100 things you never knew about Charles Williams in 100 days (60-51)

Number of days to the launch of 
'Charles Williams: The Third Inkling"
Researched and written by Grevel Lindop

You can pre-order (£25) - Click on the title above.

Day 60
Charles Williams's 1st publication was a story, 'My Cousin Dick', in [Temperance Record] Dec 1899: he was 15 years old.

Day 59
WH Auden cherished the dream that Charles Williams would move to OUP's New York office to act as his guru.

Day 58
In August 1935 Charles Williams nursed Catholic poet Eugene Mason on his deathbed, reading poetry to him & fetching heroin as a painkiller.

Day 57
In 1934 Charles Williams got a publisher's questionnaire asking if he'd ever had an 'experience that you consider supernatural?' He said 'No'.

Day 56
Charles Williams put a long quotation from Lenin's [Selected Works] into his 1937 biography of Henry VII.

Day 55
Dylan Thomas attended Charles Williams' lectures: said, "Why, you come into the room and talk about Keats and Blake as if they were alive!”’

Day 54
Charles Williams came to hate his 1930 book [Poetry at Present], calling it 'a horrible book' - 'this pathetic attempt of my immaturity'.

Day 53
Charles Williams couldn't shave himself because of his hand tremor: so he would go to a barber each morning on his way to work.

Day 52
Anne Ridler reported that Charles Wiliams psychically detected site of Dark Age battle at Aisholt Somerset. (But failed at dowsing 4 water)!

Day 51
Charles Williams reckoned he could write 7,000-10,000 words of prose in a weekend, finishing a book in six weeks if necessary.

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100 things you never knew about Charles Williams in 100 days (70-61)

Number of days to the launch of 
'Charles Williams: The Third Inkling"
Researched and written by Grevel Lindop

You can pre-order (£25) - Click on the title above.

Day 70

CW's novel [Place of the Lion] inspired by dream of escaped lion in cornfield in JW Dunne's [Experiment With Time] Chapter 12.

Day 69

In its first draft Charles Williams's novel [All Hallows Eve] was to be called after its heroine, a psychic detective.


Day 68

Whilst denouncing magic in his book [Witchcraft] CW taught a disciple the banishing pentagram ritual, telling her it was 'high magic'.

Day 67

CW's 1940 play [The Devil & the Lady] anticipates [Rosemarys Baby] - plot to conceive a baby Satan so he can become incarnate in the world!

Day 66

War poet Sidney Keyes (1922-43) admired Charles Williams & based his poem 'Gilles de Retz' on material from CW's book [Witchcraft].

Day 65
Nov 1940 Charles Williams reviewed a volume of Carmina Gadelica - Gaelic spells chants invocations - calling it 'a work of high importance'.

Day 64
In 1922 AHE Lee commissioned a horoscope for CW: it predicted financial success but advised against getting married.

Day 63
Charles Williams once joined Oxford friends using a ouija. Formerly 'slow, uninteresting', it 'just went batty...shot around the board!'

Day 62
Charles Williams's poem 'Taliessin in the Rose Garden' was inspired by fine rose garden under his office window at Oxford OUP headquarters.

Day 61
CW's Many Dimensions concerns quest to get rid of powerful transcendent object. The theme would appear later in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

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100 things you never knew about Charles Williams in 100 days (80-71)

Number of days to the launch of 
'Charles Williams: The Third Inkling"
Researched and written by Grevel Lindop
You can pre-order (£25).  Click on the title above.

Day 80
Charles Williams reviewed Yeats’s [A Vision]: Yeats said he was ‘the only one who has understood the greatness and terror of the diagram’.

Day 79


Charles Williams's wife Michal learned from her poacher father to tickle trout: hence the fish image in poem 'Bors to Elaine'.

Day 78

Phyllis Jones's nickname for Charles Williams was 'Urban' - alluding to the famous pope, his love of the city, and his poem An Urbanity.

Day 77

Christopher Fry took all the character names for [The Lady's Not for Burning] from his friend Charles Williams's book [Witchcraft].

Day 76


Charles Williams [Many Dimensions] is 1st timetravel tale with loop -- wish yourself back in time, get to where you wished, wish again... ad inf!

Day 75

CW's office at OUP's Amen House looked into the judges' retiring room at the Old Bailey, and had good view of prisoners arriving for trial.

Day 74

In 1933 Charles Williams took his colleague & sweetheart Phyllis Jones to see the movie [King Kong].

Day 73

In committee TS Eliot and Charles Williams proposed including 'From the desire of damnation, Good Lord deliver us' in Anglican litany.

Day 72

Charles Williams's salary in 1934, the only year we have figures for, was £50 per annum.

Day 71

In 1940 Charles Williams edited a version of Milton's [Samson Agonistes] for performance and live broadcast on BBC Radio.

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