Ian Fleming on naming James Bond.
Ian Fleming on naming James Bond.
George Sand by Eugene Delacroix, 1838.

George Sand by Eugene Delacroix, 1838.
*Today is George Sand’s birthday. She was born on 1 July 1804.
The Childhood Art of Famous Authors [courtesy Flavorwire]
Does any of your childhood art survive?
Lytton Strachey organized his books from Z-A. What fun, I say! I love the peculiar precision of this arrangement, and have adopted its use.

Starting with Zola

Stein-Joyce

Hesse-Dickens
How do you arrange your books?
“In pure literature, the writers of the eighteenth century achieved, indeed, many triumphs; but their great, their peculiar, triumphs were in the domain of thought.”-Lytton Strachey
Elizabeth Barrett Browning died on 29 June 1861. Here she is, looking intense.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, September 1859
QUOTE: “Who so loves believes the impossible.”
SOME WORKS: The Seraphim, and Other Poems; Casa Guidi Windows; Aurora Leigh; Poems Before Congress; Last Poems.
A KEEPSAKE:

Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning Earrings by Persephone. $24.00
The 7 Best Graphic Adaptations of Classic Literature [courtesy Barnes & Noble]
King Lear for the win, please. Do you have a favourite?
“I lived to write, and wrote to live.”-Samuel Rogers
Natalie in Fur Cape by the writer’s mother, artist Alice Pike Barney.

Natalie in Fur Cape by Alice Pike Barney
The best poems are written on the hardy limbs of vegetables. Broccoli, cauliflower, and parsnips. Delicate truths spiral up stems and skip across indentations left by careless produce handlers. Gut-words escape from the penetralia of the mind, to end up nib-scratched on rutted, aromatic skin. Ink soaks into small fleshless creases, and pools at the roots. Cabbage leaves are the superior blotting papers of the Cruciferous world.
James M. Barrie, prolific Scottish playwright and the father of Peter Pan and Wendy, died on 19th June 1937. He was 77. Here he is, looking serious and melancholy.

James M. Barrie, 1901
QUOTE: “The most useless are those who never change through the years.”
SOME WORKS: The Little Minister; Quality Street; The Admirable Crichton; Peter Pan; Alice Sit-by-the-Fire; What Every Woman Knows; A Kiss for Cinderella; The Old Lady Shows Her Medals.
A KEEPSAKE:

Crichton’s Island, Postcard Map of James M. Barrie’s The Admirable Crichton by Craig Wetzel. $3.00