You'll find some good things if you browse the Persephone Books catalogue, including Vere Hodgson's Few Eggs and No Oranges, Mollie Panter-Downes's Wartime Stories, and Mathilde Wolff-Monckeberg's On the Other Side: Letters to My Children from Germany 1940-46.

There's also a recent compilation of material from the Mass Observation archive, Our Longest Days: A People's History of the Second World War, edited by the late Sandra Koa Wing. It's had some rave reviews: the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 1:34 PM on July 21, 2008

Does America's religious history have a parallel in England?

Yes, very much so. To take your specific example: the Puritan movement in New England was closely paralleled, on the other side of the Atlantic, by the nonconformist sects which broke away from the Church of England after 1660 to form the Dissenting churches (Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Baptist; sometimes called 'Old Dissent' to distinguish them from the Methodist churches that sprang... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 6:15 AM on July 20, 2008 marked best answer

It may help to rephrase the question slightly, from 'who decides?' to 'how is it decided?' This is not so much a question of authority (who gets to control the interpretation) as a question of reception (what is the accepted interpretation and how does it get to be that way).

The central problem, of course, is that the New Testament is inconsistent in its attitude to the Jewish Law. At some points it appears to be saying that the Law has been completely abolished (e.g.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 3:02 AM on June 25, 2008

the Lords Spiritual are the ecclesiastical members of the House of Lords. Bishops in the Church of England. They have no voting power in most circumstances. Their place in the HoL is largely ceremonial and advisory, reflecting the history of Parliament, which was originally an advisory council to the Sovereign.

Yet another example of why it's a bad idea to rely on Wikipedia for your information. This is wrong on at least three counts: (1) yes, the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 3:44 AM on June 21, 2008

It is sometimes asserted that the Lord Mayor may exclude the Sovereign from the City of London. The legend is based on the misinterpretation of the ceremony observed each time the Sovereign enters the City. At Temple Bar the Lord Mayor presents the City's pearl-encrusted Sword of State to the Sovereign as a symbol of the latter's overlordship. The Sovereign does not, as is often purported, wait for the Lord Mayor's permission to enter the City.

This... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 8:43 AM on June 21, 2008

Well, you said the bishops had 'no voting power in most circumstances', which is incorrect. But I don't want to get caught up in a game of you said / no I didn't. The point, which I hope we can both accept, is that the bishops' presence in the House of Lords gives them a great deal of political power. Many people feel that this is indefensible, and that their power ought to be (at the very least) severely cut back. (Is it right, for example, that the Bishop of Rochester should be able to... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 10:15 AM on June 21, 2008

Have you tried Louis MacNeice? (Northern Irish -- he was born in Belfast.) His best known love poem is Meeting Point ('Time was away and somewhere else'), which Clive James describes as 'the poem that every young man should learn to recite by heart if he wants to pull classy girls'. But you might prefer 'A Toast', in which the poet uses all his poetic skill to summon up everything he possesses, and presents it all to his beloved. (He finally gets to fuck her in the last stanza.)... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 6:47 AM on June 19, 2008

Lionel Davidson's Kolymsky Heights is a novel I admire. The scientific detail strains credulity (something to do with fibre-optics and a 'rogue harmonic' that can cure blindness) but it's really just an excuse to get our hero racing across the Siberian permafrost with the entire Russian army in pursuit. The final chase lasts for about 100 pages and is absolutely gripping.

I'm also a fan of Steve Hamilton's novels, which, as you might guess from the titles... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 3:12 PM on June 15, 2008

It's from the Latin Vulgate, Matthew 27: 54: 'centurio autem et qui cum eo erant custodientes Iesum viso terraemotu et his quae fiebant timuerunt valde dicentes vere Dei Filius erat iste'. 'Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.'
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 4:46 PM on June 4, 2008 marked best answer

You might enjoy the Journal of a Disappointed Man if you don't already know it. Also the extracts from the diary of Anne Lister, though sadly the full version is not available online.

I strongly suspect that the Diary of a Young Lady, which you mention, is not authentic. The lack of biographical information is suspicious, as is the fetishistic detail about tight-laced corsets, corporal punishment in girls' boarding schools, etc. I take it to be a piece of... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 4:01 PM on June 4, 2008

The other day I was browsing through Bill Reese's latest catalogue and was very struck by the long description (item 233) of Atuagagdliutt, the first Eskimo newspaper:

Atagagdliutt, translated literally as 'distributed reading matter', stands alone when evaluating the impact of a single printed periodical on a native culture. The catholic editorial taste of Berthelsen and Muller not only brought the world's great literature to the doors of... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 2:39 PM on June 3, 2008

There was a FPP about this not so long ago, linking to Steven Pinker's review of Gottschall & Wilson. You might also be interested in William Benzon's Signposts for a Naturalist Criticism (another critical response to Gottschall & Wilson) and Raymond Tallis's The Neuroscience Delusion (a no-nonsense piece of theory-bashing, chiefly aimed at A.S. Byatt's 'neuroaesthetics' but with a few well-aimed shots at literary Darwinism as well).... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 7:47 AM on June 3, 2008

I think most Latin translations you find will be medieval or renaissance, and of questionable quality

You think you can translate Greek into Latin better than the Renaissance humanists? Well, do ya, punk?

This is quite possibly the silliest request I have ever seen on AskMeFi, so naturally I have to make a stab at answering it. Here's the relevant passage from the Latin translation of the Iliad by Nicolas Valla and Vincent... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 6:31 AM on May 22, 2008

I think it's reasonably faithful to the Greek, except that it only mentions the old man's head and beard, not his sexual organs. Here, just for variety, is another Renaissance Latin translation, this one by Leontius Pilatus:

.. iuveni autem omnia conveniunt
Marti interfecto dilaniato acuto ferro
Iacere, omnia autem bona mortuo quicquid appareat.
Sed quando iam canum caput canamque barbam
Verecundia vituperent... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 8:13 AM on May 27, 2008

The great thing about Austin's philosophy is that it works with ordinary language -- the sort of things we say every day, without necessarily reflecting on what it is we're saying. This is a very appealing and liberating way to do philosophy, because it suggests that pretty much everything we need to know is already available to us in the words we use; all we have to do is unpack it. It's also liberating because it focuses on what we have in common (our language), rather than suggesting, as... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 2:23 AM on May 21, 2008 marked best answer

The Oxford Papyrology site includes a helpful list of lost Greco-Roman literary works rediscovered in modern times. You might also be interested in this earlier AskMe thread, which discussed the likelihood of major new discoveries in the next few years.

Specific examples? There is the Charition mime, a bizarre piece of burlesque which turned up among the Oxyrhynchus papyri. No one really understands it, but you can read a partial translation... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 10:31 PM on May 19, 2008 marked best answer

Here is another helpful list of new Latin texts discovered between 1961 and 1995. The major discoveries have been in early Christian literature, where some really sensational things have turned up in recent years. Only last month it was announced that six unknown sermons of St Augustine have been discovered in a 12th-century manuscript at Erfurt. Given how intensively Augustine has been studied, and how widely his works were copied, it's truly extraordinary that new writings by him should... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 2:23 AM on May 20, 2008 marked best answer

In the early Middle Ages, apothecaries were often known as 'spicers' or 'pepperers' because the main part of their business was the import, weighing and distribution of spices (e.g. pepper, ginger, cloves, saffron, sugar). The word 'apothecary' (from 'apotheca', the place where wine, spices and herbs were stored) first came into use in England in the thirteenth century. The leading apothecaries dealt in a wide range of goods -- spices and spiced wines, medicines and ointments, sweets and... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 2:54 PM on May 15, 2008

There are excellent biographies of all four men. You can't go far wrong with Andrew Hodges on Turing, Ray Monk on Wittgenstein and Russell, and Robert Skidelsky on Keynes. Andrew Hodges also has a website on Turing, with a lot of biographical information. I'd also recommend some of the more personal accounts of Wittgenstein, such as Rush Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections (1981) and Theodore Redpath, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Student's... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 11:52 PM on May 14, 2008 marked best answer

In 'The Hen', a short story by H.H. Munro (= Saki), Clovis Sangrail invents a cocktail called the Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 'It was partly compounded of old brandy and partly of curacoa; there were other ingredients, but they were never indiscriminately revealed.'

However, I think the prize for Best. Fictional. Cocktail. Evar. goes to Anthony Powell, in Books Do Furnish a Room, where Dickie Umfraville serves a cocktail called 'Death Comes for the Archbishop'.
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 2:35 AM on May 5, 2008

The three main contenders are David Nokes, Park Honan and Claire Tomalin. Nokes is lively and entertaining, but has been criticised for using too much novelistic licence. Honan is scholarly and comprehensive, but I find his style a bit plodding. Tomalin is an experienced biographer, and her book is probably the best of the three.

I haven't read Halperin's book, but I've seen it criticised for inaccuracy. (I wouldn't trust Amazon recommendations if I were you.) As... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 1:54 AM on May 5, 2008 marked best answer

So many interesting questions here -- puritan attitudes to sex, puritan attitudes to work, puritan influences on modern culture -- that it's difficult to know where to begin.

First, the idea of sex as bad or shameful. There is, of course, a long tradition in Western Christianity (going back to Augustine) of seeing sexual desire as shameful and disordered (a symptom of human sinfulness in a fallen world), and the early Puritans share in this tradition to some extent.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 3:59 AM on May 2, 2008 marked best answer

The philosopher Michael Oakeshott defines civility as an intelligent relationship between equals engaged in a common practice governed by an agreed system of rules. He illustrates this with reference to the idea of conversation:

It is with conversation as with gambling, its significance lies neither in winning nor in losing, but in wagering. Properly speaking, it is impossible in the absence of a diversity of voices: in it different universes of discourse meet,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 3:13 PM on April 30, 2008

This makes me think of Belloc's poem about John Henderson, an unbeliever, and his sister Mary Lunn, who had a whacking lot of fun:

Though unbelieving as a beast
She didn't worry in the least,
But drank as hard as she was able
And sang and danced upon the table ..

The Christians, a declining band,
Would point with monitory hand
To Henderson his desperation,
To Mary... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 10:15 PM on April 20, 2008

I usually try to avoid citing Wikipedia, but the article on Children's literature criticism has a helpful bibliography which touches on some of these issues. If you want a more comprehensive bibliography, I recommend Perry Nodelman's Bibliography of Children's Literature Criticism, particularly the section on 'Culture, Ideology, and Children's Literature'. Or if you want a single book to help you get started, you might try John Stephens, Language and Ideology in Children's Fiction (1992).... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 11:55 AM on April 19, 2008

I read Struwwelpeter as a child, and it gave me screaming nightmares, night after night, until my parents took it away from me. Calling it 'hilarious' or 'really cool' is the reaction of an adult, not the reaction of a child.

The trouble with looking for children's books that 'push the boundaries' is that the boundaries keep on changing. In the earliest versions of Little Red Riding Hood, the little girl is killed and eaten by the wolf. In The Fairchild Family, one of... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 7:45 AM on April 20, 2008

Comfort yourself with the reflection that even Sherlock Holmes didn't know that the earth went round the sun:

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing .. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized being in this nineteenth century should... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 1:36 AM on April 15, 2008

You can see the effects of light for yourself if you leave (ordinary, modern) books exposed to sunlight for any length of time -- the colours on the bindings will start to fade alarmingly quickly. If you pull a book off the shelf you will often find that the colour of the spine, where the book has been exposed to light, is noticeably paler than the colour of the boards.

As Justinian says, ultra-violet light is particularly damaging. Occasionally we have to put one of... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 2:27 AM on April 9, 2008

Working as a university teacher, I first encountered the term in the mid-1990s, at a time when the traditional arts and humanities subjects (English, history, etc) were being challenged by more career-oriented degree subjects (business studies, management studies, etc). Emphasis on 'transferable skills' was a way to reassure students that studying classical literature, or Renaissance drama, or seventeenth-century social history, would not put them at a disadvantage in the job market, because it... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 4:10 AM on April 2, 2008

William Golding, Pincher Martin, where the protagonist is dead or dying, and the 'island' on which he appears to be stranded is actually the inside of his head.

Susan Cooper, Seaward, a fantasy novel set in the land of the dead, or possibly in a sort of 'between place' (as the protagonists get to choose, at the end of the novel, whether or not to go back to ordinary life).... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 11:41 AM on March 28, 2008

There are a very few books that are quite valuable, and almost everything else is worth between almost nothing and nothing.

I'd put it slightly differently. There are a few books that are very hard to find and very easy to sell, and a lot of books that are very easy to find and very hard to sell. The art of bookselling is to be able to tell the difference between the two. There's no easy way to do this -- you just have to learn by experience, by... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 4:33 AM on March 28, 2008

It may be difficult for a visitor from the US to realise the extent to which the British regard the NHS as their birthright, and free healthcare as part of the social contract between the individual and the state. (That's why horror stories about the NHS have such potency -- failings in the NHS seem to symbolise, in a very visible way, the breakdown of the social contract.) No government, not even the Thatcher government, has really been able to touch the NHS -- I remember the outcry when... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 3:00 AM on March 25, 2008 marked best answer

Harvard's is called HOLLIS which is a last name (there's a Hollis Hall used as a dorm)

More to the point, Thomas Hollis (1720-1774) was one of the major early donors to Harvard College Library.

The main Yale catalogue is called ORBIS, and the Yale Law Library catalogue is called MORRIS, which probably stands for something something Information System but is also (I assume) named after the former librarian, Morris Cohen. The... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 12:27 AM on March 25, 2008

Seventeenth-century sermons boring? Never! (Full disclosure: I wrote my PhD on seventeenth-century sermons.)

Don't forget that 'Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God' was the inspiration for one of the greatest American poems ever written. Why not read the sermon alongside the poem -- in dialogue with it, so to speak -- and see how they relate to each other?

What are we in the hands of the great God?
It was in vain you set... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 3:24 AM on March 21, 2008

Would you seriously argue with a devout Catholic that the virginity of Mary is actually a Hebrew-to-Greek translation mistake that was turned into a dogma for very precise reasons, thus making the massive Catholic devotion to that very minor character of the gospel narratives essentially a hoax?

If they were smart enough to see the objections to their beliefs, and curious enough to want to debate them, then yes, yes I would. Why not? (If they were... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 4:40 AM on March 20, 2008

I have a mild stutter (or stammer, as we say in UK English) and the general attitude that I try to communicate to people around me is 'OK, I have a stammer, I'm comfortable with that, it doesn't bother me and I hope it won't bother you either'. Most people seem to understand and accept that. However, I have endless arguments with my father (also a stammerer -- it often runs in families) who tells me that I take the problem far too lightly, and that my stammer is a crippling social stigma that... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 4:48 AM on March 19, 2008

One book which should certainly be on your reading list is Robin Winks's Cloak and Gown, about the links between the Ivy League universities (particularly Yale) and the OSS/CIA. Winks is particularly good in charting the shift from the inspired amateurism of the OSS to the career professionalism of the CIA -- and there's a great chapter (particularly enjoyable for a librarian like myself) on the Yale Library Project, a scheme to channel covert funds abroad under the pretence of buying books for... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 5:53 AM on February 28, 2008 marked best answer

EEBO is in a league of its own, but if you don't have access to EEBO and just want quick, free access to images of some early modern title-pages, your best bet is probably the online exhibition Shakespeare and the Book, designed to accompany David Scott Kastan's book of the same title.

Alternatively, you could try browsing the catalogue of the Macclesfield Library sale, coming up at Sotheby's in London next month. The sale is devoted to English books and manuscripts,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 2:16 PM on February 20, 2008 marked best answer

Michael Nyman's website might be helpful; it includes a list of the tracks in Drowning by Numbers and a copy of the CD sleeve notes. See also the notes by this obsessive Greenaway fan on Music in the Falls and the Bird List Song ('lammergeyer, cassowary' etc).

If that doesn't solve your query, let me know; I have the DVD of The Falls and the CD of Drowning by Numbers (the latter film sadly unavailable on DVD) and... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 2:22 AM on February 13, 2008 marked best answer

Here is the diary of an English visitor to Berne in 1897. The writer, Evelyn Wrench, was a 15-year-old schoolboy at the time (he went on to a career as a journalist, public speaker and promoter of international relations); the diary is not particularly insightful, but does at least give you a glimpse of Berne through the eyes of a visitor.

Friday, 17 September 1897 .. As soon as we arrived at Bern after leaving our luggage at the office, we went to the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 4:33 AM on February 6, 2008

Here's another English visitor to Berne: A.R. Sennett, in Fragments from Continental Journeyings (1903). Sennett was a pioneer motorist (author of The Petrol Carriage, Horseless Road Locomotion, etc), but on this occasion he was on a cycling holiday:

As the cyclist journeys hitherwards from the Jura side of the country, where French is universally spoken, he finds himself passing through districts where... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 5:15 PM on February 11, 2008

Charles Lamb, 'On an Infant Dying as soon as Born':

I saw where in the shroud did lurk
A curious frame of Nature's work.
A flow'ret crushed in the bud,
A nameless piece of Babyhood,
Was in her cradle-coffin lying;
Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying;
She did but ope an eye, and put
A clear beam forth, then strait up shut
For the long dark: ne'er more to... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 12:50 AM on February 5, 2008

Friedrich Rückert, Nun will die Sonn' so hell aufgehn:

Now the sun will rise as brightly
as if no misfortune had occurred in the night.
The misfortune has fallen on me alone.
The sun - it shines for everyone.
You must not keep the night inside you;
you must immerse it in eternal light.
A little light has been extinguished in my household;
Light of joy in the world, be welcome.
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 1:09 AM on February 5, 2008

My Cambridge friends say Ja-CO-bus (and one of them was supervised by her, so he should know).
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 11:58 AM on February 3, 2008 marked best answer

Great Coxwell Tithe Barn and Kelmscott Manor would make a good day out (bearing in mind that Kelmscott is only open on Wednesdays and occasional Saturdays). Great Coxwell may not sound particularly special, but trust me, it's wonderful; William Morris called it 'the finest piece of architecture in England'.

Blenheim Palace is another unmissable architectural experience; probably best visited on a Sunday when you can avoid the guided tour and walk round the house at your... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 3:43 PM on January 31, 2008

Christine Brooke-Rose.
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 7:02 AM on January 12, 2008

It depends on what you want. Do you want a portable paperback edition to read on the train on the way to work, or a solid hardback edition that will stand up to heavy use? a selected edition to introduce you to the work of a particular author, or a comprehensive edition that will serve as a work of permanent reference? For general reading, I tend to favour the Penguin Classics and Oxford World's Classics, which are decently printed and generally trustworthy. As far as scholarly editions are... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 3:11 AM on January 11, 2008 marked best answer

What you are looking for is cultural anthropology, more specifically that branch of cultural anthropology sometimes labelled the 'anthropology of everyday life'. Savannah's recommendation of Margaret Visser is spot-on, and I would advise you to try one of Visser's books, and see how you get on with it, before tackling some of the more heavyweight suggestions offered above. (Muir's book on early modern ritual is very good, but it's essentially an undergraduate/postgraduate textbook, not perhaps... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 1:14 PM on December 23, 2007

Edmund Blunden went out to Japan in 1924 and later published a collection of poems entitled Japanese Garland (1928). William Empson went out to Japan in 1931, and one of his best-known poems, Aubade (1937), refers to a Japanese earthquake. For these and many other examples, see the excellent online anthology Emerging from Absence: An Archive of Japan in English-Language Verse and its companion Bibliography of Japan in English-Language Verse.

Francis... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 1:13 PM on December 22, 2007 marked best answer

I'd be cautious about accepting the line as genuine. Fiona Stafford, in her authoritative account of the Johnson/Macpherson quarrel, makes no mention of 'maxime, si tu vis ..' and says that Macpherson's threatening letter to Johnson (from which the line allegedly comes) 'survives only in the anecdotes of those spectators who revelled in the dispute'. (See Fiona Stafford, 'Dr Johnson and the Ruffian: new evidence in the dispute between Samuel Johnson and James Macpherson', Notes and... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by verstegan at 8:46 AM on December 18, 2007