Char Bookham

@LearNonsense Congratulations!! 🥳

I fulfilled a lifelong ambition today of being in the @guardian : alongside the @NewYorker , the paper I most admired & wanted to write for when I was a wide-eyed teen. In Edinburgh, not knowing any professional authors, it seemed an impossible dream... theguardian.com/society/articl…

@diddykeats Happy Belated Birthday!! :))

🎉Huge congratulations to @AlicePurk, @rachel_delman and their team whose Heritage Pathways programme received the Support for Students Award at yesterday's Vice-Chancellor’s Awards.

@TomCrewe1 congratulations!!

Magnificently happy to have won the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. So grateful to the judges for this vote of confidence in my work. And grateful, also, to have met my brilliant fellow nominees, @NoreenMasud, @michaelmagee__ and Momtaza Mehri.

I bought an 1896 annual of The Strand Magazine from an antique bookshop today. Mostly because I saw this gentleman and fell in love with him instantly. Who said the Victorians weren't amused?!

We're celebrating the start of LGBTQ+ History Month with our #OnlineArtExchange pick! Radclyffe Hall was a British author and queer icon. Her novels gave visibility to the LGBTQ+ community in the early 20th century. #LGBTQplusHM @artukdotorg 🎨by Charles Buchel, 1918 © NPG

Portrait of Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland (1904) by John Singer Sargent (American artist, lived 1856–1925). A green, #floral dress, with laurel leaf tiara on her red hair, with a low-cut neckline. The Duchess emerging from the natural world behind. #FashionHistory

'London Visitors' (1874) by James Tissot (Toledo Museum of Art)

Me at the start of 2023: feeling the post-grad crisis, saving up for a masters and volunteering at old houses to feel connected to history again Me at the end: partway through a History masters at Oxford, finding joy in my research and passions, oh and I dyed my hair 😂

VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS CARDS. After all nothing quite says Christmas like an amorous root vegetable, a group of pyromaniac sparrows or a grotesque-looking teapot lady!! #GothicAdvent

The Winter Issue of the @BAVS_UK Newsletter is out now (and our longest yet)! It's packed with reviews, reports, CFPs, and other things of Victorianist interest 📚 Huge thanks to everyone who contributed! bavs.ac.uk/wp-content/upl…

A surprising new discovery about Keats: the poet was investigated by Italian police shortly before his death. More here: theguardian.com/books/2023/dec…

We are deeply saddened to hear of the death of the British poet, Benjamin Zephaniah. Remembered as the people’s poet, Zephaniah's work was dedicated to political injustice. One of his great heroes was P.B. Shelley, admired for his radicalism and talent: bit.ly/3Rb2WcI

Very strange that Fantasy: Realms of Imagination, which we began working on four years ago, has now transformed from hundreds of plans and drafts into its physical form @britishlibrary. Exhibition open until 25 February 2024 - more details here: bl.uk/events/fantasy.

Playing the Middle Ages, my volume with @ylva_grufstedt, @Mariana_J_Lopez, @CooksterKC, Gordon Smith, @LiamMcLeod_e, @sagathain, @AsinusDocet, @NeilNagwekar, @QuijanoPhD, @markusmindrebo, Patrick Butler, and @BlairApgar is out now from @BloomsburyAcad! bloomsbury.com/uk/playing-the…

Portrait of Miss Anita Stewart (1908) by Giovanni Boldini (Italian artist, lived 1842–1931). American socialite and heiress who married the grandson of King Miguel I of Portugal (thereby acquiring a royal title). She lived until 1977.

#OTD 1819 Keats writes to his brother "I have pass’d my time in reading, writing and fretting – the last I intend to give up and stick to the other two"

Oh hey, my talk with @GothicRomancing is coming up in 3 months! I'll be posting the ghost stories I'll be discussing over the next few weeks so you can prepare, if you like! eventbrite.co.uk/e/pots-monkeys…

Jonathan Harker is taking some real (well deserved) shrapnel in @VictorianMasc's paper: 'He's not the brightest spark, who takes way too long to realise he's the human equivalent of Deliveroo'. #NotesFromTheNile