I Have Been...

Poppy Field Near Vetheuil (1879) by Claude Monet

{Reading}

Finished The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer yesterday.

Just ordered Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.

Bibliotherapy continues. :)

{Writing}

Academic work on Elizabeth Gaskell

and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

(Three cheers for all the great Elizabeths!)

{Looking}

 At flowers, buds and plants.

Currently obsessed by all flora and fauna.

{Listening}

Regina Spektor's Samson. So haunting!

 Bach's various string compositions. So invigorating!

{Watching}

Emma. This adaptation is sunshine for my soul:

 

{Feeling}

 Discouraged by my recent past yet hopeful for my future.

Also, hungry. Time for a snack.

{Anticipating}

 The imminent blooming of our tulips.

A forthcoming holiday in June.

{Loving}

Percy. Poor thing hurt his paw today, 

but he's revelled in the extra attention. 

Dogs are the best.

The Classics Spin!

Fallen Asleep While Reading (1872)

William Powell Frith

Though I'm currently inundated with a variety of projects, both professional and personal, I'm longing for an entire week of nothing but leisure reading. Hopefully, my March schedule will ease up (keep your fingers crossed for me!) so I can indulge in some good -- nay, fantastic -- books. Ah, what luxury.

Even if it's a bit late, I've decided to join The Classics Spin! The concept is to select twenty unread titles from your Classics Club list: five titles one is dreading, five highly anticipated titles, five titles to which one is different, and five wild card titles (a category of one's own choosing). I'm not particularly dreading any titles on my list, but I'm most intimidated by chunksters right now as I worry that my easily distracted brain will abandon them after a few brief chapters. Time to face my fears. I also mentally chastise myself for not reading the wealth of children's classics sitting on my shelves, so that genre will be represented in my wild card selections.

The Classics Club randomly selected #14 as the title for participants to read, but I'm stealing a page from Cassandra's book by having a random generator decide which title I read so I can still experience the luck of the draw. The goal is to read the text in its entirety before April 1st.

Behold, my chosen titles...

Five Chunksters:

1. The Brontes by Juliet Barker

2. No Name by Wilkie Collins

3. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

4. Cecilia by Fanny Burney

5. Patronage by Maria Edgeworth

Five Titles I Can't Wait to Read:

6. The Warden by Anthony Trollope (barely made a dent in this in January!)

7. Adam Bede by George Eliot

8. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

9. The History of Pompey the Little by Francis Coventry

10. A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne

Five Titles About Which I Am Currently Indifferent:

11. The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

12. The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

13. Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith

14. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

15. East Lynne by Ellen Wood

Wild Card -- Five Children's Classics:

16. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

17. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

18. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

19. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

20. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

And now my randomly generated number: 5

I will be reading Patronage by Maria Edgeworth in March. I swear I didn't cheat! I was sort of hoping I'd 'get stuck' with a chunkster, as I need a gentle push to get going with these. I usually end up loving chunksters, so a little nudge is appreciated. I'm quite happy with this result. :)

If you're also participating in the spin, I'd love to hear what you'll be reading and your feelings about it. Are you apprehensive? Excited?

Victorian Artists: Sir Edwin Landseer

Dignity and Impudence 1839

I wrote my MA dissertation on dogs in nineteenth-century literature, and since then animals seem to pop up everywhere in my reading. Actually, they were most likely always there, but now I take notice of them. 

Throughout the Victorian Celebration, this trend has continued. Animals act as symbols that signify the wider themes in Lady Audley's Secret and The Professor. A labrador is an important character in the Sarah Waters novel I just finished earlier this evening (not Victorian, but still), while Sonnets from the Portuguese brings to mind the affectionate relationship Elizabeth Barrett Browning had with her spaniel Flush and how that's mirrored in her poetry.

So, I obeyed the sudden inclination to look through some Landseer artwork.

Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873) produced an incredible array of paintings featuring domestic animals and wildlife during the Victorian period -- in fact, he was commissioned to paint several portraits of Queen Victoria and the rest of the royal family, pets included. Although he is best remembered today for his lion sculptures that adorn Trafalgar Square, it's his portraits of animal that are, to me, the most poignant. 

Some of his representations are rather fanciful and anthropomorphic by twenty-first century standards (and some are disturbingly violent), but I feel he truly captured the spirit and individuality of animals. Landseer's work transcends the portrayal of animals as mere accessories to their aristocratic masters. I'm looking forward to finding out more about him and other nineteenth-century artists as I continue my fascinating research on the Victorians.

Here's a small sample of his paintings...

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert 

at Home at Windsor Castle in Berkshire, England 1843

The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner 1837

The Arab Tent 1866

 Laying Down the Law 1840

 The Monkey Who Had Seen the World 1827

And this last one makes me smile. It reminds me of my own terrier who is always begging for food with a similar pleading expression. It's as if he's saying, 'Please, sir, I want some more.' 

Macaw, Love Birds, Terrier, and Spaniel Puppies

Belonging to Her Majesty 1839

P.S. Just scouted out this book containing Landseer's private drawings. I want it!

Victorian Tea Party

Back in September Ana and I went to the Leeds Art Gallery for an afternoon visit.  It's fairly small, but it's easy to navigate.  I spent a long while drooling over the Pre-Raphaelite section, particularly John William Waterhouse's The Lady of Shallott Looking at Lancelot:

Isn't it gorgeous?!

The gallery features a Victorian-era tea room in lieu of the standard cafe, so after our museum meandering Ana treated me to a little tea party complete with cake.  The Yorkshire cream tea was delicious, and the addition of cake made it that much better.  (Cake makes everything better.)

Ana

A steaming cuppa

 Moi

The gorgeous tea room

I love the Victorians -- did I say that already?

Check out the ceiling

Isn't it incredible? 

 Ana sips her tea

Ginger lime cake

Adding extra milk to my tea

People watching outside the window

And finally...

A tiny bearded man has invaded my teacup!

That was Ana's initial reaction when she saw this photo

It does sort of appear that way, doesn't it?

I had a wonderful time pretending I was a Victorian lady at tea.  If you are in the Leeds area, I would definitely recommend a visit to the Leeds Art Gallery and its delightful tearoom.  The threat of tiny men taking over your teacup is minimal.