Much Madness is Divinest Sense – Page 76 – Books, Poetry, Quilting, Baking, Life, the Universe, and Everything

Booking Through Thursday: Something Old, Something New

Posted on February 24, 2011September 19, 2015 by Dana

This week’s Booking Through Thursday Prompt asks: “All other things being equal–do you prefer used books? Or new books? (The physical specimen, that is, not the title.) Does your preference differentiate between a standard kind of used book, and a pristine, leather-bound copy?”

My answer isn’t terribly deep, and I’m afraid it will disappoint anyone who has romantic notions about the way books smell and how the pages yellow, and all of that, but I just like to read. I don’t really have a book fetish. I am attracted to pretty covers, and I prefer a book I purchase to be new. If it’s going to be marked in or damaged in any way, I prefer that I am the person to do it first. I know used books can be cheaper, but there it is. I don’t collect old books, either, and I guess I’m one of those folks who doesn’t much see the point in doing it. Autographed copies are different to me. I love to get my books signed by authors.

After I bought my Kindle, I had some friends who thought I had gone over to the Dark Side. I kept hearing things like the books smell so good, and you can’t beat the way paper feels, and, and and… And I don’t get books to sniff them or touch them.

I have a strong romantic streak about just about everything. Except books. Weird because of how much I love to read, I know, but there it is.

I can actually hear you clucking your tongue, and it’s not bothering me. Not even a little bit.

photo credit: Ian Sane

Friday Finds—May 20, 2011

Booking Through Thursday: Foreign

Top Ten Books I Want to Reread

Passion, by Jude Morgan

Posted on February 21, 2011December 10, 2011 by Dana

After having finished Jude Morgan’s novel Passion, I feel emotionally spent. What a rollercoaster ride this aptly named novel has taken me on.

The novel begins as Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Shelley, attempts to commit suicide by drowning herself. It’s a story that’s been well known to me since college when I first encountered Wollstonecraft and her Vindication of the Rights of Woman. I was entranced by the story because I latched on to a curious detail: Wollstonecraft, mistreated by man in a world that didn’t appreciate her intellect, was bouyed by her skirts—the symbol of her femininity saved her, and later, it would take her away as she died following her daughter Mary’s childbirth. The rest of the novel unfolds as the lives of the Romantic poets Byron, Shelley, and Keats are told through the voices of the women who loved them: Lady Caroline Lamb, Augusta Byron Leigh, Mary Shelley, and Fanny Brawne. At times the stories entwine as the women move in the same circles, and ultimately, each is left behind as the man she loved dies before her. How each woman resolves the issue of forging an identity separate from her lover is alluded to in the epilogue, but largely left unwritten.

If ever a book were written just for me, this book would be it. I have been devoted to the Romantic poets since high school. Jude Morgan not only manages to bring the poets and their lovers alive, but he also manages to do so with painstaking research and attention to historical detail. I was transported to another time where I knew and loved all of these people. Much of Morgan’s research has come from primary sources—letters, memoirs, diaries, and the like, for much of it reads exactly like the accounts from which they were drawn, but somehow sketched out in sharper relief. My favorite characters were probably Byron, Caroline Lamb, and Fanny Brawne, but truthfully, I enjoyed meeting everyone (although I kind of hated Claire Clairmont, which may have been Morgan’s intention). I felt wrung out with sadness as each of the poets died—the inevitable conclusion I knew would happen, but that I was still inexplicably unprepared for.

If I have one criticism of the book, it’s that it felt a little too unwieldy at times. Morgan never manages to lose control of the story, however, and even switching narrators and voices is no trouble. The reader can follow Morgan down each path. Keats’s story suffers the most in this large tale, while Byron and Shelley loom large on the page. Perhaps that is also a deeper message one can glean from the story—it was also thus, no? Towards the end of the book, Fanny Brawne reflects on Keats’s pronouncement that she is like a fire:

Oh, I would much rather be the fire. Think of the other elements: earth is rather too plain and sluggish, and I hope I have too much sense to be forever floating about in the air, and water has something too cool about it for my temper, which is, I know, a little too much on the lively side. (459)

It seemed as if all the women were described in that paragraph. I saw Augusta Leigh as like the earth, not “plain and sluggish,” necessarily, but the bedrock, the only solid thing in Byron’s life. Earthy would be a great adjective to describe her. And if Brawne sees someone “floating about in the air” as having little sense, then air is Caro Lamb, who threw her dignity, happiness, and family away for a mad obsession for Byron. Mary Shelley, then, is water, cool, collected, sometimes too passionless for Shelley, who often compared her to the moon in his poetry—not to mention that life-claiming water seemed to be a recurring theme of Mary Shelley’s life.

What a wonderful book. I would give it infinity stars if I could. I never mark my books (no trouble highlighting a Kindle and taking notes, but somehow I feel I’m defacing my books if I write in them), but I found I had to mark passages and talk back to this story, at least a little. I certainly can’t think of too many other books I’ve read that have had me doing as much research and reading about its subjects as this one. A new favorite. The title is perfect in all senses of the word, but don’t let the cover scare you off—it’s pretty, but makes the book seem too frivolous and light. Mary Shelley seems to capture the essence of this book in one sentence: “How can you love someone so much, and not understand them at all?” (383).

Rating:

I read this book for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. I’ve read four now. Eleven more to go.

The story of the writing of Frankenstein and some of the literal Byronic hero qualify this book as my first read for the Gothic Reading Challenge. Nineteen to go on that challenge. I must have been crazy.

I’m going to have to puzzle over where to put this on the Where Are You Reading Challenge because these guys went all over Europe. I guess England.

Review: Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, Stephen Greenblatt

Sunday Salon Check In

Reading Update: Where is Shelley's Ghost?

Fanny Brawne

Posted on February 20, 2011February 23, 2021 by Dana

As I wrap up reading Jude Morgan’s Passion (I have about 100 pages to go), I think I’ve developed a girl-crush on Fanny Brawne. Fanny Brawne was John Keats’s fiancée and muse for some of his poetry. While perhaps not classically beautiful, she had something of wit and charm about her that reminds me of a Jane Austen heroine. While I understand Morgan’s book is fiction, his novel is not the only such fictional account to portray her this way: the Jane Campion film Bright Star , starring Abbie Cornish as Fanny and Ben Whishaw as Keats, also characterizes Fanny as a sparkling wit and a gifted fashion designer.

Ever since I picked up Morgan’s novel (and, I admit, since I saw Bright Star last month), I have been learning all I can about the late Romantic poets—Byron, Shelley, and Keats. I took a course in college in Late Romantic Literature, and as I learn and I read, I can’t help but wonder what my professor for that course must think of Passion and Bright Star.

One of the things I’ve learned is that Fanny’s reputation in the nineteenth century was much maligned by both Keats’s friends and literary scholars who seemed to feel Fanny undeserving of Keats’s devotion. Keats’s friend Charles Brown seemed to feel Fanny was a capricious flirt who toyed with Keats’s affections. In any case, many of Keats’s friends felt Fanny was bad for Keats. On the other hand, he was at his most prolific while in love with Fanny, and many critics believe some of his famous works, such as the sonnet “Bright Star,” were written about Fanny:

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

Fanny Brawne was largely unknown to Keats scholarship until the publication of Keats’s letters to her in 1878. R. H. Stoddard criticized their publication:

Miss Fanny Brawne made John Keats ridiculous in the eyes of his friends in his lifetime, and now she (through her representatives) makes him ridiculous in the eyes of the world. She (and they) have had fifty-seven years in which to think about it; she forty-four years as maid and wife; they thirteen years as her children. Why did she keep his letters all those years? What could she keep them for but to minister to her vanity, and to remind her that once upon a time a crazy young English poet was desperately in love with her, was her captive and her slave? What else could she keep them for? She revered the memory of Keats, did she? This is how she revered it…. I have two more questions to ask: What motive actuated the descendants of Fanny Brawne in allowing the publication of this objectionable book? Could there be any motive other than that of lucre?

Fanny saved Keats’s letters and left them to her children after she died in 1865. If John Keats meant nothing to her, why did she wear mourning for six years after his death? Why save these letters? Stoddard would argue that she hoped they’d be valuable, but she cannot have known that as it took some time after Keats’s death for his work to be appreciated. Later on, she must have thought they might be valuable or she would not have entrusted them to her children. It is known she had to sell a miniature of Keats that she had kept for years after his death. Stoddard criticizes Fanny for not burning the letters, but these letters are widely considered to be among the most romantic letters ever written. Why would any woman burn them?

It would seem that after Fanny’s letters to Keats’s sister Fanny Keats were published in 1937 by the Oxford University Press, the tide turned for Fanny, who was revealed to have truly loved Keats: “If I am to lose him I lose everything,” she declared in one letter written as Keats’s death neared.

Keats addressed Fanny in his letters as “My dearest girl,” and it is clear he was devastated not to be able to marry her. Fanny’s mother would not approve the marriage until Keats proved able to support Fanny, but that success came too late as Keats developed the consumption that had also taken his brother, Tom. Keats, a surgeon, recognized the signs of consumption only too well when he first began displaying symptoms.

The love story of Fanny Brawne and John Keats is one of the great love stories of literary history. It’s a shame that we do not have Fanny’s letters to Keats, which were destroyed by Keats’s request after his death, for we truly only have part of their story. In March 1820, Keats wrote to Fanny:

My dearest Fanny, I slept well last night and am no worse this morning for it. Day by day if I am not deceived I get a more unrestrain’d use of my Chest. The nearer a racer gets to the Goal the more his anxiety becomes so I lingering upon the borders of health feel my impatience increase. Perhaps on your account I have imagined my illness more serious than it is: how horrid was the chance of slipping into the ground instead of into your arms—the difference is amazing Love—Death must come at last; Man must die, as Shallow says; but before that is my fate I feign [sic] would try what more pleasures than you have given so sweet a creature as you can give. Let me have another op[p]ortunity of years before me and I will not die without being remember’d. Take care of yourself dear that we may both be well in the Summer. I do not at all fatigue myself with writing, having merely to put a line or two here and there, a Task which would worry a stout state of the body and mind, but which just suits me as I can do no more.

One of my favorite dialogues between Keats and Fanny in Passion:

“Will you oblige me by leaning a little closer, Mr Keats? I wish to make Mr Swain jealous.”

Keats, emerging from his shade of watchful quietness, frowns. “I see no Mr Swain.”

“That’s because you don’t have my eyes. Everyone for me has two names, Mr Keats. The real one and the appropriate one. The real one is arbitrary and nonsensical. Would you say that I am characterized by brawn?”

“I might if you vexed me enough.”

“That is not gallant, and you know what I mean. Now when you assign a title to a poem, you don’t choose any old arbitrary words, do you? You choose a title that suits. So I call that gentleman with the thin legs and weak hair Mr Swain, because he is so exactly like a swain, or how I have always fancied a swain in poetry. Or, rather, not fancied it.”

“A sad fate for a fine old word. You would rather have a lover than a swain, then?”

“Mr Keats!”

“I speak of words. With words. If I lean towards you, Miss Brawne, I shall do it because I want to, not to save you from Mr Swain.”

“That would be an unpardonable liberty, and I only allow the pardonable ones. Besides, Mr Masterful has gone in to cards, and if I do any leaning in, I want him to see it and be jealous.”

He sits back, studying her. Those wide cheekbones: she has an acute image of a sculptor lightly pressing both thumbs into damp clay, creating him: stepping back from the beautiful intensity.

“My name for you,” he declares, “shall be Minx.”

“Why, I ought to be insulted.”

“You ought to be, indeed, on a daily basis: it might do you good.”

Images from Bright Star. Dir. Jane Campion. Perf. Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw. Pathé Renn, 2009. Film.

For more information, see The Life and Work of John Keats.

Review: The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead

Reading Updates

Charity Girl

Jane Austen Heroine Trading Cards

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Dana

I wrote a letter to Cassandra Austen as Jane Austen upon learning that she was still popular nearly 200 years after her first novel was published as part of a model research project for my students. I decided to share the Jane Austen heroine trading cards I also made for the project.

I made these cards using background papers from *freaky655 on deviantART and Bling Cheese and images from some of the film versions (see Works Cited below). I used Gimp to put them together. A note about some of my choices: I decided quick facts should include both a love interest and a nemesis. I tried as much as possible to choose for the love interest the main person the heroine was interested in, which is why Col. Brandon isn’t mentioned. It took Marianne most of the book to appreciate him. On the other hand, I listed both Frank Churchill and Mr. Knightley for Emma because I felt she fairly evenly divided her time interested in them. The nemeses were also my own impression of the person who most crossed or most annoyed the heroine. I suppose both love interests and nemeses are open to interpretation in some regards. I was fairly subjective in describing the characters’ personality traits, too. You may/may not feel the same way.

Jane Austen Heroine Trading Cards by Dana Huff is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Works Cited:

Emma. Dir. Douglas McGrath. Perf. Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeremy Northam. Miramax, 1996. Film.

Mansfield Park. Dir. Patricia Rozema. Perf. Frances O’Connor, Jonny Lee Miller. Arts Council of England, 1999. Film.

Northanger Abbey. Dir. Jon Jones. Perf. Felicity Jones, J. J. Field, Carey Mulligan. Granada Television, 2007. Film.

Persuasion. Dir. Adrian Shergold. Perf. Sally Hawkins, Alice Krige, Rupert Penry-Jones, Anthony Head. Clerkenwell Films, 2007. Film.

Pride and Prejudice. Dir. Joe Wright. Perf. Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen. Focus Features, 2005. Film.

Sense and Sensibility. Dir. Ang Lee. Perf. Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant. Columbia Pictures, 1995. Film.

Moby Dick

Sherlock Holmes: Charles Augustus Milverton and The Final Problem

Persuasion

Booking Through Thursday: Romantic

Posted on February 17, 2011September 19, 2015 by Dana

This week’s Booking Through Thursday prompt asks “What’s the most romantic book you’ve ever read?” I’m tempted to be snarky and say Passion by Jude Morgan because its about the Romantic poets Byron, Shelley, and Keats, but I know that’s not what the question’s asking about, especially because Valentine’s Day was Monday.

I had to think about this one. I would not say the most romantic book I’ve ever read was a romance novel. Those are OK, but they don’t really do it for me. If we’re talking about a couple in in a novel I’d hold up as the most romantic couple, it’s probably Jamie and Claire Fraser from the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. What a romance!

On the other hand, the first book that came to mind when I read this question, and the one that seems to be my best answer to it is Possession by A.S. Byatt. I find it romantic for all the following reasons:

The relationship between Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte was romantic—a meeting of the minds.
It was the first book my husband ever recommended to me. He might not know that, but I’m pretty sure it was. (Aw, mushy!)
Victorian poetry. “Natch,” as the kids say. All that repressed passion.
The love affair with academia, books, and poetry.
It has a gorgeous cover, The Beguiling of Merlin by Edward Burne-Jones.

photo credit: Nina Matthews Photography(find me on FB

Musing Mondays: Changing My Opinion

Booking Through Thursday: Visual

Top Ten Tuesdays: Top Ten Rebels in Literature

Reading Update: February 13, 2011

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Dana

I met my parents for lunch today, and it was such a gorgeous day here in Atlanta that I felt required to play “Blue Skies” by the Allman Brothers on the ride home.

I am still reading and enjoying Passion by Jude Morgan. I am over halfway through with it and eyeing by TBR pile. I am also still plugging away at The Story of Britain by Rebecca Fraser, though I have been dipping into Passion more often. I think I’ve decided to give up on Jamaica Inn. I haven’t listened to it in weeks. It never really grabbed me, for whatever reason, and I guess I need to put something that will hold my interest better on my iPhone for commutes. So, I downloaded A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness with my Audible credit. I had been wanting to read that one anyway. I am not sure if that’s one that is better to read or listen to, but I think I’ll give the audio a shot.

Sunday Salon—October 16, 2011

Sunday Post #42: Ratings

Wrap Up Lists

Dearest Cassandra

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Dana

My students will soon embark on a multigenre research project on a British author of their choosing, and I thought the best way to help them see what a good final product should look like would be to create one myself. Which author I would choose was not even up for debate: Jane Austen. Specifically, I decided to examine Jane Austen in modern pop culture, especially since the release of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle in 1995.

The project involves conducting research, including a traditional research-based essay with MLA citations, but it also includes other genres that enable students to explore what they have learned about their topic—these can be anything from art to creative writing to video. Students will need to include four such artifacts One of my artifacts is a letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra about a curious vision she had while visiting their brother Edward Austen-Knight in 1813. I liked the end result and decided to cross-post it here.

Godmersham Park: Tuesday (October 13)

Dearest Cassandra,

I have experienced a most curious and illuminating vision, and I know not to what to attribute my fancy that it might actually be true, or I should say shall be true at some time in the future. Only I feel this conviction that it must be true.

After we dined yesterday evening, I had a headache and so went to lie down. It soon grew dark, and I felt my head must burst. I took a small glass of wine, but it did not help, and so I lay down again. I must have fallen asleep, for I can account for the vision in no other way, but I chiefly remember feeling that with my head aching so I should never sleep.

On a sudden, I found myself walking down a road, but it was unlike any road I had seen: paved with some black concrete, and fairly congested with the oddest carriages I have ever seen. They had no horses and seemed to move forward of their own volition. People were dressed strangely and walking in quite a hurry down the street. Would you believe I saw several ladies in trousers? Not at all becoming and quite shocking. The buildings looked so very different and so very tall. You could not conceive the number of windows. Everywhere I looked I could see my reflection looking back at me. I entered a bookshop, and the proprietor stared at me unaccountably, for I cannot think what would be so odd or strange about my appearance after what I had seen on the street. Out of curiosity, I asked if he might have copies of Pride and Prejudice by the author of Sense and Sensibility available for purchase. He nodded assent, and directed me to a section labeled “Classics.”

I know not how to account for what I saw, for here were not the familiarly bound copies published by Egerton, but at least six different editions I have never seen before. My name appeared on all of them, and how I was discovered as the authoress, I cannot fathom. The publication information was most bewildering. One book named a publisher called Bantam and was dated 1983, of all preposterous things. However, the most marvelous edition included an image on its cover that looks like your very own work: the watercolor you painted of our Fanny. I should have fainted, but I recollected Sophia’s dying words to Laura: “Run mad as often as you chuse, but do not faint.” I opened the book, and I should mention these books had most curious paper covers that seemed to me not as sturdy as one should wish. The words I had written were on the page, just as I recollected. On the right side, the pages consisted of some explanations. As though anyone might need an explanation of what a curricle is! It was most curious to me, and I thought to ask the bookseller his opinion, but somehow I felt fearful of doing so. Next to Pride and Prejudice, I found copies of Sense and Sensibility, but most curiously, a copy of Mansfield Park. Dearest Cassandra, you of all people know I am yet writing this novel, and how it came to be in print, my words with some editorial alterations to be sure, I cannot fathom. And yet I saw also a novel called Emma and another called Persuasion. Also Northanger Abbey, which appears to be my story of Catherine Morland under a title I did not recognize, that Mr. Crosby cruelly had not printed and would not return. Miss Catherine on the shelf at long last! I confess it, Cassandra—I wept for sheer joy.

The bookseller appeared around the corner and asked if he might be assistance, and I hastily dried my eyes and thanked him. “Do you like Jane Austen, miss?” he asked me, and I could not think how I should reply to such a question, but assured him I did, very much, and he led me to a display in the window, and I cannot explain how I did not see it as I walked in the store. Several books with Darcy, and Bingley, and even one with wicked Mr. Willoughby’s name on the cover.

“But what are these books?” I asked the bookseller. He said they were Jane Austen “sequels.” I know not what he meant by that, and I felt somehow embarrassed to ask, as though I might reveal my ignorance. I picked up several and read, and some I found curious, while others I frankly hated. One was so unspeakably villainous that I could feel my face redden from embarrassment as I read it. I should not like to think I could have imagined such goings on, though I admit it was rather “fun” to read, as my Lydia might say. In fact, I have no doubt in my mind that Lydia would heartily enjoy such trash.

I know not how long I stood reading, but the bookseller informed me that I must go as he needed to “close up shop.”

“Pray, sir,” I ventured, “can you tell me how these books came to be?”

“Why don’t you know? Everyone loves Jane Austen. Slap a Jane Austen character in it, dress it in an Empire waist, and it will sell like hotcakes.”

I have no more understanding what he could have meant than you do, Cassandra, I am sure. “If I may, sir, why does everyone love Jane Austen?” I asked him. He said something about a gentlemen called Mr. Firth. I know not who this Mr. Firth is, but it would seem I owe him a great debt of gratitude and asked where I might find him. The bookseller nearly choked laughing at me.

I left the bookshop and was frightened to discover it was dark. I was alone and without a chaperon, and worse, I was lost. I must have wandered for nearly an hour when I came upon a box-shaped shop called “Blockbuster.” A large notice in the window advertised a new “Restored Edition” of Pride and Prejudice available in something called “DVD and Blue-ray.” I went inside and inquired after the Pride and Prejudice and pointed to the notice in the window.

“Throwing a Jane Austen costume party?” the proprietor asked.

Confused, I shook my head. He shrugged his shoulders and showed me where I could find Pride and Prejudice. Imagine my surprise to find Mr. Firth’s name on the cover. I could not open it, as it was wrapped in a strange clear substance. I asked the proprietor what to do, and he said I would need to “buy it.” I need not say I had no money.

“Lady, if you want to see what it’s like, look at that TV over there. We’ve got it playing.”

I turned to a large box with a screen of some sort. I watched until the end of story. The proprietor asked me if I was going to buy the “DVD,” and I confess I could not have spoken at that moment. My surprise and happiness were so great, dearest sister, that I felt my heart must surely burst.

“Lady, are you OK?” the proprietor asked.

I know not who OK might be, but assured him that I was no such person, thanked him, and began to leave the shop. Before he left he said I looked like I could use a cup of coffee and asked if I might join him, as he was closing up the shop.

I need not tell you, dearest Cassandra, that I was utterly shocked at his forward suggestion, but as I was lost and utterly bewildered as to what I should do next, I agreed. We walked to a shop called “Starbucks” which advertised a variety of coffees and teas. He asked me what I would like, and I simply could not chuse and asked that he might chuse for me. As I waited for the drink to be prepared, my eyes fell upon a newspaper with the most curious date: May 1, 2010. I began to feel faint, and I must have done so, for I awoke here in my bed in dear Edward’s house with Fanny leaning over me and shaking me awake.

She asked me if I were quite well, and I knew not how to respond. She said Edward worried about me when I did not come down to breakfast. I think must be ill, but I do not feel it. My head no longer aches, nor do I feel any pains whatsoever. I pulled my ms. of Mansfield Park out and set to writing, and do you know, Cassandra, I think, nay, I am quite sure it shall be a success.

Yours affectionately,

J. Austen

Top Ten Books I Want to Reread

Free Literary Podcasts

Reading Update: Where is Shelley's Ghost?

Booking Through Thursday: Ground Floor

Posted on February 12, 2011September 19, 2015 by Dana

I know it’s Friday. Stop giving me the shifty eye. It was a hectic week. Sick children, missing Girl Scout sash, AP Information Night at the high school. I really like this week’s Booking Through Thursday prompt: Which authors have you been lucky enough to discover at the very beginning of their careers? And which ones do you wish you’d discovered early? I needed some time to think about it. I am not often the person who discovers a new author after his/her first novel, but I did get in on the ground floor, so to speak, with both Matthew Pearl and Katherine Howe. I read Matthew Pearl’s first novel The Dante Club probably when it had been released in paperback. He found a blog post directed to my students recommending the book and invited me to a reading/signing at the Decatur Library here in the Atlanta area for his new book—The Poe Shadow. It was great to meet him and have him remember that I was the “Ms. Huff” who mentioned his book to my students.

I was browsing at Borders and Katherine Howe’s first novel The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane caught my eye because it has a gorgeous cover. I saw that Matthew Pearl had written a blurb for it, and I grabbed it. Eye-catching cover, Matthew Pearl liked it—how could it not be good? And I truly did enjoy it. I have met Katherine, and she’s very friendly both in person and on Twitter.

I also read Kathleen Kent’s novel The Heretic’s Daughter after seeing it everywhere in Salem last summer. She has a new novel out called The Wolves of Andover. Kathleen Kent is a great example of how mining a fascinating family history can reap great rewards. I met her at the NCTE Conference in Orlando in November, and she was very friendly.

I was really lucky to discover Brunonia Barry early. I had an ARC of The Lace Reader and was able to read it before a lot of other folks did, although she had also previously published it with a smaller press. Those folks that read the very first edition must feel like they truly discovered her and that people like me are just posers.

What’s cool about all three is feeling like I haven’t missed out—and I’ve picked up all of their other works (except Katherine’s—she’s still working on her second).

You know, I’m such an English teacher nerd that most of the folks I wish I had discovered early are dead. For instance, William Shakespeare. How cool would it have been to go to the first production of the first play he wrote? Or the Beowulf author and Pearl Poet. Just to find out who they were. Or Shelley and Byron and Keats (oh my!). Or Oscar Wilde?

Psst. If you are so inclined, you could get in on the ground floor with me. I have one complete novel, a second that needs editing, and a third that isn’t finished yet. You can check out my novel here and see if it looks like something you’d like to read.

photo credit: bogenfreund

Booking Through Thursday: Serial

Booking Through Thursday: Skeletons

Teaser Tuesdays—May 17, 2011

Reading Update: February 5, 2011

Posted on February 6, 2011September 19, 2015 by Dana

Nottingham Castle How much am I enjoying Jude Morgan’s novel Passion? Well, I am prolonging the reading of it so as to enjoy it more, which will not help me meet my goal of reading 50 books this year, nor will it help me finish any reading challenges.

Some favorite passages, most of which come from the viewpoint of Lady Caroline Lamb:

And when in 1802 the peace was declared, after nine years of war between England and France, the Duke [of Devonshire] sighed, “I dare say we can go over to Paris again now,” as if a good shop had reopened after a fire; and patted his dog’s head.

The Peace of Amiens: the two punch-drunk prizefighters unable to carry on any longer: “a genuine reconciliation between the two first nations of the world,” according to “Doctor” Addington, the new Prime Minister: the peace, quipped the wits, that passeth all understanding. Too much conceded to Bonaparte, securer now in power as First Consul than any king, and lording it over Europe: wouldn’t last: bad times ahead. But for now, a feeling of relief and freedom. The tight little island had begun to seem like a prison. The fashionable world packed its trunks and headed for the Channel. Of course Boney and his upstart crew were devils, but who could resist a little tour of hell, just to see what it was like?

The Duke did not go, in the end, because of his gout. But everyone else did—”everyone,” in this case being roughly the whole section of English society that in France would have be guillotined. (84)

On Lord Byron:

It appeared to her [Lady Melbourne] highly probable that a man in his situation, and possessing those undoubted qualities that acrimony could not hide, nor dissipation impair, must seek sooner or later to leave behind the sins of his youth, and embark upon a new and restorative course. Lady Melbourne dropt one or two hints in that direction, the full import of which her niece [Annabella Milbanke] did not chuse to construe; though she must admit it as a truth universally acknowledged that a single man not in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. (170)

Caroline Lamb, on the dissolution of her liaison with Byron:

Well, here is a thought for you. Now let me see if I can take you over the fences of this one. You’ll agree that there are times in your life that are happier than others—yes? And so out of all those there must be one time that is the happiest—yes?—just as among some trees that are taller than others, there must be one that is tallest of all even if only by an inch—yes? Thus there must be one period of time in your whole life that is, take all in all, the happiest, the truest, the most fulfilled, the best. So.

What if that time has already been and gone?

And you know it?

No, no—I’m quite well—I just fancied I heard my grandmother’s ghost at last. Saying that in her day they did not think of such things.

Well for them, perhaps. Part of me does long to lace up my feelings in that narrow bodice and tread that old narrow path. But I think it is closed off to us now, whether we like it or not.

Do I think my best time has gone? Why—how could I go on living, if so? (181)

And in a line worthy of Violet, Dowager Countess Grantham from Downton Abbey (played expertly by Dame Maggie Smith), Lady Melbourne to Lord Byron, on his affair with her daughter-in-law, Lady Caroline Lamb:

Lord Byron, how do you do? I am so used to seeing you disappearing upstairs, you must forgive my staring at your near and frontal approach. (181)

You know, with all the strange connections between historical persons in the Regency—William Lamb, Lady Caroline’s husband and Lady Melbourne’s son, would become Visount Melbourne, Prime Minister and mentor to Queen Victoria. His first cousin, Annabella Milbanke, would be Lord Byron’s wife, the Duke of Devonshire married to Georgiana Spencer and uncle and aunt to Lady Caroline—the time period begins to look almost as incestuous as Byron’s love affair with Augusta Byron Leigh.

Ba-dum-bum-psshh.

At any rate, it makes one think the period sounds like a game of six degrees of separation from Romantic poets.

photo credit: PeterXIII

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One More Reading Challenge

Posted on January 30, 2011January 30, 2011 by Dana

I know what you’re thinking. STOP! This reading challenge won’t mean any additional commitments, though. It works with what I’m already reading. It’s the 2011 Where Are You Reading Challenge.

Essentially, it works like this: after I finish reading a book, I mark its setting on a Google map.

Based on my reading so far, I suspect I’ll have a lot of dots clustered in England.

How much fun is that? Should be interesting to see if my reading is as focused on England as I think it is.

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