Clemence Housman publishes "The Were-Wolf" with The Bodley Head

Brown cloth book cover stamped in black lettering with a decorative pomegranate device beneath. The black lettering, centered halfway between the top and middle of the cover, says “The Were-Wolf By Clemence Housman” in capital letters.

Clemence Housman’s The Were-Wolf was published in book form by The Bodley Head in January of 1896. This publication allowed Housman’s story to reach audiences that it hadn’t through its 1890 publication in the Christmas number of Atalanta magazine, a periodical for young girls. The Bodley Head introduced The Were-Wolf  to New Women, aesthetes, and other book lovers who bought and appreciated John Lane’s selection of books in “belles lettres.” It was Clemence’s younger brother, Laurence Housman, who initially gave her access to The Bodley Head, as he worked for the publisher as a book designer and illustrator. Clemence’s wood engravings for The Were-Wolf, which The Bodley Head published along with her story, were after Laurence’s drawings (Kooistra, “Clemence Housman’s The Were-Wolf: Querying Transgression, Seeking Trans/Formation”). The edition was well-received by critics, with one reviewer describing it as “half fairy tale, half allegory, and displaying qualities of imagination and invention that are hard to seek in any other recent book of the kind that I have come across” (“Our Monthly Parcel” 92).

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Jan 1896

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