Charles Moseley (writer)

Dr Charles W. R. D. Moseley
Dr Charles Moseley in 2008
Born	(1941-04-24) April 24, 1941 Lancashire, England
Nationality	English
Alma mater	Queens' College, Cambridge University of East Anglia
Occupation	Writer
Spouse	Jennifer Mary Williamson (m. 1962-2009; her death)

Charles Moseley (born 24 April 1941), who also publishes as C. W. R. D. Moseley, is an English writer, scholar, and teacher, and a former fellow of Wolfson College and Life Fellow of Hughes Hall in Cambridge, as well as a fellow of the English Association, the Society of Antiquaries of London, and the Royal Society of Arts.

Education

Moseley was born in Lancashire and educated at Beach Road County Primary School, Cleveleys, Arnold School, Blackpool (1952-9), Queens' College, Cambridge (BA, 1962), and completed his PhD at the University of East Anglia in 1971 entitled "Mandeville's travels: a study of the book and its importance in England, 1356-1750".

Career

From 1962-73, while completing his PhD, Moseley worked in publishing, for Cambridge University Press as a management trainee, and subsequently for the University Tutorial Press as a commissioning editor. He taught English and Classics at The Leys School, Cambridge, full-time from 1973–80 and part-time from 1980-96, while also a lecturer at Magdalene College from 1980–86 and Director of Studies in English at Wolfson College from 1988-2000. In 2000 he became a Director of Studies at Hughes Hall, serving in that capacity until 2014, and as Senior Tutor 2000-03 and Tutor 2003-08. He is an Affiliated Lecturer of the Cambridge Faculty of English, and from 1992-2005 was Programme Director in English Literature, and from 1994-2005 founding Programme Director in Shakespeare, for the Cambridge International Summer Schools.

He was elected to fellowships of the Royal Society of Arts in 1994, of the Society of Antiquaries in 1999, and the English Association in 2001. He is also a member of the Society for Nautical Research, the Classical Association, and the Arctic Club, and was a co-founder of the annual Responsibility of Wealth programme run for the Society of International Business Fellows.

Scholarship and Teaching

Moseley's principal interests are in the mediaeval and early modern periods, particularly Chaucer, Sir John Mandeville, Shakespeare, Milton, and the European emblem.

His Shakespearean work has centred on the history plays: between 1966 and 1974 he edited five Shakespeare plays for the University Tutorial Press -- The Winter's Tale, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, Richard III, & Othello—and later wrote two studies for Penguin Books, Shakespeare's History Plays, Richard II to Henry V: The Making of a King (1988; digitally reissued, 2010) & Shakespeare: Richard III: A Critical Study (1989). More recently, he has written five digitally published guides for students: Reading Shakespeare's History Plays (2001), A Very Brief Introduction to Theatre and Theatres of Shakespeare's Time (2007), Shakespeare's Richard III: A Discussion (2007), Shakespeare's The Tempest (2007), & Shakespeare's King Henry IV (2007).

Moseley's Penguin Classics edition of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (1983, revised and extended 2005) remains the standard edition for British and US universities, and his translation is noted for "convey[ing] the elegant style of the original". It was followed by two Penguin guides to Chaucer, Chaucer: The Knight's Tale: A Critical Study (1986) and Chaucer: The Pardoner's Tale: A Critical Study (1987). A Century of Emblems: An Introduction to the Renaissance Emblem (1989) is a rare and valuable guide to its subject, and The Poetic Birth: Milton's Poems of 1645 (1991) was subsequently issued by Penguin, without the Latin poems, as Milton: The English Poems of 1645 (1992). Moseley has published more than 50 scholarly articles, the majority concerning Chaucer, Mandeville, and Shakespeare, and is a frequent reviewer for Modern Language Review and the Yearbook of English Studies. He also wrote the British Council Writers and their Work guide to J. R. R. Tolkien (1997).

A second strand of Moseley's work concerns personal and local history, particularly the effects of modernity on village life. A long-standing resident of Reach, he has published two studies, Reach: A Brief History of a Fenland Village (1988) and A Field Full of Folk: A Village Elegy (1995; as Out of Reach, 2010). The latter includes a more personal memoir, and has an autobiographical prequel, Between the Tides: A Lancashire Youth (2014). A further memoir, North Latitude (2015), concerns Moseley's interest in polar history, biology, and experience. He also wrote A Brief Architectural Guide to the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Swaffham Prior (1980), and with the poet Clive Wilmer edited Cambridge Observed: An Anthology (1998).

Moseley's influence as a teacher and lecturer is shown in his long association with the Cambridge International Summer Schools, where his Programme Directorship in English Literature saw the numbers of courses and registrants expand considerably, and the foundation of a distinct Shakespeare Summer School subsequently directed by Catherine Alexander and Fred Parker. He is a founding partner of and Literature Editor for Humanities-ebooks, a digital academic publisher committed to lower prices for readers and higher royalty payments for authors. He has three times been an Evelyn Wrench Speaker for the English Speaking Union of the United States (1993, 1995, 2000), is a frequent lecturer on study cruises for Saga, Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, and Voyages of Adventure, and has been a plenary speaker at conferences in Lisbon, Bucharest, and Szeged.

Moseley's former pupils include Stephanie Merritt, F. C. Malby (novelist), Emily Maitlis, Professor Dr S. I. Sobecki (University of Groningen), Professor Russell Hillier (Providence College), Professor Katherine Steele Brokaw (University of California, Merced), Gavin Tranter (barrister), Mark Bishop (judge and Anglican priest), and Nicholas J. Hoffman (financier).

Personal life

Moseley's memoirs include several unusual experiences for an academic, including a stint as a deckhand on deep-sea trawlers, and extensive travels in Antarctica, Greenland, Spitsbergen, and Iceland. In 1976 he was Deputy Leader of an expedition that sledged across the Spitsbergen icecap. He also maintained a smallholding in Reach for more than 20 years.

In 1962 Moseley married Jennifer Mary Williamson (19 June 1940 - 22 October 2009). They had two children.

Bibliography

Books

• A. J. Wyatt, A History of English Literature (revised by Charles Moseley, London: University Tutorial Press, 1965)
• William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale (ed. Charles Moseley, London: University Tutorial Press, 1966)
• William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 2 (ed. Charles Moseley, London: University Tutorial Press, 1966)
• William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1 (ed. Charles Moseley, London: University Tutorial Press, 1967)
• William Shakespeare, King Richard III (ed. Charles Moseley, London: University Tutorial Press, 1968)
• William Shakespeare, Othello (ed. Charles Moseley, London: University Tutorial Press, 1974)
• A Brief Architectural Guide to the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Swaffham Prior (Swaffham Prior: Parochial Church Council, 1980)
• The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (ed. and trans. Charles Moseley, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983; 2/e, rev. and expanded, 2005 [Penguin Classics])
• Chaucer: The Knight's Tale: A Critical Study (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986)
• Chaucer: The Pardoner's Tale: A Critical Study (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987)
• Reach: A Brief History of a Fenland Village (Cambridge: Daana Press, 1988; new ed., 1999)
• Shakespeare's History Plays, Richard II to Henry V: The Making of a King (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988; digital ed., Tirrill: Humanities-Ebooks, 2010)
• Shakespeare: Richard III: A Critical Study (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989)
• A Century of Emblems: An Introduction to the Renaissance Emblem (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1989)
• The Poetic Birth: Milton's Poems of 1645 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1991)
• Milton: The English Poems of 1645 (Harmondsworth: Penguin & New York: Viking Penguin, 1992)
• A Field Full of Folk: A Village Elegy (London: Aurum Press, 1995; 2/e, as Out of Reach, Cambridge: G. David, 2010)
• Writers and their Work: J. R. R. Tolkien (London: Northcote House/British Council, 1997)
• Cambridge Observed: An Anthology (ed. Charles Moseley & Clive Wilmer, Cambridge: Colt Books, 1998)
• Reading Shakespeare's History Plays (London: Bloomsbury.com, 2001)
• A Very Brief Introduction to Theatre and Theatres of Shakespeare's Time (Tirrill: Humanities-Ebooks, 2007)
• Shakespeare's Richard III: A Discussion (Tirrill: Humanities-Ebooks, 2007)
• Shakespeare's The Tempest (Tirrill: Humanities-Ebooks, 2007)
• Shakespeare's King Henry IV (Tirrill: Humanities-Ebooks, 2007)
• Between the Tides: A Lancashire Youth (Burscough: Beaten Track Publishing, 2014)
• North Latitude (London: IndieBooks, 2015)

Chapters and Articles

• 'Stitched Ships and Loadstone Rocks', in Notes and Queries 213 (September 1968): 323
• 'Sir John Mandeville's Visit to the Pope: The Implications of an Interpolation', in Neophilologus LIV, No. 1 (1970): 77-80
• 'The Lost Play of Mandeville', in The Library XXV, No. 1 (1970): 46-9
• 'Richard Head's The English Rogue', in The Yearbook of English Studies I (1971): 102-07
• 'The Metamorphoses of Sir John Mandeville', in The Yearbook of English Studies IV (1974): 5-25
• 'Chaucer, Sir John Mandeville and the Alliterative Revival: An Hypothesis Concerning Relationships', in Modern Philology LXXII, No. 2 (1974): 182-4
• 'Some Suggestions about the Writing of The Squire's Tale', in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen CCXII (1975): 124-7
• 'The Availability of Mandeville's Travels in England', in The Library XXX, No. 1 (1975): 125-33
• 'The Computer and the School Library', in Conference XVII, No. 1 (1980): 11
• 'A Reading of Donne's Holy Sonnet XIV', in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen CCXVII (1980): 103-08
• 'Behaim's Globe and Mandeville's Travels', in Imago Mundi XXXIII (1981): 82-93
• 'Cleopatra's Prudence: Three Notes on the Use of Emblems in Antony and Cleopatra', in Shakespeare Jahrbuch (West) (1986): 119-37
• 'A Note on Possible Acrostics in Paradise Lost', in Notes and Queries 233 (June 1988): 162-3
• 'MacBeth's Free Fall', in Macbeth: Critical Essays (ed. Bryan Loughrey & Linda Cookson, London: Longmans, 1988), pp. 22–34
• 'Trial and Judgement in King Lear', in King Lear: Critical Essays (ed. Bryan Loughrey & Linda Cookson, London: Longmans, 1988), pp. 65–75
• 'The Masque Unmask'd: Spectacle in The Tempest', in The Tempest: Critical Essays (ed. Bryan Loughrey & Linda Cookson, London: Longmans, 1988), pp. 114–26
• 'This Blessed Plot: The Garden Scene in Richard II', in Richard II: Critical Essays (ed. Bryan Loughrey & Linda Cookson, London: Longmans, 1989), pp. 94–104
• 'The General Prologue as a Prologue', in The Canterbury Tales: Critical Essays (ed. Bryan Loughrey & Linda Cookson, London: Longmans, 1989), pp. 105–18
• 'Men were Deceivers Ever', in Much Ado about Nothing: Critical Essays (ed. Bryan Loughrey & Linda Cookson, London: Longmans, 1989), pp. 43–52
• 'Of Centaurs and Minotaurs: Vaenius' Emblem Nihil Silentio Utilius and Alciato's Non Vulganda Consilia', in Bulletin du Bibliophile (1989): 324-30
• 'Andrew Willett's Emblem Book: A Reconsideration', in The Yearbook of English Studies XX (1990): 182-207
• 'British Library Additional MS 24189: Some Curious Ships', in Mariner's Mirror 76.2 (1990): 176-7
• 'Innogen's Bedroom', in Notes and Queries 235 (June 1990): 197-8
• 'A Sweetnesse readie penn'd: Art, Love and Devotion in Herbert's The Temple', in The Metaphysical Poets: Critical Essays (ed. Bryan Loughrey & Linda Cookson, London: Longmans, 1990), pp. 58–68
• 'The Pardoner versus his Tale', in The Pardoner's Tale: Critical Essays (ed. Bryan Loughrey & Linda Cookson, London: Longmans, 1990), pp. 46–54
• 'Speaking Pictures: Visual Symbol in Antony and Cleopatra', in Antony and Cleopatra: Critical Essays (ed. Bryan Loughrey & Linda Cookson, London: Longmans, 1990), pp. 84–92
• 'A Surviving Fenland Lighter', in Mariner's Mirror 76.3 (1990): 279-81
• 'Editorial Essay' in special issue 'Shakespeare and Tragedy', Critical Survey 3.2 (1991): 115-17
• 'Portia's Music and the Naughty World', in The Merchant of Venice: Critical Essays (ed. Bryan Loughrey & Linda Cookson, London: Longmans, 1992), pp. 19–40
• 'What shall we do with the Seventeenth Century?', editorial essay in special issue 'Writing/Revolution: The Seventeenth Century', Critical Survey 5.3 (1993): 219-22
• 'Les Mondes des Voyages de Jean de Mandeville', in Résurgences: Recherches aux Sources et aux Confluents de la Littérature 2.1 (Spring 1993): 4-14
• 'Foreword', in O. B. Duane, Chivalry (Leicester: Brockhampton Press, 1997), p. 8
• 'William Shakespeare', in The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature (ed. S. Serafin, New York: Continuum, 2002), pp. 892–6
• 'Get thee up into a high Mountain: The English Lake District as Virtual Landscape', in TRANS: Internet-Zeitschrift fur Kultur-Wissenschaften 15 (2004)
• 'Waiting for the death of Little Nell: Gas, Flong, and the Nineteenth-century Novel', in TRANS: Internet-Zeitschrift fur Kultur-Wissenschaften 16 (2006)
• 'A Portrait of Sir Christopher Hatton, Erasmus, and an Emblem of Alciato: Some Questions', in The Antiquaries' Journal 86 (2006): 373-9
• 'Astraea in the Alps', in The Classical Association Newsletter 35 (December 2006): 8-9
• 'Mandeville and the Amazons, in Jean de Mandeville in Europa: Neue Perspektiven in der Reiseliteraturforschung (ed. Ernst Bremer & Susanne Röhl, München: Fink Verlag, 2007 [Mittelalter Studien 12]), pp. 67–9
• '... To arrive where we started and know the place for the first time', in (Ex)patriations: Papers from the First International Conference (ed. Adina Ciugureana, Constanța: Ovidius University Press, 2009), pp. 15–29
• 'The Literary and Dramatic Context of the Late Plays', in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Last Plays (ed. C. M. Alexander, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 47–69
• 'Introducing Mr Shakespeare, or What's in a Title Page?', in T. Ozawa et al., A Kaleidoscope of Literature: English and American Literatures, and their Surrounding Areas (trans. T. Ozawa, Tokyo: Renga Shobo Shinsa, 2010), pp. 266–311
• 'Whet-stone leasings of old Maundevile: Reading the Travels in Early Modern England', in Mandeville and Mandevillian Lore in Early Modern England (ed. Ladan Niayesh, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), pp. 28–50
• 'New things to speak of: Money, Memory and Mandeville's Travels in Early Modern England', in Yearbook of English Studies Special Issue: Early Modern Travel Fiction 41.1 (N. Das, ed., 2011): 5-20
• 'The Groves of Eden, vanished now so long ...: Landscape, Art and Ideology in Picturing the Lost Domain', in Milton Through the Centuries (ed. Gábor Ittzés & Miklós Péti, Budapest: KGRE-L'Harmattan, 2011), pp. 284–97
• 'How the Devil did he learn our Language?: Richard III and his Languages', in English Studies in Albania 1.1 (2011): 7-22
• 'Action is Eloquence: Text, Script, Performance, and the Failure of Criticism', in The Said and the Unsaid: Papers on Language, Literature and Cultural Studies (ed. A. Panajoti, Vlora: University of Vlora Ismail Qemali, 2011), pp. 29–47
• ' Res Publica: A Matter of Concern', in Representações da República (ed. Luis Manuel A. V. Bernardo, Leonor Santa Barbara, & Luis Andrade, Lisbon: Húmus, for Fundação para Ciéncia e a Tecnologia, 2013), pp. 29–39
• 'Speaking Pictures: Mediaeval Religious Art and its Viewers', in The Edinburgh Companion to the Bible (ed. Stephen Prickett, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), pp. 175–94
• 'What's in a Name? The Theatre of 1576', in Early Modern Culture Online 5 (2014): 1-10
• 'Judicious, Sharp Spectators? Form, Pattern and Audience in Early Modern Theatre: Some Problems', in Cahiers Élisabéthains 85 (Spring 2014): 7-20
• 'Forging the Key of Remembrance: Books, Cultures and Memory', in Literature and the Long Modernity (ed. Michaela Irimia, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2014 [Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 176]), pp. 11–24

External links

• Personal Web Site
• Humanities-ebooks