The nights are drawing in (they seem to start at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon), the weather is worsening (we had snow on Sunday!) and it is the perfect time of year to stay indoors with a book. Or indeed several books. I have a to-read pile that’s beginning to rival the Eiffel Tower, so I really shouldn’t be looking for more reading material, but I can’t help it! I think it’s my version of hibernation. Anyway, it seemed like an idea to share some of my recent online findings. Some of them are rather good.
I think most people are familiar with Project Gutenberg, a site with over 25 000 free ebooks (mostly older texts whose USA copyright has expired), but I recently discovered ManyBooks.net and like it even more. It has most of, if not all, the PG texts, but allows you to download them in almost any format you like. (Since most PG texts only come in .txt or html formats, this is a real boon.) Where applicable, it also links to the LibriVox recording of the book.
I love old books and the richness of their language, so I leapt at The Castle of Wolfenbach (written in 1793 by Eliza Parsons) which is seriously Gothic and mentioned as one of seven “horrid novels” in Austen’s Northanger Abbey. I also liked The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe. Both feature copious amounts of gloomy castles, strange men, and fainting women. They’re a wonderful escape from modern life, enjoyably thrilling, and not a little silly.
There is a fine collection of P. G. Wodehouse, always a treat and a joy to read. I’ve just finished Mike and Psmith and am about to start Psmith in the City. I could sing Wodehouse’s praises for days, but suffice it to say that he is a very funny, witty writer of clever, light-hearted books.
The whole Pirate Tales category looks fascinating, ditto the Nautical one – but I have just been reading Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander, so am particularly susceptible to anything involving backstays, t’gallants and studding-sails (all parts of a ship).
Continuing the theme of old books, the site fromoldbooks.org has a good collection of online reference books and images. Of particular use to the modern reader might be the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – “a dictionary of the slang of the British underworld produced in 1811″ – which contains definitions for such delightful words and phrases as “captain queernabs“, “frummagemmed” and “malingeror“. I’m also enjoying Nathan Bailey’s Canting Dictionary.
A recent and wonderful discovery is Real Life in London, published in 1821 in two illustrated volumes. (Although it’s available at ManyBooks.net, it didn’t come with any of the pictures which the Project Gutenberg version contains.) The full title is in fact Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. Or, The Rambles And Adventures Of Bob Tallyho, Esq., And His Cousin, The Hon. Tom Dashall, Through The Metropolis; Exhibiting A Living Picture Of Fashionable Characters, Manners, And Amusements In High And Low Life, which I think says it all, really! An extract that made me laugh follows below:
A vast crowd of dashing young Beaux and elegantly dressed Belles, calling about them for oysters, lobsters, salmon, shrimps, bread and butter, soda-water, ginger-beer, &c. kept up a sort of running accompaniment to the general conversation in which they were engaged; when the mirth and hilarity of the room was for a moment delayed upon the appearance of a dashing Blade, who seemed as he entered to say to himself,
“Plebeians, avaunt! I have altered my plan, Metamorphosed completely, behold a Fine Man! That is, throughout town I am grown quite the rage, The meteor of fashion, the Buck of the age.”
He was dressed in the extreme of fashion, and seemed desirous of imparting the idea of his great importance to all around him: he had a light-coloured great-coat with immense mother o’ pearl buttons and double capes, Buff or Petersham breeches, and coat of sky-blue, his hat cocked on one side, and stout ground-ashen stick in his hand. It was plain to be seen that the juice of the grape had been operative upon the upper story, as he reeled to the further end of the room, and, calling the attendant, desired her to bring him a bottle of soda-water, for he was lushy, by G—d; then throwing himself into a box, which he alone occupied, he stretched himself at length on the seat, and seemed as if he would go to sleep.
(I think it’s the phrase “It was plain to be seen that the juice of the grape had been operative upon the upper story” that really gets me.)
I can’t finish without mentioning a valuable non-fiction resource: the Antique Pattern Library. In their own words, “This ongoing project is an effort to scan needlework pattern books that are in the public domain, to preserve them, so we can keep our needlework heritage in our hands”. Truly a worthy goal.
Some other knitting that has been started is not-so-secret Christmas knitting. It required the writing of a pattern, in fact the writing of a chart, which is a first for me. I will say only that it involves cables (a lot of them) and bell-ringing. More on this next month, at some point after the 25th.
