Jonty Claypole

But it takes her a while to publish, Sophie, doesn't it?

And why is that?

He says, irregular measure, brackets, introduced to my great regret in its chief willfulness by Coleridge, to which I say, Ruskin, back the hell off, Coleridge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But being Ruskin, he can't admit that.

He claims it's purely a technical complaint.

So he says then if she puts in her observation and passion, all will become precious, but she must have the form first.

And he can't do joy.

Oh, great.

The great thing about the poem, and it's pretty unlike a lot of her work.

I mean, she becomes very devotional as her career goes on.

But I think what makes Goblin Market such a successful poem is just the joyful sensuality, those descriptions of food and of animals.

And coming to introduce the wombat, just before she wrote Goblin Market, she made another trip to the zoo to...

to London Zoo.

And she wrote a letter in 1858, so a couple of months before she writes Goblin Market.

And she writes of the zoo, lizards are in strong force, tortoises active, alligators looking up.

The weasel-headed armadillo, as usual, evaded us.

A tree frog came to light.

The blind wombat, a neighbouring porcupine, broke forth into short-lived hostilities.