Not bad, but the pouty, teary teenager who screams abuse at her mother throughout this series got on my last nerve in every scene she’s in.
Historian, esp. 19c press, talk, book history. Author “Googling the Victorians,” “Punch Brotherhood,” etc. Co-founder SHARP, mgr VICTORIA. Fond of Old Time Radio, 60s Top 40, tennis, London. Liberal Texan in self-imposed Midwest exile. FRHistS
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Not bad, but the pouty, teary teenager who screams abuse at her mother throughout this series got on my last nerve in every scene she’s in.
“Immigration Blitz”? What a very odd choice of phrase for a militarized ANTI-immigration sweep.
Lord Houghton's reminiscence (ca. 1879) about the Courvoisier execution in 1840. Interesting, but not surprising, that Thackeray omitted this rhyming song from his magnificent essay in Fraser's Mag. about what he called "the sickening, ghastly wicked scene": "Going to See a Man Hanged." #victorian
What a fun essay about photographs in middle-class parlours. I'm especially glad to know about Charlotte O'Conor Eccles and this piece in The Windsor Magazine about "the average hostess" babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=md... #victorian #19th-c
Strongly reminiscent of Qaysi, Saddam's official poet, who for years churned out poems of praise that schoolchildren were made to memorize.
Yes, thank goodness -- anything to escape the McEnbros! And Mary Carillo is a pearl of great price.
They're getting that story on ESPN+, which carries the world feed.
A marvelous thread about the ethical framework within which practicing historians operate. It is so second nature to us that it usually goes unsaid so it’s bracing to see it laid out so clearly here—a necessity in these times when there are so many deeply dishonest appeals to “history.”
If your research centrally involves the 19th-c. British press, you should for sure consider applying for a Curran Fellowship. Anybody can apply, and the process is blessedly straightforward. My late friend Eileen Curran would be proud to see all the fine projects that her generosity has assisted in.
I was already loving these contemporary "takes" on New Yorker classics, but this one has me fantasizing about going back in time to eavesdrop on Gopnik and Mitchell as they sit chatting at one of my own favorite spots, the Grand Central Oyster Bar.
Anna Maria Jones has written a wonderfully detailed account of Dark Blue and its eccentric editor, John Christian Freund, for BRANCH: branchcollective.org?ps_articles=...
Sheridan le Fanu published his vampire novella 'Carmilla' in a magazine called 'The Dark Blue' between 1871 and 1872. I don't think I've ever seen a bound volume of The Dark Blue until today...and it's BEAUTIFUL! 💙 #c19th #vampires
How about the second stanza of Clive James's imperishable "The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered," with its happy phrase "the Edsels of the world of moveable type"? The whole poem would be great fun, of course, but a stanza would fit nicely on one smallish card.
Sing it, brother. We are going to be seeing so much more of this nonsense.
This is cool: I didn’t know that the John Hay has the manuscript of 1984–the only surviving Orwell mss. www.brown.edu/news/2025-08... #bookhistory
The issue was reading aloud vs. extemporizing. I agree that presenting from memory is a good thing--eye contact with the audience, etc.-- and that practice is essential to that. But it's not the same as extemporizing. Once you go off-script and start to riff on slides, etc. timing becomes a problem.
The trouble with extemporizing a conference paper is that almost nobody can do it well, and even those who can inevitably wind up going far over their allotted time, to everyone's annoyance.
This 1996 collection of essays about Victorian sexuality is now open access, thanks to the Big Ten Academic Alliance www.fulcrum.org/concern/mono...
I met him once, and the feeling of awe when I shook his hand has never left me. A great and good man.
So glad to know about this book, Martin -- and about the series, too, which I've belatedly added to the list here: www.victorianresearch.org/journals.htm...
Also "Echoes of the Eighties: Leaves from the Diary of a Victorian Lady" -- now known, thanks to the inspired rummaging of Wildean John Cooper, to have been extracted from the diaries of the redoubtable Mrs Humphry Ward. babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/mb?a=lis... #Victorian #19thCentury
Since I last shared a link to this little collection of "C19 literary life" books on HathiTrust (most of them memoirs, my favorite genre) I've added quite a few titles, including ones by such obscure scribblers as Comyns Carr, Fitzroy Gardner, and Lucy Walford.
So you find yourself doomscrolling through Bluesky and feeling more and more downhearted and then up pops an engrossing thread that a fave scholar has taken the trouble to put together and suddenly the world looks a little brighter. Thanks, @peteorford.bsky.social!
The Fetterman and Mangin books will be battling it out for the “Dems who like to hurt Dems” segment of the reading public.
Panizzi is such a hero.
Book historian Bill Bell's latest blog post is a meditation on the liberating experience of the British Museum Reading Room. crusoesbooks.wordpress.com/2025/07/30/a... #bookhistory
Marvelous. @rs4vp.org take note!
Whoa—I didn’t know the RHS had *merch*! Cool.
"People living on the bottom floor of nearby apartments had to erect wooden defenses outside their windows to prevent coffins from crashing into their houses." longreads.com/2025/07/22/p...
Right? Poor guy—Frith is so cruel about the rosacea that I’m surprised he didn’t make GAS’s notoriously hideous nose bigger than he did.
Oscar, whom Frith intended to ridicule, of course turns out to be, to modern eyes, not only the most recognizable but by far the most appealing figure in the painting. All sorts of small surprises here, like M.E. Braddon, whose face is just visible over Trollope's right shoulder. #19th-c #victorian
A pleasant Victorianist pastime: zooming in on the faces in Frith's "A Private View of the Royal Academy 1881" to see how many look familiar, then looking up the rest on the key to the painting: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co... upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...
And what a lousy historian he would have made...
Agreed—the BBC Tinker goes on way too long at the start with Tarr’s story, for one thing. But Smiley’s People is perfection. I’ve watched it too many times now, each time fully engrossed in the performances, to have any critical distance about it.
What about all the journals JHUP publishes? Are their contents licensed too?
What a sweet sound! You’ve made my day.
Same here. I need to get to SHARP -- the Rochester one was the same week as RSVP in Chicago.
HathiTrust, bless its sweet heart, has all 25 volumes: catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/00585...
Finally, the bringing together of the greatest history *brains* with a boatload of *cash*. Result: The Historians’ History of the World. This news just came my way (via a local bookshop) from Appleton’s Booklovers Magazine, November 1905. I sure hope it’s not too late to place my order.
I gave one such laserjet—it’s slow, noisy, and as heavy as a boat anchor. But by god it keeps on going.
I hadn't thought about this, but he's got a point.
Nice dish, though.
They can go to this link and click on "Subscribe" at left to sign up: list.iu.edu/sympa/info/v... If there's any difficulty or if they have any questions they can write to me directly at victoria-request@list.iu.edu . After 30+ years some out-of-date instructions are still out there, I'm afraid.
So cool. When I went to my 50th college reunion a couple of months ago, one of the alums I met, Tim Boyd, turned out to be the president of the Theosophical Society. Friendly, interesting guy.
Admiring the pollinator garden outside the local library yesterday I spotted this little guy among the yellow blossoms. Made my day.
1) Bill Cronon’s CHANGES IN THE LAND (1983) 2) Scrambled eggs and toast. #HATM
He married a Wilmette girl, Janet Shearon; they were together nearly 40 years. She used to come back home for her New Trier High School class reunions. A former classmate told me Janet was a really warm, special person.
Indeed—much chancier proposition.
Curious confusion of “books” with “manuscripts.” This super-scanner scans books.
Unofficial motto of Texas state government: “We are not here to help.”
This show totally has my number.
Ah, thanks -- never mind then! I'm so obsessed with attribution that I see anonymity puzzles everywhere 🤔
Would love to see these poems, and the evidence for their attribution, added to the curranindex.org!
Speaking of the Illustrated London News, a paper whose pages I never tire of turning, here's an account of its (mainly 19th-c.) history I put together some years back for the publisher Gale, which has made the essay free to access. It was fun to write. www.gale.com/intl/essays/... #C19th
There's a Victorian periodicals story with a Chicago connection: the loss of Herbert Ingram, founder of the Illustrated London News, in the wreck of the Lady Elgin in Lake Michigan in 1860. His pocket watch, found at the bottom of the lake, has now returned to England: tinyurl.com/y763rhhv #C19th
The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals had its annual meeting in Chicago this past weekend, and as a local I was very pleased to see so many attendees enjoying the city. The weather was lovely and we were at Loyola's Water Tower campus, an easy walk to the lakeshore and much else. rs4vp.org
Damn.
Splendid, Lesley! I’d love it if you were to post to VICTORIA about this, of course with a link to the blog.
Well said! I would also advise speakers against outlining for the audience what they intend to do in their 20-minute talk. Just do it. When I hear someone at the 15-minute mark say, “What I will argue…” my heart sinks and my spirit cries out in silent protest.
So sorry to hear this, Beth—hope you’re home safe soon!
Yes, apparently done simply for his own amusement at deceiving honest people. At least TJ Wise had the poor additional excuse of fleecing his duped collectors of their cash.
WT actual F. Fabrication like this, deliberately poisoning the already contaminated wells of knowledge that scholars draw upon, is so breathtakingly evil it beggars belief.
Jason Camlot’s fascinating plenary lecture at #rsvp2025 on the figure of voice in C19 periodicals of speech and elocution #victorian #19th-c
Terrific panel on C19 periodical advertising at #rsvp2025. Here’s one of @vjctorianist.bsky.social ‘s slides, showing adverts vs sales in the Northern Star. #19th-c #victorian
Wait, I thought the Supreme Court had ruled 6-9 that the 7th Commandment doesn't apply to Republicans. Or, for that matter, any other Comandments.
Wow, that brings back the memories. I had a weakness for the I Spy theme, whose visuals laid out the premise nicely. m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkb...
Iga can't afford to give Collins the free points she gave McNally. I hope she can tighten up her game -- the UFEs are crippling her competitiveness these days, which is so sad to see.
Good for them. There is something deeply hinky about this shooting.
VICTORIA, for its part, is still perking along after 32 years…so that’s a couple of long centuries to talk about.
Interested to learn that NASSR-L is still going -- I thought it self-destructed years ago.
The free electronic version of my book Selling Sexual Knowledge: Medical Publishing and Obscenity in Victorian Britain is OUT TODAY! You can download it from the link. Paperback ($35 USD) and hardback versions will be released on July 10. www.cambridge.org/core/service...
They can never just tell the damn truth about anything. Every single report must flatter Trump, no matter how absurdly false it is.
For those who remember working at the Round Reading Room of the British Museum under the great rotunda, a recording from the BBC of what it sounded like -- the echoing voices, the footfalls, the trolley. Scroll down to 'British Library - British Library reading room...' tinyurl.com/4mpj3ctk
Yay to Maria, Paul, and Shannon, who not incidentally are long active and much valued members of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals! @rs4vp.org
And the doormen! I’d love to watch a compilation of L&O interviews with them.
I’m still sighing over “bored of,” which has now replaced “bored with” and “bored by” seemingly everywhere…
Just when I thought I couldn't possibly take any deeper delight in Stephen Fry than I do already, it turns out he's a fan of Max Beerbohm's "Seven Men," which features (among other fine portraits) the preposterous but tragic figure of poet Enoch Soames: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/b...
When I was a novice book review editor at the American Historical Review decades ago, one of the first things we learned was to mercilessly eliminate all "an historical" and "an historian" nonsense from any review copy that came in. "Mincingly affected" is the perfect phrase for it.
Also, if you're working on C19 sources, see @patrickleary.bsky.social's invaluable list of open-access 19th-c periodicals here:
Now is a moment to reshare this video
Thank you for your attention to this nutter.
Anytime is a good time to binge Westlake's novels featuring tough-guy Parker. Sometimes hardboiled is just the way to go. Parker wants his money. And he wants it now. Trouble is, there's always some loser in on the heist who louses it up for everybody else. www.thestacksreader.com/parker/
Her tribute to Joel McCrae is a nice surprise. Nobody much talks about McCrea these days, but he was a joy to watch in so many pictures. Also to listen to--his early 1950s stint in Tales of the Texas Rangers on radio (directed by Stacy Keach Sr.) is great fun: archive.org/details/OTRR...
I seem to organize way too much of my time these days around the TNNSlive app, which does a good job of showing live and upcoming matches. Being able to have matches of favorite players show at the top is a handy feature.
Wondering why the car parked at the curb out front is my same old Toyota.
Singing, but such a sad song. My visit was long ago but I remember seeing so many of these scattered across Connemara, and being struck by how small the enclosures were and how starkly depopulated the once-crowded countryside looked -- the landscape itself a stark memorial of the Great Hunger.
Thanks for mentioning this, Sarah -- looking at the table of contents there is so much in that volume I want to read! Institutional access only alas, but maybe a hardcopy will come to a library near me soon.
Great news! Also nice photo 😎
Lovely to see Jackie Banerjee’s admiring TLS review of the exciting new books by @mdamkjaer.bsky.social and Julia Thomas on fiction in C19 periodicals www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/l... #c19th
Beautiful! Thanks for sharing.
Go for it, Martin!
Such an engrossing (and heartbreaking) article. I'm a fan of Old Time Radio and yet I knew nothing about her or The Goldbergs -- but was glad to find that Internet Archive (bless them) has a good sampling of episodes archive.org/details/Gold...
Very nice. Seeing this set me looking for more about Van Voorst. IA has a handy set of links, by author, to its digital copies of a fair number of his publications: openlibrary.org/publishers/J...
Happy start to the grass court season to all who celebrate. But my-oh-my was that RG final something else again or what? Here’s The Tennis Podcast’s stunned but joyful take on it: shows.acast.com/thetennispod...
One of the most prominent ;and enjoyable) political themes of L&O for years was showing the cops as working stiffs who are condescended to by rich, hoity-toity NYC doctors, bankers, professors, etc—hence all those satisfying perp walks when the suits get taken into custody.
General registration for BAVS2025 is now open. Come and join us in Oxford in July and help to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the formation of BAVS.
👍🏻 you’ve got this!
Brilliant!
I’ll bet you’re right—my friend just turned up an 1850 listing for the man that identifies him as a physician. What an odd misspelling!
A friend of mine is puzzling over this 1855 New York State census listing and I'm at a loss. The listed occupation appears to be "Phintion," which makes no sense to either of us, but we can't think of an alternative reading. Any ideas?
