Eggplant.place

190d

Get to Know Venerable Bede, the Father of English History

"The Venerable Bede was the foremost pre-Norman conquest intellectual in England, and perhaps the most important figure in Anglo-Saxon history."

https://www.thecollector.com/venerable-bede-father-english-history/

"Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England" at PG

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38326

#books #literature

Painting "The Venerable Bede Translates John" by James Doyle Penrose (1862-1932)

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184d

The Enduring Legacy of Suetonius, Rome’s Most Controversial Biographer

"The imperial biographer Suetonius is an important source for the lives of the Caesars, but how reliable are his accounts based on gossip and sensationalism?"

https://www.thecollector.com/suetonius-roman-imperial-biographer/

Suetonius at PG

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2024

#books #literature #romanhistory #history

Portrait of Caius Suetonius Tranquillus.

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183d

In the Enola Gay
five minutes before impact
he whistles a dry tune

Later he will say
that the whole blooming sky
went up like an apricot ice…

—Alison Fell, “August 6, 1945”
published in The New British Poetry, 1968–88 (Paladin, 1988)

Hiroshima was hit by an atomic bomb on this day, 6 August, 1945

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Hiroshima #HiroshimaDay #atomicbomb #EnolaGay

August 6, 1945
Alison Fell

In the Enola Gay
five minutes before impact
he whistles a dry tune

Later he will say
that the whole blooming sky
went up like an apricot ice.
Later he will laugh and tremble
at such a surrender, for the eye
of his belly saw Marilyn’s skirts
fly over her head for ever

On the river bank,
bees drizzle over
hot white rhododendrons

Later she will walk
the dust, a scarlet girl
with her whole stripped skin
at her heel, stuck like an old
shoe sole or mermaid’s tail

Later she will lie down
in the flecked black ash
where the people are become
as lizards or salamanders
and, blinded, she will complain
Mother you are late. So late

Later in dreams he will look
down shrieking and see

ladybirds
ladybirds

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183d

BBC World Book Club: Arthur Conan Doyle
20 August, Toppings Booksellers, Edinburgh: free, ticketed

Harriett Gilbert is joined by international bestselling crime writer Val McDermid & leading Holmes expert Dr Mark Jones – Commissioning Editor of The Sherlock Holmes Journal and Co-Host of The Doings of Doyle podcast – to discuss Conan Doyle’s masterpiece and its powerful influence on crime and detective fiction.

https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/edinburgh/world-book-club-arthur-conan-doyle/

#Scottish #literature #SherlockHolmes #ArthurConanDoyle

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182d

Francis Bacon’s Essays explore the darker side of human nature. 400 years on, they still instruct and unnerve

By Matthew Sharpe

https://theconversation.com/francis-bacons-essays-explore-the-darker-side-of-human-nature-400-years-on-they-still-instruct-and-unnerve-259051

Francis Bacon at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/296

#Books #Literature

Paul van Somer´s portrait of Francis Bacon.

Formerly attributed to Frans Pourbus the Younger

In the painting, Francis Bacon is shown standing in three-quarter view, facing the viewer with a calm, composed expression.

Bacon wears an elaborate black robe or gown. The garment is richly embroidered or trimmed with gold, and he wears a prominent white ruff collar, characteristic of the Jacobean era. A wide-brimmed black hat often completes his outfit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon#/media/File:Somer_Francis_Bacon.jpg

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182d

The Confessions of Samuel Pepys by Guy de la Bédoyère review – journal of a predator

Newly decoded extracts expose the celebrated 17th-century diarist and naval administrator as a rapacious abuser

By Kathryn Hughes

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/aug/04/the-confessions-of-samuel-pepys-by-guy-de-la-bedoyere-review-sex-and-the-city

Samuel Pepys at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1181

#Books #literature

Samuel Pepys in the painting by John Hayls from 1666.

In the portrait, Samuel Pepys is shown in three-quarter length. He is seated at an angle, turning slightly toward the viewer, with a direct and thoughtful gaze.

Pepys wears a silk or satin robe, which falls in rich folds. Beneath it, a white shirt or cravat adds contrast and a touch of elegance. His dark, shoulder-length hair — whether natural or a wig — frames his face and gives the portrait a fashionable air typical of the Restoration era.

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

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182d

#OTD, 7 Aug, 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson boarded the SS Devonia to make the ten-day passage from Greenock to New York to pursue his thwarted relationship with Fanny Osbourne. In THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT he gives a vivid, sharp, & engaging account of his (impoverished) travels to & in America – read the first 5 chapters free 👇

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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/the_amateur_emigrant/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #travelwriting #RobertLouisStevenson #emigration

Alt text

Book cover

Robert Louis Stevenson
The Amateur Emigrant
From the Clyde to Sandy Hook
Chapters I to V

On a blue-grey background, fading from dark to light from bottom to top, horizontal lines of blue-green spirals representing waves cover the bottom half of the page. The top line of spirals are coloured white.

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182d

All Back to Mine with Val McDermid
A Kick Up The Arts podcast

Recorded live in the Portobello Bookshop, Nicola Meighan talks to folk singer, football fan, & Fun Loving Crime Writer Val McDermid about life, love, reading, & writing

https://www.akickupthearts.org/blog-3-1/all-back-to-mine-with-val-mcdermid

#Scottish #literature #podcast #ValMcDermid #crimefiction

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182d

It gets late early out here
in the lacklustre places,
wind in the trees and the foodstalls’
ricepaper lamplight, fading and blurred with rain…

—John Burnside, “Travelling South, Scotland, August 2012”
published in BLACK MIDDENS: New Writing Scotland 31 (ASL, 2013)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #JohnBurnside

John Burnside
Travelling South, Scotland, August 2012

“Necessity is not the mother of invention; play is”
—Ian D. Suttie

It gets late early out here
in the lacklustre places,
wind in the trees & the foodstalls’
ricepaper lamplight, fading & blurred with rain,
the wire fence studded with fleece
& indelible traces
of polythene wrapping; marrowfat clogging the drains
on the road that runs out to the coast
then disappears.
A last bleed of gold in the west, like a Shan Shui painting,
then darkness.

The animals are gone
that hunted here:
wolves coming down from the hills, that
immaculate hunger,
rumours of bear & cat, quick
martens & raptors.
The rain is darker now,
though not so black,
oil-iridescent, streaked with the smell of lard
– it gets late early out here; though late, out here,
has a different meaning:

stars in the road
& the absence of something more
than birchwoods or song,
pallet fires, tyre-tracks,
grubbed fields clouded with grease
& palm oil, hints
of molasses and lanolin, tarpaper,
iron filings.
A narrow band of weather on the road,
then houses; though we scarcely think of them
as that.

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I remember a meadow at dusk
in another rain
(and this is nostalgia now); I remember
I stood in a wind like gossamer and watched
three roe fawns and a doe
come quietly, one by one, through the silvering grasses,
wary, but curious, giving me just enough space
to feel safe,
their watchfulness reminding me of something
lost, a creaturely
awareness I could only glimpse

in passing.
That meadow is gone, and dusk
isn’t dusk any more
– or not out here –
just miles of tract and lay-by on the way
to junkyards and dead allotments,
guard dogs on tether,
biomass, factory outlets,
the half-light of ersatz dairies petering out
on rotting fields
of rape and mustardseed.

We’ve been going at this for years:
a steady delete
of anything that tells us what we are,
a long
distaste for the blood warmth and bloom
of the creaturely: local
fauna and words for colour, all the shapes
of ritual and lust
surrendered where they fell, beneath a fog
of smut and grime and counting-house
as church, the old gods

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buried undead beneath the rural sprawl
that bears their names, or wandering the hills
of Lammermuir and Whitelee, waiting out
the rule of Mammon, till the land returns
– with or without us –
chainlink going down
to bindweed, drunken
thistles in a sway
of wind and goldfinch on the dead estates, fat
clusters of moss
and gentian, broken

tarmac with new shoots
of coltsfoot breaking through
like velvet, till the darkness of the leaf
unfurls into a light we could have known
but failed to see
by choosing not to find
the kingdom-at-hand:
this order;
this dialectic;
this mother of invention,
ceaseless play.

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181d

Listen to ‘Moby Dick’ Read by Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Sir David Attenborough, and More for Free

By Ava Linker

https://mymodernmet.com/moby-dick-big-read-free-audiobook/?

Moby Dick at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=moby+dick

#books #literature

The cover of the first American edition of Moby-Dick, published in November 1851.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick#/media/File:Moby-Dick_FE_title_page.jpg

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181d

The great unknown romance of writer E.F. Benson’s life – Fred and George, a love story hidden in letters

The pair were seen as friends but their letters reveal a more intimate life together.

By Sasha Garwood

https://theconversation.com/the-great-unknown-romance-of-writer-e-f-bensons-life-fred-and-george-a-love-story-hidden-in-letters-262745?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20August%207%202025%20-%203479135425&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20August%207%202025%20-%203479135425+CID_f07cd193b8169389ee5efa206f9417bb&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=The%20great%20unknown%20romance%20of%20writer%20EF%20Bensons%20life%20%20Fred%20and%20George%20a%20love%20story%20hidden%20in%20letters

E.F. Benson at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/812

#books #literature

Portrait of E. F. Benson.

from Harper's Weekly - The New York Public Library

Benson is shown in head-and-shoulders, facing slightly to one side but with his gaze directed toward the viewer.

He wears a dark suit with a high, stiff collar and neatly tied tie. His hair is neatly parted and groomed, and his face is clean-shaven, allowing his sharp features — a high forehead, straight nose, and firm-set mouth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._F._Benson#/media/File:E._F._Benson.jpg

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181d

“[I]f you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat.”

—Nancy Hawkins, the majestic narrator of Muriel Spark’s A FAR CRY FROM KENSINGTON, on why a writer should own a cat

Today, 8 August, is International Cat Day (don’t tell them) 🐈‍⬛

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#Scottish #literature #writing #cats #InternationalCatDay #MurielSpark

So I passed him some very good advice, that if you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat. Alone with the cat in the room where you work, I explained, the cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle placidly under the desk-lamp. The light from a lamp, I explained, gives a cat great satisfaction. The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding. And the tranquillity of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost. You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concentration is remarkable, very mysterious.

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180d

The Real Science Experiments That Inspired Frankenstein

All of the experiments to revive dead people led Shelly to the idea of a story of creating life.

https://www.openculture.com/2025/07/the-real-science-experiments-that-inspired-frankenstein.html

"Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus" at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84

#books #literature

"Promotional photo of Boris Karloff from The Bride of Frankenstein as Frankenstein's monster." - picryl.com

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180d

Call for papers:
Irish & Scottish Women Writers for Children, c. 1750–1940
12 Dec, University of Edinburgh – free

Although significantly overlooked, Irish & Scottish women wrote children’s literature across various genres & forms. Papers on the symposium themes are invited by 31 August.

@litstudies

#Scottish #Irish #literature #womenwriters #ChildrensLiterature #18thcentury #19thcentury #20thcentury #CallforPapers

Paper presentations of 20 minutes in length are welcomed and may be on the following writers:

Catherine Sinclair, Elizabeth Hamilton, Isabella Fyvie Mayo, Ethel Forster Heddle, Annie S. Swan, Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Robina Hardy, Jessie Saxby, the Findlater sisters, the Mulholland sisters, Lady Gregory, Maria Edgeworth, Mary Leadbeater, Violet Finney, Katharine Tynan, Sophia Rosamond Praeger.

Or, the focus of the paper might be tied to one of the following themes:

Irish/Scottish women writers or editors of children’s periodicals.
Irish/Scottish women writers or illustrators of fairy tales or folktales.
Writing partnerships and the social networks of women writers.
The local, national and international in Irish/Scottish children’s literature.
Children’s literature written in Scots, Irish, or Scottish Gaelic.
Religion and politics in Irish/Scottish children’s literature.
Collections research and archival recovery of children’s literature.

Selected papers from this symposium will be invited to be expanded and collected in an edited volume of essays.

Please email a 200-word abstract and a 50-word bio to Lois Burke at v1lburk3@ed.ac.uk by 31st August.

The symposium will be free to attend, and catering will be provided.

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180d

Anima Celtica: Ella Carmichael as scholar, activist & muse in the Scottish Celtic Revival

Ella Carmichael (1870–1928) was born #OTD, 9 Aug. Abigail Burnyeat talks about Ella Carmichael & her role in the Scottish Celtic revival. The first female student of Celtic at Edinburgh University, Ella Carmichael was also founder of the Celtic Union & the journal The Celtic Review

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

#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #folklore #CelticStudies #CelticRevival

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179d

My grandfather didn’t know he was a Taoist.
He had fished the river Awe for sixty years.
Life is sensed as a flowing movement,
a power like wind or water. When he cast,
it was the bank that moved, not the river…

—Lorn Macintyre, “Satori”
published in The Bridport Prize Anthology 2013 (Redcliffe Press, 2013)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #fishing #naturepoetry #naturewriting #Zen

Satori
Lorn Macintyre

My grandfather didn’t know he was a Taoist.
He had fished the river Awe for sixty years.
Life is sensed as a flowing movement,
a power like wind or water. When he cast,
it was the bank that moved, not the river.
The osprey with the salmon in its talons
needed no metaphor to describe its beauty.
He saw the suchness of the landscape,
the great whole, perfect, sky, mountain,
as in a painting by the Zen K’un-t’an.
There is no Gaelic for the term satori,
the solution lying beyond the intellect,
that flash of delighted intuition, sensing
that a salmon is lying in the current,
while not seeing a ripple with the eye.
If I had told him: ‘you read the river
like a book, noting between the lines
what other fishermen fail to spy,’
he would have clouted me on the head,
the way Zen Masters took the big stick
to pupils who insisted on comparison.
The river needs no language, no homage.
It goes its own way, like the osprey
which will never run out of sky.

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179d

Well Versed Author Events: Niall Campbell
20 August, online, free

Niall Campbell reads some of his poetry, discusses his work, & answers questions as part of the Well Versed series in partnership with StAnza International Poetry Festival

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/well-versed-author-events-niall-campbell-tickets-1561423853779

#Scottish #literature #poetry

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178d

I’ll ha’e nae hauf-way hoose, but aye be whaur
Extremes meet – it’s the only way I ken
To dodge the curst conceit o’ bein’ richt
That damns the vast majority o’ men.

—from “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle”

A 🎂🧵 for Hugh MacDiarmid—born #OTD, 11 Aug 1892

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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hugh-macdiarmid

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #modernism #20thcentury #MacDiarmid

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177d

How Charlotte Brontë’s Shyness Helped Make Her a Storyteller

Graham Watson Explores the Influence of Friendship and Community on the Author of "Jane Eyre"

https://lithub.com/how-charlotte-brontes-shyness-helped-make-her-a-storyteller?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_id=01K2CED7J9W60YZV9A42BS1BPC&_kx=3MZUehzXM-41qlWAMPUiuNZadX2p0SByuNf_t0eMLB0.U5D8ER

Charlotte Brontë at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/408

#Books #literature

An idealised posthumous portrait of Charlotte Brontë by Duyckinick, 1873, based on a drawing by George Richmond.

The image is a bust-length portrait, showing Charlotte Brontë turned slightly to one side, her gaze directed thoughtfully into the distance. Her features are softened and regularised — large, luminous eyes, a delicate nose, and a small, composed mouth.

Her hair is parted in the centre, drawn back smoothly and arranged in modest waves or coils. She is dressed in a dark gown with a white collar or fichu, rendered with simple elegance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Bront%C3%AB#/media/File:Charlotte_Bront%C3%AB.jpg

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177d

Samuel Taylor Coleridge wanted to ‘bid farewell’ to writing at 22, letter reveals

Young poet details low mood and disappointment in love in 1795 letter, written not long before he met Wordsworth

By Steven Morris

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/aug/08/samuel-taylor-coleridge-letter-quitting-writing-22?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_id=01K2CED7J9W60YZV9A42BS1BPC&_kx=3MZUehzXM-41qlWAMPUiuNZadX2p0SByuNf_t0eMLB0.U5D8ER

Samuel Taylor Coleridge at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/95

#books #literature

1795 portrait of SamuelTaylorColeridge by Peter Vandyke.

This is a bust-length oil portrait showing Coleridge in three-quarter view, turned slightly to his right. His youthful face is smooth and fresh, with soft, rounded features — full lips, a straight nose, and bright, thoughtful eyes. His curly, light-brown hair frames his face and falls loosely.

Coleridge wears a dark coat over a waistcoat, with a high white cravat tied in a large, soft knot at his neck.

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

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177d

Now westlin winds, and slaught’ring guns
Bring Autumn’s pleasant weather;
And the moorcock springs, on whirring wings,
Amang the blooming heather…

—Robert Burns, “Song, Composed in August”
First published in POEMS, CHIEFLY IN THE SCOTTISH DIALECT (Kilmarnock, 1786)

Pages digitised by the National Library of Scotland

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https://digital.nls.uk/poems-chiefly-in-the-scottish-dialect/archive/74464614#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=230&xywh=-1574%2C0%2C5647%2C4185

#Scottish #literature #poetry #song #RobertBurns #18thcentury #nature #environment

SONG
composed in August

Tune, I had a horse, I had nae mair

Now westlin winds and slaught'ring guns
Bring Autumn's pleasant weather;

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And the moorcock springs on whirring wings
Amang the blooming heather:
Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain,
Delights the weary Farmer;
And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night,
To muse upon my Charmer.

The Partridge loves the fruitful fells,
The Plover loves the mountains;
The Woodcock haunts the lonely dells,
The soaring Hern the fountains:
Thro' lofty groves the Cushat roves,
The path of man to shun it;
The hazel bush o'erhangs the Thrush,
The spreading thorn the Linnet.

Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find,
The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine,
Some solitary wander:

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Avaunt, away! the cruel sway!
Tyrannic man's dominion;
The Sportsman's joy, the murd'ring cry,
The flutt'ring, gory pinion!

But PEGGY dear, the ev'ning's clear,
Thick flies the skimming Swallow,
The sky is blue, the fields in view,
All fading-green and yellow:
Come let us stray our gladsome way,
And view the charms of Nature;
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn,
And ilka happy creature.

We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk,
Till the silent moon shine clearly;
I'll grasp thy waist, and fondly prest,
Swear how I love thee dearly:
Not vernal show'rs to budding flow'rs,
Not Autumn to the Farmer,
So dear can be, as thou to me,
My fair, my lovely Charmer!

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177d

#OTD in 1880 Radclyffe Hall was born. She was the author of the pioneering lesbian novel "The Well of Loneliness" and was also a poet.

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

Books by Hall at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Radclyffe+Hall

#books #literature #lgbtq

Painting of Radclyffe Hall by Charles Buchel

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177d

Now, on the moors where the guns bring down
The predestinated birds,
Shrill, wavering cries pass
Like the words of an international peace;
And I would that these cries were heard in every town,
Astounding the roar of the wheel
And the lying mouth of the news…

—William Soutar (1898–1943), “The Guns”

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury