This reproduction of a wonderful map of the city of Dublin, originally created by William Wilson, comes from Observations on Mr. Archer’s Statistical Survey of the County of Dublin, by Hely Dutton. The book was first published in 1801, at which time this was a very up-to-date map. (You’ll also find a map of the…
The Knavish System of Scientific Research
In Chapter 19 of H.G Wells’ The Invisible Man (1897), the central character Griffin angrily describes the unscrupulous world of scientific research and speaks of his refusal to share credit with his professor for his discoveries. Instead, he opts to go it alone until his research is ready to take the world by storm… “And…
Insult of the Week: Walk off, ye canting hag
This week’s insult comes courtesy of Maria Edgeworth’s The Absentee. The Widow O’Neill attempts to renew the lease on her property, but local rogue agent Nicholas Garraghty (known to the tenants as Old Nick) won’t humour her request. ‘Take those leases off the table; I never will sign them. Walk off; ye canting hag; it’s an…
Caturday
The Land of Temples (India), published 1882, has quite a few images of cats, which I think are actually ads for another book entirely. Here is another cat, from Leaves from My Notebook, by an Ex-Officer of the Royal Irish Constabulary (1879). Enjoy your weekend!
All the toads and serpents
Sir James Brooke, of The Absentee, does not relish the prospect of the return of Lady Dashfort and her daughter to these shores: ‘…one worthless woman, especially one worthless Englishwoman of rank, does incalculable mischief in a country like this, which looks up to the sister country for fashion. For my own part, as a…
A tip for sobering up
In Great Expectations Pip, Joe and Mr Wopsle visit a tavern, where a few drinks are consumed. Joe’s sobering-up methods are somewhat unconventional but perhaps worth a try? Joe went all the way home with his mouth wide open, to rinse the rum out with as much air as possible. #wotlarx
Image of the Week: #LenaWantsMe
Image taken from Edward Douglas Fawcett’s science fiction novel Hartmann the Anarchist (1893).
Ladies and Gentlemen: visualising character mentions by gender in the novels
In early 2015, Adam Calhoun created a (now quite famous) series of images that visualise the punctuation from famous novels. These rather lovely images demonstrate clearly how differently writing can be structured, particularly in regard to features like punctuation: hiding in plain sight, punctuation renders writing intelligible, but goes practically unnoticed by the reader. (Until…
Out for a jaunt
Around the turn of the 19th century, if you wanted to get around in Ireland, it seems that a jaunting-car was the main way to go. These light two-wheeled carriages (which come in “inside” and “outside” varieties) make a number of appearances in our novel collection, and can also be found illustrating a number of…
Insult of the Week: Blockhead
It seems ‘blockhead’ was a popular insult in the nineteenth century. In our corpus Emma tops the league table of blockheads with three, but Austen also employs it in Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility, where the caddish Willoughby proclaims: though I have been always a blockhead, I have not been always a rascal So…
On the Joy of Tea-Making
In chapter 25 of Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), the narrator meditates on tea as a bewitching accessory for the attractive lady of Victorian sensation fiction. “Surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea. The most feminine and most domestic of all occupations imparts a magic harmony to her every movement,…
Alas! Or, Some Titles of “Interest”
Ada Maria Jocelyn, £100,000 Versus Ghosts: A Novel. 1888. UK’s Most Haunted: The 19th Century Edition Anonymous, The Life and Adventures of Toby, the Sapient Pig; with his opinions on men and manners. Written by himself. 1805 (although this date may be inaccurate?). Toby was quite the celebrity in his day, and his memoirs were…
The Sea of Books 