Jonathan Bowden's Early Writing (1989–95)

This list is based on details gleaned from online catalogues (mainly Amazon’s Good Reads website, which seems even more comprehensive than Google Books) and from the catalogues of the six Legal Deposit Libraries of Ireland and the UK (the Bodleian in Oxford, the British Library in London, the Cambridge University Library, Trinity College Library in Dublin and the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales). I have also examined the six-volume Collected Works at the British Library and the Cambridge University Library.

Jonathan Bowden on Jonathan Bowden

I just returned from the library, where I was inspecting vol. 3 of Jonathan Bowden’s very rare Collected Works, 6 vols. (London: Avant-Garde, 1995). I examined the first two volumes a couple of years ago. I will look at the remaining three as soon as time permits.

The Collected Works mark the transition, in my view, from the first to the second period in Bowden’s writing life. This was a transition of which Bowden was himself aware. Below are gathered a few snippets of ‘Bowden on Bowden’ from vol. 3. I hope this will be of all the more interest given how vanishingly rare and difficult to access texts from this period are, especially these Collected volumes.