To sell a son… Uncle Tom’s Cabin

On 5 June 1851, the abolitionist journal National Era began running a serial by the wife of a professor at Bowdoin College. A deeply religious and well-educated white woman, Harriet Beecher Stowe was an ardent opponent of slavery. As she wrote to the journal editor, Gamaliel Bailey: “I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak… I hope every woman who can write will not be silent.” The work, eventually titled Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Or Life Among the Lowly, became a national sensation.

Composing for a Diamond Jubilee

Will Todd has been commissioned to write an anthem for the celebrations marking The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, celebrating her 60 years as monarch. Choristers from St Paul’s and a ‘Diamond Choir’ of young singers from around the UK will perform The Call of Wisdom at the Service of Thanksgiving on 5 June at St Paul’s Cathedral. We asked Will to give us his thoughts on the new piece and the occasion it is celebrating.

How to write music fit for a queen

In 1953, 8,000 people in Westminster Abbey and millions of Britains gathered around televisions and radios, listened as 25-year-old Queen Elizabeth II was formally crowned. William Walton composed a March and a Te Deum for the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. Known for its expressive quality and easy assimilation of disparate influences, Walton’s music provided an appropriate glamour and vitality necessary for such an occasion.

What news from Rome?

Nobody ever planned to create a state that would last more than a millennium and a half, yet Rome was able, in the end, to survive barbarian migrations, economic collapse, and even the conflicts between religions that had grown up within its borders. Today we have an image and myth of the indestructible empire. But this view is shifting as new research reveals small details about the life of Romans — emperor to slave — and how the empire survived. We sat down with Greg Woolf, author of Rome: An Empire’s Story, to discuss the enduring appeal of Ancient Rome and the latest breakthroughs in scholarship.

How will America pay for long-term care?

As Democrats and Republicans continue to fight over the future of American health care, we must ask: How are we paying for it now? Should open-ended Medicare coverage be replaced with a selection of private insurers? Should Medicare subscribers be paying higher premiums? We sat down with Richard Frank, Professor of Health Economics at Harvard University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), to discuss the current state of long term care coverage.

From childhood to the Diamond Jubilee: the life of Queen Elizabeth II

To celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, we’ve selected an extract from our Oxford Paperback Reference title, The Kings and Queens of Britain, for your enjoyment. – Nicola, blog editor.

Innocence and Experience: Childhood in Kafka

By Ritchie Robertson
Some of the great modernists have written evocatively about childhood. At first glance, Kafka may not seem to be among them. The minutely detailed recollection of childhood that Proust provides in Swann’s Way, or Thomas Mann’s account of a school day in the life of young Hanno Buddenbrook, lack counterparts in Kafka. His world-famous and compelling fantasies are about inscrutable authorities, such as the Court and the Castle, and their victims are doomed at worst to inexplicable punishment, at best to frustration. Kafka would seem to deal with experience rather than innocence.

A nightmare diagnosis

By Lorna Speid
Your worst nightmare has come to pass. You are given a diagnosis that has left you in a state of shock. The specialist told you there is nothing else that they can do for you. “What was it that he said?” you ask yourself. “Did I hear him correctly?” you mutter to yourself. You are driving home, but you are on automatic pilot.

Diamonds

By William D. Nesse
2012 marks the Diamond Jubilee of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of England. The Imperial State Crown she wore after her coronation and the Soverign’s Sceptre with cross that she held contain two of the most remarkable gems in the world. Both were cut from the Cullinan diamond, reportedly the largest diamond ever found (3106 carats/0.62 kg). Cullinan I or Star of Africa (530.2 carats) is the largest of the nine gems cut from the Cullinan and it is now part of the Soverign’s Sceptre with cross. The Cullinan II, or Lesser Star of Africa (317.4 carats), is mounted on the Imperial State Crown.

Michael Palin on anxiety

By Daniel Freeman and Jason Freeman
Everyone experiences anxiety from time to time. But what about those people for whom anxiety is an inevitable part of their working life, such as actors and presenters? How do they cope? We asked Michael Palin, member of the legendary Monty Python team and long established as one of the nation’s most cherished broadcasters, how he copes with nerves as a performer. As it turns out, the strategies he adopts can be useful to anyone struggling with anxiety. Here’s an extract from our interview.

On America’s Constitutions

Many have focused on the US Constitution as an enduring document that has guided America from a young, chaotic nation to a world power, but are we missing its flaws? For every “majestic generality” of the constitution, there are the bizarre burdens of electoral college and quirks of governance. We sat down with Sanford Levinson, author of Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance, to talk about America’s constitutions — state and national — and their role in current politics.

When Phileas Fogg met Passepartout

A £20,000 wager is yet to come for the exceedingly precise, regular, and upright gentleman Phineas Fogg. In Around the World in Eighty Days — the latest addition to our Oxford Children’s Classics series — a retiring English gentleman must leave his home on Savile Row. But no gentleman is without a trusty valet.

In memoriam: Doc Watson

By Tony Russell
Doc Watson, who has died aged 89, bore the most illustrious name in traditional American folk music. A superb and original guitarist, and a singer of warmth and handsome simplicity, he set countless musicians, both within and beyond the United States, on the road to careers in folk music. Probably no folk performer of his time has inspired greater admiration and affection.

‘The glory of my crown’: royal quotations past and present

By Susan Ratcliffe

With the celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee only a few days away, it is perhaps a good moment to look back at some other long-serving monarchs of the British Isles. Inevitably, those who rule for a long time come to the throne early: Queen Victoria was 18 at her accession, and was described by Thomas Carlyle on her Coronation as ‘Poor little Queen! She is at an age when a girl can hardly be trusted to choose a bonnet for herself, yet a task is laid on her from which an archangel might shrink.’ After her reign of 63 years, H. G. Wells thought differently: ‘Queen Victoria was like a great paper-weight that for half a century sat upon men’s minds, and when she was removed their ideas began to blow about all over the place haphazardly’.

Monthly etymology gleanings for May 2012, part 1

By Anatoly Liberman
Shrew again. Soon after I posted an essay on shrew, in which I dissociated that word from a verb meaning “cut,” a correspondent asked me how my etymology (from “devil”) could be reconciled with the obvious connection between Old Engl. scirfemus (related to sceorfan “cut”) and German Schermaus (related to scheren, the same meaning), the latter from Middle High German scheremus. (The relevant forms can be found in the OED.) The connection referred to in the letter cannot be denied, but I think that both the Old English and the Middle High German word owe their existence to folk etymology: the shrew was associated with venom and its name underwent change.

The allure of the evening dress

By Hollie Graham
Once again, it is the captivating magnificence of the evening dress that is lighting up the fashion world. The Victoria & Albert Museum opened a ‘Ball Gowns: British Glamour since 1950’ exhibition on Saturday, 19 May 2012 (open until 6 January 2013). It will display evening wear spanning 60 years, by designers such as McQueen, Packham, Stiebel, and Deacon. Boasting gowns worn by celebrities, the truly glamorous, and of course, royalty.