Warwick > Recent Status Updates

In Russia a greater worry was [lesbians’] link to widely surviving pre-Christian religious practices. So the common term for lesbians was the same as for female leaders in such cults: baby bogomerzskie, which may be translated delightfully and not inaccurately as ‘God-insulting grannies’.

[in the Protevangelium of James]: when the midwife’s friend Salome attempts a manual gynaecological investigation of the mother [Mary], her offending hands miraculously catch fire

Theologians over the centuries, taking their cue from the statements in Gen. 1.26–27 that God made humanity in his own image and likeness, have […] generally ignored or explained away the complication that this same passage goes on to tell us that ‘male and female created he them’: does that mean that God is likewise male and female?

I love you all. Good luck out there

Well these new "sponsored" updates can fuck right off

Handbills too of an inflammatory Nature posted on our Church Doors at Streatham in Surrey—demanding, not requesting Relief for the lower Orders—terrifie one whilst they shew and indeed openly confess, that France in her Conduct—shall serve as Example to Britain…

We have all been reading the Mysteries of Udolpho; 'tis very horrible indeed says one, very like Macbeth says another: Yes truly replied H:L:P. as like as Pepper-Mint Water is to good Brandy.

Tis remarkable—& very shocking—that every Morning of this Year, and we are now near Midsummer Day—has been frosty. Such Things are surely rare, & I can attribute the (second) Cause only to an approaching Comet—perhaps that which Dr Halley bid us expect about two Years ago is now coming; & the Vapours carried forward by its Tail occasions this weight of Water in the Atmosphere…

Mr Piozzi has his own Country Prejudices agains writing Ladies.…While Johnson lived whatever I wrote would have been attributed to him & I could not turn Author. [Now] Piozzi likes the Money I get well enough, but dislikes ye Manner of getting it; he married a Dama not a Virtuosa he says.

even Clergymen now puclickly confess Incredulity, and Mr Chappelow said in my hearing three Days ago, that Adam & Eve and the Apple was an old Woman's Story—that he believed the World was five Hundred thousand years old at least, with many other equally impious Positions.

Nature does get strangely out of Fashion sure enough…The Queen of France is at the Head of a Set of Monsters call'd by each other Sapphists, who boast her Example; and deserve to be thrown with the He Demons that haunt each other likewise, into Mount Vesuvius. {April 1789]

The difference of Dialects [here in Italy] is mighty disstracting. a Child is call'd Bambino at Florence, Putto at Venice, Creatura at Rome, Schietto at Brescia, Bergamo &c. and a Girl at Milan is Tosa. what can one say in such Cases?

End of vol. 3. This volume dominated by the inserted 80-page Memoirs of a Woman of Quality, a disguised life of Frances, Lady Vane, who was a figure of some scandal at the time. She may even have written this herself; certainly everyone thought she had at the time. It's a fascinating example of a serial adulterer telling her own side of the story in a society stacked against women. Good counterpoint for PP…

End of vol 2. Our hero takes a grand tour of Italy, France and the Low Countries, featuring a great deal of sophisticated 18th century humour, like men farting at windmills. Returns for the social season at Bath. He has manwhored his way around Europe, but apparently we are still supposed to be rooting for his relationship with the virtuous Emilia, who's been waiting patiently at home for him.

Ahh…One of those books where you reach the finish, and turn straight back to the first page to begin again.

No, not really. One of those books where you reach the finish, and sob with relief that your long waking nightmare is finally at an end.

End of volume one. Narratively bitty (like most picaresques) but linguistically very rich. Includes the unbelievable exclamation “odd's niggers!” which is etymologically unrelated to the racial slur but still gave me a hell of a fright. Surprisingly meta (the main character has read Roderick Random). Main character is also a ‘high-spirited prankster’, i.e. a bit of a dick, which doesn't help.

“My heart within me is desolate…For my days are consumed like smoke: and my bones are burnt as the hearth. My heart is smitten and withered like grass: so that I forget to eat my bread.” Yeah, same.

“Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the book forever!” And oh that this book went on for 1500 fucking pages!

“If a single woman [in the Isle of Man] prosecutes a single man for a rape…if he be convicted, the deemster, or judge, delivers to the woman a rope, a sword, and a ring; and she has it in her choice to have him hanged, beheaded, or to marry him. One of the two former, I think, should always be her option.”

“Thou’lt observe…that though this was written afterwards, yet I write it as it was spoken, and happened…I know thou likest this lively present-tense manner, as it is one of my peculiars.” No, Lovelace, everyone hates present tense narration.

Does this Martial Law confine you quite to the House? – folks here say that it must, and that no Business of any kind can be transacted, – O what dreadful Times! [9 June 1780]

Home working is great but it's killing my reading. I've lost nearly two hours of ringfenced book time a day!

An excellent takedown of the idea of "untranslatable words"

“I, loving narrative letter-writing above every other species of writing”

You don’t say.

I feel like the amount of time required to write all these letters would not leave enough time in the day to actually do all the things they're writing about…

Cruikshank, Making Decent – !!, 1822. William Wilberforce and his Society for the Suppression of Vice

Rowlandson, Lord Barr…re's Great Bottle Club, c. 1800–10

The worst thing about American Dirt is the way it's prompted so much dismally sanctimonious sermonising like this open letter to Oprah. Novels are good or they're rubbish; that should be the beginning and end of it.

Gillray, The Fall of Icarus, 1807 (about the Lord Temple embezzlement scandal)

Dent, Public Credit, or, the State Idol, 1791