Charles Moseley – författare

Tolkien was a specialist in a recherché field. He did not, at least initially, write for a mass audience. Yet for many in the 60s his books, particularly Lord of the Rings, became a political badge and an interpretative text. Widely translated, his fiction won the accolade both of parody and of its own learned journal; rock bands took names from his characters; and “Tolkien” – or how he was read – demonstrably affected modern fantasy, in writing, film, video- and board-game. This book explores how his work came to be so diversely received. Dr Moseley’s critical discussion examines Tolkien’s view of fiction as “sub-creation”, exploring his analysis of mythopoeia and of the status of art and literature in relation to his own practice. It is argued that in the critical concerns of Tolkien and his circle lie the key to important issues in his fiction. His use of linguistic game and literary pastiche is explored without obscuring his emotional commitment to the making of myths that expressed some of his deepest fears of the world he experienced.

To Everything a Season is a beautifully crafted personal and reflective account of many years of the changing seasons, from autumn  to autumn, in and around a village on the edge of the Cambridge Fenland. It is an uplifting reflection about change: what was, what is, what will be. It is about the miracle of the rich gift of life. It is also about death, loss, and the rebirth of the old into something rich and strange. But it is also a book suffused with a gentle humour, with a deep love and sympathy for our fellow creatures. Charles Moseley tackles what we have done to the world of which we are not owners or masters but stewards, not only for our children but for the whole web of life on which everything depends.

By any standards, Etheldreda was a remarkable woman in a time of remarkable women. Far from being the wishy washy figure of so much stained glass, she was – had to be – a tough operator.Great saints are not pushovers. She got her way. She changed the map in the Not-Yet-England of her time (c. 636 AD-679 AD).What was it like to be a Princess then, an Abbess in a land where the old gods were still honoured by many? What power did women in her position wield? What did it mean to be revered as a Saint?Dr Charles Moseley's lively account puts Etheldreda in context, painting a vivid picture which reveals what it was like to be a nun in those days, how marriage was viewed, what the countryside which these intrepid people crisscrossed looked like.2023 marks 1350 years since St Etheldreda first established a monastery in Ely in AD 673. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have flocked to Ely Cathedral in her name and churches across the country have been named in her honour.

Many people as they get older have to face leaving a village or town they have loved, a place redolent with memories and connections, to relocate somewhere more – as they say – ‘manageable.’ It is different for everyone, and not always easy, for our ghosts go with us.But everything connects with everything else. There is no such thing as a new beginning. Such a move need not be a matter for repining and regret, but a new adventure.This book records just that journey, of having to learn that new place to which Time is bringing you – and populate it with its own stock of private memories.Charles Moseley writes about his move from a fenland village to the nearby historic little city of Ely and breathes life into the history, natural world and people who have made his new home what it is today.

‘We are all on a journey. None of us knows where ours will take us, and when we do, and it is over, we will not be able to tell anyone what it all meant, or where it took us. This is the goal of our pilgrimage, a journey of unknowing, where what we thought we knew turns out to have been a shadow of a something leading us ever forward, ever deeper. ‘Crossroad is a story that cannot be finished yet; a story of journeys, mostly on foot, through places that in this present resonate with the lives lived in them in their long past: a shingle beach in Norfolk, a river in Cambridgeshire, a hill in what was Westmorland and an island in present Cumbria, a cave on an island in ancient Dalriata, in Iona, and Lindisfarne.’~ In this beautifully-written book, Charles Moseley invites you to share with him many journeys, each in their way a kind of pilgrim quest. You can read them as a guide for you to follow, literally, in his footsteps – to Iona, Lindisfarne, Walsingham, Aran. Or you can walk alongside him in the spirit of faltering honesty, wry humour, spiritual questing, and the ever-present appreciation of landscape, ancient resonances, a tasty sandwich, a pair of good boots and a trusty stick.