Tag Archive: 0Poetry

It’s been a while since I wrote anything here, but things have been busy. After an enjoyable summer break, visiting Nîmes amongst other places (including one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheatres in the world, c.100 AD), September saw me in York, teaching at the annual York Antiquarian Book Seminar, before heading off to Berlin, for […]

Rilke wrote Das Marien-Leben at the castle at Duino, on the Italian Adriatic coast, in late 1911 and early 1912, just before he began work on what was to become the monumental Duineser Elegien.  In the preface to his translation in 1951, Stephen Spender notes that ‘Rilke wrote of the Marien-Leben as being “a little […]

Published in Boston in 1855, this is a sumptuous gift-book edition of Byron’s works, in the preparation of which ‘the publishers have spared no expense or delay in making it entirely complete.  In its progress through the press, it has undergone the careful supervision of a distinguished literary gentleman; and its proprietors feel that they […]

I have recently started reading Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers. A number of people have recommended it to me over the years and I have finally got round to getting a copy. It made me think of other things she wrote. One of my favourite works by her is not a crime novel at […]

When this book, an anthology of English poetry, was advertised for sale in 1866, it was described as being ‘very handsomely bound in walnut covers’, but it’s an illusion: the boards are in fact made from varnished papier mâché. Simon Cooke explains: ‘Notable attempts were made to stress the luxuriousness of gift books by presenting […]

As it states here, this souvenir item, printed on silk, ‘is presented by Mrs. Langtry on the occasion of the 100th performance of the “Degenerates” [by Sydney Grundy] at the Garrick Theatre.  For permission to use Mr. Kipling’s poem Mrs. Langtry has made to the “Daily Mail” a contribution of £100 for the benefit of […]