Dan Wall

"We called London a war zone and moved to Dubai by mistake"

A densely packed design filled with floral delight. Influenced by the composition of medieval woodcuts, William Morris designed Bower in 1877 as a vibrant tribute to the forest walks and flowers he so adored. Bower returns to the Morris & Co. collection for the first time after many years, echoing the beautiful garden lovingly maintained by Dorothy Walker.

The danger that the present course of civilisation will destroy the beauty of life--these are hard words, and I wish I could mend them, but I cannot, while I speak what I believe to be the truth.

-William Morris, Hopes and Fears for Art

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WE DONT NEED ANOTHER AUSTEN ADAPTATION UNTIL WE GET BELINDA OR EVELINA

Macbeth: SHIT

Quite probably - but as said earlier he's got nothing to play for; he knows the gig is up re: the May election (he'll finish third), so I guess he figures that he has the agency to at least speak his mind and open the door to the inevitable. I don't think it's meant as a strategic move for himself.

What links Jeffrey Epstein and Keir Starmer’s government? A thick seam of contempt | Nesrine Malik We’re often told the PM is a ‘decent’ man. But in appointing Peter Mandelson he chose political convenience over doing right by trafficked women and girls, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

What links Jeffrey Epstein and Keir Starmer’s government? A thick seam of contempt | Nesrine Malik

I don't know - standing out and having more of a spine than anyone else at the top of the UK gov't might be a better look than keeping schtum... especially when he's really got nothing else to lose right now.

He's right though.

This week on the podcast: @drcleoocy.bsky.social and @kateferrier.bsky.social on why Susan Edmonstone Ferrier is more than just "the Scottish Jane Austen"
Listen: creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/...

Transcript: www.infinite-women.com/wp-content/u...

BARS Digital Event Announcement with our friends @chawtonhouse.bsky.social!

Join us on 11th Feb at 6pm on Zoom for this event celebrating New Research in Women's Writing!

Register to join: uofglasgow.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

These important HSE posters have just appeared in my school.

No comment

Address to the Unco Guid or the Rigidly Righteous. Robert Burns (1759-96) is best known for his poems and songs that reflect Scotland's cultural heritage. He was born in Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland, the first of seven children belonging to William Bur...

Holograph manuscript of “Address to the Unco Guid” with headnote to John Leslie, dated June 1789 – this appears to be the only known ms. of the poem in the poet’s hand. Part of the G. Ross Roy Collection @sc.edu via the Library of Congress
#BurnsNight #C18
www.loc.gov/item/2021667...

The “Distracted Boyfriend” meme, for Robert Burns’s poem “Address to the Unco Guid, or the Ridgidly Righteous”. The girlfriend (labelled “Douce Wisdom”) looks upset and angry with her boyfriend (labelled “Poor Mortal”) who is turning around to eye up another passing woman (labelled “Glaikit Folly”)

18th-centuryists! I'm looking for two reviewers to take on this bevy of daddy issues for @bsecs.bsky.social Criticks; if anyone is interested in writing about Amadeus (2026) or Frankenstein (2025), please drop me a DM or email (email contact is in the archive here: www.bsecs.org.uk/criticks-rev...)

Some example academic book proposal forms in case they help A pivotal moment in my academic career, or at least one I remember clearly, was when a very senior professor in the US sent me his book proposal for an acade...

Here are 8 successful *proposals* for academic books/monographs. I am hoping that these help someone who is starting out trying to write one and wants to see what worked for me. They are provided as examples, rather than exemplars. A lot of it was just finding my own way eve.gd/2026/01/16/s...

Hear 20 Hours of Romantic & Victorian Poetry Read by Ralph Fiennes, Dylan Thomas, James Mason & Many More By the time William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge published their Lyrical Ballads in 1798, poets in England had long been celebrities and arbiters of taste in matters political and literary.

Hear 20 Hours of Romantic & Victorian Poetry Read by Ralph Fiennes, Dylan Thomas, James Mason & Many More

Join us as we talk about our favourite Minerva novels (and do our best to convince everyone to read them)!

An image of the hall at Pembroke College, which has dark wood panelling and arched ceiling beams, mullioned windows with stained glass (though it is dark outside), and portraits on the wall, filled with long tables and people. Matthew McCormack stands at one end holding a microphone.

How many scholarly societies have a President who sings to them?! @historymatt.bsky.social's rendition of 'We are the very model of a scholarly society' brought the house down last night at the #BSECS2026 conference dinner @pembrokeoxford.bsky.social #skystorians #18thC 🗃️

We’re having a brilliant time at #BSECS2026. It’s been wonderful to see so much of the CECS community, present and past, at the conference, from our current postgraduates to our MA and PhD alumni.

CfP poster: "The antiquarian networks of the eighteenth century and Romantic era contributed to a fascinating constellation of multicultural, multilingual, exchange across the globe. The study of antiquarianism was a vastly popular pastime and scholarly pursuit in Europe, especially as a way of mapping ancient world cultures, religions, and politics onto contemporary society. The circulation of knowledge within local, national, and global networks paradoxically consolidated independent national exceptionalisms, as well as contributing to a budding multicultural globalism. Texts such as James Macpherson’s “Fragments of Ancient Poetry” (1763) prompted a revival of vernacular traditions across the British Isles like ballad imitations and Norse translations, while the establishment of the Society of Antiquaries in Britain encouraged the circulation and study of material culture. With the various inventive reimaginations of world mythologies, and as an oppressive vehicle for European imperial agendas, the study of vernacular antiquities during the long eighteenth century formed the critical foundations of contemporary worldviews via the lens of the past. Pre-dating Herder’s thesis about “Volksgeist, ” these antiquarian practices already constituted a rewriting of histories, memories, and cultures, and brought to the fore questions of heritage, identity, empire, trade, as well as the value ascribed to language. Through this global trade of antiquity in all its forms—material, textual, visual—both national and local European perspectives were brought into dialogue with alternate histories and the legacy of bygone eras. Networks of Antiquity is a two-day interdisciplinary conference held in person and in English at the University of Copenhagen. It aims to bring together scholars of Eighteenth Century Studies, Romanticism, and Reception Studies to examine how antiquarian networks across Europe and beyond created porous cultural borders during the long eighteenth century."

Poster: "We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers that consider how European communities, networks, and individuals of the long eighteenth century engaged with antiquarian studies and cultural contexts regarding and those external to their own geographical borders. PAPERS MAY EXPLORE TOPICS INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO: Circuits of communication, letters, and objects Material culture and its popular or localised consumption Antiquarianism and visual culture Nordic antiquity, Northern antiquarianism, the Gothic The relationship and tensions between (neo-)Classical antiquity and vernacular traditions National vs local networks, the circulation of knowledge production Recollecting, reconstituting, and reinventing the past Adaptations and appropriations The Antiquarian as a figure/character Antiquarian Spaces: The Society of Antiquaries, libraries, museums, private vs. public exchange Exchange and Encounters: Transatlantic, Anglo-Nordic, Asiatic, etc. Geographies of antiquity, landscapes, scientific antiquarian travel Empire, trade, race, imperial and postcolonial perspectives Antiquarianism as a literary form and genre Stadial theory, Translation theory, Reception Studies, Memory Studies TO APPLY Please submit a 250-word abstract and 150-word biography to Sharon Choe (sharon.choe@hum.ku.dk) with the subject line : Networks of Antiquity Conference Submission. We are keen to encourage the participation of PhDs, early career researchers, and scholars on precarious employment contracts, and so will be offering bursaries to contribute towards travel to and accommodation in Copenhagen. Priority will be given to those without access to institutional financial support or external grant funding. To be considered for a bursary, please also provide a short 100-word application alongside your proposal, including your current institutional position and any research projects. Application deadline : 31 January 2026 Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 10 February 2026"

CfP: Networks of Antiquity, University of Copenhagen, 7-8th May 2026

Abstracts due 31st January!
More info on the blog: www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6237

Meet Charlotte, the wife of Sir Walter Scott, who was actually key to his success

Often dismissed and even maligned by male biographers, Charlotte, the wife of Sir Walter Scott, was actually key to his success, according to a new book

However insane you remember The Tempest being, it is more insane than that.

TALK: Lifting the Veil on Ann Radcliffe's 'The Mysteries of Udolpho' - Professor Angela Wright We are delighted to welcome Professor Angela Wright for the final event as part of the Fear and Fascination Gothic Exhibition programme. This talk is a collaboration with the Centre for the Novel and ...

www.abdn.ac.uk/collections/...

That’s awful David - so sorry to hear this. I hope you receive better news soon.

Come visit our excellent Archives & Special Collections! Especially strong in eighteenth-century and Romantic-period books due to the copyright privilege. Awards cover costs up to £2500.

Event Alert!

Join the English Literature Society and the Centre for the Novel next Wednesday (November 5th) for 100 Years of Mrs Dalloway with Dr Elizabeth Anderson, a celebration of Woolf’s iconic novel and the authors it inspired

📍King's College, University of Aberdeen NK10
🕰️: 17:30~18:30

Event Alert!

Join the English Literature Society and the Centre for the Novel next Wednesday (November 5th) for 100 Years of Mrs Dalloway with Dr Elizabeth Anderson, a celebration of Woolf’s iconic novel and the authors it inspired

📍King's College, University of Aberdeen NK10
🕰️: 17:30~18:30

Fellowship Opportunity for ECRs: The Byron Society Fellow

Focussing on digital promotion activities, with a £2500 annual stipend.
www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6197

We will soon be announcing a new Fellowship through the British Association for Romantic Studies which supportsthe work of independent researchers. It's a tight deadline but if you fall into this category or know anyone who does, watch this space @bars.bsky.social