literature

317d

#art #history: every 28th october, i use elsa lanchester (born #otd in 1902) as an excuse to pay homage to mary wollstonecraft shelley's masterpiece, 'frankenstein'. mind you, elsa was pretty cool, herself. difficult not to be when you're the daughter of a suffragette who was also secretary to eleanor marx.
i've got more to say about elsa in the response posts below, so read or ignore as you wish.
#wip #illustration #cinema #literature #frankenstein #maryShelley #elsaLanchester

black & white digital ink (wip) of the actor, elsa lanchester, in her eponymous role from the 1935 film, 'bride of frankenstein'.
elsa's face is turned to her left & she stares intently in that direction, trademark streak dominating her trademark barnet.

digital ink illustration (drawn in 2024) of english actor, elsa lanchester, in her iconic role as the bride of frankenstein.
here, she stares unflinchingly at her audience, her body draped in a frock of satin bandages. 'elsa' is in stylised text beneath her. there's a black deco arch behind her.
colours are cream, violet, mossy green & black.

Edited 317d ago

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310d

Mind that night in November, the pair of us
bursting from Mareel like late-comers
to the cinema-dark of the evening.
How we nearly missed it, the other show
that night: the aurora, the dancers, unspooling
their reels of green across the sky…

—Roseanne Watt, “Mareel”
published in MODER DY (Polygon, 2019)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/moder-dy/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Shetland #November #auroraborealis

Mareel
by Roseanne Watt

Mind that night in November, the pair of us
bursting from Mareel like late-comers
to the cinema-dark of the evening.
How we nearly missed it, the other show
that night: the aurora, the dancers, unspooling
their reels of green across the sky, despite
a bone-bright moon in the south. Mind
how the waves in Hay’s Dock lit up with this
borrowed phosphorescence, and we skirled
at the spectacle of it all; a sky of light, a sea of sky,
and behind us, the noost of Mareel,
its north-pointed prow.

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316d

So here's #Autumn2025 with box fresh #ShortStories from Helon Habila, Ephameron, Caroline Clark, Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall and Kasimma – plus Chadwick Allen on the classics of #Indigenous #literature

Catch them all at https://fictionable.world

#books #reading #writing #fiction #comics #translation #blog #bookstodon @bookstodon

The contributors to Fictionable's Autumn 2025 issue. From top left Helon Habila, Kasimma, Ephameron, Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall, Caroline Clark and Chadwick Allen

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309d

What Did Sigmund Freud Have to Say About Leonardo da Vinci?

According to Sigmund Freud, Leonardo da Vinci’s early life experiences as a child raised by a single mother shaped his art and research.

by Anastasiia Kirpalov

https://www.thecollector.com/what-sigmund-freud-say-leonardo-da-vinci/

Freud and Da Vinci at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/391
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1629

#books #art #literature

Photographic portrait of Sigmund Freud, signed by the sitter ("Prof. Sigmund Freud")

Freud is shown from the waist up and turned slightly toward the viewer’s left.

He wears a three-piece suit with a waistcoat, crisp white shirt and tie.

He holds a cigar in his right hand. The cigar is held away from the body.

His face shows a contemplative look: his hair is thin and combed back, his beard neatly trimmed, and his gaze direct and thoughtful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud#/media/File:Sigmund_Freud,_by_Max_Halberstadt_(cropped).jpg

Self-portrait by Leonardo, ~1510–1515, red chalk, Turin, Royal Library, inv. no. 15571

The drawing presents the head and shoulders of Leonardo in three-quarter view, turned slightly to his left.

He has long, wavy hair falling to his shoulders, a full beard and moustache, and a furrowed brow. The hair and beard are depicted with flowing lines of chalk.

The face shows signs of advanced age: deeper lines, pronounced cheekbones, bags beneath the eyes, and sagging of features.

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci#/media/File:Leonardo_self.jpg

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309d

Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin
Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie ow’r the bay,
But there’s mair nor a roch wind blawin
Through the great glen o’ the warld the day…

—Hamish Henderson, “The Freedom Come-All-Ye”
Published in The Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse, @canongatebooks

https://canongate.co.uk/books/3267-the-golden-treasury-of-scottish-verse/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #song #HamishHenderson #20thcentury #change #hope

The Freedom Come-All-Ye
Hamish Henderson

Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin
Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie ow’r the bay,
But there’s mair nor a roch wind blawin
Through the great glen o’ the warld the day.
It’s a thocht that will gar oor rottans
– A’ they rogues that gang gallus, fresh and gay –
Tak the road, and seek ither loanins
For their ill ploys, tae sport and play

Nae mair will the bonnie callants
Mairch tae war when oor braggarts crousely craw,
Nor wee weans frae pit-heid and clachan
Mourn the ships sailin’ doon the Broomielaw.
Broken faimlies in lands we’ve herriet,
Will curse Scotland the Brave nae mair, nae mair;
Black and white, ane til ither mairriet,
Mak the vile barracks o’ their maisters bare.

So come all ye at hame wi’ Freedom,
Never heed whit the hoodies croak for doom.
In your hoose a’ the bairns o’ Adam
Can find breid, barley-bree and painted room.
When MacLean meets wi’s freens in Springburn
A’ the roses and geans will turn tae bloom,
And a black boy frae yont Nyanga
Dings the fell gallows o’ the burghers doon.

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2y

#OTD in 1841.

Punch magazine, founded in London by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells, is edited by Mayhew and Mark Lemon.

Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration. Artists at Punch included John Tenniel who, from 1850, was the chief cartoon artist at the magazine for over 50 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_(magazine)

Punch at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=punch&submit_search=Go%21

#periodicals #literature

Text Appearing Before Image: ohn Leech. England under Queen Victoria. Punch. In 1891, the Reverend J. de Kewer Williams preached a memorial sermon and Te Deum on the fiftieth anniversary of the joke magazine Punch, and spoke to the editors of the discretion and humanity that had always characterized the magazine. This fact alone shows that Punch, which has been in existence almost throughout the Victorian era and well beyond, is a joke magazine of an outstanding kind, tidy and careful. The little hunchbacked wooden man, the heir to Pulcinella and Polichinelle, of which our Djurgårds-Kasper is also a side-shoot, had developed into an older English gentleman, where a slight swelling on the back, a shiny color on the big nose and at least a humorous twinkle in the eye was the only thing that in the exterior reminded of the mouthy and rude puppet. In one important respect, the English Punch is very different from his Romanesque ancestors. The sexual joke, which has since 227 ENGLAND UNDER DRUGS VIKTORIA.

Text Appearing After Image: PUBLISHED FOR THE PROPRIETORS, BY R. BRYANT, AT PlJNCHS OFFICE WBLIJKGTON STRErT. STRAND 178. Title page of Punch, July 17, 1841. Drawing by A. S. Henning. so highly esteemed by ancient Greco-Roman society, and still valued by all its direct heirs 228 PUNCH.

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311d

Settling accounts

Before he was famous, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was Louise Dupin’s scribe. It’s her ideas on inequality that fill his writings

by Rebecca Wilkin

https://aeon.co/essays/inequality-was-a-feminist-idea-before-it-was-rousseaus?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=860692e0f7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_10_30&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-4ef8a26106-72664972

Rousseau at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1286

#books #literature

The Declaration of Love (c1724) by Jean François de Troy.

The painting depicts an intimate and elegant moment of courtship in an 18th-century refined interior or garden setting. At its centre, a young gentleman kneels before a seated young lady: he extends a small bouquet of flowers with one hand while placing his other hand to his heart.

The lady, dressed in sumptuous silk‐embroidered attire, receives the gesture with composed modesty: she looks somewhat downward and sideways.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Declarationoflove.jpg

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311d

Push the Boat Out 2025
20–23 Nov, Edinburgh

This year’s Push the Boat Out festival sets sail from 20–23 November with a bold mix of poetry, performance, music & art in a sparkling celebration of words in all their forms, with over 120 artists on board!

https://pushtheboatout.org/programme/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #festival #Edinburgh

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273d

But in the climbing ecstasy of thought,
Ere consummation, ere the final peak,
Come hours like this…

—Nan Shepherd, “Summit of Coire Etchachan”
published in WANDERERS: A History of Women Walking, by Kerri Andrews

Today, 11 December, is International Mountain Day

https://www.un.org/en/observances/mountain-day

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #mountains #cairngorms #NanShepherd #climbing #20thcentury #womenwriters #naturewriting #InternationalMountainDay

Summit of Coire Etchachan
Nan Shepherd

But in the climbing ecstasy of thought,
Ere consummation, ere the final peak,
Come hours like this. Behind, the long defile,
The steep rock-path, alongside which, from under
Snow-caves, sharp-corniced, tumble the ice-cold waters.
And now, here, at the corrie’s summit, no peak,
No vision of the blue world, far, unattainable,
But this grey plateau, rock-strewn, vast, silent,
The dark loch, the toiling crags, the snow;
A mountain shut within itself, yet a world,
Immensity. So may the mind achieve,
Toiling, no vision of the infinite,
But a vast, dark and inscrutable sense
Of its own terror, its own glory and power.

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312d

43 of the Most Iconic Short Stories in the English Language

From Washington Irving to Kristen Roupenian

by Emily Temple

https://lithub.com/43-of-the-most-iconic-short-stories-in-the-english-language/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_id=01K79MGEGZH9P99XV5TYYXXQ4V&_kx=3MZUehzXM-41qlWAMPUiuNZadX2p0SByuNf_t0eMLB0.U5D8ER

Short stories at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/634

#books #literature

Cover page

Title: Rip Van Winkle

Author: Washington Irving

Illustrator: Arthur Rackham

Caption: “He used to console himself by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers and other idle personages, which held its sessions before a small inn.”

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/60976/pg60976-images.html

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311d

Nam bhodach liath a-nis
a’ streap gu mullach a bhràighe,
chan eil mi a’ còrdadh riut, a Llywarch,
mun bhata càm is riatanach gach là…

—Uilleam Nèill, “Freagairt Do Llywarch Hen”
published in FRIENDS & KANGAROOS: New Writing Scotland 17 (ASL, 1999)

(Llywarch Hen, c.534–608 CE, was an early Welsh poet & prince of Rheged, who complained about his advancing age & dependence on his walking stick)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #Welsh #CelticStudies

Freagairt Do Llywarch Hen
Uilleam Nèill

Nam bhodach liath a-nis
a’ streap gu mullach a bhràighe,
chan eil mi a’ còrdadh riut, a Llywarch,
mun bhata càm is riatanach gach là.
Bha mi ro-dheiseil le cainnt, gu dearbh
aig amannan a’ feannadh amadan
ro-thric le smùid orm san taigh-òsd’.
Chan eil a’ chlann-nighean a’ toirt sùil orm
ach cò gheibh cron dhaibh, na luaidhean
is mise mar fheòil righinn an seiche liurcach.
Co-dhiù tha mi nis saor bho na geimhlean
is mo cheangal don chuthaich sin.
Ach tha am bata uinnsinn a’ fàs
na charaid dìleas dhomhsa
fhad’s a chuireas mi grèim
air a cheann càm is làidir
a chumas taic rium gu càirdeil
le bhachall dìreach daingeann
a mhaireas, is dòcha, nas fhaide na mi fhìn.
Is tha mi taingeil gur troimh a thoil fhiodha
chì mi a-rithist, theagamh
earrach uaine is samhradh,
foghar òir is donn,
mus tig mo gheamhradh dorcha deireannach.

Answer to Llywarch Hen
William Neill

A grey old man now
climbing to the braehead
I don't agree with you, Llywarch,
about the necessary walking stick each day.
I was too ready with my tongue at times, it's true,
for the flaying of fools
often with a drink taken in the inn.
The girls no longer cast an eye on me
but who would blame them, the dears
and me like tough meat in a wrinkled hide.
At any rate I am free from those gyves
and no longer chained to that madness
but the ash-stick has become
a faithful friend to me
as long as I keep hold of his strong bent head
that supports me in a friendly fashion with a straight, strong stave
that will doubtless last longer than myself.
And I am thankful that by his wooden wish
I may see again, perhaps,
green spring and summer
gold and russet autumn
before my last dark winter comes.

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170d

Pepper Basham on How The Secret Garden Inspired Her Love for British Literature

"I can still find my way there through these pages. Some gardens, it turns out, are always in season."

https://lithub.com/pepper-basham-on-how-the-secret-garden-inspired-her-love-for-british-literature/

The secret garden at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17396

#books #literature #literarycriticism

"IT SEEMED SCARCELY BEARABLE TO LEAVE SUCH DELIGHTFULNESS"

A girl in a grey-blue dress and hat, and a red-haired boy in a white shirt — sitting cross-legged on the grass beneath a spreading tree, facing each other with absorbed attention. Between them, a small fox lies curled on the ground, apparently tame or injured, the focus of their gentle care. A red squirrel perches on the boy's shoulder. High in the branches above, a magpie watches the scene.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17396/pg17396-images.html#Page_231

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309d

Fog shroud
and clouds
(when the clock
chimed late
in the heavy
November night-
time) lifting
the mystery
for a greater…

—Edwin Morgan, “Guy Fawkes Moon”
published in COLLECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 1997)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781847779656/collected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #GuyFawkes #BonfireNight #November5th

Guy Fawkes Moon
Edwin Morgan

Fog shroud
and clouds
(when the clock
chimed late
in the heavy
November night-
time) lifting
the mystery
for a greater
drifted
off a whole
white full
moon pitched
above the white
thin chimney-
stalk of the
new Dawsholm
incinerator –
as if the piled
rags Glasgow
rubbish rusted
bedsprings bent
hair-rollers blood-
caked saddles of
crumpled Hondas
and sorry lunch-
box plastic
nests of cracks
and crumbs had
all become
a moon of smoke
and the real moon
a César moon
in a car-crusher
was now the Odeon
bulking greyly
with its sleeping stars
in reels by
the firework field.

And sparklers raced
between moons
and squeals –
and red rockets
mufflers matches
and up in smoke
far from school.

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2y

"The dusk crept out across the fields wiping out the day's light."
Black April (1927)

American author Julia Peterkin died #OTD in 1961.

In 1929 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Novel/Literature for her novel Scarlet Sister Mary. She wrote several novels about the plantation South, especially the Gullah people of the Lowcountry. She was one of the few white authors who wrote about the African-American experience.

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

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72611

#books #literature

Doris Ulmann and Julia Peterkin.

Julia Peterkin, an author who focused on similar themes in her writing, might be seen standing or sitting beside Ulmann, engaged in conversation or simply sharing a moment of quiet reflection. Peterkin might also be dressed in a similar style, with her hair possibly pinned up. The background of the photograph is likely simple, perhaps a natural outdoor setting or a rustic interior, consistent with the subjects of their work.

Edited 2y ago

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2y

"He had come on her that morning in a moment of disarray; her face had been pale and altered, and the diminution of her beauty had lent her a poignant charm. That is how she looks when she is alone! had been his first thought; and the second was to note in her the change which his coming produced."
"The House of Mirth" (1905), bk. 1, ch. 6

~Edith Wharton (24 January 1862 – 11 August 1937)

Books by Edith Wharton at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/104

#books #literature

Page from the original manuscript of "The House of Mirth," written by the American author Edith Wharton. Book II, Chapter 9, pp. 35-56. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University.

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2y

#OTD in 1951.

J. D. Salinger publishes his popular yet controversial novel, The Catcher in the Rye.

Between 1961 and 1982, The Catcher in the Rye was the most censored book in high schools and libraries in the United States. According to the American Library Association, The Catcher in the Rye was the 10th most frequently challenged book from 1990 to 1999.

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

#books #literature

Cover features a drawing of a carousel horse (pole visible entering the neck and exiting below on the chest) with a city skyline visible in the distance under the hindquarters. The cover is two-toned: everything below the horse is whitish while the horse and everything above it is a reddish-orange. The title appears at the top in yellow letters against the reddish-orange background. It is split into two lines after "Catcher". At the bottom in the whitish background are the words "a novel by J. D. Salinger".

Michael Mitchell; the credit "Jacket design by Michael Mitchell" is found on the right jacket flap (the left panel).

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309d

The mighty Mavors, jealous to behold
A Mars more mighty nor himself below,
Did once resolve his rivall to ore’throw…

—Sir Robert Ayton (1569–1638), “Upon the 5th of November”
published in JACOBEAN PARNASSUS: Scottish Poetry from the Reign of James I (ASL, 2022)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/jacobean-parnassus/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #17thcentury #EarlyModern #BonfireNight #GuyFawkes #Jacobean #5thNovember

Robert Ayton
Upon the 5th of November

The mighty Mavors, jealous to behold
A Mars more mighty nor himself below,
Did once resolve his rivall to ore’throw
By assassins, whome open force made bold.
But finding there that open force did fold
Under the princely valour of his foe,
Hee then determin’d to assayle him soe
As noe defence should his offence withhold.
Thus comes he downe to Plutoes pale abode,
And there for fyre and brimstone straight doth call,
Wherewith he thinks to play the thundering god,
And make the world admire his ryvall’s fall.
But sease, fond Mars, to make the world to wonder;
Ten thousand lawrells save’s our Mars from thunder.

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309d

“Ach thèid an crann a thoirt dhen fharadh”: Celebrating Thirty Years of Tuath is Tighearna (‘Tenants and Landlords’), 1995-2025

21 Nov, University of Edinburgh. Free, ticketed

This year's Canna Lecture will be delivered by Dr Martin Macgregor who will assess the impact of Donald Meek's anthology of 19th-century Gaelic verse, Tuath is Tighearna (SGTS, 1995), thirty years on from its publication.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/canna-lecture-2025-tickets-1924250979479

#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian

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2y

c. 1813, London. Reading List

John Stuart Mill turns the page. via @laphamsquart

"I have no remembrance of the time when I began to learn Greek. I have been told that it was when I was three years old...."

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/ways-learning/reading-list/?campaign=FE7LQA2

#books #literature

Replica of a portrait of John Stuart Mill commissioned to G.F. Watts by Sir Charles Dikes.

John Stuart Mill is depicted as a mature man, likely in his late middle age. He has prominent features, including a high forehead, deep-set eyes, and pronounced cheekbones. His hair is sparse, and he sports mutton-chop sideburns, which were characteristic of his time.

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316d

Dod! – that’s him nou – eik up the byne;
afore the hairth, his claen sark hing:
pit claes is waffin on the line;
merle on a rowan singin fine.

—David Purdie, “Merle on a Rowan”

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/merle-rowan/

#Scottish #literature #Scotstober #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage

Merle on a Rowan
David Purdie

Pit claes is waffin on the line,
sinlicht’s keekin ower the bing;
merle on a rowan singin fine.

A braw souch’s blawin, aathin’s fine,
an wi the merle I stert tae sing;
pit claes is waffin on the line.

Himsel wull be hame ony time,
frae pit mirk, stour an dunt an ding;
merle on a rowan singin fine.

He’s late the day, that man o mine . . .
Ach! dinna lat ma thochts tak wing,
no wi pit claes on the line!

Bit . . . Da wis late, yon shift lang syne,
o seiren’s gowl and deid bell’s ring,
an merles on rowans singin fine . . .

Dod! – that’s him nou – eik up the byne;
afore the hairth, his claen sark hing:
pit claes is waffin on the line;
merle on a rowan singin fine.

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306d

Robert Louis Stevenson’s KIDNAPPED began life serialised in a children’s magazine, but its sophistication & depth won the lifelong admiration of Henry James.

In this episode of NOVEL APPROACHES, Clare Bucknell, Andrew O’Hagan & Tom Crewe explore RLS’s startlingly modern handling of perspective & pacing, his approach to the art of fiction, & the value of being ‘betwixt & between’.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/novel-approaches-kidnapped-by-robert-louis-stevenson

#Scottish #literature #19thcenyury #RobertLouisStevenson #KidLit #ChildrensLiterature

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105d

Agatha Christie: what made the world’s bestselling author so successful? Here’s a clue

Besides wit, style and psychological insight, Christie had the capacity to generate a mood of ‘trustful mistrust’ and deceive her readers in a respectful fashion.

by Gill Plain

https://theconversation.com/agatha-christie-what-made-the-worlds-bestselling-author-so-successful-heres-a-clue-283347?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20May%2028%202026%20-%203784238755&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20May%2028%202026%20-%203784238755+CID_fc42dc4c9bab7c419e12dd4bb4483a9d&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=Agatha%20Christie%20what%20made%20the%20worlds%20bestselling%20author%20so%20successful%20Heres%20a%20clue

Books by Agatha Christie at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/451

#Books #Literature

Agatha Christie as a young woman, in the 1910s.

A sepia-toned photograph of Agatha Christie leaning out of a leaded-glass window set in a stone wall, gazing upward with a dreamy. Her hair is loosely pinned up, and she wears a striped blouse with a patterned necktie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie#/media/File:Agatha_Christie_as_a_young_woman.jpg

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2y

“It's not the barbarian who threatens us, it's civilization that frightens us.”

Brazilian sociologist and journalist Euclides da Cunha died #OTD in 1909.

His most important work is Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands), a non-fictional account of the military expeditions promoted by the Brazilian government against the rebellious village of Canudos, known as the War of Canudos.

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

#books #literature

Brazilian journalist and writer Euclides da Cunha.

Cover of the book “Os Sertões” by Brazilian writer Euclides da Cunha, published in 1902 and therefore in the public domain due to its age.

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307d

The Oxfam bookshop on Glasgow’s Byres Road moved, recently, to a new location further down the hill – but I’m very pleased that they managed to take Alasdair Gray’s mural with them! I think he did this when on a break from painting the ceiling in Òran Mór …

#Scottish #literature #Glasgow #AlasdairGray #Murals #VisualArt

A green wall. On it is a piece of another wall, cut out to encompass a mural by Alasdair Gray. On the left, a red semi-heraldic Scottish lion rampant is sitting at a table, using a laptop computer. One foot is under the table grasping a computer mouse (which resembles a real mouse, apart from the cable coming out of its nose and linking it to the laptop). A scroll of paper emerges from the laptop's screen, and the lion is using a quill pen to write on it. The scroll has handwriting on it, saying

words
wards
wurds
Scots
Scottish
Scotch
Scoatch
Caledonian

The scroll rolls out of the top of the laptop screen and across the rest of the wall, becoming a banner reading

SCOTTISH Books

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307d

Alasdair Gray’s “The Great Bear Cult” is a script for a (rejected) documentary on the movement which briefly swept Britain in the 1930s. Although mention of the Cult is still suppressed, @canongatebooks includes the script in UNLIKELY STORIES, MOSTLY

Today, 7 November, is Hug A Bear Day 🧸

@bookstodon

https://canongate.co.uk/books/100-unlikely-stories-mostly/

#Scottish #literature #AlasdairGray #HugABearDay

THE GREAT BEAR CULT
In 1975 there came straight to Glasgow from a Berlin gig Pete Brown the poet, Pete Brown the friend of Horowitz, Pete Brown the songwriter and sometimes pop-song singer. And I dined with him at the home of Barbara and Lindley Nelson. As usual Pete was with a new girlfriend who received most of his conversation, but first he showed the Nelsons and myself a souvenir of Berlin, and that was what we discussed. It was a street photograph of Pete arm in arm with a bear. Berlin takes its name from a bear, so commercial cameramen prowl the streets with a suitably dressed partner. But though the bear in the picture was a disguised man he appeared so naturally calm, so benignly strong, that beside him Pete (who in isolation is as calm, benign and shaggy as a sapient man can be) looked comparatively shifty and agley. We were also intrigued to find the image in the photograph oddly familiar though Barbara, Lindley and myself had never seen another like it. Did it recall dim memories of our infancy in the thirties when the British bear cult was still a political force? As we discussed what we knew of the cult I realized that the time had come for a television programme on it, one which mingled public archive material (photographs, films and sound recordings) with dramatic re-enactments of what took place in private. In 1975 the British Broadcasting Corporation was celebrating the fiftieth year of its charter, archive material was being daily

broadcast and displayed, surely the BBC would be interested? It was not. I discovered that although Lord Reith's restrictions upon clothing, drink and sexual conduct had for years been matter for jest in the corridors of Broadcasting House and the Television Centre, his tabu upon all reference to the cult after Ramsay McDonald's famous broadcast to the nation was still in force. The BBC rejected my documentary drama. I offer it here, hoping readers will not be afraid to view it upon the television screen of their minds.

[ILLUSTRATION: In the centre is Rupert the Bear's smiling face, a tartan scarf around his neck; on either side, between 2 tall bearskin hats as worn by British guardsmen on parade, stand 2 portly, Winnie-the-Pooh-like figures, facing inwards, heads tilted proudly skywards. Each has their right arm raised in a fascist salute.]

1 STUDIO INTRODUCTION
To a recording of The Teddy Bears' Picnic the camera advances upon a commentator leaning casually against a table on which is displayed: a fancy-dress bear costume, a toy teddy bear, a Buckingham Palace sentry's bearskin helmet, a Daily Express Rupert Bear cartoon annual, and a copy of The House at Pooh Corner.

RECORDING: If you go down to the woods today
you're sure of a big surprise!
If you go down to the woods today
you'd better go in disguise!
For every bear that ever there was
Has gathered there for certain because
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic!

COMMENTATOR: If you go down to the woods

today, you'd better go in disguise. Yes. And if you were clearing out an old cupboard recently it's very likely that you found one of these at the back of it.
(HE LIFTS THE BEAR COSTUME AND STANDS UP)
Perhaps curiosity prompted you to try it on. You can slip into them quite easily . . .
(HE PUTS IT ON)
Once the zip is pulled up it's surprising how warm and comfortable you feel. And then, if you adjust the mask over your head, like this . . . (HOLLOWLY) you are not only completely weather-proof, your voice has acquired a hollow, resounding note.
(HE REMOVES THE MASK)
The costume you found was almost certainly a relic of the great bear cult which swept Britain in the early thirties. Nobody who remembers those years likes talking about them, but most of you watching tonight were born rather later, so perhaps the time has come to give the origins of the cult, its wildfire spread and wholly unexpected collapse, some sort of dispassionate examination. So let me take you back to 1931, a year of world-wide trade-depression and economic crisis. There are nearly three million unemployed in Britain alone. A former socialist is prime minister of a National Coalition government with the conservative leader as his deputy. In Trafalgar Square the photographic business is in a bad way.

2 TELECINE: TRAFALGAR SQUARE, STUDIO, STREETS, LAWCOURT
Henry Busby, a licensed street photographer, squabbles with two others…

Book cover:

UNLIKELY STORIES, MOSTLY
Alasdair Gray

After the author's name is a picture of a small wooden craft with a paddlewheel. An angry-looking duck's head pokes up out of the top.

Surrounding the title are fourteen black and white squares, each containing a human skull. Within each skull, against a gold background, are curled-up human fetuses, about to be born. Each one has a small pair of wings sprouting from their shoulders.

At the base of the cover is an oriental-looking view. Against a red background, a city is in flames. In the distance, a tiny man hauls on s string, which reaches up to a winged kite, to which is strapped a small child. The flying child fills most of the scene.

At the bottom is the a capital C (standing for the publisher, Canongate), above the words

THE CANONS

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