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Baby farming in George Moore’s ‘Esther Waters’ (1894)
A baby's body is recovered from a river.By the 1890s, the growing social conscience of the Victorians had led to the figure of the baby farmer crystallising into a figure both fearsome and criminal in...
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The Bridge’s Saga Noren and Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone
As far as female detectives go, Saga Noren, the Swedish detective in the Scandinavian crime drama The Bridge (currently on BBC4), is intellectually capable but emotionally stunted. Her attitude and...
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What Do Crime Fiction Fans Do on Holiday/Vacation?
I like this image of Megan Abbott looking retro It was my husband that brought me back to crime fiction after childhood dabblings in Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes, and our mutual interest has spurred...
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Other Shades of Grey: Star Crossed Lovers and Passion Restrained
The difficulty of writing romance novels today is that the social, religious or moral barriers that once provided tests for lovers to overcome in order to prove their love are often no longer in place...
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University of Liverpool Continuing Education Catalogue 2012
The catalogue of Continuing Education courses at the University of Liverpool is now available. This year’s programme is excellent across the board, but I’m especially pleased with the English courses....
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Cursed Fountains? The Bride of Lammermoor and Brideshead Revisited
A view from the fountain of Castle Howard I recently visited Castle Howard in Yorkshire. For those of you who haven’t been, it’s definitely worth going. Beautiful grounds, well-informed staff, and a...
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Is Shylock a victim or a villain?
Weighted down by millions of lost souls and eternally scarred bodies, Shylock’s humanity and his persecution is a given for so many modern readers of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Actually, I...
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Downton Abbey and Star-Crossed Plots
Lady Sybil, Lady Mary and Lady Edith In the popular TV show Downton Abbey, it seems the course to true love never runs smooth, although that is not to say that the writer Julian Fellowes doesn’t give...
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Telling Lives: The Drama of Prestwich Asylum
On October 24th, 2012, cul-de-sac theatre will present Eric Northey’s play Telling Liesat the Liverpool Medical Institute. The play is based on stories from the archives of the Prestwich Asylum, and...
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History of Wine: Public Lecture in Liverpool 6 December 2012
THURSDAY 6 DECEMBER 6.30-8.30PM AT 126 MOUNT PLEASANT This lecture will explore the origins of wine from pre-history onwards. Please note this is not a wine tasting event, however, it will include...
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‘Call me dog’: My interviews with James Ellroy
On May 2nd, Steven Powell, editor of the crime fiction blog The Venetian Vase, will be talking about his book Conversations With James Ellroy, and his experiences meeting with the Demon Dog of crime...
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