“Of aal the fish there iss in the sea,” said Para Handy, “nothing bates the herrin’; it’s a providence they’re plentiful and them so cheap!”
Neil Munro (1863–1930) – journalist, novelist, short-story writer, & poet – was born #OTD, 3 June. Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of Herring discusses Munro’s PARA HANDY stories, as well as giving the full text of the tale “The Herring – A Gossip”
David Robb discusses James Hogg’s short stories “Mary Burnet”, “The Brownie of the Black Haggs”, & “Strange Letter of a Lunatic” at our 2017 Schools Conference
A Dalek, a set of original sketches by #Scottish#ScienceFiction writer #IainMBanks & a handwritten inscription by #Galileo are among items on display in ALIEN WORLDS – a new exhibition at the University of St Andrews’ Wardlaw Museum that explores #exoplanets & how they have been understood, dreamt of & imagined by scientists, musicians, artists & writers
Scottish Literature, Borders & the Environmental Imagination
By Julia Ditter
Examining the relationship between #borders & the #environment in #Scottish#literature from the 19th century to the present. For a preview, see Julia Ditter’s article “Reading Scotland’s Borders Through the Environment” – part of the DEBATABLE LANDS issue of THE BOTTLE IMP, May 2022
Currently on the BBC iPlayer: Ian Rankin investigates Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde”. Rankin traces the roots of this story, which stretch back to Stevenson's childhood. Grave-robbers, drugs & prostitution all play their part, as Rankin's journey takes him into the dark streets of the city that inspired the tale: Edinburgh.
During the Peninsular War a wounded soldier recuperates in a remote location. He falls in love with the daughter of the house, but her family hides a terrible secret…
“Widely respected – & regularly attacked (once physically) – in her lifetime, she is now largely neglected; an intriguing aside to feminism or to agnosticism. Dixie deserves better.”
Florence Dixie – novelist, poet, dramatist, war correspondent, campaigning journalist, suffragist, & more – was born #OTD, 25 May. Valentina Bold explores Dixie’s roving life
What Scotsman was caught up in a civil war before the age of twenty? Wrote a book that became the inspiration for an Oscar-winning film? Met a runaway teenager in Paris and married her against the wishes of his family? Lost his ranch to raiding Apaches?
PS: a small selection of RB Cunninghame Graham’s books – including THIRTEEN STORIES, from which the above three are extracted – are available free online via @gutenberg_org
Poor Things, Rich Adaptation? Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel & Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2023 film
28 May, 6–7:30pm CEST (5–6:30 BST)
Free online
Dietmar Böhnke will assess what is arguably the highest-profile #adaptation of a #Scottish novel since TRAINSPOTTING (1996) – & will touch on Gray’s works & reputation more generally, including a #film script he wrote for #PoorThings in 1993…
According to the Guinness Book of Records, Sherlock Holmes has been portrayed on screen more than any other literary character. Olivia Rutigliano ranks the 100 best, worst, & strangest screen portrayals of the great detective…
In 1912, “Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the world’s most celebrated fictional detective, had turned detective himself in an actual murder case – in the process liberating a man who had spent nearly twenty years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“THE DYNAMITER is a hugely inventive & brilliant book, at once a political thriller, a blackly comic satire, & a female adventure”
Robert Louis Stevenson & Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne married #OTD, 19 May, 1880. In this article, Prof Penny Fielding explores the dangerous #collaboration between RLS & his wife: granting female agency on the page & in life
CFP: ‘We Are Amused’: Victorian Humour & the Digital
7–8 Nov, Université Caen Normandie
Exploring intersections between #19thcentury#humour & the digital, & investigating the migration of jokes, squibs, spoofs & parodies, verbal & visual, from the pages of #Victorian comic periodicals to 21st-century screens
—“Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.”
—“That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.”
May 16 is Biographers Day – marking the 1st meeting of James Boswell & Samuel Johnson in 1763