BleakChesneyWold

                                       The 1894 Worthing Holiday And The Aftermath  Most impressive work indeed and  certainly a book in two halves. Opens with an intriguing account of the Wilde family, along with Bosie at times, staying  at 5 The Esplanade, Worthing ( which has sadly been demolished) from 7th  August 1894- 4th October 1894. The town was desperately trying to attract tourists after the dismal Summer of 1893 when typhus had struck, and not surprisingly, visitors largely stayed away.  There is a great deal shared here about late Victorian Worthing, its economic life, its architecture,  the Summer entertainments with at least four seaborne carnivals. A band of musicians performing regularly on the beach, the circus, concerts at the Assembly Hall -which is now at a different location. A great set of photographs are included in this book.  Os...

    Extract adapted from a  longer (unpublished) piece -'Podge and Prejudice- The Fall of Lord Arthur Somerset '  "Reputation, reputation, reputation. I have lost the immortal part of myself and what remains is bestial." Cassio in  Othello Act 2 Scene 3 Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward or 'Prince Eddy', was born on 8th January 1864, the eldest son of  (Albert) Edward Prince of Wales, or 'Bertie'  and Princess Alexandra of Denmark : Whilst pregnant, Princess Alexandra took part in some frantic sledging across the ice at Windsor, which may have induced a premature birth of up to two months. Baby Eddy weighed about four pounds when born. COOK And Prince Eddy, though second in line to the throne, predeceased both his parents and his grandmother Queen Victoria, dying from influenza shortly after his twenty eighth birthday, on 14th January 1892. His younger brother  became King George V in 1910, when their father Edward VII died.  Ir's hard ...

                                                       A Minor Masterpiece    Recently heard the carol   Remember Oh Thou Man  performed by Eliza Carthy and Jon Boden during their excellent concert at Worthing Assembly Rooms on 13th December 2025.  The audience were reminded that the carol singers in the opening chapters of  Thomas Hardy's  Under The Greenwood Tree or The Mellstock Quire A Rural Painting of the Dutch School   trudge through the snow on Christmas Eve night  to Farmer Shiner's house. They serenade the old grump with the carol Remember Oh Thou Man accompanied by some loud instrument playing.   Also appears on the duos's CD  Glad Christmas Comes  (2023 ) with notes by Jon Boden, who advises "It is this song that is selected as their preferred weapon for waki...

                                              A catastrophe novel from 1885  I finally caught up with local folk band Bird in the Belly at The Ropetackle, Shoreham by Sea, on 24th January 2025: The band specialise in finding obscure ballads, along with pursing the histories of lesser known subjects. The first blogpost of 'Bleak Chesney Wold'  - There Was No Hope In this World -was inspired by the Bird in the Belly song  45 George Street . And the last CD by the band 'After The City' (2022), has led to another post, this time looking at a work by Richard Jefferies. 'After London or Wild England' by Richard Jefferies (1848- 1887), published in 1885, is a most disturbing read. Sometimes classed as 'dystopian' but is probably closer to catastrophe fiction.  Opening with an unnamed narrator reports on a calamity that occurred forty years previously : Somethin...

                             Sensation fiction moving into the 20th century                                   Decided to have a blog post about the 20th century for a change.                   The British Library 'Weird Tales' collection features 13 short stories by E.F (Edward Frederick ) Benson ( 1867-1940) . Only two tales  were  published before 1900 ( Dummy on a Dahabeah 1896 and A Winters Morning 1893) and all have been previously published in collections or magazine with a reasonable circulation apart from Billy Comes Through . These exceptions are the weaker contributions. E. F. Benson, famous son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and from a literary family is most known for his Mapp and Lucia series, waspish and camp humour set in Rye, East Sussex, (light...

      William Harrison Ainsworth  (1805-1882)  William Harrison Ainsworth  by Daniel Maclise ( died 1870) donated to the National Portrait Gallery in 1949 : In public domain, courtesy of Wikipedia.  This post originally appeared in my blog  A Burnt Ship  in November 2020. Thought worth sharing here as essentially a look at a 19th century novelist's view of the Guy Fawkes. Professor James Sharpe, referred to below, sadly passed away in February 2024.  William Harrison Ainsworth  1805-1882 was the son of a Manchester solicitor and moved to London in 1824 to study law. As well as being a poet , magazine editor and journalist,  Ainsworth belonged to a crop of Victorian novelists who were widely read during during the middle of the 19th century but fell from favour, being  largely neglected by the end of his life. 'Guy Fawkes or The Gunpowder Treason -An Historical Romance'  appeared by instalments, included in 'Bentley's ...