19th Century… A Victorian “Commonplace Book” 11 Jul 2020 By 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…
19th Century… Playing Robin Hood in the Victorian Nursery 21 Jun 202021 Jun 2020 By Stephen Basdeo Thomas Rowland argues that for most of the “mythic” outlaw’s history, “Robin was much more a character of ludic texts, of play games and festival culture, than…
19th Century… How Victorians Fell in Love with American Rebels 17 Apr 202017 Apr 2020 By Stephen Basdeo The much vaunted ‘special relationship’ between the USA and the UK is a fairly recent invention. For much of the Victorian period, relations between the two nations…
15th Century… Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Black Arrow” (1888) 3 Feb 20173 Feb 2017 Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) is perhaps most famous nowadays for his brilliant novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). This post, however, is about a now…
19th Century… George Emmett’s “Robin Hood and the Archers of Merrie Sherwood” (1868-69) 20 Oct 201620 Oct 2016 [All images taken from books in my personal collection – feel free to use] Further to my recent postings on Robin Hood in Victorian penny dreadfuls, this post sheds light…
11th Century… Radical Robin Hood: “Little John and Will Scarlet” (1865) 14 Oct 2016 Introduction With the exception of Pierce Egan the Younger’s Robin Hood and Little John, or, The Merry Men of Sherwood Forest (1838-40), Robin Hood penny dreadfuls have generated very little…
