In Mary Cholmondley’s 1893 novel Diana Tempest (vol I, vol II, vol III), our eponymous heroine has the doubtful pleasure of encountering a recently married friend, Madeleine Verelst, at a gathering at the home of Lord and Lady Hemsworth. As is typical for this book, which is characterised by incisive and bleakly funny observations of…
Tag: insult
Insult of the Week: You flaming floundering fool
Please excuse our lack of blogging lately! We’ve had a remarkable number of back-to-back deadlines in the last couple of weeks, and are currently knee-deep in an exciting new project that’s due out before Christmas. (I can’t give full details yet, but watch this space!) On a perhaps-not-entirely-unrelated note, our insult this week comes from…
Insult of the Week: he talked mere drivel
The preacher in residence at St. Hilda’s Church in Donegal, Mr. Vivian, gets a poor review from Charlotte Riddell in her 1888 novel The Nun’s Curse. Although his good qualities are many, and he does excellent work with the sinful and/or suffering members of his parish, his preaching abilities are, frankly, nil. Unlearned, unlettered, uncultured…
Insult of the Week: your desultory vivacity makes your presence a fatigue
In chapter 29 of Middlemarch, a letter from Mr. Casaubon’s cousin Will Ladislaw sparks off an argument between the elderly clergyman and his much younger wife, Dorothea: “You can, if you please, read the letter,” said Mr. Casaubon, severely pointing to it with his pen, and not looking at her. “But I may as well…
Insult of the Week: Fops
From one gendered insult to another: this week we’re looking at literary fops, or gentlemen that are – in some way or another – a bit too concerned with manners of dress, elegance and fashion. Our featured image (by the wonderful C. E. Brock) comes from John Galt’s 1821 novel The Annals of the Parish…
Insult of the Week: may his head rot off
In chapter 15 of Bleak House, the narrator Esther Summerson and her guardian Mr. Jarndcye encounter Mr. Gridley, a passionate man from Shropshire, who is embroiled in a labyrinthine court case that has permanently soured his view of the legal system. Although Esther (who is herself a ward in Chancery) and Mr. Jarndyce have not,…
Insult of the Week: inferior poets are absolutely fascinating
Ah, poetry. One of the great literary forms, with a history stretching back as far as the earliest written word! Beloved genre of such giants as Sappho, Homer, Chaucer, and the anonymous author of The Poetic Works of a Weird (1827). Being writers themselves, surely our novelists must have a healthy respect for the poetical…
“Well imagined and happily represented”: a review of Pride and Prejudice from 1813
****WARNING: READERS SHOULD BE ADVISED THAT THE REVIEW BELOW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, AND ALSO LOTS OF THOSE ANNOYING Ss THAT LOOK LIKE Fs**** The author of a review of Pride and Prejudice which appeared in The British Critic in 1813, the year that the novel was first published, gives a very positive…
Insult of the week: a crop-eared English Whig
In chapter 11, we find young Englishman Edward Waverley enjoying – or trying to enjoy – a convivial evening with his host, Baron Bradwardine, and three other Scottish companions: bailiff Duncan MacWheeble, and the pugnacious young lairds of Balmawhapple and Killancureit. Prodigious quantities of drink are consumed, and Waverley manfully does his best to keep…
Insult of the Week: may your constituency reject you
In chapter XI of Richard Marsh’s 1897 work of weird horror, The Beetle, narrator Sydney Atherton has discovered that his beloved childhood friend Marjorie intends to marry the politician Paul Lessingham – who is much older than Sydney (“and a wretched Radical!”). Not to put too fine a point upon it, Sydney is unimpressed. [T]o…
Insult of the Week: this inquisitive hag – damn her gooseberry wig
In chapter 61 of Waverley, our misfortunate hero finds himself sharing a conveyance – “the northern diligence”, described as “a huge old-fashioned tub” – with a companion he would really rather avoid, if at all possible. Mrs. Nosebag is … the lady of Lieutenant Nosebag, adjutant and riding-master of the — dragoons, a jolly woman…
The Six Most Impertinent Things Ever Said By Elizabeth Bennet
Elizabeth is one of the truly great heroines of English literature. She has fine eyes; she’ll walk three miles of muddy countryside without fear of censure or ruined hemlines; she has tremendous chemistry with Colin Firth, and these days she’ll even put down a zombie uprising for you. But there’s one thing that really keeps…
The Sea of Books 