Before Chawton House closed for lockdown, Tina Baxter of the Georgian Dining Academy was busy transcribing one of our most exceptional items: an unpublished manuscript written in the style of a Gothic novel. Here, she recounts her progress... [...]
Chawton House Poetry Challenge Week 4 My first doth affliction denote Which my second is destin'd to feel. And my whole is the best antidote That affliction to soften and heal. Quoted in Jane Austen, Emma (1815) It’s Week [...]
Chawton House Poetry Challenge Week 3 Harmonious Powers with Nature work On sky, earth, river, lake, and sea: Sunshine and storm, whirlwind and breeze All in one duteous task agree. Dorothy Wordsworth ‘Floating Island’ (late 1820s) It’s Week 3 [...]
Chawton House Poetry Challenge Week 2 I owe to the kind Poet who has set Upon my ambitious head a glorious gain. Two bending laurel Sprigs 'tis nearly pain To be conscious of such a Coronet. John Keats ‘On [...]
Chawton House Poetry Challenge Hail! Goddess of persuasive art! The magic of whose tuneful tongue Lulls to soft harmony the wand’ring heart With fascinating song Mary Robinson, ‘Ode to Eloquence’ (1789) Calling all budding poets – beginners and [...]
December, 2019. Postdoctoral Fellow Kim Simpson writes the fourth in the Amelia Opie blog series Amelia Opie died on this day (2nd December), 1853. Today, in an act of commemoration, I transcribed the first and the last letters that [...]
November, 2019. Postdoctoral Fellow Kim Simpson writes the third in the Amelia Opie blog series ‘Mrs. Opie is often acknowledged handsome, but always allowed to be charming.’ ‘Memoirs of Mrs. Opie’, The Lady’s Monthly Museum, vol. 6, March, 1801 [...]
September, 2019. Postdoctoral Fellow Kim Simpson writes the second in the Amelia Opie blog series ‘marriage is wise and ought to be a sacred institution; and I bitterly regret the hour when, with the hasty and immature judgment of [...]
Becca O'Mara, studying English Literature with Creative Writing at Solent University Anyone who has visited Chawton House knows that the village of Chawton seems to exist within a time bubble that appears to have barely changed throughout its history. [...]
August, 2019. Postdoctoral Fellow Kim Simpson writes the first of a new monthly blog series I’ve spent the last three days on a single paragraph, reading and re-reading, trying to pick out the words from a barbed wire fence [...]