In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reads Morgan Robertson’s prophetic novel The Wreck of the Titan What connects the invention of the periscope to the sinking of the Titanic? Nothing specifically technical or naval: it’s a literary link, of sorts. The man who claimed to […]
Scotland, with its mountains and hills, its banks and braes, has inspired poets – whether Scottish or otherwise – over the centuries. Here are ten of the very greatest poems about the country of Scotland. Of course, ten poems can never hope to tell the whole story, so let us […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the origins of a given name in a little-known eighteenth-century poem Here’s a question for you. What connects the girls’ name Vanessa with the classic novel Gulliver’s Travels? The answer: they were both created by the same person.