The Lost World

Easter-time rejection! Who sends a refusal on Easter morning? One of the agents I queried, apparently. This means my Patrons receive another one of my favourite novels, digitised by yours truly: The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle. It might seem strange to include this book in a selection that has been mostly dealing with […]

The Family of the Ghoul

Easter/time rejection! While I have two agents looking at the full manuscript, yet another one answered “thanks but no thanks”, so my Patrons get their festive story featuring spring, bunnies and butterflies. Well, no, not really. Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817-1875) was a prominent Russian intellectual who worked as poet, novelist, playwright, and diplomat. He ventured […]

Harry Siddons Mowbray, “The Marriage of Persephone” (1895)

The artist of this painting was born at Alexandria, Egypt, from English parents but he spent most of his childhood in American after his father died and his mother moved closer to her family. He was adopted by his aunt after his mother died too, in a freak domestic accident. He came back to Europe […]

Piero della Francesca and the Saint Augustine Altarpiece (reunited)

Piero della Francesca was born in Borgo San Sepolcro, Tuscany, in 1412. This will be important later. After spending decades honing his craft, he was hailed as both a great mathematician and an unparalleled painter, celebrated for his mastery of light and space. If we understand anything about perspective, we owe it to him. If […]