Eggplant.place

2d

WayWORD Festival 2025
1–5 October, Aberdeen

The programme for WayWORD 2025, the University of Aberdeen’s cross-arts literary festival, is now online.

#Scottish #literature #writing #creativewriting #WritingCommunity

3d

Remediating Stevenson: Reframing perspectives through graphic novels
28 August, Edinburgh University – free, ticketed

Launching 3 new graphic novels inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s South Sea Tales: The Bottle Imp, The Isle of Voices & The Beach of Falesá. The event is aimed at upper primary & secondary teachers with an interest in English, Literacy & Art.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/remediating-stevenson-reframing-perspectives-through-graphic-novels-tickets-1575626052939

#Scottish #literature #graphicnovels #RobertLouisStevenson #teachers

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2d

Inventing the American Revolution: On Thomas Paine’s Guide to Fighting Dictatorship

“How are free people supposed to stay free? One short answer: don’t trust anyone over thirty.”

By Matthew Redmond

https://lithub.com/inventing-the-american-revolution-on-thomas-paines-guide-to-fighting-dictatorship/

Thomas Paine at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/91

#books #literature #history

Portrait of Thomas Paine by John Wesley Jarvis, c. 1806–1807.

Paine is shown bust-length, turned slightly to one side, his gaze meeting the viewer with a direct look. His face is lined with age — high forehead, prominent cheekbones, and deep-set eyes.

He wears a dark coat over a waistcoat, with a white cravat neatly tied at his throat. His hair, thinning and swept back, is rendered in soft, light strokes, possibly a powdered style or simply greying with age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine#/media/File:Thomas_Paine_A16220.jpg

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2d

Stone going home again to stone;
poor helpless house, your heart is ash,
bone-shelter of this country’s bone…

—Walter Perrie, “Stone Going Home Again”
published in Stone Going Home Again: New Writing Scotland 28 (ASL, 2010)

“the job of poetry is not to explain the magical mysteries of life but to enumerate and illuminate them”
—Richie McCaffery reviews Walter Perrie’s THE AGES OF WATER (Grace Note Publications, 2020)

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2023/11/the-ages-of-water-by-walter-perrie/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poem

Walter Perrie
STONE GOING HOME AGAIN

Stone going home again to stone;
poor helpless house, your heart is ash,
bone-shelter of this country’s bone,
abandoned arteries, old Perthshire flesh,
stoor smothers every good Scots word.
Ghosts, who, though the roof-beam falls,
who brought you sheep and the shepherd,
speech and song, still prowl your walls.

Only the rowans they planted
keep them out. Only from haunted
sky and wood their silence to your silence calls –
now only the wild birds; starling, mavis, rook,
brown wren that through the thicket moves,
and buzzard piaow and pheasant croak,
and the untranslatable noise of doves.

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2d

The Scottish Novel – book launch & seminar
5 Sept, Edinburgh – free, ticketed

Are novelists from Scotland merely contributors to English literature, or is there a separate & distinctive tradition of the Scottish novel?

This seminar presents papers by contributors to The International Companion to the Scottish Novel (ed. Cairns Craig) with a focus on literature from the 20th & 21st centuries.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-scottish-novel-tickets-1541851020909

#Scottish #literature #novel #novels

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2d

“A poetry of self-conscious listening, of placing sound carefully. Like the plover, here I am, sitting on this stone, testing out sounds and patterns in order to record how it is to be here in this now.”

—Lesley Harrison, “Do Birds Sing?”, in the PN Review

https://www.pnreview.co.uk/archive/do-birds-sing/11958

#Scottish #literature #language #poetry #birdsong #birds

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3d

There is recent talk
of re-introducing wolves
to this demi-nation
of lambs and glaikit rams
and scraggy ewes,
(and – let’s face it –
hardly any shepherds left to care)…

—Douglas Lipton, “Wolves”
published in Such Strange Joy (inyx, 2001)

Today, 13 August, is International Wolf Day 🐺

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/wolves/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #wolf #wolves #InternationalWolfDay

Wolves
Douglas Lipton

for the new Scottish Parliament

The icy rain is spitting
on the pines and golden birches.
Hangings of black cloud
are torn apart by sunbursts
and then tugged shut again.

Behind us wait Przewalski’s Horses,
black Aurochs, Arctic Fox, Wisent, Lynx
and the other extinct of the country.
We are approaching the enclave
of the Wolves. You hold me,
Kiss me. The children are scurrying.
Our friends, too, are there
with two more scurriers
and a screamer in a papoose
and we are followed by other little packs
of back-bitten families,
out for a day of different frictions,
weather-incited.

From a crag of varnished wood
and plate-glass
we watch those almost-
wild dogs of the north
examine their territory,
tear meat and socialise.
Their puppies play,
rollicking like boulders of fur
in a river of pure air.

There is recent talk
of re-introducing wolves
to this demi-nation
of lambs and glaikit rams
and scraggy ewes,
(and – let’s face it –
hardly any shepherds left to care),
but the wolves are sure to be enclosed
or else we’d dare
to be entire again,
let forests grow,
and take our chances.

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3d

Thar na sìorraidheachd, thar a sneachda,
chì mi mo dhàin neo-dheachdte,
chì mi lorgan an spòg a’ breacadh
gile shuaimhneach an t-sneachda:
calg air bhoile, teanga fala,
gadhair chaola ’s madaidhean-allaidh…

—Somhairle MacGill-Eain, “Coin is Madaidhean-allaidh”
published in Caoir Gheal Leumraich / White Leaping Flame (Birlinn, 2023)

International Wolf Day 🐺

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/white-leaping-flame-caoir-gheal-leumraich/

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #InternationalWolfDay

Coin is Madaidhean-allaidh
Somhairle MacGill-Eain

Thar na sìorraidheachd, thar a sneachda,
chì mi mo dhàin neo-dheachdte,
chì mi lorgan an spòg a’ breacadh
gile shuaimhneach an t-sneachda:
calg air bhoile, teanga fala,
gadhair chaola ’s madaidhean-allaidh
a’ leum thar mullaichean nan gàrradh,
a’ ruith fo sgàil nan craobhan fàsail,
a’ gabhail cumhang nan caol-ghleann,
a’ sireadh caisead nan gaoth-bheann;
an langan gallanach a’ sianail
thar loman cruaidhe nan àm cianail,
an comhartaich bhiothbhuan ’na mo chluasan,
an deann-ruith a’ gabhail mo bhuadhan:
rèis nam madadh ’s nan con iargalt
luath air tòrachd an fhiadhaich
tro na coilltean gun fhiaradh,
thar mullaichean nam beann gun shiaradh;
coin chiùine caothaich na bàrdachd,
madaidhean air tòir na h-àilleachd,
àilleachd an anama ’s an aodainn,
fiadh geal thar bheann is raointean,
fiadh do bhòidhche ciùine gaolaich,
fiadhach gun sgur gun fhaochadh.

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Dogs and Wolves
Sorley MacLean

Across eternity, across its snows,
I see my unwritten poems,
I see the spoor of their paws dappling
the untroubled whiteness of the snow:
bristles raging, bloody-tongued,
lean greyhounds and wolves
leaping over the tops of the dykes,
running under the shade of the trees of the wilderness,
taking the defile of narrow glens,
making for the steepness of windy mountains;
their baying yell shrieking
across the hard barenesses of the terrible times,
their everlasting barking in my ears,
their onrush seizing my mind:
career of wolves and eerie dogs
swift in pursuit of the quarry,
through the forests without veering,
over the mountain-tops without sheering;
the mild mad dogs of poetry,
wolves in chase of beauty,
beauty of soul and face,
a white deer over hills and plains,
the deer of your gentle beloved beauty,
a hunt without halt, without respite.

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1d

Walter Scott (1771–1832) was born #OnThisDay, 15 August, the son of Walter Scott, Writer to the Signet, and Anne Rutherford.

Scott is one of the most significant figures in Scottish, British, European and world literatures. In 2014, The Bottle Imp dedicated a special issue to celebrating Scott’s work.

A 🎂 🧵

@litstudies

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https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/issues/issue-16/

#Scottish #literature #WalterScott #19thcentury #Romanticism

A portrait head of Walter Scott, painted by Sir Henry Raeburn, c.1822–23, oil on canvas. Walter Scott is clean shaven, with thinning fair hair brushed across a high forehead. His grey-blue eyes look out past the viewer, at something we cannot see.

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12h

The Laird o’ Cockpen, he’s proud an’ he’s great,
His mind is ta’en up wi’ the things o’ the State…

Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne (1766–1845) was born #OTD, 16 Aug. Oliphant wrote over 100 popular songs to traditional Scottish tunes. Although she shunned publicity & never acknowledged her authorship, along with Robert Burns she is one of the most significant figures in Scottish folksong

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

Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne
“The Laird o’ Cockpen”

The Laird o’ Cockpen, he’s proud an’ he’s great,
His mind is ta’en up wi’ the things o’ the State;
He wanted a wife, his braw house to keep,
But favour wi’ wooin’ was fashious to seek.

Down by the dyke-side a lady did dwell,
At his table head he thocht she’d look well,
M’Leish’s ae dochter o’ Clavers-ha’ Lea,
A penniless lass wi’ a lang pedigree.

His wig was weel pouther’d and as gude as new,
His waistcoat was white, his coat it was blue;
He put on a ring, a sword, and cock’d hat,
And wha could refuse the Laird wi’ a’ that?

He took the grey mare, and rade cannily,
And rapp’d at the yett o’ Clavers-ha’ Lea;
‘Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben, –
She’s wanted to speak to the Laird o’ Cockpen.’

Mistress Jean she was makin’ the elderflower wine;
‘An’ what brings the Laird at sic a like time?’
She put aff her apron, and on her silk goun,
Her mutch wi’ red ribbons, and gaed awa’ doun.

An’ when she cam’ ben, he bowed fu’ low,
An’ what was his errand he soon let her know;
Amazed was the Laird when the lady said ‘Na’,
And wi’ a laigh curtsie she turned awa’.

Dumfounder’d was he, nae sigh did he gie,
He mounted his mare – he rade cannily;
An’ aften he thought, as he gaed through the glen,
She’s daft to refuse the laird o’ Cockpen.

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1d

A Man Read 3,599 Books Over 60 Years, and Now His Family Has Shared the Entire List Online

https://www.openculture.com/2025/08/a-man-read-3599-books-over-60-years-and-now-his-family-has-shared-the-entire-list-online.html

One page of Dan's list of books

#books #literature

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1d

He will outlast us, churning out his books,
advocate and historian, his prose
earning him Abbotsford with its borrowed gates,
its cheap mementos from the land he made…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “At the Scott Exhibition, Edinburgh Festival”
published in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS (Carcanet, 2021)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800170940/deer-on-the-high-hills/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WalterScott #IainCrichtonSmith #writers #writing

AT THE SCOTT EXHIBITION, EDINBURGH FESTIVAL
Iain Crichton Smith

He will outlast us, churning out his books,
advocate and historian, his prose
earning him Abbotsford with its borrowed gates,
its cheap mementos from the land he made.
Walking the room together in this merciless
galaxy of manuscripts and notes
I am exhausted by such energy.
I hold your hand for guidance. Over your brow
the green light falls from tall and narrow windows.
His style is ignorant of this tenderness,
the vulnerable angle of your body
below the Raeburn with its steady gaze.

It was all in his life, not in his books
‘Oh I am dying, take me home to Scotland
where I can breathe though that breath were my last.’
He limped through an Edinburgh being made anew.
He worked his way through debts, past a dead wife.
My dear, we love each other in our weakness
as he with white grave face diminishing through
stroke after stroke down to the unpaid room.
We know what we are but know not what we will be.
I tremble in this factory of books.
What love he must have lost to write so much.

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1d

Did Walter Scott Invent Scotland?
Dr Juliet Shields’ 2017 Gresham College Fulbright lecture

Walter Scott’s phenomenally popular novels & poems created an image of Scotland as a land of sublime scenery & heroic chivalry. Why is it Scott’s version, rather than any of the many other 19th-century literary representations of Scotland, that has endured in the popular imagination?

@litstudies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxBpDfV6SHE

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #WalterScott #CulturalStudies

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1y

Aphra Behn, the First Englishwoman to Earn a Living With Her Writing, Is Finally Getting Her Due
A year-long event series aims to champion the pioneering 17th-century writer’s legacy

By Elizabeth Djinis via @SmithsonianMag

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/aphra-behn-the-first-englishwoman-to-earn-a-living-with-her-writing-is-finally-getting-her-due-180984662/

Aphra Behn's The Amorous Prince, or, The Curious Husband was staged this month for the first time in 350 years.

#books #literature #theatre

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7h

“I didn’t really think through what a lighthouse keeper actually did. I was attracted by the romantic notion of sitting on a rock, writing haikus & dashing off the occasional watercolour.”
—Peter Hill in the London Review of Books

16 & 17 August is the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v18/n11/peter-hill/diary

#Scottish #literature #lighthouse #lighthouses #lightship #lightships #ILLW

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1d

Animal Farm at 80: why the animals really matter in Orwell’s parable about communism

Orwell wrote his short, shocking novel at a time when it was considered scientifically inadmissible for animals to be granted thoughts or even feelings.

By Charlotte Sleigh

https://theconversation.com/animal-farm-at-80-why-the-animals-really-matter-in-orwells-parable-about-communism-246713?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20August%2014%202025%20-%203485335498&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20August%2014%202025%20-%203485335498+CID_ae8c2a2908db309198a7304bffc37b62&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=Animal%20Farm%20at%2080%20why%20the%20animals%20really%20matter%20in%20Orwells%20parable%20about%20communism

#Books #literature

Cover to first edition of Animal Farm by George Orwell.

The title “Animal Farm” appears in large, bold, sans-serif lettering at the top, with “A Fairy Story” (the original subtitle) placed beneath in smaller type.

The background is filled with dynamic, radiating lines, giving the design a sense of movement and urgency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm#/media/File:Animal_Farm_-_1st_edition.jpg

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1y

American writer, literary critic and journalist Edmund Wilson was born #OTD in 1895.

Over his career, he contributed to numerous periodicals and his essays and reviews are often credited with influencing public and scholarly opinion on many subjects. Wilson was the author of more than twenty books, including Axel's Castle, Patriotic Gore, and Memoirs of Hecate County. He was a friend F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos.

#books #literature #literarycriticism

Publicity photograph of literary critic and writer Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) taken at 52 W. 52nd Street in New York City by studio portraitist Ben Pinchot circa April 1936. As Wilson paid Pinchot for this publicity photograph, the copyright wholly resided with Wilson. The author distributed this publicity photograph to promote his upcoming 1936 book Travels in Two Democracies published by Harcourt, Brace & Company. According to archivists at the U.S. Library of Congress and the New York Public Library, Wilson's publicist Dorothy Larrimore of Doubleday & Company again freely released and distributed this publicity photograph without a copyright notice and with no use restrictions ten years later to promote the author's 1946 book Memoirs of Hecate County.

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1y

French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer Blaise Pascal was born #OTD in 1623.

One of his most famous contributions in Mathematics is the Pascal's Theorem. Along with Pierre de Fermat, Pascal is credited with founding probability theory. He also made significant contributions to the study of binomial coefficients, which led to the formation of Pascal's Triangle.

Books by Blaise Pascal at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/7913

#books #literature #mathematics #physics

Burin executed around 1689-1692 according to Bernard Dorival, "L'iconographie de Pascal au 17e siècle" in Pascal et Port-Royal, 1962, p. 96; probably 1691 according to R. P. Lelong, Bibliothèque historique, 1775. Bégon, wishing to glorify the century of Louis XIV, collected portraits of illustrious figures, had them engraved from 1689 by Jacques Lubin, had those he didn't have interpreted by Edelinck, Simonneau and Van Schuppen, and in 1692 commissioned Charles Perrault to write the texts. The publication of this engraving and Volume 1 of Hommes Illustres was delayed because Pascal's eulogy, published in Parallèles des anciens et des modernes in 1690, aroused the hostility of the Jesuits and the opposition of Louis XIV. Perrault therefore replaced the portraits and biographies of Pascal and Arnauld with those of Ducange and Thomassin. However, the publisher Dezallier clandestinely printed and circulated copies with notices and portraits of the two Jansenists in 1696 (plate 34). Guillaume Desprez, the publisher of Les Pensées, printed the portrait in reverse: Pascal is turned to the right, and the author of the drawing on which Edelinck took his model is cited: François II Quesnel.

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Machine arithmétique de Pascal - L’Encyclopédie.
Diderot et d'Alembert — Gallica
Planches de l'Encyclopédie de Diderot et d'Alembert, volume 4

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362d

American writer Harriette Woods Baker was born #OTD in 1815.

She wrote under the pseudonym "Madeline Leslie." She devoted herself successfully to novels; but after about 15 years, she wrote popular religious literature. Some of her well-known titles include The Family in the Parsonage (1853), The Mother’s Mission (1854), and The Orphan Children (1856).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriette_Woods_Baker

Books by Madeline Leslie at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/31136

#books #literature

Harriette Newell Woods Baker
G. Derby & J. T. White - T. White The National Cyclopædia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, and of the Men and Women who are Doing the Work and Moulding the Thought of the Present Time

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1y

American artist, author, translator, and illustrator Wanda Gág was born #OTD in 1893.

"Millions of Cats" (1928), tells the story of an old man and an old woman who decide to get a cat. The book's unique illustrations, which Gág created using lithographic crayon, made it a classic of children's literature. Gág wrote and illustrated several other children's books, including "The Funny Thing" and "Snippy and Snappy."

"Millions of cats" will be available at PG pretty soon.

#books #literature

Portrait of the artist Wanda Gág in December 1916

Unknown author - Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota

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Illustration from "Cats by the millions" by Wanda Gág.

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1y

English author, poet, and gardener Vita Sackville-West was born #OTD in 1892.

She published more than a dozen collections of poetry and 13 novels during her life. She was twice awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Imaginative Literature: in 1927 for her pastoral epic, The Land, & in 1933 for her Collected Poems. She was the inspiration for the protagonist of Orlando: A Biography, by her friend & lover Virginia Woolf.

Vita Sackville-West at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/34850

#books #literature #poetry

Sackville-West around 1915, from The Life of V.Sackville-West by Victoria Glendinning

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Cover page of Knole and the Sackvilles by V. Sackville-West

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1y

Zelda Fitzgerald died #OTD in 1948.

She was an American novelist, socialite, and the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda Fitzgerald herself was an important figure in the cultural scene of the 1920s and 1930s, known for her own writing, her artistic talents, and her tumultuous relationship with her husband. She struggled with mental health issues throughout her life and has been the subject of much fascination and analysis in literary and cultural circles.

#books #literature

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald circa February 1920. According to Arthur Mizener's 1972 biography "Scott Fitzgerald and His World," page 43, this photograph was taken in February 1920 shortly before Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald were married.

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A sketch by Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald for The Beautiful and Damned drawn in 1921. She died in 1948.

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1y

English novelist and poet Charlotte Brontë died #OTD in 1855.

She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, which she published under the gender neutral pen name Currer Bell. Along with "Jane Eyre," her other notable works include "Shirley" (1849) and "Villette" (1853). Brontë's writing is celebrated for its exploration of social issues, particularly the role of women in Victorian society.

Books by Charlotte Brontë at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/408

#books #literature #poetry

Portrait by George Richmond (1850, chalk on paper)

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Cover page of The Search After Hapiness [sic]: A Tale by Charlotte Brontë

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1y

"Every sensitive person carries in himself old cities enclosed by ancient walls."

Swiss writer Robert Walser was born #OTD in 1878.

One of Walser's most notable works is his collection of short prose pieces titled "Der Spaziergang" (1917). Walser's writing fell out of favor after his death in 1956, but experienced a revival in the late 20th century, thanks in part to the efforts of literary scholars and translators.

Books by Robert Walser at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/26294

#books #literature

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Cover of Der Spaziergang by Robert Walser

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1y

French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker, and one of the founders of utopian socialism Charles Fourier was born #OTD in 1772.

He developed a comprehensive system of societal organization known as Fourierism which influenced many writers and thinkers such as Dostoevsky, André Breton, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse and many others. He is is credited with having originated the word feminism in 1837.

About Fourier at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=charles+fourier&submit_search=Go%21

#books #literature #philosophy

Portrait de Charles Fourier, fondateur du Phalanstère.
Toile, école de Jean Gigoux, 1835.

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Lithograph, "Vue d’un phalanstère, village français [composé] d’apres la théorie sociétaire de Ch. Fourier", H. Fugère. Date uncertain, but from 19th century. 860.05, Houghton Library, Harvard University

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