Eggplant.place

124d

#OTD in 1926, C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien meet for the first time.

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-11-2026/

At PG:

Lewis:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/782

Tolkien
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/42379

Tolkien

#books #literature

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124d

Jonathan Swift’s Frustrated Humor

On the three-hundredth anniversary of Gulliver’s Travels, Swift’s satire of his own society is remarkably relevant.

By Henry Oliver

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/culture/literature/jonathan-swifts-frustrated-humor

Gulliver's Travels at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65473

#Books #Literature

“I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground”

Color illustration of Gulliver bound and surrounded by tiny Lilliputian soldiers from Swift's Gulliver's Travels. The giant figure lies restrained on a green hillside while miniature armed figures swarm around him.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/65473/pg65473-images.html

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124d

“Our Three-Voiced Country”: 20th-century cross-currents in Gaelic & other Scottish writing
26–28 June, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Skye

This conference will examine the shared influences & interconnections between Gaelic & other Scottish writing, from the Celtic Revival & the Scottish Renaissance to the beginnings of the new millennium

@litstudies

https://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/co-labhairt-bhliadhnail-asl-2026/?lang=en

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #conference #Gaidhlig #Gaelic

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124d

Lorrayne
before you hit me with that object
shaped like a toblerone
let me explain…

—Hugh McMillan, “The X Files: Bonnybridge, October ’95”
published in Aphrodite’s Anorak (Peterloo, 1996)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/x-files-bonnybridge-october-95/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #XFiles #TheXFiles #TheTruthIsOutThere

The X Files: Bonnybridge, October ’95
Hugh McMillan

Lorrayne
before you hit me with that object
shaped like a toblerone
let me explain.
We only went for a half pint and a whisky
then set off home but somehow
lost two hours on a thirty minute journey.
My mind’s a blank
but Brian clearly saw
Aliens with black eyes and no lips
leading us onto a kind of craft.
I tried to lash out, explain that I was late,
but they used some kind of numbing ray on me:
it put me in this state.
Lorrayne, don’t you see what it explains?
All the times I crawled home with odd abrasions.
Put that down Lorrayne,
don’t you see I have to go again,
for the sake of future generations?

ALT

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95d

Where’s Brude? Where’s Brude?
So many souls to be saved!

—Edwin Morgan, “Columba’s Song”
in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

9 June is the feast day of St Columba (c521–97 CE), who led the Irish monastic missions to Dál Riata & the kingdoms of the Picts

1/4

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #StColumba #saint

Columba's Song
by Edwin Morgan

Where's Brude? Where's Brude?
So many souls to be saved!
The bracken is thick, the wildcat is quick,
the foxes dance in the moonlight,
the salmon dance in the waters,
the adders dance in the thick brown bracken.
Where's Brude? Where's man?
There's too much nature here,
eagles and deer,
but where's the mind and where's the soul?
Show me your kings, your women, the man of the plough.
And cry me to your cradles.
It wasn't for a fox or an eagle I set sail!

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123d

Growling in a corner: Samuel Johnson’s lost years

by Henry Oliver

https://www.commonreader.co.uk/p/growling-in-a-corner-samuel-johnsons

Samuel Johnson at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/297

#Books #Literature

Johnson (1775) showing his intense concentration and the weakness of his eyes; he did not want to be depicted as "Blinking Sam". This unique portrait showing his nearsightedness is in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

Samuel Johnson in a powdered wig and red coat, squinting intently at a document held close to his face, reflecting his poor eyesight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson#/media/File:Portrait_of_Samuel_Johnson_(%22Blinking_Sam%22).jpg

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123d

The Golden Bough is a fantastical object in the Aeneid, an epic poem by the 1st century BCE Roman poet Virgil. The Trojan hero Aeneas is tasked to find the bough and remove it from its host tree to prove his divine favour before his journey into the Underworld.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Bough_(Aeneid)

via @wikipedia

There are several versions of Aeneid at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Aeneid

#Books #Literature #Poetry

Aeneas, holding the golden bough and accompanied by the Cumaean Sibyl, approaches the entrance to the Elysian Fields. From folio 52r of the 4th-century manuscript known as the Vatican Vergil (Vergilius Vaticanus).

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vergilius_Vaticanus_(Vat._lat._3225),_fol_52r_-_Aeneas_and_the_Sibyl_at_the_entrance_to_the_Elysian_Fields_(detail).jpg

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123d

On Queer Creativity with Allan Radcliffe, Zoë Strachan & Louise Welsh
4 June, Edinburgh – £3/£5

Porty Pride, in partnership with Portalibri, welcome three Scottish novelists as they read from their work & discuss what it means to be a queer writer, both in a creative sense, & in the world, touching upon the specific challenges faced by LGBTQ+ writers in hostile times.

https://www.outsavvy.com/event/35975/on-queer-creativity-with-allan-radcliffe-zo-strachan-and-louise-welsh

#Scottish #literature #queer #queerwriters #LGBTQ #Edinburgh

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123d

On the Death of Branwell Brontë and the Shadow of Grief It Cast Upon His Literary Family

Deborah Lutz Considers the Impact of a Brother’s Absence

https://lithub.com/on-the-death-of-branwell-bronte-and-the-shadow-of-grief-it-cast-upon-his-literary-family/

At PG:

Charlotte:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/408

Emily:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/405

Ann:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/404

#books #literature

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123d

Dundee Book Festival 2026
19–21 June

Tickets are now on sale for the 2026 Dundee Book Festival, a celebration of Scotland’s writers, storytellers, & people

https://dundeebookfestival.com

#Scottish #literature #Dundee #books #bookfestival

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123d

You told me the brightest flowers grow on sand.

By the breakwater, a frayed nest of fishers’ rope
twined into a bouquet: pale blue, green, teal,
and peach; a twisted tale of what growth is…

—Jane McKie, “Rope”
published in nobody remembers the birdman: New Writing Scotland 40

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws40/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Jane McKie
ROPE

You told me the brightest flowers grow on sand.

By the breakwater, a frayed nest of fishers’ rope
twined into a bouquet: pale blue, green, teal,
and peach; a twisted tale of what growth is.
But you are right – they are flowers in the way
of any weathered thing, unpicking itself,
or hollowing itself into something eye-catching,
essential: a split egg of rock, a breaking wave.

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123d

An Evening of Poetry with Scottish Carcanet
30 July, Topping Books, Edinburgh – from £5

A special collaborative event between three Scottish Carcanet poets – Jay Gao, Anthony V. Capildeo, & Colin Bramwell – celebrating their latest bodies of work, ranging from a book-length sequence told in the language of trees, to a vibrant selection of essays that explore a life in poetry, to a bold reimagining of Fernando Pessoa's poetry in Scots.

https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/edinburgh/an-evening-of-poetry-with-scottish-carcanet/

#Scottish #literature #poetry

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85d

They crashed among the spider-nets
spluttering and breathing hoarsely,
chasing fish out of the water,
calling one another and disappearing…

—“Dolphins at Cochin” by poet, playwright & novelist Tom Buchan (1931–1995), born #OTD, 19 June

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/dolphins-cochin/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #naturepoetry #dolphins #Kochi

Dolphins at Cochin
Tom Buchan

They crashed among the spider-nets
spluttering and breathing hoarsely,
chasing fish out of the water,
calling one another and disappearing.

Lime-green bellies and smiling mouths
sliced upwards obliquely;
calm humorous eyes regarded us for a moment
and splashed back.

Sea-marks of dolphins
moved among the dozens of jockeying sails:
a mile out, in the breaking waves,
we could see the flash of more dolphins.

On the bridge of our tanker
the grey paint blistered in the heat; above us
the siren mooed to come in at the jetty:
the water green and translucent.

The smell of crude oil, of ginger
drying in the yards; piles of coloured fish;
the creak of a wooden capstan,
monkeys quarrelling on top of the parked cars.

And suddenly there was a dolphin
inside our slow bow-wave: revolving, amused,
not realising our incomprehension
of his vivid thoughts.

Two dolphins came skidding round the point,
screeched to a standstill
blowing vapour and circling each other;
then they raced on again, leaping.

We watched them helplessly
from our primitive element
able only to think up cold metaphors
or to anthropomorphize.

But they wheeled – dolphins!
their liquid backs, their arched fins
moving steadily out from the shore
towards the hilarious ocean.

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23d

Some of the most trusted political voices in 18th-century Britain were fictional – why this tradition lives on

by Adam J Smith

A fictional astrologist, parrot, Chinese philosopher and midwife wrote biting and sought after political satire in the 18th-century.

https://theconversation.com/some-of-the-most-trusted-political-voices-in-18th-century-britain-were-fictional-why-this-tradition-lives-on-289906?utm_campaign=the-daily-39159&utm_content=the-daily-39159_uk%7C2%7C39159%7Cf9cf1c86&utm_medium=email&utm_source=braze&utm_term=Some+of+the+most+trusted+political+voices+in+18th-century+Britain+were+fictional+%E2%80%93+why+this+tradition+lives+on

Books about Political satire at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/1040

#books #literature

Playwright and novelist Eliza Haywood, by George Vertue, 1725.

The engraving shows her in an ornate oval frame decorated with a ribbon bow at top, with her name inscribed below, and credits "Parmentier pinx." (painter) and "Vertue sculp." (engraver).

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122d

A.A. Milne's crossword-puzzle heart in the Hundred Acre Wood

A hundred years of Winnie-the-Pooh

by Henry Oliver

https://www.commonreader.co.uk/p/aa-milnes-crossword-puzzle-heart

Winnie-the-Pooh (illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard) at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67098

#Books #Literature #Book_illustration

We see Pooh and Piglet walking into the sunset. Pooh is carrying his present.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67098/pg67098-images.html

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122d

Looking for your next book on Project Gutenberg? Benjamin Laird has some suggestions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjVnReMlGHo&list=WL&index=8&t=41s

#books #literature

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122d

“It was one of those days when you felt God had forgotten the city…”

The opening line of a 1930s novel of Depression-era Glasgow: not Blake’s THE SHIPBUILDERS or Barke’s MAJOR OPERATION, but HUNGER MARCH by Dot Allan – born #OTD, 13 May 1886 – which preceded them both.

A 🎂 🧵

1/3

https://asls.org.uk/dot-allan-a-glasgow-woman-novelist/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #Glasgow #novel

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35d

Twa Cats anes on a Cheese did light,
To which baith had an equal Right,
But Disputes, sic as aft arise,
Fell out at sharing of the Prize…

—Allan Ramsay (1686–1758), “The twa Cats & the Cheese”
digitised by the National Library of Scotland

Today, 8 August, is International Cat Day
😾 😾 🧀 🐵

https://digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/archive/105690319

#Scottish #literature #poem #Scots #Scotslanguage #poem #poetry #18thcentury #fable #humor #humour #cats #InternationalCatDay

The twa Cats and the Cheese
Fable IX
by Allan Ramsay

Twa Cats anes on a Cheese did light,
To which baith had an equal Right,
But Disputes, sic as aft arise,
Fell out at sharing of the Prize;
Fair Play said ane, Ye bite o’er thick
Thae Teeth of yours gang wonder quick:
Let’s part it, else lang or the Moon
Be chang’d, the Kebuck will be done.

ALT

But wha’s to do’t,—They’re Parties baith,
And ane may do the other Skaith,
Sae with Consent away they trudge,
And laid the Cheese before a Judge,
A Monkey with a campsho Face,
Clerk to a Justice of the Peace,
A Judge he seem’d in Justice skill’d,
When he his Master’s Chair fill’d;
Now Umpire chosen for Division,
Baith sware to stand by his Decision.
Demure he looks.—The Cheese he pales,—
He prives it good,—Ca’s for the Scales,
His Knife whops throw’t,—In twa it fell,
He puts ilk Haff in either Shell;
Said he, We’ll truly weigh the Case,
And strickest Justice shall have Place,
Then lifting up the Scales, he fand
The tane bang up, the ither stand;
Syne out he took the heaviest Haff,
And ate a Knoost o’t quickly aff,
And try’d it syne,—It now prov’d light,
Friend Cats, said he, We’ll do ye right.
Then to the ither Haff he fell,
And laid till’t teughly Tooth and Nail,
Till weigh’d again it lightest prov’d:
The Judge wha this sweet Process lov’d,
Still weigh’d the Case, and still ate on,
Till Clients baith were weary grown,

ALT

And tenting how the Matter went,
Cry’d, Come, come Sir, We’re baith content.
Ye Fools, quoth he, and Justice too
Maun be content as well as you.
Thus grumbled they, thus he went on,
Till baith the Haves were near hand done;
Poor Pousies now the Daffine saw
Of gawn for Nignyes to the Law:
And bill’d the Judge that he wad please
To give them the remaining Cheese:
To which his Worship grave reply’d,
The Dues of Court maun first be paid.
Now Justice pleas’d,—What’s to the Fore
Will but right scrimply clear your Score;
That’s our Decreet,—Gae Hame and Sleep,
And thank us ye’re win aff sae cheap.

ALT

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113d

The Bayeux Tapestry tells only the winner’s story – but the other side can be found in old English texts

The story of the losers is full of meaningful silences and William of Normandy’s terror.

by Catherine Clarke

https://theconversation.com/the-bayeux-tapestry-tells-only-the-winners-story-but-the-other-side-can-be-found-in-old-english-texts-283339?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20May%2022%202026%20-%203777938688&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20May%2022%202026%20-%203777938688+CID_92df80263ee542f0b2508c19d4ddc106&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=The%20Bayeux%20Tapestry%20tells%20only%20the%20winners%20story%20%20but%20the%20other%20side%20can%20be%20found%20in%20old%20English%20texts

Bayeux tapestry at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/4445

#Books #Literature #Tapestry #Old_Manuscripts

THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY ELUCIDATED.
BY
REV. JOHN COLLINGWOOD BRUCE, LL.D., F.S.A.,

Plate I.

Top panel shows:

A enthroned figure on the left (likely King Edward the Confessor) gesturing to figures before him
Latin inscription referencing "Anglorum" (of the English) and "milites" (soldiers/knights)
Mounted knights and hunting dogs racing to the right — possibly Harold's journey to Normandy

Bottom panel shows:

The label "ECCLESIA" on the left, with a church building
The inscription "HIC HAROLD MARE NAVIGAVIT" — "Here Harold sailed the sea"
A longship with oarsmen navigating waves, accompanied by figures on shore
Wind-filled sails and stylized waves typical of the tapestry's distinctive style

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55614/55614-h/55614-h.htm

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122d

The Agnes Owens Archive – Centenary Talk
24 May, Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow – free

On the 100th birthday of Scottish writer Agnes Owens, Kelvingrove are hosting SGSAH-funded PhD researcher, Laura MacDonald, who has been supporting the development of the new Agnes Owens Archive, housed at the Alasdair Gray Archive

https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/the-agnes-owens-archive-centenary-talk

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury #AgnesOwens #workingclass

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122d

Poetry in the Rose Garden
23 May, Scottish Poetry Rose Garden, Queen’s Park, Glasgow. Free.

Join the Friends of Queen’s Park to celebrate the launch of Gillian Dawson’s nature‑based haiku, plus an in‑situ reading of Catherine Eunson’s sonnet corona, The Scottish Poetry Rose Garden.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poetry-in-the-rose-garden-tickets-1989016230087

#Scottish #literature #poetry #haiku #naturepoetry #Glasgow

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121d

A New Language: On Primo Levi’s Translation of Kafka

Maïa Hruska Considers the Act of Writing and Translating After Auschwitz

https://lithub.com/a-new-language-on-primo-levis-translation-of-kafka/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_id=01KRGGX5W67XTHNK7WVA4T596X&_kx=3MZUehzXM-41qlWAMPUiuNZadX2p0SByuNf_t0eMLB0.U5D8ER

Books by Kafka (including Metamorphosis) at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1735

#Books #Literature

The first page of Kafka’s unsent handwritten letter to his father from 1919.

Opening "Lieber Vater" — Kafka explains his lifelong fear of his father, too complex to express in speech, barely manageable in writing.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#/media/Datei:De_Kafka_Brief_an_den_Vater_001.jpg

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121d

A little patch of land.
Bread on the table.
A dear friend you can talk to.
A small house you can call Home.
Rabbits…

Such a modest dream. And yet so impossibly out of reach.

Which character from this story stayed with you the most?

#Steinbeck #books #fiction #shortstory #OfMiceandMen #story #JohnSteinbeck #book #bookstodon @bookstodon #tragedy #loneliness #literature #discussion #classic #booksky #BookDiscussion #BookTok #bookstagram #bookstadon #bookstack #friends

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121d

Narrative Poems: ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ by Robert Burns & ‘Peter Grimes’ by George Crabbe

In this extract from the LRB Podcast, Seamus Perry, Mark Ford & Andrew O’Hagan discuss the moral & stylistic turns of ‘Tam o’ Shanter’, its influence on Wordsworth & Coleridge, & what it owes to the Augustan perfectionism of Pope. They also examine a much darker example of Romantic narrative poetry: George Crabbe’s ‘Peter Grimes’

https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readings/narrative-poems-tam-o-shanter-by-robert-burns-and-peter-grimes-by-george-crabbe

#Scottish #literature #poetry #RobertBurns #Romanticism