The Ancient Britons’ rebellion was depicted as their last gasp in the fight for independence against the domination of the Roman Empire.
John Beaumont’s Boudicca (1647) | Stephen Basdeo
Stephen Basdeo
Stephen Basdeo is a historian and writer based in Leeds, UK.
Victor Hugo’s “Ninety-Three” (1874) | Stephen Basdeo
Revolution is humanity’s surgeon, it cuts out the tumour, it cuts off the gangrened limb—What! would you have pity for the virus? For the gangrened limb!
Remembering Rosemary Mitchell | Stephen Basdeo
The author of numerous scholarly articles and the monograph Picturing the Past, Rosemary was truly a leading scholar. Having retired from Leeds Trinity University in 2019, she then retrained to serve in the Church of England and was due to take up a post as a deacon at a church in Skipton, Yorkshire, but her illness and death prevented this.
The First British Edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Feathertop” in Home Circle (1852) | Stephen Basdeo
The first British edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Feathertop” in Home Circle in 1852. Hawthorne scholars have previously been unaware of the appearance of “Feathertop” in this magazine.
Mocking Louis Phillippe in Exile (1848) | Victor Hugo
After Victor Hugo’s death, and before the publication of his letters (many of which remain unpublished), Paul Maurice published Memoirs of Victor Hugo. This was not chronological autobiography but was, as Maurice remarked, […]
Louis XVI’s Execution: An Eyewitness Account | Leboucher
After Victor Hugo’s death, and before the publication of his letters (many of which remain unpublished), Paul Maurice published Memoirs of Victor Hugo. This was not chronological autobiography but was, as Maurice […]
The Morning of Life (1822) | Victor Hugo
The mist of the morning is torn by the peaks, Old towers gleam white in the ray, And already the glory so joyously seeks The lark that’s saluting the day. Then smile […]
Remembering a Poor Irishman and his Penny Dreadfuls (1893) | Katharine Tynan
“G. W. M. Reynolds we devoured in The Coral Island, a big tome of horrors; and there was Eugéne Sue’s Mysteries of Paris in three big volumes.”
The History of the Bastille (1838) | G. W. M. Reynolds
The effects of that glorious revolution which gave so vast an impulse to the energies and intelligence of the French, have been subsequently felt by all the other nations of Europe; and while Burke aimed his thunders against those principles which restored a desponding people to freedom, light, and happiness…
On the Democracy of the United States and the Bourgeoisie of France (1838) | G. W. M. Reynolds
The fact is, that America is better understood by Europeans than by its own citizens. While she is occupied in self-contemplation and self-admiration—a state of quiescent beatitude originated by amour-propre—we are in a situation which enables us to judge of her with impartiality and calmness.
Sunset (1840) | G. W. M. Reynolds
The following short poem appeared in G.W.M. Reynolds’s novel Robert Macaire. Away, away, the god of day Depart to another sphere: The mists arise, but the darkling skies Like a jewell’d vest […]
Suicide of Antonin Moyne (1849) | Victor Hugo
After Victor Hugo’s death, and before the publication of his letters (many of which remain unpublished), Paul Maurice published Memoirs of Victor Hugo. This was not chronological autobiography but was, as Maurice […]
Angel or Demon (1835) | Victor Hugo
The following poem was written in French in 1835 then translated into English and published in Fraser’s Magazine.
A Brief History of Crime Literature | Stephen Basdeo
“when our happy credulity in all things is woefully abated, and our faith in the supernatural fled, we still retain our taste for the adventurous deeds and wild lives of brigands.”
Battle Song of the Conspirators (1853) | James Bronterre O’Brien
The following poem was written by the radical James Bronterre O’Brien and published in place of the frontispiece in the bound volume of George Julian Harney’s short-lived magazine the Vanguard. Battle Song […]
Keeping Law and Order in the Liberty of the Savoy according to Joseph Ritson | Stephen Basdeo
When Ritson first started his job as High Bailiff of the Liberty of the Savoy, no one really knew what the job entailed. So Ritson decided to research the subject.
The Janissary and Massacre of the Christians (1850) [Part 2] | G. W. M. Reynolds
“Karl has a wife and a child—if you consign him to death, you kill three persons at once;—if you give me up to the executioner, my fate will redound so terribly on no one!”
The Janissary and Massacre of the Christians (1850) | G. W. M. Reynolds
His rage knew no bounds. He muttered threats of deadly vengeance; and on the following morning, he commanded the prisoners to be brought into his presence. Then commenced a terrible massacre, the horrors of which no human pen nor tongue can narrate.
The Comic History of Oliver Cromwell (1847) | Gilbert Abbot á Beckett
In those days, a joke would lead the perpetrator to the gibbet, and a pun was so highly penal—as, perhaps, it ought to be—that a dull dog who had dropped one by mistake, was called upon to find heavy securities for his good behaviour.
Luke Hutton’s “Black Dogge of Newgate” (1596) | Stephen Basdeo
During the sixteenth century a new genre of popular literature arrived in England. Adapted from literature that was flourishing in Spain, a stream of printed books and pamphlets shined a light on the seedy underworld in England’s capital city. The genre — Rogue Literature.
The Black Dog of Newgate (1596) | Luke Hutton
Written in Early Modern English, The Black Dogge of Newgate begins as a long poem and was allegedly written by one Luke Hutton (d.1598). Hutton was a highwayman who robbed someone on St Luke’s Day in 1598, was captured, and subsequently hanged. It was said that ‘he feared not men nor laws’.
A Tale of the Great Plague (c.1840) | Thomas Hood
Thomas Hood (1799–1845) was born in London and, his father being a bookseller, grew up around books. He went on to become a poet, novelist, and satirist. Most famous for his poetry, William Michael Rossetti in 1903 declared him “the finest English poet” between the generations of Shelley and Tennyson.” Although by their nature pandemics are very serious affairs, this particular short story takes a somewhat lighter approach to portraying a pandemic.
Akhenaten: The Egyptian Sun King | Stephen Basdeo
For the majority of their history the Egyptians were polytheistic; Yet in the illustrious history of the Egyptian people there was a very brief time period in which the ruling class enforced monotheism at the behest of a religiously fundamentalist pharaoh.
Song to Freedom (1835) | Charles Cole
While the Spirit within me awakens to song,[1] The strain, lovely Freedom! to thee shall belong ; Where’er thou art fetter’d, where’er thou art free, While I waken the lyre, it shall […]