Facts – Page 57 – Interesting Literature

Interesting Facts about Robinson Crusoe

Fun facts about Daniel Defoe’s classic novel Robinson Crusoe, with an interesting summary of its impact

Robinson Crusoe, often called the first English novel, is the tale of one man’s survival on a desert island following a shipwreck – although Crusoe later discovers the island isn’t as deserted as he first thought. The longer, considerably less snappy title of the novel which appeared on the title-page of the first edition in 1719 read: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates. What follows are some of our favourite facts about Robinson Crusoe (as the novel is more commonly known).

Five Fascinating Facts about Anthony Trollope

A short biography of Anthony Trollope, told in five interesting pieces of trivia

1. Trollope invented the postbox. Well, sort of. Born in 1815, Trollope worked for the Post Office for 33 years until his retirement in 1867 – by which time he was making so much money from his writing that he could afford to live by his pen full-time. During his time as surveyor general of the Post Office, he introduced the pillar box to Britain when they were trialled on the island of Jersey in 1854 (they were introduced to mainland Britain a year later). The pillar boxes were originally painted green, but in 1874 they were changed to red – supposedly because people kept bumping into them.

Interesting Facts about Magna Carta

A short and interesting history of Magna Carta and its surprising legacy

So few of the facts about Magna Carta in popular circulation are true. Its enduring place in popular consciousness is, however, indisputable. Its influence even extends to music: Kurt Weill composed a cantata, The Ballad of Magna Carta, about it. The rapper Jay Z even named his twelfth album after Magna Carta (albeit more because of a pun on his real name, Carter, than because he is a fan of the document, we assume). In this post, we’ll seek to debunk some common myths about Magna Carta and discuss some of the most interesting facts about it.

Five Fascinating Facts about Gerard Manley Hopkins

The life of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins told through five great pieces of trivia

1. He kept a record of the dirty things he got up to. In his diaries, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89) would write ‘O. H.’ whenever he had succumbed to the temptation to, shall we say, pleasure himself. This stood for ‘Old Habits’, but scholars are now largely agreed on what Hopkins was hinting at. As a Jesuit priest of strict self-control – he burned his early poems in 1868 when he joined the Society of Jesus, as he believed that even writing poetry was too self-indulgent for a man of God – he didn’t look kindly on himself when he gave in to these ‘old habits’. Hopkins was homosexual, and homoerotic undercurrents run throughout his work, though as far as we know he never had a romantic relationship with anyone. He also – controversially – viewed writing as a peculiarly ‘male gift’, drawing a covert link between pens and penises, as Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar pointed out. But lest you think the only interesting Hopkins facts relate to sex, let’s turn to more wholesome pursuits, shall we? Let’s turn to poetry…

Interesting Facts about Far from the Madding Crowd

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Far from the Madding Crowd, first published in 1874, remains one of Hardy’s most popular novels. It was his first big success as a writer – his fourth published novel, it was the one which helped to convince him that abandoning architecture in favour of writing novels could be a lucrative career move.