“Vengeance! Vengeance! I will yet be avenged! In the meantime, let me seek an hour’s repose!”
The Catacombs of Paris (1840) | George W. M. Reynolds
A Victorian “Commonplace Book” | Stephen Basdeo
I recently got hold of a “Commonplace Book” which dates from 1859. Commonplace books have been a feature of home life since at least the 1600s. Most often women—though not exclusively women—would compile various poems, drawings, or copy out “advice columns” from books and newspapers into these books for keeping later on.
The First Robin Hood Novel: Robert Southey’s “Harold, or, The Castle of Morford” (1791)
In the archvies of the Bodleian Library, Oxford there is a hitherto neglected Robin Hood novel by Robert Southey entitled ‘Harold, or the Castle of Morford’ (1791). This post is a short introduction to this text.