Sleep is good, books are better
No. 6. Anna Karenina and Alexei Vronsky from Anna Karenina Spoiler alert! OK - so your husband is as dull as a potato and Count Vronsky is handsome, charming and passionate. But you're in Russia and look at the calendar - it's 1873. This is not a relationship with good prospects. For Vronsky: Anna will... Continue Reading →
Poor Jude. Life somehow got in the way. Jude was the first adult book I ever read. Bromley Public Library. A strange choice really, especially given the ending! Even so, I could tell there was something magical about it – the power of writing and dreams. https://uk.pinterest.com/longvictorian2/thomas-hardy/
Readers reading #1 A Girl Reading In A Sailing Boat (1869) By Alfred Corbould (1852 - 1920). A Girl Reading In A Sailing Boat (1869) by Alfred Chantrey Corbould (1852-1920). Looking at those dates, it makes the artist about 17 years old when he painted this lovely work. Alfred came from a long line of... Continue Reading →
No. 7. Arabella Donn and Jude Fawley from Jude the Obscure Spoiler alert! Wonderful writing, but such a sad tale. Jude was the first adult book I ever read. Thank you, Bromley Public Library. A strange choice for a child really, especially given the ending! Even so, I could tell there was something magical about... Continue Reading →
No. 8. Dorothea and Edward Casaubon from Middlemarch (George Eliot) Spoiler alert! Another of Eliot’s brilliant portraits of a hopeless pairing. Dorothea (“Dodo”) is a sheltered and intense young woman with a background in English and Swiss Puritanism: Riding was an indulgence which she allowed herself in spite of conscious qualms; she felt she enjoyed... Continue Reading →
No. 9. Lydia Bennet and George Wickham from Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) Spoiler alert! The marital prognosis on this relationship isn’t good, I fear. Wickham is a compulsive liar, gambler, debtor and idler. He has previously attempted to elope with Darcy’s young sister to access her fortune. Then he elopes with Lydia, Elizabeth’s 15... Continue Reading →
No. 10. Rosamund Vincy and Dr Lydgate from Middlemarch Spoiler alert! Rosamund and Lydgate: One of the many gems to be found in George Eliot's Middlemarch is the genius psychological portraits of Dr Tertius Lydgate and Miss Rosamund Vincy (soon Mrs Lydgate) - including how their marriage faired from early pleasure, through crisis and life-sapping... Continue Reading →
Favourite quotes from Middlemarch by George Eliot “Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.” “One can begin so many things with a new person! - even begin to be a better man.” “The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the... Continue Reading →
Where is Anne Catherick?! Or to be more accurate where is this painting? In a Tumblr post on Wilkie Collins' sensational novel The Woman in White, I used the Pre-Raphaelite painting for illustration. The Somnambulist by John Everett Millais. It is thought by some that Millais was inspired by the book. It left me wanting... Continue Reading →
No. 11. Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins from Pride and Prejudice Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins: Charlotte Lucas seems a pleasant young woman. She has a sense of humour and is a close friend of the delightful Elizabeth Bennet. What a shame then that she marries that fawning, conceited, potato and chimney connoisseur, Mr Collins.... Continue Reading →
The Long Victorian 