A Celebration

Edited by Paul de Fortis

for

The Redondan Cultural Foundation

with contributions by Roger Dobson, Lawrence Durrell, Paul de Fortis, Christopher Martin, Count Potocki of Montalk and Julie Speedie and with a Foreword by His Majesty the King of Redonda.

(Cheshire): The Ayleshire Press, (1991).

First edition: One of 400 trade copies.

Fine in white printed glossy illustrated wraps in a fine light blue illustrated printed dust jacket.
UNREAD!

Octavo.
105 pages; select and annotated bibliography, and appendices.
Four plates including a frontispiece photo of King Cedric plus a map & drawing.

According to legend, M.P. Shiel's father claimed the tiny uninhabited island in the Caribbean for his son, Matthew Phipps Shiell (later M.P. Shiel), upon his birth. Shiel's father petitioned Queen Victoria for the right to the title King of Redonda, which was granted by the British Colonial Office. M.P. Shiel was purportedly crowned King at the age of 15. In later life, Shiel gave the title to his chief admirer, London poet and editor John Gawsworth (Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong), the biographer of Arthur Machen, who was the realm's Archduke. Since the death of Gawsworth (1912-1970) there have been many claims to the title.

In 1988, the London reverend Paul de Fortis established "The Redondan Cultural Foundation". Because of what he viewed as the inaction of the various rival monarchs, de Fortis promoted a new king, Cedric Boston (born on Montserrat in 1960). Boston claimed the Redondan throne in 1984, winning the allegiance of a number of still living Gawsworth's peers.

The history of the "Kingdom" of Redonda is shrouded in doubt and legend, and it is difficult to separate fact from fiction.

On the question of the Kingdom of Redonda, Jon Wynne-Tyson has written: "The legend is and should remain a pleasing and eccentric fairy tale; a piece of literary mythology to be taken with salt, romantic sighs, appropriate perplexity, some amusement, but without great seriousness. It is, after all, a fantasy."

An as new copy of this attractively produced bit of Shiel, Gawsworth, and Arthur Machen connected literary "folderol".

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