Nigel Bruce

Poison Pen Letters

'Letters to an Unknown Woman'

Some writers permit publication of their private letters only after their own death, sensitive perhaps to public scandal. Prosper Mérimée’s “Lettres à une inconnue” was published in 1874, four years after his death. It reveals he had a lifelong correspondence with a much younger woman, who turned out to

Life as Opera

Life as Opera - Timeline

* 1813 Richard Wagner born in Leipzig * 1821 Lola Montez born Eliza Rosanna Gilbert in Ireland * 1824 La Mogador born as Céleste Vénard in Paris * 1825 Prosper Mérimée’s Clara Gazul published * 1830 Mérimée hears Carmen story * 1833 George Sand/Mérimée fiasco * 1838 Georges Bizet born in Paris * 1842 Rienzi launches

The Age of Consent

Lilith

Lilith the child-stealer is a mysterious figure. She appears only once in the Bible, in Isaiah 34:14, as a kind of screech owl demon in the desolation of Edom (the Jewish prophets repeatedly called for the destruction of Edom by God, because Edom had sided with its enemies). She

Women in Trousers

Lola Montez and Carmen in the Family?

Vita Sackville-West’s grandmother was known as Pepita, a Spanish dancer who took up with Lord Sackville-West, and they had five children together, before Pepita died in 1871. Their youngest child, Victoria, became Vita’s mother. Pepita had appeared on stage as “The Star of Andalusia” and it was good

Life as Opera

Lola Montez in 1847

There appear to be two versions of this painting around - presumably both by Joseph Stieler and commissioned by King Ludwig I. The one above (which I have cropped) is in the Schönheitengalerie (Gallery of Beauties), a collection of portraits in Schloss Nymphenburg in Munich. The one below, however, apparently

Life as Opera

Lola Montez the Pomegranate

As one ardent fan wrote, “Lola Montez was an enchantress. There was about her something provoking and voluptuous which drew you. Her skin was white, her wavy hair like tendrils of the woodbine, her eyes tameless and wild, her mouth like a budding pomegranate. Add to that a dashing figure,

From Russia with Love

London Floods

"I always enjoy London in the rain. Don't see why Russians hate the climate here. Like Russia is any better?" The man turned to the woman next to him. "They were Russian Mafia, you know. I'd rather go with that guy who did

Alice's Mirrors

Lorelei

The famous German legend of the Lorelei (or Lorelay) is really not that interesting. Neither as a sexual fable nor as a tourist destination. It's just a rock (above). What is interesting is why these pilgrimage sites lure us there at all. But, with magical and sacred places,

Angel Incarnate

Lot's Wife

Sodom and Gomorrah - a fable for the ages Apocalyptic stories flourish when times are bad. In the 1490's, following plagues and wars, many believed the end of the world was nigh as the year 1500 approached. Preachers attributed it to society's depravity - sodomy alone

Angel Incarnate

Lucia Brocadelli of Narni

In 15th century Florence, Girolamo Savonarola, the firebrand Dominican friar (I can't type that without seeing the puns) was highly critical of women mystics, damning their "diabolical" illusions. His defenders argued then, as now, that this was done not just to protect himself against his enemies,

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Lucian of Samosata

If Herman Melville had a patron saint it was this man, who lived from circa 125 AD – 180 AD), a "vile Atheist" whom Melville liked because they both enjoyed satirizing "tall tales." Melville is not given enough credit as a satirist; of course not many got

The Judgment of Paris

Places associated with Madame de Maintenon

Born Françoise d'Aubigné in 1635, she was known after her first marriage as Madame Scarron and later as Madame de Maintenon, a title she earned from Louis XIV. She took the name after the estate she bought in 1674, shown below. It is outside Paris, on the way

Kama Sutra

Mount Meru and the mandala

Mount Meru (or Sumeru) is the mythic five-peaked mountain at the center of the universe in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religions. It is represented in the image above as a mandala (a "circle") and as a yantra (a symbol for meditation). Meru in Sanskrit means "high."

Splendour in the Grass

Byron's 'Manfred', John Martin and Romanticism

Romanticism in English art began, many argue, with the painting below, where a Byronic hero is dwarfed by an overwhelming landscape. This is Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion, an oil painting by John Martin from 1812. The splendid nonsense of the painting's title and the

Spinster

'Mansfield Park'

This is actually my favorite Austen novel. In her earlier writing, she continually emphasizes the need for Love, but by Mansfield Park she is more cynical about Love’s chances: “I pay very little regard,” says Mrs. Grant, “to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If

Precious Bodily Fluids

If 'Romeo and Juliet' were set in Mantua

Romeo and Juliet is set in Verona, as everybody knows. But what if it were set in Mantua (Mantova)? They are connected already: it is to Mantua that Romeo is banished for killing Tybalt. It turns on the manner of Tybalt's death: Romeo is guilty of his murder.

Spinster

Harris Bigg-Wither and Manydown

Harris Bigg-Wither (21 years old at the time) proposed to Jane (who was almost 27). She accepted and changed her mind by the morning. Did this play a role in her plotting for Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma? Steventon was two and a half miles from the Bigg-Withers&

Letters from Africa

Marc Chagall's Fiddlers

Black and Jewish - note the prayer shawl and the white hand in the painting above. Chagall painted several of these fiddlers and this one is from 1923-24, shortly after Chagall and his wife Bella returned to Paris from Russia. The Guggenheim prefers to call him "The Green Violinist,

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

'Mardi' as a satire of the Latter Day Saints

What to make of Herman Melville's Mardi... As one LDS scholar puts it, "That Melville could have used The Book of Mormon in writing Mardi is apparent." The island of Serenia in the novel could well be Nauvoo, or Joseph Smith’s utopian flights of fancy

The Woman in the Bower

Marie de France

We don't know much about Marie de France but we do have The Lais de Marie de France, 12 Breton lais (poems) comprising wonderful tales of adultery and romantic love, Celtic magic and the supernatural and they are available today translated in elegant prose (I have the translation

Letters from Africa

Mark Twain and George Washington Cable

Twain and Cable became friends on a promotional book tour together in November of 1884 that reached 80 cities by February of 1885 when Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published. Twain had invited Cable, famous for Old Creole Days (1879) and The Grandissimes (1880), to join him and, for obvious

The Age of Consent

Mark Twain’s 'Bible'

“Very well, Adam and Eve now knew what evil was, and how to do it. They knew how to do various kinds of wrong things, and among them one principal one – the one God had his mind on principally. That one was, the art and mystery of sexual intercourse. To

Angel Incarnate

Marsilio Ficino and Platonic Love

In 15th century Florence, philosopher Marsilio Ficino and his students revived the notion of platonic love, integrating it into their idea of Christianity. Beauty, he believed, both physical and moral, could inspire us with a glimpse of the divine. This glimpse could be stimulated best via the Four Furies, which

The Judgment of Paris

Martin Luther as Faust

The real Faust figure was Martin Luther, who died in 1546, a few years after the necromancer Georg Faust. Both are associated with Wittenberg. Luther was Goethe’s intellectual ancestor, upending the northern European world forever by defying the Devil (the Pope in Rome) just as Faust does. He successfully

Immortal Beloved

Martonvásár

The Brunsvik family had two mansions that Beethoven visited frequently and they are tourist attractions these days. Above and below are photos of the Martonvásár mansion in Hungary. It is where he composed Für Elise, which was not published during his lifetime. The Martonvásár mansion (or Brunsvik Castle) is a