To reign! the ambition of great souls! To reign like the Emperors of Rome! I wish to emulate them in all their sovereign omnipotence!
Eugene Sue’s “Mysteries of the People” (1848): “The Branding Needle” and the First French Commune | Stephen Basdeo
“The Sonnets of Luis de Camões” (1803) by Viscount Strangford | Stephen Basdeo
What Strangford wanted to do was translate Luis de Camões’s little-known sonnets, and the result was Poems, from the Portuguese of Luis de Camoens.
How Eighteenth-Century Governments Worked | Stephen Basdeo
What a minister needed to succeed in a political career was, therefore, not the confidence of the House of Commons but the confidence of the king.
A Refutation of Lies: An Open Letter in Response to Defamation by Dr Helen Young | Howard Williams
An associate of mine, Dr Howard Williams, gives his account of the lies and defamation spread about him at the hands of certain medievalists in the journal Postmedieval.
Victorian-Era Robin Hood Conferences | Stephen Basdeo
All of the newspapers which covered the event paid significant attention to the panel on Robin Hood, which, if it happened to a Robin Hood conference today, would be a significant publicity coup.
“Something strange and marvellous”: Victor Hugo’s Essay on Walter Scott | Stephen Basdeo
“He unites the exactness of the [medieval] chronicles, the majestic grandeur of history, and the all-compelling interest of romance.”
Robin Hood: The Academic Study of a Legend | Stephen Basdeo
What have historians said about Robin Hood, who he was, and the social and political context in which the early tales emerged?
John Beaumont’s Boudicca (1647) | Stephen Basdeo
The Ancient Britons’ rebellion was depicted as their last gasp in the fight for independence against the domination of the Roman Empire.
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.
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.”
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 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.
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 […]
The Early Works of Eugene Sue | G. W. M. Reynolds
His style reminds us of Cooper’s most approved nautical fictions, rather than of the coarse and vulgar “yarns” so tediously spun by Captain Marryat. He introduces us to scenes and adventures of stirring and painful interest.
Eugene Sue’s “Mysteries of the People” (1848): “The Poniard’s Hilt” and the Arrival of Feudalism in France | Stephen Basdeo
By Stephen Basdeo, a writer and historian based in Leeds, United Kingdom. This article follows on from previous posts on Eugene Sue’s epic socialist novel Mysteries of the People. In 1848 Karl […]
New Edition of Victor Hugo’s Songs of Twilight | Stephen Basdeo and Jessica Elizabeth Thomas
In this book, therefore—small though it be when compared with the vast magnitude of its subject—there are a thousand discrepancies—lustre and obscurity, which pervade all we see, and all we conceive in this age of twilight, which envelope our political theories, our religious opinions, our domestic life, and which are even discovered in the histories we write of others, as well as in those of ourselves.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1875) | William Jones
This pro-democracy poem titled ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ was written by William Jones in 1875 and published in the socialist People’s Advocate newspaper.
A Lay from the Trenches: A Poem of the Crimean War (1855) | P. J. Questel
‘A Lay from the Trenches’ was a poem, written in 1855, by a soldier serving in the Crimean War. It was first published in the London Journal.
Ladies of Stockton (1772) | Joseph Ritson
The following lines were written by the antiquary Joseph Ritson (1752–1803) and were first printed in the Newcastle Miscellany in 1772, then later as a standalone tract.
The Knights of Palestine (1838) | G. W. M. Reynolds
The following poem was written by George W.M. Reynolds and originally appeared in his novel Alfred: The Adventures of a French Gentleman (1838), which was originally serialised in the Monthly Magazine. The poem is about the deeds of a knight errant in medieval Palestine during the crusades.