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Midas (Shelley Play)
''Midas'' is a verse drama in blank verse by the Romantic writers Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary wrote the drama and Percy contributed two lyric poems to it. Written in 1820 while the Shelleys were living in Italy, Mary Shelley tried unsuccessfully to have the play published by children's magazines in England in the 1830s; however, it was not published until A. Koszul's 1922 scholarly edition. Whether or not the drama was ever meant to be staged is a point of debate among scholars. The play combines the stories of the musical contest between Apollo and Pan and that of King Midas and his ability to turn everything he touches to gold. Largely concerned with gender issues, ''Midas'' comments on the definitions of femininity and masculinity in the early nineteenth century and the developing ideology of separate spheres which encouraged women to restrict themselves to domestic affairs and men to political affairs. Part of the Romantic interest in rewriting classi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forget-Me-Not (magazine)
''Forget-Me-Not'' was an illustrated British annual published by Rudolph Ackermann. It was the first literary annual in English and it was edited by Frederic Shoberl from its launch in 1822. A junior version appeared in 1828. History In November 1822 Rudolf Ackermann published ''Forget-Me-Not: A Christmas and New Years Present for 1823''. This was the first literary annual. The artwork and text have been digitised. References {{reflist British books Publications established in 1822 1856 disestablishments in the United Kingdom 1822 establishments in the United Kingdom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudolph Ackermann
Rudolph Ackermann (20 April 1764 in Schneeberg, Electorate of Saxony – 30 March 1834 in Finchley, London) was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman. Biography He attended the Latin school in Stollberg, but his wish to study at the university was made impossible by lack of financial means, and he therefore became a saddler like his father. He worked as a saddler and coach-builder in different German cities, moved from Dresden to Basel and Paris, and then, 23 years old, settled in London. He established himself in Long Acre, the centre of coach-making in London and close to the market at Covent Garden. His extraordinary business instinct, as well as his flair for design and talent for self-promotion, won him the £200 contract to design the ceremonial coach for the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare. After this he designed ''The Royal Sailor'', an 8-wheel omnibus that ran between Charing Cross, Greenwi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bryan Walter Procter
Bryan Waller Procter (pseud. Barry Cornwall) (21 November 17875 October 1874) was an English poet who served as a Commissioner in Lunacy. Life and career Born at Leeds, Yorkshire, he was educated at Harrow School, where he had for contemporaries Lord Byron and Robert Peel. On leaving school he was placed in the office of a solicitor at Calne, Wiltshire, remaining there until about 1807, when he returned to London to study law. By the death of his father in 1816 he became possessed of a small property, and soon after entered into partnership with a solicitor; but in 1820 the partnership was dissolved, and he began to write under the pseudonym of "Barry Cornwall". After his marriage in 1824 to Miss Skepper, daughter of Mrs Basil Montague, he returned to his profession as a conveyancer, and was called to the bar in 1831. In the following year he was appointed metropolitan commissioner of lunacy—an appointment annually renewed until his election as one of the Commissioners in Lu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurice (Shelley)
"Maurice, or the Fisher's Cot" is a children's story by the Romantic writer Mary Shelley. Written in 1820 for Laurette Tighe, a daughter of her friends Margaret King and George William Tighe, Mary Shelley tried to have it published by her father, William Godwin, but he refused. The text was lost until 1997, when a manuscript copy was discovered in Italy. "Maurice" tells the story of a boy searching for a home and his encounters with a traveller who turns out to be his long-lost father. The story is narrated in a melancholy tone from several points of view and focuses on the theme of loss, particularly the separation of parents and children. Shelley explored this partly autobiographical theme in other works written at the same time, including her novel '' Mathilda'' and her play '' Proserpine''. The story's straightforward language reflects that of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, whose works Shelley was reading while she composed "Maurice". Background In 1814, the seven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft (, ; 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationships at the time, received more attention than her writing. Today Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and her works as important influences. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for ''A Vindication of the Rights of Woman'' (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason. After Wollstonecraft's death, her widower published a ''Memoir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proserpine (play)
''Proserpine'' is a verse drama written for children by the English Romantic writers Mary Shelley and her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary wrote the blank verse drama and Percy contributed two lyric poems. Composed in 1820 while the Shelleys were living in Italy, it is often considered a partner to the Shelleys' play ''Midas''. ''Proserpine'' was first published in the London periodical ''The Winter's Wreath'' in 1832. Whether the drama was ever intended to be staged is a point of debate among scholars. The drama is based on Ovid's tale of the abduction of Proserpine by Pluto, which itself was based on the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. Mary Shelley's version focuses on the female characters. In a largely feminist retelling from Ceres's point of view, Shelley emphasises the separation of mother and daughter and the strength offered by a community of women. Ceres represents life and love, and Pluto represents death and violence. The genres of the text also reflect ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The History Of Sandford And Merton
''The History of Sandford and Merton'' (1783–89) was a best-selling children's book written by Thomas Day. He began it as a contribution to Richard Lovell and Honora Sneyd Edgeworth's ''Harry and Lucy'', a collection of short stories for children that Maria Edgeworth continued some years after her stepmother died. He eventually expanded his original short story into the first volume of ''The History of Sandford and Merton'', which was published anonymously in 1783; two further volumes subsequently followed in 1786 and 1789. The book was wildly successful and was reprinted until the end of the nineteenth century.Darton, F. J. Harvey. ''Children's Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life''. 3rd ed. Rev. Brian Alderson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1982), 146. It retained enough popularity or invoked enough nostalgia at the end of the nineteenth century to inspire a satire, ''The New History of Sandford and Merton'', whose preface proudly announces that it will "t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Day (writer)
Thomas Day (22 June 1748 – 28 September 1789) was a British author and abolitionist. He was well known for the book ''The History of Sandford and Merton'' (1783–1789) which emphasized Rousseauvian educational ideals, for his writings against slavery, for campaigning both for and against American independence, and for his project applying his educational ideals to young girls with the aim of raising a wife for himself. Early life Day was born on 22 June 1748 in London, the only child of Thomas and Jane Day. His father died when he was about a year old, but left him wealthy. He first attended a school in Stoke Newington, Middlesex, where the family lived at what is now 109-111 Church Street, but after a bout of smallpox which left his face permanently scarred he was moved to Charterhouse School. He subsequently attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he became a master debater and developed a close friendship with William Jones; he did not graduate and left the col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Nouvelle Heloise
''Julie; or, The New Heloise'' (french: Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse), originally entitled ''Lettres de Deux Amans, Habitans d'une petite Ville au pied des Alpes'' ("Letters from two lovers, living in a small town at the foot of the Alps"), is an epistolary novel by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, published in 1761 by Marc-Michel Rey in Amsterdam. The novel's subtitle points to the history of Héloïse d'Argenteuil and Peter Abelard, a medieval story of passion and Christian renunciation. The novel was put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Overview Although Rousseau wrote the work as a novel, a philosophical theory about authenticity permeates through it, as he explores autonomy and authenticity as moral values. A common interpretation is that Rousseau valued the ethics of authenticity over rational moral principles, as he illustrates the principle that one should do what is imposed upon him by society only insofar as it would seem congruent with one's "secret principles" and feeling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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