Horror Panegyric [Hardcover]

Keith Seward (Author), David Britton (Author), Michael Butterworth (Author, Editor), John Coulthart (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 24, 2008

Horror Panegyric begins with a penetrating essay by Keith Seward on the three Lord Horror novels produced by David Britton and Michael Butterworth, aka Savoy Books of Manchester, England. The first novel, Lord Horror, was the most recent work of literature after Last Exit to Brooklyn to be banned in England and obliged Britton to serve a term in Strangeways Prison. Savoy's "franchise of Lord Horror productions," Seward writes, "is provocative, original, visionary, and contains at least one outright masterpiece (Motherf*ckers). Young writers should be looking at it the same as they do Naked Lunch, i.e. as a work that shows them what the possibilities are in the hands of a master." "Lord Horror," Britton has said, "was so unique and radical, I expected to go to prison for it. I always thought that if you wrote a truly dangerous book -- something dangerous would happen to you. Which is one reason there are so few really dangerous books around. Publishers play at promoting dangerous books, whether they're Serpent's Tail or Penguin. All you get is a book vetted by committee, never anything radically imaginative or offensive that will take your f*cking head off. Ironically, I think it would do other authors a power of good if they had to account for their books by going to prison -- there are far too many bad books being published!" Following the essay are excerpts from the three difficult-to-find novels Lord Horror, Motherf*ckers: The Auschwitz of Oz, and Baptised in the Blood of Millions. Rounding out the volume is a timeline of Lord Horror productions that includes the novels, comic books, and recordings for which Savoy Books has earned its worldwide notoriety.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Keith Seward is a writer who lives in New York. David Britton and Michael Butterworth are the founders of Savoy Books.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 125 pages
• Publisher: Savoy Books; 1st edition (March 24, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0861301188
• ISBN-13: 978-0861301188
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,803,020 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must We Burn Savoy?, May 9, 2008

By 

Abel Diaz - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Horror Panegyric (Hardcover)

Keith Seward is a rare and wonderful creature: a fan with an insight and vocabulary the equal of his devotion. Unlike most of us, he can actually explain why he thinks a book is important, without resorting to meaningless, slogan-like declarations. This inspired appraisal of the three Lord Horror novels will move you to appreciation even if you haven't read the books. And if you read Seward's tribute, I promise that you will be driven to seek Lord Horror out, in at least one of his incarnations, even at great personal expense.

Horror Panegyric is a love letter with bold intentions. It dares to explore the nature of good literature and how to recognize its elusive face. Specifically, it seeks to recognize that Britton and Butterworth have written at least one unsung masterpiece, M******s: The Auschwitz of Oz, and two works of near-indescribable genius, Lord Horror and Baptised in the Blood of Millions. It questions why these works have not been given the attention they deserve.

If you have already read the Lord Horror novels, Seward's essay is still worth the price of admission. It is filled with gems like the section called "The Boschian Method in Literature," which works both as art critique and writer's manual on how to break from the dull, exhausting, everyday torture that passes for contemporary literature. If you have not read the Lord Horror novels, then you will want to start here for a very practical reason: Horror Panegyric includes four long excerpts that are the cheapest and easiest introduction to the works you are ever going to find. The actual novels can be so costly and difficult to obtain that they seem forbidden by God. They are as far from mainstream as anything I have encountered. I am surprised they exist at all.

Given the long tradition of resistance Savoy Books has shown to reprinting anything, even their finest publications, I recommend you snatch up Horror Panegyric before it goes out of print. Before it becomes another priceless artifact in Savoy's catalog of lost treasures. (And thank you, Keith Seward, for writing an essay that has given me the language to appreciate Britton and Butterworth even more than I already did.)