This article provides a short review of Dan Totheroh’s historical novel “Men Call me Fool”, published by Selwyn and Blount in 1929. Set in fourteenth-century France at the court of King Francis I, the plot centres on a professional fool and a youthful duchess who falls in love with him. Although professional fools were common in medieval courtly circles, the reviewer tells the reader, “mostly they were hunchbacks or deformed, but this one was an Adonis”, and also a troubadour. Summing up, the reviewer concludes that “There is a good deal of the atmosphere of the times and much that is realistic in the lives of these professional fools” and “the characterisation of the sensual king and his nobles is convincing”.
To access a copy of this novel, see http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b312683.Digitised Newspaper Article. National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58388271
In this notice about the upcoming programme for the Grand Theatre, a screening of the 1923 silent film “Under the Red Robe” is announced. The film is based on Stanley J. Weyman’s historical novel of the same name. The novel is described in the article as a medieval romance, although it is set in seventeenth-century France. The story opens in 1630, when Gil de Berault sets out on a search for fugitive Huguenot Henri de Cocheforet, on the orders of Cardinal Richelieu. He has offered his martial skills to Richelieu in exchange for his life after being arrested for duelling in Paris. Although he does indeed find and arrest M. de Cocheforet, he realises that he has fallen in love with his sister and lets him go free to restore his honour. The story ends on the Day of the Dupes with the marriage of de Berault and de Cocheforet.
For a copy of “Under the Red Robe” by Stanley J. Weyman, see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1896.The article can be found at http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article81658763
]]>‘Alfred Was Great King’ is an anonymous article that appeared in the Charters Towers, Queensland, newspaper The Northern Miner in 1954. The article is about the ninth-century Anglo-Saxon/English king Alfred of Wessex, or Alfred the Great. The article enthusiastically supports his title and discusses Alfred’s achievements – saving Wessex from Danish (Viking) invaders, laying the foundations for English law, beginning its naval tradition, and promoting education and prose literature. A lot of text is devoted to another of Alfred’s achievements, the establishment of the Old English Chronicle, now usually referred to as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It is described in the article as ‘the first great work in English prose’.
The article can be found at http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article81658763