“all this was strange and incomprehensible”

“all this was strange and incomprehensible”

Benjamin Beck
Thursday July 9, 2020

Reading fiction in these pandemic times is a reminder that the world’s strangeness and chaos rumbles on always. Over the past few weeks, Washington Irving’s works constantly come to mind, especially The Sketch-Book. The Sketch-Book, first published in installments between 1819-1820, is a collection of short-stories that exhibits a “rambling...

The Port Royal Experiment: "a beacon light on the dark coast of our tempest-tossed political sea"

The Port Royal Experiment: "a beacon light on the dark coast of our tempest-tossed political sea"

Benjamin Beck
Wednesday March 18, 2020

                  As Charlotte Forten first approached the landing at Hilton Head, South Carolina in 1861, she marveled at what she saw. The land-head is “desolate enough, --a long, low, sandy point stretching out into the sea, with no visible dwellings upon it, except...

"a thousand -- a million -- a billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter to you"

"a thousand -- a million -- a billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter to you"

Benjamin Beck
Tuesday January 14, 2020

 

Herman Melville's great novel Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, contains a dedication to another well-known and admired American author. On the dedication page, in a conventional statement of appreciation, Melville writes, “In token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne.” Moby-Dick is not the...

Arrested Development?

Arrested Development?

Benjamin Beck
Wednesday November 27, 2019

Readers have long admired coming-of-age stories because they offer models for personal development and growth. Many of the most admired examples follow a single character who faces challenges and overcomes these obstacles, thus intimating that the good life is a just reward. We might think of tales such as The...

The Science of the Changing World

The Science of the Changing World

By Miranda Garno Nesler
Thursday July 11, 2019

“If there was any single belief that characterized the Victorian era, it was Christian belief. Religion pervaded social and political life to an extent almost unimaginable today. Yet this was also an age of major scientific progress and discovery. Ranging from Darwin’s Origin of Species to Strauss’ Life of Jesus...

Literary Answers to Theological Questions

Literary Answers to Theological Questions

By Tristan Navarro
Wednesday April 10, 2019

What would it be like to talk to God? The Whitmore Rare Books inventory features a few answers to this profound question. Thomas Aquinas valued the use of academic study and the written word as a way of coming into conversation with God, while Thomas à Kempis rails against the...

Vicious Valentines and True Tales of Writerly Romance

Vicious Valentines and True Tales of Writerly Romance

By Miranda Garno Nesler
Wednesday February 6, 2019

Saint Valentine’s Day. A celebration of the kind of romance that not only sweeps us off our feet in the beginning, but endures and keeps us warm like a strong flame. There are plenty of literary couples who help us fantasize about this kind of lasting love—couples like Elizabeth Barrett...

A Buffet of Rare Culinary Books Leads to Lessons in History

A Buffet of Rare Culinary Books Leads to Lessons in History

By Miranda Garno Nesler
Monday August 13, 2018

Historical culinary texts offer us ample opportunities for exploring the world of food and drink. But they also contain additional information,  teach us how to do more than prepare a delicious coq au vin or pair the right wines with the right oysters. When we delve into the material production...

Roadtrips and Reading – A Proven Summer Formula

Roadtrips and Reading – A Proven Summer Formula

Miranda Garno Nesler
Thursday June 28, 2018

Summertime. Road-trips. The two things fit together for a reason, reaching back as far as August of 1888, when the first motorcar was taken on the first long-range drive. As warm weather and wanderlust set in, it seems timely to consider: what are the origins of the summer road trip

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Literary Lineage, Historical Connections: Modernist Reactions to Victorianism

Literary Lineage, Historical Connections: Modernist Reactions to Victorianism

Miranda Garno Nesler
Monday April 2, 2018

Literary movements are undeniably inter-relational phenomena. Rather than revealing a line of progress, they operate almost like a family tree, showing how multiple generations approach and express human concerns. The Victorians and Modernists are a prime example of this—two generations that looked to each other’s methods with some disdain, and...