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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jan 1, 2022 0:19:02 GMT
There was a thread on here a few months ago about women authors of gothic horror (etc) fiction. This morning I stumbled upon this interesting-sounding work, Monster she wrote, penned by Lisa Kroger and Melanie R. Anderson. Have no idea whether the book is any good--the whimsy of the illustrations by Natalya Balnova suggests a volume aimed at readers looking for a bit of fancy and diversion: natalyabalnova.com/Monster-She-WroteI quite like the portrait of Medusa. The drawings are very cartoon-like, somewhere between Ronald Searle and Edward Gorey. This is one of my favorite books about gothic/weird/horror fiction. There's more commentary--and a cover image--on the Best & Worst Reference Works thread.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 7, 2022 9:47:02 GMT
I found awriter that will interest you, he is called Aubrey Menen, he was a gay writer: www.ucl.ac.uk/campaign/aubrey-menenI found him because he wrote a novel about William Beckford, that is available on Internet arch*** Fonthill: A Comedy
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Post by PeterC on Jan 7, 2022 14:02:00 GMT
William Beckford! My hero!
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 7, 2022 14:28:34 GMT
William Beckford! My hero! Beckford's Swiss dwarf Perro, who he brought back from Geneva with him, and who lived in poverty before Beckford found him, is on the cover.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 7, 2022 14:30:43 GMT
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 7, 2022 14:34:51 GMT
William Beckford! My hero! Perhaps you can tell us some interesting things about him.
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Post by helrunar on Jan 7, 2022 14:53:26 GMT
Thanks for the note about the Aubrey Menen Beckford book, Princess. The main thing I always bring to mind whenever Beckford is mentioned is the astute comment by Stevie Smith in Novel on Yellow Paper; something along the lines of "Beckford is one of those one may enjoy reading, but would not wish to follow one home."
This title by Menen, whilst of possible interest to several Vault residents, is not the sort of thing one would wish to fall into the hands of an impressionable young girl who has been given a careful convent upbringing: The Abode of Love: The Conception, Financing and Daily Routine of an English Harem in the Middle of the 19th Century (1956).
cheers, Hel
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 7, 2022 15:01:59 GMT
Thanks for the note about the Aubrey Menen Beckford book, Princess. The main thing I always bring to mind whenever Beckford is mentioned is the astute comment by Stevie Smith in Novel on Yellow Paper; something along the lines of "Beckford is one of those one may enjoy reading, but would not wish to follow one home." This title by Menen, whilst of possible interest to several Vault residents, is not the sort of thing one would wish to fall into the hands of an impressionable young girl who has been given a careful convent upbringing: The Abode of Love: The Conception, Financing and Daily Routine of an English Harem in the Middle of the 19th Century (1956). cheers, Hel I read his letters and he complains a lot, and he had been shunned by society, for a scandal. He complains about the building work, which is never completed, as he wants changes all the time, and also about his increasing inability to afford the rare pictures and treasures he collected, as his family money, gained from plantations abroad, soon dwindled. Eventually he sold the giant folly and retired to Bath, where he indulged his collecting and building with the proceeds, but on a smaller scale. Apparently when the tower finally collapsed the new owner wasn't too sorrowful, as it felt like a great burden had been lifted from him. The sheer scale of the tower at the time must have haunted him.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 7, 2022 15:08:27 GMT
Only a tiny part of the great Abbey remains. You can see the remaining part on the left of the picture:
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Post by helrunar on Jan 7, 2022 15:13:16 GMT
Nice photos. Worth noting that another of my favorite authors, Clark Ashton Smith, admired Beckford's phantasmagoric novel Vathek so much that he completed one of the unfinished fragments as "The Third Episode of Vathek." Pretty sure you can read it for free on the Eldritch Dark website.
H.
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Post by helrunar on Jan 7, 2022 17:21:12 GMT
Reading some of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories last month, I saw references to "blue pills" which seem to have been prescribed in the nineteenth century for liver ailments. Today I finally thought to look this up; it turns out that the pills originated as something called "blue mass," which became popular in seventeenth century apothecaries.
According to an online source:
The ingredients of blue mass varied, as each pharmacist prepared it himself, but they all included mercury in elemental or compound form (often as mercury chloride, also known as calomel). One recipe of the period included (for blue mass syrup):
33% mercury (measured by weight) 5% licorice 25% Althaea (possibly hollyhock or marshmallow) 3% glycerol 34% rose honey Blue pills were produced by substituting milk sugar and rose oil for the glycerol and rose honey. Pills contained one grain (64.8 milligrams) of mercury.
Abraham Lincoln was a famous patient who took these pills for years. It's now believed that many of those who took them developed symptoms of mercury poisoning.
H.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 7, 2022 18:42:53 GMT
Nice photos. Worth noting that another of my favorite authors, Clark Ashton Smith, admired Beckford's phantasmagoric novel Vathek so much that he completed one of the unfinished fragments as "The Third Episode of Vathek." Pretty sure you can read it for free on the Eldritch Dark website. H. He was a poet too wasn't he.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 7, 2022 18:45:09 GMT
Nice photos. Worth noting that another of my favorite authors, Clark Ashton Smith, admired Beckford's phantasmagoric novel Vathek so much that he completed one of the unfinished fragments as "The Third Episode of Vathek." Pretty sure you can read it for free on the Eldritch Dark website. H. He was a poet too wasn't he. I think he lived in a cabin in the woods, but I might be mistaken.
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Post by helrunar on Jan 7, 2022 19:37:57 GMT
Another word I learned from my reading of both Conan Doyle and Norman Douglas's rather outrageous 1917 best-seller South Wind is "vesta." A vesta turns out to be a type of match, one manufactured with wax. According to an online source:
The first successful friction match appeared in 1826, and in 1832 William Newton patented the "wax vesta" in England. It consisted of a wax stem with embedded cotton threads and a tip of phosphorus. Newton named his matches after Vesta, the Roman goddess of fire and the hearth. Small containers to house these friction matches were introduced shortly afterwards (in the early 1830s), to guard against accidental combustion. In England these containers took their name from the term Newton used for his invention, and they became known as "vesta cases", "vesta boxes" or simply "vestas". In America the more prosaic yet more descriptive term "match safes" was chosen.
The vesta cases (or boxes) became collectibles for fanciers of Victoriana. Some of the designs are really quite eye-catching. I saw one that involved an advert for Tetley tea.
H.
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Post by Swan on Jan 8, 2022 0:08:10 GMT
Another word I learned from my reading of both Conan Doyle and Norman Douglas's rather outrageous 1917 best-seller South WindĀ is "vesta." A vesta turns out to be a type of match, one manufactured with wax. According to an online source: The first successful friction match appeared in 1826, and in 1832 William Newton patented the "wax vesta" in England. It consisted of a wax stem with embedded cotton threads and a tip of phosphorus. Newton named his matches after Vesta, the Roman goddess of fire and the hearth. Small containers to house these friction matches were introduced shortly afterwards (in the early 1830s), to guard against accidental combustion. In England these containers took their name from the term Newton used for his invention, and they became known as "vesta cases", "vesta boxes" or simply "vestas". In America the more prosaic yet more descriptive term "match safes" was chosen.The vesta cases (or boxes) became collectibles for fanciers of Victoriana. Some of the designs are really quite eye-catching. I saw one that involved an advert for Tetley tea. H. A range of safety matches called Swan Vestas still exist, though they have dropped the slogan "The Smoker's Match" from the box.
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