Rye, Rabble, and Roulette: The Gambler Review

By all accounts, Dostoevsky wrote The Gambler on a deadline, ironically, to pay gambling debts. No better way to prove invention's parentage is necessity. I recently missed another Classics Club spin, only to realise I still haven't performed the function of reviewing my last Classics Club read for Spin #39. Hence the necessity of my… Continue reading Rye, Rabble, and Roulette: The Gambler Review

“pretended to be deeply absorbed”

Two-hundred and five years ago today, January 17, 1820, the third Brontë sister was born. Named Anne, she, like her older sisters, first published under a male pseudonym: Acton Bell. She worked as a governess as well as writing poetry and novels. She wrote two novels, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the… Continue reading “pretended to be deeply absorbed”

The Ninth Daughter: A Lady of Quality Review

Frances Hodgson Burnett was born Frances Eliza Hodgson in Manchester, England on this day, November 24, in 1849. If you thought Francis Hodgson Burnett exclusively wrote heartwarming children's stories, that was me not long ago. The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Little Lord Fauntleroy... even if you haven't read the books, you've likely seen one… Continue reading The Ninth Daughter: A Lady of Quality Review

“The man you’re looking for is a poet”: Edgar Allan Poe in Film

Ten years apart, set in two very different periods of Poe's life, the films The Raven (2012) and The Pale Blue Eye (2022) may not seem very similar portrayals of the American poet. Yet, when I rewatched them recently in anticipation of the 175th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's death, I found more correlation than… Continue reading “The man you’re looking for is a poet”: Edgar Allan Poe in Film