E. T. A. Hoffmann

E. T. A. Hoffmann´s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, originally uploaded by josefskrhola.

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann. Illustrared by Artuš Scheiner. Published in 1924 in Prague.

The Nutcracker…sweet!

Since both The Nutcracker ballet, and ghosty story telling, have become part of the Yuletide tradition in the hearts of many, especially in mine, I thought a combination of these two would Yuletidey fun, and actually rather Romantic. Not only did Germany give us the Christmas Tree (thanks Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, you ruled [...]

Blake’s Blazing Child: An Essay

The poet, painter and printmaker William Blake lived 1757 – 1827, and although the greatness of both his poems and paintings was not appreciated until the late 19th century, and not fully recognized until the 20th, given Austen’s keen interest in contemporary poetry, I’ve often wondered if she were familiar with Blake’s work. Mind you, [...]

The Old English Gothic

I’m truly delighted to report Valancourt Book’s publication of The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve. The boys at Valancourt have naturally outdone themselves again with their dedication, professionalism and knowledge of Gothic literature. Also included in their edition of The Baron is the complete text of John Broster’s 1799 dramatic adaptation of the novel, Edmond, [...]

An Island of Disorder

“If Britain has a reputation for political stability, it is a reputation of very recent origin. European travellers visiting this country in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were appalled by the disorder they witnessed”
Leslie Mitchell reviews two works on English rebellion in Literary Review

Voice of the Enlightenment

“…She was a woman of much deeper feeling than the world imagined,’ one friend of Anna Barbauld said. She was also a woman of extraordinary sense, writing at the height of invasion fever in 1803, ‘I am sure we do not believe in the danger we pretend to believe in; and I am sure that [...]

Valancourt Books

In reference to the Northanger Canon I’ve often featured Valancourt Books on this site. Valancourt Books in an independent micro press that seeks out and publishes rare and often forgotten works from the past, including several titles in the Northanger Canon. The boys at Valancourt are doing great things for 18th century literature by editing [...]

Crim.Con.

Hallie Rubenhold’s 2008 work Lady Worsley’s Whim is a scholarly and highly entertaining account of the 1782 Criminal Conversation trial of the era. The details of the personal lives of Sir Richard Worsley, 7th Baron of Appuldercombe, his wife Lady Seymour Worsley and her lover George Bisset riveted society and, through the newspapers and the [...]

Austen and The Woolf

“When she was laid in the cradle again she knew not only what the world looked like, but had already chosen her kingdom.”
It is unusually long for a blogpost I know but I can’t resist posting this essay in it’s entirety. Virginia Woolf’s essay on Jane Austen was published in her 1925 collection of essays [...]

La Terreur: The Northanger Canon

I’m so chuffed to find that three of the Northanger Canon titles have made their way onto Valancourt Books‘ bestsellers list for 2008.
The Northanger Canon is a selection of 18th century Gothic fiction immortalized by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey. Other than the two Radcliffe works, the ‘horrid novels’ were belived to be a delightfully [...]

Seymour: A Woman of Spirit and Friends

Lady Worsley’s Whim 2008 by Hallie Rubenhold is an excellently researched and written account of a real-life  Georgian sex scandle. ‘To have Criminal Conversation with’ is an 18th century euphemism for adultery and the 1782 Crim Con trial involving George Bisset, his lover Lady Seymour Worsley and her husband Sir Richard Worsley, 7th Baronet Worsley of Appuldercombe [...]

Notes of E.E. Duncan Jones

“Dr Chapman has shown that Jane Austen often preferred to use or adapt proper names from other writers. An instance of this which, I believe, has not previously been noted, is that of the heroine of Mansfield Park. In The Parish Register, Part II (1807), Jane Austen’s favourite poet Crabbe had written:

Sir Edward is [...]

The Diodati Stories and Their Authors: Lord Byron

Diodati 1816
by By Robert Gordon
1963 
Byron and Shelley and Mary and Claire,
Braced by the grandeur and quick Alpine air,
Clustered themselves in a Genevese site,
Telling of spirits and ghosts in the night,
Byron was piqued by the whispering gloom;
Shelly had visions and ran from the room;
Claire became pregnant (her passion, his wine);
And Mary, bright Mary, begot Frankenstein.
[...]

Fielding Picaresque

Between the years 1729 and 1737 Henry Fielding wrote 25 plays, including his most well known, Tom Thumb but he acclaimed critical notice with his novels. The best known are The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749), a picaresque novel in which the tangled comedies of coincidence are offset by the neat, architectonic structure [...]

Sublime Anxiety: The Northanger Canon

The Northanger Canon is the collection of late 18th century ‘horrid’ Gothic novels that feature in the first work that Austen sold to a publisher, Northanger Abbey.
The book itself, first written in 1798 but not published until 1817, is a defense of the novel as an art form, a celebratory sending up of Gothic fiction [...]