50 Book Challenge - Biographies 2020

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50 Book Challenge - Biographies 2020

1asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: feb 3, 2022, 7:36 pm

Just setting up this list for next year! Biographies of women!
** I have to buy or borrow from a library or buy

1.) Mrs. Sherlock Holmes: The True Story of New York City's Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case That Captivated a Nation by Brad Ricca
2.) Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson by Paula Byrne
3.) The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson
4.) Eliza Hamilton: The Extraordinary Life and Times of the Wife of Alexander Hamilton by Tilar Mazzeo
5.) Emily Dickinson by Cynthia Griffin Wolff
6.) Theodora: Actress, Empress, Saint by David Potter
7.) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
8.) Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
9.) Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism by Barbara Weisberg
10.) Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism by Marina Warner
11.) Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale
12.) Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore
13.) Adrienne, the Life of the Marquise de La Fayette by André Maurois
14.) Germaine De Stael, Daughter of the Enlightenment: The Writer and Her Turbulent Era by Sergine Dixon
15.) Isabella: The Warrior Queen by Kirstin Downey
16.) Monsieur D'Eon Is a Woman: A Tale of Political Intrigue and Sexual Masquerade by Gary Kates
17.) Martha Jefferson Randolph: Republican Daughter & Plantation Mistress by Billy Wayson
18.) Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams by Lynne Whithey
19.) Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789-1795 by Darline Levy
20.) Desert Queen by Janet Wallach
21.) Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman
22.) The Gentle Tamers: Women of the Old Wild West by Dee Brown
23.) Kick Kennedy: The Charmed Life and Tragic Death of the Favorite Kennedy Daughter by Barbara Leaming
24.) Martha Washington: An American Life by Patricia Brady
25.) Queen Christina by Georgina Masson
26.) The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt by Kara Cooney
27.) Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera
28.) Nellie Bly: Daredevil. Reporter. Feminist. by Brooke Kroeger
29.) Nellie Taft: The Unconventional First Lady of the Ragtime Era by Carl Sferrazza Anthony
30.) The Rival Queens: Catherine de' Medici, Her Daughter Marguerite de Valois, and the Betrayal that Ignited a Kingdom by Nancy Goldstone
31.) Christina, Queen of Sweden: The Restless Life of a European Eccentric by Veronica Buckley
32.) The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin
33.) Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier by Alfred F. Young
34.) Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer Among the American Romantics by Renee Bergland
35.) Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music by Jane Glover
36.) Playing to the Gods: Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and the Rivalry That Changed Acting Forever by Peter Rader
37.) Lucia: A Venetian Life by Andrea Di Robilant
38.) The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter by Benjamin Woolley
39.) Lucrezia Borgia by Sarah Bradford
40.) The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism by Megan Marshall
41.) Four Queens: The Provincial Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy Gladstone
42.) The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de' Medici by Elizabeth Lev
43.) Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire by Leslie Peirce
44.) Marie Curie and Her Daughters by Shelley Emling
45.) Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott
46.) Captivity of the Oatman Girls by R. B. Stratton
47.) The Memoirs of Madame Roland: A Heroine of the French Revolution by Madame Roland
48.) Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon by Charles Slack
49.) Lady Byron and Her Daughters by Julia Markus
50.) When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt by Kara Cooney

Other:
**Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice by Paula Byrne
**Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat by Paula Gunn Allen
**Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II by Robert Matzen

2asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: jan 21, 2020, 11:14 pm



Finished reading Eliza Hamilton:The Extraordinary Life and Times of the Wife of Alexander Hamilton by Tilar Mazzeo
Pages: 289
Words: None.
Notes: "While returning to the American colonies on a trans-Atlantic voyage, Major Philip Schuyler was named captain after the original captain died of a fever. His first test was an encounter with a "ghost ship," an abandoned and crippled slaver whose fleeing crew had left behind their still-chained human cargo. Food supplies were short and options were few, and there was nothing heroic about Philip Schuyler's decision. He ordered the enslaved men and women set free from their bonds and then cast off the line. His ship sailed away leaving the survivors to their own devices."

"General Schuyler was a high-value target with a price on his head and a native assassin nearly succeeded in claiming the bounty that month at Saratoga. Only a household slave catching a glint of metal reflected in the light of the fireplace, and with great presence of mind, calling out for help from imaginary sentinels, prevented Philip Schuyler from being murdered in his bed by the intruder."

"The most famous portrait of Eliza Hamilton was done by Ralph Earl while the artist was sitting in debtor's prison. Alexander Hamilton had the idea that the artist could be paid for his work and pain this way to freedom. The Hamiltons encouraged friends and family to sit and have their portrait done, and Ralph was out in less than a year."

"There was Elizabeth Seton, the young and pious widow of Alexander's old friend from the Treasury days William Seton, who died of tuberculosis in 1803. When William Seton gasped his last in Italy, where doctors had hoped the weather could cure him, his wife embraced Catholicism. It was a shocking and "barbaric" thing to do in Protestant America. Her horrified godmother broke off all contact, and the ladies agreed that Elizabeth Seton would not carry on in the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows, based out of Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan. Elizabeth Seton, ironically, would go on to become the fist Catholic saint born in America."

Rating: 3.5 out of 5, at times, especially in the beginning, it reads like a Jane Austen novel, I think the author took too many romantic liberties. However, I still greatly enjoyed the book and I do recommend it.

3rocketjk
jan 23, 2020, 1:05 pm

Wow! What a great list. Lots of luck with this reading. I'm sure it will be enjoyable.

4asukamaxwell
feb 11, 2020, 2:58 pm



Finished reading The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson
Pages: 400
Words: stevedore, "The Making of a Journalist" by Julian Ralph
Notes: "Henry Trickey, the Boston Globe's star crime reporter, bought what he thought was the government's case against Lizzie Borden from a private detective named Edwin McHenry for $500...Fearing a scoop by a rival paper, Trickey's superiors at the Boston Globe chose not to conduct any investigation and rushed the tale into print. Within ten hours, the editors knew it was a hoax...Having fled to Canada to escape an indictment for his role in the affair, Trickey fell under the wheels of a westbound train near Hamilton, Ontario."

"In 1883 Julian Ralph covered the murder of a young woman in New Jersey. Wary of all strangers showing an interest in the case, the dead woman's brothers began to suspect the journalist who wrote so movingly of their sister's death. The brothers tried to force Ralph to touch their dead sister's body "according to an age-old superstition which holds that such dumb mouths will accuse the murderer."

Rating: 3.5 out of 5, it was repetitive at times, but not enough to ruin the book, still a great read!

5asukamaxwell
mrt 2, 2020, 1:14 am



Finished reading Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott
Pages: 528
Words: minié ball, New York Fire Zouaves, milldam, balsam of copaiba, cubeb, "black wash": a mixture of calomel and lime water; "Fanny Campbell; Memoirs of a Soldier, Nurse and Spy: A Woman's Adventures in the Union Army
Notes: Elizabeth Van Lew and her brother understood that slave-holding was a prerequisite for wielding any political or financial influence in the South and by 1843, the year of her father's death, they had a staff of 15. However her mother, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth brother John, participated in the system of "hiring out" in which slaves could find their own employers and keep a percentage of their wages, eventually earning enough to purchase their own freedom. Elizabeth also began spending her $10,000 inheritance buying slaves for the express purpose of freeing them. In the Van Lew house, "servant" did not mean "slave" and Elizabeth's humane treatment of her staff did not go unnoticed. Words like "n*****" were considered vulgar and not permitted in the house.

"A farmer named Thomas A. Jones who would aid John Wilke's Booth's Escape in 1865 lived on the Maryland side. He had calculated a sliver of time just before dusk when the sun grazed the high bluff's above Pope's Creek and threw a shadow across the river which allowed for small row boats to land and hide without detection."

Rose Greenhow's father, John O'Neale, was a libertine, with a particular taste for horse racing, cock fighting and drinking. Jacob was his slave and most prized possession, 20 years old and double-jointed and able to execute astounding acrobatic feats for the amusement of John's friends. One night in April 1817, John and Jacob went out drinking but only Jacob returned. Early the next morning Jacob set out to look for his master and saw him thrown from his horse and lying on the ground bleeding from the head. Another slave advised Jacob to go back and make sure that John was dead or else he might blame Jacob for his injury. Jacob allegedly complied, hoisting a rock and crushing his master's skull. However, a doctor examined the head wounds and it was impossible to conclude which was the fatal blow. Jacob asserted his innocence, was tried and found guilty and was hanged six months later.

Three of Pinkerton's top detectives in Richmond, including Pryce Lewis, who had helped apprehend Rose Greenhow, had been captured and sentenced to death. Another, Timothy Webster, would be hanged imminently, the first American to be executed as a spy since Nathan Hale in 1776.

One of the men in charge of Libby prison was Erasmus Ross, the 21 year old clerk, well known for swinging his Bowie knife and terrorizing his charges, and known not at all as the Northern-sympathizing nephew of Union spy Franklin Stearns. One evening at roll call, Ross struck prisoner Capt William Lounsbury in the stomach and hissed, "you blue-bellied Yankee, come down to my office I have a matter to settle with you." Lounsbury's comrades reminded him that others whom Ross had called out had never returned. But instead of leading the prisoner to his office, Ross gave him a confederate uniform. Lounsbury walked out of the prison wondering if Ross had set him up to be shot for sport. The clerk followed a few steps behind accompanied by a sentry. Out of nowhere a black man (a servant of Elizabeth Van Lew) appeared and led Lounsbury to a mansion, where Elizabeth, Union spy, hid him in a secret room upstairs. Franklin Stearns had assured her that his nephew was trustworthy and loyal to the Union and to accept any man Ross picked out.

It was during his brief tenure in New Orleans, that General Benjamin "Beast" Butler issued General Order No. 28, the "Woman Order" which stated that any female who by word, gesture or movement insulted or showed contempt for any officer of the United States should be arrested and treated as a prostitute.

In one infamous case, a prisoner who worked on burial detail was sent out on a job under the watch of several guards. When he dropped the first shovelful of dirt on the body, it yelped in protest - or so the guards, who all fled in horror, thought. The prisoner, who sprinted in the opposite direction, just happened to be a gifted ventriloquist.

In Libby prison, working between the hours of 10pm and 4am, using nothing by chisels and spoons, two inmates hacked through the back of a kitchen fireplace, creating a portal to the basement. From there a group of them, numbering about 70, worked in shifts excavating a 50-ft tunnel to a gate fastened by a swinging bar, the only exit. On the night of February 9, a group of 109 men, two or three at a time, made their way through the tunnel and across the yard, free at last.

Dr. Mary E. Walker: In 1855, she earned her medical degree at Syracuse Medical College in New York, married and started a medical practice. She volunteered with the Union Army at the outbreak of the war and served as a surgeon at the temporary hospital in Washington D.C., even though at the time women and sectarian physicians were considered unfit for the Union Army Examining Board. She was captured by Confederate forced after crossing enemy lines to treat wounded civilians and arrested as a spy. She was sent as a prisoner of war to Richmond, until released in a prisoner of war exchange. After the war, she was approved for the Medal of Honor and is the only women to receive the medal and one of only eight civilians to receive it.

At dawn, a sentry named J.J. Prosper For Me D. Doctor Duval Connor - at three feet eleven inches, said to be the shortest man with the longest name in the Confederate Army - was patrolling along the beach at Fort Fisher...

Rating: 4 out of 5! I loved it! And I really want to visit Elizabeth Van Lew's and Emma Edmonds' graves.

6asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: mrt 22, 2020, 1:18 am



Finished reading Nellie Taft: The Unconventional First Lady of the Ragtime Era by Carl Sferrazza Anthony
Pages: 544
Words: avoirdupois, Sauerbraten Gothic, "Boston Marriage: a ragtime euphemism for lesbianism", milquetoast, kibitzing, rotogravure, ptomaine poisoning
Notes: "The Arion Society, a male chorus founded in 1854, became the first American musical organization to tour Europe. In 1885, Frank Van der Stucken conducted the first United States concert of works entirely by American composers, and in 1889 he conducted the first European concert with an entirely American program at the World Exposition in Paris."

"William Howard Taft and Nellie Taft would become the first incumbents of the executive mansion to attend a Seder, in 1912, while visiting the home of Colonel Harry Cutler, first president of the National Jewish Welfare Board."

"In the Philippines Nellie Taft introduced a nutrition campaign called drop of milk the program distributed sterilized milk to thousands of children. There are no statistics on just how many children were able to reach adulthood because of the program nor were Nelly's papers regarding the creation of the organization preserved, but the program flourished. Within 12 years, "Drop of Milk" build its grand and architecturally significant headquarters in downtown Manila. Eventually the program became a model that was copied in some South American nations where a similar need existed."

"To cut dairy costs Nellie Taft announced that she wanted a cow to provide fresh milk, cream and butter. "Mooley Wooley," a Jersey cow from New Hampshire farm, was offered by Hood & Sons fairy. Mooley arrived, was kept in the stables, and grazed on the South Lawn. Mooley died after a year and a half, but Wisconsin senator Isaac Stephenson, on behalf of his dairy state, bought a new cow, "Pauline Wayne" for her."

"Nellie Taft was the first presidential wife to drive, usually in her Baker electric Victoria."

"Throughout his life Archie was an appalling class snob made open and frequent bigoted remarks against blacks, but in the moment of truth, he may have redeemed himself. He made no distinction in his efforts to save lives - except against the stronger, privileged white male. One Titanic survivor, a Mrs. Harris of Washington, who knew Archie, pointed out that he saved the lives of "ever so many women from the steerage...Major Butt helped those poor frightened people so wonderfully..." She recalled how Archie had yanked back the collar and cracked on a railing the head of a man who tried to get on a boat. "Sorry, women will be attended to first, or I'll break every damn bone in your body" were Archie's last known words. A Libyan teenager, immigrating to America in steerage, was yelling for her brother who had been placed in the last lifeboat about to be lowered. Archie swept her up in his arms and rushed her toward her brother. The last credible sighting of Archie Butt and Francis Millet had them giving their life preservers to women just before the Titanic sank entirely into the icy black North Atlantic waters. Francis' body was eventually recovered."

Rating: 4 out of 5

7asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: sep 3, 2020, 10:28 am



Finished reading Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist by Brooke Kroeger
Pages:
Words: doyenne, tallyho coaches, "paresis: used to be called 'actor's disease' but today is Bell's Palsy. Temporary partial facial paralysis", wehrmann statue
Notes: "Already 50 when the Civil War broke out, the Judge was too old to join the Pennsylvania volunteers, although two of his sons by Catherine, John Michael and George Washington, mustered into Company C of the 103rd Regiment on September 16, 1861. "

"Nellie's brother, William Worth, died during the Battle of Plymouth"

"In mid-February Bly traveled to Boston to see for herself the "bete-noir of my childhood days," Laura Dewey Bridgman. Bridgman was deaf, dumb and blind, and had learned to read with her fingers, to sew and knit, and to do many useful things. Nellie met her at the Perkins Institute for the Blind. While there, the director encouraged her to meet another pupil, a nine-year old whose name was Helen Adams Keller."

"To the homeless boys who so often wrote to her, she replied in a published letter:
"And as so many of you have written to me, so pathetically that you have no one in the world and never had, and that you just love me, remember that I love you, too - every single one of you. I think of you daily. I am your true friend. I want you to live to be happy, to accomplish great things in the world, to be the builders of your own homes and your own families. To make your families what you want them to be, not as fate has given them to others.
Don't despair for one minute. Remember, if the world sees you are determined to make something of yourself it will help you.
And don't forget. I love you."

" She wrote poignantly of the Russian who was shot and lay unattended for 8 days in a trench while his feet froze. On the way to the American Red Cross hospital at Budapest by freight train his feet dropped off. When he arrived at the hospital his last blood poured from his open veins. Bly came to his side. "I shuddered. The clay pallor of death. The ribs cutting the skin. Bones, bones, no flesh anywhere. The head turned. Great, hollow black eyes looked into mine. Transfixed I stood heartsick, soul-sad. Those great hollow eyes searched mine. They tried to question me. They spoke soul language to soul. The lips parted, a moan, a groan of more than physical agony. He spoke. I could not understand. His words were a sound my ears shall never forget. The appeal, the longing, the knowledge. "What does he say?" I cried, unable to stand it. "Can no one understand? Can't you find someone to speak to him?" A nurse smoothed his forehead. The attendant understands," the doctor said; and to him, "What does he say?" "He's asking for his children," was the low reply. The hollow, black eyes turned again to search mine. I could not endure their question. I had no answer to give. "Let me go," I said to the doctor. The low moan seemed to call me back, but I walked steadfastly toward the door and down the corridor. "Could Emperors and Czars and Kings look on this torturing slaughter and ever sleep again?" I asked the doctor. "They do not look," he said gently.

Rating: 5 out of 5

8asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: jun 9, 2020, 11:44 am



Finished reading The Invisible Woman: The Story of Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan
Pages: 268
Words: "Benefit: A special performance whose takings went to a member of the company who chose the play. It was often the most important source of income for a performer"; meretricious; carmagnole; sybaritic; diableries; mesalliance; lessee; annuitant
Notes: None.
Rating: 3 out of 5

9asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: mei 11, 2020, 4:05 pm



Finished reading Isabella: The Warrior Queen by Kirstin Downey
Pages: 434
Words: hour of terce (9am); Italianated: murder by poison; Remensa: A Catalan mode of serfdom. Serfs were called "pagesos de remenca" or "peasants of redemption". In 1486 Ferdinand II of Aragon issued the Sentencia de Guadalupe, outlawing the more severe abuses of the oppressive customs and allowing remensa peasants to be redeemed by a payment of 60 sous per household; "Rutter": a maritime handbook containing written sailing directions; Order of Calatrava; Office of the Dead; Isabelline Architecture; peregrinations
Notes: Too Many.
Rating: 4 out of 5. Very compelling, not sure if it's portrayal of the Ottomans is entirely accurate, but it certainly sent home the message that Isabella was a powerful ruler in her own right (like Queen Victoria), and that Ferdinand has been given credit for many achievements he had 0 influence on or control over.

10asukamaxwell
jun 9, 2020, 11:29 am



Finished reading Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy by Sarah Bradford
Pages: 448
Words: "marrani" or "secret Jews" a derogatory insult towards Valencian Catalans; tergiversation; tabards; civet; bucentaur; baldachin; enceintes; eclogue; epicedium; gonfalonier
Notes: Too Many.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5. From all accounts, even those of her enemies, Lucrezia is not the villainess that history has made her out to be. This was a great read, but it sometimes Lucrezia was left behind to focus more on the political climate or too much space was dedicated to her clothes or parties. I would've preferred more excerpts from her letters.

11asukamaxwell
jun 14, 2020, 10:34 pm



Finished reading The Woman Who Would Be King by Kara Cooney
Pages: 231
Words: None.
Notes: None.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5. I enjoyed the author's descriptions of rituals and ceremonies and guesswork, she posited a lot of theories that I hadn't considered before, but I do wish the author had focused a bit more on Hatsheput's architectural achievements.

12asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: jul 9, 2020, 12:40 am



Finished reading Monsieur D'Eon Is a Woman: A Tale of Political Intrigue and Sexual Masquerade by Gary Kates
Pages: 291
Words: None.
Notes: "Our captain is a lady who doesn't use her sleeve or her foot when she blows her nose."; Querelle des Femmes
Rating: 4 out of 5. I wish the author hadn't been so dismissive of the possibility of d'Eon becoming a woman prior to 1770s. The author's argument was essentially "the evidence doesn't exist therefore..." but we have d'Eon's words that she herself always considered herself a woman. I also wish the chapter on d'Eon's library, full of feminist literature, was argued as further proof of her identity as a woman. However, this was still a well-done biography, although I'd like to see an updated biography someday.

13asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: aug 14, 2020, 10:53 am



Finished reading Adrienne: The Life of the Marquise De La Fayette by Andre Maurois
Pages: 482
Words: Kayenlaha (Lafayette's Iroquois servant); La Belle Gabrielle; Surveillance: this was the name given to the permit granted to certain emigres, whose names still figured on the fatal list, to live in France under police observation and with a considerable amount of restriction on their movements.;

Notes: "Under Charles VII a certain Gilbert Motier de La Fayette, a Marechal de France, won the Battle of Beauge, drove the English from France, and killed the Duke of Clarence with his own hand. His motto was, "Cur non?" (Why not?)"

"At the Battle of Minden, the Prince de Chimay, a close friend of my father's was killed while leading the first battalion. It was my father's duty to take his place, this he did, and was at once killed by an English battery commanded by a certain General Phillips. Twenty-two years later, two of our cannon opened fire on the English headquarters at Petersburg, Virginia and one of the balls passed through the house in which General Phillips was lying sick. He was killed outright."

"I must not forget, dear heart, to commend to your attention Mr. and Miss Jefferson. The father, an admirable, cultivated and charming man, overwhelmed me with kindnesses when he was Governor of Virginia during the war, and I very much hope that he may like France well enough to wish to replace Mr. Franklin, which will not be difficult to manage should he consent. As to the daughter, she is a very attractive young woman, and I here and now point you to be her mother, chaperone, and anything else you can think of. I beg you to take them under your wing and do all you can for them."

"June 8, 1786: Mrs. Washington sent a whole barrel of Virginia hams accompanied by a note from George. "I do not know that they are better, or so good as you make in France, but they are of our own manufacturing (and you know the Virginia ladies value themselves on the goodness of their bacon...")

"There is a rumor, to the effect that Monsieur la Comte de Simiane, the husband of the celebrated Mme de Simiane, has recently killed himself in excess of jealousy occasioned by the conduct of the Marquis de Lafayette. The count, unsuccessful as a lover and unsatisfied as a husband, has found life so unbearable that he has blown his brains out."

"Picpus Cemetery is situated next to a small chapel, Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix, run by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. During the French Revolution, the guillotine was set up in the Place de la Nation, then called the Place du Trone Renverse. The Tribunal needed a quick way to dispose of the bodies and so a pit was dug at the end of the garden. A second pit was also dug when the first filled up. The names of those buried, 1,306 men and women, are inscribed on the walls of the chapel. Among the women, 16 Carmelite nuns, ranging in age from 29 to 78, were brought to the guillotine together ,m singing hymns as they were led to the scaffold. They were beatified in 1906 as the Martyrs of Compiegne...In 1797, under the Directory, the land was secretly acquired by Princess Amalie Zephyrine of Salm-Kyrburg, whose brother, Frederick III, was buried in one of the pits...In 1802, Adrienne de Lafayette and Pauline de Montagu decided to open a subscription for the restoration of the property which had formerly belonged to the convent. The whole of the convent site was purchased in August 1803 for 24,000 francs for preservation .Adrienne's sister, mother, and grandmother were all victims and buried in the pit."

"I once spoke to her about her angelic gentleness. "That is true," she said, "I am gentle. God made me so. But my gentleness is not like yours. I cannot make so high claim. You are so strong and at the same time so gentle. But I agree that I am gentle, and you are very good to me." "It is you who are good," I answered, "and above all else generous. Do you remember the first time I went to America? Everybody else was furious with me, but you hid your tears at the wedding of Madame de Ségur. You did not want to appear sorrowful, lest others might blame me." "Yes indeed," she said, "gentle but as a child is gentle. How sweet it is of you to remember things that happened so long ago!"

"During the thirty-four years of the union and which her tenderness, her goodness, her elevation of mind, her delicacy, and generosity, charmed and embellished my life and made of it an honorable thing, I came to be so used to all she meant to me, that I could not draw a line of distinction between her existence and my own. She was fourteen years old and I sixteen when her heart first became inextricably blended with everything that mattered to me. I felt quite certain that I loved her and needed her, but it is only now when having lost her I have to unravel what remains of myself from that sweet entanglement as to face what is left me of a life which I once that filled with so many distractions, that I realize how impossible it is that I shall ever more know happiness or well-being..."

"Throughout those hours of muted agony we felt torn between the wish to show her that love which gave her so much happiness, and the conviction that emotion was draining away such little span of life that still remained in her. And so it was that I was keeping back my words with as much care as my sobs, when the heartbreaking look in her eyes and a few scarcely audible words forced from my lips some utterance of the feelings which were choking me. Her voice became suddenly stronger and she exclaimed "Is it really true? Then you do love me! What happiness! Kiss me!" Those poor arms which had almost lost the power of movement came from beneath the sheet with a vigor that amazed the nurse. She put them around my neck, and drawing my face down to hers, she stroked my cheeks as though in passionate gratitude and pressed me to her heart, saying "What joy! How happy I am to belong to you!" For so long as her right hand had any power of movement left, she laid mine first to her mouth, then to her heart. My left hand had all the while been holding hers."

"...Just when her agony was drawing to a close, and while she could still speak, my daughters were afraid that her habit of not carrying out her religious observances when I was with her might hamper her wish to hear or to say some prayers... I was asked to withdraw to some little distance so that Madame de Montagu, who always enjoyed her confidence in such matters, might ask whether there was anything she wishes to say to her. My first instinct was to refuse to conform with this request, tender and timid though it was, I was afraid lest her last moments might be troubled. I will even go so far as to confess that my love as a husband of 34 years standing felt for the first time a pang of jealousy. I felt a passionate need to be her sole preoccupation. But I suppressed this feeling so that her every wish will be fulfilled. I gave up my place to her sister who repeated her question twice. The beloved sufferer always had a deep affection for Madame de Montagu and wanted her to be in close attendance, twice answered, "No" and added, "Go to supper." She seemed impatient for me to resume my place and when I did so again took my hand in hers, saying, " I am all yours." Those words, "all yours" were the last she spoke.

Lafayette kept around his neck a miniature of Adrienne in a gold locket. Round it he had had engraved the words "I am all yours" and on the reverse side of the locket a second inscription: "So I have been a pleasant companion for you? Then bless me."..

Rating: 2.5 out of 5. While the last few chapters are very touching, and describe in detail the trials and hardship that Adrienne went through in prison, losing members of her family to the guillotine, and getting her husband to safety, most of the first half of the book focuses on Lafayette himself, which is not the perspective that was promised. Also, I know the book is dated 1960s, but the author uses the phrase "served by smiling negroes" and "redskins" and not when quoting an 18th c person, but using the words himself. No excuse for that.

14asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: aug 30, 2020, 9:40 pm



Finished reading Germaine De Stael, Daughter of the Enlightenment: The Writer and Her Turbulent Era by Sergine Dixon
Pages: 241
Words: None.
Notes: None.
Rating: 2 out of 5.

15asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: aug 24, 2020, 2:14 pm



Finished reading Mrs. Sherlock Holmes by Brad Ricca
Pages: 363
Words: None.
Notes: Italian Squad; The Black Hand
"Grace listened to Herman Romanik's story carefully. She knew of Dr. Dent, recalling the name from the newspaper story in which the reporter Nellie Bly falsified her own insanity to uncover the horrific conditions that existed for patients on Blackwell's Island. According to Bly's account, when the patients in the women's asylum heard Dent down the hall, they whispered "Here in the devil coming."

Grace's appointment, as assistant to the attorney general of the U.S., was the first time in the history of the US government that a woman served in this capacity under a cabinet member.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

16asukamaxwell
aug 30, 2020, 10:38 pm



Finished reading Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson by Paula Byrne
Pages: 398
Words: quango; yclept;
Notes: Stanzas Written after Successive Nights of Melancholy Dreams; Ode to Melancholy; Ode to Despair; Sonnet XXXVII: When, in the Gloomy Mansion; Golfre, Gothic Swiss Tale; The Haunted Beach

"Theater audiences did not sit in darkness and silence as they do today...the lighted auditorium helped to establish a rapport between spectators and actors. Applause or hisses rang out through the performance. It was the audience rather than the critics who determined whether there was to be a long run or a speedy closure...Young men in the pit who were probably the most attentive spectators, offered criticism and comment. Cheers and jeers could be expected from the "gods" (the one shilling galleries) accompanied by songs,, laughter and flying fruit. Broken glass, metal and wood were also thrown at bad performances. Despite behaving a reputation for drunken and unruly behavior, those in the cheap seats usually paid attention once a play had begun. Less attentive were the aristocracy and gentry in the boxes, where fashionable society peered at itself as if in a mirror."

"At the beginning of each month new issues of the magazine the "town & Country Magazine: would appear and many readers would turn first to its column, "Histories of the Tete a Tete Annexed." This consisted of a pair of oval portraits of a man and a woman, accompanied by a history of their sexual liaisons, usually concluding with a description of their current romantic relationship and an estimate of its likely duration. It is the nearest the 18th c comes to the modern paparazzi snapshots and tabloid gossip."

"One of the properties had been fitted out in Oriental splendor by Clive of India, prior to his suicide in 1774..."

"There is a story that a rake named Pugh, son of an alderman of London, offered 20 guineas for "ten minutes conversation" with Mary Robinson. She consented and Pugh hurried to her house, anticipating speedy sexual gratification. But instead of being closeted privately with her, she was shown into a room where Mary was waiting with Tarleton and Malden. Mary took her watch out and put it on the table. She then turned away from her companions and addressed her conversation entirely to Pugh for ten minutes. After which, she picked up her watch, rang the bell, asked the servant to show him out and relieved him of twenty guineas."

"When Mary set off for Dover she was pregnant. But she never had Tarleton's child. Streptococcal infections are frequently located in the vagina. The most likely explanation of events is that she had a miscarriage int he post-chaise and the infection resulting from it was what led to acute rheumatic fever."

"Nothing is known of Maria Elizabeth's later years. She lived to a similar age as her mother, dying in 1818. At her own request she was buried in Mary's tomb. According to local legend it is said her ghost walks the Old Windsor graveyard at dawn and dusk."

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

17asukamaxwell
sep 10, 2020, 1:02 am



Finished reading Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams by Lynne Withey
Pages: 392
Words: iphichacuana
Notes: Boston Port Bill, The Coercive Acts, Regulation Act

"John isolated himself for at least 6 weeks under medication preparing for inoculation, and arranged lodgings in Boston for 3 weeks or more while the inoculation took place. During that time he isolated himself from anyone not previously inoculated, as popular belief held that even letters could transmit smallpox, unless smoked before touching the recipient's hands."

"God willing...I must be withing the Scent of the sea." - John Adams

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive...It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the Atmosphere."

Rating: 3 out of 5. (needed a better editor, the author is repetitive quite a number of times)

18asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: sep 14, 2020, 9:56 pm



Finished reading Playing to the Gods: Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and the Rivalry that Changed Acting Forever by Peter Rader
Pages: 248
Words: Symbolism: anti-emotional acting by imitation or "indication"; Verismo: realism acting. Basis for method acting; La Smara: A Venetian malaise that descends on you like a black fog; Ospizio: a foundling home; Zhenstvenost: An idealized notion of femininity that required women to be passively subservient in both public and private life so as to maintain the integrity of the family and the nation; Doozy: Based on the mispronunciation of Duse's surname, meaning somewhat outstanding and unique

Notes: "The Three Rules of Stagecraft: 1) Never turn your back on the audience 2) Never deliver your lines while in motion 3) Declaim your lines with authority, not sotto voce."

Sarah Bernhardt was Oscar Wilde's muse. Wilde completed his play Salome in the spring of 1892, writing in French expressly for her. But the London Examiner of Plays, Edward F. Smyth Pigott banned Salome in the grounds of blasphemy, citing an obscure 16th statute, rarely enforced, that prohibits the representation of biblical characters onstage.

Paradox of the Actor by Denis Diderot

Rating: 3.5 out of 5. I wanted more anecdotes, more behind the scenes, examples of the generous, wise and kind Sarah or the smart, strong, brave Eleanor. I have great respect for both these actresses, I only wish for more than what the public doesn't already know or thinks they know. The book had plenty of room for more.

19asukamaxwell
sep 18, 2020, 10:14 pm



Finished reading Lady Byron and Her Daughters by Julia Markus
Pages: 321
Words: erysipelas
Notes: Edward Barret and his siblings were part Creole. His "young sister Sarah was immortalized in a famous portrait by Thomas Lawrence often called "Pinkie" and pairs with Gainsborough's Blue Boy. Actually, Pinkie was Sarah's nickname in the West Indies. To the Jamaicans a "Pinkie" was a light-colored black person who "passed." In England, people assumed it referred to the color of her sash and hat.

Rating: 4 out of 5. Markus clears up a lot of the unfair, unjustified, and misunderstood complaints, attacks and misconceptions on of Lady Byron. This book serves up justice in the same vein as Sarah Bradford's Lucrezia Borgia biography. Another example is Hallie Rubenhold's The Five for Jack the Ripper victims. Byron was no serial murderer of course, and the author doesn't shame Byron for his mental instability or its cause, but the point stands that women in history are often forgotten or victim-shamed for the sake of a more popular man.

20asukamaxwell
sep 27, 2020, 11:07 am



Finished reading Marie Curie and Her Daughters by Shelley Emling
Pages: 211
Words: None.
Notes: Floating University: An illegal night school that constantly changed locations in order to evade the watchful eyes of the Russian authorities.

Eventually, at the urging of Je Sais Tout, the government planned a farewell celebration in Marie's honor at the Paris Grand Opera on April 27, 1921, just a week before she was to set sail, that was characterized as a benefit for the Radium Institute. The gala was glamorous, marked by a reading from the great actress Sarah Bernhardt titled an "Ode to Madame Curie."

"Boltwood, who was belligerent towards Jews as well as women, noted that he was hugely relieved Yale hadn't awarded Einstein a degree when he visited in April 1921. "Thank heaven we escaped that by a narrow margin." Einstein went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics that year."

"French physicist Henri Becquerel accidentally dropped an infinitesimal portion of radium into the crease of his clothing. Like a madman, the scientists had searched and searched, but could never recover it, which represented a sizeable fraction of the whole supply of radium of France at the time."

"On May 26 and 27 Marie was treated to a tour of Standard Chemical Company in Canonsburg, PA, the company that had won the bid to produce her gram of radium. The company had even agreed to produce it for a reduced price of $100,000 in her honor. The company's property was one of only three sites Marie had specifically requested to see. (The others were the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls."

Paul Langevin's son-in-law had been executed by the Nazis, while his daughter had been seized by the Gestapo for collaborating with the Resistance and transported by cattle car to Auschwitz. She survived however, and eventually returned to Paris after being freed by the Soviet Army when they liberated the camp at the end of the war. In addition, two of Paul's grandsons 16-year-old Michel Langevin and his cousin Bernard were sent to prison for 3 months for distributing subversive materials. Michel Langevin eventually married Irene and Frederic's daughter Helene.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

21chas69
Bewerkt: sep 27, 2020, 6:29 pm

I'm a guy, and never been much interested in biographies of women per se, but I have read two recently I thought were excellent: "Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell" and "West with the Night", an autobiography by Beryl Markham. Both were adventurers who really stepped outside the roles expected of women during their times.

22asukamaxwell
sep 28, 2020, 7:29 pm

>21 chas69: Desert Queen seems to be right up my alley, so thank you for the recommendation! :)

23asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: okt 21, 2020, 10:31 pm



Finished reading Christina, Queen of Sweden: The Restless Life of a European Eccentric by Veronica Buckley
Pages: 322
Words: Liber Concordiae; Order of the Amaranth; Quietism; rhodomontrades

Notes: "One summer Sunday, as she knelt in prayer in the castle chapel, a man armed with two naked daggers slipped through the congregation and ran toward her. The two guards standing in front of the queen, despite their spears and battle axes, were unable to stop him; he knocked them both to the ground, snapping the spear of one before jumping over the other. Their captain, standing beside the queen apparently in pious reverie, had completely failed to notice the commotion. Christina gave him a shove and he leapt into belated action, seizing the assailant by the hair. On questioning, he was found to be insane, he was spared punishment, but was carried off to a madhouse."

"...at the Jesuit's Collegio Romano, she met Father Athanasius Kircher, polymath extraordinaire, Egyptologist, inventor, scientist. In his famed animal museum - designed, in the Renaissance manner, to display every beast and bird known to man - Christina saw for the first time the creatures of the New World. Kircher revealed to her the ingredients of secret medicines, and presented her with a sample of the least inefficacious of them."

"And, in her excitement at the prospect of military action at last, she charged up to the top of the Castel Sant'Angelo, and there fired off a cannon, forgetting to aim, however, so that instead of going into the air, the huge lead ball flew down into the town. It struck the Villa Medici, a Renaissance palazzo with a façade of sculpted Florentine lilies - now one less than before, with Christina's cannonball lodged in its place."

July 25, 1667: "We closed the gates and defended ourselves against the fury of the populace with their hail of stones and their pistol and rifle shots. We wanted to fire on them, but the Queen forbade anyone to do so without her express order. No one has ever resisted such a temptation, and no one wanted to fire more than she herself. But she judged quite rightly that we should not arrive at such a resolution except in the greatest extremity...Remaining calm throughout, the Queen acted with great prudence and vigour…But seeing the danger increased rather than receding, she gave the order that the cannon should be prepared...It seemed very likely that she must now prepare to die. She therefore commanded a salvo of muskets to be fired, because there was no hope of any help...The order was no sooner given than carried out, and so successfully that we killed a number of people on the square. Several others were wounded."

Rating: 2.5 out of 5. The author doesn't enjoy writing about her subject and it affects the narrative. I'm not saying Christina should be viewed through rose-colored glasses, far from it, but the book was a constant battle between Christina making terrible decisions and details of contemporary politics. The author also avoids labeling Christina as a bi-sexual (if only in attraction and not in practice.) If Christina were alive today, I'm very sure she also would've been transgender. I've already began Georgina Masson's biography of Christina, and this one appears more to the point and well-researched.

24asukamaxwell
nov 1, 2020, 11:58 pm



Finished reading Queen Christina by Georgina Masson
Pages: 389
Words: galoon, farandole, carabine, motet, bouillon italien: "poison broth", desmesne, morganatic, osteria, Giulio Cesare Vanini, canera, Flying Squadron, piano nobile
Notes: "Even at night the unfortunate child could not escape her mother's ceaseless weeping. Maria Eleonora made her sleep with her in a bed over which her father's heart was hung in a golden casket."

"Christina herself was deformed, not by birth, but from being dropped when she was a baby. One of her shoulders was misshapen and higher than the other. Christina believed that the fall had not been an accident and all her life she was at pains to conceal her deformity."

"Queen Maria Eleonora's rooms overlooked the garden and the lake, and at the dead of night she and her lady-in-waiting, Mlle von Bulau, let themselves down from the window and were rowed to the other side of Lake Malaren. A carriage then drove post-haste to Nykoping, nearly 50 miles away. Here they boarded a Danish skiff which took them tot he Island of Gotland."

"The whole letter is on this theme, no news or comment on other events appears and even allowing for the extravagant style of writing of the day it is difficult not to believe that this is a love letter in the ordinary sense...In expressing her love for Belle in these letters Christina uses almost exactly the same turns of phrase was she was later to employ to the one man with whom she is known to have been passionately in love..."

"On Sunday 27th, in the royal chapel in Stockholm Castle, when after the sermon the congregation was engaged in silent prayer and many of the men present had covered their faces with their hats. Prosbeckius slipped through the crowd and advanced to the small raised dais where Christina was kneeling. Fortunately, the High Steward, Per Brahe, saw him and shouted to the guards who crossed their halberds, blocking his way. But Prosbeckius pushed them aside and with such force that one of the halberds was broken, and he jumped over the other. The Queen had by now risen, she did not move, but gave her spellbound Captain of the Guards a shove and he threw himself upon the man sizing him by the hair. Prosbeckius was found to have two naked knives concealed in his clothes, but on being questioned he said that he wanted to kill a priest and gave such wandering replies that in the end he was shut up as a madman."

"The other incident which, although less alarming, could have proven more dangerous, occurred early in 1648 when the queen herself discovered a fire on the stairs leading to the maids' rooms in her private apartment in the castle. Fire was a constant hazard in old Swedish buildings and Stockholm Castle was finally destroyed by one later in the century. This outbreak...burned for 6 hours and was only finally quenched when the wind veered to another quarter. The Queen, however, refused to leave the building until midnight, when she knew that the chancery papers were safe."

"The most prolonged pursuit of all was undertaken in order to unearth a copy of that infamous book The Three Imposters which, without any pretense at all, named them: Moses, Mohammed and Jesus. Of this legendary work, whose existence had been rumored as far back as the 12th century in Italy, no copy has been discovered by Christina or anyone else. But it is interesting to note that his alleged belief in its subject was one of the causes of the first excommunication of the emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen. At his court, Michael Scott introduced the works of Averros to western Europe, that same Averros who...had ultimately given rise to the libertine philosophy professed more or less openly by some of the members of Christina's court."

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

25asukamaxwell
nov 12, 2020, 1:13 am



Finished reading Emily Dickinson by Cynthia Griffin Wolf
Pages: 537
Words: armamentarium, "East" or "Eastering": among the Trinitarians, a euphemism for a resurrection after death - in short, going to Heaven or Paradise.
Notes: "In a famous case in Boston in 1833 a woman had convulsions a month before her expected delivery. The doctors bled her of 8 ounces and gave her a purgative. The next day she again had convulsions, and they took 22 ounces of blood, gave emetics to cause vomiting, and put ice on her head and mustard plasters on her feet. Nearly four hours later she had another convulsion, and they took 12 ounces, and soon after, 6 more. By then she had lapsed into a deep coma, so the doctors doused her with cold water but could not revive her. Soon her cervix began to dilate, so the doctors gave her ergot to induce labor. Shortly before delivery she convulsed again, and they applied ice and mustard plasters again and also have a vomiting agent and calomel to purge her bowels. In six hours she delivered a stillborn child. After two days she regained consciousness and recovered. The doctors considered this a conservative treatment, even though they had removed two-fifths of her blood in a two-day period, for they had not artificially dilated her woman or used instruments to expedite delivery."

#201
"Two swimmers wrestled on the spar—
Until the morning sun—
When One—turned smiling to the land—
Oh God! the Other One!

The stray ships—passing—
Spied a face—
Upon the waters borne—
With eyes in death—still begging raised—
And hands—beseeching—thrown!"

#286
That after Horror — that 'twas us —
That passed the mouldering Pier —
Just as the Granite Crumb let go —
Our Savior, by a Hair —

A second more, had dropped too deep
For Fisherman to plumb —
The very profile of the Thought
Puts Recollection numb —

The possibility — to pass
Without a Moment's Bell —
Into Conjecture's presence —
Is like a Face of Steel —
That suddenly looks into ours
With a metallic grin —
The Cordiality of Death —
Who drills his Welcome in —

#1712
A Pit — but Heaven over it —
And Heaven beside, and Heaven abroad,
And yet a Pit —
With Heaven over it.

To stir would be to slip —
To look would be to drop —
To dream — to sap the Prop
That holds my chances up.
Ah! Pit! With Heaven over it!

The depth is all my thought —
I dare not ask my feet —
'Twould start us where we sit
So straight you'd scarce suspect
It was a Pit — with fathoms under it —
Its Circuit just the same.
Seed — summer — tomb —
Whose Doom to whom?

#510
It was not Death, for I stood up,
And all the Dead, lie down —
It was not Night, for all the Bells
Put out their Tongues, for Noon.

It was not Frost, for on my Flesh
I felt Siroccos — crawl —
Nor Fire — for just my Marble feet
Could keep a Chancel, cool —

And yet, it tasted, like them all,
The Figures I have seen
Set orderly, for Burial,
Reminded me, of mine —

As if my life were shaven,
And fitted to a frame,
And could not breathe without a key,
And 'twas like Midnight, some -

When everything that ticked — has stopped —
And Space stares all around —
Or Grisly frosts — first Autumn morns,
Repeal the Beating Ground —

But, most, like Chaos - Stopless — cool —
Without a Chance, or Spar —
Or even a Report of Land —
To justify — Despair.

Rating: 2 out of 5. The author projected a single-minded Christian interpretation of Emily's poetry, for pages and pages on end. Whole sections of chapters could be removed, as it gets incredibly repetitive. This was a 500 page thesis on Emily's poetry, not a biography of Emily herself. Emily is much forgotten.

26asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: nov 24, 2020, 12:07 am



Finished reading Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert Massie
Pages: 574
Words: Histoire de Mon Temps by Frederick the Great; phimosis, "Potemkin Village": a sham, something fraudulent, erected or spoken to conceal an unpleasant truth
Notes: "On the night of January 11, 1730, 14 years old Peter II, dangerously ill, died of smallpox. Elizabeth, then 20, was asleep nearby. Her French physician, Armand Lestocq, burst into her bedroom, saying that if she arose, presented herself to the Guards, showed herself to the people, hurried to the Senate, and proclaimed herself empress, she could not fail. Elizabeth sent him away and went back to sleep. By morning, the opportunity had evaporated. The Imperial Council had elected her 36 year old cousin, Anne of Courland, as empress."

"Near the end of May 1748, the Empress Elizabeth and the court visited Count Razumovsky's country estate outside St. Petersburg. Catherine and Peter were assigned to a small 3 story wooden house built on a hill...The first night...around eight, while all were asleep, a sergeant of the guards posted outside heard strange creaking noises. Looking around the base of the house, he saw that the large blocks of stone supporting the building were moving on the damp, slippery earth, detaching themselves and sliding downhill from the bottom timbers of the house. He hurried to awaken Choglokov...Peter...made one leap out of bed to the door and disappeared/ Catherine...remembered that Madame Krause was sleeping in the next room and went in to awaken her. The house was settling and disintegrating, and Catherine and Madame Krause fell to the floor. At that moment, a sergeant entered, picked up Catherine and carried her back to the staircase - which was no longer there. Amid the rubble, the sergeant handed Catherine down to the nearest person below, who handed her down to the next until she reached the bottom. from where she was carried into a field...Soon, Madame Krause appeared...On a lower floor, three servants sleeping in the kitchen had been killed when the fireplace collapsed. Next to the foundation, 16 sleeping workers had been crushed and buried in the rubble."

"On a November afternoon in 1753, Catherine and Madame Choglokov were together in the Golovin Palace when they heard shouting. The building, constructed entirely of wood, was on fire...Both women scrambled into the carriage of the choirmaster...Before leaving, however, Catherine saw an extraordinary sight: An astonishing number of rats and mice were coming down the staircase in a single, orderly line without even appearing to hurry."

"Nicholas Choglokov died on the afternoon of April 25. During the last days of her husband's illness, Maria was also ill and confined to her bed in another part of the house...The windows were opened and a bird flew in and perched on a cornice opposite Madame Cholgokov's bed. She saw it and said, "I am certain my husband has just died"...she declared that the bird had been her husband's soul.

"After a stormy passage down the Baltic, Hanbury-Williams arrived, debilitated, in Hamburg and was hurried by doctors to England. There the elegant, witty ambassador degenerated into an embittered invalid, and, a year later, he ended his life by suicide. King George II, perhaps feeling responsibility for scuttling the alliance that Sir Charles had worked to negotiate, ordered that he be buried in Westminster Abbey."

"A year after his dismissal, Apraksin was brought before a judge to receive his sentence: "And there now remains no course but-" Apraksin, overweight and apoplectic, never heard the end of the judge's sentence. Expecting the words "torture" and "death", he fell dead on the floor. The judge's last words were to have been "to set him free."

"In March, Peter II visited the Schlesselburg Fortress where the former emperor Ivan IV, deposed by Empress Elizabeth, had been confined since he was four years old. Peter...thought of giving Ivan an easier life, perhaps even a military post...The condition of the man he found made these plans impossible. Ivan, now 22, was tall and thin with hair to his waist. He was illiterate, stammered out disconnected sentences and was uncertain about his identity. His clothes were torn and dirty, his bed was a narrow palette, the air in his prison room was heavy and the only light came from small barred windows high up on the wall..Peter gave him a silk dressing gown which the former emperor his under this pillow. Before leaving the fortress Peter ordered a house to be built in the courtyard where the prisoner might have more air and more room to walk."

"Three children had been born to Diderot and his wife, and all three had died. Then when Madame Diderot was 43, a fourth child was born, a daughter, Marie Angelique. Diderot knew that he must provide for her dowry, but he had no money, everything had gone into the Encyclopedia. He decided to sell his only valuable possession, his library. Catherine heard about his decision from Diderot's friend, her ambassador to France and Holland, Prince Dmitry Golitsyn. Diderot had asked 15,000 pounds for his books, Catherine offered 165,000 but attached a condition: the books should remain in Diderot's possession for his lifetime. "It would be cruel to separate a scholar from his books," she explained. Diderot thus became - without either he or his books leaving Paris - Catherine's librarian."

"In 1763...to discourage infanticide among unmarried and impoverished mothers, she established, with her own funds, a foundling hospital with an attached lying-in hospital in Moscow. The anonymity of the mother was assured by a system of baskets, pulleys, and bells. When a bell was rung in the street, a basket was lowered from an upper story, the unwanted baby put in, and the basket raised. All children, legitimate or illegitimate, from any class, were accepted, cared for and educated, with precautions to ensure that when they left, they were, or remained, free...The hospital served as a model for similar foundling institutions in St. Petersburg and other places."

27asukamaxwell
nov 25, 2020, 11:10 pm



Finished reading Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman & Paul Clark Newell, Jr.
Pages: 359
Words: Tom & Jerry: a brandy and eggnog concoction; majolica; faience; delft
Notes: None.

28asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: nov 30, 2020, 1:11 am



Finished reading Kick Kennedy: The Charmed Life and Tragic Death of the Favorite Kennedy Daughter by Barbara Leaming
Pages: 247
Words: None
Notes: None

I have to say, this author really likes the word "materialize" instead of having a person "appear," "greet," "approach," etc.

29asukamaxwell
dec 8, 2020, 12:53 am



Finished reading The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de' Medici by Elizabeth Lev
Pages: 352
Words: "dagging"; camerlengo; interregnum; "Gli Esperimenti"
Notes: "Every year at Easter the wax from the Paschal candle, a symbol of Christ's Resurrection, was molded into little cakes, each called "Agnes Dei" and stamped with a sacred image. The most precious of these would be personally blessed by the pope and kept in a special golden box. Almost every expectant mother would be given one, as it was believed to help protect women in childbirth, Pope Urban VI had sanctioned this practice, declaring a century earlier that this object of devotion "preserves the pregnant woman and delivers her of her child."

"In the Renaissance era, November was observed as the month of the dead. Nobles and peasants prayed in cemeteries and church crypts and offered Masses for the souls suffering in Purgatory."

30asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: jan 10, 2021, 4:06 pm



Finished reading Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire by Leslie Pierce
Pages: 317
Words: None.
Notes: "The Arabic roots of the word "harem" and its usage over time conveyed two general and clearly related meanings: a space that is forbidden or unlawful, and a space that was been declared sacred, inviolable, or taboo. A harem was a zone in which certain individuals or certain forms of conduct were forbidden - on other words, a kind of sanctuary. In the Ottoman world of the 16th c, the most revered spaces were known as harems - the interior of a mosque, the Muslim sacred compound in Jerusalem, and, above all, the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina."
"Rustem Pasha acquired the nickname "Lucky Louse." Rumors spread by his enemies that he suffered from leprosy were proven false when the doctor sent to Diyarbakir to examine him discovered a louse in his clothing, despite the fact that the fastidious pasha changed his garments daily. Louse were apparently known to avoid lepers."
Review: 3 out of 5.
I don't like to give negative reviews but this biography was kind of a letdown.
Roxelana was an enslaved teenager who was trained in the spiritual, intellectual, cultural, and linguistic arts of the Old Palace harem and rose to become one of the chosen few to be accepted as a concubine by Suleyman the Magnifient. She made her mark in history as being the only former slave to then be set free, marry the sultan, thus becoming the only Queen in the history of the Ottoman Empire.
However this book is not a biography of Roxelana, it is instead a cultural study of the Ottoman court at this point in history. Whole chapters are devoted to Suleyman I himself, Ibrahim the Grand Vizier, military campaigns, etc. Roxelana is very often left behind. If the author wanted a female perspective, the book could really be history of the harem as an influential branch of the government. I did enjoy learning about the hierarchy of the Ottoman harem, the harem school and the charitable institutions of Istanbul. The author makes an great effort to clarify the common misunderstandings of what a harem is and how it functioned. I can appreciate the author's efforts in that respect.

31asukamaxwell
Bewerkt: dec 30, 2020, 6:05 pm



Finished reading Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer Among the American Romantics by Renee Bergland
Pages: 259
Words: Urania, rigorgimeto
Notes: Too Many.
Review: 4 out of 5.
Maria Mitchell is a wonderful and brilliant woman to read about. She is incredibly intelligent, talented, humble to a fault, sarcastic in her humor, and even wrote poetry! After reading this, I must revisit her telescope at the Smithsonian.The book begins by exploring Maria's childhood. Maria's father was an astronomer and a pillar of the Nantucket community and promoted gender equality in the classroom. On her Grand Tour of Europe, Maria met the top astronomers of her day, and even befriended the Hawthornes. The author does an excellent job of describing the interconnection of science and gender, poetry and astronomy. Science used to be considered a feminine subject. It was only post-Civil War that the sciences became "masculine" and professionalized. The author explains exactly when, how and why this gender inequality in the professional sciences began. However, this book does have one flaw. Earlier in the book, the author points out that "some of Mitchell's chroniclers have tried to defend her from the charges of lesbianism..." As if being gay were a "charge?" It is known that Maria Mitchell did not marry or take any known male lovers, but preferred the company of women. Later the author writes "Mitchell's affections... will never be clearly limned for the historian" and yet on the very next page, firmly states "I don't think she was a secret lesbian." The author is keen to only mention then immediately dismiss the possibility, rather than make any attempt to explore it. You can be sure I will pursue this point on my own. I see you Maria.