1045
Viola tries to tell Orsino, Duke of Illyria, that his beloved Olivia is not the only woman deserving of his attention.
Viola is pretending to be Cesario, a page-boy in the court of Orsino, Duke of Illyria. The Duke uses her as a go-between in his courtship of Olivia, but Viola has fallen in love with Orsino herself, and tries without success to interest him in the possibility of a rival.
Posted August 3 2017
1046
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was commissioned by a fiercely independent Britain, and Beethoven was excited to oblige.
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is today associated with the European Union, something of an irony as Beethoven loudly cheered on Britain’s resistance to Napoleon Bonaparte’s dreams of a Europe-wide superstate. Indeed, the Symphony itself arose out of a commission from friends in London in 1817, just two years after Waterloo.
Posted August 1 2017
1047
Emma tries to reconcile her father to the unaccountable tastes of his nearest and dearest.
Mild Mr Woodhouse cannot quite forgive Mr John Knightley for carrying off his daughter Isabella as bride, even though he dotes on his little grandchildren Henry and John. It is left to Isabella’s sister Emma to calm his fear that the boys’ father is altogether too rough-and-tumble with them.
Posted August 1 2017
1048
In Charles Dickens’s tale set around Mugby Junction, a man sees his life flash by like a ghostly train.
At the start of his railway-themed story ‘Mugby Junction’, Charles Dickens wants to tell us about the lead character, whom we know thus far only as a man with two black cases labelled ‘Barbox Brothers’. He is standing with the station’s sole member of staff on the otherwise deserted, rain-soaked platform at three o’clock in the morning.
Posted July 29 2017
1049
Charles Dickens explains the thinking behind Jesus Christ’s choice of friends.
Charles Dickens’s ‘The Life of Our Lord’ was written ‘for his children during the years 1846 to 1849’. Many of the themes that animate his novels find direct and uncomplicated expression in its pages, including the importance of a loving home and inspiring role-models close at hand.
Posted July 29 2017
1050
A young English girl in Dr Johnson’s London struggles to share her gift for music.
The story of Anne Ford (1737-1824) is an inspirational tale of determination, which shows two contrasting sides to Georgian England, and reminds us once again that Britain made rapid social progress without the violence seen on the near Continent.
Posted July 28 2017