Friday, February 25, 2011

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Vasari's Lives of the Artists - Niccolo and Giovanni of Pisa

Vasari's Lives of the Artists
Niccolo and Giovanni, Sculptors and Architects of Pisa
(Niccolo born c. 1205, died 1278) (Giovanni born __, died 1320)
London: Henry Bohn & Co., 1850, Volume 1, page 60

Monday, February 21, 2011

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Vasari's Lives of the Artists - Cimabue

Vasari's Lives of the Artists
Giovanni Cimabue, Florentine Painter
(Born 1240 - Died 1303)
In the translation by Mrs. Jonathan Foster
London: Henry G. Bohn, 1850

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Fictional portrait of Tolstoy's sister

Faust - A Story in Nine Letters
by Ivan Turgenev
In A Lear of the Steppes and Other Stories
New York: Macmillan and Co., 1898

First published in 1855, the character Vera in Ivan Turgenev's Faust is said to be a fictional portrait of Leo Tolstoy's sister, Mariya Nikolayevna Tolstaya. The story is said to have infuriated Tolstoy. The relationship between Mariya Nikolayevna and Turgenev was in part to blame for the rift between Tolstoy and Turgenev.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Tolstoy's last days as related by his sister

Reminiscences of Tolstoy
by his son, Ilya Lvovich Tolstoy
Translated by George Calderon
New York: The Century Co., 1914

Letter from Mariya Nikolayevna Tolstaya to Sofia (aka Sonya) Tolstaya. Page 388.

On April 22, 1911, Tolstoy's sister, Mariya Nikolayevna Tolstaya (aka Masha), wrote to Tolstoy's wife, Sonya. She was responding to a letter from Sonya. Mariya relates her thoughts on Tolstoy's flight from home in October 1910, his visit to her at Shamardino, his reasons for leaving home, and on his death. The letter is full of compassion for Sonya while, at the same time, acknowledging that something must have been wrong for Tolstoy have come to the decision to leave his beloved Yasnaya Polyana.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Decembrists by Leo Tolstoy

The Decembrists - A Fragment
by Leo Tolstoy
As published in Volume 12 of the Complete Works of Count Lev N. Tolstoy
Translated and edited by Leo Wiener
Boston: Dana Estes & Company, 1904

An unfinished novel by Leo Tolstoy. Natasha and Pierre, of War and Peace fame, appear in this fragment as an older couple.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Mrs. Henry Wood - by Adeline Sergeant

Mrs. Henry Wood
by Adeline Sergeant
From Women Novelists of Queen Victoria's Reign
London: Hurst & Blackett, Limited, 1897

David Garth - by Mrs Henry Wood

First published in Argosy, Volume VIII, December 1869, page 444:
David Garth's Night-Watch

First published in Argosy, Volume XI, January 1871, page 36:
David Garth's Ghost

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Two of Mrs. Wood's supernatural tales from the Johnny Ludlow series.