Well
I hope you liked the website.
If you're interested in knowing a little bit about me, then
read on. My name is Adam Nicke and I live on the English/Welsh
border in the UK. I'm also single. If anyone wants to drop
me a line about anything, then do so here.
I'll answer all emails as I'm nice like that!
Previously
I've made and designed clothes for a living (fancy dress and
stage wear for bands). I've also worked as a researcher for
a TV company in Cardiff. If all that sounds glamorous, then
I'll admit to having had a few awful jobs as well.
I have
a degree in Literary Studies from the University of the West
of England (class of '95) and have also had a collection of
short stories published - Grim Fairy Tales - which
were gothic (although I prefer the term Dark Romanticism as
gothic has too many negative connotations) in nature. So how
does that reconcile with the sixties? Very well actually.
Some of the scenes in 18th century gothic literature are fantastic
and flights of imagination often transport us to exotic and
dreamlike eastern landscapes. I see a thread that comes straight
from those novels, via the Fin De Siecle and the associated
Art Nouveau movement right up the latest flowering of
Romanticism - the sixties.
Here
are a selection of texts I thought you might enjoy. All are
free from copyright being mostly 19th century. I suppose the
only thing they have in common is that, like much of the music
and philosophy of the sixties, they're trying to capture more
than the immediate 'reality' and create an idealistic world
- in the imagination or otherwise. On a less thematic level,
all are rich and evocative in the prose they use.
- Download William
Beckford's Vathek - considered one of the strangest
18th century gothic novels- in a zipped file of 89.2kb,
here
- Download
De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater
- detailing the experiences and visions the writer had
during a lifetime of addiction - in a zipped file of 91.8kb
here
- Download most
of Baudelaire's poetry collection The Flowers
of Evil - one of the very best French poets to capture
the symbolic world of dreams and nightmares, with fantastic
and exotic imagery - in a zipped file of 25.6kb here
- Download Rimbaud's
A Season in Hell - a poetic prodigy and beloved
by Jim Morrison - in a zipped file of 19.5kb here
- Download 40
poems by Verlaine - the only place on the net to
offer a full selection of his poetry in translation -
in a zipped file of 12.5kb here
- Download JK
Huysmans' Against the Grain - considered an
absolute classic work of late 19th century decadent literature
- in a zipped file of 219kb here
- Download Aubrey
Beardsley's Under the Hill - as strange and
ornate as his illustrations - in a zipped file of 27.8kb
here
- Download Oscar
Willde's Picture of Dorian Grey - the quintessential
late 19th century gothic novel - in a zipped file of 166kb
here
- Download Nietzsche's
Thus Spoke Zarathustra - as Jim Morrison once
said 'let me tell you about heartache and the loss of
God, wandering, wandering in hopeless night.' Well this
is the book that introduced the concept of 'the death
of God' - in a zipped file of 247kb here
- Download
Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs - the decadent
novel that inspired the Velvet Underground song - an a
zipped file of 75.5kb here
- Download
Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet - a mystical text
full of accessible eastern philosophy - can be downloaded
in a zipped file of 23.2kb here
- Download
Huxley's Doors of Perception - chronicling
the writer's experiences under hallucinogens and from
where The Doors appropriated their name - in a
zipped file of 39.8kb here
I've
written a few other things since seeing my book in print,
but those remain unpublished.
I also
enjoy comedy - from Monty Python to The Office; from Tony
Hancock to Bottom.
And
now here's a photograph of me for you to laugh at!
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