Machiavelli, Comedian August 5, 2015 Philosophy & Drama Most familiar today as the godfather of Realpolitik and as the eponym for all things cunning and devious, the Renaissance thinker Niccolò Machiavelli also had a lighter side, writing as he did a number of comedies. Christopher S. Celenza looks at perhaps the best known of these plays, Mandragola, and explores what it can teach us about the man and his world. Cat Pianos, Sound-Houses, and Other Imaginary Musical Instruments July 15, 2015 Music & Science & History Deirdre Loughridge and Thomas Patteson, curators of the Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments, explore the wonderful history of made-up musical contraptions, including a piano comprised of yelping cats and Francis Bacon’s 17th-century vision of experimental sound manipulation. The Mystery of Lewis Carroll July 1, 2015 Books The author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which sees its 150th anniversary this year, remains to this day an enigmatic figure. Jenny Woolf explores the joys and struggles of this brilliant, secretive, and complex man, creator of one of the world’s best-loved stories. A Bestiary of Sir Thomas Browne June 17, 2015 Books & Religion Hugh Aldersey-Williams takes a tour through Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica, a work which sees one of the 17th-century’s greatest writers stylishly debunk all manner of myths, in particular those relating to the world of animals. The Nightwalker and the Nocturnal Picaresque June 3, 2015 Books & Literature The introduction of street lighting to 17th-century London saw an explosion of nocturnal activity in the capital, most of revolving around the selling of sex. Matthew Beaumont explores how some writers, with the intention of condemning these nefarious goings-on, took to the city’s streets after dark, and in the process gave birth to a peculiar new literary genre. The Empathetic Camera: Frank Norris and the Invention of Film Editing May 20, 2015 Literature & Film At the heart of American author Frank Norris’ gritty turn-of-the-century fiction lies an essential engagement with the everyday shock and violence of modernity. Henry Giardina explores how this focus, combined with his unique approach to storytelling, helped to pave the way for a truly filmic style. Forgotten Failures of African Exploration April 22, 2015 History Dane Kennedy reflects on two disastrous expeditions into Africa organised by the British in the early-19th century, and how their lofty ambitions crumbled before the implacable realities of the continent. Black on Black April 9, 2015 Books & Painting & Science & Philosophy Should we consider black a colour, the absence of colour, or a suspension of vision produced by a deprivation of light? Beginning with Robert Fludd’s attempt to picture nothingness, Eugene Thacker reflects* on some of the ways in which blackness has been used and thought about through the history of art and philosophical thought. Ignorant Armies: Private Snafu Goes to War March 25, 2015 Film Between 1943 and 1945, with the help of Warner Bros.’ finest, the U.S. Army produced a series of 27 propaganda cartoons depicting the calamitous adventures of Private Snafu. Mark David Kaufman explores their overarching theme of containment and how one film inadvertently let slip one of the war’s greatest secrets. Sex and Science in Robert Thornton’s Temple of Flora March 11, 2015 Books & Poems & Painting & Science & Art Bridal beds, blushing captives, and swollen trunks – Carl Linnaeus’ taxonomy of plants heralded a whole new era in 18th-century Europe of plants being spoken of in sexualised terms. Martin Kemp explores* how this association between the floral and erotic reached its visual zenith in Robert Thornton’s exquisitely illustrated Temple of Flora. The Eternal Guffaw: John Leech and The Comic History of Rome February 25, 2015 Books & Art At the beginning of the 1850s, two stalwarts from the heart of London-based satirical magazine Punch, Gilbert Abbott à Beckett and John Leech, cast their mocking eye a little further back in time and published The Comic History of Rome. Caroline Wazer explores how it is not in the text but rather in Leech’s delightfully anachronistic illustrations that the book’s true subversion lies, offering as they do a critique of Victorian society itself. Neanderthals in 3D: L’Homme de La Chapelle February 11, 2015 Books & Photography & Science More than just a favourite of Victorian home entertainment, the stereoscope and the 3D images it created were also used in the field of science. Lydia Pyne explores how the French palaeontologist Marcellin Boule utilised the device in his groundbreaking monograph analysing one of the early-20th-century’s most significant archaeological discoveries – the Neanderthal skeleton of La Chapelle. When Chocolate was Medicine: Colmenero, Wadsworth, and Dufour January 28, 2015 Science & History Chocolate has not always been the common confectionary we experience today. When it first arrived from the Americas into Europe in the 17th century it was a rare and mysterious substance, thought more of as a drug than as a food. Christine Jones traces the history and literature of its reception. Julia Pastrana: A “Monster to the Whole World” November 26, 2014 Science & History Julia Pastrana, a woman from Mexico born with hypertrichosis, became one of the most famous human curiosities of the 19th century, exhibited the world over as a “bearded lady” while both alive and dead. Bess Lovejoy explores her story and how it was only in 2013, 153 years after her passing, that she was finally laid to rest. Illustrations of Madness: James Tilly Matthews and the Air Loom November 12, 2014 Science & Art & History Mike Jay recounts the tragic story of James Tilly Matthews, a former peace activist of the Napoleonic Wars who was confined to London’s notorious Bedlam asylum in 1797 for believing that his mind was under the control of the “Air Loom” – a terrifying machine whose mesmeric rays and mysterious gases were brainwashing politicians and plunging Europe into revolution, terror, and war. Wild Heart Turning White: Georg Trakl and Cocaine October 29, 2014 Poems To mark the 100th anniversary of the death by cocaine overdose of Austrian lyric poet Georg Trakl, Richard Millington explores the role the drug played in Trakl’s life and works. The Poet, the Physician and the Birth of the Modern Vampire October 16, 2014 Books & Literature & Religion From that famed night of ghost-stories in a Lake Geneva villa in 1816, as well as Frankenstein’s monster, there arose that other great figure of 19th-century gothic fiction – the vampire – a creation of Lord Byron’s personal physician John Polidori. Andrew McConnell Stott explores how a fractious relationship between Polidori and his poet employer lies behind the tale, with Byron himself providing a model for the blood-sucking aristocratic figure of the legend we are familiar with today. Piracy at the Old Bailey October 1, 2014 History Ben Merriman presents a selection of piracy cases from the proceedings of London’s Old Bailey. Although a few live up to the swashbuckling heists of stereotype, many reveal the surprisingly everyday nature of the maritime crimes brought before the court, including cases involving an argument over chickens and the stealing of a captain’s hats. Ghostwriter and Ghost: The Strange Case of Pearl Curran & Patience Worth September 17, 2014 Books & Poems & Literature & Religion In early 20th-century St. Louis, Pearl Curran claimed to have conjured a long-dead New England puritan named Patience Worth through a Ouija board. Although mostly unknown today, the resulting books, poems, and plays that Worth “dictated” to Curran earned great praise at the time. Ed Simon investigates the curious and nearly forgotten literary fruits of a “ghost” and her ghostwriter. Redressing the Balance: Levinus Vincent’s Wonder Theatre of Nature August 20, 2014 Science & Art Bert van de Roemer explores the curiosity cabinet of the Dutch collector Levinus Vincent and how the aesthetic drive behind his meticulous ordering of the contents was in essence religious, an attempt to emphasise the wonder of God’s creations by restoring the natural world to its prelapsarian harmony. Next page