Books by Michael Black

Description Leonardo, Romancia and Ra is a book of extended visions and waking dreams. It continues where my previous book, Angels, Cleopatra and Psychosis, came to an end. But whereas Angels, Cleopatra and Psychosis is sometimes nightmare-ish in its psychiatric settings, Leonardo, Romancia And Ra is more romantic, featuring the soul of romance herself, the spirit Romancia. In the central chapter of the book I accompany Romancia to Paris for a ten day holiday, and art history is discussed as the story of the French revolution and French romantic art are both revealed. The spirits of Leonardo and Michelangelo make appearances in the book, as they did in Angels, Cleopatra and Psychosis, and so do two new spirits, the French romantic painters Géricault and Delacroix, best of friends, and guardians of Parisian revolutionary integrity. At the end of the Parisian holiday, Romancia vanishes to become the wind of love, whilst I return to England where I have a confrontation with the ancient Egyptian sun god Ra.About the AuthorMichael Black was born in 1962, and Leonardo, Romancia And Ra describes his life and spiritual experiences within the British mental health system over the past fifteen years. Like its predecessor, Angels, Cleopatra And Psychosis (also published by Chipmunka), the book stands up for the legitimacy of so-called psychotic experience, and questions the validity of the received medical model. Michael grew up in Cheshire, where he attended Wilmslow Grammar School before doing an English and History degree at York University. He then completed a doctorate in anti-apartheid literature at Cambridge University, whilst variously working as a journalist and theatre producer.Michael is the author of one novel, Crossing Out The Emperor, and six stage plays, all of which can be viewed at his website www.mwblack.co.uk. He has received three Arts Council Playwrights Bursaries, and is currently working on a new stage play and two film scripts.

Description This book tells the story of my battles within the mental health system over the last fourteen years. I have, from a psychiatrist's perspective, variously been diagnosed as hypomanic, schizophrenic, manic depressive and as having schizoaffective disorder - and in that order! But from my point of view (and as an ex-journalist I decided to investigate the mental health system from the inside out!), I have simply been on an extraordinary spiritual journey, meeting the spirits of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, meeting a spiritually persecuting Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, meeting the ancient queen Cleopatra herself, meeting the devilish spirit of Dr. Josef Goebbels, before penultimately having sex with the female angel Jana and finally meeting the fallen angel Lucifer himself! The book recounts the story of all the above, whilst also ending with a discussion and critique of contemporary psychiatry. I do not believe myself to have been mentally ill. I believe myself to be a visionary.About the AuthorMichael Black was born in 1962, and Angels, Cleopatra And Psychosis describes his life and spiritual experiences within the British mental health system over the past fifteen years. The book stands up for the legitimacy of so-called psychotic experience, and questions the validity of the received medical model. Michael grew up in Cheshire, where he attended Wilmslow Grammar School before doing an English and History degree at York University. He then completed a doctorate in anti-apartheid literature at Cambridge University, whilst variously working as a journalist and theatre producer.Michael is the author of one novel, Crossing Out The Emperor, and six stage plays. He has received three Arts Council Playwrights Bursaries, and is currently working on a new novel and two film scripts.The publication of Angels, Cleopatra And Psychosis is supported by Macclesfield Mind.

This is the first critical study of Sons and Lovers to engage with the new Cambridge edition, which prints for the first time the whole text that Lawrence wrote, restoring the substantial cuts made by the first editor.

This second volume of Michael Black's commentary on Lawrence's prose-works concentrates on the extraordinary sequence of non-fictional texts written between 1913 and 1917: the 'Foreword' to Sons and Lovers, Study of Thomas Hardy, Twilight in Italy, 'The Crown', 'The Reality of Peace'.

In response to enormous recent advances, particularly in molecular biology, the authors have revised their warmly received work. This new edition includes updates on seed development, gene expression, dormancy, and other subjects. It will serve as the field's standard textbook and reference source for many years to come.

Based on the Cambridge Edition of Lawrence's letters and works, this is a systematic study of his neglected early novels and short stories. He places Lawrence in a new light as an artist, especially considering the relationship between his art and thought.