MARLPIT PRESSIndependent PublisherThese notes grow directly from the books Marlpit publishes. They focus on questions that a short retailer description cannot answer: what changed between editions, how a text fits into a larger tradition, what contemporary readers thought, and where the historical record is uncertain.
The 1909 and 1922 Editions of Otto Rank’s Hero Myth
What changed between Otto Rank's 1909 and substantially expanded 1922 editions of The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, and why the difference matters.
Read research noteAlfred Nutt Before Otto Rank: The Prehistory of the Hero Pattern
How Alfred Nutt's 1881 expulsion-and-return study and Johann Georg von Hahn's earlier formula anticipate the hero pattern later associated with Otto Rank.
Read research noteWhere Xiyou bu Fits Into Journey to the West
Where the 1641 Xiyou bu fits into Journey to the West, why it begins after the Mountain of Fire, and how its Qing Fish dream transforms Sun Wukong's pilgrimage.
Read research noteAnthony Berkeley and the “Puzzle of Character”
Why Anthony Berkeley called The Second Shot an experiment in the puzzle of character and how it points from the Golden Age whodunit toward Francis Iles.
Read research noteThe White Crow in 1928: Philip MacDonald Between Puzzle and Thriller
The publication, reception, and later disappearance of Philip MacDonald's 1928 Anthony Gethryn mystery The White Crow.
Read research noteHow Liddell Hart Turned Sherman Into a Strategic Argument
Why B. H. Liddell Hart chose William Tecumseh Sherman, how the 1929 biography shaped his indirect approach, and why later historians read the book critically.
Read research noteWhat William Bolitho Meant by “Adventure”
Why Twelve Against the Gods includes figures from Casanova to Woodrow Wilson and what William Bolitho meant by the dangerous psychology of the adventurer.
Read research noteWho Is Who in W. H. Mallock’s The New Republic?
A guide to the Victorian intellectuals behind W. H. Mallock's 1877 roman à clef The New Republic, including Pater, Arnold, Ruskin, Jowett, and scientific naturalists.
Read research noteHow Much of The Story of San Michele Is Autobiography?
How to read Axel Munthe's The Story of San Michele as memoir, literary reconstruction, medical anecdote, fantasy, and self-mythology.
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