19th Century… M.P. Shiel’s “The Purple Cloud” (1901) 9 Apr 2021 By Stephen Basdeo The book was a legend … out of space, out of time … he had the character of a poet and a prophet — a prophet, I…
18th century… The Urban Mysteries: Organised Crime in Victorian Popular Literature 24 Nov 202024 Nov 2020 Stephen Basdeo The Following was a lecture delivered by Stephen Basdeo at Richmond: The American International University on Wednesday 18 November 2020 to students in GEP4180: Organised Crime in Popular…
18th century… Hanging the Slave Traders 1 Oct 2020 Books with the title of The Newgate Calendar were published as early as the mid-eighteenth century. Mostly they were collections of “Last Dying Speeches” of criminals and short biographies of…
1817… How Robert Southey avoided getting “Cancelled” 27 Aug 202027 Aug 2020 By Stephen Basdeo The following is an adaptation of some of the material in my book The Life and Legend of a Rebel Leader: Wat Tyler (2018). You’re an up-and-coming…
19th Century… Walter Scott Rules in a Case of Wrongful Dismissal in 1812 22 Aug 2020 By Stephen Basdeo I came across a fascinating little book in a shop today, from 1918, titled Sir Walter Scott as Judge, transcribed and edited by John Chisholm. Chisholm was…
19th Century… A Murder-Suicide in Stephen Basdeo’s Victorian Ancestors: The Case of George Leedham (1871) 15 Aug 2020 By Stephen Basdeo I have been doing a lot of work this past year tracing my ancestors and discovering their history. Imagine how delighted (wrong word, perhaps!) I was when…
