Born in Brest, the daughter of a novelist and educated in Paris, she was a lesbian, a feminist, and a formidable educationist. Today her presence may be largely forgotten, but she left a legacy on both sides of the Atlantic.
Marie Souvestre was born on April 28, 1830 in Brest, the daughter of a novelist. In 1846, her father Émile published the dystopian novel Le monde tel qu’il sera. Set in the year 3000, the story features remarkable predictions on the role of science in society, and contains reflections on future parenthood and education. He would certainly have inspired his daughter’s alternative ideas about learning in general, and the teaching of young women in particular. Having remained in the shadow of the mighty Jules Verne who stole the limelight, Émile Souvestre deserves renewed critical attention. [Read more…] about The Education of Eleanor Roosevelt
On March 25, 1833, the celebrated Shakespearian actor Edmund Kean collapsed on stage at London’s Covent Garden while playing the role of Othello. He died shortly thereafter.
Before long it will be three hundred years ago that James Franklin started printing the combative New-England Courant, employing his younger brother Benjamin as an apprentice. It set a precedent for independent newspaper publishing in the English colonies.
In November 1890 an exhibition took place in the exclusive rooms of the Grolier Club of bibliophiles and print collectors at no. 29 East 32nd Street, 
In the first edition of his Dictionary of the English Language (1755) the term lexicographer is defined by Samuel Johnson as a ‘harmless drudge that busies himself in … detailing the signification of words’. A dunce, in other words. Really?
Columbus brought syphilis from the New World to Europe. The first record of an outbreak of the infection dates from 1494/5 in the aftermath of the French invasion of Naples (where it became known as the ‘French disease’).
Britain and the US share a passion for boxing. Over time, it has been both mass entertainment and highbrow delight for writers from Byron to Norman Mailer, or artists from Cruikshanks to Bellows. In 1949, Kirk Douglas made his name as Midge Kelly in Champion. The greatest sporting event of the nineteenth century was a bout between a London bricklayer and a New York blacksmith. Both were of Irish descent. They became sporting super stars. 
In 2019, Arthur A. Levine in New York and Em. Querido in Amsterdam announced that they were joining forces as an independent publishing house under the name Levine Querido. For me, after decades of living and working in London, that information sparked a flash-back.
Rapid expansion of the railways in France during the Second Empire opened up the country and pushed Impressionist painters to introduce suburbia into art.