Wordsworth and Watercolors

CLASSICS CLUB SPIN #43 WORDSWORTH AND WATERCOLORS SPIN LIST #7 In the immortal words of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: Well, here we go again. . . . I have selected 20 books from  my Classics Club List ; a number between 1 and 20 will be announced by The Classics Club on Sunday, February 8th; the corresponding volume on my list will (probably not, with my track record ,) be read by March 29th. My particular favorites this time round are #5, #12, and #16, but I'll be excited for any of them! That is, I suppose, a byproduct of having selected them myself. Happy spinning to all! 1. Wuthering Heights , Emily Brontë 2. Persuasion , Jane Austen 3. Confessions of an English Opium Eater , Thomas De Quincey 4. Greyfriars Bobby , Eleanor Atkinson 5. Malice Aforethought , Francis Iles 6. The Four Feathers , A.E.W. Mason 7. The Worm Ouroboros , E.R. Edison 8. The Lair of the White Worm , Bram Stoker 9. North and South , Elizabeth Gaskell 10. Howards End , E.M. Forster ...

  — Poetry Month — Ancient Greek Song of Exile,  Felicia Hemans First published 1823,  The New Monthly Magazine Later published 1825, The Forest Sanctuary, and Other Poems                                                             Felicia Dorothea Hemans (née Browne)  was a Late Romantic poet very popular in her time both in Britain and in the United States, sales coming in second to Lord Byron, and is still admired today. She was born in Liverpool on the 25th of September in 1793. She moved with her family to a cottage on the grounds of Gwrych Castle in Wales in 1800, where she lived until the age of sixteen when they moved to Bronwylfa, St. Asaph, in Flintshire. Her first volume of poetry, Poems , was published in 1808, when she was just fourteen years old; it was dedicated to the Prince of Wales. The work was notice...

The spin has spun and hasnae gone agley with: #17, Kidnapped , by Robert Louis Stevenson Och, we'll have a braw time! — EDIT: The best spun plans, as they say. . . . *  *  *  *  *  * A Somber Sonnet of Sunless Things On a dark and dreary night, When all living things lie still,— When awakes cold hollow Death, And Prudence flees in darkened fear, And Sorrow sleeps with one eye op'd, And Slumber w ith a frost-burn torch Slyly mutters  memento mori — Then must all who look on pages bound— Inky companions: even they— Prepare a  c reepy Classics Club Anthology of spinning books, Spelling out their company By number—always twenty! (The hyphens make it Gothic.) Huzzah for another Classics Club Spin ! I have not reviewed #41 , Lyrical Ballads , but needless to say it was a much adored spin.   For a reason which I can only suppose to be Hallowe'en I've written a poem for this one, of dubious clarity and meter. The books I've ended up with are all ones I'd ...

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells Published 1895 Classics Club Review #6/ 50 IAN:  I'd set the class a problem with A, B, and C as the three dimensions. . . . . [ Flashback ] SUSAN:  It's impossible unless you use D and E! IAN:  D and E? Whatever for? Do the problem that's set, Susan. SUSAN:  I can't, Mr. Chesterton—you can't simply work on three of the dimensions. IAN:  Three of them? Oh, Time being the fourth, I suppose. Then what do you need E for? What do you make the fifth dimension? SUSAN:  Space.     Doctor Who, "An Unearthly Child", 1963 Episode written by Anthony Coburn ("Spoilers!") The opening scene of the novella, in which "the Time Traveller" gives us a lecture on the reality of physics, reminded me of Susan Foreman's frustrated near-breakdown in this first episode of Doctor Who—though I recognize that Susan and the Traveller are saying slightly different things.  Also, the flickering and the rush of wind as the model mac...

"We seem to be drifting into unknown places and unknown ways; into a whole world of dark and dreadful things." — Dracula , Bram Stoker A little time after creating my Classics Club List I began to ponder the titles I'd included, to muse upon the genres, to think of myself submerged in their atmospheres, and discovered an in-and-of-itself disturbing lack of . . . disturbance . The du Mauriers, Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë,—where Mrs. Radcliffe? M. R. James? Where Gorey and Poe? I then peered inwards: what, as Catherine Morland and her friends would say, horrid novels did I know of? Disgusted, I determined to create (with no particular chronological guidelines) A To-Be-Read List of Gothic Tomes, Horrific Tales, Eerie Mysteries, & Unsettling Volumes Date Created: August 2nd, 2025 2/50 1. "A Ghost Story For Christmas" Stories, Various — ongoing 2. Trilby , George du Maurier 3. Rebecca , Daphne du Maurier 4. Mrs. de Winter , Susan Hill 5. "Jamaica I...