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Adam Roberts
Adam Roberts

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Adam’s Notebook

·15 hours ago

ChatGPT and the Academy

This week is induction week at my university: new and returning students, gearing up for the coming academic year. Yesterday myself and some colleagues addressed the first, second and third years in consecutive lecture halls, to talk them through what to expect, explain the processes and so on. One thing…

University

2 min read

ChatGPT and the Academy
ChatGPT and the Academy
University

2 min read


Published in

Adam’s Notebook

·6 days ago

Gwenllian Phillips, née Bevan, of Trebryn

Wondering about the date of the above photo, which was forwarded to me by my mother, Merryl (herself born in 1941): ‘The lady sitting with a baby on her lap is my grandmother’s mother: Gwenllian Phillips, née Bevan, of Trebryn. She is surrounded by some of her 14 children. Her…

Evan Bevan

2 min read

Gwenllian Phillips, née Bevan, of Trebryn
Gwenllian Phillips, née Bevan, of Trebryn
Evan Bevan

2 min read


Published in

Adam’s Notebook

·Sep 9

‘Hobbit’

Tolkien scholars are divided on the likelihood that Tolkien actually read the Denham Tracts, a group of pamphlets published between 1846 and 1859 by Yorkshire tradesman and folklorist Michael Aislabie Denham, afterwards republished as one book. He might have done, and in doing so might have come across the word…

Hobbit

2 min read

‘Hobbit’
‘Hobbit’
Hobbit

2 min read


Published in

Adam’s Notebook

·Sep 7

William Morris, ‘The Story of the Glittering Plain’ (1894)

In a paper he read before a meeting of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in July 1889, Morris defined romance as ‘the capacity for a true conception of history, a power of making the past part of the present.’ [May Morris, William Morris: Writer, Artist, Socialist (Oxford…

William Morris

11 min read

William Morris, ‘The Story of the Glittering Plain’ (1894)
William Morris, ‘The Story of the Glittering Plain’ (1894)
William Morris

11 min read


Published in

Adam’s Notebook

·Sep 6

‘Dover Beach’, by Matt Queue Arnold

The ferry docks tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Look through the windshield: starlit is the night-air! Only, from the long line of cars Where halt holds lorries…

Dover Beach

2 min read

‘Dover Beach’, by Matt Queue Arnold
‘Dover Beach’, by Matt Queue Arnold
Dover Beach

2 min read


Published in

Adam’s Notebook

·Sep 3

Dickens, Not a Man of Words (1806)

Our man, of course, was not born until 1812. Who’s this, then, in 1806? Well, he’s a character from this diverting novel (fourth edition 1806, so first edition probably a year or so earlier, but I can’t seem to trace that).

Dickens

1 min read

Dickens, Not a Man of Words (1806)
Dickens, Not a Man of Words (1806)
Dickens

1 min read


Published in

Adam’s Notebook

·Aug 31

Vincent Bourne, ‘A Cat’s Nine Lives’ (1734)

Here’s an 8-line poem by Vincent Bourne about a cat. Bourne was a moderately successful English neo-Latin poet of the 18th-century (there’s not much known about his life), whose popularity sparked somewhat during the Romantic period. Charles Lamb translated eight of Bourne’s Latin poems into English, and recommended him to…

Vincent Bourne

2 min read

Vincent Bourne, ‘A Cat’s Nine Lives’ (1734)
Vincent Bourne, ‘A Cat’s Nine Lives’ (1734)
Vincent Bourne

2 min read


Published in

Adam’s Notebook

·Aug 30

Latham’s Birds: Scanned

The Google Books scan-in of John Latham’s General Synopsis of Birds (1801) gives us the text accurately, but has done something rather splendid to the coloured illustrations of the actual birds that interleave the volume. Something to do with the scanner misreading and flattening the colours, and blocking chunks of the plates, gives us these splendid, stylised rouge-et-noir images. A kind of Modernism ahead of time. Lovely! All hail Google Books.

1 min read

Latham’s Birds
Latham’s Birds

1 min read


Published in

Adam’s Notebook

·Aug 30

Macmillan and the End of Empire

From the vantage point of 2023 the end of the British Empire seems an inevitability, a good and necessary thing. The surprise, perhaps, is that it took as long as it did to happen. By 1960, when Macmillan delivered his ‘Winds of Change’ speech in South Africa, the process was…

Harold Macmillan

3 min read

Macmillan and the End of Empire
Macmillan and the End of Empire
Harold Macmillan

3 min read


Published in

Adam’s Notebook

·Aug 25

George Buchanan, Sylvae 6: ‘On the Horse: Inscription’ (?1550)

Here’s another of Buchanan’s poems from Sylvae (1567) — for the meaning of the collection title ‘Sylvae’, see here — to add to my versions of Sylvae 2, Sylvae 3 and the immense Sylvae 4. This, you’ll be pleased to hear, is much shorter: a sixteen line poem in praise…

George Buchanan

2 min read

George Buchanan, ‘Inscription: the Horse’ (?1567)
George Buchanan, ‘Inscription: the Horse’ (?1567)
George Buchanan

2 min read

Adam Roberts

Adam Roberts

394 Followers

Writer and academic. London-adjacent.

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