Serendipity

Carol Mavor is Emeritus Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Manchester. She has published widely on photography, cinema, colour and childhood. Her books include Aurelia: Art and Literature Through the Mouth of the Fairy Tale (Reaktion, 2017).

• Preface My Early Education in SerendipityIntroduction From a Smashed Thimble to Two Hares Falling Out of BreathChapter One To AngelizeChapter Two Moeder, Maman, Mom - Anne Frank, Chantal Akerman, Dorothy Aileen AshcraftPostscriptum Written After: Moeder, Maman, Mom or, I sang so hard I almost explodedChapter Three Sally Mann's Scarred Tree - Tete-a-Tete with Proust's 'Three Trees'Chapter Four Making Poems Out of What Is Not There: The Envelopes of Emily Dickinson and London's Foundling HospitalChapter Five Two Hares Falling Out of BreathChapter Six Lolita's Gray EyesAfterwordReferencesAcknowledgementsPhoto Acknowledgements

Welcoming us into the afterlife of the happy accident, Carol Mavor’s poetic ruminations reveal a cavalcade of surprising connections between a diverse array of images and objects. In the process, Serendipity reflects on the magical power of writing itself, on the capacity of the learned essayist to take us on dizzying flights of fancy and into profound depths of understanding.