Our frequent commenter known to us as “Basil” or “Mikufan” has sent me some great high res photos of the poetry book she has that was bought originally from Rathbone’s estate. So here they are. The book, THE DEATHLESS FLOWER was apparently given to Rathbone by the author herself. And the dedication reads “to Basil Rathbone who leaves the white flame of his creative genius burning in the memory of his listeners“.
The author’s name is Ida Elaine James. So if anyone knows or can discover anything more about this lady, if she was a friend of Rathbone’s or if he just liked her work, let me know.
Of additional interest is the fact that someone – very likely Basil – has underlined certain passages from the poems in pencil, as you’ll see in the scans below.
Much thanks to “Basil” (and her dad) for going to the trouble of photographing and uploading these. Alyssia might want to take note of how it’s done. 🙂
The Baz 
Anniv date of 2 powerful storms that really created devastation to East Coast coming up,nothing predicted,but rain,and hope THAT IS ALL!2 years ago,went over 8 days w/o power,proper hygiene,warmth,and feel for anyone who has ever had to go long periods freezing in their beds.IMHO,utility cos really blew it.They had generators in their homes,ditto to some neighbors who had gen & never asked if we could use a hot cuppa all that blackout.As me Irish ancestors said MAY THE DEVIL CHOKE THEM (my Gaelic is a little rusty,so I’m sure to misspell it in Irish,but I could come close).
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Li me a go ah it! Miss Scotish decent here could misspell it in any language.
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wow thanks for shareing how great to just have one of his books. is it just me or do the sentiments in the poem remind anyone else of the part in his book he wrote about his Mommy and Daddy. and the angle of death and all that about Greenbank
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Thanks for pointing it out!
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This book of poems was published in late 1930s?Think I read 1938,if typed in right book title
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I may have to get this book of poems on Amazon.
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Right well, I googled “ida elaine james + basil rathbone” and the top hit was this blog! So I googled “ida elaine james” on her own and found this catalog of her work
http://mormonlit.byu.edu/lit_author.php?a_id=4165
and a few Amazon entries for her books, but not much else. No biographical material at all.
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That’s all I could find too! ;_;
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jez what a frusterating web site each page you click on just leads you back to the 1st page. you never actuly get to the poems
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What a marvelous book to own, Mikufan! Thank you for sharing!
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I like “The spring is old, yet reborn, cannot die/ Reliving buried dreams. Why cannot I?” It makes me wonder if those lines made him think of “X”
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When I first saw the name I thought it might be a different Ida!
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Miss Lupino? :3
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yes! 😀 I’m a huge fan of hers. My friend Hannah runs I Love Ida Lupino on Tumblr. I got to know her through The Baz and she introduced me to Ida’s films. She was so awesome and talented.
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I’ve only seen her in one or two things, but I certainly like her! ^_^
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You mentioned my name!! :-))
Ida is such an underrated actress/director. She was only the second woman to be a member of the Director’s Guild, and her movies were so original and covered such controversial themes. Like she could have just tried to go mainstream to be accepted, because she was up against enough just being a woman in a man’s world, but she wasn’t interested in taking the easy course and she made films about unwed mothers and men in bigamous marriages, real hard subjects no one in the mainstream wanted to touch. She was just such an amazing person!
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are you ok over there Basil? i saw the head lines about the hurricane.
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It really wasn’t as bad as everybody thinks, it lasted for about 2 hours and a few people in the whole country got killed. All that really happened where I am was a few floods and fallen trees, I slept through most of it.
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Yeah. I love the UK and the Brits, but it was my feeling when I lived in the UK that people there kind of get very excited about weather that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in the States. We had like an inch of snow and people were on the TV saying “Oh my Gahd, this is terrible. Look at the ROADS…”(cue pic of road with a bit of wet snow and cars driving past amiably), “look at the RAIL TRACKS!” (cue picture of one man shovelling a bit of snow off a rail track, or maybe a single snow plow driving around trying to find something to do). Not sure what they’d do if they got real snow. I think the TV presenters would just EXPLODE. 😀
I miss England now. Want to go back 😦
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I know, I really don’t get it.
Not that I mind my school closing down when it snows.
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yea this is the sort of snow we get here…taken north of me but belive me we got hit too. http://ww2.ohiohistory.org/etcetera/exhibits/swio/pages/albums/1977_blizzard/1977_blizzard_albumPage01.html the next year we got this one http://ww2.ohiohistory.org/etcetera/exhibits/swio/pages/content/1978_blizzard.htm Schools closed for over a week. We lived out in the country..cars couldnt go out or in our back rd for over a week. It hit all in 1 big gust.My Dad out feeding the critters said it almost knocked him off his feet…Basil I too slep through the start of it! Till my dad came into my room and woke me and said get your clothes and get uot of this room and come down stairs.My room had a big pictuer window that faced the west the dirction the storm hit from.
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cut off .He was afraid the stom winds would blow the glass in on top of me.I just went down stairs and went back to sleep on the couch.Dose’nt that make you want to come live in the mid west. Those are xtraordnary storms though. Around here if we get a flake or 2 people run out to the store for bread and milk..memories run deep I guess.
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Onetime here in the UK we had a storm so bad that it actually blew down an entire local forest. Now if you go there there’s only about 30 trees left. It totally wrecked the local area…..although this was back before I was born
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Was hoping to win a radio contest,giving away tickets to The Eagles in concert in UK with Tequila pub crawl,trip to motor raceway,but alas my 1st real visit I’ll have to pay for-although had stopovers at Heathrow twice on travel to Ireland.This was before 9/11.Please do review Comedy Of Terrors,too.Any Baz movies are appreciated.Can’t b’lieve how hunky Vinnie is in that 1st photo.Does more justice to him than the movie LAURA with him vs Cliton Webb,love his zingers at Waldo Lydecker.But Shelby deserved better than Aunt Ann (Judith Anderson-great actress,but a bit long in tooth as Shelby’s future Mrs).Was that why he settled down w/Corale cuz she was Ann-type from LAURA,I wonder?She could “afford to keep” Shelby Carpenter?Yes,I’m huge old movie fan,greatest invention was TCM,and AMC channel as it was orig-no commercials,all movies and CLASSICS,used to show great early Basil talkies on his B’day-had them on video cassette,which are MIA from my storage bin.They played The Sun Never Sets,Sin Takes A Holiday among others I can’t remember.That’s where I 1st saw TOL.Other movies played I can’t remember but haven’t seen them on cable since,please excuse my rambling,but guess it’s better than grumbling.
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Oh, Ellen, how I miss AMC in its original form! Wasn’t it just the best?? I mean, TCM is the best now. I just don’t know why AMC had to change, because they played a lot of movies that TCM doesn’t, including a lot of old Universal. I used to get the magazine, tape tons and tons of VHS, and I’d always give to their annual film preservation fund, so I could get a cool AMC/film preservation tote bag or something. I was 16 years old! 🙂 I remember George Clooney’s father/Rosemary’s brother Nick was one of the hosts. I can see the other guy who hosted, but I can’t remember his name – Bob-something. They also used to make great documentaries (I wish I could find my old VHS of “Hollywood & WWII” but it has been lost in my moves) and interviews with classic film stars. Too bad they had to change…but at least we have TCM now! Rambling excused, if everyone excuses mine. Just had an AMC memory-moment there. 🙂
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Blackcatpratt—the host-guy you’re thinking of, is: “Bob Dorian”. 🙂
When my family first got cable TV back in 1985, we used to watch (and LOVE) AMC, too—that is, until the mid-nineties—when the commercials began to “creep-in”, and eventually took over.
Bob would just sit there in his cozy chair all by himself, in front of this BIG projection-screen; he’d talk about old movies, and told anecdotes related to the featured actors, in-between showings…with the “AMC” logo (or photos of the stars/still-shots from the films) on the screen in the background. The station was small, and they didn’t have a lot of money, at the time. No one at my school had even HEARD of “American Movie Classics”. They NEVER played ads (except for their “upcoming features”), and I liked that there was a “comfy” feel to the set.
Then, about ten years later, they introduced Nick Clooney to do the hosting once in a while, and suddenly began playing these “mainstream” commercials between films…and later, DURING films! (This totally went AGAINST the original concept for the channel, which was meant to be kept completely commercial FREE—in order to protect the continuity of the movies, and to respect the artistic nature of them.) They also broke their OWN rule of: “We’ll NEVER play colorized movies, because it’s sacrilegious”. After a while, OTHER people (including actors) started hosting, and Bob ended-up retiring. More recently, they began playing MODERN films, which are NOT considered “classics”! The station became increasingly GREEDY over time—all these dumb ads interrupt the “flow” of the films, and there are now about 10-15 MINUTES of them every half-hour, or so!! 😡
Needless to say, I NO LONGER watch AMC……TCM is the way to GO! 😉
(One thing my family DIDN’T like about the “old” AMC, however, was that there was little to NO variety—they’d repeat the SAME 4 or 5 movies ALL day-long; and, they usually played them SEVERAL more times throughout the month, until the NEXT month’s “line-up”……that got pretty monotonous.) 😦
In 1987, it was really SAD, because a whole BUNCH of cool people died that year—Fred Astaire, Danny Kaye, Liberace and Jackie Gleason, to name a few. AMC did a “memorial-tribute” to the over 20 people that had passed, who’d contributed to the film and television industry in such a positive and wonderful way during their lives; this included not ONLY actors—but also writers, directors, producers, etc. I thought that was nice.
In 1996, I saw an AMC show Jeremy Brett hosted (made in 1994), which was done to mark the 30th anniversary of the release of the film: “My Fair Lady” (Jeremy played “Freddie” in it). It was being re-shown as part of AMC’s “Film Preservation Month” in October, because it told the “behind the scenes” story of the extensive restoration-process of the that movie, saving it for future generations to enjoy. Jeremy had JUST died the year before, so for me to see him SO alive, happy and well again, was very fulfilling…it felt almost like he was still HERE. I’ve since seen it a couple more times over the years, and it ALWAYS cheers me up—strangely, it looks kind-of like a NEW show! 🙂
I’m gonna MISS good ol’ AMC! Why do people have to RUIN something that’s working just FINE as it is, by going and CHANGING it (and for the WORSE, I might add)?? Go FIGURE! 😡
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Oh you guys are killing me..I havent had TV in a good form for 10 years..or in any form,except DVD’s and vido cassets for 5 years. I miss Nick at Night,I miss AMC I miss TMC,I miss the History chanel[which i’m told is all ice rd truckers anyhow now].and I miss PBS,and BBC. Ok Rambel on Black Cat..memories are all I can have of it.We had a local chanel that at night after Twlight Zone would play the same 3 movies all night all week. But would mix them up..like Voice Of Terror…Secret Wepon..Fort Apache. the next night it would be the same 3 movie in a dif order sometimes it would be Voice of Terror 3 times in a row..etc.. They played ALOT of Basil Movies..
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The bigest complet injustice of Laura… also one of my fave flicks.Is when.McPherson..ie Dana Andrews socks Vinny in the tummy and he dosent hit back! Um..Vinny could have wiped up the floor with gumshoe McPherson.All he does is whine and let Judith “WAY too long in the tooth” Anderson pet him like a puppy.Laura Hunt what a idiot Clifton Webb maddly in love with you enough to kill for you Vincent Price drooling over you and you pic Dana Andrews???Cant see Coral as Ann Type..can see Weedy as Ann type.but cant see Basil as “Shebby”,as they call him.
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Neve, you’re describing St. Louis in winter too. 🙂 We (and the media) freak out.
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Not as much as the UK, trust me. 😀
If it rains heavier than usual here everybody goes insane and starts putting sandbags infront of their door.
..Or maybe that’s just my town.
My old primary school got on the news once because of flooding in the playground. It was about 5 inches deep, for heavens sake! xD
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So far we’ve dodged a bullet,in that 1st time in 3 years running we haven’t had an East Coast storm that knocked out power and pretty much paralyzed the region.Heard about some gale-like winds about 25+ miles outside Hartford,CT,but Please God,nothing materialized here (as yet).Dreading next time power is out for over 8 days and businesses closed over 10 days like 2011.No way to even heat water.Fortunate power restored before temp below 32 at night.Hope everyone safe and sound,since storm season still in swing in USA.Storm in Europe was shocking.Been in Ireland during Nov gales,one evening it was worst I’ve seen even in our worst New England storms.
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In April, we had a BIG electrical storm where I live. It was really windy, and raining HARD. While this was going on, my boyfriend and I were watching a show on the Weather Channel about strange weather occurrences caught on camera.
They played a video of a guy fueling his car at the gas-station…a bolt of lightening hit the rainwater on the pavement, and was traveling along the ground towards him, his car, and the GAS—just as it was about to hit him, we heard this HUGE explosion outside, and it lit-up like daylight—and, our cable TV went out! (Darn!!) It turns-out that lightening had hit our 120 ft. tall pine tree, which was only about 10 feet from the side of our house, at that EXACT moment! (Talk about TIMING…It’s a good thing we weren’t standing outside…YIKES!!!) 😮
We attempted to save the tree, but several months later it died from an infestation of bark-beetles, so we had an arborist friend of ours take it down. Oh, well…at least it won’t fall on our bedrooms and CRUSH us during another storm, someday! The annoying thing is—this tree’s been standing there for a few HUNDRED years, and it gets struck by lightening and dies, only 2 years after we move into this house.
Just our rotten LUCK!! 😡
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DAMMIT TREE! YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO DIE THEN! 😡
Oh btw Gretchen, didn’t you say you used to watch Sailor Moon? Just thought I’d let you know there’s meant to be a remake coming out in the next year, I can’t wait! ^_^
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Yeah, I used to watch “Sailor Moon” in the ’90s……there were even poseable action-figure dolls of all the characters, that came with extra costumes and accessories, available at the toy store. They looked like anime Barbies! Maybe they’ll start making them, again.
I’ve noticed that ALL the toys and stuff I had as a kid in the ’80s are STILL around—My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, Care Bears, Hello Kitty, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Cabbage Patch Kids; and, even Teddy Ruxpin! 🙂
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Hello Kitty is amazing too! ^_^
I have a few of those dolls that I bought on eBay! (Sailor Jupiters hairs fallen out a bit though) I’m planning on getting perhaps a shelf or two to put my anime things on, at the moment most of my Sailor moon things have been stuffed into a draw. :*(
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wow, was it yours and your b/f’s home or your family home?
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It’s my boyfriend’s and mine. 🙂
At my parents’ house, it storms pretty good each year, too; and, there’s also a bunch of HUGE pine trees next to it! AAAGH!! I used to be SOOO freaked-out when I lived there, and one of those never-ending windstorms would blow in for DAYS…I kept imagining a tree was going to crash through our roof at ANY time! 😮
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Glad to hear your OK
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