Aoife Leahy discusses modernist influences on Dorothy L. Sayers, such as Lewis Carroll and Oscar Wilde, in The Victorian Approach to Modernism in the Fiction of Dorothy L. Sayers (2009).
Princeton University Press blogs about its book Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee by Bee Wilson, also noting the establishment of the Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection Program at Michigan State University.
Out of Print Clothing has a Hound of the Baskervilles T-shirt, along with other book cover shirts such as Fahrenheit 451, Naked Lunch, and Invisible Man.
Larry T. Nix, on the Library History Buff Web site, reminds us of the distinguished history of the American Library in Paris, begun by the American Library Association in 1920 and still in existence today. A major figure in its operation, especially during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, was Clara Longworth de Chambrun, sister-in-law of Alice Roosevelt Longworth and niece of Maria Longworth Nichols Storer, the founder of Rookwood Pottery. Staff members surreptitiously sent books to Jews, who were forbidden to use libraries by the German forces; one staff member was shot by the Gestapo.
The Library Company's online exhibition "Philadelphia Gothic: Murders, Mysteries, Monsters, and Mayhem Inspire American Fiction 1798–1854" examines that city's contributions to literary "lurid crime" and includes sections on Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Montgomery Bird, Charles Brockden Brown, George Lippard, and Aaron Burr associate Leonora Sansay (more on Sansay here). Two podcasts associated with the exhibition can be found here.
This podcast from London's Resonance 104.4 fm discusses how Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner (considered by some to be the ultimate fate of McGoohan's spy John Drake from Danger Man/Secret Agent Man) has continued in other forms of media.
Dr. Adrian Eckersley of the Friends of Arthur Machen discusses with Malcolm Hopkins the career of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, aka Arthur Machen (1863–1947)—who inspired H. P. Lovecraft, among others, with works such as "The Great God Pan" (1894) and "The Inmost Light" (1894)—in this broadcast from the "Lost Steps" program of London's Resonance 104.4fm.
As this Wall Street Journal article notes, NBA legend and actor Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a mystery fan: Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert B. Parker.
Anthony Berkeley Cox's The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929) returns to print today, courtesy of Felony and Mayhem Press.
• Early photo of P. D. James in the Tube
A quick browse through the British Library Sound Archive uncovered these audio nuggets (in Windows Media files; Mac users need a program such as Flip4Mac to listen to these):
• E. V. and Laura Vanderstoep's bookplates with fingerprints
Jules Verne—friend of Alexandre Dumas pére and author of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Around the World in Eighty Days, and other highly imaginative works—was born today in Nantes, France, in 1828.
Christopher Fowler's latest in his Forgotten Authors series for The Independent focuses on Nevil Shute and Eric Ambler, although he does acknowledge that they still have a presence in today's literary world. One aspect of Shute's oeuvre he fails to mention: aeronautical engineer Shute's No Highway (1948; filmed as No Highway in the Sky, 1951), which sounded a prophetic warning against the dangers of metal fatigue in planes.
Last year's "I Know Poe" exhibition sponsored by the Library of Virginia and the Poe Museum of Richmond is now online here.
This BBC Radio 3 Arts and Ideas podcast includes a discussion of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White on its 150th anniversary.
• A comic book on the Montgomery bus boycott of 1956 that was influential in the civil rights movement
