Eggplant.place

63d

Felix Salten: the Jewish author and hunter who created Bambi

Bambi is a beloved story which has entertained people for decades. Though the tale of the deer's life has been enjoyed by generations, many do not know the name of its author.

by Adrian Murphy

https://www.europeana.eu/en/stories/felix-salten-the-jewish-author-and-hunter-who-created-bambi?mtm_campaign=europeanathemed-animation-nov2025

Salten at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/35122

#books #literature

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1y

#OTD in 1798.

Elizabeth Inchbald's Lovers' Vows (adapted from Kotzebue's Das Kind der Liebe – 1780; literally "Love Child," or "Natural Son," as it is often translated) is first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London.

It was likewise successful as a print publication, though it also aroused controversy about its "levelling" politics and moral ambiguity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovers%27_Vows

Lovers' Vows at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4554

#books #literature #theatre

Title page of Elizabeth Inchbald's Lovers' Vows (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1796)

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1y

Top 50 Masterpieces of Medieval Literature

Unlock the rich and diverse world of medieval literature with our list of 50 masterpieces. From epic tales of heroism to timeless romances and spiritual writings, these works from the Middle Ages have shaped cultures and influenced storytelling traditions for centuries.

via @medievalists
https://www.medievalists.net/2024/09/top-50-masterpieces-of-medieval-literature/

#books #literature

Dante and His Poem by Domenico di Michelino.

At the center of the composition stands Dante himself, depicted holding a copy of the Divine Comedy. He is shown wearing a red robe and a laurel wreath, which symbolizes his status as a poet. His expression is serene but contemplative, emphasizing his role as a guide through the realms of the afterlife.

The open book in Dante's hand is prominently displayed, showing the first lines of the Divine Comedy. This highlights the connection between Dante and his epic poem.

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1y

Zelda Fitzgerald on F. Scott’s Writing

Zelda’s satirical review of F. Scott’s second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned, revealed much more than her wit.

By: Emily Zarevich via @JSTOR_Daily

https://daily.jstor.org/zelda-fitzgerald-on-f-scotts-writing/

The Beautiful and the Damned at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9830

#books #literature #literarycriticism

F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, 1923 via Wikimedia Commons

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62d

The Barbellion Prize is coming back! This essential literary prize which “celebrates and promotes writing that represents the experience of chronic illness and disability” has been on hiatus but is now relaunching. They need help to raise funds to cover the cost of running the prize and welcome any donations, please spread the word!
“As with disability in general, the literature of disability and chronic illness is too commonly turned away from, leaving non-disabled readers ignorant of the profound difference experienced by many and disallowing a voice to chronically ill and disabled writers. All of the volunteers working to support the prize are motivated by a desire to celebrate difference as represented in literature and to effect positive social change via that representation.”

https://barbellionprize.org/donate/

#bookstodon #reading #books #chronicIllness #Disability #disabled #literature #publishing #InternationalDayOfPersonsWithDisabilities #IDPWD @disability @bookstodon

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62d

Robert Louis Stevenson died #OTD, 3 December, in 1894, aged 44. He is buried on Mt Vaea, on the island of Upolu in Samoa 🇼🇸 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

📷 Thomas Andrew (1855–1939): Burial of Robert Louis Stevenson, 1894 / Le maliu o Tusitala i le tausaga 1894
🧵

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https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Burial_and_grave_of_Robert_Louis_Stevenson_in_Samoa,_1894.jpg

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #Samoa #Tusitala

A black-and-white photograph, showing the burial of Robert Louis Stevenson. About thirty or forty people – a few are of European origin but most are Samoan – stand solemnly in a thickly wooded area around what must be Stevenson's coffin, draped in cloth and leaves.

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1y

#OTD in 1923.

A production of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus at The Old Vic, directed by Robert Atkins, is the first in London since 1857. It is also the first to restore the full original text since the playwright's time.

It is often seen as his attempt to emulate the violent & bloody revenge plays of his contemporaries, which were extremely popular with audiences throughout the 16th century.

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

Titus Andronicus at PG
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1507

#books #literature #theatre

Title page of the first quarto of Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare, published 1594

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1y

Irish novelist Edith Somerville died #OTD in 1949.

She wrote in collaboration with her cousin "Martin Ross" (Violet Martin) under the pseudonym "Somerville and Ross". Together they published a series of fourteen stories and novels, the most popular of which were The Real Charlotte, published in 1894, and Some Experiences of an Irish R. M., published in 1899.

Books by E. Œ. Somerville at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/5334

#books #literature

Somerville atop her horse Tarbush.

Source book page: https://archive.org/stream/irishmemories00some/irishmemories00some#page/n218/mode/1up

In the photograph, she appears composed and elegant, sitting confidently on her horse.

Somerville is dressed in traditional 19th-century riding attire. This would typically include a riding habit—likely a long, dark-colored skirt and jacket, tailored for horseback riding.

Her hair is styled modestly, often covered by a riding hat or bonnet, suitable for outdoor activity and in keeping with the fashion of the era.

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1y

English philosopher and women's rights advocate Harriet Taylor Mill was born #OTD in 1807.

She is considered to have been a key contributor to many of John Stuart Mill’s most famous works, particularly "On Liberty" (1859) & "The Subjection of Women" (1869). Some of her own writings, such as her essay "The Enfranchisement of Women" (1851), argued for women's equality and their right to vote.

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

Books by Harriet Taylor Mill at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73404

#books #literature

Harriet Mill, by unknown artist, Harriet Taylor Mill (née Harriet Hardy) (8 October 1807 – November 1858) was a philosopher and women's rights advocate. Her extant corpus of writing is very small, and she is largely remembered for her influence, which he said was very great, on her second husband, John Stuart Mill, one of the pre-eminent thinkers of the 19th century, Painting given to the National Portrait Gallery, London in 1982.

In the painting, Harriet Taylor Mill is presented with a refined and composed demeanor, reflecting her intellect and influence as a thinker. Her expression is calm yet thoughtful, with a sense of quiet determination that hints at her significant contributions to women's rights and social reform.

She has a delicate face, with fine features—perhaps high cheekbones, a soft jawline, and bright eyes that convey her sharp intellect. Her lips are often depicted with a slight, gentle smile or in a neutral, contemplative pose.

Her hair is styled in the fashion of the mid-19th century, likely parted in the center and arranged in neat waves or curls around her face, with the rest pulled back in a simple, elegant updo.

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62d

Re-Tracing the Dance-Steps of the Hugboon: The Nordic Background of Orkney Folk Legends
5 December, online – free

In this seminar, Prof Terry Gunnell (University of Iceland) will explore the Nordic connections of Orkney legends & folklore

https://llc.ed.ac.uk/celtic-scottish-studies/css-seminar-series-251205

#Scottish #literature #legends #folklore #folktales #Norse #Orkney

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47d

“In story after story, epicene young men, difficult children, or wild beasts set out to shake up the stifling complacency around them”

Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916) – Saki – was born #OTD, 18 Dec, in Myanmar. Although born in the Raj & raised in England, his parents were Scots & he considered himself to be a Scot, too. Fatema Ahmed looks at his fierce, funny, & wicked fiction

@bookstodon

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https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/43602/untameable-saki

#Scottish #literature #Saki #shortstories #humor #humour #horror #Edwardian

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1y

#OTD in 1905.

The English actor-manager Sir Henry Irving collapses in his hotel, while playing Thomas Becket on tour in Bradford, dying soon afterwards. 'Into thy hands, O Lord, into thy hands', and though he lived for an hour or so longer he never spoke again" were his last words.

Becket and other plays by Baron Alfred Tennyson at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9162

#books #literature #theatre

Henry Irving as Thomas Becket.

Actor-manager Henry Irving (1838-1905) played the role of Thomas Becket in Becket by Alfred Lord Tennyson at the Lyceum Theatre in 1893. Becket was Irving's last role, he performed the character in Bradford in 1905 and died an hour after leaving the stage.

Bernard Partridge (1861-1945) was a painter and illustrator who became the principal cartoonist of Punch magazine. He acted at the Lyceum in his youth, using the name Bernard Gould, and made many drawings of Irving, some of which appeared in the theatre's souvenir programmes. His work has provided both a record of costumes and scenery and of the dramatic effect of Irving's performances.

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61d

#OTD in 1875, poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke is born

Rilke "was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as a significant writer in the German language. His work is viewed by critics and scholars as possessing undertones of mysticism, exploring themes of subjective experience and disbelief."

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

Rilke at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/846

#books #literature #poetry

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61d

“What sprang forth from Carlyle’s pen was not a dry account of the French Revolution, but a book brimming with passion and philosophy, one that offered a new style of storytelling that influenced a generation of Victorian writers.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) was born #OTD, 4 Dec. His THE FRENCH REVOLUTION established him as one of the most important social & cultural commentators of his day

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https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2009/marchapril/feature/the-voracious-pen-thomas-carlyle

#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thcentury #history #ThomasCarlyle

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1y

"Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
"The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swych licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour..."
Opening lines. The Canterbury Tales

~Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – October 25, 1400)

#books #literature

More details Portrait of Chaucer as a Canterbury pilgrim, Ellesmere manuscript of The Canterbury Tales. The Tale of Melibee „A yong man called Melibeus, myghty and riche, bigat upon his wyf, that called was Prudence, a doghter which that called was Sophie. Upon a day bifel that he for his desport is went into the feeldes hem to pleye. His wyf and eek his doghter hath he left inwith his hous...

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48d

Happy Public Domain Day 2026 (Jan. 1) from Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. To read more about the public domain

via Duke University School of Law

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh9f_k7fQPA&t=33s

More information here:
https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2026/

#books #literature #publicDomainDayCountdown

Public domain day 2026 montage.

A collage celebrating Public Domain Day 2026, featuring iconic 1930 works entering the public domain: "All Quiet on the Western Front," Marx Brothers' "Animal Crackers," early Mickey Mouse cartoons, "The Little Engine That Could," "As I Lay Dying," Nancy Drew mysteries, "The Cat Who Went to Heaven," "King of Jazz," "The Maltese Falcon," Betty Boop cartoons, "I Got Rhythm," "The Murder at the Vicarage," "Dream a Little Dream of Me," "Ash Wednesday," Blondie comics, and "Morocco" starring Marlene Dietrich.

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2026/

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47d

Now the ice lays its smooth claws on the sill,
The sun looks from the hill
Helmed in his winter casket,
And sweeps his arctic sword across the sky…

—Edwin Muir, “Scotland’s Winter”
from ONE FOOT IN EDEN (Faber, 1956)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #EdwinMuir #winter

Scotland’s Winter
by Edwin Muir

Now the ice lays its smooth claws on the sill,
The sun looks from the hill
Helmed in his winter casket,
And sweeps his arctic sword across the sky.
The water at the mill
Sounds more hoarse and dull.
The miller’s daughter walking by
With frozen fingers soldered to her basket
Seems to be knocking
Upon a hundred leagues of floor
With her light heels, and mocking
Percy and Douglas dead,
And Bruce on his burial bed,
Where he lies white as may
With wars and leprosy,
And all the kings before
This land was kingless,
And all the singers before
This land was songless,
This land that with its dead and living waits the Judgment Day.
But they, the powerless dead,
Listening can hear no more
Than a hard tapping on the sounding floor
A little overhead
Of common heels that do not know
Whence they come or where they go
And are content
With their poor frozen life and shallow banishment.

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48d

doun riven the tint braith
mawkin scribbles owre the snaw
wee arles o sun-daith
water warstles wechty, slaw …

—Kate Armstrong, “Pantoum fer Winter”
published in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS (ASL, 2016)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #pantoum #Scots #Scotslanguage #winter

Kate Armstrong
Pantoum fer Winter

doun riven the tint braith
mawkin scribbles owre the snaw
wee arles o sun-daith
water warstles wechty, slaw

mawkin scribbles owre the snaw
sternies bou tae the mockrife mune
water warstles wechty, slaw
nou the taid an puddock sloum

sternies bou tae the mockrife mune
houlets hunker saft as haar
nou the taid an puddock sloum
grippit fest in dwinin lair

houlets hunker saft as haar
winter’s nieve is cauld an sterk
grippit fest in dwinin lair
aa maun learn tae dree the mirk

winter’s nieve is cauld an sterk
doun riven the tint braith
aa maun learn tae dree the mirk
wee arles o sun daith

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27d

The ratio of words written by Kafka to words written about Kafka is estimated to be about 1:10,000,000. Is anything left to say?

by Jared Marcel Pollen

https://libertiesjournal.com/online-articles/kafkainc/

Kafka at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1735

#books #literature

First page of Kafka's Letter to His Father.

The document shows aged paper with a cream or beige tone, typical of early 20th-century stationery that has yellowed over time. The page appears to be standard letter-size paper with some visible wear, creases, and aging marks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#/media/File:De_Kafka_Brief_an_den_Vater_001.jpg

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1y

#OTD in 1922.

T. S. Eliot founds The Criterion magazine, with the first appearance of his poem The Waste Land. This will be first fully published in book form by Boni & Liveright in New York in December.

Eliot's goal was to make it a literary review dedicated to the maintenance of standards and the reunification of a European intellectual community.

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

The Waste Land at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1321

#books #literature #poetry

Title page of the first book edition (December 1922) of The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.

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1y

"Were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow."

#OTD in 1848.

Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life is published anonymously by Chapman & Hall in London in two volumes.

Gaskell was paid £100 for the novel. The publisher Edward Chapman had had the manuscript since the middle of 1847.

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

Mary Barton at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/2153

#books #literature

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27d

Creative Conversations – Fidan Nazim Meikle
12 Jan, University of Glasgow, & online – free

Fidan Nazim Meikle writes stories & poems for readers of all ages. Her debut novel, My Name is Samim, inspired by the true story of a young refugee’s courageous journey to safety, is out now from Floris Books

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-conversations-fidan-nazim-meikle-tickets-1977523054690

#Scottish #literature #refugees #ChildrensLiterature #KidLit

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48d

Some December midnight
Christ, lord, lie warm in our byre.
Here are stars, an ox, poverty enough.

—George Mackay Brown, “A Child’s Calendar”
published in FISHERMEN WITH PLOUGHS (Hogarth Press 1971)

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #Christmas #poem #poetry #Orkney

A Child's Calendar
George Mackay Brown

No visitors in January.
A snowman smokes a cold pipe in the yard.

They stand about like ancient women,
The February hills.
They have seen many a coming and going, the hills.

In March Moorfea is littered
With knock-kneed lambs.

Daffodils at the door in April,
Three shawled Marys.
A lark splurges in galilees of sky.

And in May
A russet stallion shoulders the hill apart.
The mares tremble.

The June bee
Bumps in the pane with a heavy bag of plunder.

Strangers swarm in July
With cameras, binoculars, bird books.

He thumped the crag in August,
A blind blue whale.

September crofts get wrecked in blond surges.
They struggle, the harvesters.
They drag loaf and ale-kirn into winter.

In October the fishmonger
Argues, pleads, threatens at the shore.

Nothing in November
But tinkers at the door, keening, with cans.

Some December midnight
Christ, lord, lie warm in our byre.
Here are stars, an ox, poverty enough.

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48d

Scots Whay Hae! Best Crime Fiction 2025 – with Callum McSorley

Alistair Braidwood is joined by award-winning crime writer Callum McSorley to discuss some of the best Scottish crime fiction of 2025, & to take a look at what’s coming in 2026

@bookstodon

https://www.scotswhayhae.com/post/that-was-the-year-that-was-the-best-of-2025-podcasts-crime-fiction

#Scottish #literature #CrimeFiction #podcast

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48d

CFP: GIFCon 2026 – The Technologies of the Fantastic
Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations
13–15 May, online

GIFCon invites the consideration of the technologies of fantasy. The organisers are particularly interested in submissions from PG & early career researchers, & welcome proposals from researchers whose work focuses on marginalised communities & subjects

@litstudies

https://fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/2025/12/15/gifcon-2026-the-technologies-of-the-fantastic-call-for-papers/

#literature #fantasy #SFF #callforpapers

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