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Category: Author
Woman of Stone
M.R. James, Mark Gatiss, and the Evolution of the BBC’s Ghost Stories for Christmas Woman of Stone ‘The ghost is innately conservative,’ Professor Clive Bloom once wrote, in an uncompromising essay on M.R. James. A bold claim in gothic theory, it makes perfect sense when you think about it. ‘Ghosts tell us of stability and… Read More
‘The great floodgates of the wonder-world swung open’
Sally Minogue examines the ‘wonder-world’ of Herman Melville’s great novel Moby Dick. ‘Call me Ishmael’: is there a more famous opening sentence in fiction? People who have never read Moby Dick, people who have never read the Bible, and don’t know who Ishmael is in either text, may still recognize and even in some way… Read More
Classic of the Week: Nicholas Nickleby
David Ellis looks at Charles Dickens’ third novel. Classic of the Week: Nicholas Nickleby If there were a prize for the most unpleasant character in Nicholas Nickleby it would be hotly contested. Prominent among the contestants would of course be Wackford Squeers, the ignorant barbarian who runs a school in Yorkshire for boys whose parents… Read More
‘He do the Police in different voices’
As Charles Dickens’ last complete novel, Our Mutual Friend, is adapted for BBC Radio 4, Sally Minogue looks at the novel’s relationship to his world and to ours. I’ve just spent a few days in London, where this blog was very much on my mind. In Our Mutual Friend (1865), as often in Dickens’ novels,… Read More
The Witch’s Curse: Elizabeth Gaskell and the Female Gothic
Something for Halloween… The Witch’s Curse In the great pantheon of Victorian British literature, Elizabeth Gaskell is among its most versatile authors. Of course, she will always be associated with her powerful industrial novels Mary Barton and North and South. But there is also the progressive social protest of Ruth – a contentious novel in… Read More
Kate Chopin: Two Stories
Kate Chopin was not a conventional woman. She was a professional writer at a time when it was unusual and somewhat irregular for a woman to have such an occupation. She was unconventional though, before she became a writer and shocked her in-laws with her behaviour which would have seemed most unladylike in New Orleans… Read More
Sherlock Holmes in 1924: A Centenary
Sherlock Holmes fiction probably conjures up images of fog bound London streets, hansom cabs and cosy scenes in 221b Baker Street with its Victorian décor. However, this year marks the centenary of the publication of three particular Sherlock Holmes short stories and it may seem strange to think of Sherlock Holmes in the 1920s. ‘The… Read More
David Stuart Davies (1946-2024)
Regular readers of our blog will be sad to hear that our old friend David Stuart Davies passed away in August. The association with Wordsworth of David and his wife Kathryn dates back to the late 1990s, the days of the £1 classic paperback, when Kathryn contributed an introduction to our edition of Agnes Grey, and David… Read More
Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’
‘The aim of an artist is not to solve a problem irrefutably, but to make people love life in all its countless, inexhaustible manifestations’ (Count Leo Tolstoy) In this final blog on a trio of great Russian novels, Sally Minogue suggests reasons for thinking that Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is the greatest of the three. The… Read More