Today marks the 204th Anniversary of the release of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and in my humble opinion, the world is a better place for having read Austen’s most popular work.
| Publisher | T. Egerton, Whitehall |
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Publication date
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28 January 1813 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback, 3 volumes) |
After her death, during the nineteenth-century romantic period, Austen was often looked upon with begrudging admiration, as her elevation of intelligence over feeling contradicted the romantic temperament. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, however, Austen’s reputation rose considerably, and she gradually gained an enthusiastic cult of admirers that were known as the “Janeites.” In America, Austen was little known before 1900, but by mid-century she was receiving more critical attention there than in England. In the last decades of the twentieth century, Austen and her works received considerable attention from the general public: Most of her novels were adapted into films, modern novelists wrote sequels to Pride and Prejudice and endings to Sandition, and a mystery series was even developed with Jane Austen herself as the heroine.
Pre-Elizabethan drama moved from miracle plays to morality plays to folk plays to interludes. Interludes were the last to develop. Initially, “interludes” were closed identified with morality plays, especially in subject matter. 
Interludes were performed at colleges or at the homes of the wealthy. They were often staged between the courses of a supper. The dialogue was very lively and contemporary (politics, new scientific discoveries, the secular elements of religion, etc.). Interludes spoke of the ruling group, changing from emphasis on Protestants to Catholics, and back again. Sometimes they went so far as to “attack” a person or a cause. They might, for example, defend a personage. In John Skelton’s Magnificence, the plot satirized Thomas Wolsey, a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. 
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45. Donald J. Trump (June 14, 1946 — ???} Republican. Trump is an American businessman, politician, and television personality. He is President of the U.S. as of today. His legacy, like Obama’s, is yet to be defined. Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, gaining a majority of electoral college votes, while receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. At age 70, Trump will become the oldest and the wealthiest person to assume the presidency, and the first without prior military and the first without either prior military or governmental service.
Okay, over Christmas I gave and received several jigsaw puzzles. I do puzzles on my Kindle Fire every evening. The presents I gave were those personalized puzzles where a person receives a puzzle of his or her hometown or community based on Google maps. I received a 3D one of London. With over 1200 pieces, it will take me a good long while…at least, I hope so. 
All this got me thinking of John Spilsbury (1739 – 3 April 1769), a British mapmaker and engraver, who is credited as the inventor of the jigsaw puzzle. 
Thomas Cook was a 32-year old cabinet maker by trade and a strong proponent of the temperance movement. One day in June 1841, he walked from his home in Market Harborough to the nearby town of Leicester to attend a “dry” meeting. A former Baptist preacher, Thomas Cook was a religious man who believed that most Victorian social problems were related to alcohol and that the lives of working people would be greatly improved if they drank less and became better educated. On the way, he passed a billboard poster announcing that the Midlands County Railway had opened a rail extension between Loughborough and Leicester. Thomas concocted an idea that the steam engine could be profitably harnessed to the temperance cause; therefore, he persuaded the railroad company to reduce the fare in return to his guarantee of 500 passengers to travel the newly opened rail extension, which customarily served only one-tenth that number. 
During Henry’s reign, the king was served by some 200 councillors from both the Lancastrian and Yorkist facets. His advisors included noblemen, men of law, men of religion, and those of the gentry. They gathered with the King in the Court of the Star Chamber at Westminster Palace. The men Henry VII had gathered dispatched cases of law involving those with specific grievances against one of the nobility. Sessions known as Requests were also conducted there. In these, the poor could pursue their grievances. 
John Reginald Halliday Christie, known to his family and friends as Reg Christie, was an English serial killer active during the 1940s and early 1950s and is the subject a new film based upon his life of crime. Personally, the 1971 film with Richard Attenborough was creepy enough for me. I do not wish to relive the experience. That being said, what do we know of Reginald Christie? 
During a search of 10 Rillington Place on December 2, 1949, the police found the bodies of Beryl and Geraldine Evans hidden in the wash house in the back garden. Both had been strangled. When Evans was shown the clothing taken from the bodies of his wife and child, he was also asked whether he was responsible for their deaths. This was, according to Evans’ statement, the first occasion in which he was informed that his baby daughter had been killed. Evans, (according to Kennedy) said ‘yes, yes’. He then confessed to having strangled Beryl during an argument over debts and strangling Geraldine two days later, after which he left for Wales.
Every Woman Dreams... 