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Category Archives: Uncategorized
Keats’ Hair
From the deceased’s author’s skull, we turn today to the deceased’s author’s hair. In 1855, in Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine, English essayist and poet Leigh Hunt is recorded describing hair as ‘the most delicate and lasting of all … Continue reading
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Tagged Fanny Brawne, history of reading, John Keats, Joseph Severn, Keats-Shelley Memorial House Rome, Keats’ Hair, Keats’ House Hampstead, Leigh Hunt, literary landmark, literary landscape, literary museums, literary pilgrimage, literary tourism, literary tourist, love of literature, Nicola Watson The Author's Effects, Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Series 4: Burns’ Skull
Today I am in leafy Alloway, Scotland, the birth place of Robert Burns. Despite the prettiness of this quaint and picturesque village, I have come to feast my eyes upon something entirely morbid. I am here to visit the Burns … Continue reading
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Tagged Alexander Nasmyth, Archibald Blacklock, Burns Birthplace Museum, Burns Mausoleum Committee, Burns’ Face, Burns’ Sculpture, Dorothy Wordsworth, George Combe, history of reading, James Bogie, Jean Armour, John Forbes Mitchell, John McDiarmid, John Syme, literary landmark, literary landscape, literary museums, literary pilgrimage, literary tourism, literary tourist, love of literature, Nicola Watson The Author's Effects, Phrenological Development of Robert Burns, phrenology, Professor Caroline Wilkinson, Robert Burns, Robert Burns’ Skull, Sir John Steell, St Michael’s Churchyard Dumfries, University of Dundee, William Grierson, William Wordsworth
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Speaking Stones
My very last post in this series! It’s about how whole houses have been made to speak in the author’s voice, so making the long-past and long-dead into a perpetual, first person presence. I think the reason for doing … Continue reading
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Tagged Dorothy Wordsworth, Dove Cottage, history of reading, Lerici, literary landmark, literary landscape, literary museums, literary pilgrimage, literary tourism, literary tourist, love of literature, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Nicola Watson The Author's Effects
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Deaths
To what extent or in what sense does an author die? If an author does not (quite) die, then what to do with the body? The history of the fates that have befallen individual authors’ corpses is long, varied, … Continue reading
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Tagged Adonais, Charles Dickens, Dickens Museum, Ermenonville, French Revolution, history of reading, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Keats, literary landmark, literary landscape, literary museums, literary pilgrimage, literary tourism, literary tourist, love of literature, Nicola Watson The Author's Effects, Panthéon Paris, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley Memorial, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, University College Oxford
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Effigies
Writers’ animals, explored in an earlier post (https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/literarytourist/?p=226) meditate upon the nature of authorship and writing in relation to the body. This is true also of efforts to represent the author at more or less life-like and life-size, as … Continue reading
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Tagged Hamlet, Hannibal Missouri, history of reading, Huckleberry Finn, James Boswell, John Betjeman, Lichfield, Life of Johnson, literary landmark, literary landscape, literary museums, literary pilgrimage, literary tourism, literary tourist, love of literature, Lyons France, Mark Twain, Nicola Watson The Author's Effects, Samuel Johnson, St Exupéry, St Pancras Station, Tom Sawyer’s house
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Views
So many objects associated with authors have become iconic because they seem to symbolise authorial imagination. But this is true of views, too, which allow the literary tourist to look with the author’s eye, and to send a postcard … Continue reading
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Tagged Abbotsford, Arthur Ransome, ‘Wild Cat Island’, ‘Wizard of the North’, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Eildon Hills, history of reading, Johann von Goethe, Lake Coniston, literary landmark, literary landscape, literary museums, literary pilgrimage, literary tourism, literary tourist, love of literature, Mina Murray, Nicola Watson The Author's Effects, Sir Walter Scott, Swallows and Amazons, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Whitby, Windermere
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Animals
In contrast to the anti-houses featured in my last post, the habit of thinking of the author in relation to domesticated animals pins the author to domesticity and embodiment. But though you might think that this also pinned the … Continue reading
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Tagged A Sentimental Journey, Charlottesville, Edgar Allan Poe, Fontaine de Vaucluse, Francesco Petrarch, history of reading, Laurence Sterne, literary landmark, literary landscape, literary museums, literary pilgrimage, literary tourism, literary tourist, love of literature, Nicola Watson The Author's Effects, Olney, Petrarch’s house Arquà Italy, Shandy Hall Coxwold, The Raven, University of Virginia, William Cowper
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Escapes
My next set of images returns to the problem of what sort of ‘work’ writing is and whether it is actually anti-social.
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Tagged Concord, E. F. Benson, Elmira, Henry David Thoreau, history of reading, literary landmark, literary landscape, literary museums, literary pilgrimage, literary tourism, literary tourist, love of literature, Marie Corelli, Mark Twain, New York State, Nicola Watson The Author's Effects, Olney, Samuel Clemens, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Tom Sawyer, Walden, William Cowper, William Shakespeare
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Keys and Portals
For some writers, and as a result for their admirers, entry to the kingdom of the imagination has been effected or symbolised by different talismanic objects. As a result, they have become iconic as keys or portals to the … Continue reading
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Tagged ‘Tolly’s mouse’, C.S. Lewis, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Hemingford Grey, history of reading, literary landmark, literary landscape, literary museums, literary pilgrimage, literary tourism, literary tourist, love of literature, Nicola Watson The Author's Effects, The Children of Green Knowe, The Lion, The Magician’s Nephew, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Thomas de Quincey, Wheaton College
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Garments
Like Joyce’s spectacles, (see https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/literarytourist/?p=209), authorial garments are often called upon to imagine the specifics of the author’s body and the specialness of their imaginative lives. Sometimes this works, sometimes not.
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Tagged Amherst Museum, Brantwood House, Catherine Halley, Dorothy Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Goethehaus, history of reading, Italienreise, James Joyce, Johann von Goethe, John Ruskin, literary landmark, literary landscape, literary museums, literary pilgrimage, literary tourism, literary tourist, love of literature, Nicola Watson The Author's Effects, Rydal Mount, Samantha Clarke, Weimar
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