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tricksterprince.bsky.social
Matt Houlbrook
@tricksterprince.bsky.social
4K followers 1.4K following 2.5K posts
Cultural history, Britain, cities, sexuality & gender, #20s30s.

Now - Songs of Seven Dials: An intimate history of 1920s and 1930s London (MUP)

Next - The Self-Improvers: The people who remade themselves and made the modern world
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tricksterprince.bsky.social
Matt Houlbrook @tricksterprince.bsky.social · 11d
If you're after a festive gift or want to treat yourself @manchesterup.bsky.social are offering a 40% discount on Songs of Seven Dials at the moment.

A new history of London and the 1920s and 1930s for the knockdown price of £12: what's not to like?

manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526181954/
A festive flyer for the 40% discount on books published by Manchester University Press.
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
michgreig.bsky.social
Anyone got or know people working at council or more granular level on London crime statistics 1970s 1980s? #economichistorians #urbanhistorians #numbersgeeks #generalgeeks #skyhistorians
December 15, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
tricksterprince.bsky.social
Postcards from 1920s and 1930s Seven Dials 8

Before there was the Guinness Open Gate Brewery, there was the Cave of Harmony…

#London #SevenDials #CoventGarden #History #20s30s #guinness
A postcard with a black and white photograph showing the basement of the Cave of Harmony Club, Seven Dials, in 1928. Elsa Lanchester and Harold Scott pose for the camera leaning against the walls of the stone vaults. They look cool af. The text reads: When fashionable Londoners travel to Great Earl Street, they arrive at the cutting edge of avant-garde culture and a media sensation. In its new environs the Cave seems irresistible. ‘The newest and most amusing nightclub I’ve visited reopened this last week,’ notes the Sunday Pictorial’s women’s columnist.
December 15, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
melindahaunton.bsky.social
Like we always say, it is in the materiality of archival encounters that true wonder often lies.

🕷 🕸 🖊
drfrancisyoung.bsky.social Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 17h
I am encountering M. R. James's handwriting for the first time, and until now I didn't know the true meaning of horror 😱
December 15, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
rsmythfreelance.bsky.social
This is what I'm working on next: fascism and the environment. Hoping to finish it before the world burns and/or the fascists take charge. Fingers crossed. Do ask me about it, if you're curious. www.thebookseller.com/rights/manch...
Manchester University Press signs Richard Smyth’s ‘vital’ book on fascism and the environment
Manchester University Press has acquired Richard Smyth’s Greenshirts, a new book that uncovers the "deep, often obscured entanglements between fascist ideologies and environmental thought" over the la...
www.thebookseller.com
September 15, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
samfr.bsky.social
So much commentary on the right is just people making up stuff to get angry about.
charlotte2153.bsky.social Charlotte Nichols MP @charlotte2153.bsky.social · 14h
No idea what telly Lord Sewell is watching, because I can't think of a single show with this plotline let alone it being something that is inescapable for young white men who subsequently now face a crisis of masculinity drawing them to the far right?? 🙃
Screenshot from The Times article 'Theres a Reason Young Men Turn to Nick Fuentes' reading "Watching contemporary TV drama often requires the suspension of disbelief. Not simply because plots are implausible, but because the moral universe feels inverted. Time and again, we are presented with the same tableau: a five-foot-five female heroine effortlessly subdues a 20-stone man, pins him by the neck, denounces him as a “racist, fascist, misogynist” and dispatches him with moral and literal finality. Masculinity is caricatured as brute, stupid and disposable. Power is no longer something to be questioned; it is something to be reassigned"
December 15, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
jfb1066.bsky.social
If you’d like to hear me talk about my new book in Oxford on 3 February, please come along to All Souls at 1330:

www.ccw.ox.ac.uk/events/2026/...
Money in Modern War and the Blockade of Germany, 1914-18 by Jonathan Boff — The Changing Character of War Centre
Tuesday 3 February, 13.30 Old Library, All Souls
www.ccw.ox.ac.uk
December 15, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
alanallport.bsky.social
‘People prefer being young to being old’
December 15, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
katrinanavickas.bsky.social
I'm on the New Books Network podcast discussing Contested Commons with Miranda Melcher.
@newbooksnetwork.bsky.social
newbooksnetwork.com/contested-co...
Katrina Navickas, "Contested Commons: A History of Protest and Public Space in England" (Reaktion, 2025) - New Books Network
newbooksnetwork.com
December 15, 2025 at 10:57 AM
tricksterprince.bsky.social
#20s30s
mikeyashworth.bsky.social Mike @mikeyashworth.bsky.social · 18h
@arascot.bsky.social I would not have minded a present wrapped in this. A sheet of #WrappingPaper for the old Edinburgh bakers D.S. Crawford & designed for them, like much of their publicity material, by Robert Burns in 1924. It would have been used in their shops & tearooms. #ArchiveAdventCalendar
A sheet of wrapping paper, or box wrapper, for the Edinburgh bakers D.S. Crawford and designed by Robert Burns who also produced other publicity and packaging material of the company. It is dated 1924 and was printed by McLagan and Cumming of Edinburgh and appeared in a trade publicity annual for 1925. An offset repeat of bluebirds fly over a background grid of red stylised flowers with green leaves.
December 15, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
brynleyheaven.bsky.social
Labour were pledged to introduce fairness at work but the bosses talked them out of it
December 15, 2025 at 8:14 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
tricksterprince.bsky.social
Postcards from 1920s and 1930s Seven Dials 7

Before there was @netflixuk.bsky.social Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials Mystery, there was another mystery of Seven Dials…

#London #SevenDials #CoventGarden #History #20s30s #agathachristie #agathachristie’ssevendials #netflix
A postcard showing a map of Seven Dials in 1938. The text reads: And, despite its name’s ubiquity, the place itself remained elusive. ‘Father, where is Seven Dials?’ Lady Eileen ‘Bundle’ Brent asks Lord Caterham: ‘In the East End somewhere, I fancy. I have frequently observed buses going there.’ From Agatha Christie onwards, it would be a running joke that no-one really knew where Seven Dials was.
December 14, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
luketurner.bsky.social
“My tastes have always been funereal and dirge-like.” Mine too, Kenneth; mine too. 2026 will be the centenary of his birth and I wonder how much people think about him any more. He was certainly a key person for me when it came to my falling in love with language 🖤

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Desert Island Discs - Kenneth Williams - BBC Sounds
Michael Parkinson's castaway is actor Kenneth Williams
www.bbc.co.uk
December 13, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
historitage.bsky.social
Thinking about the 130 or so British librarians killed in WW1. Their colleagues raised funds to create a lasting memorial to their sacrifice. Sadly, the tablet they commissioned is now displayed behind the scenes at the British Library, visible only to staff.
#fwwhist #PubLibs 💙📚
Photo of a stone tablet with five columns listing the names & institutional affiliations of approx 130 British librarians killed in WW1. The tablet border is inscribed “IN MEMORY OF THE BRITISH LIBRARIANS FALLEN IN THE WAR MCMXIV-MCMXVIII”.
December 11, 2023 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
emilyrobinson.bsky.social
Yes!! I’m working on a side project about Humberside — with @tricksterprince.bsky.social @clairelanghamer.bsky.social (& others who don’t seem to be on Bluesky). No oral history but we’ve found some great archive stuff from campaign groups
December 14, 2025 at 7:44 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
tricksterprince.bsky.social
Postcards from 1920s and 1930s Seven Dials 6

Before there was Shaftesbury PLC, other ambitious developers were drawn to Seven Dials…

#London #SevenDials #CoventGarden #History #20s30s
A postcard showing a map of a small corner of Seven Dials in 1928, used as part of an estate agent’s advert as they seek to sell the block of tenements and shops on the corner of Great White Lion and Little Earl Street. The text reads: In the 1920s, the dreams of a new Seven Dials that animate property developers and entrepreneurial investors are inseparable from efforts to make London modern.
December 13, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
manchesterup.bsky.social
‘A century ago, Seven Dials, just a few minutes walk from the shop, was a shabby, cosmopolitan working-class district, not quite Bloomsbury, not quite Covent Garden.’

'Songs of Seven Dials' by Matt Houlbrook for your Christmas gifting: www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/collections/... #booksky
Christmas 2025: History | London Review Bookshop
London Review Bookshop
www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk
December 13, 2025 at 8:50 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
luketurner.bsky.social
I've written for The Observer about how as teenagers many of us were obsessed with Hitler, just like Nigel Farage – but there's a difference (features Nazi death cry "AIEEEEE!", the song Hitler Has Only Got One Ball, and bisexual commando Micky Burn)

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
Many teenagers have a dark obsession with Hitler. Nigel Farage’s was something more | The Observer
observer.co.uk
December 13, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
adambienkov.bsky.social
Just so we're clear, one incident of alleged anti-semitism by a musician = a major national scandal that should be roundly condemned.

Multiple incidents of alleged anti-semitism from the man leading the race to run the country = a load of nothing that should be completely ignored
December 13, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
apollo-magazine.com
‘Comrades in Art reveals a rich seam of committed art that dispels clichés about the Red Decade.’ Matthew Taunton welcomes a provocative account of the role of art in the 1930s
The artists who knew where to draw the line
Matthew Taunton welcomes a timely and provocative account of the role of art in the age of tyranny
buff.ly
December 13, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
helengoodman.bsky.social
Striking BL staff, struggling to pay their rent, advised to consider not giving presents this year, and interim CEO, Jeremy Silver, has the nerve to tell them they ‘don’t live in a real world’. Only 17% of staff guaranteed the Living Wage (£14.80 ph) suggests acute familiarity with the ‘real world’.
anna-aslanyan.bsky.social Anna Aslanyan @anna-aslanyan.bsky.social · 5d
British Library staff asked for a decent pay. Instead they got ‘a few money-saving present ideas’, such as ‘consider not giving presents this holiday season’. They are on strike this week. I wrote about it for @lrb.co.uk. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...
Anna Aslanyan | On the Picket Line
On Monday morning, more than a hundred people formed a picket line outside one of the entrances to the British Library...
www.lrb.co.uk
December 12, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
spaincivilwartours.bsky.social
Juliol, Catalan communist party (PSUC) youth newspaper, published on 6 December 1936. 'Anyone who does not openly defend the USSR should be treated as a fascist". The POUM is not specifically mentioned but slander campaign in motion by now. Walking Museum of the Spanish Civil War
December 13, 2025 at 8:03 AM
tricksterprince.bsky.social
#20s30s
arthistoryanimalia.bsky.social Art History Animalia @arthistoryanimalia.bsky.social · 3d
#FrogFriday 🐸:
J. Martin Pollock
“I AM AT THE ZOO BRING ME A FLY.” 1923
Lithograph in colours, backed on linen, 40 x 25 in. (102 x 64 cm)
London Underground / London Zoo
www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5...
Vintage London Underground / London Zoo poster with frog, yellow - blue - green on off-white Text: I AM AT THE ZOO BRING ME A FLY. NEAREST STAIONS REGENTS PARK, CAMDEN TOWN UNDERGROUND
December 12, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
tricksterprince.bsky.social
Postcards from 1920s and 1930s Seven Dials 5

Before Covent Garden and Seven Dials became the ‘best of London’s West End’, they were almost demolished completely…

#London #SevenDials #CoventGarden #History #20s30s
A postcard showing a map of Seven Dials in 1938. The map is colour coded to show the extent of the housing problem in the area. The text reads: ‘From Holborn Town Hall, gazing down on the city, councillors and planners imagine the area’s new future. In so doing, they redraw the map of central London: a tangle of streets and ageing buildings will be swept away, replaced by grand boulevards and towering cathedrals of business, work, and consumption.’
December 12, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Reposted by Matt Houlbrook
charlielynch.bsky.social
I write a newspaper column about Scottish history, historians and heritage.

I’m keen to feature more Early Career Researchers. Their work might not otherwise be publicised to a wide audience. Do you know anyone who might like to be in the column?
December 12, 2025 at 7:15 PM