Sometimes the anomalies in a text can provide a starting point to explore possibilities of meaning that aren’t immediately evident. The first such a one in this chapter is striking: Smith’s misquotation from Romeo and Juliet, which ought to read: These violent delights have violent ends, And in […]
In the previous chapter, Clara expresses her relief when William turns out to be a gentleman, as is borne out by the credentials printed on his card and his reputation as a scholar, which has become a matter of public knowledge. Lady Kate hadn’t doubted it, perhaps thanks […]
Prior to the two Australian newspaper series we’re using to reconstruct The Mystery of the Marsh, the novel appeared serialized in the New York Ledger during the period December 1882 — March 1883. You may recall that Smith moved from Europe to the United States in 1870, residing […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Furin Chime 