Theme: 18th Century
-
Edmund Burke’s time has come. The idea that the eighteenth-century Irish-born British statesman and writer is especially relevant today, in an age that is often described as “postmodern,” may seem odd, or perhaps presumptuous.Read more
-
On November 9, 2010 the National Library of France opened a major new exhibit on Paris's most notorious prison, The Bastille. A jail may not be the first subject that springs to mind as the basis for a national library exhibit, but if any slammer can be called "the writer's prison," it is the Bastille. By chance and by design, the French Kings who had the power to imprison anyone, for any reason--or for no reason at all--wound up jailing some of France's most famous, and most infamous, 18th century writers.Read more
-
This extraordinary tale inspired as many as five nineteenth-century novels. Set either in Ireland or Scotland, each revolved around the dramatic kidnapping of a young heir for the purpose not of extorting ransom but of usurping the lad's patrimony. Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering (1815) was the first to adopt this formula, but far and away the most famous novel to draw from Annesley's life was the classic boy's adventure, Kidnapped (1886), by Robert Louis Stevenson, which recounted the abduction of young David Balfour by his greedy Uncle Ebenezer.Read more
