There looks to be some fascinating writing on fairies in this new publication! I’m honored to have some stanzas included from one of my longer poems inspired by the more Gothic side of Faerie. Many thanks to editors Simon Bacon and Lorna Piatti-Farnell. peterlang.com/document/14001…

Here’s something a little different today for the anniversary of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s birth: his red coral baby rattle. To those curious about such relics of “Shelleyana”, this item is on display at Oxford’s Weston Library, part of the Treasured exhibition with Bodleian Libraries.

Shelley’s heart (or possibly his liver?) was discovered in Mary Shelley’s traveling-desk after her death, wrapped in silk between the pages of the Pisa edition of Adonais (1821), Percy Bysshe Shelley’s elegy on the death of John Keats. More about it here: gothickeatspress.com/shelley/gothic…

‘Sense and Sensibility review – blue-chip cast decorates Emma Thompson’s pleasurable Austen adaptation’ The best screen adaptation (our opinion) of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility is back in cinemas starting 8 August to celebrate its 30th anniversary. theguardian.com/film/2025/aug/…

The 3-day “Sea Changes” conference by Open Graves & Minds is not to be missed. Their “Gothic Faerie” conference of 2021 was a brilliantly glamorous affair, and they always publish fascinating work. “Sea Changes” will be held both online (Sept 6) and at the British Library (Sept 7-8).

‘Written to coincide with Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, this approachable and intimate work shows why and how Austen has inspired and challenged its author through different phases of her life.’ Professor Janet Todd talks about her latest book tomorrow: llangwmlitfest.eventcube.io/events/86659/l…

📢Now booking - please RT #GothicMermaids #SeaChanges opengravesopenminds.com/sea-changes-20…

Today is Walter Crane’s 180th birthday. He painted the graves of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1872-73. Of his time within the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, Crane wrote that “one might almost feel the spirits of the poets still haunted the place”. clayfjohnson.com/poems/keats-st…

‘The Quiet Genius of Jane Austen: What Her Daily Routine Looked Like’ Despite habitual interruptions, Austen persevered in writing what would become masterpieces. theepochtimes.com/bright/the-qui…

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “earthly remains” were cremated #OTD 16 August 1822. It was an appropriately classical, pagan ceremony with offerings of spice, wine, and frankincense—even Keats’s last book of poems, found on Shelley’s body, was added to the fire. gothickeatspress.com/shelley/gothic…

An account of Keats’s book: According to the poet Robert Browning, when speaking with Hunt and inquiring if Keats’s book still existed, Hunt replied, ‘No, I threw it into the burning pile; Shelley said he would return it with his own hands into mine, and so he shall return it.’

Dream Animal (ca. 1903) by Alfred Kubin. Today is the anniversary of his death. According to a 2012 exhibition, “By the early 1900s, just after Freud released The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Kubin was producing hundreds of drawings exploring the abysses of the unconscious.”

“Keats’s Life in London”, at The London Archives next Thursday, 28 August. “From his birth in Moorgate, medical training in Southwark, and his residence in Hampstead, this talk charts the life of Keats and uncovers the influence of the city on his poetry.” eventbrite.co.uk/e/keats-life-i…

The Gothic book illustration below could be Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, or, to quote Jane Austen’s ‘horrid novels’ list, ‘Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries.’

Dr. John William Polidori, author of “The Vampyre” (1819), tragically died by suicide #OTD in 1821, just two weeks before his 26th birthday. His aristocratic and seductive vampire Lord Ruthven, who was modeled on Lord Byron, has had an everlasting influence on vampire literature.

The legend of Mélusine and her “bathing sea-change” has long fascinated me, and like Keightley and others, I too retold her tale in a rather overlong 17-page poem published in 2021. Online tickets for Open Graves & Minds’s “Sea Changes” conference available here: opengravesopenminds.com/events/booking…