Orlando

Orlando

Vita Sackville-West | Myspace Video

"Orlando: A Biography is an influential novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on 11 October 1928. A semi-biographical novel based in part on the life of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West, it is generally considered one of Woolf's most accessible novels. The novel has been influential stylistically, and is considered important in literature generally, and particularly in the history of women's writing and gender studies. A film adaptation was released in 1992, starring Tilda Swinton as Orlando and Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth I."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando:_A_Biography

Read ORLANDO here
http://gutenberg.net.au/pages/woolf.html

"A translation, in verse, of the mottos of the English nobility and sixteen peers of Scotland in the year 1800 (1822)"

Great fun to read. Are you there?
Link at http://www.archive.org/details/translationinver00amicrich

Celebrate Sir Hans Sloane's 350th Birthday on April 16th

Available now here - more soon


"Welcome to Chelsea Physic Garden

Situated in the heart of London, this 'Secret Garden' is a centre of education, beauty and relaxation. Founded in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, it continues to research the properties, origins and conservation of over 5000 plant species.

Friends of the Garden have privileged access on weekdays throughout the year and on Sundays and Bank Holidays between April and October.
For the general public, our 2010 Opening times.

To celebrate the 350th Birthday of Sir Hans Sloane, the Garden will be not be charging admission fees on Friday 16th April 2010.
More details about Our Local Hero, Sloane."

Founded by Sir Hans Sloane - The British Museum

National Trust: The Lyme Caxton Missal

"The Lyme Caxton Missal

Turn the pages of history at Lyme Park, with our interactive display which lets you view the pages of the Lyme Caxton Missal.

The Missal was printed by William Caxton, England's first printer, in the 15th century. It is a rare copy of an early printed prayer book, famed in its time of print for being one of the first books to be printed in two colours, red and black.

For a sneak-peek of the unique Missal, watch our short film and discover more about its captivating history."

Link

A fascinating combination of old and new...

BBC: Lorna Doone

Now we can enjoy the romance of Exmoor online...

"The BBC dished up Lorna Doone as its classic costume drama for Christmas 2000 and served its source material well. R. D. Blackmore's novel of dangerous times and inter-clan warfare on Exmoor during the time of the Monmouth Rebellion is highly romantic. At its centre is the ongoing war between John Ridd (Richard Coyle), the yeoman with a noble heart, and Carver Doone, the reckless young leader of the outlawed family who murdered Ridd's father. Aside from their familial enmity, they are also rival suitors for the hand of the eponymous heroine (a spirited performance from Amelia Warner). The production avoids overkill on the swashbuckling front: the battle scenes are grim and bloody; Lorna herself is cocooned by her family but the Doone clan lives in a bleak, rough encampment with few comforts. And in Aidan Gillan's Carver, we have an anti-hero of extraordinary charisma, driven and ultimately destroyed by his single-minded determination to make Lorna his wife or see her dead. A stirring evening's viewing which offers the good old-fashioned satisfaction of just desserts all round." --Piers Ford

Read an online illustrated version of the book here.

BBC: A walk in Lorna Doone country - Link

In the Shadow of the Iron Duke

from the Times Literary Supplement
In the shadow of the Iron Duke


As seen by a descendant of the Duke of Wellington: the secret misfortunes of his family
Jane Ridley

...The first Duke left a glorious legacy; but he also bequeathed a troubled inheritance. Like many public figures, “the greatest man England has known” did not enjoy spending time with his family. Wellesley gives a sympathetic account of Kitty Pakenham, his wife. As a penniless younger son in Ireland, Arthur Wellesley proposed to Kitty and was rejected by her family as not being good enough. When he returned from India fourteen years later, a major-general on the make, he proposed again without even seeing her. “She is grown damned ugly, by Jove!” he allegedly remarked when at last they met. Kitty had grown neurotic and depressive too, and Wellesley relates the story of the Iron Duke’s unforgiving cruelty towards his reclusive but obsessively adoring wife. Towards his children he was equally hard. “My father never showed the least affection for any of us”, recalled his son. Not surprisingly perhaps, the two sons of the great man grew up lacking in confidence.

The grateful nation voted the Iron Duke a house at Stratfield Saye, but there was never quite enough money to support it. The Wellington survival strategy was to marry money. As many as three dukes married heiresses to cotton fortunes. Most unconventional of these heiresses was Wellesley’s grandmother, Dorothy Ashton. She divorced her husband Gerry, later the seventh Duke, when her son Valerian was only seven. Even today Valerian is reluctant to talk about the trauma and disgrace of his parents’ divorce. Only towards the end of the book does Wellesley reveal that Dorothy, who was a friend of W. B. Yeats and herself wrote poetry, belonged to the lesbian coterie that revolved around Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Dorothy's lonely life ended in depression and drink, but her defiance of social convention was “unbearable” for the upper-class Wellesleys, and it led to a family rift. Another blot on the family honour was the fifth Duke, who was a member of the pro-Nazi Right Club.

Jane Wellesley has written this book partly as a tribute to her parents. Because they are both alive she cannot perhaps be quite as candid as she might; she says little about her own childhood, for example. Her father is evidently a good man, a brave soldier and an excellent Duke, but he has survived by locking the skeletons into the family closets. In this sympathetic and enjoyable book, Wellesley invites the ghosts to take their place at the family feast.


Jane Wellesley
WELLINGTON
A journey through my family
384pp. Orion. £20.
978 0 297 85231 5


Link