Posts

Showing posts with the label Effie

Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

Image
A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...

Effie by Suzanne Fagence Cooper

Image
Around two years ago I happened to see a youtube video on the making of "Desperate Romantics" about the Pre-Raphaelites. Looked like something I would like, so I ordered the book  Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites by Franny Moyle and the DVD and fell in love with the works of the pre-Raphaelites. Not only are their works a marvel, I managed to view some of them at the Tate Gallery in London on a visit. I find the group and the people around them fascinating. At the wonderful museum shop I found several interesting books, which I have now finally read. The first one was   Lizzie Siddal - The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel by Lucinda Hawksley, the second one Effie by Suzanne Fagence Cooper and last but not least, A Circle of Sisters by Judith Flanders, review will follow. Effie's story is extraordinary for a woman in the Victorian times. She is another one of those remarkable Victorian women who managed to make a life of her own, in...