crowd in a hot room, but he kept everyone feeling, well… cozy.

The Festival still has a week to go, with some heavyweights from science fiction and fantasy, politics, poetry, science and more all visiting. As always, it is well-run, incredibly inclusive, and the food is great. (I joke about the ‘Bradford Cycle’, where I crash diet for six weeks to fit into my tux for the black tie opening, then gain everything back in a weekend-long curry binge, but… it is the truth, and I would not change it for the world!)

The Elements of Dark Academia, publishing 27 August from Vintage Classics. Pretty sick, yo.