#1910s England

[efemmera-archive]

Postcard illustration by Douglas Tempest (1887-1954), circa 1910s

[vintageeurope]

Buckinghamshire, England 1910s

[fashionsfromhistory]

Evening Dress

c.1913

England or France

Victoria & Albert Museum (Accession Number: T.33-1947)

[rottencorpse0]

Maurice (1987) directed by James Ivory

[behindthecrowns]

In London King George V has often been seen early in the morning riding in the Row with a friend. Once he saw a little girl with a very large camera, vainly trying to take a picture of him. Pulling up his horse, he asked her wheter she would find it easier if he stood still. "Oh, yes your majesty, now i can get a lovely one" said the little girl. The King's smile was very kind, as he rode away, fori his love of all children is well known.

[sealedintime]

Boating Lake, Southwark Park, Rotherhithe, London, 1913

[luminous-void]

Herbert E. Crowley, Five Ghouls, 1911-24

[handweavers]

Have you seen the hugh grant adaptation of maurice and if so what are your thoughts on it?

i have and i really enjoy it! i think the cinematography is beautiful and i appreciate most of the little changes they made to the story, particularly that of making it more clear that clive's "crisis" was due to internalized (and externalized) homophobia and not that he just woke up one day and decided he's straight now like the book implies lol. i think the movie is excellent at capturing the almost dreamlike, nostalgic quality of the book. it is generally very faithful to the book, down to repeating many lines word for word, which i really appreciate

i have mixed feelings on the casting of james wilby because in the book maurice is hyper masculine, tall dark and handsome, explicitly stated to be em forster's "middle class dream man" in that he is the english middle class ideal of a very masculine straight man, the last man anyone would ever suspect of being gay, and that clive was the one who was a bit more effeminate and boyish. i think a part of that was also a class thing (the whole book is class analysis), in the sense that maurice being middle class and occupying a more precarious position than clive meant he couldn't afford to be as 'soft' as clive was and put a lot more effort into performing heterosexuality publically while being far more comfortable with his homosexuality in private than clive ever was. but also due to class clive was more unwilling to risk his social status by fully embracing life as a gay man whereas maurice actually developed class consciousness over the course of the book and abandons his class position altogether lol. james wilby brings a different vibe to the character, and i feel that dichotomy between maurice and clive is switched around a bit and the social context of their characters as they were written for their time period (the early 1910s) is somewhat discarded, which makes me a little sad. but wilby does so well in the role, as does grant and rupert graves as alec i'm not as grumbly about it as i might be.

[friendlessghoul]

Buster Keaton arrives aboard the SS America. Southampton, Hampshire, England. February 2, 1962

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Brown Leather Boots, 1895-1915, English.

Victoria and Albert Museum.

[theoscarsproject]

Maurice (1987). Two English school chums find themselves falling in love at Cambridge. To regain his place in society, Clive gives up Maurice and marries. While staying with Clive and his wife, Maurice discovers romance in the arms of the gamekeeper Alec.

Can anyone direct sensuality like James Ivory? God, this is so, so good, just breathless with its own sprawling passion and it's alternating need to repress and experience and sometimes, eventually, to share too. Ivory's firing on all cylinders here, both as a director and a writer, and he brings out the best in a pretty stellar cast. This might just be my favourite Hugh Grant role? Just - - yes! Cinema! 9/10.

[historyandarthijinks]

Art of War (7)

War Poem by Wilfred Owen

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

Context

Dulce et Decorum Est (Published 1920) - Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) [England, United Kingdom]

Poem was written by WW1 soldier Wilfred Owen about the hypocrisy and propaganda spread by those who did no actively serve in the war. This poem specifically highlights the horrors of WW1 and the usage of chemical warfare. The gas shown in this poem to be killing is comrades is likely Chlorine Gas. Wilfred Owen did not go on to survive the war, but he wrote many antiwar poems. He lived only up to the age twenty-five.

[vintageeurope]

Brighton, England 1890/1910

[fashionsfromhistory]

Day Dress

c.1913

England

Victoria & Albert Museum (Accession Number: T.288&A-1973)

[behindthecrowns]

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia and Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia.

[nemfrog]

Red Admiral. The English year. Autumn and Winter. 1913.

Internet Archive