The world of books and art, 1789 – 1914
I enjoy blogging, but wish I did it more frequently. Usually my thoughts don't get further than the garden, some end up as tweets. So here is a compromise solution, a half tweet/half blog post, though by the time you read this it may have grown. There is a book quiz at the end. Today... Continue Reading →
This is supposed to be a fun post, not serious research. However it is based on something that I'm interested in, the idea of the doppelganger (a ghostly double). See my previous post, 'Rossetti and the doppelgängers'. Every now and then, when looking at Long Victorian photographs and paintings, I see a face that immediately... Continue Reading →
What do your favourite books say about you? There is a quiz in The Independent newspaper that attempts to calculate how old you are based on your favourite books. Feel free to give it a try. As I mostly favour Long 19th Century books I was expecting it to estimate my age at about 150... Continue Reading →
Don't look yet - have a try first! Answers: Napoléon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821) Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 – 1864) Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 – 1861) Margaret Fuller (1810 – 1850) Gustave Flaubert (1821 – 1880) Mark Twain (1835 – 1910) Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) Not easy - how many... Continue Reading →
Can you identify the above quotes about reading? Need some clues? Read on. [Warning – clue below] To help you here is a list of the authors responsible for the quotes –the list is presented in chronological order by birth. Napoléon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821) Jane Austen (1775 - 1817) Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864)... Continue Reading →
Don't look yet, have a try first! Answers: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859) The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1845) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868) Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897) The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1902) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818) Adventures... Continue Reading →
Readers reading #8 I saw this painting and immediately thought of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. Oh, whatever happened to the art of letter writing? Smiley face, lol. Heart. Smiley blowing a kiss. Heart kiss kiss. https://uk.pinterest.com/longvictorian2/jane-austen/ The 'Readers reading' series on this blog (this list last updated, 12th March 2017). Readers reading #1.... Continue Reading →
Could this be the first "selfie" in history? It is an 1839 self portrait of Robert Cornelius (1809 –1893). On the reverse of the photo it reads 'The first light picture ever taken'. What pose would you assume if you thought that posterity might stare back at you for eons into the future? Cornelius was... Continue Reading →
Can you identify the famous closing lines above? [Warning – clue below] To help you here is a list of the titles from which the lines were extracted - as usual they are presented in the order of when the book was published: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818) The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre... Continue Reading →
Can you identify these famous opening lines? [Answers below] Answers: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850) Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1864) Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1878) Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1895) Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie (1911) Ethan Frome... Continue Reading →
The Long Victorian 