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Gulliver’s Travels Approaches 300: The Houyhnhnms in a Hidden Field and the Dog-Walking Yahoo
On the 300th anniversary of Gulliver’s Travels, a horse in a hidden field near my village reminded me of Swift’s Houyhnhnms, and of what six years of working from home had turned me into.
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Delivered Home: Finding Scottish Man-Midwife William Smellie’s Grave in Lanark
William Smellie, the Lanark doctor who became the father of modern midwifery, lies in a tomb behind the ruins of St Kentigern’s Church. In 1931 Scottish obstetricians paid for it to honour him. When I visited in November 2025, I found broken slates, graffiti, a missing window grille and a…
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STAGE: 18th-Century Stagecoach Travel, Glasgow to Edinburgh
Stuck in an M8 tailback, I found myself thinking of Adam Smith’s stagecoach journeys to visit David Hume in Edinburgh. That daydream became STAGE: a long-term project tracing the old Glasgow–Edinburgh coach route, its inns and coachmen, through original sources, site visits, and a lot of map-gazing.
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David Hume, the Great Infidel, and Charon’s Loitering Rogue – 250 Years Since His Death
David Hume died 250 years ago this year, disbelieving to the end. Revisiting his last months: imagined bargains with the mythological ferryman Charon and James Boswell’s persistent deathbed visit – reveals a philosopher facing his own end with wit, calm and dignity.
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The British Periodical Essay: Johnson, Boswell & the Rest
Tidying my bookshelf led me to Marr’s Periodical Essayists of the Eighteenth Century – and down a rabbit hole into the British periodical essay itself. From Johnson’s Rambler to Boswell’s secret Rampager, discover the strange, brief, brilliant fifty-year genre that shaped English prose, and the writers who made it.
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The Rambler Challenge: Six Months to Read 18th Century Prose
Samuel Johnson’s Rambler essays are notoriously dense – 18th-century prose thick with Latinate vocabulary and elaborate sentence structure. Here’s what happened when I tried reading one for the first time: why they’re so difficult, what makes Johnson’s style unique, and the six-month challenge I’ve set myself to finally read one…
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James Boswell Reading List: Where to Start and What to Read Next
James Boswell – Eighteenth-century diarist and biographer of Samuel Johnson – deserves more readers. This post sorts his vast body of work into five stages, from Bitten (curious beginners) to Boswellevated (obsessive collectors), so you can find exactly where to start, what to read next, and how deep you want…
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Hiding in Plain Sight: The Lost HQ of the East India Company
The East India Company’s vanished London HQ hides in plain sight under Lloyd’s of London. One sick day, 45 stolen minutes, and a hunt through Leadenhall Street, Lime Street, Bishopsgate and Fenchurch. East India House is no longer there, but you can find its former site. With patience.
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The 18th Century Gentleman in My Kitchen: My Wife’s Dishwashing Duty Trick
A magazine cutout of an 18th-century gentleman appears on my kitchen windowsill – and my wife’s dish-duty timing feels suspiciously convenient.
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Stanley Curnow: The Mystery Contributor to the Boswell Factory – A Self-Taught Scholar from Johannesburg
A Johannesburg tax accountant with no academic credentials wrote to Yale in 1957 and ended up editing James Boswell’s private papers. Frederick Pottle called him one of the Boswell Office’s most resourceful scholars. He died alone in 1965. Few details of him survive, except in the acknowledgements of a handful…
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News of the American Declaration of Independence Arrives in Britain
The News That Changed Everything — And How It Crossed an Ocean The popular story of the American Declaration of Independence goes like this: On 4 July, 1776, fifty six men met in Philadelphia and signed a document that became the Declaration of Independence, a document that dissolved the political…
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Did Robert Burns Stop in Carnwath on His First Journey to Edinburgh?
This post is more of an anecdote – albeit Eighteenth century-related. And it’s dedicated to the readers from China who have been visiting the Genius Fan website a lot over the past fortnight. (My website analytics show only the country of visitors, not the city). My story features Scotland’s national…
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What Does Scottish Biographer James Boswell Have to Do with the American National Anthem?
This is a story about an Eighteenth century English drinking song and how it brought together a stern Scottish judge and an ancient Greek poet. By the end of this post, you’ll understand why they belong together, but let’s start with a tune you already know. The American national anthem…
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Discover the Site in London Where Jacobite Lord Lovat was Beheaded
On 9 April 1747 on Tower Hill, London, crowds gather for the public beheading of notorious Jacobite Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, aka The Fox. He’s 80-years-old and bears his fate with courage. I’m 60 years of age and hiding from the rain at the spot of his execution. Read on.
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Don’t Miss this Triangle of Life and Death in London, the Greatest City on Earth
I was in London this week and picked out the Tower Hill Execution Memorial for a sneaky visit – an important site for Eighteenth century enthusiasts. This was the location of the execution of Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat. He joined the Jacobites in 1745 and that was his downfall.…
