#An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir

[anamon-book]

未完の女 リリアン・ヘルマン自伝 L・ヘルマン、稲葉明雄・本間千枝子＝訳 平凡社 装幀＝山口はるみ

[amphibious-thing]

Hi!

I really enjoy your posts about d'Eon; she's so fascinating. I'm definitely not an expert on her, but I'm very interested! One article I read said that, in her unfinished memoirs, she used both male and female pronouns. Is this a) even true, given some of the clearly wrong historical writing you've cited before, and b) if it is true, what do you think about it?

So I don't speak French. D'Eon's unfinished memoirs were originally written in French and I'm working with an English translation. This makes any discussion of gendered language in her memoirs a bit more difficult as there are words that are gendered in French but gender neutral in English and vice versa. Helpfully the translation by Roland A. Champagne, Nina Ekstein and Gary Kates notes when the masculine or feminine form is being used. However I'm still answering this question based on a translation not d'Eon's original words.

D'Eon's memoirs are written in first person so the majority of the pronouns she uses for herself are first person pronouns (I, me, my, mine).

Other characters use either he/him or she/her pronouns for d'Eon but this reflects that characters perspective not d'Eon's personal pronouns. For example in a scene set in Russia the Comte de Vorontsov confronts d'Eon about her double life, using feminine pronouns for Mademoiselle d'Eon and masculine pronouns for Captain d'Eon:

This young lady remarked to Madame Vorontsov and to my niece the Princess Asthoff that she remembers very well that Mademoiselle d'Eon has a small wine-colored birthmark on her left cheek near her ear, that at the convent in Meaux she wore gold-drop earrings, and that if Captain d'Eon has this wine-colored birthmark on his left cheek and that if he has pierced ears, you can be sure that this is the Demoiselle d'Eon whom I knew in the convent. (p20)

D'Eon pretty consistently seems to use feminine language for herself when speaking in the present tense. She uses the words "woman", "girl", "maiden", "daughter", the titles "mademoiselle" and "chevalière" and "she/her" pronouns at points when she slips into third person.

However when talking in the past tense she sometimes describes herself in the masculine. She was a "man" but is now a "woman". She will sometime talk about her past self in third person referring to "him" as her "brother". After Mademoiselle Bertin dresses d'Eon in woman's clothes for the first time d'Eon says to her:

You have killed my brother the dragoon. That leaves me with a heavy heart. (p61)

D'Eon's describes her transition as a death and rebirth. A few weeks before d'Eon was to be presented at the Court of Versailles as a woman she returns home to Tonnerre. Still wearing men's clothes she gets into an argument with her mother who believes she should start wearing women's clothes immediately. But d'Eon is reluctant, avoiding it. At one point in the argument d'Eon tells her mother she must resign herself to "the imminent death of your pitiful dragoon" as "he" only has a few weeks left in men's clothes. Their argument ends with the following passage:

In tears, my mother said to me: "You are still my dear daughter sitting in the darkness and the shadow of death. But you will be reborn, my daughter, without fear or reproach, to live and die peacefully by your mother, who loves and will always cherish you. For your salvation and our mutual happiness, I have long prayed for the misfortune that befalls you." She wiped her tears against my face and returned to her room. I hid my face under the covers in order not to see or hear anything. I was even troubled by my own presence in he darkness of night. (p41)

While d'Eon describes the loss of her "brother" the dragoon as painful she ultimately sees it as something that is necessary and positive:

Mademoiselle d'Eon has only one more step to take to bury her brother the captain of the dragoons with the full honors of War ... Tomorrow without fail I will inform Mademoiselle Bertin of my return to Paris and tell her to bring with her feathered aides-de-camp to deplume me and to sew the dragoon's skin to that of a girl who is worn out from bitter disappointment with her own skin. This girl has the greatest need of her help to be trimmed, readied, and fitted out by her skillful hand in order that I may walk with unworried assurance along the narrow path of virtue, as is befitting a Christian maiden (p56)

The death of the dragoon captain gives life to the Christian maiden:

In my regiment I sought only the rough and tumble. But in my convent I find only remedies and healing. Thus by a natural tendency I find it impossible to reconcile Mademoiselle d'Eon with her brother, the dragoon captain. The brother is imperfect, the sister perfect. How can one reconcile between the imperfect and the perfect? (p72)

Her life as Geneviève d’Eon brings her joy:

At present I am living in profound peace; and my joy is so great that I praise God in three languages so that a greater number of people may partake of the happiness of the angels in this life while awaiting the crown of ordinary martyrs, Nunc Genofeva d'Eon est nomen meum; quam suave et dulce est laetitia mea! [My name is now Geneviève d’Eon; how delightful and how sweet is my joy!] (p87)

However she doesn't always refer to her pre-transition self in the masculine. D'Eon presents herself as a woman who was raised as a boy by her parents: "I had been educated as a boy, and I dressed as one." (p7) She describes her past self as a "foolish girl who was tricked to go along like a foolish ewe." (p3)

One interesting example of d'Eon's use of gendered language is her invention of the word "demoiseau". One of the translators Roland A. Champagne describes it as a "masculine version of demoiselle" and explains "We translated demoiseau as "pretty boy" in order to capture the lexical proximity of demoiseau to damoiseau ("fop")." Champagne concludes that "d'Éon constructed in a neutral gender the demoiseau to live as a masculine woman beyond the codes of the Ancien Regime." (Decoding "The Maiden of Tonnerre": Translating Gender from the Eighteenth Century)

Champagne is correct to say that d'Eon lived as a "masculine woman" but I think he might be making too much of this one word considering the context. The word "demoiseau" comes from the following exchange between d'Eon and Bertin:

Mademoiselle d'Eon. Alas, at court everything is beautiful. To please the court, does a former dragoon captain have to become a pretty boy [demoiseau]? Mademoiselle Bertin. Yes, absolutely, when the so-called "boy" is discovered to be in fact a girl by the systems of justice both in England and in France. (p64)

So I don't think d'Eon necessarily identified as a "demoiseau" but perhaps I'm missing something in translation.

The part I struggle with the most is words that are gender neutral in English but gendered in French. Without being familiar with French it's difficult for me to understand what the use of masculine and feminine forms of words means in context. Take the following passage for example:

Neither my body nor my mind was worn out from studying when my father took(m) me to Paris at the age of thirteen. At that point, I knew only how to read and write, and not well at that. I, however, fell into the hands(f) of my uncle and aunt who made(m) me feel ashamed(m) of my ignorance and who motivated me to study. Furthermore, they alerted and warned me that if I revealed the truth of my sex I would be locked away(f) in a convent forever. (p4)

In "my father took(m) me" took is masculine. Does that mean that d'Eon is masculine, her father is masculine or the act of taking is masculine? What about "made(m) me feel ashamed(m) of my ignorance" is d'Eon masculine or is her shame masculine? If her sex if revealed she will be "locked away(f) in a convent". Why is the word away feminine?

One thing that I particularly found interesting is that the pronoun "me" is sometimes marked as feminine, sometimes masculine, but most often not marked as either. So we have:

The Revolution made me(m) so rich that today I do not have the means to buy ink or paper.

And then just a few paragraphs later:

I would just as soon suffer childbirth as to be doing this painful work of writing, which I have begun because of the destitution to which the Revolution has reduced me(f).

Then a few paragraphs latter:

I am no longer a disciple of this world since my wonderful conversion, which separated me(f) completely from the body of the dragoons and from the sin of my uniform and which finally stripped away the old man in order to make of me a totally new being before Our Lord, in the eyes of men, in front of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting as well as the Daughters of Holy Mary, and in the hopes of the fortune reserved for me in heaven. The knowledge of that fortune has filled me(m) with complete wisdom and spiritual intelligence so that I might bring to fruition every good action and so that I might behave as befits a Christian woman not only before the world but also before the Lord, since during my novitiate I was washed(f), probed(f), tested(f), corrected(f), corroborated(f), strengthened(f), and rooted(f) in every way, which I endured, in complete patience and spiritual tranquility, the Lord having erased my obligations, which consisted of military orders, orders contrary to my spirit, and which He completely abolished and replaced with my new obligation to live and die in the essential purity of my innocent dress, no longer thinking of those things here below but only about those on high. (p136-137)

The switching back and forth between "me(m)" and "me(f)" is interesting but I honestly have no idea what it means.

If I ignore all the little "f"s and "m"s the gendered language seems pretty clear and consistent. D'Eon is a woman who was raised as a boy. She is feminine in the present tense but sometimes masculine in the past tense. But I can't just ignore the fact that I'm reading a translation. That would not be a honest analysis of her memoirs. I'd love if someone who is familiar with French went through her writing and really analysed her use of gendered language. I'm unfortunately restricted by the limits of working with a translation.

[gatheringbones]

[“This new community Gloria and Cherríe and Audre opened through their writing made room for a multitude of lesbians, and also the multitude that existed within Gloria. My college linguistics professor shared only one part of the woman when she handed out xeroxed PDFs that described how Gloria was punished in grade school every time she spoke Spanish—three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler, like what the nuns would give my father when he spoke out of turn. We analyzed how Anzaldúa mixed languages, one of the first to capture the way her community spoke, without ever translating for her audience. The professor chose which parts of her to share and excised the rest.

To this day I’m not sure how my professors kept up this convenient fiction when Gloria, unlike the lesbians before her, left behind volumes of material about her identity, sexual and otherwise, more than I could possibly know what to do with. Borderlands. Her contributions to Bridge. Countless unfinished works she references in interviews. Her personal letters and papers, held at the University of Austin. Interviews. In academia, Gloria wrote, I find that my lesbianism gets hidden behind the overt race stuff.

Her lesbian identity was so important to her that she claimed it in spite of the fact that she could not live up to the standard of purity that the separatists demanded of those who set foot on their lands. I have yet to have a full sexual relationship, a live-in relationship with a woman. She mentions a man lover without dismissing or qualifying their relationship. She embraces her contradictions and makes no effort to resolve them just to make others comfortable. She lays bare how the pain caused by her hormonal imbalance complicated her relationship to sex and delayed her interest in physical intimacy. For a while, I just didn’t have a sexuality. Do you think I’m a lesbian when I’m celibate? Then, in spite of her Catholic upbringing and in spite of the heterosexuality that surrounded her, she made the choice to be queer. Lesbianism was yet another marker of the duality, the plurality, that lived within her. I, like other queer people, am two in one body, both male and female.

Even though Gloria chose lesbian, she did not want to be pigeonholed as a lesbian writer. Middle-class, white, heterosexual people had the privilege of being simply a writer, no pesky little adjective out front to qualify their work. To call Gloria a lesbian writer would deny the other aspects of her identity, the other parts of her self. One’s own body is not one entity. She did not limit Bridge to contributions from lesbians. In place of separatism, which would ask her to deny not only the male within but also the men who joined her in the fight for liberation, she believed in El Mundo Zurdo, the Left-Handed World, a world where the colored, the queer, the poor, the female, the physically challenged would be empowered. I’m married to the writing. The writing is my lover. I call her la Musa Bruja.”]

amelia possanza, from lesbian love story: a memoir in archives, 2023

[explosionshark]

top 5 horror book recommendations? it's spooky season and i need to get my read on...

Hell yeah! Gonna break this down a little. First an obligatory rehash of books I always recommend for this, these are like all-time faves for me

Wounds/North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud - can't choose between these two, so they're tied for my favorite single author short story collection. Nathan Ballingrud is one of my favorite writers of all time

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado - a very very close second for my favorite single-author short story collection. Machado is a beautiful writer and finding an author writing such powerful horror from a queer woman's perspective was world changing for me.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson - COME ON!!!! You might have already read this but consider reading it again! Absolute classic.

The Cipher by Kathe Koja - dark, fucked up meditation on art and addiction and toxic relationships. I think about this book all the time. A guy finds a weird hole in his apartment basement and then everything goes wrong (first slowly and then very very quickly)

Red X by David Demchuk - talked about this a lot before too but I really do love it. Fictional story inspired by real life serial killings that took place in Toronto's gay village over decades. The author inserts essays throughout the book that makes it part memoir as well. A supernatural story about real queer trauma.

--

Okay with that out of the way, here's some recommendations for stuff I think would be fun for Halloween specifically

Echoes edited by Ellen Datlow - OKAY CHEATING I ALSO RECOMMEND THIS ALL THE TIME BUT IT'S A PERFECT OCTOBER BOOK!!! Fuck-off huge ghost story anthology. Huge range of tones, pretty diverse group of contributing authors, it's my all-time favorite anthology.

Slewfoot by BROM - this one's got major autumn vibes. It's a story of a woman in Puritan New England who's accused of witchcraft. It's also a story about the devil. Kind of. The print version has really amazing paintings by the author, but I've heard this is also good in audio.

Come Closer by Sara Gran - this is a great little novella. Possession story that really packs a punch. I can't really say much more than that, but it's not a huge time investment and I think it's really worthwhile.

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu - if you can, get the version edited by Carmen Maria Machado (she adds in some great footnotes and it has some neat art too). This is a classic and also quite a brisk read. The original lesbian vampire story.

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - here's a new release for you! I always watch a ton of horror movies in October, and if you're anything like me maybe you'll want to read a horror novel about horror movies. This story follows a female film editor in 90s Mexico and her washed up actor friend as they help a retired filmmaker complete his famously unfinished last film, which he had been making with a former Nazi occultist before strange misfortunes and the occultist's mysterious disappearance forced production to shut down.

Okay that was double the amount of recommendations requested so I'm stopping here. Haha don't look in the tags don't worry about it there's nothing there you're crazy

[mercerislandbooks]

My Mother, the Reader

I told my mom I was going to be writing about how much she fostered my own love of reading. She said, “You know, it all started in the library, when I had one of my first jobs as a page.” Back in the sixties, my mom was a teenager in the little desert town of Lancaster, California. I pictured my mom in her A-line dresses, pushing a library cart around to re-shelve books in the evenings. She said she got very distracted reading the titles of the books as she was alphabetizing them. Sounds like someone else I know, who also gets distracted reading the backs of interesting books that customers bring up to the register.

For as long as I can remember my mom read to us, me and my younger brother. She would read out loud to us on long car trips, books like Hatchet and The Fairy Rebel, complete with all the voices. Even though I was impatient because I could read faster on my own, I loved hearing a story unfold in her voice. We always had books in the house, either stacks from the library or gently worn paperbacks from the used bookstore or books ordered from the Scholastic Book Club. Mom put clear Contact paper on my paperbacks, the stuff that you use to line shelves, to make them last longer since I took them everywhere and read them to pieces.

She told me that at some point she couldn’t keep up with concurrently reading everything I was reading and had to just let it go. For birthdays and Christmas she would buy me the most recent (hardback!) books in whatever fantasy series I was obsessed with, lurid covers and all. When she needed recommendations for something new for me, she would go to Island Books and get advice from Cindy. I vividly remember her sending me Dorothy Dunnett’s Game of Kings my first year in college, thus kicking off my love for Lymond. When she chooses for herself, my mom often gravitates towards mysteries, especially ones with over-the-top titles. The winner so far is Pennies on a Dead Man’s Eyes. Nothing else about it but the title has been retained, but it still gives us a laugh. She read all the Sue Grafton mysteries, and she and my dad pass the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child between them. 

But she doesn’t just stick to one genre. She’s adventurous and wide-ranging in her reading. When she got into poetry, I remember collections of Neruda and Mary Oliver and Billy Collins around the house. On trips, she’ll always go to indie bookstores and ask the booksellers to recommend a local author or select something off the staff picks shelf. She reads the Seattle Reads Book every year. She’s willing to give nearly anything that sounds interesting to her a try. It inspires me to be more adventurous myself and venture outside my comfort genres.

Now, as a bookseller, I’m the one enabling my mom. I’ll bring her titles I think she’ll be interested in, or ones she’s asked me about. I pass on the books I’ve particularly loved, making sure her TBR is just as big as mine. Right now she’s catching up with the middle of Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series (I suspect she’s already read these, but she’ll happily read them again), and she just finished The Woman in the Room by L. Jane Hastings, a memoir of a female architect in Seattle that was written up in the Seattle Times. She’s got Percival Everett’s Erasure started, and several Rachel Linden books. She picked up Amy Tan's The Backyard Bird Chronicles. Her stack of started and unfinished-as-of-yet books is almost as tall as mine. I’m not sure if I can get away with giving her another book for Mother’s Day (unless there’s one she asks for). I feel lucky that I get to share this passion for books with my mom, and grateful for all the many ways she’s encouraged my love of reading throughout my life.

If you’re looking for a gift for Mother’s Day (coming up on May 12th), stop by Island Books to peruse our stacks of books, curated gift items and wide range of cards. And ask your mom — or the mother figures in your life — what they’ve been reading lately. The answer might surprise you!

— Lori

[redfurrycat]

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen > FR/EN/ESP (One of my fav)

2 Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein > FR/EN (FAV!!)

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte > FR/EN (Also FAV!!)

4 Harry Potter series > FR/EN/ESP/IT (Chilhood books)

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee > EN

6 The Bible > FR (For school...)

7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte > FR/EN (FAV!!)

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell > FR/EN (Very interesting reading!)

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman > FR/EN (FAV!!)

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens > EN

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare > FR/EN (I probably didn't read ALL of the works though... but I'd like to and I wil!!)

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien > FR/EN (FAV)

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffeneger > (Title's extremely familiar, I must have read it)

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald > FR/EN

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy > FR (Unfinished)

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky > FR (Unfinished)

28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll > FR/EN

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy > FR (Unfinished)

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens > EN

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis > FR/EN (FAV!!)

34 Emma – Jane Austen > FR/EN

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen > FR/EN (FAV!!!!!!!!)

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis > FR/EN (FAV!!)

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden > EN (That's a GOOD ONE)

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne > FR

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown > FR

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez > ESP (Ugh.... Cien años de soledad)

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood > EN

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert > EN (Reading this one at the moment)

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen > EN/FR (FAV!!)

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens > EN

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon > EN

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez > ESP (Also ugh...El amor en los tiempos del cólera... wasn't a fan)

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas > FR

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding > FR/EN

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville > EN

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens > EN

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker W FR/EN

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce > EN

76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens > FR/EN

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert > FR

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle > FR

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery > FR

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas > FR

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare > EN

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl > FR/EN

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo > FR (Unfinished though)

----

Results: 47/100.... Not bad :D

How many have you read?

The BBC estimates that most people will only read 6 books out of the 100 listed below. Reblog this and bold the titles you’ve read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein 3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffeneger 20 Middlemarch – George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis 34 Emma – Jane Austen 35 Persuasion – Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne 41 Animal Farm – George Orwell 42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving 45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding 50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel 52 Dune – Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens 58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens 72 Dracula – Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses – James Joyce 76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal – Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession – AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel 83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks 94 Watership Down – Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

[uncleweed]

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/books/28hemingway.html

By Motoko Rich

June 27, 2009

Besides its tart portraits of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway’s posthumous memoir of his early days in Paris, “A Moveable Feast,” provides a heart-wrenching depiction of marital betrayal.

The final chapter, “There Is Never Any End to Paris,” is a wistful paean to Hadley Richardson, Hemingway’s first wife, whom the writer left for her best friend. The friend, Pauline Pfeiffer, the wealthy woman who became Hemingway’s second wife, is portrayed as something of a wily predator, and it is Hemingway’s “bad luck” that he falls for her.

It turns out that the story behind the editing of the book is nearly as juicy as the tales within it, and has become something of a multigenerational custody battle over how to cast the larger-than-life author’s stormy romantic history.

Mary Hemingway, the writer’s fourth and final wife, was the one who edited the first edition of “A Moveable Feast,” published by Scribner in 1964, cobbling it together from shards of the unfinished manuscript he left behind. She created a final chapter that dealt with the dissolution of Hemingway’s first marriage and the beginning of his relationship with Pauline, building some of it from parts of the book he had indicated he did not want included

[xtruss]

Life-Saving Tool or Torture Device?

The Answer, Once You Learn the History of the Speculum, is a Little of Both

— March 15, 2024 | Kirstin Butler

1847 Specula. Source image: National Library of Medicine.

Many iterations came before and have gone since, but the most controversial version of the speculum started out, in 1845, as a bent spoon. That was when an Alabama-based doctor named James Marion Sims set out to treat an agonizing medical condition, and in the process established precedent for the practice of modern gynecology—in more ways than one.

Sims was attending to a patient who had been thrown off of her horse, and in landing on her pelvis, developed uterine retroversion (a tipping, or tilting backward, of the uterus). In the process of attending to her, Sims was struck by the insight that a custom-fashioned tool would allow him to see better into the vaginal canal. His first foray into speculum design was a doubly bent spoon that allowed him to separate and hold apart the vaginal walls. “Introducing the bent handle of the spoon I saw everything, as no man had ever seen before,” Sims later wrote in his unfinished memoir, The Story of My Life. “I felt I was on the eve of one of the great discoveries of the day.” Sims’s first experiments with that speculum were all done on enslaved women.

An Engraving Demonstrating the Sims Speculum (Bracket-Shaped Metal Instrument). Wikimedia Commons.

He ran a small private hospital—a “Surgical Infirmary for Negroes,” read an 1852 ad in Montgomery’s Weekly Advertiser, where he was “enabled to offer his professional services to his friends.” “It's really impossible to talk about the beginning of gynecology in America without talking about slavery because they were so deeply entwined and dependent on each other,” says Rachel Gross, science journalist and the author of Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage. Sims himself had slaves, and, Gross adds, “worked with other slaveholders to experiment on enslaved women in order to develop techniques that would help them continue to give birth, and continue to work.”

Sims used his new speculum to perform surgery on vesicovaginal fistulas, abscesses that often developed during difficult births, where the pressure of labor damaged tissue between the vagina and bladder or rectum. His surgeries on enslaved women were conducted without the use of anesthesia. Sims noted in his memoir that he operated on one woman, named only as Anarcha, 30 times.

He was lauded for his work, becoming the president of the American Medical Association in 1876 and then the founder and president of the American Gynecological Association. In a tribute written after Sims’s death, the American doctor W.O. Baldwin breathlessly wrote that the eponymous Sims speculum “has been to diseases of the womb what the printing press is to civilization, what the compass is to the mariner, what steam is to navigation, what the telescope is to astronomy.”

Baldwin’s encomium conveniently overlooked one historical aspect, however. “The speculum has been around for a really long time,” historian Deirdre Cooper Owens tells American Experience. “You can go to Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome, the site of modern western medicine, and you'll find specula that existed.” What changed with the popularization of Sims’s design were the mores around gynecology. “Most men did not perform vaginal examinations, or pelvic examinations on their female patients because of the gender ideals of the time,” says Dr. Cooper Owens. “Now, these things become a bit more nuanced when we’re talking about enslaved people, or poor people, or people who were institutionalized in asylums. They tended to be the ones that were exploited, as doctors experimented and used their bodies literally as canvases to learn from. That kind of paints the picture of American medicine that we know today.”

The 19th-Century Metal Cusco Vaginal Speculum Still Closely Resembles the Design of Most Specula Used Today. Science Museum Group, C. Firmin Cuthbert Collection.

As for the speculum itself, others refined Sims’s design in the decades that followed. In 1870, Edward Gabriel Cusco introduced a two-bladed instrument that featured a screw mechanism to hold the blades open inside the vaginal canal. Cusco’s bivalve construction was further iterated upon by T.W. Graves, a Massachusetts-based doctor. It was Graves’s duckbilled speculum—which combined elements of Sims’s curved design and Cusco’s double-bladed device—that eventually became most popular within the medical establishment.

Then a century after Sims’s crudely fashioned cutlery, the speculum came to play a central role in the battle against cervical cancer, at the time the deadliest form of cancer for women. Dr. George Papanicolaou conceived of taking a swab of cells from the cervix for examination under a microscope; the speculum made it possible for physicians to gather the cervical tissue from patients. Thus was the pap smear born, drastically diminishing the numbers of casualties as a result of cervical cancer.

However, today the incidence of advanced-stage cervical cancer is on the rise again, in part because fewer women are getting pap smears as a preventative measure. According to the National Institutes of Health, the percentage of women overdue for cervical cancer screening went from 14% in 2005 to 23% in 2019. Some of that reticence, perhaps, has to do with the long reach of Sims’s paternalistic legacy. “A pap smear is not done in a neutral environment,” Gross asserts. “When you enter an office with a doctor, a very real power dynamic becomes established where you feel like there is sort of an authority of your body.”

Vaginal Specula Today Tend to be Single-Use Plastic. Image by Whispyhistory, Wikimedia Commons.

The burgeoning “femtech” industry (a term coined in 2013 to describe technology geared toward female biology) aims to change that by making the experience of cervical cancer screenings feel less invasive—and that includes reimagining the speculum. But updating a 150-year-old design is only part of a larger picture. “People have really bad experiences getting pelvic exams and pap smears where they feel their body was violated, they weren't treated with respect or dignity,” says Gross. “That's not quite a problem with the tool, itself. That’s a problem with the culture of medicine, and the place of healthcare in our society, and how we communicate to women what this is for and what they’re allowed to know about their own bodies.”

— A Vaginal Speculum is a medical device that allows physicians and health providers to better view a woman’s cervix and vagina during pelvic exams. Most specula are made of metal and plastic, and physicians insert a portion of the speculum into the patient’s vagina to separate the vaginal walls.

[blogger360ncislarules]

Let the trumpets play that Mouret theme song — we’re rounding up the 15 best Masterpiece series from the half-century-plus history of the PBS drama anthology.

Masterpiece was previously titled Masterpiece Theatre, and as you might deduce from that spelling, the franchise specializes in British imports — usually costume dramas and period mysteries, with contemporary stories thrown in occasionally for good measure.

Of the Masterpiece productions with more than 10,000 user votes on IMDb, here are the top 15, ranked by average user rating.

15

2012–2013

Based on Au Bonheur des Dames by Émile Zola, this series stars Joanna Vanderham as a small-town woman who gets a job at the first English department store in 1875 and falls for its dashing owner. “Witty, moving, adorable, suspenseful, intriguing, and the list goes on,” one viewer said on IMDb. “Hats off — pun intended.”

14

2019–2023

An unfinished Jane Austen manuscript inspired this series about a young woman (played by Rose Williams) who moves to a fishing town that aspires to become a seaside resort. “Yet again the Brits prove that nobody can do a period piece like they can!” one fan raved. “They always have the right balance of love, drama, relatable emotion, scandal, heartbreak, etc.”

13

2014–2023

A series of clergymen (played by James Norton, Tom Brittney, and — soon — Rishi Nair) investigate local crimes with the help of a detective inspector (played by Robson Green) in the titular Cambridgeshire village in this series. “I came to Grantchester after a few seasons of Father Brown,” said one IMDb user. “While another ‘priest plus cop’ series seemed redundant, Grantchester is brilliantly written and acted.”

12

2008

In this adaptation of the classic Austen story — a more overtly sexual one than others, according to screenwriter Andrew Davies — then-newcomers Hattie Morahan and Charity Wakefield played polar-opposite sisters at the start of their 19th-century romantic journeys. “This serial … is my favorite rendition of its novel,” one viewer wrote. “In the first hour, it’s my favorite by far.”

11

2009

Romola Garai, Jonny Lee Miller, and the late Michael Gambon starred in this Austen adaptation, with Garai playing the meddlesome would-be matchmaker (and earning a Golden Globe nomination for her performance). “Everything — the acting, the costumes, storyline, and music — was just so superbly done,” an IMDb user enthused. “This version of Emma far surpasses its predecessors.”

10

2015

Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis, and Claire Foy brought Hilary Mantel’s historical novel to life, with Rylance portraying Thomas Cromwell as the lawyer becomes a close advisor to Henry VIII (Lewis) amid the king’s relationship with Anne Boleyn (Foy). “Mark Rylance was just mesmerizing,” one viewer said. “From the moment he appeared, he held me in thrall.”

9

2016–2019

Jenna Coleman portrayed a young Queen Victoria in this series that tracked the monarch’s ascension to the throne and her marriage to Prince Albert (Tom Hughes). “This has been the most amazing series since Downton Abbey I have watched,” an IMDb user wrote. “I laughed, I cried, I got angry. I felt every emotion humanly possible through watching it.”

8

2016–2019

Simply titled The Durrells across the pond, this comedy-drama follows a widow and her four children as they adapt to life on a Greek isle, taking inspiration from the memoirs of real-life British naturalist Gerard Durrell. “Overall it is just charming, crammed full of dry wit, and a bit of a page-turner, as I can’t wait for the next episode,” one fan opined.

7

2005

Twenty years after giving Masterpiece one Bleak House adaptation, the BBC sent over another, written by Davies, with Gillian Anderson and Carey Mulligan in the cast of a Charles Dickens tale that the network deemed a “passionate indictment” of England’s 19th-century legal system. “450+ minutes of a film is a long time to have your breath taken away,” a viewer said, “but that’s what happened when I first watched this magnificent adaptation.”

6

2006

Before screenwriter Sandy Welch adapted the aforementioned Emma for the BBC, she brought this Charlotte Brontë story to the network, with Ruth Wilson making a breakout turn as the titular governess with a troublesome past. “A lavish production in all the right ways — script, cast, direction, location, details — this is a perfect literary adaptation,” one IMDb user rhapsodized.

5

2007–2009

Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton, and an Emmy-winning Eileen Atkins played village women living on the verge of the Industrial Revolution in this five-part series based on Elizabeth Gaskell novellas. “Not a dry eye in the house as this came to a close last night,” one viewer said. “Absolute perfection.”

4

2015–2019

Aidan Turner gained fans on both sides of the Atlantic with this series about a British Army officer returning to Cornwall after the American Revolution and finding his family home nothing like how he left it. “I use IMDb all the time to look at reviews, but I never leave them,” one user wrote. “I signed up for an account just so I could rate this series because it is that awesome.”

3

2010–2015

A Masterpiece series so popular it inspired two big-screen movies, this upstairs-downstairs drama followed the aristocratic Crawley family and their staff as they navigate the turbulent early 20th century. “Downton Abbey is the embodiment of excellence,” a fan said. “Well written with intelligent and inspiring storylines.”

2

1976

Based on the Robert Graves novel of the same name and its sequel, this miniseries chronicled the early Roman Empire through decades of Claudius’ reign. Derek Jacobi starred as the title emperor, and the supporting cast included a still-up-and-coming Patrick Stewart. “I, Claudius is the ultimate soap opera — vicious, cruel, manipulative — and this famous English miniseries grabs the attention and holds fast throughout the entire length of its complex tale of ancient intrigue,” one viewer said.

1

2010–2017

A modern-day take on the Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective, Sherlock stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the title character and Martin Freeman as sidekick Watson, with Andrew Scott stealing scenes as the archenemy Moriarty. “[This] will have Conan Doyle spinning in his grave… with delight,” one fan said. “A brilliantly written, well-acted program. Well done to all concerned.”

[intriguingpeoplebyangelafloyd]

ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA

ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA “Sissi”

Empress who was murdered        

1837-1898

            Empress of Austria was born into the royal Bavarian house of Wittelsbach. She married Emperor Franz Joseph I when she was 16. At the end of her life, her relationship with her husband was one of friendship rather than romantic. She had never been comfortable in courtly life and was known for her charity work.  

            Her only son and heir Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, aged 30, committed suicide with his mistress Mary Vetsera in his hunting lodge at Mayerling in 1880. His death resulted in Elisabeth withdrawing from her courtly duties. During this time she lost her son, her father, her sister and her mother. She spent the rest of her life wearing black.

            In 1890, she had a palace named the ‘Achilleion’ at Corfu, Greek Islands which she would visit. Elisabeth was obsessed with maintaining her youth, her looks and beauty.

            On 10 September 1898, whilst travelling in Geneva, Switzerland, Elisabeth, aged 61, was stabbed to death by an Italian man, Luigi Lucheni, 25. She was travelling incognito with her lady-in-waiting, Countess Irma Sztaray. After lunch they left the hotel to the shore of Lake Geneva to catch the steamship to go to Montreux. They were walking when Luchini approached them and attempted to look underneath the empress’s shade umbrella. The ship rang its bell to let passengers know it was ready to depart. Luchini made a stumble movement, and stabbed Elisabeth with a sharp needle file. She collapsed and onlookers rushed over to help her, Elisabeth told them ‘it’s nothing’ as she was not aware that she had been stabbed. One man helped her back on her feet and the two women boarded the boat. Elisabeth lost consciousness and collapsed, there were no doctors on-board and only a nurse could be located. Three men laid her on a bench and cut her corset which relieved her somewhat, she was asked if she was in pain and she replied, ‘no’ and asked ‘what has happened?’ and lost consciousness once again. The men noticed a brain stain above her left breast (where she was stabbed), she was then taken to a nearby hotel and by the time she was placed onto the bed, she was already dead.

            Luchini had fled but was soon caught. He said he had wanted to kill the Duke of Orleans, but was unable to get access to him, he decided to kill Elisabeth instead. She was a random target, as he just wanted to kill somebody who was a sovereign and didn’t care which one it was. “It was not a woman I struck, but an Empress; it was a crown that I had in view.” He was declared as sane, and was imprisoned for life. In prison he attempted suicide with a sharp key from a tin of sardines in 1900, it failed. His second suicide attempt was more successful, 10-years later he hanged himself with his belt in 1910, after a guard destroyed his unfinished memoir which he had been writing.

#elisabethofaustria

[thebobby1432world]

Mary Wollstonecraft Biography, Wiki, Age, Height, Weight, Family

Mary Wollstonecraft Biography: Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate for women's rights. Although her unconventional personal relationships received more attention than her writing during her lifetime, today, Wollstonecraft is recognized as a founding feminist philosopher. Her life and works are often cited as influential in the feminist movement. Mary Wollstonecraft Biography. Wollstonecraft wrote novels, treatizes, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book in her brief career. She is best known for her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men but only appear to be so because of their lack of education. She envisions a social order founded on reason where men and women are treated as rational beings. Mary Wollstonecraft Biography. Mary Wollstonecraft Biography After Wollstonecraft's death, her widower published a Memoir (1798) of her life, which revealed her unconventional lifestyle and damaged her reputation for nearly a century. However, with the rise of the feminist movement in the twentieth century, Wollstonecraft's advocacy for women's equality and her critiques of conventional femininity became increasingly important. Wollstonecraft had two ill-fated affairs, with Henry Fuseli and Gilbert Imlay (with whom she had a daughter, Fanny Imlay), before marrying the philosopher William Godwin, a forefather of the anarchist movement. She died at the age of 38, leaving behind several unfinished manuscripts. Her second daughter, Mary Shelley, was born eleven days after her death. Shelley would become an accomplished writer and the author of Frankenstein.

Mary Wollstonecraft Biography

Mary Wollstonecraft Biography

Date of birthApril 27, 1759BirthplaceSpitalfields, LondonParentsElizabeth Dixon and Edward John WollstonecraftNumber of siblings7Family's financial situationBecame financially unstable due to father's speculative projectsWollstonecraft's inheritanceFather compelled her to turn it over to himFather's behaviourViolent, he would beat his wife in drunken ragesWollstonecraft's role in the familyA maternal role for sisters, Everina and ElizaWollstonecraft's actions for ElizaPersuaded her to leave her husband and infant due to postpartum depressionFirst important friendshipJane ArdenIntellectual atmosphereIn Arden householdEmotional possessivenessExpressed towards ArdenSecond important friendshipFanny (Frances) BloodWollstonecraft's jobLady's companion to Sarah Dawson in BathWollstonecraft's return homeTo care for her dying motherWollstonecraft's living situation after her mother's deathMoved in with the BloodsWollstonecraft's dream with BloodTo live in a female utopiaThe school set up by Wollstonecraft, her sisters, and BloodIn Newington Green, a Dissenting communityBlood's marriage and moveTo Lisbon, Portugal, with her husband, Hugh SkeysBlood's healthIt became worse when pregnant, despite the moveWollstonecraft's departure from schoolTo nurse BloodBlood's deathDevastated Wollstonecraft YearEvent1785Blood dies; Wollstonecraft becomes governess to the Kingsborough family in Ireland1788Wollstonecraft publishes Original Stories from Real Life1787Wollstonecraft decides to pursue a career as an author1790Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Men1792Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Talleyrand-Périgord visits Wollstonecraft, and she advocates for girls' education in France. Wollstonecraft's relationship with Henry Fuseli ends; she travels to France. DateEventDecember 1792Wollstonecraft left for Paris.January 1793Wollstonecraft arrived in Paris.February 1793France declared war on Britain.March 1793The Committee of Public Safety came to power.April 1793All foreigners were forbidden to leave France.October 16, 1793Marie Antoinette was guillotined.October 31, 1793Most of the Girondin leaders were guillotined. Disclaimer: The above information is for general informational purposes only. All information on the Site is provided in good faith. However, we make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on the Site. Read the full article

[chrissybooksandberries]

Book Reviews : An Unfinished Woman by Lillian Hellman

This is a memoir about a strong. smart and witty woman. I loved hearing stories about her travels and the company of writers that she was friends with.

[venicepearl]

Mary Wollstonecraft (27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was an English 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 (1798) of her life, revealing her unorthodox lifestyle, which inadvertently destroyed her reputation for almost a century. However, with the emergence of the feminist movement at the turn of the twentieth century, Wollstonecraft's advocacy of women's equality and critiques of conventional femininity became increasingly important.

After two ill-fated affairs, with Henry Fuseli and Gilbert Imlay (by whom she had a daughter, Fanny Imlay), Wollstonecraft married the philosopher William Godwin, one of the forefathers of the anarchist movement. Wollstonecraft died at the age of 38 leaving behind several unfinished manuscripts. She died 11 days after giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Shelley, who would become an accomplished writer and author of Frankenstein.

[bitter69uk]

“Ivy Nicholson was a working-class girl from New York City who lit up the 1950s as one of Europe’s top fashion models, married a French count, posed topless for Salvador Dali and became one of the first “superstars” in Andy Warhol’s Factory. It was a flashbulb life built on bravado and sheer magnetism. But it was not a solid life, and when the 1960s ended and the big checks stopped coming, she was left on her own. She spent her last decades in or near poverty, sometimes homeless, telling anyone who would listen that she was on her way back up.” 

The New York Times obituary for erstwhile fashion model and Warhol Superstar Ivy Nicholson (née Irene Nicholson, 22 February 1933 - 25 October 2021) – who has died aged 88 – is compulsory reading! My highlights from her fabulous, messy life: 

“In her 20s Ms Nicholson appeared on the covers of Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Bazaar and other magazines. She built a reputation: fearlessly inventing characters and looks for her shoots, but often arriving hours late to the studio and refusing to pose until someone brought foie gras or met some other demand.” 

“When Howard Hawks flew her to Egypt in 1954 for a role in his epic movie Land of the Pharaohs, she objected to the studio’s multiyear contract. So, as she later told the story, she bit one of the actors to get out of the deal. Her replacement was Joan Collins.” 

“She went on to get small parts in Italian movies and by her account became obsessed with the actor Anthony Perkins. When he did not return her affections, she later said, she slit her wrists. The suicide attempt cost her a role in Federico Fellini’s “8½,” according to her unfinished memoir.” 

Reading it, I was struck by Nicholson’s parallels with her fellow Warhol superstar Nico (another international supermodel in the fifties who actually DID appear in a Fellini film) and Maila Nurmi (aka Vampira), who also heedlessly squandered opportunities and burnt bridges in her prime and later lived in poverty. (Nurmi also romantically pursued Tony Perkins!). 

As a frequently homeless older woman, Nicholson maintained her sense of style and looked strikingly ravaged and wraith-like (like Nico, Chet Baker or Anita Pallenberg she exuded ruined glamour). It sounds like she lived on her own terms and remained a free spirit until the end. What a woman!

[steliosagapitos]

             “Gelsomina (Jasmine)”, 1888, by Marie Spartali Stillman (British painter, 1844-1927).

        ~ Born 10 March 1844, Marie Euphrosyne Spartali was the youngest daughter of Euphrosyne and Michael Spartali, a wealthy and cosmopolitan merchant and later Greek consul general for London. Marie and her sister Christine and brother Demetrius were raised in a large house in Clapham, which became the centre of the Greek community in the 1860s. The Anglo-Greek connoisseur Constantine Ionides who patronised Burne-Jones and Rossetti and whose collection is now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, was a great friend of the Spartalis and it was probably this connection that led to Marie being 'discovered' by the Pre-Raphaelites. Marie was also a cousin of Maria Zambaco (née Cassavetti), Burne-Jones’ mistress and model, and Aglaia Coronio the confidante of both Rossetti and William Morris, and the three women were known as the ‘Three Graces’ after their Greek heritage and striking beauty. It is said that the Spartali girls’ debut was made in the late 1860s at a garden party in Tulse Hill given by relations of the Ionides family, where their arrival caused a stir among the invited artists. 'We were all á genoux before them and of course every one of us burned with a desire to paint them' recalled the artist Thomas Armstrong.The perceptive Graham Robertson described Marie thus, 'I always recommended would-be but wavering worshippers to start with Mrs. Stillman, who was, so to speak, Mrs. Morris for beginners. The two marvels had many points in common: the same lofty stature, the same long sweep of limb, the 'neck like a tower', the night-dark tresses and the eyes of mystery, yet Mrs. Stillman's loveliness conformed to the standard of ancient Greece and could at once be appreciated, while study of her trained the eye to understand the more esoteric beauty of Mrs Morris and 'trace in Venus' eyes the gaze of Proserpine.' (Ibid Robertson, p. 95) whilst the poet Swinburne exclaimed that she was ‘so beautiful I feel as if I could sit down and cry.’ (Thomas Armstrong, A Memoir 1832-1911, 1912, p. 195) Around 1864 Marie posed for a series of exquisite photographs by the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and among the most notable costumed portraits of Marie are Hypatia, Mnemosyne and The Spirit of the Vine. She also posed for portraits by Watts and Prinsep and was painted by Spencer Stanhope as Patience on a Monument Smiling at Grief in 1887 (De Morgan Foundation). Marie was also the model for several imposing later works by Rossetti including Dante’s Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice (Walker Art Gallery), The Bower Meadow (Manchester City Art Gallery) and the unfinished Desdemona's Death Song (drawings at Birmingham City Art Gallery and the Collection of Lord Lloyd Webber). Gelsomina was exhibited in the year before Stillman exhibited her most ambitious watercolour The Enchanted Garden of Messer Ansaldo (sold Christie's, London, 10 December 2020, lot 4 for almost £875,000). It is a beautiful and characteristic example of Stillman's best-work, a single half-length study of a Pre-Raphaelite model with floral accessories. It is comparable with Madonna Pietra degli Scrovigni of 1884 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), Cloister Lilies of 1891 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) and A Rose in Armida's Garden of 1894 (private collection). This format was based upon Rossetti's pictures of voluptuous female models painted in the 1860s and 1870s, such as Monna Vanna of 1866 (Tate) and La Ghirlandata of 1873 (Guildhall Art Gallery, London). The title translates from the Italian as 'Jasmine' - the flowers arranged in the hair of the model. Like Rossetti, Stillman chose models that suited her conception of female beauty and it is difficult to be sure who the model was for Gelsomina but it is probably that it was her twenty-three year old step-daughter Lisa who often appeared in her step-mother's pictures. Lisa had grown into an attractive young woman:‘She is the most beautiful girl I ever saw, everyone who sees her (male and female alike) goes wild over her, and it is no wonder. You can't keep your eyes off her, she is so beautiful. Besides great and unusual beauty, she possesses other charms. She is bright and pleasant and draws extremely well. 'JOSEPH LINDON SMITH, 1886 Eliza (Lisa) Ramona Stillman was born two days before Christmas 1865 in Rome which may account for the Italian title of the present work, although Italy was very dear to Marie as she spent many happy years there.Although there was a time when Marie Stillman was regarded as just a Pre-Raphaelite beauty who modelled for Rossetti, Cameron and Burne-Jones, her reputation as a talented artist has finally been re-assessed following the opening of several exhibitions devoted to her art and an excellent biography. She exhibited more than a hundred and fifty pictures during her lifetime and was arguably the most significant female Pre-Raphaelite, alongside Evelyn de Morgan. From its opening exhibition in 1877 Stillman had sent her pictures to the Grosvenor Gallery, the radical venue for Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic painters set up by Sir Coutts Lindsay and Charles Halle. However, by the late 1880s Stillman was disillusioned by the objectives of the Grosvenor Gallery. In the diary of William Michael Rossetti, 20 February 1888, he wrote; ‘Mrs Stillman dined with us. She means to abandon the Grosvenor Gallery and Sir Coutts Lindsay and to exhibit at the New Gallery conducted by Halle and Carr. She says that at the Grosvenor her direct relations were all with Halle and not with L[indsay]. She seemed to regard L’s prospects as far from good.’ (quoted in David B. Elliott, A Pre-Raphaelite Marriage - The Lives and Works of Marie Spartali Stillman & William James Stillman, Woodbridge, 2006, p. 152) Therefore Stillman sent Gelsomina (meaning ‘Jasmine’ in Italian) to the inaugural exhibition of The New Gallery set up at 121 Regent Street by former directors of the Grosvenor Gallery Joseph Comyns Carr and Charles Edward Halle. Many artists, including Watts, Leighton and Burne-Jones also abandoned the Grosvenor Gallery and supported The New. In the same exhibition as Gelsomina was Burne-Jones’ Danae (Glasgow Museum and Art Gallery) for which Marie was the model. ~

[shezzaspeare]

Pilot/Episode 1: Patching Things Up With Pastiche & Fanfiction

Hi, hello, and the wait is finally over! My name is Blessie, and welcome to the first episode webisode log installation I've decided to call these things an episode for now because why not also let me know what do you actually call these things episode of The Science of Fanfiction, where we take a closer look into our beloved works of fanon because we've all got plenty of time to spare till Season 5. Before I continue, I would like to thank everyone who's liked and reblogged the last few posts before this one. It means a lot for a small and growing Tumblr user like me, and your support is something I cherish more than my modules. You guys rock!

Anyways, like with most things, we have to talk about the boring and bland stuff before we proceed with the fun stuff. For today, we are going to settle the difference between a couple of things: first being the confusion between pastiche and fanfiction; then the distinctions between tropes, clichés, and stereotypes, which we'll tackle the next time. It's important for us to establish their true meanings in order for us to really understand what fanfiction truly is, even if it's merely just a work done for the fandom. I know – it's boring, it's something that shouldn't be expounded that much, but I believe that all forms of writing (unless it's plagiarised) is a work of art — and fanfiction is not something we always talk about. I hope that by the end of this, you'll learn about what they really are as much as I did. Let's begin to talk about the—

[Image ID: A flashback of John (left) and Sherlock (right) finding an elephant (not in the screen) in a room in The Sign of Three. End ID]

. . . I did say that this GIF will always have to make an appearance here, didn't I?

So, just as with Sherlock Holmes, all other works of fiction have their own pastiches and fanfiction, and many more original works out there have taken inspiration from them to create their own books. Although they've gained popular attention, this will not be possible if they did not have taken inspiration from the materials their writers had at the time.

[Image ID: Various actors as Dracula. Jeremy Brett in 'Dracula' (1978) (upper left), Adam Sandler in a voice role for 'Hotel Transylvania' (2012) (upper right), Gary Oldman in 'Dracula' (1992) (lower left), and Bela Lugosi in 'Dracula' (1933) (lower right). End ID]

For instance, Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' (the second most adapted literary character, next to the consulting detective himself) has been portrayed on the screen over 200 times — from Gary Oldman to Adam Sandler — and has spawned off numerous books and pastiches of its own such as Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot'. Its cultural impact served as a basis of how we see vampires today, since some characteristics of the Count were made by Stoker himself. Stoker's creation is the brainchild of his predecessors and inspirations.

[Image ID: Vlad the Impaler (left) and a book cover of 'Carmilla' by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (right). End ID]

Other than the ongoing hysteria over dead back then and the existing vampire folklore, Stoker also took his inspirations from the published books on vampires he had at hand. He is said to have taken inspiration from Vlad the Impaler, a Romanian national hero known allegedly for having impalement as his favourite method of torture. He is also said to have been inspired by the J. Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla', a Gothic lesbian vampire novella that predates Dracula by 26 years. I could go on, but hey, we're going back to Sherlock Holmes now before I deviate any further. However, if you want to know about Dracula's literary origins, I suggest you watch Ted-ED's videos about the subject matter such as this one or this one.

Very much like Stoker, ACD didn't just conceive Holmes on his own. He took his own inspirations from what he had available at the time.

[Image ID: Dr Joseph Bell (left) and Edgar Allan Poe (right). End ID]

As we all know, ACD's biggest inspiration for Sherlock Holmes was one of his teachers at the Edinburgh University, Joseph Bell. He was famous for his powers of deduction, and he was also interested in forensic science — both characteristics which Holmes is greatly known for. He also drew inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe's sleuth, C. Auguste Dupin ('The Purloined Letter' & 'Murders in Rue Morgue'). As ACD himself has said at the 1909 Poe Centennial Dinner: "Where was the detective story until Poe breathed life into it?" Some other writers he took after are Wilkie Collins, Émile Gaboriau, and Oscar Wilde.

Now, what does this say about us Sherlockians/Holmesians (depending if you're the coloniser or the one that was colonised)? Basically, ACD laid the groundwork for us with Sherlock Holmes: his humble abode 221B that he shares with his flatmate Dr. John Watson, his adventures, memoirs, return, casebook, last vow, and all that. Now that we have this material at hand, we can now make our own versions, takes, or even original stories featuring the characters of the Canon. Our inspiration comes from ACD's Sherlock Holmes, and we now get the chance to make our very own stories/conspiracy theories about them.

As I have mentioned earlier, Sherlock Holmes is the most adapted literary character in history. He has been adapted in over 200 films, more than 750 radio adaptations, a ballet, 2 musicals; and he's become a mouse, a woman, a dog, even a bloody cucumber. On top of all that are numerous pastiches and fanfics, and finally, we have arrived at the main topic of our post!

Fanfiction and pastiche are often confused together since they have three common elements: they take after the original work, they usually use the characters in that original work, and more often than not do are they set in that same time frame/period or not long after that. The common misconception is that pastiche are printed fanfiction, which is only partly true. While pastiche is definitely fanfiction in some ways and vice versa, there are fanfictions out there that aren't necessarily classified as pastiche that have been published.

Let's get on with our definition of terms to clear up the confusion a little more. Pastiche, according to Literary Terms, is:

. . . a creative work that imitates another author or genre. It’s a way of paying respect, or honor, to great works of the past. Pastiche differs from parody in that pastiche isn’t making fun of the works it imitates – however, the tone of pastiche is often humorous.

A good example of a pastiche is Sophie Hannah's 'The Monogram Murders', which is her take from Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot.

[Image ID: A book cover of 'The Monogram Murders' by Sophie Hannah. End ID.]

Although this was a commission from Christie's estate, it's still considered as a pastiche as:

It's takes after Christie's writing style;

It is set in the early years of Poirot's career (1929), which is still within the time frame that the author wrote him in;

It features Poirot and;

It pays respect to Christie in a sense that it stays true to her (Christie) characters and way of storytelling.

Meanwhile, our good and slightly unreliable friend Wikipedia defines fanfiction as:

. . . is fictional writing written by fans, commonly of an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual property from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing. [It] ranges from a couple of sentences to an entire novel, and fans can both keep the creator's characters and settings and/or add their own. [ . . . ] [It] can be based on any fictional (and sometimes non-fictional) subject. Common bases for fanfiction include novels, movies, bands, and video games.

To avoid any copyright infringement issues if I ever use a popular fanfic in the fandom, we'll use my (unfinished and unpopular) Sherlock Wattpad fic, 'Play Pretend'. You can read it here.

[Image ID: The second self-made book cover of Blessie/shezzaspeare's 'Play Pretend'. End ID]

Why is it considered a fanfiction and not a pastiche?

It takes after an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes (BBC Sherlock) which is a TV show, not the ACD canon itself;

The author (in this case myself) uses her own writing style and does not take after the original story's style;

Although it is set well in modern-day London and after Season 4, it also features scenes decades before the actual fanfic is set and outside of London;

I added a considerable number of characters, i.e. siblings to canon characters;

I had my own take some of the canon characters' personality especially after the events of Sherrinford;

It is written by a fan – myself. It is a work of fan labour and;

It is only a work of fanon, and isn't likely going to be considered by the show as its writing style is different from the actual show.

To put it simply, you can have more freedom in a fanfiction as it does not necessarily restrict you to follow or take after the original stories. Alternate universes (AUs) such as Unilock and Teenlock are perfect examples of this thing.

So can a pastiche be classified as fanfiction? Yes.

Can a fanfiction be classified as pastiche? Not all the time.

What's the difference? While yes, they share the basics, pastiche is technically leans more onto the original work's fundamental elements whereas fanfiction is a broader range of works inspired by the original work but doesn't necessarily follow all or any of its fundamental elements.

In order for us to understand it more, I'll give another example.

[Image ID: The 'Enola Holmes' title card (upper left) and Henry Cavill as its Sherlock holmes (upper right). Underneath it is a a scene from the opening titles of BBC Sherlock (lower left) and Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in A Scandal In Belgravia. (lower right) End ID]

Most of you are familiar with these 21st-century adaptations of Holmes: the 2020 adaptation of Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes books and BBC Sherlock, which needs no further explanation – but for those who don't know, it's basically Holmes and the gang if they were alive today. I specifically chose these two as they are the ones that I believe would get my points across best. Though both are considered as wonderful pastiches with a well-rounded cast and awesome visuals, if we break them down bit by bit, we'll see which one is more of a pastiche and which one is more of a fanfic. (Yes, I know they're both screen adaptations. However, as Enola Holmes was based on the books and BBC Sherlock's fanfiction has the show's scenes written out in most fanfics, hear me out.)

They share these characteristics of a pastiche:

They feature characters from the Canon (Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, and Lestrade);

They have additional characters added by the writers (Including but not limited to Molly Hooper, Eurus Holmes, and Philip Anderson for BBC Sherlock while Enola Holmes has Lord Tewkesbury, Eudoria Holmes, and Enola herself) and;

They pay respect to the original Canon as their stories are based on the cases (BBC Sherlock) or simply what was going on around them (Enola Holmes).

They also share these characteristics of a fanfic:

They are made by enthusiasts of Sherlock Holmes (Moffat has called himself and Mark Gatiss 'Sherlock Holmes geeks', while Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes books are not just one or two but six);

They follow a common trope (we'll discuss these tropes in the following episodes) that goes on in the fandom (Sherlock's Sister & Modern AU)

They are based on a fictional subject (Sherlock Holmes);

They used characters and story elements that are copyrighted by the author/author's estate (fun fact: prior to the production of Enola Holmes, the Conan Doyle Estate filed a lawsuit against Springer & Netflix over Sherlock's emotions since he was more 'sympathetic' than he was portrayed in the Canon – this was later dismissed by both parties) and;

Their writing styles don't necessarily follow ACD's.

Despite these similarities, there are very obvious differences between the two that separates them from being a pastiche and a fanfiction.

Enola Holmes embodies pastiche more as it doesn't stray far away from the original elements of the Canon. It's still set in Victorian England. While Springer added characters of her own and definitely twisted the Canon to suit her series, she didn't necessarily place them out of the social construct that was going on around the characters. It follows ACD's writing style more as Enola Holmes' setting still remains within the Canon's original setting.

Meanwhile, we can safely say that BBC Sherlock is a work of fanfiction. While it did give us The Abominable Bride, the main series focused on Holmes and Watson in 21st-century England, which is drastically different from Victorian England. There are phones, black cabs, and cellphones — things which ACD Sherlock Holmes doesn't have. It also diverted from the Canon in the characters themselves, which is mostly seen in the names: Henry Baskerville became Henry Knight, Charles Augustus Milverton became Charles Augustus Magnussen, the H in Dr Watson's name stood for Hamish and Sherlock's full name is actually William Sherlock Scott Holmes. They also changed the personalities of some Canon characters: Mary was actually an ex-assassin, Mrs Hudson was an exotic dancer who drove a kick-ass sports car, Irene Adler is a dominatrix, to name a few. Moffat and Gatiss created a world of their own featuring the characters of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which is really what most of us fanfic writers do with Mofftiss' rendition of Holmes.

In conclusion: while pastiche and fanfiction could have been the same thing, they're actually not. There's more to them that just printed fanfiction or pastiche e-books, and we all should take some time to see and observe them in a closer perspective.

And that's it for our first episode! I hope you enjoyed it. It was a lot fun for me to write this, especially now that I'm only starting. I would also like to note that while intensive research has been done on this series, some parts of this comes from my own observation and opinion, which may vary from yours. I am very much open to criticism, as long as it is said in a polite and civil manner. I'm still young, and to be educated as I go is something that could really help me with this series.

Like and reblog this you like it. It helps out a lot. Be sure to follow me as well and the tags underneath if you want to see more of TSoF.

See you soon!

Blessie presents – The Science of Fanfiction: A Study In Sherlock (2021) • Next

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SOURCES • Pinterest, Google Images, Wikipedia, Literary Terms, Conan Doyle Estate, Definitions, The Sherlock Holmes Book, and Google