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Furin Chime

Books and Ideas–Vanishing Literature Series

Cobb’s False Knight: 18. A Revelation—Conclusion

By Oliver Raven on January 16, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

Cobb’s False Knight: 17. Beginning of the End

By Oliver Raven on January 2, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

Cobb’s False Knight: 16. An Adventure

By Oliver Raven on December 19, 2020 • ( Leave a comment )

Cobb’s False Knight: 15. The Midnight Mission

By Oliver Raven on December 5, 2020 • ( Leave a comment )

Cobb’s False Knight: 14. A Scrap of Paper

By Oliver Raven on November 21, 2020 • ( Leave a comment )

Cobb’s False Knight: 13. A Terrible Blow

By Oliver Raven on November 7, 2020 • ( Leave a comment )

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Fifteenth Instalment

By Michael Guest on September 15, 2019 • ( Leave a comment )

The scene shifts to Paris, where Smith can draw upon his youthful experience of bohemian life in the Latin Quarter.  A character in our upper echelon has gone there to take care of some … unfinished business — of the serious kind. Here we meet a new brand […]

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Fourteenth Instalment

By Michael Guest on September 1, 2019 • ( Leave a comment )

What a presumption of Burcham’s that Lady Kate’s cousin Clara Meredith will drop everything and marry him because an inheritance of five thousand a year hinges on it! He doesn’t need Mr. Brit to tell him there will be possibly much more for him when her father dies, […]

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Thirteenth Instalment

By Michael Guest on August 17, 2019 • ( Leave a comment )

Almost a century and a half has passed since Smith launched his penny blood, so it is natural that a mere aside by the narrator can set off a question mark that repays investigation. In considering the theory of literature, the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur describes how a text […]

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Twelfth Instalment

By Michael Guest on August 3, 2019 • ( Leave a comment )

Margaret Oliphant’s essay ‘The Byways of Literature: Reading for the Million’ (1858) is something of a seminal study in literature and popular culture. Her elegant piece is by turns endearing — particularly in her approval of our man Smith — and a worry for its tone of condescension towards […]

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Eleventh Instalment

By Michael Guest on July 20, 2019 • ( Leave a comment )

This chapter presents insights into the motivations and machinations in play at the ‘higher end’ of society. A far cry from Mrs. Hurst’s scheme to have William and Goliah banged up for the ‘theft’ of the horse and wagon, motivated partially by her rivalry with Mrs. Gob over […]

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Recap

By Michael Guest on July 13, 2019 • ( Leave a comment )

I’ll keep good the promise made by the 1883 newspaper sources for this reconstructed penny blood mystery, by providing their mid-way summary. The author of the novel is the Englishman John Frederick Smith, the most popular writer of the mid-nineteenth century — but in later years all but […]

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Tenth Instalment

By Michael Guest on July 6, 2019 • ( 2 Comments )

Smith lingers over May Day while introducing a new source of conflict. The early twenty-first century reader may wince at the themes of gender and morality so firmly foregrounded. In our era we have the advent of LGBT rights, and concurrent with them, the destabilization, at least, of […]

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Ninth Instalment

By Michael Guest on June 22, 2019 • ( Leave a comment )

Picture a May Day festival on an English village green, complete with Morris dancers and maypole, the main setting for this instalment. May Day is a tradition widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, celebrating fertility and the return of Spring. There are indeterminate roots in the pagan Roman Floralia, […]

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Eighth Instalment

By Michael Guest on June 8, 2019 • ( Leave a comment )

Part of this instalment outlines the troubled history of Bunce, the courageous tramp who risked his life to defend the two girls in the Red Barn. His childhood memories begin in one of about a dozen martello towers in Essex, which prompts the illustration this week, a scene […]

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Seventh Instalment

By Michael Guest on May 25, 2019 • ( 2 Comments )

Several of Smith’s writings for the London Journal, beginning in 1849, were illustrated by the artist Sir John Gilbert (1817–1897), knighted by Queen Victoria in 1872. These include his historical romance, Stanfield Hall; a domestic novel, Amy Lawrence, the Freemason’s Daughter; and Minnigrey, generally held to be his […]

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Mystery of the Marsh »

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Thirty-second Instalment

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Thirty-first Instalment

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Thirtieth instalment

J.F. Smith’s Mystery of the Marsh — Twenty-ninth instalment

Biosnips »

Cobb Biosnip: Laborare est orare

Cobb Biosnip: No Yellowbacks

Cobb Biosnip: Naval Stint

Raising a Dime Novel: Cobb’s The False Knight

Features »

Cyberspace: Virtual Life in the 90’s

The King: Donald Barthelme’s Postmodernist Anachronism

Semiotics of Two Honda Motorscooters

Glimpses at Signs

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