Library

A message from Alfred: “Our friends and colleagues constantly search for fascinating free content – books, radio broadcasts, music and much more. We do the searching so you don’t have to. Help us by suggesting interesting links, or show your appreciation for our research by making a small contribution to this growing project through PayPal (Paypal account: scholartext@gmail.com)

Crime and Punishment. Radio dramatization with Barnaby Kay and Anton Lessar.
‘Crime and Punishment’ by Hoagy Carmichael, for those who don’t have time to tackle Dostoyevsky.
A Dance to the Music of Time. Michael Butt’s radio drama of Anthony Powell’s 12-volume novel cycle.
Le Gros et le Maigre. Intriguing anti-Stalinist film by (and with) Polanski. 1961.

‘War and Peace’ by Vic Damone, inspired by the 1956 Paramount version of W&P, but not actually in it.
Video. Buster Keaton raises Alka-Seltzer to the cinematic high ground.
Philip Larkin reads his poem ‘Myxomatosis’, from The Less Deceived.
Documentary on Francis Bacon featuring the artist and his friends and associates.
Blunt Speaking – a play written and performed by Corin Redgrave. Anthony Blunt reflects on treachery and disgrace.

Short but entertaining and highly informative documentary on Korean drinking etiquette.
John Betjeman reads and discusses some of his best-known poems. One of many excellent broadcasts from Voice on Record.
Julian Barnes and Hermione Lee discuss notorious exiles including Oscar Wilde, played here by Simon Russell Beale.
When they start on Kipling, come back at them with this. Man and Beast in India, by J. L. Kipling, R. K.’s father.
The ludicrous Portuguese phrasebook, English As She Is Spoke: “To craunch the marmoset; to buy cat in pocket” etc., etc.
Exquisitely unfunny jokes and anecdotes from yesteryear.
A sure antidote to writer’s block – mostly very useful – and the occasional archaisms are entertaining in themselves.
1885: A history of the Jihad for the benefit of non-Muslim readers.
1915: A British army officer defends Islam at a time when the supposed “Moslem Menace” had overtaken the “Yellow Peril” as a talking point.
“Petrovna is a dainty little floweret of the cold lands far away. She is your little Russian cousin…”
“I cannot imagine a Thursday night without Rosamund Marriott-Watson…”
Charles Mackay’s ever-relevant classic on widespread collective idiocy.
Americans drink tea – and a few lucky ones own teapots made by Paul Revere.
“North America has been colonized by the British long enough to have enjoyed the visitations of the Devil.”
“Dr. Gardner found that of the 2,009 automobiles that stopped in Lovers Lane, 1,788 parked for periods of not less than one hour.”
Heinrich Hoffman’s dark but highly entertaining children’s classic.
Belloc – in some areas no less dark than Hoffman.
“Papa, who in the parlour heard / Her make the noise and rout, / That instant went to Caroline, / To whip her there’s no doubt.”
Typical anti-abolitionist text from the mid-19th century. Racism at its most passionate and closely reasoned.
Krupkin was once the most popular author in Russia after Chekov.
Cannibalism in Sierra Leone investigated by The Human Leopard Society.
A rather more harrowing and explicit record of the trial than H. Montgomery Hyde’s tactfully edited version.
“The first thing that struck me on landing in America was that if the Americans are not the most well-dressed people in the world, they are the most comfortably dressed.”

Useful list of well-known and less well-known works by OW on Gutenberg.
Selections from the writings of 19th century immigrants in America.
Early treatise containing a selection of preventative herbal remedies – now of topical interest again after 400 years.
Revered stuffmaster Albert B. Farnham takes us from roadkill to riches in 31 absorbing chapters.
Interesting reflections by a British MP on how the rich might avoid setting such a disastrous example to the poor.
Early self-help book that proposes that many of our problems can be “pulled out by the roots”.
“Our advice to the woman who is asked to drink liquor when in the company of a man outside of her immediate family circle is emphatically this: DON’T DO IT!”