Ouida A Dog of Flanders/ Nello e Patrasche

Ouida, “A Dog of Flanders” (1872)/ Nello e Patrasche (1880)  editions in English and Italian English edition: A Dog of Flanders edited by Andrew King Italian translation (large file – be patient): nello e patrasche trans T Cibeo Treves 1880 “A Dog of Flanders: a Story of Noel” was originally written as a Christmas tale for the…More

Cooking a PhD, 1997 style

I’ve just discovered in an old file a jeu d’esprit I wrote for the British Council Family’s Association (BCFA) Magazine in 1997 while I was a PhD student studying in London and living in Warsaw. While it reads as quaintly old-fashioned now – the universe was very different 20 years ago – I know some colleagues will appreciate…More

Reading the Olympics 3: the Discobolos Redivivus (1936)

If the previous story of the American student was rather benign, I’m not so sure about Leni Riefenstahl’s quite marvellous 1938 film of the 1936 “Nazi Olympics”. It’s a film that has been claimed rightly as establishing the modern grammar and vocabulary of the moving imagery of sports: cameras were mounted beneath balloons, on rafts, in trenches, on rowing boats, under water  and under saddles to try to capture the kinaesthetic – indeed the kino-aesthetic, or movement aesthetic  – of the struggle towards perfection that governs the overall narrative of the film.More

Reading the Olympics 2: the Discobolos Redivivus (1896)

After the set up in the first part of this talk, here, surprise surprise, is a photograph of a discus thrower of the 1896 Olympics. It is the celebrity victory photo of Robert Garrett, who won the discus event on the evening of the 1st day of the first modern Olympics , 6 April 1896.…More

Reading the Olympics: the Discobolos 1

The following trio of blogs comprises the opening plenary  given at the Reading the Olympics Study Day at the University of Greenwich 7 June 2012.    It is a great pleasure and honour to have been invited to speak before you all at Greenwich: it’s the first time I have had the opportunity of doing so…More

Ouida’s Pascarèl (1873): an Encounter with Italy 3

             This and the previous two blog posts were originally published as  “The origins of Ouida’s Pascarèl (1873): the  combination novel, myths of the female artist and the commerce of art.” In: Anglistica Pisana. 6.1 (2009) Edizioni ETS, Pisa, Italy, pp. 77-85. ISBN 9788846725967. Please see the first post on the purely…More

Ouida’s Pascarèl (1873): an Encounter with Italy 2

The previous and the following blog posts were originally published as  “The origins of Ouida’s Pascarèl (1873): the  combination novel, myths of the female artist and the commerce of art.” In: Anglistica Pisana. 6.1 (2009) Edizioni ETS, Pisa, Italy, pp. 77-85. ISBN 9788846725967. Please see the first post on the purely visual additions. This post mainly concerns…More

Ouida’s Pascarèl (1873): an Encounter with Italy 1

The following three blog posts were originally published as  “The origins of Ouida’s Pascarèl (1873): the  combination novel, myths of the female artist and the commerce of art.” In: Anglistica Pisana. 6.1 (2009) Edizioni ETS, Pisa, Italy, pp. 77-85. ISBN 9788846725967. Since that volume is out of print, I reproduce it her with the kind permission…More

John Dicks, Publisher, and “Dicks’ English Library of Standard Works”

My thanks to Louis James for the gift some time ago of six volumes (bound as 3) plus 10 monthly numbers of Dicks’ English Library of Standard Works and, in anticipation, to Anne Humpherys’ ongoing research on Dicks and reprinting, to which this post is intended as a small contribution. To both these remarkable scholars…More