#Frances Trollope

[coochiequeens]

Let us remember Francis Trollope on the anniversary of her birth

Oil on canvas of Frances Trollope by Auguste Hervieu, c. 1832Born

Born Frances Milton on 10 March 1779 in Bristol, England

Died 6 October 1863 (aged 84) in Florence, Italy

Other names: Fanny Trollope

Occupation: Novelist

Notable work: Domestic Manners of the Americans

Spouse: Thomas Anthony Trollope (m. 1809; died 1835)​

Children7; including Thomas, Anthony and Cecilia

Parent(s)William Milton Mary Gresley

Frances Milton Trollope, also known as Fanny Trollope (10 March 1779 – 6 October 1863), was an English novelist who wrote as Mrs. Trollope or Mrs. Frances Trollope. Her book, Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832), observations from a trip to the United States, is the best known.

She also wrote social novels: one against slavery is said to have influenced Harriet Beecher Stowe, and she also wrote the first industrial novel, and two anti-Catholic novels, which used a Protestant position to examine self-making.

Some recent scholars note that modernist critics have omitted women writers such as Frances Trollope.i n 1839, The New Monthly Magazine claimed, "No other author of the present day has been at once so read, so much admired, and so much abused".

Two of her sons, Thomas Adolphus and Anthony, became writers, as did her daughter-in-law Frances Eleanor Trollope (née Ternan), second wife of Thomas Adolphus Trollope.

Born at Stapleton, Bristol, Frances was the third daughter and middle child of the Reverend William Milton and Mary Milton (née Gresley). Frances was five years old when her mother died in childbirth.[4][5] Her father was remarried to Sarah Partington of Clifton in 1800.[6] She was baptised at St Michael's, Bristol, on 17 March 1779.[7] As a child, Frances read a great amount of English, French and Italian literature. She and her sister later moved to Bloomsbury, London, in 1803 to live with their brother, Henry Milton, who was employed in the War Office.[6]

Marriage and family

In London, she met Thomas Anthony Trollope, a barrister. At the age of 30, she married him on 23 May 1809 in Heckfield, Hampshire. They had four sons and three daughters:[8] Thomas Adolphus, Henry, Arthur (who died in 1824) Emily (who died in a day), Anthony, Cecilia and Emily. When the Trollopes moved to a leased farm at Harrow-on-the-Hill in 1817, they faced financial struggles for lack of agricultural expertise.[6] This was where Frances gave birth to her last two children.[5] Two of her sons and one daughter also became writers. Her eldest surviving son, Thomas Adolphus Trollope, wrote mostly histories: The Girlhood of Catherine de Medici, History of Florence, What I Remember, Life of Pius IX, and some novels. Her fourth son Anthony Trollope became a well-known and received novelist, establishing a strong reputation, especially for his serial novels, such as those set in the fictional county of Barsetshire, and his political series the Palliser novels. Cecilia Trollope Tilley published a novel in 1846.

Despite producing six living children, the Trollopes' marriage was reputedly unhappy.

Move to America

Soon after the move to the leased farm, her marital and financial strains led Frances to seek companionship and aid from Fanny Wright, ward of the French hero Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. In 1824 she visited La Grange, Lafayette's estate in France.[6] Over the next three years, she made several other visits to France and was inspired to take an American excursion with Wright. Frances thought of America as a simple economic venture and figured that she could save money by sending her children through Wright's communal school, as Wright had planned to reform the education of African American children and the formerly enslaved on their property in Tennessee.[9] In November 1827, Frances Trollope went with some of her family to Fanny Wright's utopian community Nashoba Commune in the United States. She took her son, Henry, and her two daughters, Charlotte and Emily. Her husband, Thomas Anthony, and remaining sons, Tom and Anthony, stayed at home and continued their education. In October 1828, Tom and his father joined Frances in Cincinnati, leaving Anthony at boarding school.[10] They returned to England in January 1829.

Arriving in the United States one year earlier than her husband, she developed an intimate relationship with Auguste Hervieu, a collaborator in her venture. (This is not verified.) After the community failed, Trollope moved to Cincinnati, Ohio with her family.[6] She also encouraged the sculptor Hiram Powers to do Dante Alighieri's Commedia in waxworks.

Nonetheless, all the ways she tried to support herself in America were unsuccessful. She found the cultural climate uninteresting and came to resent democracy. Furthermore, after her venture failed, her family was more in debt than when she had migrated there and they were forced to move back to England in 1831.

Return to Europe

From her return at the age of 50 until her death, Trollope's need of an income for her family and to escape her debts led her to begin writing novels, memoirs of her travels, and other shorter pieces, while travelling around Europe. She became well acquainted with elites and figures of Victorian literature including Elizabeth Barrett, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, Joseph Henry Green and R. W. Thackeray (a relative of William Makepeace Thackeray).

She wrote more than 41 books: six travelogues, 35 novels, countless controversial articles, and poems. In 1843, Frances visited Italy and eventually moved to Florence permanently.

Trollope already gained notice with her first book Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832). She gave an unfavourable, and in the opinions of America's partisans, an exaggerated account. Her novel, The Refugee in America (1832), expressed similar views, prompting Catharine Sedgwick to respond that "Mrs. Trollope, though she has told some disagreeable truths, has for the most part caricatured till the resemblance is lost." She was thought to reflect the disparaging views of American society that were allegedly commonplace at that time among English people of the higher social classes.

Later Trollope wrote further travel works, such as Belgium and Western Germany in 1833 (1834), Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (1836), and Vienna and the Austrians (1838). Among those with whom she became acquainted in Brussels was the future novelist Anna Harriett Drury.

Novels

Next came The Abbess (1833), an anti-Catholic novel, as was Father Eustace (1847). While both borrowed from Victorian Gothic conventions, the scholar Susan Griffin notes that Trollope wrote a Protestant critique of Catholicism that also expressed "a gendered set of possibilities for self-making", which has been little recognised by scholars. She noted that "Modernism's lingering legacy in criticism meant overlooking a woman's nineteenth century studies of religious controversy."[14]

Trollope received more attention in her lifetime for what are considered several strong novels of social protest: Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw (1836) was the first anti-slavery novel, influencing the American Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). It focuses on two powerful families – one that strongly encourages slavery and another that strongly opposes it and provides sanctuary for slave refugees. It antagonizes pro-slavery characters, making them appear foolish and uncultured. Frances also brings out her idea of a stereotypical American by drawing certain characters as shrewd, convincing, sly and greedy.

Published in 1840, Michael Armstrong, the Factory Boy was the first industrial novel to be published in Britain, inspired by Frances's visit to Manchester in 1832, where she examined the conditions of children employed in the textile mills. The story of a factory boy who is rescued by a wealthy benefactor at first, but later returns to the mills, illustrates the misery of factory life and suggests that private philanthropy alone will not solve the widespread misery of factory employment. Other socially conscious novels of hers include The Vicar of Wrexhill (1837, Richard Bentley, London, 3 volumes), which took on the issue of corruption in the Church of England and evangelical circles. Possibly her greatest work is the Widow Barnaby trilogy (1839–1855), which includes the first ever sequel.[18] In particular, Michael Sadleir considers the skilful set-up of Petticoat Government [1850], with its cathedral city, clerical psychology and domineering female, as something of a formative influence on her son's elaborate and colourful cast of characters in Barchester Towers, notably Mrs. Proudie.[19]

In later years Frances Trollope continued to write novels and books on miscellaneous subjects – in all over 100 volumes. In her own time, she was considered to have acute powers of observation and a sharp and caustic wit, but her prolific production coupled with the rise of modernist criticism caused her works to be overlooked in the 20th century. Few of her books are now read, but her first and two others are available on Project Gutenberg.

After the death of her husband and daughter, in 1835 and 1838 respectively, Trollope moved to Florence, Italy, having lived, briefly, at Carleton, Eden in Cumbria, but finding that (in her son Tom's words) "the sun yoked his horses too far from Penrith town."[21] One year, she invited Theodosia Garrow to be her house guest. Garrow married her son Thomas Adolphus, and the three lived together until Trollope's death in 1863.She was buried near four other members of the Trollope household in the English Cemetery of Florence.

[fictionadventurer]

Tagged by @valiantarcher to list six books I want to read in 2025.

Since I want to read too many books in 2025, I'm limiting this to new-to-me domestic classics/vintage books that I already have own or have downloaded.

The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant

Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope

Katherine Wentworth by D.E. Stevenson

The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber

The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield

[mr-asa-jones]

I would like to do a dear friend a favour, She is Brigitte from France. She has been contributing stories to my site for years, she is very popular.

There is so much to her, other than being a good friend and a wicked writer of stories on both my blog, and her own

Not only that, she runs an immersive on-line spanking game with players from all over the world. It is so real, and the spankings are magic! You are given an appointment for a mutually agreed time and go to the study.....it is real. It will make you want to masturbate. The game is set in a Finishing school for girls....you go to lessons, on trips, allsorts!

Here is part one of her latest story...

On the farm part 1

The old hag who's my school's Principal caught me with Joshua. I was kissing him breathless and he had his hands up under my skirt after having lowered my knickers. Yummy! Mum wasn't too happy.

"Aunt Martha told me to give you six of the very best."

Mum only grounded me for a month, "Phew!"

Then I flunked my A-levels. Mum was upset. To say the least! On the mantle Pop's picture with his glorious medals seemed to frown. Mum kept repeating, "What am I going to do with you?"

I refrained from telling her that I will marry a rich bloke.

She had me go to my room, and I guessed that she would he calling Aunt Martha. I listened from the top of the stairs.

"She was caught by her Principal with a boy. She had her knickers down!"

"No, I didn't cane her, I couldn't."

"Then she flunked her A-levels."

"What am I going to do with her?"

"You're right, I have been too soft."

"Sending her to you!?"

"She won't be much help on the farm..."

"O-levels with honors! Your Agnes is such a good girl. You must be so proud !"

Next morning Mum had me on the train for Aunt Martha's farm. Four boring hours of train. One pimpled face boy kept eyeing my skirt. His mother obviously didn't approve of my mini. I uncrossed my legs and gave him a great view of my knickers, he blushed crimson. Fun! At the Brandon station I recognized Aunt Martha and Agnes.

I exchanged pecks on each cheeks with Agnes. I like her, she cleverly hides her game. Aunt Martha hissed, "What is that trollop skirt?!"

"Its a miniskirt Aunty!"

"Elizabeth my girl I am going to straighten you out!"

Agnes made a grimace as if to say. Ouch!

An hour later we had arrived at the farm.

Uncle Tobias waved from atop his tractor. The place looked even bigger than when I last visited. Aunty told Agnes, "Take her to her room and make sure that she wears a proper skirt or dress for dinner, lend her one of yours if need be."

Agnes helped me unpack, "What are those? Knickers?"

"They are shorts, silly!"

"Shorts, yes shorts, indeed!"

All that could be disapproved by Aunty went into the lower drawer of my commode. Jeans followed the shorts as I was told that we are to wear dresses or skirts with bare legs.

"What are those?"

"Tongs to wear under short shorts."

They went into the lower drawer. Then she pulled Alfred.

"Oh! What is that!?"

"Alfred, my muff driller."

"Your muff driller! Oh my, you're a naughty girl."

"Don't you have one ?"

She blushed, and I took that for a no.

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Of course!"

I wickedly smiled and offered, "Do you want to try it?"

She was crimson.

"But first, are you still a virgin?"

She was as red as a ripped tomato, and shook her head with a telltale grin.

"Naughty girl yourself!"

She hurriedly added, "Mum doesn't know!"

"I'll never tell! What's his name?"

"Jeremiah."

 It was time for dinner, sorting out the rest of my things had to wait. Agnes gave me a dress only two inches above my knees. "I'll find more stuff for you later."

The dining room was amazing with a great fireplace, a long heavy table made of real wood, as well as tall carved chairs. Uncle Tobias and a couple of his partners could be heard having pre-dinner drinks in the nearby lounge with wood paneling and comfy leather chairs.

Aunty was in the kitchen with two maids and told us to set the table for eight. A minute later, we had barely started to set the plates, she appeared with a three feet long springy school cane, "Elizabeth you are going to be punished for that trollop skirt of this morning. Raise that dress, lower your knickers and bend over with your elbows on the table."

"Buh... buh... but Aunty!"

"Do it now, or tomorrow morning you are back on the train!"

 I blushed crimson as I realized that the two maids were watching. Aunty smacked that cane on the table with a menacing, THWACK!

"Hurry up !"

With cheeks flushed with shame I raised my skirt and lowered my knickers before assuming the required position.

WHACK!

WHACK!!

"OUCH!"

Both strokes were so fast that I didn't cry out till after the second one. Mum having never given me more that a few hand spankings I wasn't prepared for such a sting. I felt my eyes watering, and my bum was fiercely burning from two incandescent stripes.

"Pull up your knickers, adjust your dress, hang that cane from your chair, and resume helping Agnes with setting the table. Later you will keep that cane behind the door of your room."

Uncle Tobias and his associates joined us. They of course saw my red face, my brimming eyes and the cane hanging from my chair. For the whole meal I kept my head down, painfully shifting on my chair as a punished girl.

Later, after having helped clear the table Aunty reminded me, "Elizabeth picked up your cane and hang it behind the door of your bedroom. It will remind you to be on your best behavior while with us."

"Yes Aunty..."

Agnes joined me a minute later with a small jar of balm. "Skirt up, knickers down, don't be shy! I already saw it all!"

"Huh...thank."

I remembered the two maids having seen it all, and couldn't help blushing while she gently rubbed my bum. I mused, "Boy did that sting! Do you also have a cane hanging behind your door."

 "Yes..."

"How many have you had?"

"It depends ... its usually four, or six, but I once got eight."

 "Ouch!"

I had a nightmare that night, and it woke me up. I soon realized that it wasn't a dream as I massaged my two cane welts. Sniff... I was caned on the bare in front of just about everyone. Sniff...

Elizabeth and Agnes

To be continued...

./.

Oaks and Pines free role play game for adults

You are invited to play with us !

We have a new website !

https://oaks-and-pines.com/

You will find an Application Form in the pages of our blog at https://oandpspankingstories.blogspot.com/

Please complete that form and send it to oaksandpines@hotmail.com

"See you there new girl, don't be late!" Brigitte.

...oooOOOooo...

Please, show her some love, visit her blog, leave a nice comment, and say you saw her on her. Maybe even enrol on her game, just to try it out.

Mr.Jones. (Headmaster)

[faymaker]

So I saw this post about how in the books, Dracula is actually an old man and I always imagined Dracula looked like older Christopher Lee, who played him while he was a kid. While looking him up I accidentally discovered that Christopher Lee was the coolest person in the universe and there is a non-zero chance he was actually Dracula in real life

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee CBE CStJ (May 27th 1922 - June 7th 2015), Sir because he was knighted in 2009 for his charity and his contributions to cinema

So first of all, I saw that he actually knew 8 LANGUAGES (English, Spanish, French, Swedish, Italian, German, Russian and Greek) and was also a staggering 6 feet 5 inches in height. Born in Belgravia in London, one of the most Dracula sounding places I’ve ever heard of, here’s some insane facts about him

•His father, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Trollope Lee of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, fought in the Boer War and World War 1

•His mother, Countess Estelle Marie (née Carandini di Sarzano) was an Edwardian beauty who was painted by Sir John Lavery, Oswald Birley, and Olive Snell, and sculpted by Clare Sheridan

•Lee's maternal great-grandfather, Jerome Carandini, the Marquis of Sarzano, was an Italian political refugee

•Jerome’s wife was English-born opera singer Marie Carandini (née Burgess), meaning that Lee is also related to famous opera singer Rosina Palmer

•His parents would divorce when he was four and his mother would marry Harcourt George St-Croix Rose, banker and uncle of Ian Fleming, making the author of the James Bond books Lee’s step cousin. Fleming would then offer him two roles as the antagonist in the film adaptations of his books, though he was only able to land the antagonist role in The Man With the Golden Gun. It’s believed his role in the film is significantly better and more complex than his book counterpart, played as “a dark side of Bond”

•His family would move and they lived next door to famous silent film actor Eric Maturin

•One night, before he was even 9 years old, he was introduced to Prince Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, THE ASSASSINS OF GRIGORI RASPUTIN, WHOM LEE WOULD GO ON TO PLAY MANY YEARS LATER

•Lee applied for a scholarship to Eton, where his interview was in the presence of the ghost story author M.R. James, who is considered one of the best English language ghost story writers in history and who widely influenced modern horror

•He only missed by King’s Scholar by one place by being bad at math, one of the only flaws God gave him

•Due to lack of working opportunities, Lee was sent to the French Riviera and stayed with his sister and her friends while she was on holiday, and on the way there he stopped briefly in Paris with journalist Webb Miller, a friend of his step father. Webb Miller was an American journalist and war correspondent and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the execution of the French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru, also known as BLUEBEARD. He also helped turn world opinion against British colonial rule of India

•While staying with Miller he witnessed Eugen Weidmann’s execution by guillotine, the last public execution ever performed in France

•Arriving in Menton, Lee stayed with the Russian Mazirov family, living among exiled princely families

•When World War 2 began, Lee volunteered to fight for the Finnish Army against the Soviet Union in the Winter War, and a year later, Lee would join the Home Guard. After his father died, he would join the Royal Air Force and was an intelligence officer and leading aircraft man and would later retire as a flight lieutenant in 1946

•While spending some time on leave in Naples, Lee climbed Mount Vesuvius, which erupted only three days later

•After nearly dying in an assault on Monte Cassino, Lee was able to visit Rome where he met his mother’s cousin Nicolò Carandini, who had fought in the Italian Resistance Movement. Nicolò would later go on to be the Italian Ambassador to Britain. Nicolò was actually the one to convince Lee to become an actor in the first place

•Oh yeah Christopher Lee was seconded to the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects where he was tasked with HELPING TRACK DOWN NAZI WAR CRIMINALS

•Lee’s stepfather served as a captain in the Intelligence Corps

•He was actually told he was too tall to be an actor, though that would honestly help him considering one of his first roles was as The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein

•He was cast in Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N (1951) as a Spanish captain due to not only his fluency in Spanish but also he knew how to fence!

•Lee’s portrayal of Dracula had a crucial aspect of it which Bela Lugosi’s didn’t have: sexuality, a prime aspect of the original novels.

•While being trapped into playing Dracula under Hammer Film Productions, Lee actually hated the script so much that he would try his best to sneak actual lines from the original novel into the script

•Ironically, he was rejected from playing in The Longest Day because “he didn’t look like a military man”

•Christopher Lee was friends with author Dennis Wheatley, who “was responsible for bringing the occult into him”. He would go on to play in two film adaptations of his novels

•His biggest regret in his career is not taking the role of Sam Loomis from Halloween when offered to him

•Christopher Lee was the only person involved with the Lord of the Rings movies to have actually met J.R.R Tolkien

•When playing Count Dooku, he actually did most of the swordsmanship himself

•Christopher Lee was the second oldest living performer to enter the Billboard Top 100 charts with the song “Jingle Hell” at 91 years old. After media attention, he would get No. 18, and Lee became the oldest person to ever hit the Billboard Top 20 chart

I really am leaving some stuff out here and I may go on

[asfaltics]

the very sound of the west

  but there is a something of a heat of mind, or an irritation     ₁ a something of more than common interest, of even awful in the very sound of “The West”     ₂ and that a something of deception     ₃ which every cowboy pretends to, and a something of logic     ₄     to go out and be somebody, to become “a something of something”     ₅ gave a something of reality to their pretensions, which softened if it could not altogether remove the ridicule     ₆   Next you’ll be making it out as we’re nought but a something of nothing     ₇ while superstitions are fast becoming a something of the past. But enough of these absurdities;   How we raised the wind     ₈

—

sources, their respective details at the more’s aside — italics not in sources

1 A Digest of the Evidence in the Second Report of the Select Committee on the State of Ireland (London, 1825) / more 2 Mark Bancroft, “Mark Lee’s Narrative” in Atkinson’s Casket (Philadelphia; July 1834) / more 3 “Observations on the Modern Drama” in The Literary Magnet (London, 1824) / more 4 “News and Comments,” in The Classical Review (London; March 1909) / more 5 Craig T. Cocher, “Living a Life of Consequence : How Not to Chase a Fake Rabbit,” in Scott T. Allison, Craig T. Kocher, and George R. Goethals, eds., Frontiers in Spiritual Leadership : Discovering the Better Angels of Our Nature (2017) / more 6 Frances Trollope. A Romance of Vienna (London, 1838) / more 7 W. Edwards Tirebuck, Meg of the Scarlet Foot : A Novel (New York, 1898) / more 8 “Matrimonial Superstitions” (and title of following piece), in Tit-bits (Manchester, April 21, 1883) / more  

[hussyknee]

Somewhat put off by the spoilers I've read about Mary and George. There's no doubt nearly all relationships in the British court were some level of sordid, but King James, to all intents and purposes, had genuine feelings for his three male favourites, most especially George Villiers. He was no Henry VIII. I don't know why they wanted to reduce the most famous and open homosexual relationship in European royal history to a comedy between a "cock-struck" old lech and a conniving courtier that led him by the nose and then betrayed and murdered him.

All evidence points to George at least being loyal to James (if you discount his love letters as simply sucking up to his benefactor) and even had a fond relationship with his Queen and his son Charles. He was in fact in France when James died, and reportedly cried when he heard the news.

It's even a little heartbreaking because this is right after Nicholas Galitzine played the closeted gay Prince Henry in Red, White and Royal Blue, who in the book is proud of the open and unashamed love between his ancestor and his lover, and the way even James's son Charles I honoured Villiers for accompanying him to the Spanish Court to ask for the hand of the Infanta.

“Actually . . . you remember how I told you about the gay king, James I?”

“The one with the dumb jock boyfriend?”

“Yes, that one. Well, his most beloved favorite was a man named George Villiers. ‘The handsomest-bodied man in all of England,’ they called him. James was completely besotted. Everyone knew. This French poet, de Viau, wrote a poem about it.” He clears his throat and starts to recite: ‘One man fucks Monsieur le Grand, another fucks the Comte de Tonnerre , and it is well known that the King of England, fucks the Duke of Buckingham.’” Alex must be staring, because he adds, “Well, it rhymes in French. Anyway. Did you know the reason the King James translation of the Bible exists is because the Church of England was so displeased with James for flaunting his relationship with Villiers that he had the translation commissioned to appease them?”

“You’re kidding.”

“He stood in front of the Privy Council and said, ‘Christ had John, and I have George.’’

“Jesus.”

“Precisely.” Henry’s still looking up at the statue, but Alex can’t stop looking at him and the sly smile on his face, lost in his own thoughts. “And James’s son, Charles I, is the reason we have dear Samson. It’s the only Giambologna that ever left Florence. He was a gift to Charles from the King of Spain, and Charles gave it, this massive, absolutely priceless masterpiece of a sculpture, to Villiers. And a few centuries later, here he is. One of the most beautiful pieces we own, and we didn’t even steal it. We only needed Villiers and his trolloping ways with the queer monarchs. To me, if there were a registry of national gay landmarks in Britain, Samson would be on it.”

Henry’s beaming like a proud parent, like Samson is his, and Alex is hit with a wave of pride in kind.

He takes his phone out and lines up a shot, Henry standing there all soft and rumpled and smiling next to one of the most exquisite works of art in the world.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking a picture of a national gay landmark,” Alex tells him. “And also a statue.”

Like all white liberals, Casey McQuiston tends to romanticise the crime against humanity that is royalty and also that house built by bunch of slave owners that has since housed a progression of genocidal war criminals. There's very little to like about any British monarch. But the relationship between James and Villiers is a significant part of gay history and there's no need to smear it even more than it's already been smeared the last four hundred years, contrary to the actual known facts.

Idk man. I'm sensitive to this stuff Ig. Maybe I'd be a little more positive about it if I watched it, but the trailer gave me "tee hee they're gay" vibes so Idk if I want to.

Edit: so it seems the trailer is misleading and the story is more complex than a "tee hee gay" comedy. I might watch it after all, even if the starkly visible age difference makes me a bit queasy. How tf is Galitzine nearly thirty and a babyface with those razor cheekbones?? Perfect to show how uncomfortable it looks for a middle aged man to get with a kid of twenty.

[handeaux]

Cincinnati’s High Society Was Dominated By Madame Devereux And Her Blue Book

Before Madame Clara Anna Rich Devereux stuck her nose into things around 1880, Cincinnati’s polite society was an embarrassment of disorganization. A half-century earlier, Frances “Fanny” Trollope had lambasted the local gentry in her scandalous 1832 book, “Domestic Manners of the Americans,” in which she states:

“All animal wants are supplied profusely at Cincinnati, and at a very easy rate; but, alas! these go but a little way in the history of a day's enjoyment. The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is so remarkable, that I was constantly endeavouring to account for it.”

In a thoroughly typical Queen City response, the local pinkies-up crowd pretended Trollope’s book did not exist, spoke no more of it, and carried on obliviously.

Mrs. C.A.R. Devereux was not amused. Born into a family of authentic Boston brahmins, she married General Arthur F. Devereux, who distinguished himself for bravery during the Battle of Shiloh. He was a ranking officer in the Army Corps of Engineers and was based at Cincinnati. The Devereuxs and their five children occupied a house in the fashionable East Fourth Street neighborhood, almost next-door to Murat Halstead, the publisher of the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper. Halstead recruited Mrs. Devereux to add some life and color to his newspaper’s society columns.

It is a considerable stretch to describe any of the pages in any of Cincinnati’s dozen daily newspapers (five were in German) back then as offering “society” news. What the newspapers published was a “personals” page in which tidbits provided by nearly any subscriber appeared in print. To pick one random example, the 5 March 1882 Cincinnati Enquirer’s “Random Notes” column featured a sick bill collector, a talented woman cobbler, and a traveling haberdasher along with reports of social gatherings among the wealthy tribes atop Walnut Hills and Clifton.

The upper crust was so appalled at finding themselves lumped indiscriminately with tradesmen and parvenus that they considered any mention of anyone’s name in any newspaper as something of a social embarrassment. As a result, Mrs. Devereux endured years of tribulation as she endeavored to convince the city’s blue bloods to provide her with any printable tidbits. According to Alvin F. Harlows’ “The Serene Cincinnatians,”

“Mrs. Devereux, when she called at some of these ultraconservative homes for items, was not even seated in the parlor, but had to wait in the hall until the lady of the house chose to go down and speak to her.”

The tables turned after 1892, when Mrs. Devereux published the first of her annual “Blue Book” directories of Cincinnati society. Overnight, she became the final arbiter of social standing in the Queen City. Any grande dame who dared confront “Madame” Devereux risked banishment from the now-official social register.

Just how influential was the annual Blue Book? In that inaugural issue, Mrs. Devereux announced a new schedule for “at home” days. Etiquette in the 1890s required a strict schedule of “calling,” in which the socially conscious made the rounds of their peers. Whole books were written about the proper distribution of “calling cards.” Anyone who was “at home” for callers on the wrong day faced social ostracism. Appalled by the seemingly random schedule of visitations in Cincinnati, Mrs. Devereux decreed a new schedule, totally fabricated by herself:

“The first two Fridays in the month are Clifton at home days, the last two are set apart for Mt. Auburn. The first two Thursdays of the month are at home days for Avondale, the last two for West Sixth and Fourth Streets. The first two Mondays for East Walnut Hills, the second two for the West Hill. Tuesday, the Burnet House, St. Nicholas, East Fourth and Pike, Broadway and the East End generally. Wednesday, Dayton Street and Covington.”

Cincinnati’s societal matrons fell sharply in line. They had no choice. Mrs. Devereux herself (often referred to as “Madame” because her surname appeared to be French) was quite pleased with herself. In the fourth (1896) edition, she bragged:

“The Blue Book has become as indispensable a requisite for the escuitoire of the woman of fashion as her silver-mounted writing utensils and her crested seal. To the man of business it is almost as useful, for it tells him ‘who's who’ at a glance and where he or she may be found.”

In addition to her annual directory and her unsigned contributions to the Cincinnati Commercial, Mrs. Devereux published her own occasional newsletter, called “Tips” in which she passed along the really good stuff to her subscribers.

Throughout the mid-1890s, Mrs. Devereux’s columns in the Commercial often jostled against saucy squibs penned by an ambitious young writer named Mary C. Francis, who provided gossipy material to several Cincinnati papers. So long as they shared space in the same newspaper, Mrs. Devereux held her tongue and her pen. When Miss Francis relocated to New York and published a few successful novels, Mrs. Devereux spread all sorts of calumny.

Mary Francis sued for libel based on an item in Mrs. Devereux’s Tips which implied that Miss Francis had escaped to New York because she had engaged in behavior unbecoming a lady, published salacious material and had been barred as a consequence from the best Cincinnati homes. Further, Mrs. Devereux claimed that Miss Francis had attempted to “hoodoo” money under false pretenses from a Cincinnati artist.

In court, Miss Francis’ attorneys demolished the Devereux defense, awarding the plaintiff $500 in damages. Mrs. Devereux, with typical chutzpah, immediately devoted an entire issue of her Tips newsletter to attack the judge, the jury, the plaintiff’s legal team and Miss Francis and her witnesses. Mrs. Devereux lamented the injustice of a judicial system in which a fine woman such as herself could be vanquished by rabble of such inferior social standing. Miss Francis sued again and appears to have been settled out of court.

Shortly after her courtroom defeat, Mrs. Devereux retired from journalism for a couple of years. When the Cincinnati Enquirer acquired the Commercial in 1900, the new publishers enticed her into resuming her duties at the society desk and she remained in that position until her death in 1910. In its obituary, the Cincinnati Times-Star recognized her influence:

“She achieved remarkable success, and it has been said of her that she was personally familiar with more prominent lives than any other individual in the city. Her acquaintance was as wide as society’s limits, and her knowledge of affairs embraced everything needful to the conscious newsgatherer and polished writer.”

Notably, throughout her final stint at the Cincinnati Enquirer, Mrs. Devereux was assisted by her daughter Marion, who assumed her mother’s duties for the next 30 years and escalated her family’s stranglehold on the city’s moneyed classes. While Clara may have been an arbiter, there were more than a few who saw Marion as nothing short of a dictator.

[mystery-of-arkham-asylum]

I have brought the 100 Classic Book Collection DS game. (It was £1 and had a few book I wanted to read on it so decided why not?) Here is the list of books that it includes. Can people convince me to read some of the other books that are on there.

I have read | I want to read | 🦝 I have the physical copy to

🦝 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

Emma - Jane Austen

Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

Persuasion - Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

Lorna Doone - R. D. Blackmore

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

The Professor - Charlotte Brontë

Shirley - Charlotte Brontë

Villette - Charlotte Brontë

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

The Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan

Little Lord Fauntleroy - Frances Hodgson Burnett

🦝 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

🦝 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking-Glass - Lewis Carroll

The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins

The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

🦝 The Adventures of Pinocchio - Carlo Collodi

Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad

What Katy Did - Susan Coolidge

The Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper

🦝 Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

Barnaby Rudge - Charles Dickens

Bleak House - Charles Dickens

🦝 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

Dombey and Son - Charles Dickens

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Hard Times - Charles Dickens

Martin Chuzzlewit - Charles Dickens

Nicholas Nickleby - Charles Dickens

The Old Curiosity Shop - Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

Adam Bede - George Eliot

Middlemarch - George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot

King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard

Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

Under the Greenwood Tree - Thomas Hardy

The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - Victor Hugo

Les Misérables - Victor Hugo

The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. - Washington Irving

Westward Ho! - Charles Kingsley

Sons and Lovers - D. H. Lawrence

The Phantom Of The Opera - Gaston Leroux

The Call of the Wild - Jack London

White Fang - Jack London

Moby-Dick - Herman Melville

Tales of Mystery & Imagination - Edgar Allan Poe

Ivanhoe - Walter Scott

Rob Roy - Walter Scott

Waverley - Walter Scott

🦝 Black Beauty - Anna Sewell

All's Well That Ends Well - William Shakespeare

Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare

As You Like It - William Shakespeare

The Comedy of Errors - William Shakespeare

Hamlet - William Shakespeare

Henry V - William Shakespeare

Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare

King Lear - William Shakespeare

Love's Labour's Lost - William Shakespeare

Macbeth - William Shakespeare

The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare

Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare

Othello - William Shakespeare

Richard III - William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare

The Taming of the Shrew - William Shakespeare

The Tempest - William Shakespeare

Timon of Athens - William Shakespeare

Titus Andronicus - William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare

The Winter's Tale - William Shakespeare

🦝 Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson

🦝 Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe

🦝 Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

Vanity Fair William - Makepeace Thackeray

Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope

🦝 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

🦝 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain

Around the World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne

🦝 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne

The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

[p1325]

Here's an update to my book collection (2025). More is coming soon.

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights

Louisa May Alcott - Little Women

Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre

Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility

Edith Wharton - The Age Of Innocence

Jane Austen - Emma

Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary

Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey

Edith Wharton - The House of Mirth

Jane Austen - Persuasion

Louisa May Alcott - Good Wives

Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter

Charlotte Bronte - The Professor

Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina (Part 1)

Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina (Part 2)

Jane Austen - Mansfield Park

Anne Bronte - Agnes Grey

Thomas Hardy - Far from The Madding Crowd

William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (Part 1)

William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (Part 2)

Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de Laclos - Dangerous Liaisons

Alexandre Dumas fils - The Lady of the Camellias

Henry James - Washington Square

Louisa May Alcott - A Garland For Girls

Henry James - The Portrait of A Lady (Part 1)

Henry James - The Portrait of A Lady (Part 2)

Jane Austen - Lady Susan. The Watson. Sanditon

Anne Brontë - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Thomas Hardy - Tess of the D’Urbeville

Edith Wharton - The Mother’s Recompense

Daniel Defoe - Moll Flanders

Henry James - The Wings of the Dove

Edith Wharton - The Customs of the Country

Kate Chopin - The Awakening

Jane Austen - Juvenilia  

George Eliot - Middlemarch (Part 1)

George Eliot - Middlemarch (Part 2)  

George Sand - Nanon

Henry James - The Ambassadors

Elizabeth Gaskell - Cranford

Thomas Hardy - Under The Greenwood Tree

Edith Wharton - Summer

George Sand - Indiana

Henry James - The Bostonians

George Eliot - Silas Marner

Henry James - The Golden Bowl (Part 1)

Henry James - The Golden Bowl (Part 2)  

Edith Wharton - The Twilight Sleep

Emily Eden - The Semi-Attached Couple

Edith Wharton - The Glimpses of the Moon

Mary Elizabeth Braddon - Lady Audley’s Secret

George Eliot - The Mill on the Floss

Elizabeth Gaskell - Mary Barton 

Fanny Burney - Evelina 

George Sand - Little Fadette

Emily Eden - The Semi-detached House

Charlotte Brontë - Shirley (Part 1)

Charlotte Brontë - Shirley (Part 2)

Daniel Defoe - Lady Roxana

Theodor Fontane  - Effie Briest 

Edith Wharton - The Cliff

Thomas Hardy - Two on a Tower

Frances Hodgson Burnett - A Lady of Quality

Louisa May Alcott - Moods

Lucy Maud Montgomery - The Story Girl 

Elizabeth Gaskell - Ruth

Thomas Hardy - The Woodlanders

Elizabeth Gaskell - North and South

Matilde Serao - Fantasy

Thomas Hardy - A Pair of Blue Eyes 

Emilia Pardo Bazán - Sunstroke/Insolacion

Ann Radcliffe - The Romance of the Forest

Louisa May Alcott - A Long Fatal Love Chase

Charlotte Bronte - Vilette

Sybil Grace Brinton - Old Friends and New Fancies

Edith Wharton - Bunner Sisters

Virginia Woolf - The Voyage Out

Margaret Oliphant - The Chronicles of Carlingford Series by Mrs. Oliphant

Edith Nesbit - The Incomplete Amorist

Virginia Woolf - Day and Night

Guy de Maupassant - Our Heart

Frances Trollope - The Widow Barnaby (Part 1)

Frances Trollope - The Widow Barnaby (Part 2)

Elizabeth Gaskell - Half a Lifetime Ago

Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Academic reading does have some pleasures sometimes. This description of Frances Trollope's Michael Armstrong is just so delightfully sharp in its criticism:

"It becomes increasingly difficult to find the line between the expression of social outrage and the preemption of factory material for purposes of Gothic horror." (Rosemarie Bodenheimer, The Politics of Story in Victorian Social Fiction)

[grandhotelabyss]

Rearranging my bookshelves at the moment in chronological order. One thing I noticed is that after Austen... English literature kinda fizzled out. At least until the early 1890s when a whole pile of writers emerge all at once (Wilde, Yeats, Shaw, Stevenson, Conrad, Doyle, Hardy, H. G. Welles, and more; and almost immediately they're followed by a tidal wave of modernists). Whereas for seventy years, aside from the three big poets you're covering plus Alice In Wonderland, it's just Dickens, Eliot, and the Brontes!

Now, admittedly the 'just' is doing some heavy lifting — but so are those novelists, in carrying Shakespeare's language over a seventy-ish year period! And in terms of variety, they feel like both a less *diverse* ('sprawling 18C three-deckers' describes accurately, if dismissively, most of those novels) and, more controversially, a less *fruitful* crop than the bursting quarter-century from Blake's first illuminated manuscripts to Austen's death.

Now you did discuss the 'cultural studies' aspect of the Victorian era, which was very enlightening — but at the same time, Russian, French, and American literature each undergo what are almost certainly their greatest periods! Which makes sense to me considering the *imaginative* ferment I'd expect to be cause by the political and industrial revolutions of the entire period... like, those three countries didn't reduce to cultural studies!

So, three questions: 1) Who am I missing over that stretch from Austen's death to, let's say, Dorian Gray? 2) Do you think this reading is correct, or am I weighting things wrongly, either being too dismissive of the writers named, or giving too much credit to the writers at either end of the century? 3) What, if you can answer something so broad, was different in France, America and Russia?

(Sorry to set you a three-part essay question on a Wednesday night lmao, really I'm just fishing for any interesting thoughts you might have)

If I were to dispute your claim, I would do so in two ways: 1. I'd say that Dickens is so enormous, so much the iconic and canonical English novelist, the one who stands next to Shakespeare, that he carries the whole period; and 2. I'd say (and have already said in The Invisible College) that the Victorian Sage writers like Carlyle, Ruskin, and Arnold have the weight and intensity of the prior Romantic poets and subsequent modernists.

If someone else were to dispute your claim, someone else might say that there are a lot of great novelists in the mid-Victorian period, like Trollope, Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskell, and Wilkie Collins. Someone else might say this, but I could never get interested in those writers, and I doubt anyone thinks they're the equal of Balzac, Melville, or Tolstoy—or of Dickens. On the other hand, we now take the Brontës far more seriously than people once did—I would put them essentially on the same level as Austen and Dickens—so fashions in these things are always changing.

So I essentially agree with you that, except for the writers you name, especially Dickens and Eliot, it's a fairly flat period. I suspect the reasons are the ones the modernists would have offered, despite their sometimes exaggerated animus against the Victorians: the sentimentalism, the censoriousness, the middle-class piety, the imperial self-regard, the padded serials, and all the rest of it.

I've quoted on here before Seamus Deane's slightly offensive view of the matter in his Celtic Revivals, coming from Marxist postcolonial theory (and as I've also said before, this is particularly unfair to George Eliot, who, I must emphasize, translated Spinoza):

It is, I believe, easier to understand Joyce’s achievement in this respect by looking to the Continental tradition of the novel. There the theme of intellectual vocation was much more deeply rooted and was treated with a subtlety quite foreign to the evangelical, female puritan spirit which so dominated the sentimental English novel. Perhaps Middlemarch more than any other single work shows how the innate provincialism of the English novel deprived it of a consciousness of itself as a part of a greater European culture. This is something conspicuously present in the French and, even more, in the Russian novel of the nineteenth century. One could not imagine Crime and Punishment or Le Rouge et le Noir without the idea of Europe, especially Christian Europe, as a living force in them, in their traditions, and in the minds of their creators. But Emma and Great Expectations and Middlemarch survive happily, and more modestly, apart from that idea. Not until an American, Henry James, arrived on the scene was the novel in English Europeanized, and the Irishman Joyce countered this achievement by anglicizing the European novel.

So that "puritan" and "provincial" spirit explains the disparity between the English on the one hand and the Russians and French on the other, who were simply writing in different social circumstances for an audience presumed to contain fewer young ladies in need of moral protection. One might add the English empirical bias against big ideas, which authors as different as Blake and Eliot would so strongly protest.

In Love and Death in the American Novel, Leslie Fiedler says the European novelists held together an audience that consisted of common readers, mostly female, on the one hand, and highbrow intellectuals, mostly male, on the other. The Anglo novelist, by contrast, somehow let this audience fragment early on and had to address either one set of readers or the other.

The American case is particularly instructive: Hawthorne and Melville were neglected in their time, relegated to the margin by popular novels written in "the evangelical, female puritan spirit," of which Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most famous—but we just don't read these books! We read The Scarlet Letter and Moby-Dick instead of The Lamplighter or The Wide, Wide World. It's as if the English Victorian canon had been reduced to Sartor Resartus and Wuthering Heights. This causes the historicist critic to despair, and obviously a certain type of feminist critic too, who especially resents Hawthorne's line about "the damned mob of scribbling women," but what we can we do? We're interested in what we're interested in. And as I said in one of the IC episodes, it's not as if the great female writers of the 20th century wanted to follow in Stowe's footsteps either, since the puritan and provincial spirit was a much a prison for female authors in the 19th century as it was their place (their only permissible place) of articulation.

[misscrawfords]

13 and 24 from the end-of-year book ask?

13. What were your least favorite books of the year?

The Atlas Six (Olivie Blake) which I've written about a bit here. I can't be bothered to read the rest of the series. Apart from that, I didn't read anything that really disappointed me. I read several Frances Brody mysteries and I got sick of them so I need a break but there was nothing wrong with them.

24. Did you DNF anything? Why?

I started reading Anthony Trollope's The Small House at Allington for a comfort read because I find Trollope's style really warming but I put it aside quite quickly. It was for the stupidest reason - I feel really sensitive at times about being single and I was suddenly really tired of reading about beautiful girls of about 20 and their romantic dilemmas because, you know, too many young men love them so much. And then he introduced an old maid character and the two young heroines felt sorry for her... I just got really fed up and didn't want to read it any more! Anyway, I've got it with me over Christmas so I'm going to give it another go between now and new year and see how I get on.

End of year book asks!

[largepeachicedtea]

seven sentence sunday!

ive been so focused on writing i havent been properly paying attention to my tags 😅 but heres the start of me getting better at them! thanks @chaotictarlos and @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut for the tag :D

this is from my firstprince actor au that's been my baby for the past few weeks and (hopefully) will be for many weeks to come

That doesn’t mean he’s okay with her taking his flake. “You had two in yours, why should I give you mine?!” He cries Bea cackles, wide and unflattering beneath sticky ice cream smears. She’s meant to be in France right now, but decided the much more fun thing to do was jump on the Eurostar to spend the day with him. She’s still got the garish sparkles over one cheek from whatever photoshoot she dipped out of, passport in hand. “It’s called the older sister tax you trollop,” Bea says.

[noctambulatebooks]

Reading 2025

3-January-2025: Bacon, Francis with David Sylvester, The Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon (1980, England)

8-January-2025: Coetzee, J.M., Elizabeth Costello (2003, Australia)

17-January-2025: Malaparte, Curzio, The Kremlin Ball (1950, Italy)

20-January-2025: Rytkheu, Yuri, A Dream in Polar Fog (1970, Russia)

23-January-2025: Ernaux, Annie, The Young Man (2022, France)

31-January-2025: Hand, Elizabeth, Curious Toys (2019, USA)

3-February-2025: Tanizaki, Junichirō, In Black and White (1928, Japan)

18-February-2025: Highsmith, Patricia, Diaries and Notebooks: The New York Years, 1941-1950 (1995, USA)

23-February-2025: Malcolm, Janet, In the Freud Archive (1983, USA)

27-February-2025: Howles, Joaquina Ballard, No More Giants (1964, USA)

2-March-2025: Barbey d’Aurevilly, Jules, The Bewitched (1855, France)

23-March-2025: Hayes, Alfred, In Love (1953, USA)

28-March-2025: Le Carré, John, Our Kind of Traitor (2010, England)

4-May-2025: Trollope, Anthony, Mr. Scarborough’s Family (1883, England)

6-May-2025: Ernaux, Annie, Exteriors (1993, France)

18-May-2025: Feuchtwanger, Lion, The Oppermanns (1933, Germany)

23-May-2025: Hand, Elizabeth, Generation Loss (2007, USA)

26-May-2025: Hand. Elizabeth, Available Dark (2012, USA)

31-May-2025: Brooke, Dinah, Lord Jim at Home (1973, England)

[asfaltics]

a something of, approximately

  my mother looked sad and weary... There was a something of distance in the air of abstraction which pervaded her.     ₁ a something of dark lace, the edges whereof fell     ₂   a something of melancholy foreboding her beautiful but hectic bloom     ₃ a something of blue     ₄     in her own   feelings. There was a something, of     ₅ a something of light growing darker peculiar     ₆   a something of distance and division between them that she could by no means pass, what remained but to sit down quietly with this tangled skein of her own spinning     ₇ about her hair, which was always most carefully dressed, there was a something of disorder     ₈   a something of chaos and infinity, he felt; a something not of this world. The starkness and loneliness     ₉ a something of the sea     ₁₀

—

sources (their respective details at the more’s)

1 The Magic Staff : An Autobiography of Andrew Jackson Davis (New York, 1857) / more 2 [D. Christie Murray], “A Life’s Atonement,” Chapter III. — “History,” in Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Art (January 18, 1880) / more 3 [anon.], “The Sisters. — A Sketch.” La Belle Assemblée : Or, Court and Fashionable Magazine (June 1826) / more 4 The Dublin University Magazine (November 1856), being an extract from Border Lands of Spain and France. With an account of a visit to the Republic of Andorre (London, 1856) / more 5 Father Eustace : A Tale of the Jesuits, by Mrs. Trollope. (London, 1847) / more 6 from section “Editor’s Easy Talk,” followed by verse (“The Twilight Hour.” By Sans Souci) in Graham’s American Monthly Magazine (Philadelphia, June 1857) / more 7 “Meave, Schoolmistress,” in Harper’s Weekly (November 28, 1863) / more 8 Antonio Fogazzaro, The Patriot (Piccolo Mondo Antico, translated from the Italian by M. Prichard-Agnetti); (1906) / more 9 first installment of Gouverneur Morris, “The Wild Goose, A novel in defense of the home from the man’s standpoint,” in Hearst’s International (September 1918) / more 10 Accessions List : A Classified Catalogue. University of London. Library (1957) / more

—

a something of / approximate recalling P R M  

[brookston]

Holidays 4.24

Holidays

Action Day for Tolerance and Respect between People (Argentina)

All Souls’ Day (Transdniestra)

Ambivalence Day

Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day (Armenia)

Blackthorn Day

California Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide (California)

Concord Day (Niger)

Day for the Naming of Rocks and Planets

Day of Silence (anti-bullying student protest)

Fashion Revolution Day

Firefly Day

Gathering of Nations Pow Wow (New Mexico)

Genocide Remembrance Day (Armenia)

Help Animals Day (UK)

High School Radio Day

International Day of Feminist Solidarity Against Transnational Corporations

International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace

International Sculpture Day

International Watch Firefly Day

International Youth Solidarity Day

Kapyong Day (Australia, Canada)

Labour Safety Day (Bangladesh)

Library of Congress Day

Loktantra Diwas (Democracy Day; Nepal)

National Brandon Day

National Bucket List Day

National Dog Day (Finland)

National Kiss of Hope Day

National Lingerie Day

National Panchayati Raj Day (India)

National Pet Care for All Day

National Physics Day

National Pool Opening Day

National Rape Day

National Remembrance of Man's Inhumanity To Man Day

National Report Medicare Advantage Fraud Day

National Scream Day

National Skipping Day

New Kids on the Block Day

Nightingale Day (French Republic)

Oil in the Middle East Day

Pastele Blajinilor (Moldova)

Remembrance Day of Deportees (France)

Republic Day (The Gambia)

Right to Read Day

Space Day (China)

Spring Cat Cleaning Day

St. Mark’s Eve (UK)

Trojan Horse Day

World Anti-Colonialism Day

World Blind Sports Day

World Corrosion Awareness Day

World Cricket Day

World Day for Laboratory Animals (UN)

World Immunization Day

World Swimzi Day

World YWCA Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

National Pigs-in-a-Blanket Day

Newman’s Day (A Challenge to Drink 24 Beers in 24 Hours; “”)

Sauvignon Blanc Day

Soda Fountain Day

4th & Last Wednesday in April

Administrative Professional's Day [Wednesday of Last Full Week]

Arbor Day (US) [4th Wednesday]

Denim Day [Last Wednesday]

International Guide Dog Day [Last Wednesday]

International Noise Awareness Day [Last Wednesday]

Library Giving Day [Wednesday of Library Week]

National Bookmobile Day [Wednesday of Library Week]

National Drug Endangered Children Awareness Day [4th Wednesday]

National Financial Educators Day [Last Wednesday]

National Library Outreach Day [Wednesday of Library Week]

National Walk at Lunch Day [Last Wednesday]

No Elevators Day [Last Wednesday]

Peppercorn Day (Bermuda) [Wednesday closest to 23rd]

Secretary Day [Last Wednesday]

Stop Food Waste Day [Last Wednesday]

True Colors Day [Last Wednesday]

World Plone Day [Last Wednesday]

World Stationery Day [Last Wednesday]

Weekly Holidays beginning April 24 (4th Week)

American Quilters Society Week [thru 4.27]

Medical Laboratory Professionals Week [thru 4.30]

National Scoop the Poop Week [thru 4.30]

World Immunization Week [thru 4.30]

Independence & Related Days

Gambia (Republic Proclaimed; 1970)

Ireland (a.k.a. Easter Rising; from UK, 1916)

Shireroth (Declared; 2000) [unrecognized]

New Year’s Days

Theravada New Year (Buddhism)

Festivals Beginning April 24, 2024

Baja Wonder Grass (El Sargento, Mexico) [thru 4.26]

Hospice du Rhône (Walla Walla, Washington) [thru 4.27]

National Trout Festival (Kalkaska, Michigan) [thru 4.28]

Seabreeze Jazz Festival (Panama City Beach, Florida) [thru 4.28]

Taste of Key West (Key West, Florid)

Feast Days

Anthony Trollope (Writerism)

Benedict Menni (Christian; Saint)

Beuve of Rheims (Christian; Saint)

Bridget Riley (Artology)

Commodus Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Dermot of Armagh (Christian; Saint)

Doda of Rheims (Christian; Saint)

Dyfnan of Anglesey (Christian; Saint)

Ecgberht of Ripon (a.k.a. Egbert; Christian; Saint)

Feast of Eros (Ancient Greece)

Feast of Hermes Trismegistus (patron of alchemy)

Fidelis of Sigmaringen (Christian; Saint)

Gregory of Elvira (Christian; Saint)

Hairball Awareness Day (Pastafarian)

Happenstance and Coincidence Evening (Shamanism)

International Sculpture Day (Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Ivo of Ramsey (Christian; Saint)

Johann Walter (Lutheran)

Kuningan (Purification Ritual at Tirta Empul, Bali)

Leonidas (Positivist; Saint)

Life-Span Day (Celtic Book of Days)

Ljubov Popova (Artology)

Mary of Clopas (Christian; Saint)

Mary Euphrasia Pelletier (Christian; Saint & Virgin)

Mellitus (Christian; Saint)

Mick the Stick (Muppetism)

The Mothers (Celtic Prosperity Festival)

Nathaniel Hone (Artology)

Peter of Saint Joseph de Betancur (Christian; Saint)

Robert of Chase-Dies, Auvergne (Christian; Saint)

Robert Penn Warren (Writerism)

Saint Mark’s Eve (Everyday Wicca)

Salome (Christian; Disciple)

Sue Grafton (Writerism)

Susan DeLucci Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Walpurgisnacht, Day I (Pagan)

Wilfrid (Church of England)

William Firmatus (Christian; Saint)

Willem de Kooning (Artology)

Yom HaZikaron (a.k.a. Yom HaZikaron LeHalalei Ma’arakhot Yisrael ul’Nifge’ei Pe’ulot HaEivah or Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of the Wars of Israel and Victims of Actions of Terrorism or יוֹם הזִּכָּרוֹן לְחַלְלֵי מַעֲרָכוֹת יִשְׂרָאֵל וּלְנִפְגְעֵי פְּעֻלּוֹת הָאֵיבָה) [4 Iyar]

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Historically Bad Day (Greeks enter Troy, Armenian genocide, Iran hostage rescue fails & 3 other tragedies) [3 of 11]

Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]

Unfortunate Day (Pagan) [23 of 57]

Premieres

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (UK TV Series; 1984)

The Age of Adaline (Film; 2015)

All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren (Novel; 1946)

Assault and Peppered (WB MM Cartoon; 1965)

Border Song, by Elton John (Song; 1970)

The Boy and the Wolf (MGM Cartoon; 1943)

The Brethren, by John Grisham (Novel; 2000)

A Bright Shining Lie, by Neil Sheehan (Historical Book; 1989)

Calaboose Moose or The Crime of Your Life (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 43; 1960)

The Daily Express (London Daily Newspaper; 1900)

Diamond Dogs, by David Bowie (Album; 1974)

Eduardo e Cristina, by Gioachino Rossini (Opera; 1819)

The Ego and the Id, by Sigmund Freud (Science Book; 1923)

Ex Machina (Film; 2015)

Extraction (Film; 2020)

First Blood, by David Morrell (Novel; 1972)

Full Moon Fever, by Tom Petty (Album; 1989)

Gabby’s Diner (Woody Woodpecker Cartoon; 1961)

The Golden Man, by Philip K. Dick (Novella; 1954)

Green Dolphin Street, by Elizabeth Goudge (Novel; 1944)

I Wonder Why, by Dion & The Belmonts (Song; 1958)

La Marseillaise, composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle (Song; 1792) [French national anthem]

The Magnetic Telescope (Fleischer Cartoon; 1942) [#6]

The Man Who Fell To Earth (TV Series; 2022)

The Matlock Paper, by Robert Ludlum (Novel; 1973)

News-Letter (Boston Newspaper; 1704) [1st U.S. continuous newspaper]

The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton (Novel; 1967)

Piano Sonata in B Minor, Op. 1, by Alban Berg (Piano Sonata; 1911)

Sliding Doors (Film; 1998)

Space, by James A. Michener (Novel; 1983)

Sting Quartet, Op. 3, by Alban Berg (String Quartet; 1911)

There Goes My Baby, by The Drifters (Song; 1959)

Tom Thumb, by Henry Fielding (Play; 1730)

Valse Triste, by Jean Sibelius (Orchestral Work; 1904)

Waitress (Broadway Musical; 2016)

When a Felon Needs a Friend or Pantomime Quisling (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 44; 1960)

Woman is the N****r of the World, by John Lennon (Song; 1972)

Year of the Comet (Film; 1992)

Today’s Name Days

Egbert, Fidelis, Wilfried (Austria)

Fidel, Vjera, Vjeran (Croatia)

Jiří, Jiřina (Czech Republic)

Albertus (Denmark)

Aada, Iida, Vaida, Vanda (Estonia)

Albert, Altti, Pertti (Finland)

Fidèle (France)

Egbert, Marion, Virginia, Wilfried (Germany)

Achilles, Doukas, Elisavet, Elizabeth, Thavmastos (Greece)

György (Hungary)

Fedele (Italy)

Nameda, Varis, Visvaldis, Visvaris (Latvia)

Ervina, Fidelis, Kantrimas (Lithuania)

Albert, Olaug (Norway)

Aleksander, Aleksy, Egbert, Erwin, Erwina, Fidelis, Grzegorz, Horacjusz, Horacy (Poland)

Ilie, Iosif, Pasicrat, Sava, Valentin (Romania)

Juraj (Slovakia)

Fidel (Spain)

Vega (Sweden)

Isabel, Isabella (Ukraine)

Fidel, Fidelia, Marques, Marquez, Marquis, Marquise, Wilfred, Wilfredo (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 115 of 2024; 251 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 17 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Saille (Willow) [Day 11 of 28]

Chinese: Month 3 (Wu-Chen), Day 16 (Wu-Wu)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 16 Nisan 5784

Islamic: 15 Shawwal 1445

J Cal: 25 Cyan; Foursday [24 of 30]

Julian: 11 April 2024

Moon: 99%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 3 Caesar (5th Month) [Aristides]

Runic Half Month: Man (Human Being) [Day 15 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 37 of 92)

Week: 4th Week of April

Zodiac: Taurus (Day 5 of 31)