The new @bavs-uk.bsky.social newsletter is looking gorgeous after its refresh! It also features our halloween workshops for kids at the historic Mackintosh at the Willow tearoom, where we explored the history & ethics of sugar consumption & what it means to be a 'sugar vampire'! Thanks BAVS! #C19th
The next IGA conference will be at the University of Hull, England on 28-31 July 2026!
You can find the CFP and more information at hullgothic.wordpress.com
Hotel Lion d'Or in Heist, Belgium. 4 or 5 motorcars parked in the street at the front. The hotel is a tall building with balconies
Postcard from Heyst sur la Mer showing the front of the Grand Hotel de L'Univers, with images of interior rooms - the salon, the salon d'ecriture, chambre a coucher, and the salle a manger. The latter, with rows of tables in white tablecloths and patterned wallpapered panels is presumably a close match to the one in Marryat's novel.
Detail of the salle a manger - a room with dark wainscoting and patterned wallpaper panels, rows of tables with white tablecloths and delicate white pillars holding up a ceiling with gilt or painted detailing.
I'm writing on Florence Marryat's 'Blood of the #Vampire' (1897-same year as #Dracula). It starts in the dining room of the Hotel du Lion d'Or in the Belgian seaside resort of Heyst (modern Heist-aan-Zee). I've just found a hotel postcard from c.1910 & dining room of similar hotel down the street!
An extract from a letter from the expedition (dated 1 May 1842) is published in the Ipswich Journal and other newspapers.
I'm officially moving over from the bird app! Currently following as many people as I can here haha. Here are my babies, the queer Age of Sail Nightingale/Courtney series ⚓🌊🏳️🌈
18 July 1842: Rain all day.
Handwritten page of a diary which reads "On our return we saw, on the site of the Bastille still surrounded by its formidable moat, the plaster model of the colossal Elephant, intended for a fountain, and the pedestal already built for its support. When finished I think it bids fair to be a good specimen of the sublime grotesque. There is to be a staircase in his leg, a saloon in his belly, and a terrace round the castle on his back! Le grand bête, he will swallow more Tom Thumbs then the great she cow or the horse of Troy!"
Typed transcript of the same text.
In honour of Bastille Day, here is an excerpt from the diary of Eleanor Porden from 22 August 1816 in which she describes the big elephant statue that is meant to be built on the site of the Bastille.
#BastilleDay #History #Paris #19thCentury
cartoon on display at the library is serving James Clark Ross realness
henry thomas dundas le vesconte… sometimes he wrote beautiful, heartwrenching things and sometimes he wrote a line like “i have such a lot of lady correspondents that they really take up a fearful deal of time but i suppose it is my fault for provoking it”
Sir John Ross, engraving, 1833. [My collection] He's looking very honest and friendly. #NavalHistory
🗣️ UPCOMING NYC EVENT 🗣️
On July 31st, we’ll be back at the South Street Seaport Museum for another FREE evening of polar & maritime talks, this time with a Queer History theme 🌈✨
❄️ MORE INFO & RSVP HERE: southstreetseaportmuseum.org/queer-polar-...
31 May 1842: McCormick goes ashore, and describes the land's "most dreary aspect, with the stillness and silence of death, there being nothing to relieve the eye from the white mantle of snow which enveloped the whole".
McCormick returns to the ship in the afternoon "amid snow-drift and dark passing hail-storms, the whole snow-clad country and sky above presenting the most wild and monotonous aspect".
It’s that time again! We’re amazed and delighted to be kicking off the FIFTH(!) annual Terror Camp polar conference, with information about our programming, key dates, how to submit an abstract, and more.
❄️ Full details: www.tumblr.com/terrorcamp/7...
Some of Terror's crew go ashore and get very drunk in the evening.
I know this sentiment is well shared, but every once in a while I think about how beautifully powerful and inspiring these paintings are.
Call for Abstracts - ‘Epistemic Frontiers’? Geoscientific Knowledge, Authority, and Politics of Participation in Arctic and African Exploration - Oslo, 22–24th April 2025: www.hf.uio.no/iakh/english... #histsci
Erebus fires guns frequently as Terror struggles to stay in company in the fog.
sir james clark ROSS 💜
a commemorative stamp of james clark ross inside a small ornate frame.
enough. youre going in the frame
jumping ship, here from twitter 🖤