Category Archives: Poetry

German tales

The title-page of the Historische Kalender in the previous post is not the only representation of the story of William Tell in Douce’s collection. A series of plates entitled Wilhelm Tell. Nach Schillers Schauspiel and published by Philipp von Foltz … Continue reading

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Poetry and Astronomy

I missed the transit of Venus earlier this morning. Transit of Venus I thought that special equipment was required but, apparently, all you need is a piece of paper -or so Jim Naughtie said in the Today programme. He was … Continue reading

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Scandinavian Noir

Long before subtitled Danish drama reached these shores*, Douce was already championing Scandinavian story-telling of a different sort, as transcribed by his friend the Danish scholar and antiquary Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin (1752-1829). On 28 April 1819, Douce wrote in his … Continue reading

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Douce trivia

In 1818, Francis Douce’s sister-in-law, Maria, widow of Charles Luther Watson, married Christopher Salter, from West End House in Buckinghamshire. The Salter family had owned West End House in Stoke Poges since the early eighteenth-century, when it was let to … Continue reading

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