The world of books and art, 1789 – 1914
Book review – The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844) “Hatred is blind; rage carries you away; and he who pours out vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught.” The Count of Monte Cristo is a 1250 page adventure novel by French author Alexandre Dumas (working with a collaborator), originally serialised... Continue Reading →
The peculiar life & times of Flaming June: "The most wonderful painting in existence". A world renown Pre-Raphaelite piece of art - that will take us from Clapham Common to Puerto Rico, but carefully avoiding Andrew Lloyd Webber's lefty granny.
Jane Eyre is a book about ugly people - Casting period dramas According to this light-hearted article in The Toast, "Jane Eyre is a book fundamentally about ugly people" and a plea is made to cast "ugly and weird-looking in period dramas": If I accomplish one thing in my life, let it be the increased... 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 →
The Long Victorian 