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…
20th Century… Reading Robin Hood in World War Two (1939–45): Data from Mass Observation 27 Jan 2018 Before the twentieth century, Robin Hood was a literary figure: he is the main protagonist in a number of important literary works such as A Gest of Robyn Hode (c.…
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… The ‘Public School’ Robin Hood: Imperial Ideology in Late-Victorian and Edwardian Children’s Books 8 Jul 20168 Jul 2016 A paper delivered at a conference entitled: 'Packaging the Past for Children, c.1750-1914' at the Senate House, Durham University, 6 – 7 July 2016 Abstract During the late-Victorian and Edwardian…
