A FORGOTTEN BEST-SELLER: MARIE CORELLI’S THE SORROWS OF SATAN (1895)

Whether you’re interested in Victorian Literature, Gothic fiction or the material aspects of Literature (i.e. the market), Marie Corelli’s name is sure to surface in your reading. I’m interested in these three issues and so, sooner or later, I was bound to read her best-selling novel The Sorrows of Satan (1895). Corelli (née Minnie Mackay) […]

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, 2012, (WITH ZOMBIES)

I read Daniel Defoe’s ultra-realistic fake diary Journal of the Plague Year (1722) with great pleasure a few weeks ago. I was intending to devote the whole post today to Defoe’s novel but reality insists on intruding, this form in the shape of a new pay cut (civil servants will not receive the Christmas pay […]

A CONFERENCE: KILLING YOUR OWN PAPER

I’m back from a conference, as usual with mixed feelings. Taking a break from admin work and students to focus on sharing ideas with academic peers is always refreshing, much more so when each day ends with dinner in good company and in a beautiful town, as was the case. Yet, inevitably I wonder why […]

SCATTERED THOUGHTS ABOUT READING (AND E-READING)

I finally got an e-book reader three weeks ago (um, yes, a Kindle Touch). It’s taken me a long time to choose one basically because I find the screens which e-book readers are equipped with too small in all cases. I guess the idea is that their overall size reproduces that of a smallish paperback […]