Book
Proposal
Title: The Ravens
in the
Authorship: Written by Boria
Sax, with an introduction and illustrations by Tony Angell.
Expected Length: About 200
pages of text (ca. 50,000 words), plus many illustrations.
Date of
Completion:
The Manuscript is essentially complete, though subject to revision.
Summary:
With about three million visitors per
year, the
This is the first book to reconstruct
the history of the famous ravens, and how they came to the
The author has found, to his initial
surprise, that the ravens at the Tower are not ancient and were not
domesticated under Charles II, as had been almost universally assumed. The
legend that Britain will fall if the ravens leave the Tower dates, also
contrary to what has been universally believed, only to the end of World War
II. Their story, however, remains full of high drama, and the legend was
inspired by the use of ravens as unofficial spotters for enemy planes and bombs
during the Blitz.
Because the myth is modern does not make
it less authentic, and the ravens can still connect the British with both their
history and with the natural world. For the approximately 130 years that the
ravens have been at the Tower, they have been variously viewed as symbols of cruelty,
avatars of fate, and cuddly national pets. In contemporary times, the legend
that makes the ravens protectors of the nation may be given an ecological
interpretation.
The book concludes with an argument that
the ravens should continue to be kept as a colony at the Tower but no longer
deprived of flight. It will probably prove impossible to keep them with clipped
wings when, as now seems inevitable, wild ravens return to
Narrative
Outline:
Introduction
by Tony Angell
This
introduction compares the ravens in the
PART ONE: WHAT
THE RAVENS TELL
This
is an introductory chapter describing the fascination that the ravens in the
Tower have had for visitors from the Japanese author Natsume Soseki in the
early nineteenth century to the present.
This
chapter tells the story of how the author began to investigate the Tower
Ravens, and then examines the lore of the ravens as myth, tradition, and
folklore.
This
chapter looks at the ravens in the context of Victorian culture, which was
fascinated with medieval and esoteric themes.
This
chapter looks at ravens and their importance in British culture and mythology,
from the Celts and Romans to modern times.
V. Bran
the Blessed
This
chapter tells of the Celtic raven-god Bran, who was the ultimate inspiration
for the institution of the Tower Ravens.
VI.
A Shrine for Martyrs
This
chapter tells of how the
This
chapter tells how ravens were driven from
This
chapter reconstructs how the first ravens may have been brought to the Tower by
the Earls of Dunraven in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
This
chapter tells how ravens were used unofficially as spotters for enemy planes
during World War II, and reconstructs how the legend that
PART THREE: THE
RAVENS, TODAY AND TOMORROW
X. National
Pets
This chapter looks at the way the Tower Ravens went
from being symbols of doom to national pets in the latter twentieth century.
XI. In the Beat of a Raven’s Wing
This chapter looks at the institution of the Tower
Ravens in the perspective of postmodern theory and literature
XII. The Ravens and the Crown
This chapter looks at the mystique of the Tower
Ravens and the Monarchy they represent, in light of massive changes in
contemporary British society.
Epilogue: Will
This chapter proposes how a nest of live ravens can
be maintained at the
Intended
Audience:
This book will appeal to the following
audiences, in order of probable commercial importance:
1)
The millions of tourists who visit the ravens at the
2)
Scholars of human-animal relations, a field where the author has already
published extensively and is well known.
3)
Readers who are interested in the development of myth, whether on a scholarly
or popular (i.e., New Age) level.
Articles Adapted
from the Book:
The
author has published several articles and encyclopedia entries adapted from the
material in this book. Two articles published in refereed journals are as
follows:
"How
Ravens Came to the Tower of London." Society and Animals. 15.3
(2007b): 267-81.
"Medievalism,
Paganism, and the Tower Ravens." The
Pomegranate:The International Journal of Pagan Studies. 9.1 (2007):
62-77.
About the
Author:
Boria
Sax has a doctorate in Intellectual History and German from SUNY Buffalo. He has
worked extensively in online education, for which he received the prestigious
Sloan-C 2002 award for “Online Learning Effectiveness.” He is also founder of
the organization Nature in Legend and Story, dedicated “to promote
understanding of traditional bonds between human beings and the natural world.”
Two of his books, Animals in the Third
Reich (Continuum 2000) and The
Mythical Zoo (ABC-CLIO 2002), have been named as “Outstanding Academic
Titles” of the year by the journal Choice.
His books have been translated into French, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, and
About the
Illustrations:
Many of the illustrations shall be from
photographs taken by the author, particularly of the