Malcolm Lowry archive celebrates Merseyside writer
Malcolm Lowry’s novel Under the Volcano is hailed a modern masterpiece and is regularly cited as one the 20th Century’s greatest English novels.
Lowry remains one of Merseyside’s most celebrated writers and a blue plaque in his honour was unveiled in 2019 in his birthplace, New Brighton.
In recent years, LJMU’s Research Institute for Literature and Cultural History has co-created a series of events to celebrate his life and work, in partnership with Liverpool Bluecoat art centre.
The project is led by Bluecoat’s Bryan Biggs, a LJMU Honorary Fellow, and Dr Helen Tookey, Reader in Creative Writing, who, with a cast of authors and artists, have now launched an online archive of the work which began in 2009, with an exhibition of artworks inspired by the author.
Helen said: "We’re really pleased to be able to make this collection available online, bringing together everything we’ve done over the past fifteen years to celebrate Lowry and hopefully raise his profile here in the place where he was born and grew up."
Lowry spent most of his adult life abroad but the landscapes of Liverpool and the Wirral continued to feature in his writing throughout his life.
Bryan Biggs said: “A big part of our project has been the idea of re-placing Lowry as a writer very much from, and of, north-west England and Merseyside in particular. In 2019, we were delighted to work with Conservation Areas Wirral to have a blue plaque commemorating Lowry installed on the seawall at New Brighton – only ten minutes’ walk from the house where he was born.”
Lowry studied literature at Cambridge, before leaving England for an eventful life in Europe, America, Mexico and Canada, where he settled, living in a squatter’s shack. Here, during the Second World War, he worked on Under the Volcano, set in Mexico on the Day of the Dead. Published in 1947, the book is a richly layered meditation on the human condition and a portrayal of self-destruction.
Each year, Helen and collaborators stage a Day of the Dead ‘Lowry Lounge’, including talks, walks, film screenings and new creative work inspired by Lowry. LJMU and Bluecoat jointly hosted an international conference on the writer in 2017.
This year’s event featured a Mexican-style altar, with screen-printed fabrics by the late John Hyatt, Professor of Fine Art at LJMU, who died last year.
"John had been involved in a number of the previous Lowry events and we really wanted to celebrate him* – as well as Lowry – at this year’s event," said Helen.
Helen and Bryan have co-edited two books about Lowry, published by Liverpool University Press: Malcolm Lowry: From the Mersey to the World (2009) and Remaking the Voyage: New Essays on Malcolm Lowry and In Ballast to the White Sea (2020).
Helen is currently working on a creative non-fiction book, Outward Bound from Liverpool: Reading Malcolm Lowry, to be published by LUP in 2026.
*Bryan Biggs has compiled an appreciation of Prof Hyatt and his career as an artist, with beautifully illustrated with images of John’s artworks, on the Bluecoat website at https://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/about/news/an-appreciation-of-john-hyatt.
MAIN IMAGE: Dr Helen Tookey, LJMU with Bluecoat's Bryan Biggs.
