Tag: Victorian England

3,142 words

Ed Brandon
A History of London County Lunatic Asylums & Mental Hospitals
Pen and Sword History, 2022

Some of the news aggregators I watch online show clips from TikTok, and the fascination of watching this menagerie of psychological dysfunction reminded me of something I read or heard long ago. It seems that the Victorians in England would pay a penny to enter lunatic asylums, where they would watch the unfortunate inmates grimace and cavort for their entertainment in those pre-cinematic times. I never bothered to confirm this over the years, but always had a hankering to get hold of a decent history of English asylums. (more…)

9,202 words

There is an elective affinity — a relationship of reciprocal attraction and mutual reinforcement — between a) John Locke’s argument that a child’s mind initially resembles an “empty cabinet” or a “white paper void of all characters” which can be shaped by controlling the education impressed upon the child’s mind, and b) the origins of a literature specifically written for children in the 1700s in England. (more…)

3,304 words

When I was in college, the campus offered a film series called Twice-Told Tales. You would view a film followed by its remake three days later. Films like Dangerous Female (1931), starring the well-known actor Ricardo Cortez. Whatever happened to Ricardo Cortez? For that matter, Dangerous Female? The remake did rather better: The Maltese Falcon (1942), starring Humphrey Bogart. We sure know him. (more…)

Like most illustrations of this kind, Death seems to be having a grand ol’ time.

8,057 words 

Prologue: The Styx

The half-light of an autumn evening reflected off the Old River and into the face of the boatman. Over and under each subtle ripple and eddy, his eyes darted here to there so quickly that his gaze seemed fixed. As if he took in the whole broad sweep of the Thames with a hungry look-out. Next to him, and charged with steering the dinghy, stooped a young girl, his daughter. She “watched his face as earnestly as he watched the river. But in the intensity of her look, there was a touch of . . . horror.” (more…)