The Library of Comfort
by Jürgen Pieters The painting on my new book’s cover was made by the Viennese artist Friedrich Frotzel (1898-1971). Its title – ‘The Old Bookcase’ – makes it even more appropriate. The library of comfort, as I make clear in…
Five Interesting Neighbours of Shakespeare in the 1590s
by Geoffrey Marsh Who were the most interesting ‘neighbours’ of that Living with Shakespeare explores? I tried to follow up on all of the hundred or so families that made up the parish of St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate in the 1590s.…
Shakespeare in the North: Nation, Race and Haircuts
by Adam Hansen I got a post-‘lockdown #3’ haircut in my Tyneside town recently, to my relief, and everyone else’s. (You know things are getting desperate when 90% of what anyone sees onscreen in a Zoom call is not your…
Living with Shakespeare – A Journey in Nine Acts
by Geoffrey Marsh Given that there is little information about Shakespeare’s life, people ask what made me think there was enough to write another book. The short answer is I didn’t. While I would like to claim that Living with…
Translation and Literature Reaches Thirty: A Little History
By Stuart Gillespie I was one of the two founding editors of this journal in 1992. Anyone involved with a publication for this long will have travelled far, and when I look back over the thirty-year lifespan of Translation and…
Burns Chronicle: The Oldest Scottish Literature Journal in the World?
By the Editors & Reviews Editor, the Burns Chronicle Almost 130 years ago, in 1892, enthusiasts started publishing the Burns Chronicle and the journal has continued ever since, conveying articles of interest and news among Burns Clubs and admirers of…
Reading the War on Terror in Moroccan Picture Books
By Sara Austin and Ann Wainscott We met at New Faculty Orientation in 2018. Sara was seated across a large round table from me, and during introductions she mentioned that she was a scholar of children’s literature. I immediately mentioned…
‘Everything that wriggles’: The Muriel Spark Archives
By James Bailey ‘I am a hoarder of two things: documents and trusted friends’, wrote Spark in her 1992 autobiography, Curriculum Vitae. ‘The former outweigh the latter in terms of quantity’, she added. Spark wasn’t exaggerating; while the author was…
Four Irish Persephones
By Virginie Trachsler The young Persephone is gathering flowers in a meadow when her uncle Hades, god of the underworld, rises through a crack in the earth and abducts her on his golden chariot. Her mother Ceres wanders the earth…