A stirring tale of adventure and calamity from the golden age of ballooning!.... An accident, the consequences of which are expected to be fatal, took place at Cannes on Sunday last. A M. Despleschin, of Nice, had announced his intention of making an ascent in a balloon, and two gentlemen, M. ... Read More...
Victoriana
Nige celebrates a gem of Victorian comic writing... Born in 1803, Douglas William Jerrold was one of those industrious Victorians writers who seem never to have slept. He was a successful dramatist (his first staged piece written when he was 14), a hugely prolific critic and journalist, a famous conversationist and ... Read More...
Continuing today's double-bill about some hidden London gems... One Thursday I got the willies. These particular willies were given to me by the Life Mask of actress Sarah Siddons adorning the wall outside the Monk’s Parlour in the basement of Sir John Soane’s House Museum, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. You may wonder how ... Read More...
I think (after much agonising, for there is stiff competition here) that my favourite bit of William McGonagall - widely regarded as Britain's worst ever poet - is this verse from The Ancient Town at Leith, purely for the scrupulous attention to numerical accuracy: Then as for Leith Fort, it was erected ... Read More...
Emerson - Gathering Waterlillies, East Anglia 1886 - Getty Museum Dr. Peter Henry Emerson (1856-1936) was a Cuban-born, American-raised British surgeon, naturalist, meteorologist, bird-watcher, champion billiard player and, for which he is remembered, influential photographer. At a time when photographers were going to enormous lengths to recreate paintings – staging very artificial ... Read More...
By Frank Key Now the BBC's trio of Sherlock dramas has come to a close, and the critics have had their say, it is appropriate to note that it missed an opportunity. Why do writers feel they need to come up with entirely new stories when Conan Doyle – or ... Read More...
