April 2017

Jerome K. Jerome – Three Men In A Boat

“The river – with the sunlight flashing from its dancing wavelets, gilding gold the grey-green beech-trunks, glinting through the dark, cool wood paths, chasing shadows o’er the shallows, flinging diamonds from the mill-wheels, throwing kisses to the lilies, wantoning with the weirs’ white waters, silvering moss-grown walls and bridges, brightening every tiny townlet, making sweet …

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Anton Chekhov — A Marriage Proposal (Предложение)

Chekhov’s early farces were written as simple money-spinners, and have been held in fairly low regard by critics. Even Chekov himself called A Marriage Proposal a “wretched, boring, vulgar little skit.” and advised its director to “roll cigarettes out of it for all I care.” So I’m probably going to be on my own in …

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George Gissing — The Nether World

Some artists grow in stature after their death, and some others go the other way. George Gissing is one of the heavyweight names of late Victorian literature, and I have to confess that I’d never heard of him before I began this project. The Nether World is a grim look at the slums of London. …

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Mark Twain – A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

The middle Victorian era saw a surge in popularity for romantic tales of chivalry, and pseudo-historical romances of the Sir Walter Scott variety were almost universally read. Mark Twain had no time for this nostalgia for a time that never was – in fact he held it partially responsible for the civil war; It was …

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The Matchgirls’ Strike

It wasn’t a nice life working as a matchgirl at the Bryant & May factory in Bow – work-days were fourteen-hours long, pay was poor, infractions resulted in fines and there were severe health complications of working with white phosphorus, such as phossy jaw. But all that was to change after social reformer, socialist and …

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