Eggplant.place

237d

How Jane Austen Pulled It Off: On Emma

One of Jane Austen’s many mind-bending skills was her ability to wrest so much drama from a world that was, by present-day standards, almost unfathomably static.

By Jennifer Egan

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/06/11/how-jane-austen-pulled-it-off-on-emma/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_id=01JXJ3YQ6CT1ZYTRMRJRX2Q4ZP&_kx=3MZUehzXM-41qlWAMPUiuNZadX2p0SByuNf_t0eMLB0.U5D8ER

Emma at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/158

#books #literature

Colour illustration of a 1909 edition of Emma (Jane Austen's novel), by C. E. Brock (died 1938).

Emma explains that it was she who planned Miss Taylor's wedding all along.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emma_CE_Brock_1909_Vol_I_chapter_I.jpg

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237d

McGonagall Salon(agall)
24 June, Edinburgh & online – free

The Edinburgh Literary Salon & the International Ghost Society – Edinburgh’s newest & most easily-distracted paranormal investigation society – present an interactive journey through the life & poetic gems of William McGonagall, including a playable big screen RPG, hidden Easter eggs, & a virtual McGonagall experience

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/junes-mcgonagall-salonagall-tickets-1407703903269

#Scottish #literature #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian #Dundee #McGonagall

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213d

My childhood passes on a bicycle
Down West Coats Road, beneath our sycamore
That filters July sunlight through the slow
Sidereal quiet of the suburb…

—Robert Crawford, “Cambuslang”
published in SELECTED POEMS, (Jonathan Cape, 2011)

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/362438/selected-poems-by-robert-crawford/9781446484227

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Cambuslang #Glasgow

Cambuslang
Robert Crawford

My childhood passes on a bicycle
Down West Coats Road, beneath our sycamore
That filters July sunlight through the slow
Sidereal quiet of the suburb

Where my father calls our garden “the croft”, and grows
Rows of potatoes, a countryman Glasgow disguised
Too long as a bank teller. A piece of broken glass
Shines on the lawn. Something always glistens

In the yards of grass that gently separate
A small boy from this same house where my parents
Live on together, smiling just beyond
The flowers-only gardens, the conservation area.

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213d

Dive Into Over 10,000 Historical Children’s Books Thanks to This Fascinating Database

Children’s books are some of the first things that form us. The University of Florida’s Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature traces that transformation, encompassing some of the world’s finest examples of what is now affectionately referred to as “kid lit.”

By Eva Baron

https://mymodernmet.com/baldwin-library-of-historical-childrens-literature-database/?

Children literature at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=children+literature

#Books #Literature

Sleeping Beauty and the palace dwellers under a century-long sleep enchantment (The Sleeping Beauty by Sir Edward Burne-Jones).

David Nash Ford - http://www.berkshirehistory.com/odds/briar_rose.html

"The Rose Bower" from the "Legend of Briar Rose" by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, located at Buscot Park, Oxfordshire.

The painting depicts the moment from the Sleeping Beauty (Briar Rose) legend, where the princess lies asleep with her ladies-in-waiting. The entire court has been overtaken by the enchanted sleep.

In this panel, the princess lies elegantly on a carved wooden bed, her delicate form draped in flowing, richly colored robes. Around her, maids and attendants rest in languid poses, some slumped in chairs or on cushions, their heads drooping in enchanted slumber.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty#/media/File:The_Rose_Bower_Buscot_Park.jpg

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236d

Help! Murder! Polis!

“Whether buried in the blackhouses of Lewis or the shuttered shipyards of Glasgow, Scotland’s mysteries speak to specific legacies which have shaped the land- & cityscapes that house its crimes”

THE BOTTLE IMP goes on the trail of Scottish crime writing…

1/8

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2025/06/help-murder-polis/

#Scottish #literature #crimewriting #crimefiction

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236d

Life in Jane Austen’s Goshen

“This is Goshen,” my mother and father would frequently say. The idea was simple, perhaps, but it said as much about my parents’ perceptions of the outside world as it did about their vision for our home.

By Caleb Gayle

Mansfield Park at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/141

#books #literature

Illustration for ch.7 of Mansfield Park, in the Series of English Idylls, published by J.M Dent & Co. (London) and E.P. Dutton & Co. (New York). " While Fanny cut the roses ".

The scene is pastoral and gentle, set in a lush garden or estate landscape typical of the English countryside.

Fanny Price, the novel’s shy and thoughtful heroine, is depicted outdoors, cutting roses from a blooming bush.

Fanny wears a long, flowing Regency-era dress, modest and light-colored, with gentle folds and period-appropriate details like a sash or high waistline.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mansfield_Park_(C._E._Brock)#/media/File:Mp-Brock-06.jpg

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212d

Professors & authors Zoë Strachan & Louise Welsh on “Families in Time, Families in Crime” – recorded on 17 June

“Reading Scotland” is a virtual community run by JGU Mainz, bringing together Germans & Scots & all who have an interest in Scottish life & literature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT8oQfsQ3_I

#Scottish #literature

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236d

Goonie: Poetry Extravaganza with Michael Mullen & Friends
20 June, Lighthouse Books, Edinburgh. £0–£10.99

Exploring queerness through fierce lyrical poetry & celebrating Scotland through vernacular vignettes, GOONIE is Michael Mullen’s debut collection

https://lighthousebookshop.com/events/goonie-poetry-extravaganza-with-michael-mullen-and-friends

#Scottish #literature #poetry #queer #queerness #Scotland #Scots #Scotslanguage

A bumfled rug, dark blue, with a red, yellow, pink, white and green floral pattern. Text:

poetry launch
michael mullen
+ fellow Edwin Morgan Award Winners
friday 20th june
indie bookshop week
poetry extravaganza

Next to the text is a cover image for GOONIE, by Michael Mullen. Looking down at a carpet of the same design, we can see a pair of feet wearing black men's shoes and dark trousers, and a single foot wearing a silver slipper-style woman's shoe and a bright red stocking.

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214d

10 famous quotes from George Orwell’s 1984 that still resonate

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/books/web-stories/10-famous-quotes-from-george-orwells-1984-that-still-resonate/photostory/122249713.cms

More about "1984";
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

#Books #Literature

The first edition cover of George Orwell's book, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

Michael Kennard - https://interminablerambling.com/2020/10/21/george-orwell-1984/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#/media/File:1984_first_edition_cover.jpg

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236d

Yeats Day marks 160 years since Nobel Laureate's birth

By Shane Ó Curraighín

https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2025/0613/1518359-yeats-day-sligo/

Yeats at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1719

#books #literature

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), poet. Charcoal drawing by John Singer Sargent (1908).

Yeats is depicted in three-quarter view, turned slightly to one side.

His face is long and sharply defined, with prominent cheekbones and a high forehead.

The eyes are deeply set and thoughtful, with a somewhat distant, contemplative gaze.

His hair is tousled and slightly wild, swept back from the forehead.

He wears a high-collared shirt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats#/media/File:Portrait_drawing_of_WB_Yeats_by_JS_Sargent.jpg

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236d

British Library to reinstate Oscar Wilde’s reader card 130 years after it was revoked

Pass to be presented to playwright’s grandson after original cancelled over conviction for gross indecency

By Dalya Alberge

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/jun/13/british-library-reinstate-oscar-wilde-reader-card

Oscar Wilde at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/111

#books #literature

Oscar Wilde by Napoleon Sarony, albumen print on card mount, sheet 30.6 x 18.4 cm, on mount 33 x 19 cm. Notes 1045 U.S. Copyright Office. Title from item. No. 22. Copyright by N. Sarony.

Oscar Wilde is captured in a full-length pose, leaning languidly to one side, his body curved with relaxed confidence.

He is dressed in fashionably eccentric attire: a velvet coat or jacket, silk cravat or ascot, knee breeches.

Wilde holds a cane.

His hair is shoulder-length.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde#/media/File:Oscar_Wilde_by_Napoleon_Sarony._Three-quarter-length_photograph,_seated.jpg

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236d

James Hutton (1726–1797), father of modern geology, was born #OTD, 14 June (NS; 3 June OS). One of the first European proponents of “deep time”, the conclusion of his 1788 paper “Theory of the Earth” has been called one of the most lyrical sentences in all of science:

The result, therefore, of our present enquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning,—no prospect of an end.

1/3

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/2808

#Scottish #literature #Enlightenment #18thcentury #DeepTime #science #geology

A portrait of James Hutton, painted by Sir Henry Raeburn. Oil on canvas, c. 1776. Hutton – a slim, middle-aged man, clean-shaven and with a receding hairline – sits in a plain wooden chair. His left leg is crossed over his right knee, and his hands are interlaced on his lap. He wears a brown eighteenth-century suit, with knee breeches. To his left is a table covered by a green cloth; on the table are piles of papers and a collection of rocks and fossils.

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235d

I Can Read You Like a Book: On Northanger Abbey

By B. D. McClay

“How are people, at any rate, to be understood?”

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/06/09/i-can-read-you-like-a-book-on-northanger-abbey/?utm_source=The+Paris+Review+Newsletter&utm_campaign=183685b4b4-TPRMailchimp_20250613_WEEKLY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_35491ea532-183685b4b4-55433165&mc_cid=183685b4b4&mc_eid=1ab9ba5038

Northanger Abbey at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/121

#books #literature

Tinted Line Drawing by H.M. Brock for Northanger Abbey, ch 22 (II, 7) Henry drove so well.

The scene is set outdoors, likely along a country lane near Northanger Abbey.

Henry Tilney is depicted driving a carriage with confidence and ease. He sits upright with relaxed command, holding the reins skillfully.

Catherine Morland sits beside him, looking either directly at Henry or gazing around her with admiration and contentment.

The carriage is drawn by a pair of elegant horses, rendered with clean, expressive lines that capture their movement.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2northanger_abbey-04.jpg

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235d

Bloody Scotland 2025
A Kick Up the Arts with Ian Rankin, Natalie Jayne Clark & Gordon Brown

Recorded at the launch of Bloody Scotland 2025, host Nicola Meighan is joined by Sir Ian Rankin, Bloody Scotland founder and author Gordon Brown – aka Morgan Cry – and writer Natalie Jayne Clark, whose new book The Malt Whisky Murders is shortlisted for the festival’s 2025 debut novel prize.

https://www.akickupthearts.org/blog-3-1/bloody-scotland-2025-with-ian-rankin-natalie-jayne-clark-amp-gordon-brown

#Scottish #literature #podcast #crimewriting

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211d

The French liar

René Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy, was furiously condemned by his contemporaries. Why did they fear him?

By Sandrine Parageau

https://aeon.co/essays/was-rene-descartes-a-self-centred-guru-and-a-lying-fraud?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=dbc992bbc2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_07_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-4ef8a26106-72664972

Descartes at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/44

#Books #Literature #Philosophy

The Blind Leading the Blind (1568) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

The painting depicts six blind men, linked together by holding onto each other’s shoulders or sticks, stumbling across an uneven landscape. They move diagonally across the canvas, from the left foreground toward the right background.

The diagonal composition can be broken into nine parts with two sets of parallel lines perpendicular to each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_Leading_the_Blind#/media/File:%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%87%D0%B0_%D0%BE_%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BF%D1%8B%D1%85.jpeg

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235d

‘Difficult love’: Spanish publisher reprints groundbreaking book of Lorca’s homoerotic sonnets

Federico García Lorca’s poems were printed anonymously in 1983 after being hidden away by family for 50 years

By Sam Jones

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/jun/13/spanish-publisher-reprints-sonnets-of-dark-love-federico-garcia-lorca

#books #literature

Photo of Federico García Lorca, dedicated to Xavier Bóveda.

Lorca's face is captured in sharp relief: high forehead, strong jawline, deeply expressive eyes.

His hair is dark, neatly combed back—shorter on the sides.

He wears a crisp, light-colored shirt under a dark tailored jacket.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Federico_Garc%C3%ADa_Lorca#/media/File:Federico_Garc%C3%ADa_Lorca,_dedicada_a_Xavier_B%C3%B3veda,_1933.jpg

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235d

All 41 Plates From Evelyn Waugh’s Victorian Blood Book, Durenstein!

This large rectangular decoupage scrapbook of 41 plates bound and wrapped in marble endpapers is remarkable, strange and unsettling, with echoes of illuminated medieval manuscripts and Rosicrucianism.

https://flashbak.com/evelyn-waugh-victorian-blood-book-durenstein-476211/

#books #literature

Portrait of Evelyn Waugh, circa 1940.

Waugh sits or stands waist‑up, facing the camera with a calm expression. His eyes reflect both poise and a hint of world-weariness.

He wears a neatly combed hairstyle, parted on the side. His clothing is dark and formal—likely a sport coat over a shirt and tie

Carl Van Vechten (1880–1964) - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3a42832.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Waugh#/media/File:Evelynwaugh.jpeg

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235d

Whatever the difference is, it all began
the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers
and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again,
possessed him, till it would not fall or waver…

—Don Paterson, “Waking with Russell”
published in Selected Poems (Faber, 2012)

https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571281800-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #FathersDay #poem #poetry

Waking with Russell
by Don Paterson

Whatever the difference is, it all began
the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers
and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again,
possessed him, till it would not fall or waver;
and I pitched back not my old hard-pressed grin
but his own smile, or one I’d rediscovered.
Dear son, I was mezzo del cammin
and the true path was as lost to me as ever
when you cut in front and lit it as you ran.
See how the true gift never leaves the giver:
returned and redelivered, it rolled on
until the smile poured through us like a river.
How fine, I thought, this waking amongst men!
I kissed your mouth and pledged myself forever.

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212d

The young Oscar Wilde’s Russian revolutionary drama reveals a playwright divided

Vera; or, The Nihilists concerns a plot to kill a tsar but after Alexander II was assassinated, its London premiere was cancelled. Now receiving a rare production, it captures his conflict between ethics and aesthetics

By Michael Billington

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/jul/07/oscar-wilde-russian-revolutionary-drama-vera-or-the-nihilists

Vera; or, The Nihilists at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26494

#Books #Literature #Theatre

Oscar Wilde by Napoleon Sarony.

Wilde is dressed in stylish, somewhat flamboyant attire—a velvet jacket, knee breeches, silk stockings, and often holding a soft hat or a cane, embodying the dandy aesthetic.

Wilde’s longish, wavy hair frames his face, emphasizing his androgynous beauty and poetic persona.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde#/media/File:Oscar_Wilde_by_Napoleon_Sarony._Three-quarter-length_photograph,_seated.jpg

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234d

In the house where he sleeps
let my ears
be the leaves at the window.

Let the bulbs of the lamps
be my eyes
on the animal street…

—Miriam Nash, “Prayer for My Father as a Child”
published in All the Prayers in the House (Bloodaxe, 2017)

https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/all-the-prayers-in-the-house-1150

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #FathersDay

Prayer for My Father as a Child
by Miriam Nash

In the house where he sleeps
let my ears
be the leaves at the window.

Let the bulbs of the lamps
be my eyes
on the animal street.

Let the shadows that harbour
my unborn body
stir when harm is stirring.

I’ll sleep in the drawer
with the knives.
I’ll turn in the locks.

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234d

Dheigheadh sinn a dh’iasgach,
mi fhèin is m’ athair,
is lìonadh sinn an eathar le
peilichean de rionnach, liutha,
is dheigheadh sinn timcheall a’ bhaile
gu gach nàbaidh gus am biodh na peilichean falamh…

—Iain MacRath, “Dheigheadh sinn a dh’iasgach”
published in Don’t. Even. Ask. Too. Hot.: New Writing Scotland 42 (ASL, 2024)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws42/

#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #poetry #poem #FathersDay

Iain MacRath
Dheigheadh sinn a dh’iasgach

Dheigheadh sinn a dh’iasgach,
mi fhèin is m’ athair,
is lìonadh sinn an eathar le
peilichean de rionnach, liutha,
is dheigheadh sinn timcheall a’ bhaile
gu gach nàbaidh gus am biodh na peilichean falamh.
Chunnaic mi m’ athair an raoir,
ged a chaochail e o chionn fichead bliadhna.
Chunnaic mi air na naidheachdan e
seacaid-teasairginn timcheall air
is an eathar làn,
làn de dhaoine.

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Iain MacRae
We’d go fishing

We’d go fishing,
me and my father,
and we’d fill the dinghy
with pails of mackerel, lythe,
and we’d go round the village
to each neighbour till each pail was empty.
I saw my father last night,
though he died some twenty years ago.
I saw him on the news
a safety jacket around him
and the dinghy full,
full of people.

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234d

Knock Knock by Kirsty Logan
Short Works – currently available on BBC Sounds

In Kirsty Logan’s new short work for Father's Day, Wilbur prepares to meet his dad for the very first time. But can he find the strength to face his fears?

Read by Jessica Hardwick

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002dc9d

#Scottish #literature #shortstory #shortfiction #audio #FathersDay

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212d

Five Imaginary Scottish Places

Currently available on BBC Sounds: Stuart Kelly explores some of Scotland’s famous fictional locations, including:

🏰 Tillietudlem
🏡 Thrums
🏭 Duncairn
🏙️ Unthank
🛖 Brigadoon

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05wytj9

#Scottish #literature #place #location #imaginary

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212d

“Annie S. Swan both requires revaluation through her own biography & calls into question easy valorisations of ‘danger’ as expressed in terms of explicit challenge & radicalism. The extent of her appeal & influence demands a more nuanced analysis of the politics of emotion & the gendering of reader response”

—Prof Glenda Norquay on Annie S. Swan (1859–1943) – born #OTD, 8 July

@litstudies

1/3

https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2016/09/08/annie-shepherd-swan/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #20thcentury #romance #womenwriters

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212d

‘What will things be like in 2099, for poets, for the country, for everyone? I won’t be there, but my words might be and now, literally, on the pavement, I stand by them: “Be brave. By the weird-song in the dark you’ll find your way.”’

Kathleen Jamie at Holyrood, in the London Review of Books

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/june/at-the-canongate-wall

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Holyrood

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