#english classics

[paperbaacks]

the picture of dorian gray — reading + annotations

[laced-in-ruin]

So I don't ever rlly post anything personal on here but I do write a lot of poetry and I thought just once I'd share one and see if people like it.

Here i go i guess...

I was not my mother's dream.

No thought of me existed before my existence itself.

Loud and intruding, dirty and unwanted.

Fate over free will, I was never to be hers.

Though guilt she thrust upon my being,

Never did she blame me for existing.

But it is there, in the echo of our ravenous rage.

A daughter's worst fear is becoming like her mother.

A mother's worst failure is making her daughter fear so.

I am a child who behaves like a mother.

She is a mother who cannot help but be a child.

We are the same, but she was here first.

Rotting in the mud of this tumultuous Earth.

I was not my mother's dream.

Born from her decisions but not from her lustrous visions.

I am my mother's daughter, undoubtedly so

For my mother would not lay false claim on a daughter she never wished to know.

So um yeah lol sorry if this sucks...

[caedmonofwhitby]

On this day, 28th January, in 1813, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen was published.

It was bound in three handsome volumes and priced at 18 shillings. Though it wasn’t an instant bestseller, its reputation soon began to grow.

[inkliinng]

This week:

- I’m slowly curating my new journal and savouring the process. My journals pretty much organically develop their own aesthetic over time but I usually have the vaguest colour schemes that I like to encourage.

- I took a chance on a stranger on Reddit who was selling their unused hardcovers and managed to get my hands on a lovely (and very cheap) edition of Middlemarch! I’m aware of the Penguin Clothbound covers fading with usage and time, but I like the worn look anyway, so I don’t mind.

[insaneonmain]

so I finished To The Lighthouse (amazing book, loved it) and the next item on my list I chose to read is 1984 and god damn it the times I had to set the book down and keep myself from spiralling into despair is way too fucking often because SO MUCH of it is literally happening today and I feel sick. Like everything the proles are consuming is spit out by a machine AND DOESNT THAT JUST RING A BELL????

My sanity is going to crumble away at this rate because the next book I have to read is The Handmaid's Tale pls send help

[inbetweencoffees]

can’t believe I picked up 4 of Shakespeare’s works for a total of 4,50$. so excited to read them🪐

[myunderground]

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

— Hamlet, William Shakespeare

[hritzz2]

Is someone willing to sit beside me on the rooftop, with my head on their shoulder, talking about everything and nothing till the sun begins to rise and the stars begin to fade away?