Category: News

For Christmas: The Silver Trumpet on its 100th Anniversary

In November 2024, I wrote on this blog about what was then the planned publication in 2025 of a new edition of Owen Barfield’s fairy-tale, The Silver Trumpet. Specifically I noted that it would be published by the Barfield Press on the 100th anniversary of its first publication. That gave rise, as I wrote, to a particular curiosity:

I had been wondering recently precisely when in 1925 the book was published by Faber & Gwyer, the predecessor of the publishing house still in existence, Faber & Faber.


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Barfield news: O.B. Symposium in London, November 2025, Rediscovery of Meaning reading group, and a Silver Trumpet review

It is fair to say that there is a feeling of activity and liveliness with everything that touches on Owen Barfield at the moment. Maybe what will turn out to be important in this in the long run is the connections that may be formed between people interested in Barfield’s writing and thinking about thinking. That is not at all to say that the thinking merely underwrites the forming of communities and the friendships that may happen. Rather it is to bring home that the final participation Barfield sought is not finally a private matter for individuals.


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Silver Trumpet new edition round-up: a date for your diary, a review and a request for help

We hope those who have got a copy of the new edition of The Silver Trumpet in the two months have enjoyed reading it, or are enjoying it.

This post is a brief one, by way of information, of news after the new edition’s publication.

Online Event

Whether you have read The Silver Trumpet or not, you may be interested in an online event being held next month by the Inkling Folk Fellowship, details as follows.

  • Topic: Owen Barfield‘s The Silver Trumpet (in Honor of its Republication), with Landon Loftin and Edwin Woodruff-Tait
  • Date and Time: Friday 8th August, 2025.

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The new edition of The Silver Trumpet is out now!

The new edition of The Silver Trumpet has now been published!

It is a delight for the Barfield Press to publish this tale, the first work of fantasy by the group of writers that came to be known as the Inklings, on the centenary of its first publication in 1925.

The blurb is as follows:

The Silver Trumpet was the first children’s fantasy story to be published by one of the Inklings. Its early success with the children of Barfield’s friend and fellow Inkling, J.R.R.

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The Owen Barfield in Russian Club

The Owen Barfield in Russian Club is now ten years old. From the very beginning, we called it a club, although it could be called a “circle” or a “society”, or have no special designation at all, like the Inklings, who are sometimes named an “informal literary group”, though none of them ever thought of it in these terms while it was active. However, our group, brought together by an interest in the works of one single author, Owen Barfield, became a club.


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New Barfield Press edition of The Silver Trumpet forthcoming in 2025

The Barfield Press has been very glad to receive a goodly number of inquiries about when a new edition of Owen Barfield’s first book, The Silver Trumpet, a story written originally for children, will be published.

This is still more the case since we had been hopeful of publishing it in the earlier part of this year, 2024, and announced as much.

But to all those who have inquired, and to sundry others, we can say that the Barfield Press will publish The Silver Trumpet in 2025!


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On Attending the “Plotinus and Barfield” Conference at the University of Cambridge

In September 2023 I attended the first conference on Owen Barfield held at Cambridge University. That weekend, Cambridge basked in the golden embrace of a radiant sun, the city awash in warmth and light. This year’s conference, titled Plotinus and Barfield: Emanation and Evolution, took place on 14th September, and the atmosphere in Cambridge was no different. As I wandered through the narrow streets toward the Divinity Faculty, I crossed over quaint bridges, where punting boats lay moored, poised for a busy day of guiding tourists along the river, offering them glimpses of the city’s breathtaking architecture.


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A Word About The Riddle of the Sphinx

A new collection of essays by Owen Barfield, The Riddle of the Sphinx,  was published by the Barfield Press in November 2023. The book’s name comes from one of the essay titles.

But “the riddle” in this case does not refer to the famous one that Oedipus solved — “What has four legs at dawn, two at noon, and three in the evening?” The answer to that one was, “man”. Or today we might say, “the human being”. Oedipus realized that he crawls as a toddler, stands upright as an adult, and may be supported by a stick in old age.


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