ESCAPE ARTISTS: The Dandy at Dusk- Philip Mann in PostMistress Press Anthology 1

By Ruth Skilbeck, Editor of  'Escape Artists' PostMistress Anthology 

Updated 15 October, since publication of The Dandy at Dusk by Paris Paysan Press.

Today’s featured artist in the 'EscapeArtists' PostMistress Press Anthology 1 is Philip Mann. We are delighted to be publishing a chapter from author Philip Mann’s forthcoming book The Dandy at Dusk: Stories of Elegance and Nostalgia, an elegantly written and provocative work, now published by ParisPaysanPress.  This is the first book to explore in depth the phenomenon of the dandy, in its social, cultural and political ramifications, in terms of gender and the self.

However, our pleasure was tempered by our regret, for Philip Mann, at the series of difficulties for the author in the course of his book contract negotiation with a highly regarded and long-established mainstream publisher. This is the kind of story that is not unfamiliar to those who work in publishing, and of course to the many authors who are finding it increasingly difficult to publish.

Under the title Dandies at Dusk, Philip Mann’s book was going to be published by Flammarion, a long established publisher in Paris. But then Flammarion changed hands. Philip Mann was informed that Flammarion still wanted to publish his book. But then there was unwelcome change. Flammarion, following the trend of many mainstream publishers now, requires that an author have a sponsor to back the publication. They require a sponsor or self-funding of a substantial sum. Even after the book was up on Amazon as a pre-order (where it can still be seen). In January, Philip was told that Flammarion would, regretfully, not be going ahead with the publication, which they have worked on for two years.  Here are the details of the book description from the Amazon site- which even though Flammarion sent Philip Mann a letter in January breaking the contract to publish is STILL on the Amazon website with the details of the book as if it is about to be published:

Author Philip Mann dispels the myth that dandyism centers upon aestheticism through portraits of the first dandy―Regency England’s Beau Brummell―and six twentieth-century figures: Austrian architect Adolf Loos, The Duke of Windsor, neo-Edwardian couturier Bunny Roger, eccentric writer and raconteur Quentin Crisp, French film producer Jean-Pierre Melville, and New German Cinema savant and “inverted dandy” Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He chronicles their style, identity, influence, melancholy, and often untimely demise, using a mélange of photography, biography, and anecdote. Weaving their stories into an extensive and entertaining history of tailoring and men’s fashion, he offers incisive perspectives on the dandy’s aesthetic concerns, pensive nostalgia for the golden Edwardian era, and a nonchalant persona. He contextualizes the relationship of dandyism to decadence and to modernism, while simultaneously portraying the cultural development of a century punctuated by two World Wars and social upheaval.

This volume presents dandyism—the embodiment of aesthetic and intellectual ideals—from its origins with Beau Brummell to its major twentieth-century representatives. Author Philip Mann dispels the myth that dandyism centers upon vanity through portraits of the first dandy—Regency England's Beau Brummell—and six twentieth-century figures.

 Illustration for The Dandy at Dusk by Floc'h, in 'Escape Artists' PostMistress Press Anthology 1

 Floc'h the well known French artist drew the illustration above for The Dandy at Dusk.

postmistresspress.com

ESCAPE ARTISTS' ANTHOLOGY: 

This anthology project, and founder Ruth Skilbeck's author publishing projects of her books, that she has sold mainly via communication with people on facebook, have attracted and drawn together a strong, supportive creative movement of artists and writers whose works are in the anthology.

 

Ruth Skilbeck, PhD, is a widely-published author, art writer, and photographer, and has lectured in several Australian universities.

The Anthology is being published on the Fuguescapes imprint.


FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE ANTHOLOGY HERE

There is now a way you can support the publication of this new anthology here.  
 
 

ADAPTABILITY, RESILIENCE, CREATIVITY in ACTION: 'Escape Artists' PostMistress Press Anthology

Help an Artist Anthology Collective Publish A Ground Breaking Book

Ruth Skilbeck PhD founded PostMistress Press after a living and working since the 1980s as a freelance writer,  art writer and arts journalist, in Dublin, London and Sydney, and after ten years as an art media writing entrepreneur as founder of Arts Features International, her sole trader writing business which started in Sydney in 2003.

In a time when the media publishing landscape was rapidly changing, and universities dissolving and merging art schools; after the media research centre she had worked at as a contract lecturer for one year was closed down, and mainly because she had to leave Sydney for reasons beyond her control, which ended her career as an international contemporary art writer, she decided to do something to try to create an alternative way of living as a writer, and if she could make it work for herself she wanted to try to find a way to reach out to and also help other artists, writers and philosophers, to publish their own works. 

She has several books that she has written or almost finished. Rather than sending them out to mainstream commercial publishers, she found out how to use the new digital publishing software, organized a successful crowdfunding project for her first novel The Antipode Room: Australian Fugue1, and buoyed up by the support she got, she published her novel, on Amazon- as a paperback, and as an ebook. 

She has now advanced in her skills and design capabilities, and has published an abridged edition without the real life case studies of fuguers (Missing). She has published her musico-literary studies book, The Writer’s Fugue: Musicalization, Trauma and Subjectivity in the Literature of Modernity in hardcover. She is about to publish it in paperback in an updated edition, which responds to the discovery of a James Joyce manuscript with notes for his fugue in “Sirens”, in Ulysses, which she analyzed in her PhD. Using Joyce’s notes she has written the first known long analysis of the fugue in “Sirens” applying this research. This is going to be available later this month.

'Escape Artists' PostMistress Press Anthology: Resistance in New Publishing

 

Meanwhile, over the past two years she has been working on an anthology project, gathering works by thirty-three artists and writers, to publish in the inaugural PostMistress Press anthology, named Escape Artists. This anthology represents the founding pillars of Postmistress Press and the philosophy of its founder: Adaptability, Resilience, and Creativity, as a form of resistance to attacks on the arts, and survival.  

To fund the publication she has started up a crowdfunder with the goal of raising $7000 to publish the book as a paperback, as well as an interactive pdf. on which to play several songs and sound art tracks that are in the diverse inter arts collection of works.

 Cover of the Anthology, cover art by Ruth Skilbeck

The Escape Artists Range From 'Prominent' to 'Promising' 

 

Some of the artists and writers in the anthology are very well known.

They include Elizabeth Farrelly, author, and architecture critic, Christopher Barnett, self-exiled poet and dramaturg, Rhyll McMaster, poet and novelist, Guo Jian, exiled artist, Fan Dongwan, artist, William Yang, photographer  and storyteller, Ghassan Hage, anthropologist, Elizabeth Gertsakis, artist, Richard James Allen, poet, Mary Lou Pavlovic, artist, Floc’h, artist, Christen Clifford, feminist performance artist and New School lecturer, Vee Malnar, artist.

Others are younger, and publishing their writing for the first time.

The works range from essays, to poems, to travel writings, to photographs, to film stills, to paintings, prints, song lyrics and songs, electronic music, PhD chapters, cultural theory, to a short play and a novella.

There is something for everyone to enjoy and find of interest in the anthology.

Have a look at the details of the anthology and contributors at this link, and see how you can support the anthology and become a part of this project. All those who donate to support the publication will have their name in the Acknowledgements page. There are also limited edition art prints, discounted editing packages, and book club memberships as rewards for those who donate.

 https://pozible.com/project/postmistress-press-anthology