“I was born in 1962. There’s been an environmental crisis for as long as I’ve lived. To step outside that constant culpability was one of the many delights of Ring of Bright Water.”
—Kathleen Jamie in the London Review of Books on Gavin Maxwell – born #OTD, 15 July, 1914
#TIH#OTD 14 Jul 1774: Happy birthday Francis Lathom (d. 1832 May 19), British gothic novelist & playwright, best known for The Midnight Bell (1798), 1 of the 7 “horrid novels” recommended by the character Isabella Thorpe in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. #BookHistory@bookhistodons
July 13, 1942, the Stuttgart judge Robert Bloch was deported to Auschwitz and murdered shortly after his arrival. A "Stolperstein" (stumbling stone) in front of his last known residence on Johannesstraße in Stuttgart commemorates his fate and that of his family.
“Annie S. Swan both requires revaluation through her own biography and calls into question easy valorisations of ‘danger’ as expressed in terms of explicit challenge and radicalism. The extent of her appeal and influence demands a more nuanced analysis of the politics of emotion and the gendering of reader response”
—Prof Glenda Norquay on the #Scottish#romance writer on Annie S. Swan (1859–1943) – born #OTD, 8 July
#OTD 60 years ago, LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with MLK there to celebrate.
The political achievement was also a reminder that money talks:
Economic boycotts in cities like Birmingham and Nashville played a crucial role. During 5 weeks of boycotts, Birmingham businesses had lost millions in sales. Business owners soon mobilized, dragging along politicians, school administrators, law enforcement.
“[Milne’s] cryogenics story, ‘Ten Thousand Years in Ice’, in which a survivor from an ancient advanced civilisation is revived in the present, unintentionally became one of science fiction’s great literary hoaxes”
Robert Duncan Milne (1844–1899) was born #OTD, 7 June, in Cupar, Fife. He emigrated to the USA & became America’s first full-time writer of #sciencefiction
#otd 1421 died Mehmed I, Ottoman sultan. He was buried in Bursa, near the so-called Green Mosque built by him. The monument built by his son Murad II is called Green Tomb. #medievaldeath#medieval@medievodons Pics.: Wikipedia Commons
“Widely respected – & regularly attacked (once physically) – in her lifetime, she is now largely neglected; an intriguing aside to feminism or to agnosticism. Dixie deserves better.”
Florence Dixie – novelist, poet, dramatist, war correspondent, campaigning journalist, suffragist, & more – was born #OTD, 25 May. Valentina Bold explores Dixie’s roving life
#otd 1212 died Dagmar of Bohemia, Queen of Denmark. She was buried in St. Bendts Church at Ringsted on Zealand, where this tombstone commemorates her today. #medievaldeath#medieval@medievodons Pic.: Wikipedia Commons
#otd 1388 died Kuno II of Falkenstein, archbishop and elector of Trier. He was buried in the St. Kastor Church in Koblenz. #medievaldeath#medieval@medievodons Pic.: Wikipedia Commons
#otd 1277 Pope John XXI died and was buried in the cathedral of Viterbo. His tomb was redesigned in the 19th century. #medievaldeath#medieval@medievodons Pic: Wikipedia Commons
“THE DYNAMITER is a hugely inventive & brilliant book, at once a political thriller, a blackly comic satire, & a female adventure”
Robert Louis Stevenson & Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne married #OTD, 19 May, 1880. In this article, Prof Penny Fielding explores the dangerous #collaboration between RLS & his wife: granting female agency on the page & in life
#otd 1218 Emperor Otto IV died. He was buried in Brunswick Cathedral. #medievaldeath#medieval@medievodons Pic.: Grave slab in Brunswick Cathedral, Wikipedia Commons.
#otd 1410 died Rupert ('of the Palatinate'), Holy Roman King. He was buried in the Heiliggeistkirche in Heidelberg. The tomb shows him next to his wife Elisabeth of Hohenzollern, who died a year after him. #medievaldeath#medieval@medievodons Pic.: Wikipedia Commons