Dr Ian McCormick
LightNews LightNews
banner
wokestudies.bsky.social
Dr Ian McCormick
@wokestudies.bsky.social
20K followers 15K following 1.7K posts
English Language & Literature. PhD: Monstrosity. Queer history. Gothic. Antifa. Archaic English. NEW BOOK: Woke Shakespeare. Prof. d'Emeritus. https://linktr.ee/drianmccormick
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
wokestudies.bsky.social
Dr Ian McCormick @wokestudies.bsky.social · Dec 30
NEW BOOK: Woke Shakespeare: Rethinking Shakespeare for a New Era
#drama #theatre #Shakespeare #performance #adaptation #appropriation #historicism #empire #culture #materialism #TeamEnglish #renaissance #bardolatry #postcolonial #woke #socialjustice #theory #queer
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DQYB2TS5
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
pastfinderhistory.bsky.social
A selection of Chester's genuine Tudor and Jacobean houses. The diversity of visble history in the city is staggering. #history #chester #houses #tudor #jacobean #cheshire #chesterhistory
December 21, 2024 at 2:34 PM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
kaydaly.bsky.social
John Chamberlain comes up so often in my Newberry Library course that I've started referring to him as "friend of the pod." #earlymodern #IYKYK #renaissance #tudors #elizabethans #jacobean #17thcentury
A slide deck from my course, that includes the title "Gender Renegade," plus the text "She dressed as a man!", bullet points that read "men's clothing (doublet, breeches, hat, cloak), smoked a pipe, carried a sword, and then a text put in handwriting upon a background of aged paper that is a long account of the drunken penitence of Mary Frith, signed John Chamberlain.
July 5, 2025 at 10:13 PM
wokestudies.bsky.social
“Enter an Anticke habited in Parchment Indentures, Bills, Bonds, Waxe Seales, and Pen, and Inkhornes, on his breast writ, I am a Scrivener”
--- Robert Davenport: A Pleasant and Witty Comedy: Called, A New Tricke to Cheat the Divell (London, 1639)
#Jacobean #Renaissance #law #drama #theatre #plays
A Pleasant and Witty Comedy: Called, a New Tricke to Cheat the Divell, FIRST EDITION, John Okes, for Humphrey Blunden, 1639 "Thomas Braithwaite of Ambleside Making His Will" Abbot Hall, 1607. Lakeland Arts Trust. Unknown artist.
November 27, 2025 at 11:40 AM
wokestudies.bsky.social
A New System of Domestic Cookery
- By A Lady (Rundell).
John Murray - 1816
Caledonian Press, Edinburgh ebay.us/m/2it11K
An excellent imitation of pickled Sturgeon. Take a fine large turkey, but not old; pick it very nicely, singe, and make it extremely clean: bone and wash it, and tie it across and across with a bit of mat string washed clean. Put into a very nice tin saucepan a quart of water, a quart of vinegar, a quart of white (but not sweet) wine, and a very large handful of salt; boil and skim it well, then boil the turkey. When done enough, tighten the strings, and lay upon it a dish with a weight of two pounds over it. Boil the liquor half an hour; and when both are cold, put the turkey into it. This will keep some months, and eats more delicately than sturgeon; vinegar, oil, and sugar, are usually eaten with it. If more vinegar or salt should be wanted, add when cold. Send fennel over it to table.
November 27, 2025 at 10:40 AM
wokestudies.bsky.social
European Gay Review 6 and 7 ebay.us/m/jOUiC3
European Gay Review 6 and 7 | eBay UK
Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for European Gay Review 6 and 7 at the best online prices at eBay UK! Free delivery for many products!
ebay.us
November 27, 2025 at 10:13 AM
wokestudies.bsky.social
** Class and Cloister: the St Andrews Correspondence ** explores various aspects of student life at the University of St Andrews through a sequence of letters representing the diverse backgrounds and outlooks of undergraduates in the mid-1980s. #Novels #Satire
www.amazon.co.uk/Class-Cloist...
"the book is a homage to St Andrews in all its glory" --- THE SAINT. Encounter a culture of arcane traditions and elite parties. Enter a world increasingly fraught with class conflict. Savour the scandal and the gossip. Follow the crises of faith, sexuality, and sanity as students emerge from closets and cloisters. "A touching and heartwarming tribute to life in St Andrews, McCormick perfectly captures the complexities of being a student. A must-read, indeed." --- THE SAINT. This is the private correspondence of public schoolboy Julian Arnaud, decadent addict Caspar Dixon-Bailey, Kelvin Digby the Zealot, Socialist “Red” Liam Duffy, Rugby star Antony Reece, Mother Ailsa Lockhart, confidant Anne Brodie, randy philosopher Dr Lionel Blackthorn, matchmakers Rhona Ballantyne and Morag Strachan, queer Yankee Boyd R. Burrows Jr., field sport enthusiast Hamish McTaggart, and many more. "McCormick’s characters all seem totally genuine." --- THE SAINT.
November 27, 2025 at 7:54 AM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
wokestudies.bsky.social
Selected Songs of Thomas Campion - Thomas Campion - W.H. Auden Preface ebay.us/m/FNfJh5
Selected Songs of Thomas Campion - Thomas Campion - W.H. Auden Preface | eBay UK
Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Selected Songs of Thomas Campion - Thomas Campion - W.H. Auden Preface at the best online prices at eBay UK! Free delivery for many produc...
ebay.us
November 22, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
wokestudies.bsky.social
"We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction."
--- Bishop Diego de Landa (1524– 1579)
Diego de Landa (1524– 1579), a Spanish Franciscan colonial bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán, author of an historical account of the Maya. The Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (c 1566, published 1862) catalogues the Maya religion, Maya language, culture and writing system. Page 9 of the Dresden Codex (from the 1880 Förstemann edition)
November 23, 2025 at 10:33 AM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
wokestudies.bsky.social
"the destroyer, instead of the preserver of our literary antiquities, collected many thousands of Title-pages, which he tore out of old books, and carefully mounted in sixty-seven folio volumes. A large number of these Title-pages were purloined from the various libraries to which he had access."
November 23, 2025 at 1:20 PM
wokestudies.bsky.social
Tax ! Tax ! Tax !
Here’s how £100 was spent by our UK government in 2023–24:

£4.15 Working-age welfare
£0.50 Asylum system
£0.70 Overseas aid£22 NHS
£6 Defence
£10 Education
£10 Debt interest
£11.40 State pensions

#Budget #Budget2026
Graphic representation of UK gov spending in £ billions
November 25, 2025 at 10:05 AM
wokestudies.bsky.social
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke (2004), Hardback.
#fantasy #magic #novels #literature #books
ebay.us/m/8oYeZK
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke | eBay UK
BOOK SENSE BOOK OF THE YEAR. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (Hardback, 2004). "What kind of magic can make an 800-page novel seem too short?. Whatever it is, debut author Susanna Clarke is possessed ...
ebay.us
November 25, 2025 at 9:58 AM
wokestudies.bsky.social
H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus - 3 Vols ebay.us/m/VPzksm #scifi #fantasy
Lovercraft Omnibus 3 Vols | eBay UK
Mark from previous price label on 2 and 3 as illustrated. Vol 3 (1994).
ebay.us
November 25, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
wokestudies.bsky.social
"While at Dumfries ... he had the satisfaction of showing it to his illustrious kinsman a short time before his death. There is a story to the effect that Burns touched it up here and there, and when returning the MS. pronounced it to be the best ghaist story in the language"
#ScotLit #poetry
SOURCE: William Walker, The Bards of Bon-Accord, 1375-1860 (Aberdeen, 1887), pp. 388-9. "IS THERE in or "furth" of Scotland a man-child, born on its north-eastern rock-bound or sandy-bented shores, and who has attained to years of discretion, that knows not the wonderful story of "Thrummy Cap"-whose boyish eyes have not opened to a preternatural "glower", as, sitting eerie by the ingle cheek, his ears have heard, and his crude imagination bodied forth the awful experiences of that "winter's nicht far in the north"? We wot not. For well-nigh a hundred years (it was first printed in 1796) the jingle of its hamely rhyme has been familiar in almost every cot and clachan of rural Scotland, and generation after generation of our sturdy, hard-headed countrymen have as boys wondered and laughed over the doings of the doughty "Thrummy" and the mishaps of "cowardly John". It may be called one of the chap-book classics ...
November 18, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
wokestudies.bsky.social
"If anybody would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces, and gardens, and fine dinners, and wine, and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I would not read books, I would not be a king."
#books #reading #classics #Literature #English
Portrait of Macaulay by John Partridge
November 20, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
wokestudies.bsky.social
"When the name of John Bagford is mentioned book-lovers hiss through their teeth the word Biblioclast, and in that mysterious expression lies the secret of his misdoing."
---Alfred William Pollard, Last Words on the History of the Title-page: With Notes on Some Colophons (1890)
#ballads #antiquarian
PORTRAIT: John Bagford, painting by Hugh Howard. John Bagford (1650–1716). English antiquarian, writer, bibliographer, ballad-collector, bookseller, and biblioclast. "Bagford's collection contained many fragments of books such as title-pages and this gave him a reputation as a biblioclast for which he was excoriated in William Blades' The Enemies of Books."
November 21, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
wokestudies.bsky.social
Any Bluesky bibliomaniacs ?
Bibliomania; or Book Madness; containing some account of the history, symptoms, and cure of this fatal disease (1809) by the Reverend Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776–1847).
#books #reading #literature #libraries #archives
Bibliomania; or, Book Madness; containing some account of the history, symptoms, and cure of this fatal disease. In an Epistle addressed to Richard Heber Esq. By the Reverend Thomas Frognall Dibdin. 1809 1811 Book Cover with picture of Bodleaian Library, Oxford.
November 20, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
nathanfrancis79.bsky.social
"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

✒️ #GeorgeEliot, English author, was #BOTD 22 November 1819. #Literature
November 22, 2025 at 1:41 AM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
wokestudies.bsky.social
Any Steinbeck fans?
First edition Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Grapes of Wrath" (1939) sold for £18,200.
"a defining work of Great Depression literature"
#novel #books #American #Literature
BOOK COVER: "Published in 1939, this powerful narrative follows the Joad family's arduous journey from Oklahoma to California, capturing the desperation and resilience of displaced farmers during one of America's most challenging periods. This exceptional copy presents in fine condition, with its first issue dust jacket showing only the slightest rubbing - a rarity for a book of this age and significance. The copyright page confirms its status as a true first edition, stating "First Published in April 1939." Preserved in a custom-made collector's foldout case, this pristine example offers a glimpse into the novel's original reception, before it became a cornerstone of 20th-century American literature." https://www.abebooks.co.uk/books/rarebooks/most-expensive-sales-april-may-june-2025
November 21, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
euanmacdonald.bsky.social
Here's a seven-point peace plan:
November 23, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
murrayp.bsky.social
Call for Papers for 5th World Congress of Scottish Literatures is out:pleased to be giving keynote,'Burns along the New Silk Road' @iassl.bsky.social @asls.org.uk @scroll-scotlit.bsky.social @sahavoice.bsky.social @glasgowburns.bsky.social @paulinemackay.bsky.social scotlit-iassl.org/2025/11/11/c...
Call for Papers: 5th World Congress of Scottish Literatures: Scotland Along the New Silk Road (17-20 June 2027)
The Fifth World Congress of Scottish Literatures will be held at Nanjing Normal University in Nanjing, China, on 17-20 June 2027. Being China’s first city designated as a “UNESCO City of Literature…
scotlit-iassl.org
November 11, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
wokestudies.bsky.social
"With Pipe and Book at close of day,
Oh, what is sweeter, mortal, say?
It matters not what book on knee,
Old Izaak or the Odyssey"

---RICHARD LE GALLIENNE (1866–1947),
"Liverpool's Wild(e) Poet"

#pipes #books #reading #classics #Literature #English #smoking #leisure #bibliophilia #decadence #Wilde
POEM: WITH PIPE AND BOOK. With Pipe and Book at close of day, Oh, what is sweeter, mortal, say? It matters not what book on knee, Old Izaak or the Odyssey, It matters not meerschaum or clay. And though one's eyes will dream astray, And lips forget to sue or sway, It is "enough to merely be," With Pipe and Book. What though our modern skies be gray, As bards aver, I will not pray For "soothing Death" to succor me, But ask this much, O Fate, of thee, A little longer yet to stay With Pipe and Book. RICHARD LE GALLIENNE. Green book cver (hardback) PIPE AND POUCH: THE Smoker's Own Book of Poetry COMPILED BY JOSEPH KNIGHT University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 1895
November 20, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
pdimagearchive.bsky.social
Guide for Constructing the Letters c and d (ca. 1595) by Joris Hoefnagel.

Source: @gettymuseum.bsky.social

Available to buy as a print.

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/a1d26df5-4405-452c-baf0-1f5f42eede4a

#vases #monkeys #manuscripts #foliage #decorations #art #publicdomain
November 9, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
pdimagearchive.bsky.social
From Tamra Maew (BL Or 16797) (19th Century).

Source: @librarycongress.bsky.social

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/f49bf10c-255b-47d7-b867-6544235ce0e5

#pets #cats #manuscripts #thailand #luck #art #publicdomain
Manuscript illustration of cat
November 14, 2025 at 2:30 PM
wokestudies.bsky.social
Imagine not knowing whether there's a Caxton on your selves ?!
#printing #library #publishing #medieval #books
"Dear Sir, You have asked me whether my library contains a specimen of Caxton's press, and I should be delighted to answer in the affirmative; but, as I am not sure, my reply must be 'I really do not know.' You are quite correct in your supposition, that the library has been for many generations in the family, and it certainly contains a goodly number of books printed in the old English character. Should this account excite in your mind a wish to examine for yourself, pray send me a line, and I shall be happy to assist your research to the best of my ability." William Blades, How to Tell a Caxton: With Some Hints where and how the Same Might be Found (1870), p. v William Caxton, English etching. The Granger Collection, New York.
November 23, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Dr Ian McCormick
jasonstiff.bsky.social
I'm doing "No Context November" posts for a while. I just made it up, but someone else may have thought of it before, too. Ever wonder how those bowls get painted so neatly? Here you go... BLOOP! TA DA!

#nocontext #November #nocontextnovember #context #bowl #painting #printing #bloop #Monday
November 10, 2025 at 6:35 PM