#john gutenberger

[waybackbands]

Far playing at their CD release show at the Revolver Club in San Diego taken by Eric Sellers, posted by Far69

[krowspiracyanon]

The Elements Of Drawing: In Three Letters To Beginners - John Ruskin

This book is public domain in the USA, so should be free to use with almost no restrictions. Check the laws in your own country. There are various download options available including Kindle or you may choose to read it in the browser.

You may also read it on the Internet Archive. However please be cautious when downloading or sharing other books and first check the status of those works, as the Internet Archive has had issues with copyright infringements before.

[widespot]

John, alas, came home with the flu and doesn't get to enjoy his guest or his son! I locked him into his bedroom until he gets better - I'm not letting the creeping crud get taken back to either the Ottomas or the Hart households! I locked his door and the door to the hall from the bathroom. He's got plenty to read, he shouldn't even be bored. Just lonesome.

[d1anna]

from John Martin's illustrations of John Milton's Paradise Lost

[areawest]

I’m begging all of you to read Robin Hood by J. Walker McSpadden on project gutenberg, there are SO MANY gems like this

[rhianna]

Author

Hume, David, 1711-1776

Title    The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part A.

From the Britons of Early Times to King John

Language  English

LoC Class

DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe

Subject

Great Britain -- History

CategoryText

EBook-No.19211

Release Date Sep 8, 2006

Copyright Status     Public domain in the USA.

[cinderella-ish]

This was fun! I put in 15 samples of my fiction writing (including stuff that isn't on my AO3 account!) and the author I most write like is Lucy Maud Montgomery, followed by Willa Cather and Stephen Crane a short distance below. After them, there's a big drop down to John Muir, then a smaller drop to everyone else.

I'd like to try it again with my nonfiction writing. Let me know if you do this, and which authors you get!

[thirrith]

A guide to Dream of the Red Chamber for English speakers

I've been posting about a book called Dream of the Red Chamber for a while. I'm kinda obsessed with it but the tags here on tumblr are pretty much barren. I want to get more people to be interested in it, so here's something more informative with minimal screaming.

Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) is a 18th century Chinese novel by Cao Xueqin. It isn't very well-known outside of the Sinophone aka the Chinese-speaking world, whereas where I come from it's considered a masterpiece and classic and is so well-known and holds so much cultural significance even the people who haven't necessarily read the book make references to it - like, basically everybody knows about the book. It certainly deserves to be known and loved by more people - that's why I'm making a post about it. This post is NOT going to be an attempt to cover everything, though, because there is just so, so much to the book; instead, I am creating a guide to make it easier for people to get started if they are interested.

What is Dream of the Red Chamber about? Why do people love it?

The best way to sum it up is calling it a family saga mixed with a bit of fantasy. It tells the story of the rise and fall of a big and powerful family, focusing on the story of the young girls, the maid servants, and the wives that all live together and run the household. The only male main character Jia Baoyu is a young heir of the family, who grew up among these women and girls. He loves and understands them, loves being surrounded by them, and deeply identifies with them. My dad, who is also a fan of the book, loves saying that Baoyu 'has the heart of a maiden'.

The book is funny and full of drama, and at the same time it's also poetic, tragic and profound, and the tragedy of the characters is written in such a kind way, as if the author wants you to love them and remember how wonderful and alive they are despite the fact that a gloomy fate will claim them all.

The book is also so queer in a way that no other Ming/Qing dynasty Chinese novels can compare. Obviously there are no modern queer labels because it was written in imperial China, but there are characters who are interested in both men and women, characters who are interested in no one, and affairs between boys and between girls; many main characters have the kind of relationships with their gender that make my Chinese transgender heart sing with empathy.

If you want to hear from English speakers who fell in love with the book and learn more about the context and literary/cultural value of the book, I recommend starting with 'Why is China’s greatest novel virtually unknown in the west?' by Michael Wood on The Guardian and 'Why you should read China’s vast, 18th century novel, Dream of the Red Chamber' by Josh Stenberg on The Conversation.

Dream of the Red Chamber is a long novel with many different versions and possibly hundreds of adaptations. How should I begin?

There are two translations that I know have received good reviews:

A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang. My partner is reading this version. It's a very faithful translation with footnotes to make up for the language and cultural barriers. (Note: the Yangs finished their translation in prison in China during the Cultural Revolution.)

The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes and John Minford. It's a translation that takes more artistic liberties than the Yangs version. For example it differs in the way it translates character names and its writing style. Hawkes wanted to recreate the experience of reading the novel in Chinese for English speaking readers, but it may also be harder for you to talk to those who read the book in Chinese about certain characters and details.

There is also a public domain translation by H. Bencraft Joly, which was first published in the 19th century, and you can find it on Project Gutenberg.

The 1987 36-episode TV adaptation Dream of the Red Chamber is well-loved and considered by many Chinese people to be the best adaptation of the book. Every later adaptation would be compared with the 1987 one and found lacking. I personally love this adaptation a lot, and I think out of all the adaptations I've seen (including TV series, films and Chinese opera) it has the best interpretations of the book and the characters. It also has the best songs, which were adapted from the poems in the book. You can stream the series with English subtitles on the Internet Archive.

If you want something shorter that covers the main romance plot line and includes a few iconic scenes from the book, I recommend the 1977 film adaptation The Dream of the Red Chamber casting legendary actress Brigitte Lin as Jia Baoyu (she also portrayed an iconic classic wuxia character as a trans woman in another film franchise, but I digress). You can find the film with English subtitles on Youtube.

This is not all, but it's a good start. If you ever decide to give it a go, it doesn't matter if you watch one of the adaptations first or read the book first. Don't stress, take your time, and enjoy the ride!

[zhalfirin-binds]

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu & The Vampyr by John William Polidori

This time I'm sharing pictures of a typeset I made for fellow @renegadepublishing friends to bind at an in-person-workshop dimitris_bookbinding_corner (at least some of the fancy pictures).

Look at one of the finished binds created by @celestial-sphere-press

Sooo, about this typeset, what can I say? It was a joy and a pain to create this typeset to meet certain requirements in page count and size as well as getting to use wonderful book illustrations by Alphonse Mucha. Some typos were found, others, well now they stare me in the eye...

While the chapter start pages for Carmilla (on the left) were simply the original frames and illustrations with the text replaced by the text of Carmilla, I wanted The Vampyr (on the right) to look the similar, but yet different from the first story. There was no way around sticking to Mucha, because, well, nothing else went as well with is style than his style. After some experimenting with different works of Mucha I went with his moon and stars cycle in addition to the 1903 cover the 'Paris illustre' and the lithography for Flirt biscuits by the company Lefèvre Utile (today still known as LU)' from 1899 to tie them together.

The Carmilla typeset is actually a merge with the main text sourced from Project Gutenberg and notes sourced from a version found at the University of Pennsylvania. (I also learned the word 'odylic' from these notes. Before I'd have considered it simply a typo XD)

[mthguy]

Andrew is the Man!

The multi-talented Andrew Rannell's iconic stage and film roles ...

as Elder Price, in the Tony award winning Broadway musical comedy, The Book of Mormon, with music, lyrics, and book by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone (2011)

as Hedwig, in John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's rock musical, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, on Broadway (2014)

as King George III, in Lin-Manuel Miranda's Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning musical masterpiece, Hamilton, on Broadway (2015)

as Whizzer, with Christian Borle as Marvin, in Falsettos, book by William Finn and James Lapine, and music and lyrics by Finn (2016)

as Larry, with Jim Parsons as Michael, in the Netflix film of Matt Crowley's play, The Boys in the Band (2020)

as Trent Oliver in the 2020 American musical comedy film, The Prom, directed by Ryan Murphy 

As Doug Simon, with Josh Gad as Bud Davenport, in the hilarious Broadway musical, Gutenberg! The Musical! (2023)

[wonderful-prompts]

I kinda need a space to ask this and my own blog might not be reachable enough, so I hope I can ask here, thank you!

I have this idea to write journal entries of my character(s) because I liked the format. Though this seemed like a better idea as a plot device to support the story, I've only been able to think of the author of the journals going insane. I wonder if anyone has ideas about alternative routes how the journals could've ended?

If anyone else wants to contribute to answering this question, have at it in the comments/reblogs!

Otherwise, here's my answer:

There's a list of stories on Wikipedia that are similar to what you're describing ("List of fictional diaries"), which can provide examples of different narratives that have other endings.

Some epistolary novels (novels written as a series of letters between the fictional characters) contain diary/journal entries, so you can look to some of those for inspiration as well. There's 100 public domain epistolary novels on Project Gutenberg (including Dracula), if you'd like to read one or a few of those to see how other writers have handled it in the past.

Dracula contains journal entries of various characters, letters between them, and even newspaper articles that cover additional incidents. It ends once Dracula is defeated.

What Manner of Man (written by Tumblr user St. John Sterling) consists of letters and journal entries from one main character's perspective. It ends once a mystery is uncovered, a significant amount of character growth happens, and a new period of that character's life begins. (This is on Substack, later to be published in its full form)

I'm going to guess that "going insane" is in the Lovecraftian sense, so the narrative would end like Herbert West—Reanimator (or several other of his stories). The narrator is forever haunted by whatever happened and knows too much about something they shouldn't. But there is also a defined end of a period of time. In this case, (spoilers for a 102-year-old serialized work) Herbert West is killed by his own unnatural creations. But that's the last straw for the unnamed narrator, who had been wary of all this to begin with.

I'd say that finding alternate routes shouldn't be as hard once you know what you want out of your story.

What genre are you writing in?

Are you sticking to that genre's conventions?

What are you trying to accomplish with this particular framing device? (Besides just enjoying the format.)

How does the story benefit from being told in this perspective?

What sort of conclusion do you want?

Is there a particular emotion you want to evoke in the readers from this conclusion?

I'm sorry if this looks more like homework than a post that can help you figure out other ways to end your story. I personally ask myself (sometimes ridiculous amount of) questions while writing in order to better accomplish what I want to accomplish and also try to make sure the conclusions are logical, so that's where I'm coming from. I'm also of the belief that research helps with writing, even if it's reading/amassing reference materials for a particular kind of fiction.

[revasserium]

the unofficial ultimate bungo stray dogs reading list

this is mainly for myself bc i rly do want to read most if not all of these and i'm sure it's already been done by someone somewhere. but, i thought why not post it lmao; most if not all of these can be found on anna's archive, z-library, or project gutenberg! (also, consider buying from your local bookstore!) for those that are a bit harder to find, i've included links, though some are from j-stor and would require login to access.

detective agency:

osamu dazai:

no longer human (novel)

the setting sun (novel)

nakajima atsushi:

the moon over the mountain: stories (short story collection)

light, wind and dreams (short story)

fukuzawa yukichi:

an encouragement of learning (17 volume collections of writings)

all the countries of the world, for children written in verse (textbook)

yosano akiko:

kimi shinitamou koto nakare (poem)

midaregami (poetry collection)

edogawa ranpo:

the boy detectives club (book series)

japanese tales of mystery and imagination (short story collection)

the early cases of akechi kogoro (novel)

kunikida doppo:

river mist and other stories (short story collection)

izumi kyouka:

demon lake (play)

spirits of another sort: the plays of izumi kyoka (play collection)

tanizaki junichirou:

the makioka sisters (novel)

the red roof and other stories (short story collection)

miyazawa kenji:

ame ni mo makezu; be not defeated by the rain (poem)

night on the galactic railroad (novel)

strong in the rain (poetry collection)

port mafia:

mori ougai:

vita sexualis (novel)

the dancing girl (novel)

nakahara chuuya:

poems of nakahara chuya (poetry collection)

akutagawa ryuunosuke:

rashoumon (short story)

the spider's thread (short story)

rashoumon and other stories (short story collection)

ozaki kyouyou:

the gold demon (novel)

higuchi ichiyou:

in the shade of spring leaves (biography and short stories)

hirotsu ryuurou:

falling camellia (novel)

tachihara michizou:

in mourning for the summer (poem)

midwinter momento (poem)

from the country of eight islands: an anthology of japanese poetry (poetry collection)

kajii motojirou:

lemon (short story)

yumeno kyuusaku:

dogra magra (novel)

oda sakunosuke:

flawless/immaculate (short story)

sakaguchi ango:

darakuron (essay)

the guild:

f. scott fitzgerald:

the great gatsby (novel)

the beautiful and the damned (novel)

edgar allen poe:

the raven (poem)

the black cat (short story)

the murders in the rue morgue (short story)

herman melville:

moby dick (novel)

h.p. lovecraft:

the call of cthulhu (short story)

the shadow out of time (novella)

john steinbeck:

the grapes of wrath (novel)

of mice and men (novel)

lucy maud montgomery:

anne of green gables (novel)

the blue castle (novel)

chronicles of avonlea (short story collection)

louisa may alcott:

little women (novel)

the brownie and the princess (short story collection)

margaret mitchell:

gone with the wind (novel)

mark twain:

the adventures of tom sawyer (novel)

adventures of huckleberry finn (novel)

nathaniel hawthorn:

the scarlet letter (novel)

rats in the house of the dead:

fyodor dostoevsky:

crime and punishment (novel)

the brothers karamozov (novel)

notes from the underground (short story collection)

alexander pushkin:

eugene onegin (novel)

a feast in time of plague (play)

ivan goncharov:

the precipice (novel)

oguri mushitarou:

the perfect crime (novel)

decay of the angel:

fukuchi ouchi:

the mirror lion, a spring diversion (kabuki play)

bram stoker:

dracula (novel)

dracula's guest and other weird stories (short story collection)

nikolai gogol:

the overcoat (short story)

dead souls (novel)

hunting dogs: (i must caveat here that the hunting dogs are named after much more comparatively obscure jpn writers/playwrights so i was unable to find a lot of the specific pieces actually mentioned; but i still wanted to include them on the list because well -- it wouldn't be a bsd list without them)

okura teruko:

gasp of the soul (short story; i wasn't able to find an english translation)

devil woman (short story)

jouno saigiku:

priceless tears (kabuki play; no translation but at least we have a summary)

suehiro tetchou:

setchuubai/a political novel: plum blossoms in snow (novel)

division for unusual powers:

taneda santouka:

the santoka: versions by scott watson (poetry collection)

tsujimura mizuki:

lonely castle in the mirror (novel)

yesterday's shadow tag (short story collection; i was unable to find a translation)

order of the clock tower:

agatha christie:

and then there were none (novel)

murder on the orient express (novel)

she is the best selling fiction writer of all time there's too much to list here

mimic:

andre gide:

strait is the gate (novel)

trascendents:

arthur rimbaud:

illuminations (poetry collection)

the drunken boat (poem)

a season in hell (prose poem)

johann von goethe:

faust

the sorrows of young werther

paul verlaine:

clair de lune (poem, yes it did inspire the debussy piece, yes)

poems under saturn (poetry collection)

victor hugo:

the hunchback of notre-dame (novel)

les miserables (novel)

william shakespeare:

romeo and juliet (play)

a midsummer nights' dream (play)

sonnets (poetry collection)

the seven traitors:

jules verne:

around the world in 80 days (novel)

journey to the center of the earth (novel)

twenty thousand leagues under the seas (novel)

other:

natsume souseki:

i am a cat (novel)

kokoro (novel)

botchan (novel)

h.g. wells:

the time machine (novella)

the invisible man (novel)

the war of the worlds (novel)

shibusawa tatsuhiko:

the travels of prince takaoka (novel; unable to find translation)

dr. mary wollstonecraft godwin shelley

frankenstein (novel)

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven...”

Literally the entire text of Paradise Lost bc Project Gutenberg rules

Reblog for a larger sample size!

[widespot]

After the sorority leaves and Jane goes to bed, it's just Jack and John, who's slated to stay home tomorrow, using his last vacation day. Then it'll be the weekend, and then it'll be time to consider the nanny problem.

[astonishinglegends]

Ep 279: The Third Man Syndrome Part 1

"Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road There is always another one walking beside you"  -- The Waste Land by T. S. ELIOT

Description:

A strange occurrence often happens to people engaged in an adventurous activity or who fall victim to an unfortunate circumstance. They find themselves with a companion whose presence would typically be impossible. Usually, the person is at a critical moment in a life-or-death situation in an extreme and unusual environment. When they are weakened and dying from exposure, suffering privation of sustenance, lost and alone, when they are about to lose all hope and accept their demise, that’s when this otherworldly friend suddenly appears to render aid and encouragement, giving them a superhuman will or strength to survive. Psychologists label this a “sensed presence experience” but are at a loss for a simple explanation. These presences may be seen, heard, and sometimes even touched. They appear in dire situations to people from all walks of life. They may materialize as a known friend, a deceased relative, a religious figure, or an indeterminate benefactor. Still, whatever their form, there is no doubt to the one in danger that this being is real and there with them. Although this sensed presence appears most often to mountain climbers, sailors, divers, and polar explorers, it can also happen to astronauts, prisoners of war, and disaster survivors. One of the most intriguing aspects of the sensed presence experience is that the ethereal saviors aren’t just there to provide comforting words; they actually help with knowledgable advice or guidance or can even seemingly take over the actions of the afflicted – whatever is necessary to increase the odds of survival. Join us as we explore a phenomenon more common than you might think, a syndrome also known as the “Third Man.”

Reference Links:

“The Sensed Presence as a Coping Resource in Extreme Environments”

by Peter Suedfeld & John Geiger. From Miracles: God, Science, and Psychology in the Paranormal on Omnilogos.com

“The Sensed Presence as A Coping Resource in Extreme Environments” on the Julian Jaynes Society website

“How does our understanding of the sensed presence phenomenon in extreme settings change the way we talk about so-called mental ‘illnesses’ in daily life?” by Blaise Cottingham on Medium.com

Angels of Mons on Wikipedia

Vincent Lam

“Extreme environment” on Wikipedia

King Nebuchadnezzar from Daniel 3:24-5 on BibleGateway.com

The Savage Curtain episode of the original Star Trek series

“Charles Lindbergh and the Third Man Factor” on Theresa's Haunted History of the Tri-State blog

Poet, memoirist, and songwriter Mary Karr

“The Liars’ Club” by Mary Karr

Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest mountain, on Britannica.com

“Wilson,” the volleyball from the motion picture Castaway

“Ernest Shackleton's Crew of the Endurance – Imperial Trans Antarctica Expedition 1914 -17” on CoolAntarctica.com

Husvik, the former whaling station on the north-central coast of South Georgia Island, Antarctica

Elephant Island, Antarctica

“Excerpt: The Voyage of the James Caird by Ernest Shackleton” from the American Museum of Natural History website

Alfred Lansing

Caedmon, widely considered to be the world’s first audiobook and launch of the spoken word industry

“The Waste Land” by T. S. Eliot on Project Gutenberg

Stromness, South Georgia

Sir Ernest Shackleton and T S Eliot’s ‘third man’ from the Royal Scottish Geographical Society

The Waste Land Part I – The Burial of the Dead from the Poetry Archive

The Waste Land from The Poetry Foundation

“T. S. ELIOT SAW ALL THIS COMING” from The Atlantic

The Waste Land on Wikipedia

Jane S. P. Mocellin and Peter Suedfeld’s research on behavior in extreme environments from ResearchGate.net

“Shackleton's whisky returned to Antarctic hut” on CBC.ca

“Spirits of the South Pole” from The New York Times Magazine

“Wild Survival Story About 1983 Rockies Alpine Avalanche” – the story of Jim Sevigny and Richard Whitmire

Distance Line for cave diving

“UK scientist has her lab in underwater caves” – Stephanie Schwabe article from the Lexington Herald-Leader

Kendal Mint Cake on Wikipedia

Romney’s Kendal Mint Cake on Amazon

Reinhold Messner

“The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner” music album by the band Ben Folds Five

Related Books:

Suggested Listening:

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CREDITS:

Episode 279: The Third Man Syndrome Part 1. Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess. Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees Wendel of VW Sound. Music and Sound Design by Allen Carrescia. Tess Pfeifle, Producer and Lead Researcher. Ed Voccola, Technical Producer. Research Support from The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2024 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

A Dickens December will be returning for 2023, with daily emails of A Christmas Carol from December 1st to December 26th!

Average length of emails is about 2 pages per day.

This year the emails will also contain the original (and public domain) illustrations by John Leech, thanks to Project Gutenberg.