The Cloister and the Hearth

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Doyle compliments the quantity of minute detail giving the feeling of daily life in the 1500s, from a clean Dutch home to a slovenly medieval German Inn to conflicted pre-Renaissance Rome. He incidentally mentions clothing, hobbies, morals, attitudes, and popular outlook at the end of the Middle Ages. On the downside he mentions This is the reason why writers as diverse as Shakespeare, Charlotte Bronte, Herman Hesse and Henrik Ibsen usually come down on the side of seeking joy from the material comforts of this life rather than losing oneself in the abstractions of religion, book-learning or being an artist.

all the world, an if one will but let the world starve one in return.”“That is no more than just,” said the mayor: he added, “an' ye make no Just some personal notes I started keeping before the eye-scorching set in. - the writer of fiction may be of use to the public—as an interpreter. However, after finishing the book, I felt I had a little better understanding of the different medieval civilizations of Europe—France, Germany, Italy, Holland. I read strange and unusual vocabulary words. And best of all I felt the satisfaction of finishing something hard.

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I had a hunch that the length, ebb and flow of the action pacing signaled that it had begun in serial form in the 1800’s, and upon doing some research I learned that is correct. In which case, I think this very dramatic novel would make a good basis for a serialized audio drama. novel by Charles Reade 1893 poster by Edward Penfield advertising a US edition of The Cloister & the Hearth Thus records of prime truths remain a dead letter to plain folk: the writers have left so much to the imagination, and imagination is so rare a gift. Here, then, the writer of fiction may be of use to the public--as an interpreter. THERE IS AN ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF THIS TITLE WITH LINKED TABLE OF CONTENTS WHICH MAY VIEWED AT EBOOK Based on a few lines by the humanist Erasmus about the life of his parents, the novel began as a serial in Once a Week magazine in 1859 under the title " A Good Fight", but when Reade disagreed with the proprietors of the magazine over some of the subject matter (principally the unmarried pregnancy of the heroine), he curtailed the serialisation with a false happy ending. Reade continued to work on the novel and published it in 1861, thoroughly revised and extended, as The Cloister and the Hearth.

I do not know where I can find a book in which the highest qualities of head and of heart go together as they do in this one. [1] For some, this is evidence of an anti-Catholic tinge in the book. If Gerard and Margaret had embraced Protestantism, he could have married her and remained a vicar. This is true, but Reade seems to have an admiration for asceticism, and he appears to side with Gerard’s decision. There is pathos in their separation and their deaths, but there is no criticism of Gerard’s choice, or of a religious system that caused him to make it.there was the dwarf, slit and fanged from ear to ear at his expense, and laughing like a lion. (think Victor Hugo 'The Man Who Laughs' and in turn think The Joker from Batman stories) Memory escapes me as to why I ever thought I wanted to read it. Perhaps I thought the forbidden romance between a priest and his lady love sounded intriguing, or maybe it was because the main character is an illuminator and I love that type of detailed art. The important question to ask is: Was it worth it? The answer is not a very simple one. I came away feeling that if I had known how miserable a tale it would be, I would not have begun to read it in the first place. I really didn’t get much from the story personally. Every possible obstacle was put in the characters’ ways and the story dragged on and on. It is quite an unfortunate tale of love and loss and waiting against hope, of death and despair and the subjugation of comfort and affection. Mercy! What's this? A gibbet! and ugh, two skeletons thereon! Oh Denys, what a sorry sight to woo by!" "Nay, said Denys, "a comfortable sight; for every rogue i' the air there is one the less a-foot." The Cloister and the Hearth is certainly erudite, perhaps too much so. Reade makes the error that has become common in writers of the last few decades who wish to be taken seriously. He constantly makes a display of his factual knowledge of every aspect of medieval life, with the result that the story frequently grinds to a halt while we can hear some arid discussion about art or clerical disputes. I wonder what the medieval period was really like. We know what the fictional medieval era was like because it can be found in every single work of fiction about this age for hundreds of years. Indeed even the writers of that time perpetuated the myth.