The literary body-snatcher: Fan-quis and the children of Han
24th Sep 2024 - Rare and Early Books
Charles Toogood Downing was a young surgeon who visited China in the late 1830s, just before the first opium war
Sometimes you make a small find which gives you pleasure. In this case a very small find in an early New Zealand water colour by Gerald Butler Beere, no title, until we opened it up to restore it and found one on the back, and then a little gem emerged of Lake Waikare in the Waikato. If you have an eye for colonial water colours, you will recognise the palette with the characteristic blues and straw colours – did they all work with the same set of paints? You can see it and read about it here.
24th Sep 2024 - Rare and Early Books
Charles Toogood Downing was a young surgeon who visited China in the late 1830s, just before the first opium war
28th Jul 2023 - Reading and writing
Over the years I have read most of Virginia Woolf’s novels, and particularly her diaries, with their breathless ending. But