In February 1919.
Richmal Crompton's anarchic English schoolboy William Brown is introduced in the first published Just William story, "Rice-Mould", in Home magazine. The books were published over a period of almost fifty years, between 1922 and 1970.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_William
Just William at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34414
French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes died #OTD in 1650.
He is known for his influential arguments for substance dualism, where mind and body are considered to have distinct essences, one being characterized by thought, the other by spatial extension. He has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy" and the "Father of Modern Mathematics."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
Books by René Descartes at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/44
Jane Austen was a satirist – why isn’t she treated like one?
By Adam J Smith
Although many women writers were critiquing society in the 18th century, hardly any of them were considered satirists.
Jane Austen at PG
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/68
Life, Work & Adoration
Becoming George: The Invention of George Sand
review by Lucasta Miller
https://literaryreview.co.uk/life-work-adoration
George Sand at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/851
“Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt.”
Honore de #Balzac
#FatherGoriot #books #reading #bookstodon @bookstodon #booksky #bookstagram #book #literature #writers #author #quotes #quote #readingcommunity
#OTD in1960 Zora Neale Hurston died. She "was an American writer, anthropologist, folklorist, and documentary filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on Hoodoo and Caribbean Vodou."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Neale_Hurston
Books by Hurston at PG:
New research proposes Dante’s Inferno modelled a planetary impact 500 years before modern science!
by Asmae Ourkiya
Inferno by Dante Alighieri at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=inferno
British actress Lena Ashwell died #OTD in 1957.
She is known as the first to organise large-scale entertainment for troops at the front, which she did during World War I. After the war she created the Lena Ashwell Players.
Ashwell herself travelled to the front and became involved in fundraising and logistics of the concerts, as she believed in 'uplifting & therapeutic' power of music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lena_Ashwell
A preface written by Lena Ashwell at PG
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18530
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: The Read with Reece Shearsmith
Currently available on the BBC iPlayer: Reece Shearsmith narrates Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic work of gothic horror
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0027pdf
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #horror #gothic
In Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility You Can Be “Demure and Brat All at Once”
Samantha Silva: “Women are asking not who we ought to be, but who we want to be.
https://lithub.com/in-jane-austens-sense-and-sensibility-you-can-be-demure-and-brat-all-at-once/
Sense and Sensibility at PG:
Edinburgh Makar Michael Pedersen has written a poem to mark the 300th anniversary of the University of Edinburgh’s medical school. A short film of the poem, animated by students from Edinburgh’s College of Arts, is available to watch via The Scotsman
https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/watch-michael-pedersens-poem-to-mark-300th-anniversary-of-edinburgh-university-medical-school-5492523
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Edinburgh #EdinburghUniversity #MedicalSchool #HistoryofMedicine
Historians recently discovered a hidden fragment of the Bible.
A part of the book of Matthew was found under two other layers of text.
Liebes #fediverse ,
unser neues Kulturprogramm für 2026 ist draußen! 🎉
Mehr Infos findet ihr hier: https://buchhandlung-am-bruehl.de/aktuelle-veranstaltungen/
Wir hoffen, dass für jede*n was dabei ist. :)
Gedruckt liegt das neue Programm Ende der Woche bei uns aus.
Liebe Grüße
Tina und Max
von der Buchhandlung am Brühl in #Chemnitz
#Veranstaltungen #Kultur #Lesung #Konzert #tacheles #buch #krimi #Literatur #literature #books #bucher #livres #dielinke #leipzig #dresden #erzgebirge #mittelsachsen #bookstodon #lesen #reading
#OTD in 1889.
Henrik Ibsen's symbolic drama The Lady from the Sea (1888) receives simultaneous first performances in Oslo (in Norwegian) and Weimar (in German). The drama introduces the character of Hilde Wangel who is again portrayed in Ibsen's later play The Master Builder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_from_the_Sea
The Lady from the Sea at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/2765
"Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe;
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law."
King Richard, scene iii
#OTD in 1817.
Junius Brutus Booth makes his stage debut in the title role of Shakespeare's Richard III at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_(play)
Richard III at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1503
#OTD in 1851.
The first performance of Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi takes place in Venice. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigoletto
Le Roi s'amuse at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29549
10 Myths About the Greek Goddess Artemis
Fascinating stories about the goddess Artemis from Greek myth. The twin sister of Apollo, the chaste goddess, represents the wild wilderness and the hunt.
by Daniel Soulard
https://www.thecollector.com/myths-about-artemis-greek-goddess/
There are two interesting books about Artemis at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14576
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9283
"I look upon literature as an art, and I believe that if you misuse it or abuse it, it will leave you. It is not a thing that you can nail down and use as you want. You have to let it use you, too."
Conversations
Happy birthday Katherine Anne Porter!
More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Anne_Porter
"Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard.
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!"
#OTD in 1898.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde was published by Leonard Smithers, under the name "C.3.3.", which stood for cell block C, landing 3, cell 3.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Reading_Gaol
Ballad of Reading Gaol at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/301
Today, 2 February, is Candlemas. As well as being a Christian holy day, it is one of the four Scottish Quarter Days, when rents were due.
The Scots poem “At Candlemas” by Marion Angus (1865–1946) is a typically unsentimental look at how swiftly youth turns to old age:
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Candlemas #Scots #Scotslanguage #womenwriters #20thcentury #aging
The haill clanjamfrie: What’s so braw aboot Scots
13 March, Royal Society of Edinburgh & online – free, ticketed
Through live readings of poetry & prose, alongside open conversation, this RSE Investigates event explores Scots as a powerful tool for creative expression & social commentary – with writers Len Pennie, Chris McQueer, & Michael Pedersen
https://rse.org.uk/event/the-haill-clanjamfrie-whats-so-braw-aboot-scots/
#Scottish #literature #Scots #Scotslanguage #writing #creativewriting
"Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants, willing to be dethroned."
ch. 2: Nestor page 28
Ulysses by James Joyce was partially serialised in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, the entire work was published in Paris by Sylvia Beach #OTD in 1922.
Ulysses at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4300
"They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places."
'Desert Places'
~Robert Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963)
Robert Frost at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1091
February dark is fields and fields long,
from this sill to the whin ridge and beyond,
wet as a dog’s nose, curious
where flame ticks against glass…
—Pippa Little, “Brown Nights”
published in nothing but a set of eyes for stars: New Writing Scotland 41 (ASL, 2023)
#OTD in 1889.
August Strindberg's naturalistic drama Miss Julie (Fröken Julie), 1888, is first performed, by the Scandinavian Experimental Theater at the University of Copenhagen. His wife Siri von Essen plays the title rôle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Julie
Miss Julie at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14347
