Lmst

Reposting for #BookwormSat celebration of Charles Dickens' birthday today

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:gf5rnnpermyu5odlm3fqpiy2/post/3me22fjpxhc2p

"They've such a passion for Liberty that they can't help taking liberties with her." - Martin Chuzzlewit on Americans (Dickens, sharp as ever. I appreciate the Statue Of Liberty wasn't constructed until after Dickens's death.) #BookWormSat #Dickens

A rear view of the Statue Of Liberty by AskALot! on Wikimedia Commons

"Elsewhere people are restless, worried, hurried about... Nothing of the kind here, sir. We have done with all that - we know the worst of it; we have got to the bottom, we can't fall, and what have we found? Peace." - Dr Haggard in Debtor's Prison, 'Little Dorrit' #BookWormSat #CharlesDickens

The Marshalsea, the prison where Charles Dickens's father was imprisoned when he was a boy and which is central to the plot of 'Little Dorrit'.

"I hope that simple love and truth will be strong in the end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world" Charles Dickens 'David Copperfield' (1850) 🎨 Edward Burne-Jones 'Love' 1880s #BookwormSat

This watercolour is subtitled 'Love with bow surrounded by children and standing beneath a cloud of doves'. It is inscribed with: "L'amor che muove il sole e l'altre stelle" (the love that moves the sun and the other stars), from Dante's 'Divina Commedia'

🩷🐈‍⬛🩷"What greater gift than the love of a Cat?" 📖Charles Dickens. #BookWormSat #Caturday

A mid-Victorian illustration of the sudden appearance of the woman in 'The Black Veil', in the creepy mystery story by Charles Dickens, first published in 1836. #BookWormSat #Dickens #Victorian #gothic

A scared boy is drawing attention to a man seated at a fireplace of the entrance of a woman shrouded entirely in black.

"Alas," said they, "what is the mountain that is seen by the side of the ships?"

"Bran the Blessed, my brother," Branwen replied, "coming to shoal water [to rescue me]; there is no ship that can contain him in it."

"What is the lofty ridge with the lake on each side thereof?"

"On looking towards this island he is wroth, and his two eyes, one on each side of his nose, are the two lakes beside the ridge."

- The Mabinogion
🎨 Alan Lee

#BookWormSat #Mythology #Folklore #Book #Literature #Wales #Celtic #AlanLee #Mabinogion

Cover of a translation of "The Mabinogion," with illustration by Alan Lee.

In Jack London's early post-apocalypse novel 'The Scarlet Plague' (1912), civilisation has long since vanished. Only a Palaeolithic existence has survived. Histories of ancestors, now fabled beings, could only be told through folk tales since the art of writing had also been lost. #BookWormSat

An old man, scantily clad in furs, stands by a camp fire earnestly recounting a story. The illustration comes from a 1949 edition of 'Famous Fantastic Mysteries' and is by A Leydenfrost.

“Oh, it’s you,” said he. “What are you bothering for? All the cobras are dead. And if they weren’t, I’m here.”

Rikki-Tikki had a right to be proud of himself. But he did not grow too proud, and he kept that garden as a mongoose should keep it, with tooth and jump and spring and bite, till never a cobra dared show its head inside the walls.

- Rudyard Kipling, "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"

#BookWormSat #BookChatWeekly #Book #Literature #Fiction #RudyardKipling #JungleBook #Animal #Mongoose

A mongoose attacking a cobra. An illustration from "Hunting and Trapping Stories: a Book for Boys" by J. P. Hyde Price.

#BookWormSat Just got that in 300 characters. It's from the 'Gulistan' or 'Rose Garden' of the 13th Ceentury Persian poet Sa'di (translated by Edward Rehatsek.

"I cannot tell you how glad I am to have you here, Harold," he whispered shyly. "It was very good of your father to ask me." "To ask you! But it all belongs to you! It has been waiting for you for so long - and at last you have come." - Forrest Reid, 'The Garden God' #BookWormSat #gaylit #mystical

An illustration by Michel Gourlier of two boys in a tender moment, one placing his hand on the other's shoulder.

"Who art thou?" said the Giant. A strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

The child smiled at the Giant. "You let me play once in your garden; today you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise."

- Oscar Wilde, "The Selfish Giant"
🎨 Ritva Voutila

#BookWormSat #FairyTale #Folklore #Book #Literature #Fiction #Fantasy #OscarWilde #Giant

The Selfish Giant gazes up at his tree covered in blossoms. Illustration by Ritva Voutila.

"Who art thou?" said the Giant. A strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child. The child smiled at the Giant. "You let me play once in your garden; today you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise." - Oscar Wilde, "The Selfish Giant" 🎨Ritva Voutila #BookWormSat

"The day she was buried..., I said to myself - 'I'll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills ME, and if she be motionless, it is sleep.'"
- Emily Brontë, "Wuthering Heights"
🎨 Fritz Eichenberg

#BookWormSat #Book #Literature #Fiction #Gothic #Romance #EmilyBronte #EmilyBrontë #WutheringHeights

A mournful Heathcliff gazes at the sky. Woodcut by Fritz Eichenberg, in his series of "Wuthering Heights" illustrations.

"I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it murder if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man when he condemns me?"
- Mary Shelley, "Frankenstein"

#BookWormSat #Literature #Fiction #Horror #Gothic #ScienceFiction #SciFi #MaryShelley #Frankenstein #Monster

Frankenstein's Creature crying in Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein."

"I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? ... Shall I respect man when he condemns me?" - Mary Shelley, "Frankenstein" #BookWormSat

The mud was cold and hugged his feet, reluctant to let him move. The stump lay at an angle, only partly above the mud, and dark weed clung to it like sparse hair. Like hair. His eyes stared, white-rimmed. For the stump was moving... Slowly, slowly, and his feet were trapped. #BookWormSat #folkhorror

This is an extract from 'The House On The Brink' by John Gordon (1970). It's aimed at older children but I had to read it twice to really take in the subtle exploration of folklore, superstition and fearful imagination. The dust jacket shows marshy fenland under a stormy sky. In the background can be seen two children, a tree and a manor house.

"They see no light and dwell in darkness, they are clothed like birds in wings for garments, and dust has gathered on the door and the bolt." Extract from Ishtar's Descent into the Underworld #BookwormSat 🎨 'Babylon Fallen' by Gustave Doré, 1866

Engraving of a ruined Mesopotamian city at night with the Moon showing through the clouds. There are statues of elephants on plinths, sphinxes, and lamassu (creatures with human heads and winged bull bodies). Living birds fly about and a leopard howls from a ruined block of masonry.

"Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west, The drift is driving sairly; Sae loud and shrill's I hear the blast I'm sure it's winter fairly." - Robert Burns This painting by Joseph Farquharson is called 'Cauld Blaws The Wind From East To West' in reference to the poem #BookWormSat #ScottishArt #poetry

A woman and two small children in Highland dress struggle up a wet track over a moor, the wind blowing against them. Ahead of them mountains are being obscured by snow-bearing clouds. It's all very bleak and cold!

The rugged majesty of The Mourne Mountains was the inspiration for Narnia. "I have seen landscapes (in the Mourne Mountains) which...made me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge." C.S. Lewis #BookWormSat 📷Nigel Killeen

#BookwormSat

Client Info