Should anyone wish to read The Fountain in the Forest in synch with the French Republican Calendar – which features in the novel – today’s date and Chapter 1 of the novel are (according to certain reliable authorities) dedicated to Fumeterre, the Common Fumitory.
Having spoken about the French Republican Calendar alongside many wonderful and inspiring performances by an amazing group of artists, writers and musicians at David Collard’s ‘A Leap in the Dark’ literary shindig on Saturday 29 February, it occurred to me that this may be of interest ;)
While conversions between the Gregorian and Republican Calendars are imprecise (or as some would say ‘speculative’), according to those Gregorian-to-Republican Calendar converters which privilege Charles-Gilbert Romme’s prefered method for calculating leap years, today’s date Monday 2 March is Tridi 13 Ventôse 228, and the day is dedicated to the Common Fumitory; and so on. By the same calculation, Chapter 30 of the novel corresponds with 12 Germinal 193, and is dedicated to the Hornbeam.
Luke Bird’s cover design for both Trade and B-Format paperbacks of The Fountain in the Forest, uses an engraving by Louis Lafitte, an artist of the Revolutionary period, which despite appearances is not a picture of Leda and the Swan, but is in fact an allegory of the Revolutionary month of Thermidor, from an edition of the Revolutionary Calendar that Lafitte illustrated.
.JPG)
Photo Isidre Blanc — CC BY-SA 4.0
§
Buy The Fountain in the Forest direct from publisher Faber and Faber
Sign up to receive news and invites to Tony White’s book launches and events
I’m delighted to be joining Philip Terry at Firstsite, Colchester on 15 March for readings and conversation at the Essex Book Festival launch of his The Penguin Book of Oulipo, 
I had to get a picture of this stunning piece of stained-glass work, which you can find on the first mezzanine landing of the grand stairwell of Twickenham Library. I was visiting to talk about my latest novel 
During the panel discussion we were each asked how we got started on the road to becoming published authors. In responding I had to speak up for public libraries, because when I was a child – growing up in a household without much money and not many books – the public library in Farnham was where I was introduced to literature, quickly graduating from wonderful children’s story books like The Wombles, Doctor Dolittle and Wurzel Gummidge to the general fiction section where I found authors like Mervyn Peake, Agatha Christie, the Ellery Queen mysteries, as well as yellow-jacketed Gollancz Science Fiction anthologies, Doris Lessing and more. Without that public library, followed by access to arts subjects at secondary school and an arts education (A-level art at Farnham College, a foundation at the then West Surrey College of Art and Design, now University of the Creative Arts, Farnham, and a Fine Art Degree at Sheffield City Polytechnic, now Sheffield Hallam University) I would almost certainly not be an author today, nor have had access to any kind of professional life in the arts.
Piece of Paper Press & tonywhite.london 
You must be logged in to post a comment.