New History Books: Surge of Piety December 18, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : New History BooksChristopher Lane, Surge of Piety: I read one of Norman Vincent Peale’s books many years ago and was fascinated. If the publisher wants to send me a copy…
Making Fairy Wings December 18, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernAfter yesterday’s post on the origin of fairy wings, Beach now asks a parallel question. If from the later 19C children were wearing fairy wings at parties who actually made the damn things. Today there are special firms. What about in 1850 or 1890 or 27 October 1933. Here is a short article from that […]
New History Books: Rasputin December 17, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : New History BooksDouglas Smith, Rasputin: ‘you have to sin to be forgiven’. Fascinated, watching with my daughter, by the role that Rasputin take on in the Disney’s Anastasia.
In Search of the Earliest Fairy Wings December 17, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernNext year Beach has to write an article on the history of fairy wings, something that he is greatly looking forward to: for absolute beginners fairies were not shown with wings until relatively recent times. There are three big historical questions: (i) when were fairies first portrayed in art or literature as wearing fairy wings; […]
Daily History Picture: More Gifts for Hitler December 16, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesAnn Atkin and the Gnomes December 16, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Actualite, ContemporaryAged 7 or 8 Beach had a life changing experience in the garden of a Mrs Ann Atkin’s in south-western England. He stumbled on this article today and wanted to publish it for the historical record, but also out of, well, gratitude. Briefly he was a member of the Gnome Club of Great Britain. Somewhere […]
Priest as Cunning Man December 15, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernThis is an interesting case from 1867 recorded in a local newspaper. Readers might need to be reminded that Britain was an overwhelmingly Protestant country at this date; that the Protestant majority despised Catholicism and that Lancashire, in the North-West of England was one of the places where English Catholicism had survived best, albeit as […]
Daily History Picture: Presents for Adolf December 15, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesDaily History Picture: Illuminated Manuscript December 14, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesBurning Bluecoat Memoirs December 14, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernExam grading and sadness at leaving a much loved job continues. In this melancholic frame here is some more missing manuscripts. These stories are often, as the distance of a more than a century, quite amusing. But there is no question that, at the time, they must have been horrifically painful for those involved. A […]
Daily History Picture: Penguin and Girl December 13, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesDumb Duels #4: Cigarette Duel December 13, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernA nice story from the British press about a duel at Casale (not clear where this is other than northern Italy) from a great Italian actor, Ernesto Rossi (obit 1897): a cigarette duel. A strange duel is related to have been fought by the celebrated tragedian Signor Rossi. The latter, during a farewell performance of […]
Daily History Picture: Gordon Riots December 12, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesVictorian Urban Legend: the Expensive Manuscript December 12, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernBeach now has a couple of difficult days as he leaves his old university and says goodbye to a particularly fine cohort of students. Here is some more manuscript nonsense to keep him and you distracted. Is this urban legend? Probably but pleasing. A celebrated authoress wrote a drama, which she committed to the manager […]