St Deiniol’s Residential Library

by catherine on August 31, 2010

 

St Deiniol's Library by Friar's Balsam

A holiday composed almost entirely of books might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s certainly mine.  I have just returned from five glorious days at St Deiniol’s, the UK’s only residential library.  The library itself was started by William Gladstone, the Grand Old Man of Liberal politics, in an altruistic move to make his personal books available to other scholars (you wouldn’t catch me doing that).  The current building was erected in 1902 and then became residential in 1905, now offering comfortable accommodation to scholars and clergyfolk.  Although the tomes largely reflect Gladstone’s own interests in theology and history, the collection has been significantly broadened over the years to include most areas of the humanities.  Even my relatively obscure interest in minor Victorian women novelists was well represented in the stacks.

The stunning library is available to residents from 9am to 10pm each day and a desk can be bagged for the duration, complete with power point for laptop or other concessions to the ravages of modernity.  For me, one of the many pleasures of my stay was eschewing the 21st century and actually using a pen and paper.  The distractions are few and I was able to accomplish a quantity of research that normally would have taken me a month.  All of one’s daily needs are taken care of, and the reasonable rates include half-board accommodation, with lunch included for a modest additional sum.  The residents’ lounge offers comfy chairs and a mini bar to reward oneself after a hard day at the scholarly coalface.

St Deiniol’s lends itself to complete seclusion, but there are also plenty of opportunities for chat with fellow residents.  I spent enjoyable meal breaks with a student researching transvestite monks, and a vicar with a penchant for Trollope.  For those of a nosey disposition, there’s an abundance of ecclesiastical gossip to be overheard.   Clergymen certainly predominate amongst the guests, but St Deiniol’s welcomes people of all faiths and also godless heathens like me.  Talking to other residents demonstrates that Anglicanism is certainly a broad church, so to speak.

The Library is in Hawarden, a short bus ride from Chester, so is easily accessible from London.  They offer a number of bursaries to students, covering the cost of half-board accommodation for up to a month.  I would thoroughly recommend St Deiniol’s as a quiet retreat for a sustained period of concentration.  I have a few friends who go there annually to focus on a particular project, and it’s of particularly benefit to those who normally have many competing demands on their time.  It certainly lives up to its reputation as a health farm for the mind; I found it a completely liberating experience and am already planning my next visit.

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Legacy of Cain by Wilkie Collins (1889)

by catherine on August 5, 2010

Legacy of Cain by Wilkie CollinsCollins is often overlooked as a comic writer, but Legacy of Cain (1889) shows him at his best, with several scenes causing me to snort indecorously on the train.  The subtle humour leavens a novel dealing with the thorny issue of criminality and genetics, which could have become ponderous in less skilled hands.

Prison chaplain Abel Gracedieu agrees to adopt the young daughter of a woman hanged for the brutal murder of her husband.  Determined that she should not be tainted by her mother’s shame, he raises Eunice alongside his own daughter, Helena, and allows people to think them sisters.  Even the girls themselves are unaware of their respective parentage.  When an indigent and eccentric cousin, Miss Jillgall, appears on the scene, a series of events is set in motion and the putative sisters are embroiled in a love triangle.  Malevolent characters appear from the past, and the curious begin piecing together the truth.

The tension is maintained throughout, with the reader initially unsure of the identities of the sisters, and Collins twisting the plot:  just as you work out what’s happening, there’s a sudden shift.  Different perspectives are presented through the use of journals, and Collins employs this technique to great effect.  Although Legacy of Cain was nudging the fin de siècle, it contains all the ingredients of a classic sensation novel from the 1860s: madness, murder, poisoning, drug abuse, and shifting identities.  As is often the case with Collins, the good prosper and the wicked pop up again where you least expect them.

The narrator urges readers to judge people on their own merits, rather than on their antecedents.  He takes issue with the “doctrines of hereditary transmission of moral qualities,” arguing that Cain’s parents weren’t murderers.  The novel is an intriguing contribution to the nature versus nurture debate that raged both then and now.  Collins is ahead of his time in his sympathetic treatment of a murderer’s daughter, but undoes some of his good work with the occasional outburst against the New Woman.  I shall forgive him, however, as Legacy of Cain is a fine example of a timeless Victorian classic -  immensely readable, entertaining, and slightly eccentric.

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The American Senator by Anthony Trollope (1877)

August 3, 2010

The eponymous Senator is Elias Gotobed, whose curious name alludes to that fact that he has a tendency to send people to sleep.  After his friend John Morton inherits the estate of Bragton Hall, he travels to England with him, his fiancée Arabella Trefoil, and her mother Lady Augustus.  The Senator is keen to undertake [...]

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Recent acquisitions

July 30, 2010

Unfortunately, blogging has taken a back seat recently, what with finishing chapter one of my thesis and giving my inaugural conference paper.  I’m not sure which was more stressful, but hopefully it can only get easier from hereon in.  However, my book buying remains undiminished, and I have a few acquisitions to share with you.  [...]

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Recent acquisitions

June 27, 2010

There has been a recent outbreak of Trollopes here, and they seem to be taking over my thesis by stealth.  I’m not sure what possessed me to buy The Last Chronicle of Barset as a) I’ve only read one other chronicle, and b) it’s 4cms thick and occupies the space of two more modestly-proportioned novels.  [...]

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Henry Dunbar by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

June 27, 2010

Mary Elizabeth Braddon is, of course, best know for her sensation classic Lady Audley’s Secret, with its infamous eponymous bigamist.  A contemporary critic actually thought Henry Dunbar (1864) superior, praising its “excellence of plot,” “animal vivacity,” and “boldness of incident”.  Not all reviewers were impressed, however.  Some were outraged by the central murder plot and [...]

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Recent acquisitions

May 17, 2010

Over the last few weeks I’ve been trying to read less and write more, but that seems to have necessitated a mini-splurge on “how to…” books.  After interrogating a few beleaguered students who had just submitted their theses, I elicited recommendations for a few titles that should make the PhD marginally less painful.
Rowena Murray’s How [...]

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Recent acquisitions

May 3, 2010

Apologies for the paucity of posts lately.  April was quite horrendous, what with several PhD deadlines, and a sudden influx of freelance web projects (the Day Job).  Anyway, I’m very happy to be scuttling back to the nineteenth century, at least for a few days.  The gloom lifted considerably on receipt of a gorgeous early [...]

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Beautiful For Ever: Madame Rachel of Bond Street by Helen Rappaport

April 11, 2010

Fellow Victorian geeks will recognise Madame Rachel as Maria Oldershaw, foster mother and business partner of the delicious Lydia Gwilt in Wilkie Collins’  Armadale.   She and her beauty products were also referred to in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret.  In this excellent biography, Helen Rappaport tells the true story of the woman behind the [...]

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The Beth Book by Sarah Grand

April 6, 2010

Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t have a favourite novel: then I read The Beth Book.  First published in 1897, it tells the story of Elizabeth Caldwell, a heroine whose experiences are closely modelled on Grand’s own life.  The young Beth is a bright, inquisitive and loving child who is constrained by her difficult [...]

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