We went each Sunday for the mass
recited in my parent’s language
that wasn’t mine. The Gaelic gospel
that was just sound, pure sound, to me.
I rose and kneeled, and listened as
my people traded vowel for vowel…
—Niall Campbell, “Tongues of Water”
published in THE ISLAND IN THE SOUND (Bloodaxe Books, 2024)
https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/the-island-in-the-sound-1361
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #minoritylanguages
#OTD in 1812.
Lord Byron takes his seat in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
These parlamentary experiences inspired Byron to write political poems such as Song for the Luddites (1816) and The Landlords' Interest, Canto XIV of The Age of Bronze. Examples of poems in which he attacked his political opponents include Wellington: The Best of the Cut-Throats (1819) and The Intellectual Eunuch Castlereagh (1818).
Books by Lord Byron at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1708
Norwegian folklorist, writer, and zoologist Peter Christen Asbjørnsen was born #OTD in 1812.
He and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe were collectors of Norwegian folklore. The most famous collection, "Norske Folkeeventyr" ("Norwegian Folktales"), was co-published with Moe starting in 1841. He worked as a zoologist and forestry expert, publishing writings on nature and the environment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Christen_Asbj%C3%B8rnsen
Books by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/34177
Lord, when I’m speechless
when something – not just sorrow
but under that – a dull, numb, nameless dreich
about the heart I hardly seem to have…
—Diana Hendry, “Psalm 88 Blues”
Published in TWELVE LILTS (Mariscat Press, 2003)
A poem for Blue Monday – officially the most depressing day of the year…
The Explorer Who Faked His Way Through the Hajj
Englishman Richard Burton wore several disguises, ranging from merchant to doctor to pilgrim in the holy city of Mecca.
By Kayla Johnson
Richard Burton at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/898
Some good things have come from Davos …
“It was here that Robert Louis Stevenson overcame his writer’s block and finished Treasure Island; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle started skiing in the Alps; and Thomas Mann thought of the idea for The Magic Mountain”
1/5
https://lithub.com/a-brief-literary-history-of-davos/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #SirArthurConanDoyle #Davos #writersblock #skiing #ThomasMann
Virginia Woolf poems, written for niece and nephew, have been discovered
By Andrew Limbong
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/17/nx-s1-5260964/virginia-woolf-poems-niece-nephew
Books by Virginia Woolf at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/89
#OTD in 1904.
J. M. Barrie's play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up premières at the Duke of York's Theatre in London with Nina Boucicault in the title rôle and Gerald du Maurier as Captain Hook and Mr Darling; du Maurier is the uncle of the Llewellyn Davies boys, who inspired the story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan
Peter Pan at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/16
#OTD in 1853.
Charles Dickens gives the first of his public readings of his own works, in Birmingham Town Hall (England) to the Industrial and Literary Institute, repeated three days later to an audience of working people and including an adaptation of A Christmas Carol; these are very successful and Dickens continues public readings until the year of his death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptations_of_A_Christmas_Carol
Christmas Carol at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46
"Didn't I tell you, Don Quixote, sir, to turn back, for they were not armies you were going to attack, but flocks of sheep?"
#OTD in 1605.
The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One) by Miguel de Cervantes is published in Madrid, Spain. It was originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote
Don Quixote at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/996
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/2000
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/42524
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/35181
In January 1864.
Anthony Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?, the first of his Palliser novels, begins to appear in monthly parts in London. Trollope completes it on April 28 and the first volume is published as a book in September by Chapman & Hall. In April, The Small House at Allington concludes publication in the Cornhill Magazine and is published in book form by George Smith.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_You_Forgive_Her%3F
Can You Forgive Her? at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/19500
A lesson in coexistence
The 17th-century town Cacheu was a hub of West African and European cultures, languages and beliefs (and run by women)
by Toby Green
Guinea at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subjects/search/?query=guinea
I saw the dead upon St Laurence Wake
Sailing in beautiful Brimvald. They were young,
Younger than death and life, with a sweet tongue
I have heard in my blood before…
—“The Vikings”, by Olive Fraser (1909–1977) – born #OTD, 20 Jan, & a poet whose work was sadly neglected in her lifetime. A 🎂 🧵
1/6
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #womenwriters #OliveFraser #Vikings
#OTD in 1817.
English painter Benjamin Haydon introduces John Keats to William Wordsworth and Charles Lamb at a dinner in London to celebrate progress on his painting Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, in which all feature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Haydon
Book about Benjamin Hydon at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6756
The Life and Legacy of Natsume Sōseki, Modern Japan’s Greatest Novelist
"A celebrated literary figure, Natsume Sōseki was widely credited for pioneering modern Japanese literature in the late 19th and early 20th century."
https://www.thecollector.com/natsume-soseki/
Books by Sōseki at PG:
Creative Conversations: Rachelle Atalla
20 January, University of Glasgow & online – free
Rachelle Atalla is a Scottish-Egyptian novelist, short story writer & screenwriter. Her first novel, THE PHARMACIST, is now in development for film with Compact Pictures & the BFI. THIRSTY ANIMALS is her second novel & has been optioned by STV. Her most recent book is THE SALT FLATS
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-conversations-rachelle-atalla-tickets-1977613863301
#Scottish #literature #writing #screenwriting #dystopia #dystopianfiction
How Edgar Allan Poe Became Our Era’s Premier Storyteller
Fans of the mystery writer have no shortage of ways to pay homage to the scribe behind “The Raven” and so much more
by Michael Capuzzo (from the archives)
Edgar Allan Poe at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/481
"Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."
#OTD in 1916.
James Joyce's semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is first published complete in book form, in New York by B. W. Huebsch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Portrait_of_the_Artist_as_a_Young_Man
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/4217
What Role Did Women Play in the Scientific Revolution?
The Scientific Revolution was characterized by a major shift in the way of thinking. Historically, women’s contributions, however, were largely overlooked.
By Mike Cohen
https://www.thecollector.com/role-of-women-in-scientific-revolution/
"Prose is a museum, where all the old weapons of poetry are kept."
In January 1909.
T. E. Hulme's poems "Autumn" and "A City Sunset" are included in the Poets' Club anthology For Christmas MDCCCCVIII, as the first examples of Imagism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Hulme
Canzoni & Ripostes at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39783
From January till September 1905.
L. Frank Baum's Animal Fairy Tales appear in The Delineator magazine.
For several decades in the twentieth century, the collection was a "lost" book by Baum; it resurfaced when the International Wizard of Oz Club published the stories in one volume in 1969.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Fairy_Tales
The Animal Fairy Tales at Delineator:
https://reader.library.cornell.edu/docviewer/digital?id=hearth1891092_64_2#page/106/mode/1up
German poet and novelist Achim von Arnim was born #OTD in 1781.
He is best known as one of the key figures of German Romanticism. His works were collected, with an introduction by Wilhelm Grimm, in twenty volumes (1839–48). He influenced late Romantics and Realists such as Eduard Mörike, Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Uhland and Theodor Storm, particularly through the Wunderhorn.
Books by Achim von Arnim at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/848
"Poet, never chase the dream.
Laugh yourself and turn away.
Mask your hunger, let it seem
Small matter if he come or stay;..."
#OTD in 1918.
The English poet Robert Graves marries the painter Nancy Nicholson in London. The wedding guests include Wilfred Owen, whose first nationally published poem appears three days later ("Miners" in The Nation). He will die by the end of the year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Graves
Robert Graves at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/628
#OTD in 1902.
The first example of a Sherlockian game – a study of inconsistencies of dates in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles (the serialisation of which in The Strand Magazine concludes in April) by publisher Frank Sidgwick – appears in The Cambridge Review.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_of_Sherlock_Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/69
American journalist Nellie Bly died #OTD in 1922.
She was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, & for an exposé in which she worked undercover to report on a mental institution from within. Bly was also an inventor, receiving U.S. patent 697,553 for a novel milk can & U.S. patent 703,711 for a stacking garbage can.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Bly
Nellie Bly at PG
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/9648
