While the Ted Hughes moment is afoot, now is maybe a good time to publicly wish that his book Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being be brought back into print. It’s such an eccentric and dazzling piece of criticism, it seems terrible that it’s fallen out of print in both the United States and England.* Especially since Hughes claimed writing it gave him cancer — the least we could do is keep the book circulating a while longer.
Faber & Faber? NYRB? Anyone?
* Currently, the cheapest copy on Abebooks is $88; a used copy on Amazon.uk is 80 pounds. Every time I check out the local library’s copy, I worry that I’m going to misplace it somewhere and have to wash dishes in the library kitchen forever.
RELATED: A nice piece about Hughes and myth from the Journal of Mythic Arts.