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Doctor Dido
''Doctor Dido'' is a historical novel by the British writer F. L. Lucas. First published in 1938, it was his third novel (not including the novella ''The Wild Tulip'', 1932). With much local and antiquarian detail, it tells the story of Samuel Plampin, Doctor of Divinity at Cambridge and Vicar of St Peter's Babraham, who in 1792 brings to the vicarage as his housekeeper a young Frenchwoman he finds in Cambridge, a destitute refugee from The Terror. Plot summary Just arrived in Cambridge on a sodden evening in September 1792 is Mademoiselle Sophie Letourneur, 26, a spirited ''femme de chambre'' in the household of the Duc and Duchesse de la Rochefoucauld-d'Enville. She has travelled for nine days from Revolution-torn Paris, carrying a secret message from her Anglophile master to Prime Minister Pitt. She had been told Pitt was in his constituency; now she learns he is at Stowe. She speaks little English, has been robbed on the way and is destitute. She is rescued by Samuel Plampi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historical Novel
Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other types of narrative, including theatre, opera, cinema, and television, as well as video games and graphic novels. An essential element of historical fiction is that it is set in the past and pays attention to the manners, social conditions and other details of the depicted period. Authors also frequently choose to explore notable historical figures in these settings, allowing readers to better understand how these individuals might have responded to their environments. The historical romance usually seeks to romanticize eras of the past. Some subgenres such as alternate history and historical fantasy insert intentionally ahistorical or speculative elements into a novel. Works of historical fiction are sometimes criticized for lack of authe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1795–1820 In Western Fashion
Fashion in the period 1795–1820 in European and European-influenced countries saw the final triumph of undress or informal styles over the brocades, lace, periwigs and powder of the earlier 18th century. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, no one wanted to appear to be a member of the French aristocracy, and people began using clothing more as a form of individual expression of the true self than as a pure indication of social status. As a result, the shifts that occurred in fashion at the turn of the 19th century granted the opportunity to present new public identities that also provided insights into their private selves. Katherine Aaslestad indicates how "fashion, embodying new social values, emerged as a key site of confrontation between tradition and change." For women's dress, the day-to-day outfit of the skirt and jacket style were practical and tactful, recalling the working-class woman. Women's fashions followed classical ideals, and stiffly boned stays were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Watchmaker Analogy
The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument which states, by way of an analogy, that a design implies a designer, especially intelligent design by an intelligent designer, i.e. a creator deity. The watchmaker analogy was given by William Paley in his 1802 book ''Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity''. The original analogy played a prominent role in natural theology and the "argument from design," where it was used to support arguments for the existence of God of the universe, in both Christianity and Deism. Prior to Paley, however, Sir Isaac Newton, René Descartes, and others from the time of the scientific revolution had each believed "that the physical laws he achhad uncovered revealed the mechanical perfection of the workings of the universe to be akin to a watch, wherein the watchmaker is God." The 1859 publication of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection put forward an alternative explanation to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Paley
William Paley (July 174325 May 1805) was an English clergyman, Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his natural theology exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work ''Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity'', which made use of the watchmaker analogy. Life Paley was born in Peterborough, England, and was educated at Giggleswick School, of which his father - also called William - was headmaster for half a century, and - like his father and great-uncle - at Christ's College, Cambridge. He graduated in 1763 as senior wrangler, became fellow in 1766, and in 1768 tutor of his college. He lectured on Samuel Clarke, Joseph Butler and John Locke in his systematic course on moral philosophy, which subsequently formed the basis of his ''Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy''; and on the New Testament, his own copy of which is in the British Library. The subscription controversy w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Woman Clothed With The Sun
''The Woman Clothed with the Sun; being The Confession of John McHaffie concerning his sojourn in the Wilderness among the folk called the Buchanites'', is a historical novella by the British writer F. L. Lucas. It purports to be an account, written in 1814 by a Scottish minister of the Kirk in middle age and published posthumously, of his youthful bewitchment by Elspeth Buchan and of the time he spent in the 1780s among the Buchanites. First published in 1937, it was Lucas's second historical novella, the first being ''The Wild Tulip'' (1932); he had also published a prize-winning historical novel, ''Cécile'' (1930). Plot summary The narrator, John McHaffie, the bookish 16-year-old son of a schoolmaster in Irvine, Ayrshire, "an overwrought lad and a Johnny-head-in-air", is loved by sensible Jenny Traquair, also 16, an orphan fostered in the McHaffie household. After an account of his childhood, the narrator describes the stir caused in his town in 1782–3 by the fanatical prea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cécile (novel)
''Cécile'' is an historical novel by the British writer F. L. Lucas. His second novel, first published in 1930, it is a story of love, society and politics in the France of 1775–1776, set largely in Picardy and Paris, which locations form its two parts. Plot summary Cécile, 18, and Andrée, 23, are daughters of the Marquis de Maurepaire of Vraulx Saint-Mein in Picardy. Cécile is a joyous may-fly of a girl, just out of her convent and at once married off by her father, for money, to serious Gabriel de Rieux, 25 ("my heavenly bridegroom" ), whom she does not love. Andrée is a young ''philosophe'', romantic about one thing (love), sceptical about all else. She is married to the dashing Gaston, Vicomte de Launay, 30, a proto- Romantic, who makes her miserable by his affair with a fawn-like peasant-girl, whom he swept into his saddle one moonlit evening in the woods. (He is a disciple of Rousseau.) Andrée and Gaston quarrel about this, about their children's education, and abo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
18th Century France
The Kingdom of France () in the early modern period, from the Renaissance (''circa'' 1500–1550) to the Revolution (1789–1804), was a monarchy ruled by the House of Bourbon (a Capetian cadet branch). This corresponds to the so-called ''Ancien Régime'' ("old rule"). The territory of France during this period increased until it included essentially the extent of the modern country, and it also included the territories of the first French colonial empire overseas. The period is dominated by the figure of the "Sun King", Louis XIV (his reign of 1643–1715 being one of the longest in history), who managed to eliminate the remnants of medieval feudalism and established a centralized state under an absolute monarch, a system that would endure until the French Revolution and beyond. Geography In the mid 15th century, France was significantly smaller than it is today, and numerous border provinces (such as Roussillon, Cerdagne, Calais, Béarn, Navarre, County of Foix, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Appeasement
Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the UK governments of Prime Ministers Ramsay MacDonald (in office: 1929–1935), Stanley Baldwin (in office: 1935–1937) and (most notably) Neville Chamberlain (in office: 1937–1940) towards Nazi Germany (from 1933) and Fascist Italy (established in 1922) between 1935 and 1939. Under British pressure, appeasement of Nazism and Fascism also played a role in French foreign policy of the period, but was always much less popular than in the United Kingdom. At the beginning of the 1930s, appeasing concessions were widely seen as desirable—due to the anti-war reaction to the trauma of World War I (1914–1918), second thoughts about the perceived vindictive treatment by some of Germany in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, and a perception that fascism ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Invasion Of Russia
The French invasion of Russia, also known as the Russian campaign, the Second Polish War, the Army of Twenty nations, and the Patriotic War of 1812 was launched by Napoleon Bonaparte to force the Russian Empire back into the continental blockade of the United Kingdom. Napoleon's invasion of Russia is one of the best studied military campaigns in history and is listed among the most lethal military operations in world history. It is characterized by the massive toll on human life: in less than six months nearly a million soldiers and civilians died. On 24 June 1812 and the following days, the first wave of the multinational crossed the Niemen into Russia. Through a series of long forced marches, Napoleon pushed his army of almost half a million people rapidly through Western Russia, now Belarus, in an attempt to destroy the separated Russian armies of Barclay de Tolly and Pyotr Bagration who amounted to around 180,000–220,000 at this time. Within six weeks, Napoleon lost ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Berezina
The Battle of (the) Berezina (or Beresina) took place from 26 to 29 November 1812, between Napoleon's Grande Armée and the Imperial Russian Army under Field Marshal Wittgenstein and Admiral Chichagov. Napoleon was retreating back toward Poland in chaos after the aborted occupation of Moscow and trying to cross the Berezina River at Borisov. The outcome of the battle was inconclusive as, despite heavy losses, Napoleon managed to cross the river and continue his retreat with the surviving remnants of his army. Background Napoleon had fought his way out of Russia in the battles of Maloyaroslavets, Vyazma and Krasnoi. His plan was to cross the Berezina River at Borisov (in Belarusian Governorate General) in order to join up with his Austrian ally, Field Marshall Schwarzenberg at Minsk. As the central core of Napoleon's Grande Armée marched toward Borisov, however, Russian troops supported by Cossacks moved to block his battered force, reduced to 49,000 men under arms and 40,000 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism, clandestine literature, paganism, idealization of nature, suspicion of science and industrialization, and glorification of the past with a strong preference for the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, chess, social sciences, and the natural sciences. It had a significant and complex effect on politics, with romantic thinkers influencing conservatism, libe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
