Friday, November 30, 2012
The Diaries of the Civil War
The Library of Congress is displaying some of them.
From a story on CBS News...
Letters and diaries from those who lived through the Civil War offer a new glimpse at the arguments that split the nation 150 years ago and some of the festering debates that survive today.
The Library of Congress, which holds the largest collection of Civil War documents, pulled 200 items from its holdings to reveal both private and public thoughts from dozens of famous and ordinary citizens who lived in the North and the South. Many are being shown for the first time.
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, for one, was grappling with divided federal and state allegiances. He believed his greater allegiance was to his native Virginia, as he wrote to a friend about resigning his U.S. Army commission.
"Sympathizing with you in the troubles that are pressing so heavily upon our beloved country & entirely agreeing with you in your notions of allegiance, I have been unable to make up my mind to raise my hand against my native state, my relatives, my children & my home," he wrote in 1861. "I have therefore resigned my commission in the Army."
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Have Independent Bookstores Found Their Footing?
NPR investigates.
From the story...
Daniel Goldin of Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee agrees that e-books are no threat to the Christmas dominance of coffee-table books. But Goldin says art and photography volumes actually aren't doing that well at his store this year. This holiday season, Goldin says, cookbooks are the new black. "And I don't mean cheap cookbooks," he says. No one wants to spend $60 on an art book — but a $60 cookbook will fly off the shelves.
"We know people aren't particularly cooking out of those books," Goldin says, "so it's the equivalent experience. It's people buy the book to have the book, to show off the book, to enjoy the book, to be enraptured by the book," but only maybe to make one of the recipes.
Some hardcover books require a harder sell, Goldin continues. Customers have to be persuaded that a bound book has a value that can't be found in an e-book. "I think the key is to convince them that this is one that's a keeper," he says. "We're seeing some wonderful, physical books, especially in hardcover, that are just beautiful, and we'll make a case for that. We'll kind of have a customer weigh a book, put it in their hands, and say, 'Look at the quality of this paper ... that book won't be yellowed, and it won't be brittle. That book will look great in 10, 20 years.' "
"I think the smarter publishers are realizing that the way the physical book matters is in the design of it," says Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, one of the founders of Brooklyn's Greenlight Bookstore.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
The Newest Inductee to Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner? C.S. Lewis
With simplicity and elegance, C.S. Lewis captured the imagination of a war-weary generation.
From a story in the Telegraph...
Lewis is one of the best examples of a writer who took pleasure in the art of communication, melding simplicity and elegance in a way few could manage. His popular religious writings – such as The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity – combine these qualities, even though they cannot be counted as great literature.
Yet this alone does not explain his inclusion in Poets’ Corner. The real reason he deserves his place is on account of his works of fiction, which captured the imagination of his public, especially in the dark days after the Second World War. Supreme among these are his Chronicles of Narnia, especially The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950).
Although he had no children of his own, Lewis produced a work that captured the imagination of a generation of younger readers. The noble lion Aslan, lord of the mysterious world of Narnia, has become one of the most familiar Christ-figures in English literature. Some, understandably, find the Narnia books problematic on account of the “golly-gosh” language of the Pevensie children, or a suspicion that female characters are allocated subsidiary roles in the narrative. Yet they remain a classic in their field, serving as a model for both Lewis’s literary imitators and critics.
Monday, November 26, 2012
15th Century Book on Fighting Witchcraft Found
The University of Alberta proud owner of rare book on fighting witchcraft.
From a story in the Toronto Star...
The book, Invectives Against the Sect of Waldensians, is a
how-to guide to expunge all evil and vanquish the dark forces of
witchcraft. He said the 150-page manuscript is thought to have been
written around 1465 by a monk in France’s Burgundy region, possibly for
Edward IV of England. From a story in the Toronto Star...
“The real evil is actually in this book, and it’s human. It’s not magical,” he said. “It’s a view of one’s fellow human beings as agents of the devil that is truly evil.”
Gow came across the book in 2005 while scouring the university’s Bruce Peel Special Collections Library for teaching material. It is exceedingly rare — only four copies are known to exist.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
The Rise of Graphic Novels
The Guardian takes a look at the skyrocketing critical acclaim of graphic novels in the past years.
From the story...
A comic book about the Holocaust starring mice changed that. Art Spiegelman's Maus, a graphic memoir about his relationship with his Holocaust-survivor father published in full in 1991, was a critical hit and in 1992 Spiegelman was awarded the Pulitzer prize. "Art Spiegelman doesn't draw comics," proclaimed the New York Times in its rapturous 1991 review. "Maus … is a serious form of pictorial literature."
Pictorial literature was born. Then graphic novels, then sequential art, then graphic memoirs. All seemed more palatable than plain old comic books, which critics still couldn't quite get their heads around. "The success of Maus was something of a false dawn," said comics historian Paul Gravett. "The comics industry thought mainstream publishers were finally going to wake up to comic books, but it didn't happen. Publishers didn't know how to market them."
Instead, there was a gradual creep. In 1998, the publishing director of Jonathan Cape, Dan Franklin, was given a manuscript by his children's division. "They said, we don't think this is for children, do you want to publish it?" he said. The book was Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs, a heartbreaking graphic memoir about the author's parents. It sold 200,000 copies. "It gave me a rather distorted view of how well comic books might do," said Franklin, "but I fell in love with the form."
Jonathan Cape began publishing a select list of comic books each year. In 2001, Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth won the Guardian first book award. "Chris Ware was a watershed," said Franklin. "Suddenly, people were talking about it. Comics had gone overground." Cape has since published some of the most respected comics of the past decade: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi about her life in Iran, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel about her secretly gay father, and Palestine, a long-form work of comics reportage by Joe Sacco.
The Iceberg That Sank the Titanic
The photo of the guilty party is going up for auction soon. The Daily Mail has more, here.
A photograph of an iceberg claimed to be the one which sunk Titanic is being sold at auction for $10,000.
The black and white picture of the iceberg was taken two days before the sinking of the Titanic by the Captain of the S. S. Etonian on April 12, 1912.
The photograph is just one of over 400 Titanic memorabilia items included in American auction house RR Auction's sale next month.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236848/Is-iceberg-sunk-Titanic-Picture-guilty-ice-set-make-10-000-auction.html#ixzz2D9cHa7lK
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The black and white picture of the iceberg was taken two days before the sinking of the Titanic by the Captain of the S. S. Etonian on April 12, 1912.
The photograph is just one of over 400 Titanic memorabilia items included in American auction house RR Auction's sale next month.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236848/Is-iceberg-sunk-Titanic-Picture-guilty-ice-set-make-10-000-auction.html#ixzz2D9cHa7lK
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Saturday, November 24, 2012
22 Things I Learned from Submitting Writing
The list, care of Blake Butler, on HTML Giant.
From the piece...
6. Deletion is holy.
7. It’s not that fun to publish places you don’t read. Early on I would send to anywhere that was open, I would look at Duotrope on those days that all the mags reopened like a holiday, with slews of places to put my stuff out in, and if eventually I placed something, I would feel happy for however long it took to read the letter and say yes, and then, ok. Now what. That’s not really the point, though. The point for publishing isn’t for the pat on the back (though it can feel nice) and not even really because people are going to see your work (some will, but let’s not pretend litmags are doors to fame). What it does is give you a space to practice and refine and have a mental sandwich every now and then. Getting your nose ground in, whether the work is truly shitty or truly awesome, is vital to growth.
8. You must keep moving. The reason I was able to send out so much work was also that I was constantly writing new stuff all the time and sending that out and firing and firing. While part of my goal might have been to get something ready to go out, the real value was that it gave me an arrow in the butt to keep writing. The subsequent frustration that is practically unavoidable also, if harnessed in the right way, can lead to you “giving less of a fuck” and maybe in the process finding out what you really want to say, or how to get in the way to say it.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Wormholes in Old Books Preserve a History of Insects
Discover Magazine takes a look at the bugs that live in our books.
From the piece...
There’s no way of telling how old a particular hole is. Instead, Hedges looked at prints in actual books. Since the books bear their date and place of publication, Hedges could trace the provenance of each hole to a specific year and country.
He studied more than 3,200 such holes, made between 1462 and 1899. Those from northern Europe, including England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia, were round, and just 1.4 millimetres wide on average. Those from southern Europe, including Spain, Portugal, Italy and most of France, were larger, with average diameters of 2.3 millimetres. The southern holes also included many long tracks—these were made when the beetles, rather than burrowing straight out, exited from the wood in diagnonal paths that followed the grain.
An incredibly rare first edition of Jane Austen's novel Emma is tipped to sell for 200,000 pounds after being discovered.
The three volume presentation copy is the only one from the original print run of 12 known to exist today.
The literary legend requested that 11 of the books went to members of the Royal family, including the Prince Regent, and her own family.
The one that has now emerged for sale was gifted to Anne Sharp, a close friend of the novelist.
A clerk at the publishers was specifically instructed by Austen to pen the words 'from the author' on the title page of the book, which is still present today.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236080/Last-surviving-edition-copy-Jane-Austens-Emma-set-fetch-200-000-auction.html#ixzz2CrYGvXYp
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The three volume presentation copy is the only one from the original print run of 12 known to exist today.
The literary legend requested that 11 of the books went to members of the Royal family, including the Prince Regent, and her own family.
The one that has now emerged for sale was gifted to Anne Sharp, a close friend of the novelist.
A clerk at the publishers was specifically instructed by Austen to pen the words 'from the author' on the title page of the book, which is still present today.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236080/Last-surviving-edition-copy-Jane-Austens-Emma-set-fetch-200-000-auction.html#ixzz2CrYGvXYp
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
An incredibly rare first edition of Jane Austen's novel Emma is tipped to sell for 200,000 pounds after being discovered.
The three volume presentation copy is the only one from the original print run of 12 known to exist today.
The literary legend requested that 11 of the books went to members of the Royal family, including the Prince Regent, and her own family.
The one that has now emerged for sale was gifted to Anne Sharp, a close friend of the novelist.
A clerk at the publishers was specifically instructed by Austen to pen the words 'from the author' on the title page of the book, which is still present today.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236080/Last-surviving-edition-copy-Jane-Austens-Emma-set-fetch-200-000-auction.html#ixzz2CrYGvXYp
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
The three volume presentation copy is the only one from the original print run of 12 known to exist today.
The literary legend requested that 11 of the books went to members of the Royal family, including the Prince Regent, and her own family.
The one that has now emerged for sale was gifted to Anne Sharp, a close friend of the novelist.
A clerk at the publishers was specifically instructed by Austen to pen the words 'from the author' on the title page of the book, which is still present today.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236080/Last-surviving-edition-copy-Jane-Austens-Emma-set-fetch-200-000-auction.html#ixzz2CrYGvXYp
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
An incredibly rare first edition of Jane Austen's novel Emma is tipped to sell for 200,000 pounds after being discovered.
The three volume presentation copy is the only one from the original print run of 12 known to exist today.
The literary legend requested that 11 of the books went to members of the Royal family, including the Prince Regent, and her own family.
The one that has now emerged for sale was gifted to Anne Sharp, a close friend of the novelist.
A clerk at the publishers was specifically instructed by Austen to pen the words 'from the author' on the title page of the book, which is still present today.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236080/Last-surviving-edition-copy-Jane-Austens-Emma-set-fetch-200-000-auction.html#ixzz2CrYGvXYp
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
The three volume presentation copy is the only one from the original print run of 12 known to exist today.
The literary legend requested that 11 of the books went to members of the Royal family, including the Prince Regent, and her own family.
The one that has now emerged for sale was gifted to Anne Sharp, a close friend of the novelist.
A clerk at the publishers was specifically instructed by Austen to pen the words 'from the author' on the title page of the book, which is still present today.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236080/Last-surviving-edition-copy-Jane-Austens-Emma-set-fetch-200-000-auction.html#ixzz2CrYGvXYp
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236080/Last-surviving-edition-copy-Jane-Austens-Emma-set-fetch-200-000-auction.html#ixzz2CrXrEvX6
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236080/Last-surviving-edition-copy-Jane-Austens-Emma-set-fetch-200-000-auction.html#ixzz2CrXrEvX6
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A Guide to the Meaning and Usefulness of Punctuation Marks
Some literary humor, care of McSweeney's.
From the piece...
Ampersand. Great for loud parties on the beach. Use often, especially if you are under 47 and intend to kick that crippling cocaine habit. Does not grant wishes. Looks best in lipstick and serif fonts.
Question mark. Do not, under any circumstances, question Mark. Mark doesn’t know anything.
Apostrophe. A broken, poetic mark which bears the scars of the time it allegedly spent in Vietnam. Be careful with it. Useful, however, in unsent letters and medical prescriptions.
Ellipsis. Defective, oval punctuation mark, sometimes mistakenly tripled by idiots. Usually appears to mark out oral sex scenes involving psychiatrists. Also, occasionally, in epic space operas. Do not get this as a tattoo.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Treating Poetry Like Painting
The case for making contemporary poetry accessible to a wider public by putting it in museums and galleries, care of Hazlitt.
From the piece...
But mostly what I envy painters for is art galleries. Just walking into an art gallery gives me a feeling of uplift. I love libraries too, but the feeling in a library is that you will paw around ferretting out information, whereas in a gallery the feeling is that enlightenment will come to you. You don’t have to know anything when you get there. You just check your coat, mash the clip-on tag to your collar, and trust that whatever you need to know will be explained as you go along.
This is why I propose that the best way to make contemporary poetry accessible to a wider public would be to put it in museums.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
What Happens When Hawkeye Runs Out of Arrows?
He
told The Sunday Times: 'It was like being hit by a juggernaut. One
minute, I was Simon Tolkien, a barrister from London. The next, I was
JRR Tolkien's grandson. This might sound strange, but I began to lose
sight of who I was. It was as if I — me, Simon — had disappeared. I felt
suffocated.'
It was reported at the time that the family row stemmed from Mr Tolkien's willingness to cooperate with director Peter Jackson despite opposition from the rest of the estate.
However this was later denied.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2235098/Simon-Tolkien-Lord-Rings-films-like-juggernaut-tore-family-apart.html#ixzz2Cg7hwNQt
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It was reported at the time that the family row stemmed from Mr Tolkien's willingness to cooperate with director Peter Jackson despite opposition from the rest of the estate.
However this was later denied.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2235098/Simon-Tolkien-Lord-Rings-films-like-juggernaut-tore-family-apart.html#ixzz2Cg7hwNQt
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
He
told The Sunday Times: 'It was like being hit by a juggernaut. One
minute, I was Simon Tolkien, a barrister from London. The next, I was
JRR Tolkien's grandson. This might sound strange, but I began to lose
sight of who I was. It was as if I — me, Simon — had disappeared. I felt
suffocated.'
It was reported at the time that the family row stemmed from Mr Tolkien's willingness to cooperate with director Peter Jackson despite opposition from the rest of the estate.
However this was later denied.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2235098/Simon-Tolkien-Lord-Rings-films-like-juggernaut-tore-family-apart.html#ixzz2Cg7hwNQt
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
It was reported at the time that the family row stemmed from Mr Tolkien's willingness to cooperate with director Peter Jackson despite opposition from the rest of the estate.
However this was later denied.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2235098/Simon-Tolkien-Lord-Rings-films-like-juggernaut-tore-family-apart.html#ixzz2Cg7hwNQt
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
He
told The Sunday Times: 'It was like being hit by a juggernaut. One
minute, I was Simon Tolkien, a barrister from London. The next, I was
JRR Tolkien's grandson. This might sound strange, but I began to lose
sight of who I was. It was as if I — me, Simon — had disappeared. I felt
suffocated.'
It was reported at the time that the family row stemmed from Mr Tolkien's willingness to cooperate with director Peter Jackson despite opposition from the rest of the estate.
However this was later denied.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2235098/Simon-Tolkien-Lord-Rings-films-like-juggernaut-tore-family-apart.html#ixzz2Cg7hwNQt
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
It was reported at the time that the family row stemmed from Mr Tolkien's willingness to cooperate with director Peter Jackson despite opposition from the rest of the estate.
However this was later denied.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2235098/Simon-Tolkien-Lord-Rings-films-like-juggernaut-tore-family-apart.html#ixzz2Cg7hwNQt
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
He said the success of the film's made him feel as if he had 'disappeared'.
He told The Sunday Times: 'It was like being hit by a juggernaut. One minute, I was Simon Tolkien, a barrister from London. The next, I was JRR Tolkien's grandson. This might sound strange, but I began to lose sight of who I was. It was as if I — me, Simon — had disappeared. I felt suffocated.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2235098/Simon-Tolkien-Lord-Rings-films-like-juggernaut-tore-family-apart.html#ixzz2Cg7puU5r
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
He told The Sunday Times: 'It was like being hit by a juggernaut. One minute, I was Simon Tolkien, a barrister from London. The next, I was JRR Tolkien's grandson. This might sound strange, but I began to lose sight of who I was. It was as if I — me, Simon — had disappeared. I felt suffocated.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2235098/Simon-Tolkien-Lord-Rings-films-like-juggernaut-tore-family-apart.html#ixzz2Cg7puU5r
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
When Was the First Cookery Book for Children Published?
Research into the antiquarian book world reveals that one of the earliest was Lucy Crump's Three Little Cooks, published in 1906. Although it is illustrated, the pictures are a far cry from the mouth-watering illustrations a reader would expect today. It contains few recipes as it is more of a play adventure - which deals with everything from buying a stove and utensils in a toyshop to cooking a seven-course meal.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Adapting Great Expectations
David Nicholls, author of the hit novel One Day, has always loved Dickens's novel. As the film version is about to be released, he reveals how he set about his adaptation.
From a piece in the Guardian...
A good, strong heartfelt adaptation is the next best thing to pressing the novel into someone's hand; listen to this story, it's wonderful, thrilling, it will make you cry. An adaptation leads the cinema-goer to the original to find out what they're missing and if they already know the book, it can still illuminate a theme, a character, an idea. Of course, when it doesn't work, it can be maddening, like reading an edition that someone else has defaced; why have they underlined this passage, but crossed out that? What are all these extra doodles? Why are my favourite pages torn out?
The process of writing a novel and adapting one are hugely different. It takes genius to conjure up Pip, Estella, Magwitch, Miss Havisham. Screenwriting is creative certainly, but it's also editorial, technical, pragmatic and collaborative. So what follows are some notes and observations on adaptation, some of the dilemmas thrown up by the process and the reasoning behind the solutions.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Saturday, November 17, 2012
A Poetry-Fueled War
During the Civil War, poetry didn’t just respond to events; it shaped them.
From an interview on Poetry Foundation...
You write that the Civil War was a “poetry-fueled war.” What do you mean by that?
Poetry in mid-19th-century America was ubiquitous in a way that it just isn’t now. It was everywhere in newspapers and magazines, children were learning it in school…. Americans were encountering poetry on a weekly basis, if not a daily basis, in the Civil War era, and that’s a profound difference from contemporary poetry and its place in our culture.
There are so many accounts in newspapers of soldiers dying with a poem in their pockets, poems written on a scrap of paper folded up inside a book; so many accounts of songs or poems being sung or read to political leaders at particular moments. For example, after Lincoln announced the second call for a draft ... James Sloan Gibbons wrote this song poem called “Three Hundred Thousand More,” which he supposedly sang to Lincoln in his office one day. So there’s a kind of immediacy of impact, that poetry is actually, I suggest, shaping events, not just responding or reflecting on them.
How did these poems reach the general public? They must have traveled somewhat quickly since they’re responding to political events.
The technological development of the railroad and then also the increasingly affordable technologies of printing and reproduction had the result of dramatically increasing the speed with which poetry could move around. ... Harper’s [Weekly] featured poetry pretty regularly. It’s the equivalent of readers seeing poetry in a magazine like Newsweek or Time, or maybe even People magazine. ... Then also it’s a shorter genre, it can be more quickly written; it can be written in response to immediate events….
Friday, November 16, 2012
Thursday, November 15, 2012
The Great Literary History of...Hockey?
Indeed.
From a piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books...
Faulkner never again wrote about hockey. As far as we know, he never attended another NHL contest. Still, "Innocent at Rinkside" resonated because, for so long, the literature of hockey was "oddly limited," as George Plimpton put it, "odd because its world [...] is rife with storytellers and legend-keepers, and because hockey has a long and absorbing history."
This was true in Canada, where the rink is sacred ground, as well as America. Indeed, while the likes of Ring Lardner, Jack London, A.J. Liebling, P.G. Wodehouse, Norman Mailer, Fred Exley, Bernard Malamud, W.C. Heinz, John McPhee, Dan Jenkins, Donald Hall, Philip Roth, David Halberstam, Willie Morris, and Plimpton himself (among many others) were creating a small, vital, sports-lit cannon that revolved about baseball, boxing, football, basketball, horse racing, golf, and the Olympics, there was no must-read hockey novel, no classic memoir, no go-to oral history. Only in the works of Mordecai Richler could readers catch glimpses of the ice. (Hollywood made one contribution: Slap Shot (1977), with an uproarious screenplay written by Nancy Dowd based on her younger brother's minor-league hockey experiences. The next year, Dowd won the Academy Award for Coming Home.)
The Great Dickens Scandal
The author of a new biography chronicles how the writer’s affair with a much younger actress was
revealed to the world only after the death of Dickens’s last surviving
child.
From a piece in the Daily Beast...
Shortly before Christmas 1933 Dickens’s last surviving child, the 84-year-old judge Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, was knocked down by a motorcyclist. He died a few days later. For years he had striven to ensure that the story of his father’s 12-year relationship with Ellen Ternan, an actress 27 years his junior, should be kept under wraps. It had been mentioned in the press, on both sides of the Atlantic, when Dickens and his wife legally separated in 1858. The following year, however, Ellen left the stage and disappeared altogether from public view. In 1870 Dickens died, mourned by the whole nation as a truly great and good man, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Six years later Ellen, after deducting 10 years from her actual age, married a schoolmaster and became the mother of two. She died a highly respectable widow in 1914. Fourteen years later she figured in a novel called This Side Idolatry, depicting Dickens’s life up to 1858. He discovers Ellen behind the scenes at a theater weeping with shame over the scantiness of her stage costume and quickly becomes infatuated with her. This is the last straw for his long-suffering wife and the novel ends with her denouncing him and telling him to go to his “painted actress.”
From a piece in the Daily Beast...
Shortly before Christmas 1933 Dickens’s last surviving child, the 84-year-old judge Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, was knocked down by a motorcyclist. He died a few days later. For years he had striven to ensure that the story of his father’s 12-year relationship with Ellen Ternan, an actress 27 years his junior, should be kept under wraps. It had been mentioned in the press, on both sides of the Atlantic, when Dickens and his wife legally separated in 1858. The following year, however, Ellen left the stage and disappeared altogether from public view. In 1870 Dickens died, mourned by the whole nation as a truly great and good man, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Six years later Ellen, after deducting 10 years from her actual age, married a schoolmaster and became the mother of two. She died a highly respectable widow in 1914. Fourteen years later she figured in a novel called This Side Idolatry, depicting Dickens’s life up to 1858. He discovers Ellen behind the scenes at a theater weeping with shame over the scantiness of her stage costume and quickly becomes infatuated with her. This is the last straw for his long-suffering wife and the novel ends with her denouncing him and telling him to go to his “painted actress.”
How Many Biographers Fall for Their Subjects?
Plenty do, but few act on it.
From a piece on Salon...
Have many biographers had affairs with their subjects?
Not that we know of. Broadwell probably isn’t the first biographer to
carry on a sexual relationship with a high-profile subject at the
height of his or her fame, but she is the first to be caught. Other
cases are largely in the realm of rumor and unsubstantiated gossip. The
best example is Doris Kearns (now Kearns Goodwin), who spent many hours interviewing Lyndon B. Johnson at his Texas ranch. The author probably didn’t help matters by admitting that LBJ liked to climb into her bed for interviews. But she insists that she never joined the former
president in bed, and there is no evidence that a romance occurred.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Did Robert Louis Stevenson Die of Syphilis?
That's what a new biography suggests.
From a short article in the Daily Record...
Jeremy Hodges is convinced the Treasure Island author was killed by the disease in 1894 rather than tuberculosis and “overwork”, as widely believed.
The biographer suggests letters between Stevenson and a close friend, plus extracts from his mother’s diary, lay bare Stevenson’s battle against syphilis.
He said: “It would seem some unblushing daughter of Venus did Louis a lasting injury in 1872 around the time of his 22nd birthday.”
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Marilyn Monroe Photos Sell for $750,000
Hundreds of photographs of Marilyn Monroe that languished for years in New York have sold.
From a piece in the Telegraph...
The photos come from a collection of some 4,000 Milton Greene pictures that Poland obtained from Chicago businessman Dino Matingas in the mid-1990s as the result of a complex communist-era embezzlement scandal linked to the buy-out of Poland’s state debt. Proceeds from the auction will go to the Polish government.
Some of the images have never been published before, according to Marta Maciazek, the Polish official in charge of cleaning up the mess from the corruption affair.
Authentic 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' Chess Board Discovered
An 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' chess board, hand-crafted in 1875 by the 'Alice novels' illustrator Sir John Tenniel, has been discovered and 150 limited-edition replicas made.
From a piece in the Telegraph...
Now it seems Tenniel (1820-1914) may have considered a sideline in creating Alice
merchandise.
In summer 2011, an Alice-themed chess board was bought by rare books
dealer Jake Fior, who, upon closer inspection, discovered that it had been
illustrated by Tenniel himself and was one-of-a-kind.
The board features 16 ink and watercolour illustrations of images from the
novel Alice Through the Looking Glass along its gilded border. It is
believed to have been created in 1875 – four years after the book’s
publication.
11 Things You Probably Didn't Know about James Bond
The list, care of io9.
From said list...
10. Ian Fleming had literary aspirations for the Bond novels
He referred to his books not as literature, but as "thrillers designed to be read as literature." In a 1957 letter to CBS, Fleming explained: "In hard covers, my books are written for and appeal primarily to an "A" readership but they have all been reprinted in paperbacks in both England and America and it appears that the "B" and "C" classes find them equally readable, although one might have thought that the sophistication of the background and detail would be outside their experience and in part incomprehensible." Much later, Fleming was vindicated, when the critic Umberto Eco embarked on a rigorous study of the Bond books using the then-trendy field of Structural Analysis.
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