Monthly Archives: December 2020

Some time ago I wrote about Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. At the time I hadn’t actually read the book (tsk, tsk), but it was an interesting little exercise teasing out some of the linkages. I am by no means a … Continue reading →

This year’s festive tweet was a little different, I’d come across the poem while researching something entirely different. I’ve been working my way through Juliet Barker’s magisterial history of the Brontës, more as a way of understanding life in late … Continue reading →

T Today, we often talk about the precariat. However, there’s also a subtle shift underway in meaning – rather than simply gig workers such as Uber drivers and Deliveroo riders – increasingly the term precariat is applied to people in … Continue reading →

In my previous post about the Sobieski Stuarts (and my non connection with them) I reproduced the above photograph, which is attributed to the noted early Scottish photographer, David Octavius Hill, who had set up a photographic studio with Robert … Continue reading →

Every so often I mess about with family history. Not seriously. Really I do it to keep my skills in tracing documents back through the archives up to speed and to practice reading nineteenth century handwriting. The only real mystery … Continue reading →