1715… Poking Fun at Rebels 1 May 20201 May 2020 By Stephen Basdeo In 1715 the newly-united Kingdom of Great Britain had a new monarch: George I of Hanover. He had inherited the throne the year before because Queen Anne’s…
18th century… “If they must have a British Worthy, they would have Robin Hood” 7 Jul 2019 By Stephen Basdeo This post originally appeared on the IARHS website Amongst the great writers of eighteenth-century literature, the names of two men stand out: Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729) and…
18th century… John Winstanley’s Robin Hood Poems 7 Jul 2019 By Stephen Basdeo This article originally appeared on the IARHS Website) Rosemary Mitchell argues that during the eighteenth century, artists and writers when representing the medieval period did not strive…
18th century… The Female Vagrant 11 May 201911 May 2019 By Stephen Basdeo English authorities always seems to have had a harsh attitude towards its destitute and homeless people, or vagrants. At the height of the Black Death in medieval…
19th Century… Outlaws vs. Vampires 22 Jun 2018 By Stephen Basdeo Vampires first appeared in English popular culture with the publication of Robert Southey’s epic narrative poem Thalaba the Destroyer (1801). Thalaba’s bride, Oneiza, dies on their wedding…
19th Century… An English Republican’s View of Crime and its Causes 19 May 201819 May 2018 By Stephen Basdeo George William MacArthur Reynolds (1814-79) was one of the Victorian era’ most prolific novelists. Inspired by Eugene Sue’s Mysteries of Paris (1843), Reynolds’s famous The Mysteries of…