Practically from birth, American children are taught the story of the Pilgrims’ arrival on the Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor in November 1620. I’ve covered this historical event and the aftermath in yesterday’s blog: The Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving. Stories of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving are certain to...
On September 16 in 1620, the Mayflower left Plymouth, England. The ship’s 102 passengers and around 30 crew members were comprised of religious separatists known as Puritans who were seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith, and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and...
November is well under way and with the clocks turned back an hour, the cold dark of night comes sooner than many of us probably want. Here in the northern hemisphere, if we haven’t yet turned our thermostats to the hot setting, we will eventually. Thanks to industrial innovations and...
For hundreds of years, until the invention of the camera, the only quick and cheap method of immortalizing a loved one was through a shade, also referred to as a shadow portrait. As opposed to more decorative and expensive forms of portraiture like painting or sculpture, a shade was a simple and inexpensive...
In this day and age I suspect most of us are numb to the concept of pornographic or highly erotic written material. Some may clutch their pearls and reach for the smelling salts, but I’d wager that is 99% theatrics! For good or ill, such material is so commonplace that...
Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux(September 19, 1778 – May 7, 1868) Henry Brougham was born in Edinburgh, the son of a modest landowner without title but of an influential family in the Cumberland area for centuries. Young Henry was educated by the public school system in Edinburgh...
This is Part V (the finale) of my series exploring the Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs. I strongly encourage clicking over to read Part I and Part II as they include truncated bios of Peter Carl Fabergé, Tsar Alexander III, and Tsar Nicholas II. More importantly, ALL of the previous parts relate the history of...
This is Part IV of my series exploring the Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs. I strongly encourage clicking over to read Part I and Part II as they include truncated bios of Peter Carl Fabergé, Tsar Alexander III, and Tsar Nicholas II. More importantly, all three of the previous parts relate the history of the eggs...
This is Part III of my series exploring the Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs. I strongly encourage clicking over to read Part I and Part II as they include truncated bios of Peter Carl Fabergé, Tsar Alexander III, and Tsar Nicholas II. More importantly, the previous parts relate the history of...
Today I bring Part II of my series exploring the Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs. Be sure to read PART I first as I give a brief history on extraordinary jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé, and how he came to create the famous Easter Eggs for Tsar Alexander III. I also highlighted...
With Easter fast approaching, I started searching for topics related to the holiday. Naturally eggs tend to come up, in some way or another, and I do have a couple of interesting egg-centric posts scheduled for next week. In fact, I intended to write a short blog for Easter week...
In November 2021 I wrote a series of blogs on my favorite novels, both in the broad Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre and in general literature. Links to those posts are in the Pemberley Library, down the page a bit under “Cinema & Literature” and the submenu “Books and Music.” One of the...
The Miseries of Human Life is a book written by James Beresford (1764–1840) and published in 1806, first as a single volume and then as an expanded two-volume edition later that year. Illustrated by George Cruikshank, it catalogued “in excruciating detail” the “petty outrages, minor humiliations, and tiny discomforts that...
Henry Kirke White (1785–1806) Henry Kirke White was born in Nottingham, the son of a butcher, a trade for which he was himself intended. After being briefly apprenticed to a stocking-weaver, he was articled to a lawyer. Meanwhile he studied hard, and his master offered to release him from his contract...
John Clare (1793–1864) John Clare is “the quintessential Romantic poet,” according to William Howard writing in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. With an admiration of nature and an understanding of the oral tradition, but with little formal education, Clare penned numerous poems and prose pieces, many of which were only published posthumously....
