This episode we speak with two experts to better understand Eleanor Scott and her story Randall’s Round, Dr Vicky Margree and Prof Dan Orrells. We discuss what’s known about Eleanor Scott, her time at Oxford University in the early 1900s and the role of gender, folklore and imperialism in her writing.
Vicky is a specialist in literary fiction and feminist theory. Her book British Women’s Short Supernatural Fiction, 1860-1930: Our Own Ghostliness looks at stories by Margaret Oliphant, Charlotte Riddell, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Edith Nesbit, Alice Perrin, Eleanor Scott and Violet Hunt.
Dan focuses on the history of the interpretation of classical literature. He’s interested in the Greeks and Romans in the Victorian imagination, including how these inspired Gothic and ghostly tales at the turn of the 20th century. He co-edited with Vicky a study of Richard Marsh, a fascinating late-Victorian author who wrote about “shape-shifting monsters, morally dubious heroes, lip-reading female detectives and objects that come to life.”
In our conversation we learn more about the folklore revival, Edward B Tylor’s ideas about primitive cultures and notions of “survivals” amd the experience of women at Oxford and Cambridge (Dan recommends the Dorothy L Sayers novel Gaudy Night!).
Massive thank you to Vicky and Dan for being such engaging and insightful guests and sharing their expertise with us! If you want to read ahead, we’ll be back next time with The Weird of the Walfords by Louisa Baldwin.
Episode 98 – The Nature of the Evidence by May Sinclair
Episode 97 – Mark Gatiss’s Lot 249
Episode 96 – The Real and the Counterfeit by Louisa Baldwin
Episode 95 – The Weird of the Walfords by Louisa Baldwin
Episode 93 – Count Magnus Awakens
Episode 92 – Randalls Round by Eleanor Scott
Episode 91 – Let Loose by Mary Cholmondeley
Episode 90 – Right Through My Hair by Noel Boston
Episode 89 – Cushi
Episode 88 – Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book Revisited
Episode 87 – Mark Gatiss’s The Mezzotint
Episode 86 – Lucky’s Grove by H.R. Wakefield
Episode 85 – The Tudor Chimney by A.N.L. Munby
Episode 84 – Bosworth Summit Pound
Episode 83 – A Room in a Rectory
Episode 82 – Echoes from the Abbey
Episode 81 – The Demoniac Goat by M.P. Dare
Episode 80 – The Sundial by R.H. Malden
Episode 79 – The Seventeenth Hole at Duncaster
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