#eleanor bourg nicholson

[apesoformythoughts]

‘"Miss Edith," Father Thomas Edmund cried. "Now this is something like. What a beautiful garden! I do believe this is the work of your hands? It's for Our Lady, isn't it? No roses, though?"

"How wonderful that you see it. There were roses too, but the thrips came, and I had to tear them out."

"What a shame! I would have wept."

"I did cry, I must admit. They were so robust and rich, and then suddenly they were scraggly and black and miserable. I tried everything—catwort and garlic."

"And the garlic will repel vampires too, won't it?" I asked.

Father Thomas Edmund and Edith both turned to look at me. "That's the legend, isn't it," Miss Edith said.

After a long silence, Father Thomas Edmund spoke again. "It must be a real source of joy to you, Miss Edith."’

[septembersung]

do you know the magazine dappled things? and if you do, would you recommend it?

Yes and yes! Been reading them for years. Some of their content is available online for free, but not all, some real gems are print only. Get a subscription! They're great to write for, too; they pay their contributors and publish both new and established authors. If you hang around Catholic literary circles you'll recognize some of the names regularly featured there. (Joshua Hren [of Wiseblood Books], James Matthew Wilson, Eleanor Bourg Nicholson, Sally Thomas, just to name a few off the top of my head.)

Support Dappled Things!

[marta-bee]

This is so wrong, not in a way that's particularly offensive or even excessively important in terms of real-world implications and damage to actual people, but so ever-loving wrong it winds up being hilarious.

The Church has celebrated those in heaven (All Saints, November 1) and the souls of the faithfully departed (All Souls, November 2) since the latter half of the first millennium. Around these dates emerged various practices, many of which have become attached specifically to the eve of All Saints, "All Hallows Eve" or "Hallowe'en." In fact, today's celebration of Halloween is a brew concocted in the American melting-pot, combining early medieval Irish Catholicism with mid-medieval French Catholicism and throwing a smattering of late medieval English Catholic repression for added flavor.

English Catholics, in the wake of Guy Fawkes festivals, were harassed by visitors demanding "treats" with the threat of probably violent "tricks" hanging over them. Add some grotesquely decaying autumnal décor, and you have the skeletal framework of today's secular holiday-and an amazing setting for a good Gothic novel. Of course, post-Christian, neo-barbaric society would deny any Christian origins and cast October 31 in the light of an occult orgy of evil and candy.

All Hollow's Eve (Hallowe'en) was apparently originally a good Catholic holiday with no syncretism from pagan traditions that predate the Catholic one, but us moderns are so evil and death-obsessed and wanting a riotous indulgence of the senses and our love of the macabre, we bastardized it.

I. Am. Chortling.

[ihaveonlymydreams]

A BLOODY HABIT

By Eleanor Bourg Nicholson

Chapter 1

1 May 1900: Somewhere between Budapest and London

(From Jonathan Harker’s diary) She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me. I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such a state of mind. She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round my neck and said. . .

“Pardon me.”

That was precisely the thing I was most unlikely to do, I thought to myself with wry bitterness as I looked up from the page and into the face of the little man who had invaded my course of light literary recreation. I did not often venture into the realm of Gothic absurdity, but when I did I certainly did not like to be interrupted by round-headed little men with pink faces and beady black bespectacled eyes, attired in flowing white dresses, with rattling beads strapped to their sides.

“Yes?” I replied, making a meager effort at keeping the irritation out of my voice.

“May I pass you, please,” asked the little man—he was some sort of a Roman priest or a monk, I could tell by his outlandish dress—“to open the window?”

I suppressed the urge to tell him that he would not be overwarm if he didn’t go about in that quaint ritual garb; instead I grunted a vague assent.

[catie-does-things]

Finished reading A Bloody Habit, by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson, and I can not recommend it enough.

If you like Dracula, Father Brown, and the Order of Preachers, you will love this book. If you don’t like any of those things, rethink your tastes.

[apostleshop]

Dracula-Ignatius Critical Editions

Great News has been shared on https://apostleshop.com/product/dracula-ignatius-critical-editions/

Dracula-Ignatius Critical Editions

Description Click here to visit the Ignatius Critical Editions website See more great novels at www.IPNovels.com . When solicitor’s clerk Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania on business to meet a mysterious Romanian count named Dracula, he little expects the horrors this strange meeting will unleash. Thus Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel of blood and passion begins, rapidly accelerating from Harker’s nightmarish experiences in Castle Dracula to a full-fledged vampiric assault on late-Victorian London itself. The story, narrated through a collection of documents-primarily journal entries and letters-chronicles the desperate efforts of a band of gentlemen to protect the virtue of their ladies and lay to rest the ancient threat once and for all. Often vacillating wildly between the terrible and the comic, Dracula at the same time brings to life a host of compelling themes: tensions between antiquity and modernity; the powers and limitations of technology; the critical importance of feminine virtue; the difference between superstition and religion; the nature of evil; and, perhaps most compellingly, the complex relationship between ancient faith and scientific enlightenment. More vivid than any of its varied film adaptations, and over a century after its first publication, Dracula still retains its sharp bite.

Bram StokerEleanor Bourg Nicholson

Editor: Eleanor Bourg Nicholson Pages: 558

[apesoformythoughts]

When Father Michael Walsh, a Jesuit priest on the western coast of Ireland, faces a charge of embezzlement, a London newspaper sends expatriate Irish reporter Hugh Buckley home to deliver a story—or else. Buckley and his photographer colleague Frederick Jones arrive in the village of Doolin to find themselves embroiled in a tangled mess of parish politics, occult practices, and bloody murder. By night, as wicked things rise from the earth, Buckley faces his own long-repressed struggles with his country, his abandoned faith, and his dead family. But by day, he finds help, both professional and personal, from English Dominican friar Father Thomas Edmund Gilroy, OP, who has come to Doolin to support his friend Father Michael and to aid in the spiritual battle against the occult.

Can Hugh and Freddie save their employment—and their skins—as the grotesque violence intensifies? Or will they and the rest of the village of Doolin be consumed by dark powers lurking within the mysterious landscape of Ireland?

[apesoformythoughts]

‘“Technically speaking, it's a question of authority. Except in extremis, the local authority is with the Jesuits. Historically, there has been a division of responsibility here: the Order of Preachers addressed the bloodsucker, the Order of Friars Minor handled the lycanthrope, and the Society of Jesus took on manifestations particular to certain regions. This reflected the missionary zeal of the Society. But…” Father Thomas Edmund's voice lingered for a moment. Then he cleared his throat and resumed, “This is sensitive ground, as it happens. The Papal ratification of authority in preternatural concerns, which took place in the eighteenth century, granted precedence to the Order of Preachers. There was some debate over this, particularly within the Society of Jesus, in part because of disagreements regarding method. I should add that there is a contorted interrelation of demons which makes Dominican oversight quite sensible.” He smiled. “But, then, I speak as a Dominican.”

I frowned. “Are you saying it would be difficult for a Jesuit to appreciate the seriousness of the situation?”

“I am saying that unless I am granted permission, I cannot address it.”

“Permission granted by Father O'Connor.”

“Yes.”

Freddie snorted. “Wonderful. Stymied by the unlikeliest eventuality of all.” He turned his annoyance toward the Dominican. “Why didn't you tell us this before?”

Father Thomas Edmund threw an arch look over his spectacles. “Well, Mr. Jones, what do you think would be helped by having an unauthorized exorcist publicizing his concerns to the laity?”

Freddie frowned. “You'd terrorize the district, wouldn't you?”

“Very likely, and rouse the people to insubordination and disrespect. There is nothing so much that the Evil One loves, my friends, as confusion, fear, and disobedience.”’

— Wake of Malice

[apesoformythoughts]

‘“Is there news, then?” I asked.

“Rare news indeed.” The innkeeper spat and polished more vigorously. “It's black magic and bloody murder.”’

[apesoformythoughts]

‘I took a long, deep breath. Then I marched across the garden, clasped Edith O'Hara in my arms, drew her close to my chest, and planted a kiss upon her upturned face. It was not the most expert business, as I was unsure where to place my arms, fearing to commit some impropriety. What is one to do with one's hands at such a moment?

When I finished, I drew back to look into her face. It had blanched, and her eyes were very round indeed. "Have you finished?" she asked in a small voice.

My heart sank into my boots. "I suppose so."

"Oh."

We stood staring at each other, my arms still around her—for, having achieved this posture of embrace, I did not quite know how to release us both from it. "Well," I said, "I suppose I should go."

"Oh." Her voice trembled. "Aren't you…aren't you going to let me kiss you back?"

The next few minutes passed in a manner thoroughly satisfactory to all parties concerned.’

[apesoformythoughts]

‘“Let us look back at the Celtic age in Irish history. This speaks to the business of ‘corrupted pious practices.’ Some claim the ancient heroes and gods put up a fierce resistance, but Christian invaders won, crushed the soul of Ireland, and suppressed the true heritage. Saint Brigid herself is seen as an ancient goddess, posthumously baptized by Christian historians. This is all quite false, of course, but a great deal of damage can be done with earnest but false history. We see this in every age and every people. At the same time, Ireland does truly exemplify the baptism of ancient practices. What we must recognize is that pagan man seeks truth. Myth is an expression of his attempt to find reality. That is why, out of the confusion of antiquity, we can see strains of the truth.”’

— Wake of Malice

[apesoformythoughts]

“G. K. Chesterton, musing over the Brontës in his monumental work The Victorian Age in Literature, reflected:

There is really, in a narrow but intense way, a tradition of Emily Brontë: as there is a tradition of St. Peter or Dr. Johnson. People talk as if they had known her, apart from her works.

This is one of the great tragedies of the Brontë sisters, and particularly of Emily. Evading public attention in life, she has in death been beset with every conceivable misreading that could be concocted against the domestically-inclined (borderline-antisocial), virginal daughter of an Anglican clergyman. The facts about her life are meager. So-called critical studies and film adaptations have deliberately misinterpreted what we do know, transforming her into a proto-feminist, a Marxist, and a nymphomaniac. Consequently, there are few works about Emily that are worth their weight in salt.

Rarely before has the scant data about Emily Brontë received such an illuminating treatment as it does at the hands of Tim Powers in My Brother’s Keeper. With all the thrilling trappings of the preternatural, this novel constitutes a more creditable contribution to Brontë Studies than the majority of books, articles, and professorial assertions I encountered while I was a graduate student.”

— Eleanor Bourg Nicholson: “Knowing Emily: A review of Tim Powers’ My Brother’s Keeper”

[apesoformythoughts]

BTW, Eleanor Bourg Nicholson called My Brother’s Keeper the “Most remarkable literary (and scholarly) publication of 2023” and said:

It's so incredibly good. I was able to read the manuscript and (as is always the case with Powers) I binge-read it. Superior insights into the Brontes than pretty much everything I heard in grad school back in the day.

[apesoformythoughts]

‘“As to disappointment, well, we are all wretches, in need of God's grace. Thanks be to God for that! Our Lord tells us to rejoice. Would I be perfect and spared of my own need for grace? Would I go without friendship and love to be spared such loss? Would I tell you not to take this chance because you have faults? Would I tell you not to strive for and win this good woman because you didn't spring forth into the world as a perfect hero? Not for all the world can give. You aren't the sum of your poor mother's fears. God in His graciousness will supply your every need. Stop hesitating and let Him.”’

[apesoformythoughts]

‘Finally, upon the third knock, the door opened. My soul sank into my stomach, and for a moment, I forgot my very name.

The most beautiful woman ever to have walked the earth stood at the threshold. Her large green eyes flashed furious fire, and the waving folds of her hair, so dark in its red as to be almost crimson, wound in braids around her cream-colored face. A perfect form on all points and points well displayed as she stood with arms akimbo, dressed in black crape from toe to chin, with a crop of white lace at her delicate throat.

"Leanan Sidhe," murmured Freddie at my elbow. "Heaven forfend."’

— Wake of Malice