Dr Laura Eastlake
@VictorianMasc
Followers
4,596
Following
3,062
Media
1,170
Statuses
5,487
Senior Lecturer in English Lit. Co-Director @EHUNineteen Research Centre. Classicist. Gothicist. 📖 Ancient Rome & Victorian Masculinity (OxfordUP). She/her.
Joined August 2015
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
#RutoMustGo
• 850465 Tweets
England
• 519541 Tweets
#鬼滅の刃
• 370127 Tweets
Bellingham
• 297112 Tweets
Southgate
• 178104 Tweets
Verstappen
• 161681 Tweets
無限城編
• 154685 Tweets
劇場版三部作
• 130550 Tweets
Norris
• 129918 Tweets
Lando
• 126774 Tweets
Saka
• 118810 Tweets
Linus
• 105995 Tweets
Kane
• 102801 Tweets
Foden
• 87780 Tweets
Palmer
• 85536 Tweets
Walker
• 80300 Tweets
#ENGSVK
• 77615 Tweets
Inglaterra
• 75792 Tweets
Mainoo
• 72043 Tweets
Gordon
• 51673 Tweets
Eric Latiff
• 48306 Tweets
Trent
• 46992 Tweets
Stones
• 34782 Tweets
Eslovaquia
• 28611 Tweets
煉獄さん
• 21173 Tweets
Uranus
• 20954 Tweets
産屋敷ボンバー
• 18873 Tweets
#ENGvSLO
• 18675 Tweets
イングランド
• 18645 Tweets
Toney
• 17260 Tweets
#انجلترا_سلوفاكيا
• 12391 Tweets
ベリンガム
• 12334 Tweets
Watkins
• 12276 Tweets
Guehi
• 10997 Tweets
The big bottle of soy sauce is empty.
Inner chaos-voice: “Fill it full of Diet Coke and casually sip from it in staff meetings, just to freak people out?”
219
2K
30K
A gothic cat bed. A cat bed. But gothic!?
TAKE MY MONEY!
70
1K
5K
2024 will be 70 years since Terry’s discontinued its ‘chocolate apple’ - the counterpart to its ‘chocolate orange’. I’m so curious to find out how it tasted. Come on
@Carambar_France
, limited edition anniversary run!? 1/-
28
112
791
In Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), Dr Seward’s journals are famously ‘Kept in Phonograph’. Join me for a nerdy deep dive in which I, brandishing back-of-an-envelope math, calculate the cost of Seward's phonograph habit, & encounter a creature more uncanny than Dracula himself! 1/13
7
183
710
It’s the first day of
#NaNoWriMo18
. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out our ‘Great Victorian Novel Generaor’!
@NaNoWriMo
4
105
242
Frankenstein's creature in this 1823 stage adaptation, tho. 💀
9
32
211
Delighted to announce that my new book ‘Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinity’ will be available from Oxford University Press this November.
19
56
194
Alexander McQueen (2009). 'A menacing interpretation of fin-de-siecle dandyism.' From Chris Breward's wonderful book 'The Suit' (2016)
0
75
189
Holy cow, it’s snowing! 😕 I guess this is a good moment to share my favourite image of a Victorian ‘Snow Lady’ from The Strand.
#snow
#victorian
2
51
177
As the shops fill with selection boxes (& because I'm writing a book on Victorian Sugar), I’ve been thinking about 19thC sweets & how they were made. Join me on a tour of the Fry’s chocolate factory in Bristol c.1884, courtesy of the Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News! 🍬🍫1/-
6
38
166
The Wordsworth Classics editions are the gift that keeps on giving. Today’s favourite is ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray:
#TOWIE
edition’
5
26
147
BEHOLD, weary scroller, the abject uncanny horror of ‘Edison’s Talking Doll’. Created in 1890, the doll had a tiny phonograph in her chest and, with a dead-eyed stare, recited nursery rhymes to freeze your marrow! 12/13
3
18
147
My next book will be on ‘Victorian Sugar’ & how increased sugar intake in 19thC makes its way into the language, aesthetics,& metaphors that continue to shape our cultural discussions. So I’m totally fascinated by how that language/imagery gets fed back through the wombo ai😍🍭🍬
5
18
139
How have I never come across Kay Nielsen’s (1886-1957) artwork before now?!
His work is every party I want to go to, every wig and shoe I want to wear, and every textile and print I want to drape my surroundings in. 😳😍
2
35
133
Happy
#Halloween
Tis the season for dark comedy, and so I present 'An A-Z of Victorian Novel Deaths'
'A is for Andrei, by sudden explosive.
'B is for Bovary - swallowed corrosive...'
1
63
126
Delighted to say that my book, ‘Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinity’ is out now from
@OUPAcademic
!
2
44
125
And so to end by dispelling the horror of the cursed doll, please enjoy my favourite ever Edison recording. It's 1889 & poet Robert Browning is at a party in London. He has had a tipple, & someone has just whipped out a phonograph…hip hip hooray! 13/13
1
13
118
Last night I dreamed I was at the Oscars and
#CateBlanchett
won an award for a biopic of Sarah Bernhardt.
And now I feel properly bereft because I'd watch the hell out of that movie!
3
17
117
This woman has perfected ‘departmental meeting face’.
A Rose (1907), Thomas Pollock Anschutz
#victorian
#painting
#art
0
41
118
When the catalogue description reads: ‘A monk, suffering a hallucination that he is being attacked by wolves, being freed from his delusions by Saint Anselm’, you can’t NOT look. And this drawing did not disappoint. (Anselm Baumgartner, 1720s. Wellcome Images)
5
28
109
Missed a tweet: let's call it 4a: Seward's narration in Dracula runs to c.49,997 words (including a section in Ch.XXIV where we're told Van Helsing is narrating, but using the phonograph). Assuming a rate of 140 words per minute, that's 179 cylinders! 4a/13
4
4
106
With roots going back to the 1700s, the co. originally specialised in candied fruits & peels. The chocolate apple launched in 1926 and the orange in 1932. The apple was discontinued to allow for increased production of oranges. Terrys even trialled a chocolate lemon in 1979! 2/-
7
10
106
Delighted to say that I’ve been elected as a Fellow of the
@RoyalHistSoc
. With thanks to
@interwarcrime
for supporting my nomination.
We are very pleased to announce the latest round of elections to
@RoyalHistSoc
.
Today we welcome 44 new Fellows, 32 Associate Fellows, 40 Members and 41 Postgraduate Members to the Society's UK and international membership.
#twitterstorians
6
12
50
18
3
103
And Dracula is certainly a novel where technology helps save the day from the ancient horror of the vampire. As well as the phonograph, the typewriter & races across Europe by train, the novel also features cutting edge blood transfusions... 9/13
1
5
100
Later designs could be ‘shaved’, and the recordings wiped for re-use. The wonderful short film ‘The Stenographer’s Friend’ from 1910 shows the sale, features and benefits of the phonograph for the workplace: 4/13
2
3
98
Now, remembering that he can only record 2-mins per cylinder, then that’s a whopping 179 wax cylinders Seward has used to tell you about his vampire-hunting! And poor Mina has had to change them all out to listen and transcribe. 5/13
1
3
95
So Seward’s narration in Dracula –at 179 cylinders– would have cost him £492.30. Could he afford it? Lucy says that Seward is ‘twenty-nine, well off, of good birth, & has an immense lunatic asylum all under his own care.’ Seward is therefore likely a Resident Superintendent. 7/13
2
1
92
Didn’t expect my first work task of the day to be ✅ Hearding cute ducklings.
5
15
92
Turns out pugs aren't just a millennial obsession: Strand Magazine (1892)
4
55
90
What Would a Victorian Novel Monopoly Board Look Like?
3
39
87
My article on Victorian 'cute' aesthetics, sensation fiction, and why we just can't help but love Count Fosco is available NOW for free from
@JofVictCulture
🎉🎉
4
20
87
Edison phonographs recorded sound onto wax cylinders, each with a recording time of around 2 mins. Cylinders could be replayed & transcribed in the workplace by a typist (just as Mina does for Dr Seward). 3/13
1
2
85
(So cutting edge in fact that although the procedure was in use in 1897, blood typing wouldn’t be discovered until 1900! Poor Lucy!) 10/13
1
1
84
Seward keeps his notes on a phonograph. Edison invented the tech in 1877, but getting to market for home use took 20 years & various legal cases & bankruptcies. The spring phonograph appeared in 1895 (2 yrs before Dracula) and prices dropped from $150 in 1891 to $20 by 1899. 2/13
1
2
83
Sculptor Harriet Hosmer with her assistants and carvers in her studio in Rome. c. 1867.
#powerpose
3
27
81
Every time I write with a fountain pen, I find myself thinking of Wilkie Collins's teeny tiny yet very neat handwriting and wondering how anyone could write so small with a 19thC pen nib.
This page is c. A5 size.
@WilkieCJournal
#twitterstorians
7
20
82
Ok Dairy Milk, you win. Your marketing gimmick appeals to my historian’s soul.
2
4
84
I'll definitely be trialling this font on lecture slides. Fingers crossed it's as helpful as it sounds:
#Dyslexia
10
57
80
So how expensive was this habit? Edison cylinders retailed in the 1890s for 50c each or a little over 8 shillings per dozen in UK. Historical currency conversion is notoriously tricky, but 8s. is roughly equivalent to 1 day’s wages for a skilled Victorian tradesman in UK. 7/13
3
2
81
A lovely surprise on a Friday afternoon:
'Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinity' has been shortlisted for the
@UnivEnglish
Book Prize! 😁📖
9
11
80
Today’s
#femmefatale
is Theda Bara, the original ‘vamp’. Here she is in ‘A Fool There Was’, a 1915 silent movie which was itself based on Kipling’s poem ‘The Vampire’ & its accompanying painting by Philip Burne-Jones.
‘I have the face of a vampire but the heart of a feminist’ 🧛♀️
3
34
77
My sister-in-law got a new kitten and, well, would you just look at this adorable big chungus! 😍
#Caturday
9
7
76
What would a Victorian Novels Monopoly board look like, you ask? LOOK NO FURTHER!
2
18
76
But back to Edison…As well as phonographs for offices the tech was used for other products. The Concert Phonograph was launched in 1899 to play music, but it sold disappointingly. Maybe because it was cursed by its predecessor – a creature far more horrifying than Dracula…11/13
1
1
73
Celebrating William Gladstone’s 50 Years of ‘Resting Outrage Face’.
0
13
74
As a v. young, strange child I went thru a phase of wanting to be an art forger when I grew up. Whilst you’ll be pleased to know I haven’t pursued that particular dream, I did pick up a brush for the 1st time in c.15yrs today. Delinquent inner child was delighted! 🎨
#annualleave
8
4
73
ONLINE EXHIBITION: I'm delighted to say that 'Fatal Attraction: Lilith and her Sisters' is now available to explore as a virtual exhibition. Come and explore the long history of the
#femmefatale
, from the ancient world to the silver screen. 🏛️🖼️
You can now explore our exhibition, Fatal Attraction: Lilith and her Sisters, online in virtual reality. The exhibition explores the long history of the
#FemmeFatale
. When our galleries re-open, you can visit the exhibition in person until 27 Mar 2021.
2
9
43
1
23
73
I’m so excited to announce that ‘Fatal Attraction’, an exhibition on the history of the femme fatale that I’ve curated with
@AtkinsonThe
, will be opening on 27th July!
Come along to discover more than 3000 years of women’s history, from the ancient world to the silver screen.
Great to speak Lisa on
@bbcmerseyside
this morning about The Atkinson's reopening on 27 July. We can't wait to welcome you back! You can find out more about our new exhibitions, including the LEGO
#BrickWonders
here:
0
3
10
2
26
72
VINDICATED! I've been telling my Victorian Lit students for years to commit this line to memory for pub quiz purposes.
#Dracula
1
10
68
A thought occurs though - dark chocolate LIME?! Yes plz.
4
1
71
Clarification: £6 in 1890s (15 dozen cylinders @ 8 shillings per dozen). £492.30 (approx) in 21stC money.
3
2
67
Recently I introduced Baby Niece to the wonderful world of
#bbcghosts
. We had a blast; decided we would definitely be friends with Kitty; & debated the practical & theological challenges of ghost goldfish.
I left the room for, I swear, less than 2 mins. And came back to this:1/10
1
11
66
White mice for all on
@EHUNineteen
MA 19thC Studies today. That can mean only one thing … it’s ‘Woman in White’ week!
#TeamFosco
6
0
62
Keep your inverted commas/italics, I want THIS ballet! 👸🧛♂️
4
9
57
PhD Studentship: Haunting Ecocides: Gothic Narratives and Environmental Crimes
2
40
58
Have you come across this surprisingly common snafu in your digital archival research?
Mini-Adventures in the Life of a Victorianist
#4
: Racehorses in the System.
7
19
58
‘Dudes, we didn’t think this through. Percy’s going to smell delicious in about five minutes and there’s nowhere to get a bacon roll on this beach.’
Louis Edouard Fournier, The Funeral of Shelley (1889)
2
14
56
I'll be spending
#October
tweeting some of my favourite
#goddesses
,
#vampires
& other femme fatales, many of whom are on display
@AtkinsonThe
for the 'Fatal Attraction' exhibition.
Who is your favourite femme fatale and why?
5
21
51
In 1896 Arthur Conan Doyle published a novel called ‘Uncle Bernac’. I had never heard of it before today & know precisely nothing about it other than it’s an epic Napoleonic murder mystery with a fabulous frontispiece!
GIVE ME NAPOLEONIC MELODRAMA CHAOS, OR GIVE ME DEATH!
5
8
53
Exciting, nerve-jangling times! Just two weeks to go until my book, Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinity, launches.
Available to pre-order now. Academic friends, tell your libraries?
2
18
51
Wow! George V of Hanover is 100% PURE DIVA here.
Shoulder pad game. Check.
Sash game. Check.
Sword game. Check.
Boot game. Check.
Gauntlet game. Double check.
8
11
52
If you’ve not read ‘The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands’ (1957) you really, really should!
She’s a breath of fresh air re: many assumptions about Victorian women: ‘doctress’, traveller, woman of colour, imperialist, ‘unprotected female’, hilarious badass.
5
15
52
I'm looking forward to speaking about 'The Victorians and Cleopatra' tomorrow
@AtkinsonThe
. 7pm.
There will be mummies, monuments, and some rather scathing views on the Queen of the Nile by Charlotte Bronte!
@EHUNineteen
@English_EHU
@EHU_Research
2
17
50
And the award for most awesome-sounding Research Fellowship ever goes to:
VACANCY: Research Fellowship. ‘Narrativising Dinosaurs: Science and Popular Culture from 1850 to the Present’. Nice one
@WillTattersdill
!
2
23
48
Finally started
@castlevania
Nocturne and it looks (and sounds) 🤌 absolutely scrumptious. Congrats to all involved.
More vampire media set in the French Revolution!
3
7
47
This week
@DrDouglasSmall
and I have been exploring the life and works of Edmund Blair Leighton (1852-1922) a.k.a. 'Master of Mansplaining'
5
17
47
A student brought me this Brontë postcard from
@BronteParsonage
and I absolutely love it! 💚 Art by Samuel Harrison.
0
4
47
We have reached peak novelty birthday gift! 💙 Propose these as new mascots of
@EHUNineteen
MA 19th Century Studies.
5
2
44
Baby niece has a wobbly tooth and her gran has given her the impression that if it falls out on
#ChristmasEve
that Santa and the tooth fairy would both arrive the same night - and that, like bitter exes, they don’t get along. TENSEST CHRISTMAS EVER!! 😬🧚♀️🎅
1
4
45
I am 100% up for bringing this kind of gently eccentric whimsy to my local area on my once-daily walk.
#dailywalk
#walkingwithdinosaurs
1
17
45
The cash register was first patented in 1879. This beaut is a ‘Tiffany’ register from 1901. British Museum.
4
9
45
.
@DigiVictorian
just reminded me of this fantastic bastard. This guy is living his best life, right down to the jaunty bicorne hat.
'A New Way To Catch a Rascal' (IPN, 1870). The most serious-looking man ever to slide down a banister.
http://t.co/Xc5TPaJulg
7
177
227
3
8
43
Wait, it’s
#NaNoWriMo
again already!? I’m going to keep sharing this every year until someone writes me my shabby-genteel, dandy-vampire, post-Darwinian opium-epic! ✍️
0
12
45
Call for Papers: Women and Humour in the Long Nineteenth Century
2
33
45
*In best Iron Man voice*: we’re putting a team together!
Me,
@DigiVictorian
,
@DrDouglasSmall
&
@drbeard79
will be presenting a panel on ‘Transatlantic Substances: Anglo-US Relationships Through Candy, Cocktails & Cocaine’
@bavs2019
Come along to try ‘Corpse Reviver’ cocktails!
4
14
44
It’s the last session of 2022 on the
@EHUNineteen
MA 19th Century Studies. That means MUPPETS CHRISTMAS CAROL! 🎄
0
5
45
Call for Papers: Neo-Victorian Decadence
2
31
44
I’m a horrible logo snob, but seriously, whoever approved this redesign for Nationwide needs to have a word with themselves.
This is a logo that says at best:
🔴 “Nationwide: Making the Sun Set on Your Solvency”
And at worst:
🔴 “Your Finances: A Gothic Horror Story”
9
3
44
In honour of
#internationalcatday
, here are some of my favourite
#Victorian
#cats
for your amusement:
1
21
44
Merry Christmas shopping weekend! An annual reminder... 🎄🎁
Image by Kristen Myers.
0
16
43
I’m super proud of two of my students, Sam and Luke, who studied my
#RudyardKipling
module last year
@edgehill
and who have written a really thoughtful and considered article on what we can learn from studying Kipling and other authors with problematic legacies today.
2
9
44
Happy
#Halloween
In lieu of any original wit this year, please enjoy last year’s post: ‘An A-Z of Victorian Novel Deaths’, inspired by Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies:
2
13
43
I'm delighted to be guest curating an exhibition
@AtkinsonThe
next year on femmes fatales in art, including one of my favourite paintings, Frederick Sandys's Helen of Troy.
This painting was originally conceived in 1866 as part of a larger scene showing Cassandra berating Helen.
3
7
44