Blog

  • A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 7. “NO! BY ETERNAL JUSTICE!”

    In her letter Jesse does not describe or elaborate on her dire predicament. It is only following the arrival of Larchmont’s brother, Harry, back in Paris for all to be revealed in personal dialogue between the two. Given the generous insights of our narrator, our good readers may hazard a guess at what has occurred… Read more

  • Anatole France’s Merrie Tales: Olivier’s Brag

    Perhaps a word of warning about this story by Anatole France from the year 1909. The ending in particular might offend, so be prepared to make an allowance for attitudes in it being 112 years old—the original French chanson de geste eight centuries earlier than that. The story, a satire, is mainly about boasting. The… Read more

  • Coming soon: Anatole France’s The Merrie Tales of Jacques Tournebroche

    Commencing soon and continuing week-about with Archibald Clavering Gunter’s Baron Montez of Panama and Paris, we present an introduction to the work of the great Nobel Prize winning poet and novelist, Anatole France (1844-1924). For The Merrie Tales of Jacques Tournebroche (1908), France cast back into historical mists at once factual and imagined, for a… Read more

  • A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 6. Jesse’s Letter

    Although this chapter begins in 1880, it spans the years to 1887. The Baron Montez, Larchmont and his ward, Jessie, arrive in Paris at the centre of a glorious time which in the future will be known as the ‘Belle Epoque’. Imagine wide boulevards where bunches of flowers spill from vendors’ baskets onto the pavement… Read more

  • A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 5. Black Blood Changes to Blue

    Twenty-five years after the closing events of the last chapter, Panama is still our setting, though the focus has shifted from the Panama Railroad to a new major engineering challenge: The Panama Canal. The year is 1880 and Ferdinand de Lesseps, French diplomat and developer of the Suez Canal and his entourage, are in Panama… Read more