RTT Quarterly - Jul-Sep - 18th Century

The 18th Century

Storming the Bastille
- Watt's steam engine

The 18th Century was a century of Revolutions: Industrial, American, French, Brabant, Haitian, and others.

Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations and Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe are published. Messier publishes his catalogue of astronomical objects. And some woman named Jane Austen publishes some books.

The first piano was built in 1709.

Bering 'discovers' Alaska. Ben Franklin creates the lightning rod and bifocals.

In Opera, The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni wow audiences. John James Audubon publishes his works.

A list of qualifying books: https://www.librarything.com/tag/18th+century and associated tag mashes

Don't forget to update the wiki:
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Reading_Through_Time_Quarterly_Theme_Rea...

Thanks for setting this up. Although it's scary that the next quarter is so close already!

Austen's novel were all published in the decade of the 1810s, but they are set in the late eighteenth century, so on that basis I guess they qualify.

I'm actually glad they do, because I read Austen back in high school but was never much of a fan. I reread Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice a few years ago and wasn't impressed, but I'd been planning on doing a complete reread using the Harvard/Belknap annotated editions and also take a look at the supplemental materials in any of the Norton Criticals I have.

There's also a Great Courses video series on Austen that I plan to watch.

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In addition to Austen, I've also got the Durant Age of Voltaire and Rousseau and Revolution that I'd like to get through. I've just started reading The Age of Reason Begins and I'm thoroughly unimpressed — "middle brow" Reader's Digest feel to it, but that may just be that the beginning is England 1558-1648 concerning which I'm quite knowledgeable, and maybe I'll be more impressed when I get to the later two-thirds of the book dealing with continental Europe.

I'm reading Margaret Lawrence's Hearts & Bones set post American Revolution.

Have requested McCullough's John Adams on audio.

I'm going to read Edgar Huntley, Memoirs of a Sleepwalker which is an 18th century American gothic.

I have a few possibilities from which to choose: two histories which have sat on the shelf unread for too long, American Colonies: The Settling of North America and American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750 — 1804, both by Alan Taylor; and a novel set in the 18th century, Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund.

The scope of the first book (one of my current reads) is probably too wide to be included in this thread, since its focus is on settlement in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries and discussion ranges even outside those centuries. Hopefully I can read the other two books this quarter.

>6 dianelouise100: Oh I have abundance on my tbs stack. I was not in the mood for it, since I'd read Antonia Frashers non ficion account and wasn't ready for that to live in my head just yet, but it migt be time

I recognized the author of this book, so looked it up, she also wrote and Ahab's Wife which I loved but also had real problems the story, esp how characters reacted that seemed very out of place. Shes a good writer tho.

>6 dianelouise100: since its focus is on settlement in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries and discussion ranges even outside those centuries. Hopefully I can read the other two books this quarter.

Sounds like Nora Loft book bless this house which ended up being three books from the same time period Loved it!

I was looking at my selves and noticed that one of my fav books Fingersmithwould definitly fit into this thene, Perhaps its time for a reread!

>8 cindydavid4: Isn't Fingersmith Victorian, not 18th C? (Been a while since I've read it, so I could be wrong.)

oh right - for some reason the images I recall were more 18th C. And the more I think about it, the more I think you are right! off to find another....

sorry got my themes mixed up!

I read Edgar Huntley or, Memoirs of a Sleepwalker by Charles Brockden Brown. This was billed as America's first gothic novel. it did have all things requisite for being a gothic novel--that is the most positive thing I can say about this book. The story was sufficient, but the prose is over done and over dramatic. The plot is rambling. The author writes in first person throughout the book, but fails to introduce the characters sufficiently. Basic story: A man is trying to search for the killer of his fiance's brother. Can not recommend this one! Published in 1799. 285 pages 2.75 stars CAT: RTT 18th Century

I also read, Waverley by Sir Walter Scott. This is my first Scott, and while I did not particularly care for the book/writing, I did like the story. I think my reading was somewhat enhanced by knowing the history of the Jacobite Rebellion and the Battle of Culloden. Had I not known something about the Highlanders and their rebellion(s), I would have been lost. I was not a fan of the romance part of the novel, it seemed obligatory or contrived. I started to read the introduction, but after 9 pages of self-absorbed drivel, I skipped it. 484 pages, just barely 3 stars. 3 stars for me is your average read--can be mediocre or enjoyable, this was not necessarily enjoyable and yet not mediocre.

I have finished Der falsche Inder, where a young man escapes from Saddam's Iraq and makes it to Germany after a long and harrowing trek.

ETA: Oh dear, just saw that I posted this in the wrong thread. Of course this was meant for the July monthly theme.

I have just finished The Red Queen: A Transcultural Tragicomedy by Margaret Drabble. This is an unusual novel, as you might guess from its subtitle. I was fascinated by the story contained in the first half of Korean Crown Princess Hyegyong, who lived from 1735 to 1815. Towards the end of her life, Lady Hong, as she comes to be known, wrote her memoirs, which provide the basis of the first part of the novel. In this part we get a picture of court life for women in the Korea of the18th century. Intrigue, violence, madness and loss are the Crown Princess’ lot. Her strength of character must be admired, as her powerlessness to influence outcomes is always apparent.

The next part of the novel moves into modern times, following a British professor, Barbara Halliwell, as she embarks on a journey to Seoul to present a paper at a conference. Someone unknown has sent her a copy of Lady Hong’s memoir, which she reads during her flight. The impact this story has on her as she spends time in Seoul, visits some of the sites associated with the Lady, attends conference events, has a brief love affair, and returns home is the subject of the rest of the novel. I was confused by this part, particularly by point of view, and I guess I just didn’t get the connection between past and present, between Lady Hong and Barbara Halliwell. A reread would surely give me more of a “feel” for the novel, but I don’t know when that might happen.

I gave this book four stars, because despite my problems with it, I really enjoyed reading it. It is the first novel by Margaret Drabble I’ve read, and I’d like to read more.

I recently finished Jade Dragon Mountain by Elsa Hart. Set in 18th-century China, this novel is the first in a series featuring Li Du, a former imperial librarian who has been exiled and is making his way out of China to Tibet. He is delayed in the small town of Dayan, where he must solve the murder of a Jesuit astronomer in order to receive permission to cross the border.

Hart creates a very sympathetic detective in the intellectual and ascetic Li Du, and all the other characters are well drawn and believable. The richness of Chinese culture and the stunningly beautiful landscape of this particular region come alive in her prose. This novel gave me the experience of a new world that I am eager to explore further in the rest of the series.

I have finished 1794 which is grim, bleak and full of people with incredibly twisted minds.

Almost forgot to mention L'économie de la Révolution Française here! Highly recommended as a succinct history of the economic aspects of the Revolution.

I finished The Wild Geese by Bridget Boland (1938), re-printed by Virago in 1988. This is set in County Kerry, Ireland and is a novel in letters from 1733 to 1746. The "Wild Geese" (Ge Fiana) were Irish Catholics with Jacobite sympathies who fought with various European armies in the 17th and 18th centuries when Irish Catholics could not fight in English armies.

This was new history for me, and Boland tells an interesting story of one fighter and his family's lot back in County Kerry, the restrictions Irish Catholics suffered in these times and the division between families by religion, fortune and class.

I'm also currently listening to Charles Dickens' Barnaby Rudge, which is set in London leading up to and during the 1780 Gordon anti-Catholic riots. This is a re-read for me, and there are some parallels to events of our current era.

Finished The Scratch of a Pen by Colin Calloway. Calloway writes about how the peace of 1763 impacted the peoples of North America. Calloway is a good historian and pays lots of attention to Native Americans and the complexity of relationships. Enjoyed it, learned some.

Probably one of the most interesting interpretations Calloway presents is the use of the word “father” in their dealings with the Europeans. Coming from matrilineal societies, the term referred to the parent who indulged the child, not a recognition of authority. Of course, the Europeans coming from patriarchal societies interpreted the use of the word as the recognition of authority and subordination.

I’d like to add a couple of books to the Wiki list, but don’t know how to find the Librarything number that appears at beginning of other entries. Help?

>21 dianelouise100: If you go to the book's page, you just copy the link at the top of your browser for that book and input it into the wiki. Or, right click on a link for a book, and copy it and paste into the wiki.

>22 majkia: Thanks! Think I’ve got it now.

Final Quarterly reading for 2021 is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/335208

The Fountain of St. James Court or Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman

This interesting novel by Sena Jeter Naslund, set in present day Louisville Kentucky, tells the story of writer Kathryn Callaghan’s day following the completion of the first draft of her latest novel. Sections taking us through the course of Kathryn’s day alternate with sections from her novel, which tells the story of Elizabeth Vigee-LeBrun, famous portrait painter of late 18th-century France, best known for her portraits of Marie Antoinette and other French aristocrats in the turbulent years just prior to the Revolution.

This format conjoining the two stories worked well for me and kept me reading steadily, as I found both stories equally compelling. Over the course of the novel, Kathryn, or Ryn, and her subject Elizabeth Vigee must both face serious physical dangers, while at the same time struggling with inner conflicts and feelings of guilt. Naslund’s writing throughout is gorgeous, a treat for all the senses. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and would recommend it.

George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life. 5*****

I remember – from my Bradley-Beatty-Long Anthology of American Literature that we used in high school in the late 60s, before Norton came up with their own anthology of American literature – reading what I recall as the very weird sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" as one of our examples of very early American literature. (This was in an era that had not yet started exalting the diversity of American literature to include Native Americans and women from its earliest inception.)

In his biography of Jonathan Edwards, George Marsden very successfully shows that Edwards was much more than a "hell-and-damnation" sermonizer. While still adhering to Calvinistic predestination as well as to eternal damnation for some, Edwards envisaged a much broader contingent of the "saved" that would result from evangelical "awakenings" as well as missionary work to the not-yet-Christianized, Edwards himself showing definite personal interest in missionary work to the Indians of New England.

Edwards is arguably the greatest American theologian prior to the Civil War (though Edwards, living from 1704 to 1758, regarded himself as "British" and the inhabitant of a British province in North America). As an evangelical Calvinist, he emphasized an Augustinian "affection" of the emotions rather than Thomistic rationalism, but he also insisted that emotions alone did not suffice and that they needed to be kept under reasoned restraint.

And his An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of the Freedom of the Will which is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame (more simply, Freedom of the Will), is certainly one of the most significant works of American philosophy prior to the Civil War.

I have the Library of American anthology of Edwards: Writings from the Great Awakening and plan to get on to it for the rest of this third quarter, though I doubt I'll finish it in just a couple weeks. Fortunately, we've got the "Reader's Choice" theme for November, so I can do catch-up on Edwards in the LoA and maybe also get on to Freedom of the Will, which is not contained in the LoA anthology (which I think emphasizes Edwards's evangelical "awakening" works rather than the broad scope of his Calvinistic theology).

Although the LoA edition seems to have some limitations, I'll be aware of these having had the benefit of Marsden's biography.

I finished Joseph Banks: A Life by Patrick O'Brian (1987). Banks (1743-1820) was a landowner/farmer, botanist, explorer, founder of the gardens at Kew, president of the Royal Society for 40+ years, and was friends with such diverse people as Capt James Cook, Linnaeus, Samuel Johnson and even King George III. He is best remembered for his voyage on the Endeavor with Cook to Tahiti, New Zealand and eastern Australia, where he gathered literally thousands of plant specimens (and some animals) not known in the northern hemisphere. He is responsible for the enlargement and collection of specimens at Kew Gardens, making it into a world-class home for plants from all over the world. He patronized many young explorers and botanists over his lifetime. Many of his collections are at the British Museum and other repositories throughout the world.

O'Brian, better known for his Master and Commander series, has a dense writing style, rather like the 18th century where he spends his time. O'Brian uses many excerpts from the thousands of letters to and from Banks, and these are the most entertaining bits of the book. The first half of this book, about Banks's youth and voyage on the Endeavor were fascinating. The second half of the book, perhaps rather like Banks's own life, slowed down, and O'Brian goes off on tangents which seem only slightly about Banks, particularly during the Napoleonic wars. One useful notation in the book is that each page is headed with the year and Banks's age for the material on that page.

Overall, Banks is a fascinating historical figure, and I found the first half, especially his voyages, very interesting, but the last half of the book drags quite a bit because it is mired in too much irrelevant detail that O'Brian seemed compelled to include.

Since this book covers both the 18th century and the last quarter of the book concerns Banks's life and how it was affected by the Napoleonic wars, this book technically covers both this quarter and next.

"An Officer and A Spy," by Robert Harris, begins in the 18th Century with the court martial and punishment of Alfred Dreyfus, concluding in the 19th Century. Colonel Georges Picquart, promoted and transfered to the secretive and well hidden counterespionage section of the French military, stumbles upon information hidden from the public and Dreyfus which will challenge Picquart's faith in France's military leadership. *****