A Year in Books/Day 222: Queen of the Wits A Life of Laetitia Pilkington

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  • Title: Queen of the Wits A Life of Laetitia Pilkington
  • Author: Norma Clarke
  • Year Published: 2008 (Faber and Faber Limited)
  • Year Purchased: September, 2012
  • Source: My mom bought it for me in Ireland.
  • About: If emotions could flash across time, whether born of sympathy or distaste, then Laetitia Pilkington would be knocked over by waves of righteous indignation sent her way from 21st century readers of Norma Clarke’s compelling biography. It would be all too easy to write off what happened to the 18th century writer and wit as just another example of the appalling, often violent double standard facing women of the time. It’s not that simple. She was a pet favourite of Jonathan Swift, a precocious young writer, budding intellectual, wife, mother, and beloved daughter. Whether she had an affair or not (and it is hard to tell if her explanation was pure cheek or plain truth) doesn’t matter within the context of her place and time; the fact that her ill-tempered husband, a curate with literary ambitions, was allowed to carry on dalliances without punishment or even censure, whilst she was publicly castigated as a whore, is the central theme of what became an extended nightmare for his wife. Continue reading →

The Dead Writers Round-Up: 23rd-27th November

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  • Sir Arthur Wing Pinero died on 11/23/1934. “Where there’s tea there’s hope.” (The Second Mrs. Tanqueray; The Enchanted Cottage; The Amazons)
  • Andre Malraux died on 11/23/1976. “Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” (Man’s Fate)
  • Roald Dahl died on 11/23/1990. “Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with totally different people.” (James and the Giant Peach; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Matilda; The Witches; Fantastic Mr. Fox) Continue reading →

The Dead Writers Round-Up: 21st-22nd November

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  • Voltaire was born on 11/21/1694. “I hate women because they always know where things are.” (Candide)
  • Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch was born on 11/21/1863. “We make our discoveries through our mistakes: we watch one another’s success: and where there is freedom to experiment there is hope to improve.” (Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900; On the Art of Reading)
  • Harold Nicolson was born on 11/21/1886. “We are all inclined to judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their acts.” (Paul Verlaine; Swinburne; King George V; The Age of Reason (1700-1789); Byron: The Last Journey)
  • Ellen Glasgow died on 11/21/1945. “All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.” (Virginia; In This Our Life)
  • Robert Benchley died on 11/21/1945. “Behind every argument is someone’s ignorance.” (Pluck and Luck; Inside Benchley; Benchley Beside Himself)
  • George Eliot was born on 11/22/1819. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” (Adam Bede; The Mill on the Floss; Middlemarch; Daniel Deronda)
  • Andre Gide was born on 11/22/1869. “There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.” (The Fruits of the Earth; The Immoralist)
  • Jack London died on 11/22/1916. “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” (The Call of the Wild; The Sea-Wolf; White Fang; The Iron Heel; The People of the Abyss)
  • Aldous Huxley died on 11/22/1963. “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” (Crome Yellow; Brave New World)
  • C.S. Lewis died on 11/22/1963. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” (Mere Christianity; The Screwtape Letters; The Chronicles of Narnia)
Voltaire
Robert Benchley
George Eliot
Andre Gide, 1893
Jack London, 1900
Aldous Huxley

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