Robert Fripp’s website Dear readers and friends, I am honored and delighted to have a guest blogger today. Robert Fripp, the author of Dark Sovereign, a thoroughly researched play that does justice to Richard III. Robert came across my blog-review of the WSC’s production of Richard III: WSC Richard III: a parable about politicians. He [...]
Archive for the ‘biography’ Category
Richard III: Receiving emergency care after mauling by Shakespeare — by Robert Fripp
Posted in 17th century, biography, book history, Costume drama, European Renaissance, historical fiction, history play, Plays, political novels/films, politics, Renaissance, romance, satire, Theater, Wm Shakespeare, tagged history, libya, Renaissance history, Robert Fripp on March 9, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Emma Donoghue’s Passions Between Women: seeing what was there but I never saw before
Posted in 18th century, 18th century novels, Austen, Autobiographical, biography, feminism, French culture, later 17th century, novels of sensibility, women's art, tagged heroine's text, tipping the velvet on October 12, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Miss Eleanor Lavish (Sinead Cusack) from Forster’s Room with a View (Davies’s film) Dear friends, This is probably my third blog on Donoghue’s Passions between Women, maybe the fourth in which I’ve mentioned the book. I wrote about it to suggest that Jane Austen, her sister, Martha Lloyd, and Anne Sharp all show a pattern [...]
Scholem Aleichem, or, Laughing in the Darkness
Posted in 20th century culture, biography, Edith Wharton, film studies, gothic, Life Writing, men's memoirs, museums, politics, teaching, Theater, tagged Identity politics on August 22, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, pen-name Scholem Aleichem (1859-1916) Dear friends and readers, Izzy and I went to see Scholem Aleichem, or, Laughing in the Darkness late Sunday afternoon. Bob (on Trollope19thCStudies) had recommended it a couple of weeks ago now. So now I’ll repeat the recommendation: it’s a fine film, one of the best I’ve seen [...]
Books in art and science, Sharp (2): the role of covers, periodicals (Romantic era); Mudie’s non-English and Murray’s travel books
Posted in 20th century culture, Austen, biography, book history, book illustration, conference report, Conferences, French novels, gothic, Regency Romantic literature, Travel Writing, women's art, tagged John Murray, julia kavanagh, monthly periodicals, Mudies Library on July 21, 2011 | 5 Comments »
The picture gracing the cover of Restless Spirits: Ghost Stories by American Women Writers, 1872-1926, edd. Catherine Lundie Dear friends and readers, I continue my tales of my time at this summer’s Sharp conference. I here cover three sessions, two on the first Friday afternoon and the first of four all day Saturday. My topics [...]
Linda Peterson’s Traditions of Women’s Autobiography
Posted in 17th century, 18th century, Anne Bronte, Austen, biography, Elizabeth Gaskell, Foremother Poetry, Life Writing, Margaret Oliphant, novels of sensibility, political novels/films, women's memoirs, women's poetry, women's art, tagged george anne bellamy, george eliot, Harriet Martineau, jane eyre, julia kavanagh, Mary Cholmondeley, Mary Robinson, mary smith on June 6, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Books, books, books! I had found the secret of a garret-room Piled high with cases in my father’s name; Piled high, packed large,where, creeping in and out Among the giant fossils of my past, Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there At this or that box, [...]
Kathleen Jones’s Catherine Cookson (1906-98): historical and romance novelist & artist
Posted in 20th century culture, biography, feminism, historical fiction, novels of sensibility, romance, women's memoirs, women's novels, women's art, tagged Kathleen Jones on May 19, 2011 | 12 Comments »
Catherine and Tom Cookson, later in life writing together Lichfield Cathedrale, a drawing by Catherine who during WW2 became a commercial artist Dear friends and readers, Having embarked on my summer project to read historical novels, popular, post-colonial, romance, time-traveling, rewritten (and all about them), I quickly came across the name of Catherine Cookson as [...]
The Duchess: a strong protest film
Posted in 18th century, biography, Costume drama, Film adaptations, historical fiction, political novels/films, women's memoirs, womens' films, tagged Georgiana Spencer, Keira Knightly, ralph fiennes, Saud Dibbs, the duchess on April 14, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Ralph Fiennes as Duke telling the Duchess he does not make deals; why should he? Keira Knightley as the powerless stunned wife listening (The Duchess) Dear friends and readers, I’ve returned to my movie studying project (right now I’m watching films and making notes towards a revision of a chapter on Andrew Davies and the [...]
Lilian Nayder’s Life of Catherine Hogarth (aka The Other Dickens)
Posted in 19th century novels, biography, Charles Dickens, feminism, tagged Catherine Hogarth Dickens, Charles Dickens, Lilian Nayder on April 8, 2011 | 20 Comments »
Catherine Hogarth Dickens, a photo of her later in life Dear friends and readers, Last week I finished reading Lilian Nayder’s The Other Dickens: A Life of Catherine Hogarth. Were it to be read widely, its content genuinely taken in and disseminated, the book has the potential to alter the common perception of Catherine Hogarth [...]
Foremother Poet: Anne Wharton (1659-85)
Posted in 17th century, 18th century, biography, feminism, Foremother Poetry, later 17th century, women's poetry, women's art, tagged Anne Finch, aphra behn, Germaine Greer, John Wilmot on March 12, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Antonio Canaletto (1697-1768), London, Whitehall and the Privy Gardens from Richmond House (1747) Dear friends and readers, A fifth foremother poet. In Slipshod Sibyls: Recognition and Rejection and the Woman Poet, Germaine Greer’s moving “Rochester’s Niece” on the life and poetry of Anne Wharton reveals a brilliant young woman poet whose life was brief and [...]
Kaplan’s Henry James: Wonderful yet unsatisfying biography
Posted in 19th century novels, 20th century culture, biography, colm toibin, Henry James on October 17, 2010 | 9 Comments »
Henry James, a photo (1897) This is not the effete young man, or the tired weary old guarded bland one, but an imposing solid guy, distinctive, intense, modern looking too without being (as he is in another) crumpled. Look at the powerful thigh, the stub of a cigar and flat cap. Dear friends and readers, [...]
