Forex Exchange

By Karen V. Wasylowski Not surprisingly, we all conjure up images of the characters in the books we love.  Did you ever consider that there were actual living people used as inspirations by the authors; and, if so, how close is our imagination to the reality?  I found an interesting article the other day that showed just that - the reality behind many of our most beloved books... Alice - Alice Liddell Author Lewis Carroll knew many families whose children he loved to play with but he had a special friendship with his neighbors the Liddells, and a great affinity for their daughter, Alice, the little girl pictured above.  This snapshot was taken of her by him sometime in 1860 when she was seven years old. She was the inspiration for the wonderful "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and he even used her real name for the character. The One - The Only - Peter Pan!  - Michael Davies It is well known that J. M. Barrie based the children in his books on the Davies family, f...

This week marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. It actually was on Monday, January the 28th. Today, though, is my day in our haphazard rotation, and as I have mostly presented pieces of history from the Regency era, this is one of them. Often we equate John Murray (1778-1843) as a preeminent publisher of the period. He was. His father, also John (1745-1793), had started the famous publishing business. John II brought forth such works as Scott's Marmion , Byron's Childe Harold ,   The Quarterly Review  with the help of future prime minister George Canning . Still, John Murray was not the first publisher of Austen's works, and not the publisher of Pride and Prejudice. This fell to Thomas Egerton. A man who did publish Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen began the writing of her most famous novel in 1796 and finished this novel then called First Impressions in August of 1797. On November 1 Austen's father, Ge...