In olden days, the legend says, as grim Sir Ranulph view'd
A wretched hag her footsteps drag beneath his lordly wood,
His bloodhounds twain he called amain, and straightway gave her chase;
Was never seen in forest green, so fierce, so fleet a race!
With eyes of flame to Ranulph came each red and ruthless hound,
While mangl'd, torn - a sight forlorn! - the hag lay on the ground;
E'en where she lay was turned the clay, and limb and reeking bone
Within the earth, with rabid mirth, by Ranulph grim were thrown.
And while as yet the soil was wet with that poor witch's gore,
A lime-tree stake did Ranulph take, and pierced her bosom's core;
And, strange to tell, what next befell! - that branch at once took root,
And richly fed, within its bed, strong suckers forth did shoot.
From year to year fresh boughs appear - it waxes huge in size;
And, with wild glee, this prodigy Sir Ranulph grim espies.
One day, when he, beneath that tree, reclined in joy and pride,
A branch was found upon the ground - the next, Sir Ranulph died!
And from that hour a fatal power has ruled that Wizard Tree,
To Ranulph's line a warning sign of doom and destiny:
For when a bough is found, I trow, beneath its shade to lie,
Ere suns shall rise thrice in the skies a Rookwood sure shall die!
Sunday 26 August 2007
Friday 24 August 2007
Buying books by William Harrison Ainsworth
If you are interested in reading on from the brief extract below, or in any other novel by this author, do not look in a new bookshop. Go instead to your local second-hand book store, where you will probably find some Ainsworth volumes at very reasonable prices. Alternatively, you could look at www.abebooks.com or www.amazon.com for on-line used bargains. It's great fun to pick up an antique volume of around 150 years old to take you back into the exciting worlds created by WHA.
Good hunting!
Steve
ps, coming soon - a poetical extract from Rookwood, Ainsworth's first novel (see earlier posting).
Good hunting!
Steve
ps, coming soon - a poetical extract from Rookwood, Ainsworth's first novel (see earlier posting).
Wednesday 8 August 2007
The opening page of Jack Sheppard
Chapter 1
The Widow and her Child.
On the night of Friday, the 26th of November, 1703, and at the hour of eleven, the door of a miserable habitation, situated in an obscure quarter of the Borough of Southwark, known as the Old Mint, was opened;and a man, with a lantern in his hand, appeared at the threshold. This person, whose age might be about forty, was attired in a browndouble-breasted frieze coat, with very wide skirts, and a very narrow collar; a light drugget waistcoat, with pockets reaching to the knees;black plush breeches; grey worsted hose; and shoes with round toes, wooden heels, and high quarters, fastened by small silver buckles. He wore a three-cornered hat, a sandy-coloured scratch wig, and had a thick woollen wrapper folded round his throat. His clothes had evidently seen some service, and were plentifully begrimed with the dust of the workshop. Still he had a decent look, and decidedly the air of one well-to-do in the world. In stature, he was short and stumpy; in person,corpulent; and in countenance, sleek, snub-nosed, and demure.
Immediately behind this individual, came a pale, poverty-stricken woman, whose forlorn aspect contrasted strongly with his plump and comfortable physiognomy. She was dressed in a tattered black stuff gown, discolouredby various stains, and intended, it would seem, from the remnants of rusty crape with which it was here and there tricked out, to represent the garb of widowhood, and held in her arms a sleeping infant, swathed in the folds of a linsey-woolsey shawl.
Notwithstanding her emaciation, her features still retained somethingof a pleasing expression, and might have been termed beautiful, had it not been for that repulsive freshness of lip denoting the habitual dram-drinker; a freshness in her case rendered the more shocking from the almost livid hue of the rest of her complexion. She could not be more than twenty; and though want and other suffering had done the workof time, had wasted her frame, and robbed her cheek of its bloom and roundness, they had not extinguished the lustre of her eyes, nor thinned her raven hair. Checking an ominous cough, that, ever and anon, convulsed her lungs, the poor woman addressed a few parting words to her companion, who lingered at the doorway as if he had something on his mind, which he did not very well know how to communicate.
The Widow and her Child.
On the night of Friday, the 26th of November, 1703, and at the hour of eleven, the door of a miserable habitation, situated in an obscure quarter of the Borough of Southwark, known as the Old Mint, was opened;and a man, with a lantern in his hand, appeared at the threshold. This person, whose age might be about forty, was attired in a browndouble-breasted frieze coat, with very wide skirts, and a very narrow collar; a light drugget waistcoat, with pockets reaching to the knees;black plush breeches; grey worsted hose; and shoes with round toes, wooden heels, and high quarters, fastened by small silver buckles. He wore a three-cornered hat, a sandy-coloured scratch wig, and had a thick woollen wrapper folded round his throat. His clothes had evidently seen some service, and were plentifully begrimed with the dust of the workshop. Still he had a decent look, and decidedly the air of one well-to-do in the world. In stature, he was short and stumpy; in person,corpulent; and in countenance, sleek, snub-nosed, and demure.
Immediately behind this individual, came a pale, poverty-stricken woman, whose forlorn aspect contrasted strongly with his plump and comfortable physiognomy. She was dressed in a tattered black stuff gown, discolouredby various stains, and intended, it would seem, from the remnants of rusty crape with which it was here and there tricked out, to represent the garb of widowhood, and held in her arms a sleeping infant, swathed in the folds of a linsey-woolsey shawl.
Notwithstanding her emaciation, her features still retained somethingof a pleasing expression, and might have been termed beautiful, had it not been for that repulsive freshness of lip denoting the habitual dram-drinker; a freshness in her case rendered the more shocking from the almost livid hue of the rest of her complexion. She could not be more than twenty; and though want and other suffering had done the workof time, had wasted her frame, and robbed her cheek of its bloom and roundness, they had not extinguished the lustre of her eyes, nor thinned her raven hair. Checking an ominous cough, that, ever and anon, convulsed her lungs, the poor woman addressed a few parting words to her companion, who lingered at the doorway as if he had something on his mind, which he did not very well know how to communicate.
Friday 3 August 2007
Three novels to get started
Ainsworth wrote some 40 novels during his long career, but these three were among his greatest and most popular, establishing him as one of the foremost English novelists of the 1830s and 40s:
Rookwood (1834). The first gothic novel with an English setting. Features Dick Turpin’s ride to York on Black Bess - a legend in the making!
Jack Sheppard (1840). The story of the notorious eighteenth-century criminal and Newgate escapologist, victim of the infamous Jonahan Wild. This was Ainsworth’s most successful novel, outselling Dickens at this point in his career. The book sparked off some controversy about the author’s treatment of his anti-hero, and has been described as ‘the high point of the Newgate novel as entertainment’.
Old St Paul’s (1841). A tale of the Plague and the Fire, based on published and unpublished works by Defoe.
Rookwood (1834). The first gothic novel with an English setting. Features Dick Turpin’s ride to York on Black Bess - a legend in the making!
Jack Sheppard (1840). The story of the notorious eighteenth-century criminal and Newgate escapologist, victim of the infamous Jonahan Wild. This was Ainsworth’s most successful novel, outselling Dickens at this point in his career. The book sparked off some controversy about the author’s treatment of his anti-hero, and has been described as ‘the high point of the Newgate novel as entertainment’.
Old St Paul’s (1841). A tale of the Plague and the Fire, based on published and unpublished works by Defoe.
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