Join publisher First To Knock in celebrating A Beam of Sunlight in the Deep Forest—Mystical Prose Works by Édouard Schuré, a landmark collection of newly translated texts by the forgotten 19th century French author and occultist. With a talk from Sam Kunkel and James Machin.
[ID: Book cover. Black and white etching shows mythic scene where two youths are riding lions like horses.]
Doors: 7:00pm
Talk begins promptly at 8pm.
Free entry, all welcome.
Books will be on sale along with free bookmarks for all.
Edouard Schuré spent his life attempting to translate the ineffable realm of spiritual knowledge into literature. Prolific and enigmatic, he navigated many of the seminal movements of his time, developing friendships with prominent figures such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Richard Wagner. Yet, despite these affinities, Schuré refused to adhere to any one group or dogma. Perhaps due to his singular persona, he has since lived in a netherworld of historical neglect.
A Beam of Sunlight in the Deep Forest offers a robust introduction to this forgotten figure. Among the texts included are never-before-translated short pieces invoking disembodied voices, philosophical anguish, and dark woods haunted by a virgin cloaked in a panther pelt. Central to the collection is The Angel and the Sphinx, Schuré’s hallucinatory novel of sexual possession and spiritual longing set against a Germany of fog‐enshrouded mountaintops infused with black magic. Also included is Aeolian Harps, a never-before-translated reminiscence of a boyhood mystical experience at the Baden spa, as well as an examination of Schuré’s friendships and correspondence with Nietzsche, Mallarmé, and Wagner. Taken together, these texts offer truths about the artistic process and the spiritual development of humanity in the face of an ever more industrialized, and secularized, world.
The book’s translator and scholar Sam Kunkel will mark the launch with a talk. He will be joined by Dr James Machin to discuss all things Schuré as well as Symbolist and Decadent literature, the 19th century occult revival, and other intriguing bits of lost literary and philosophical history. The talk will be followed by a Q&A and a short reading
Kunkel is a Chicago-born Parisian who researches and writes on fin-de-siècle literature as well as the? influence of religious thought on fantastic literature. He previously offered translations for the collection Echoes of a Natural World: Tales of the Strange & Estranged (First To Knock, 2020).
Machin is a noted author and scholar of weird fiction, the occult, and the Gothic. He teaches at the Royal College of Art, the University of Bedfordshire, and is an Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. Machin is also a co-editor of Faunus, the journal of the Friends of Arthur Machen.
Doors open at 7pm, upon which beverages, hobknobbing, and Medieval jams will ensue.