Detectives tie up literary ends

Blackburn poet Mark Ward will be one of the guest speakers

After spending the summer uncovering the county's literary gems, the Lancashire Reading Detectives are set to reveal all this weekend.

In a special 'who wrote it' exhibition at Chorley Library the reading group will unveil their top five finds.

The reading sleuths read over 60 books by 40 local authors about everything from Pendle witches to mill-town tales as part of the project.

There will be a display about the investigations and guest speakers.

Dialect poetry expert Paul Salveson and poet Mark Ward will be at the event and there will be a rare chance to see up close the world renowned Francis Thompson Collection from the Harris Library, Preston.

Stephen Miller who lead the team is delighted with the findings after a sluggish start. "It seemed to be quite a daunting task.

Stephen Miller was in charge of the literary investigations

"At our first meeting we came up with a very unimpressive list of authors we could think of."

The reading group were undeterred, though, and began the hunt to track down Lancashire's lost, forgotten and overlooked literary talents.

"We decided the best plan of action was to just read lots. At times it was quite gruelling and not everything we read was of great literary merit. But in amongst all the stories a few gems began to emerge from the smog."

The top five list are as follows:

Francis Thompson (1858-1907)

A Preston born poet who was a Catholic, opium addict, Lancashire Cricket Club enthusiast, vagrant, and in recent years a main suspect in the Jack the Ripper case.

Ammon Wrigley (1861-1946)

A writer and lover of the east Lancashire moors. His writing is full of the famous dry Lancashire wit and humour.

Allen Clarke (1863-1935)

Bolton's own radical freethinker who was once one of Lancashire's best loved writers. He wrote a vast range of works under many different pseudonyms and had fans including Tolstoy and Thomas Hardy.

Leonora Carrington (1917-present)

Lancashire's greatest Surrealist, she is better known as an artist but Carrington also wrote poetry and prose. She eloped to Paris aged 19 and became friends with artists such as Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Marcel Duchamp.

Mark Ward

Born in Blackburn but has lived all over the world doing a bewildering range of jobs including, building film sets in Africa, working on a tuna boat and hosting an Alaskan radio show. Ward's poetry offers a brutally honest but humorous look at contemporary Lancashire.

The event takes place at Chorley Library on Saturday 7 November between 1pm-3pm. Tickets are free but in limited numbers. Contact 01257 277222 to book your place. Refreshments of Lancashire tea and Chorley cakes will be provided.