Capabel Press aims to publish titles that make a significant contribution to the sum of human knowledge. Received wisdom may of course be challenged in the process.
With this website we seek to focus attention on the topics addressed in our books. Yet we recognise that the background of an author may also be of interest to our readers.
Born in 1949, Hatfield's school days were focused initially on the classics, mathematics and history. Later he turned to the sciences, and in 1967 was awarded an open scholarship by St John's College, Cambridge.
For thirty years pursuing a successful career as a professional engineer, he would direct his attention next to a different challenge.
An interest in analysing the spelling riddles in Greek scripture led to assembling the arguments set out in Why Call Me God, published (2009) by Capabel Press.
More recently his research has widened to include the use of literary metathesis in Latin and Greek texts from the ancient world.
In his new book The Disorderly Latin Riddles of Symphosius, he analyses each of the 100 riddles in Latin collected in the 5th century under the name 'Symphosius'. He shows how thoroughly the writers of these clever riddles have exploited the compositional technique of metathesis. By this means they have sought to conceal, amidst the very words they wrote, an additional component of meaning... a secret component they must have known would be overlooked by many readers.
Hatfield points out that we find this metathesis 'trick' deployed for much the same purpose in other well established texts, ranging from the Hebrew bible to the Christian gospels and the works of English poets Lewis Carroll and T.S Eliot. Accordingly his new book addresses a topic that remains today of enduring cultural importance.