Eggplant.place

208d

O, love, love, love!
Love is like a dizziness;
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his biziness!

—James Hogg (1770–1835), “Love is like a dizziness” 💝

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poem #ValentinesDay #Valentine #18thcentury #19thcentury #humour

Love is like a dizziness
James Hogg

I lately lived in quiet ease,
An’ ne’er wished to marry, O!
But when I saw my Peggy’s face,
I felt a sad quandary, O!
Though wild as ony Athol deer,
She has trepann’d me fairly, O!
Her cherry cheeks an’ een sae clear
Torment me late an’ early, O!

O, love, love, love!
Love is like a dizziness;
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his biziness!

To tell my feats this single week
Wad mak a daft-like diary, O!
I drave my cart out owre a dike,
My horses in a miry, O!
I wear my stockings white an’ blue,
My love’s sae fierce an’ fiery, O!
I drill the land that I should pleugh,
An’ pleugh the drills entirely, O!

Chorus

Ae morning, by the dawn o’ day,
I rase to theek the stable, O!
I cuist my coat, an’ plied away
As fast as I was able, O!
I wrought that morning out an’ out,
As I’d been redding fire, O!
When I had done an’ look’d about,
Gudefaith, it was the byre, O!

Chorus

ALT

Her wily glance I’ll ne’er forget,
The dear, the lovely blinkin’ o’t
Has pierced me through an’ through the heart,
An’ plagues me wi’ the prinkling o’t.
I tried to sing, I tried to pray,
I tried to drown’t wi’ drinkin’ o’t,
I tried wi’ sport to drive’t away,
But ne’er can sleep for thinkin’ o’t.

Chorus

Nae man can tell what pains I prove,
Or how severe my pliskie, O!
I swear I’m sairer drunk wi’ love
Than ever I was wi’ whisky, O!
For love has raked me fore an’ aft,
I scarce can lift a leggie, O!
I first grew dizzy, then gaed daft,
An’ soon I’ll dee for Peggy, O!

Chorus

ALT

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1y

The poems of Arthur Conan Doyle
16 September, online – pay what you can

Although best known for his Sherlock Holmes stories, Arthur Conan Doyle also published several volumes of verse. While his poetry never achieved the same level of acclaim as his fiction, it remains an important part of his literary legacy, & The Live Canon ensemble will perform a selection of his poems

@litstudies

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-poems-of-arthur-conan-doyle-tickets-1284197211429

#Scottish #literature #poetry #19thCentury #ConanDoyle

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1y

Robert Louis Stevenson & Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne married #OTD, 19 May, 1880. In this article, Prof Penny Fielding explores the dangerous collaboration between RLS & his wife: granting female agency on the page & in life

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https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2017/01/06/a-dangerous-collaboration/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #RLS #WomenWriters

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1y

Robert Tannahill (1774–1810), “the weaver poet”, was born #OTD, 3 June – “second only to Robert Burns as a poet writing chiefly in the language of the working class of Scotland”

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https://www.thenational.scot/culture/24360177.celebrating-scotlands-second-greatest-poet-robert-tannahill/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #18thcentury #19thCentury #romanticism #pastoral #workingclass

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1y

“Of aal the fish there iss in the sea,” said Para Handy, “nothing bates the herrin’; it’s a providence they’re plentiful and them so cheap!”

Neil Munro (1863–1930) – journalist, novelist, short-story writer, & poet – was born #OTD, 3 June. Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of Herring discusses Munro’s PARA HANDY stories, as well as giving the full text of the tale “The Herring – A Gossip”

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https://www.herripedia.com/para-handy/

#Scottish #literature #humour #shortstory #herring #19thcentury #20thcentury

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1y

“[Milne’s] cryogenics story, ‘Ten Thousand Years in Ice’, in which a survivor from an ancient advanced civilisation is revived in the present, unintentionally became one of science fiction’s great literary hoaxes”

Robert Duncan Milne (1844–1899) was born #OTD, 7 June, in Cupar, Fife. He emigrated to the USA & became America’s first full-time writer of science fiction

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https://theconversation.com/remembering-the-lost-father-of-american-science-fiction-and-his-scottish-roots-78968

#Scottish #literature #sciencefiction #scifi #Victorian #19thcentury

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1y

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was born #OTD, 22 May, at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh – a 🎂 🧵

On BBC Sounds: Bridget Kendall explores Conan Doyle’s life & work – the doctor & literary superstar who changed Crime fiction forever

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p054419v

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #Crimewriting #CrimeFiction #Sherlock #SherlockHolmes #SherlockHolmesDay #ArthurConanDoyle

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1y

What Scotsman was caught up in a civil war before the age of twenty? Wrote a book that became the inspiration for an Oscar-winning film? Met a runaway teenager in Paris and married her against the wishes of his family? Lost his ranch to raiding Apaches?

Buckle up – it’s going to be a long, wild 🧵 …

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#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #20thcentury #Victorian #Edwardian

A still from THE MISSION (1986). Robert De Niro, with a black beard and swept-back dark hair, stands in a haze of smoke in a jungle scene. He is dressed in a black shirt, and is holding a rapier out in front of him in his right hand. His left is on his hip, in a fencer's fighting stance. He looks unsmilingly along the length of his sword to whatever faces him.

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1y

A Restless Intellect

“Widely respected – & regularly attacked (once physically) – in her lifetime, she is now largely neglected; an intriguing aside to feminism or to agnosticism. Dixie deserves better.”

Florence Dixie (1855–1905) – novelist, poet, dramatist, war correspondent, campaigning journalist, suffragist, & more – was born #OTD, 25 May. Valentina Bold explores Dixie’s roving life

@litstudies

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https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2021/12/a-restless-intellect-florence-dixie-1855-1905/

#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thcentury #womenwriters

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1y

Christian Isobel Johnstone (1781–1857) – novelist, journalist, & editor – was born #OTD, 12 June.

Johnstone was editor for more than a decade of Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, a journal famous for its vigorous liberal viewpoints & incisive literary reviews, & wrote some of the most remarkable Scottish novels of the #Romantic era.

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https://www.scottishwomenwritersontheweb.net/writers-a-to-z/christian-isobel-johnstone

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #18thcentury #19thcentury #romanticism

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1y

McGonagall Salon(agall)
24 June, Edinburgh & online – free

The Edinburgh Literary Salon & the International Ghost Society – Edinburgh’s newest & most easily-distracted paranormal investigation society – present an interactive journey through the life & poetic gems of William McGonagall, including a playable big screen RPG, hidden Easter eggs, & a virtual McGonagall experience

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/junes-mcgonagall-salonagall-tickets-1407703903269

#Scottish #literature #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian #Dundee #McGonagall

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1y

“Annie S. Swan both requires revaluation through her own biography & calls into question easy valorisations of ‘danger’ as expressed in terms of explicit challenge & radicalism. The extent of her appeal & influence demands a more nuanced analysis of the politics of emotion & the gendering of reader response”

—Prof Glenda Norquay on Annie S. Swan (1859–1943) – born #OTD, 8 July

@litstudies

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https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2016/09/08/annie-shepherd-swan/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #20thcentury #romance #womenwriters

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1y

The Battle of Waterloo was fought #OTD, 18 June, 1815. Walter Scott visited the battlefield shortly after; his 1816 book PAUL’S LETTERS TO HIS KINSFOLK contains one of the earliest accounts of the aftermath, & is an important early example of war journalism

https://theconversation.com/walter-scott-war-journalism-from-the-waterloo-battlefield-43304

#Scottish #literature #Waterloo #SirWalterScott #19thcentury

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205d

Infinite Women: Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

In this episode of the Infinite Women podcast, Cleo O’Callaghan Yeoman (Research Associate at the University of Glasgow) & Kate Ferrier (PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh) discuss the novelist Susan Edmonstone Ferrier (1782–1854).

@litstudies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbHjU6Jisrk

#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #romanticism #podcast

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1y

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day…

—Robert Louis Stevenson, “Bed in Summer”
published in A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES (1885)

#Scottish #literature #poem 3poetry #summer #kidlit #19thcentury #Victorian #Edinburgh #RobertLouisStevenson

Bed in Summer
by Robert Louis Stevenson

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

ALT

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1y

Happy Glasgow Fair Monday!

“…on one occasion the Highland Queen was berthed by the master and a boy, the rest of the crew being quite incapable…”

Steamships, “steaming”, drunkenness & “smùid” – Donald Meek on going doon the watter, & early Scottish booze-cruising

https://meekwrite.blogspot.com/2013/04/maritime-and-linguistic-studies.html

#Scottish #Scotland #Scots #Scotslanguage #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #steaming #GlasgowFair #FairMonday #culturalstudies #19thcentury #20thcentury #alcohol #steamboat

A late 19th-century postcard. The printed text reads:

Mottoes for those going
“Doon the Watter”

If it's losing the boat,
or losing your drink—
lose the boat.

The image shows a colour illustration of a moustachio'd young man, standing at a bar, wearing a boater hat at a rakish angle, a dark green jacket, a yellow-and-white striped waistcoat and a red bow tie. He has one hand in his pocket as he looks over his shoulder, out of the door of the bar to see, in the distance, a steamship leaving the harbour. He raises a full pint mug to toast its departure.

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1y

Your daily dose of dutch art by Vincent van Gogh.

Lying Cow

#art #dutchart #vanGogh #impressionism #19thCentury #kunst

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1y

“When the lights come out at sundown along the shores of Scotland, I am proud to think they burn more brightly for the genius of my father.”
—from MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF, Robert Louis Stevenson’s uncompleted (indeed, barely begun) autobiography

Thomas Stevenson (1818–1887), lighthouse engineer & father of Robert Louis Stevenson, was born #OTD, 22 July

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#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thcentury #lighthouse #engineer #engineering #RobertLouisStevenson

Sepia photograph of Thomas Stevenson – a pensive-looking head-and-shoulders portrait of a Victorian gentleman, balding, clean-shaven with side-whiskers, his left hand raised to touch his face. A ring is visible on the pinkie of his left hand.

ALT

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1y

From the lone shieling of the misty island
Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas—
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides…

—“Canadian Boat-Song” (Anon.)
published in the Noctes Ambrosianæ, Blackwood’s Magazine Sept 1829

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#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #CanadaDay 🇨🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Canadian Boat-Song (from the Gaelic)

Listen to me, as when ye heard our father
Sing long ago, the song of other shores—
Listen to me, and then in chorus gather
All your deep voices, as ye pull your oars:
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers’ land.

From the lone shieling of the misty island
Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas—
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides:
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers’ land.

We ne’er shall tread the fancy-haunted valley,
Where ’tween the dark hills creeps the small clear stream,
In arms around the patriarch banner rally,
Nor see the moon on royal tombstones gleam:
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers’ land.

When the bold kindred, in the time long-vanish’d,
Conquer’d the soil and fortified the keep—
No seer foretold the children would be banish’d,
That a degenerate Lord might boast his sheep:
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers’ land.

Come foreign rage—let Discord burst in slaughter!
O then for clansman true, and stern claymore—
The hearts that would have given their blood like water,
Beat heavily beyond the Atlantic roar:
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers’ land.

ALT

Edited 1y ago

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1y

Elizabeth Hamilton (1756?–1816) was (probably) born #OTD, 25 July. We republished her 1808 novel THE COTTAGERS OF GLENBURNIE, edited by Pam Perkins: an entertaining & skilful dissection of 18th-century class issues, British imperialism, & war

@litstudies

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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/glenburnie/

#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters

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1y

Call for papers:
(Un)natural Stevenson: Wild transgressions across literature, ecology, science & gender
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 11–12 May 2026

This conference aims to explore the concept of nature/natural in Robert Louis Stevenson’s work, & to investigate Stevenson both as a writer of dichotomies/dualisms & of their wild transgressions

@litstudies

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EoselkYayxzSXzW36aDZTbZv_SQt8cCG/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #LiteraryStudies #ecology #science #gender

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1y

#OTD, 7 Aug, 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson boarded the SS Devonia to make the ten-day passage from Greenock to New York to pursue his thwarted relationship with Fanny Osbourne. In THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT he gives a vivid, sharp, & engaging account of his (impoverished) travels to & in America – read the first 5 chapters free 👇

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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/the_amateur_emigrant/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #travelwriting #RobertLouisStevenson #emigration

Alt text

Book cover

Robert Louis Stevenson
The Amateur Emigrant
From the Clyde to Sandy Hook
Chapters I to V

On a blue-grey background, fading from dark to light from bottom to top, horizontal lines of blue-green spirals representing waves cover the bottom half of the page. The top line of spirals are coloured white.

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1y

Call for papers:
Irish & Scottish Women Writers for Children, c. 1750–1940
12 Dec, University of Edinburgh – free

Although significantly overlooked, Irish & Scottish women wrote children’s literature across various genres & forms. Papers on the symposium themes are invited by 31 August.

@litstudies

#Scottish #Irish #literature #womenwriters #ChildrensLiterature #18thcentury #19thcentury #20thcentury #CallforPapers

Paper presentations of 20 minutes in length are welcomed and may be on the following writers:

Catherine Sinclair, Elizabeth Hamilton, Isabella Fyvie Mayo, Ethel Forster Heddle, Annie S. Swan, Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Robina Hardy, Jessie Saxby, the Findlater sisters, the Mulholland sisters, Lady Gregory, Maria Edgeworth, Mary Leadbeater, Violet Finney, Katharine Tynan, Sophia Rosamond Praeger.

Or, the focus of the paper might be tied to one of the following themes:

Irish/Scottish women writers or editors of children’s periodicals.
Irish/Scottish women writers or illustrators of fairy tales or folktales.
Writing partnerships and the social networks of women writers.
The local, national and international in Irish/Scottish children’s literature.
Children’s literature written in Scots, Irish, or Scottish Gaelic.
Religion and politics in Irish/Scottish children’s literature.
Collections research and archival recovery of children’s literature.

Selected papers from this symposium will be invited to be expanded and collected in an edited volume of essays.

Please email a 200-word abstract and a 50-word bio to Lois Burke at v1lburk3@ed.ac.uk by 31st August.

The symposium will be free to attend, and catering will be provided.

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189d

“I never read such an impious book,” said the reader, throwing it on the floor.
“You need not hurt me,” said the book; “you will only get less for me second hand, and I did not write myself.”

For World Book Day (UK & Ireland), a fable about a book: Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Reader”

@bookstodon

#Scottish #literature #RobertLouisStevenson #fables #shortstories #flashfiction #microfiction #19thcentury #Victorian

XI—THE READER

“I never read such an impious book,” said the reader, throwing it on the floor.

“You need not hurt me,” said the book; “you will only get less for me second hand, and I did not write myself.”

“That is true,” said the reader. “My quarrel is with your author.”

“Ah, well,” said the book, “you need not buy his rant.”

“That is true,” said the reader. “But I thought him such a cheerful writer.”

“I find him so,” said the book.

“You must be differently made from me,” said the reader.

“Let me tell you a fable,” said the book. “There were two men wrecked upon a desert island; one of them made believe he was at home, the other admitted—”

“O, I know your kind of fable,” said the reader. “They both died.”

“And so they did,” said the book. “no doubt of that. And everybody else.”

“That is true,” said the reader. “Push it a little further for this once. And when they were all dead?”

“They were in God’s hands, the same as before,” said the book.

“Not much to boast of, by your account,” cried the reader.

“Who is impious now?” said the book.

And the reader put him on the fire.

The coward crouches from the rod,
And loathes the iron face of God.

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114d

Robert Louis Stevenson & Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne married #OTD, 19 May, 1880. In this article, Prof Penny Fielding explores the dangerous collaboration between RLS & his wife: granting female agency on the page & in life

1/3

https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2017/01/06/a-dangerous-collaboration/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #RLS #WomenWriters

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