Man: a Bubble to Himself

I just remembered a resource I found a few years ago relating to the South Sea Bubble. The website is managed by the Baker Library at Harvard Business School, part of the Kress Collection, titled, Sunk in Lucre's Sordid Charms. Oh, it was sordid alright. The website is pretty cool. There is limited access, however, to documents and images, provided you are not a Harvard University student, but what is available is pretty neat.




The website offers a brief history of the South Sea Company and the causes of the stock-job pop. There is also a very useful and bright essay by Christopher Reed ("The Damn'd South Sea") available on the website that is illuminated by contemporary documents and images, published in Harvard Magazine (June 1999). The website also marshals many German and Dutch woodcuts and renditions. The pop of the South Sea Bubble reverberated loudly in English history, preceded in kind only by the Mississippi Bubble of John Law.

Thou art in debt!

Just working away at the connections between Laurence Sterne and Jane Austen. I had consulted the MLA Bibliography to see if this topic has ever been explored, and I found a chapter from Laurence Sterne: Riddles and Mysteries (1984) relating exactly to this topic, thus I wait. I'm waiting for the chapter to be delivered so I can read it. I wonder what the argument is (by Park Honan) regarding "Sterne and the Formation of Jane Austen's Talent." Aside from this, however, there is little connecting the two authors in scholarship (other than Honan, Celia A. Easton has done a little bit on this). Actually, there is little tangible history connecting these authors, as well. I searched for hours for any printed connection between Austen & Sterne (subscription lists, Rev. Austen's library books, book sales in Chawton, &c.) with little success.

UPDATE: The chapter by Honan was helpful, and drew some of the same conclusions as I had already drawn, but focused more on aligning Austen's earlier work (1790s writings) with Sterne's narrative tone. And, Honan made distinctions between Sterne's Whiggishness and Austen's Toryism. Helpful.

And curse Sir Walter Raleigh

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618)

Aristocrat, soldier, poet, courtier, importer of tobacco.

Total babe.