The Rosamond family, of which Mrs. Morris is a member, trace their linea
Below is an article on how to brand your company or non-profit organization. This is made extremely easier if your kindred owned businesses with your company’s name. This morning I purchased a business card, and other items whereupon is the name
Illustration for the cover of Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti
To: The Government of Belmont
I applaud the efforts of Crafted by Belmont Poet Laureate Monica Korde. She is doing a fantastic job in calling Belmontese to the World of Poetry – with Save the World side show? Monica gave me a warm and curious greeting after I sent her an e-mail with this poem. I promised her J.R. Tolkien. How about Christina Rosetti? Eureka! I found her in an one of Joaquin Miller’s play at Woodminster. Miller befriended the Rossetti family, and admire Michael newspaper The Germ. I discovered the Pre-Raphalites i 1969 and had a vision of my family founding a Poetry and Art Association. When I discovered my grandfather founded Gem Publishing, it was a miracle! I put an r in Gem. The cap and Rossetta Stone was applied when my aunt Lillian sent me her father’ correspondence with Otto Rayburne who published Arcadian Magazine. Otto asks Royal to pass a form to a 100 of his poet friends in California.
Royal Rosamond was a good friend of Otto Rayburne, the Ozark Historian, and appears in Vance Randolph’s ‘Ozark Folklore’. Tom’s daughter, Jessie Benton, married Folk Musician, Mel Lyman, who contacted Woodie Guthrie. Mel played in the Kweskin Jug Band. He is wearing a captain’s hat in this video.
Artist and Muralist, Jirayr Zorthian, was influenced by Thomas Hart Benton. Zorthian was given the title ‘The Last Bohemian’. Christine and I lived with the Zorthian sisters in a commune in San Francisco, with Nancy Hamren. Then there is the Kesey Family, Thomas Pynchon and Mary Ann Tharaldsen. Jack London and George Sterling, the Carmelites, all on a Quest. Over there – Tortilla Flats.
I just found a Zorthian mural that shows Charles Quint staring down – Tlaquiach and Tlalchiac? Garth Benton would have been the man to call to fix any damage to his kindred’s mural. Garth sued his friend, Gordon Getty, for painting over his mural in their home, that was designed to be taken down.
On April 17, 2014, I found a Pre-Raphaelite Grail at the Lane County Historical Society, that hopefully will change the way we look at things today, and the way we live and communicate with one another. I beheld the beautiful master plan put forth by the Miller Brother Prophets, who are right out of the Lord of the Rings.
What I discovered was a pamphlet announcing Joaquin Miller Day. A musical drama was performed at the Woodminster Amphitheater on September 24, 1944. There was going to be the planting of memorial redwood trees around the equestrian statue of Joaquin Miller. On stage was a replica of the studio and garden used by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Holman Hunt. The Poet, Christina Rossetti was played by Jeanne Jardin. Elizabeth Siddal Hunt’s model and muse is played by Helen Kraum. Carmencita Sanchez and her Mexican dancers, performed. In Scene Two we have the Bonaparte and Queen Victoria.
When we were children we would call up Juanita Miller who we knew as ‘The White Witch’. She gave advice if you had problems. At thirteen, Bill Arnold, Nancy Hamren, and myself adopted the Beat Scene, Jack London and George Sterling, and as Hippies we understood Joaquin Miller was the source of our Bohemianism that some claim is the fastest growing religion in the world. In Eugene Oregon there is a worship of Ken Kesey. Now add to this the images of the Pre-Raphaelites and J.R. Tolkien, and you have the most powerful imagery outside of the Christian Church.
But, we are not done! Joaquin Miller was approached by Japanese Poets who asked if they could live with Joaquin and treat him like their master. There were several Japanese houses built on ‘The Hights’ that was also named ‘The Fremont Ranch’. Fremont is in my family tree because he married Jessie Benton whose father was the proprietor of the Oregon Territory. My later sister was the world-famous artist, Christine Rosamond Benton who had a gallery in Carmel a Art Colony that Elsie Martinez and her husband help found.
Joaquin Miller had dinner at Rossetti and ate with many of the Pre-Raphaelites. I suspect William Morris was present. In 1969 I began to render images on furniture after Morris whose novel ‘The House of Wolfings’ was the main inspiration for Tolkien.
Friedrich August von Kaulbach‘s In Arcadia
“Dear Earth” Community Poetry
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An Interactive Installation
Crafted by Belmont Poet Laureate Monica Korde, the latest addition to this year’s “Project POETRY 360” initiatives is an interactive installation at the Belmont Library urging community members to share uplifting personal sentiments or messages directed towards the Earth and centered around the theme “Planet vs. Plastic.”
At the project’s conclusion, a collective poem will be crafted using all contributed words and messages. Drop by the Belmont Library throughout April 2024 to witness the development of this community endeavor and be a part of a poetic creation for National Poetry Month 2024.
San Francisco Call 14 August 1906 — California Digital Newspaper Collection (ucr.edu)
TURN VEREIN HALL IS DEDICATED.
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TURN VEREIN HALL IS DEDICATED.
Music, Taljk; and Dancing Mark Completion of Temporary Home
BIG ATTENDANCE
With music end speeches the ttmpo; rary San Franclseo Turn Verein If all, 853 Turk street, was formally dedicated Sunday night, and In the presence of a large aasembly of members the keys of the new building were presented by the president ofthe building committee to the’ first president- of the association. After the exercises had been, brought to a. close the -remainder of the evening was spent in j dancing. Cigars and refreshments were served and everything possible . wa.s done to make, the occasion one of enjoyment for all present. – No sooner had the earthquake and fire destroyed the – old hall than the members of the San Francisco Turn Verein j began to plan the erection of another building.; On. the Friday following, the earthquake a meeting was held.for that purpose and committees were appointed. to look after the work. The new building would have been completed some time ago but for the scarcity of lumber. • , “, ■”, ‘
The present building will serve all the purposes of the organisation until the new,’ expensive structure, work on which will be commenced almost immediately, is completed. .Then the’present hall will be used simply as a gymnasium. ..:;. :: /.; ;
The building committee having in charge the construction of the new hall consists of John Slmmen, ‘• president; William Plagemano and Hans V*ronl. The board of trustees consists of Fran* Acker, president; Paul Leonhardt. Hans VeronJ, psear Hooka and Charles Wolters.:’. V:” .’: ‘ ‘; ‘ : ‘ . .’ . . . ■ ‘7- :
The San Francisco Turn. Veraln. was organized in 1.853 and is the oldest association of its kind on .\the. Pacific Coast. Th» , main building, which Is soon : tQ b$ erected, will be 70×70 feet and will be three stories in height It will cost about?2o,ooo.
. BELMONT PARK! a THE PUBLIC, WHO WISH TO spend a few hours pleasantly, are invited to visit BELMONT PARK, located in a BEAUTIFUL GROVE at the entrance of Cafiun Diablo, ibout 25 miles from San Francisco, one hour’s ride >n the Ban Francisco and San June Railroad, and about 300 yards from the Depot at Belmont. The Proprietor. MR. C. JANKE, is a Herman, ilso proprietor of Turn-Verein Hal!. San Francisco, Having bad many years experience in beautifying places of amusement, feels confident that this PARK is more attractive than any other place in California, and will be completed on the lit day of May. U is hotel is built around a very large OAK TREE, near a fine stream of water surrounded by large >aks and shrubbery, with winding stairs up and platforms in many of the trees. The ground is properly laid out in order, with tables, seats, » to., and son tains about 30 acres; the dance hall is largeand veil arranged ; the bar well lupplied with chetce iqunm; suites of rooms and meals at all hours. Mu.’ic for danciDg will be at this place at all times ‘hen the Han Francisco and San Joai Railroad >mpany run excursion trains. Belmont. April 15. 1864. iplo-tf
California Fusiliers and Freethinkers
Posted on May 5, 2023 by Royal Rosamond Press
Governor Ron DeSantis needs to condemn the Oath keepers and other Traitors who admit they were doing Trump’s bidding when they stormed the Capital in an act Seditious Conspiracy. Descants must take The Iron Clad Oath to prove he is loyal to John Fremont, the first Republican candidate for President. Trump’s promised to pardon these illegal and seditious militias. This is a violent threat to all loyal Americans. Less than half of Florida Voters – are Democrats. They need to be protected by a Lawful Governor, not a Outlaw Governor!
John Presco.
The California Fusileers
Posted on May 7, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
My ancestors were wealthy Prussians. Were they investors in Prussia’s attempt to purchase California, that did not happen possibly due to the Revolutions of 1848? Did some Germans realize California could be had by a intensive migration? The six million dollars could be used to buy portable homes, and other necessities. The chances Count Cipriani purchased a portable home from Carl Janke, is high. Unless he brought one in his wagon train.
The Jankes were members of the California Fusiliers. Did they have any contact with my kin, John Fremont, who was talked out of founding a new nation in the West during the Civil War. Consider the Manifest Destiny propaganda of his father-in-law and John Astor, who paid Washington Irving to author a propaganda novel that clamed the right of Americans to take the Oregon Territory – from BRITISH ROYALS. Astor launched a financial conquest of China – that could be the model for China today! If they take over Central America, will they manufacture Chinese cocaine after exterminating the criminal cartel and all gangs south of the border? Texans would be – pleased as punch! As long as China does not take away their right not to wear masks – or their guns! What about – their God? China could get its powerful think tank to invent a Cocaine Jesus for anti-Democratic cult followers, who will honor the day the Democrats cheated them our of their birth right with fake elections. To the Chinese, we look like members of a superstitious Cargo Cult, we easy pickens when it comes to….Divide and Conquer. Our tribal system is open to covert bribes, pitting one tribe against another tribe.
John Presco ‘Author of The Royal Janitor’
California Fusileers (militarymuseum.org)
On November 29, 1858, M.C. Blake, County Judge of San Francisco County, appointed Major Isaac Rowell to enroll members in a volunteer military company to be known as the California Fusileers. The name fusileer (or fusilier) originally applied to a soldier armed with a fusil. In the British Army the designation Fusiliers is still retained by ten regiments distinguished from the other regiments of the line only by wearing a kind of busby and other peculiarities in costume.
Accordingly on December 9, 1858, Major Rowell presided at the meeting and superintended the election of officers of this new organization. F. G. E. Tittel was elected Captain and Peter Lesser, First Lieutenant. The company was composed almost entirely of German citizens of San Francisco and was a well drilled unit.
Their first recorded appearance in public was in connection with the elaborate military reception tendered to General Winfield Scott on October 18, 1859. Governor Weller and other dignitaries attended the reception and tendered their respect to the famous hero of the Mexican Campaign. (1)
The path of the California Fusileers proved to be rough and rather stormy for in the latter part of 1863, a bitter feud between Captain Tittel and Colonel West, commanding the First Regiment of Infantry, culminated in the refusal of Colonel West to deliver uniforms to Company E, California Fusileers as long as Captain Tittel was in command. When Captain Tittel was promoted to Colonel of the Sixth Infantry Regiment, First Lieutenant John Obeneimer made a new demand to Colonel West for their uniforms.
The Colonel again refused to deliver the uniforms until the company should show that their bona fide active members were sufficient to comply with the law, and that the officers evinced a disposition to do their duty and obey proper orders and regulations. In reply to this letter, the Lieutenant urged the Colonel to prefer charges against him if he had been negligent in duty or disobeyed orders. The Lieutenant was a “fighter” evidently, for he not only contradicted the Colonel but he took the matter up with Brigadier-General Ellis, who then ordered.an inspection of the company by Major Hill on December 10, 1863. The inspection showed their arms and equipirient in good and serviceable order, their books well kept but in German language, the discipline of the company good and their drill passable. Thirty-seven members were in old and badly worn uniforms, and seven without any uniforms. These uniforms belonged to the old company and were private property.
The records do not reveal the outcome of the strife, but it is assumed that the unit received their uniforms for soon after the passing of the Inspection, the California Fusileers were transferred to the Sixth Infantry Regiment, Second Brigade as Company A. The Colonel of this Regiment was the California Fusileers’ first Captain (F. C. E. Tittel) and no doubt the new assignment ended the ill-feeling between Colonel West and the California Fusileers.
With the conclusion of the Civil War the need for a large militia force was lessened and the Legislature passed a law reducing the number of the militia. This law provided for the organization of a Board of Organization and Location. The duty of this Board was to select companies that were to be mustered out, their selection being decided according to local requirements, ability.to concentrate on short notice, and the ability to meet the standards required regarding efficiency and enrollment of individual companies. It is assumed the California Fusileers was mustered out because of their location in relation to military need, since a large number of companies were mustered out in San Francisco for that reason. Their mustering out occurred on July 23, 1866.
The Armory Hall at Sacramento and Montgomery Streets, home of the California Fusiliers.
BARBARY COAST
Historical Essay
Barbary Coast, 1909.
The Hippodrome by day, c. 1900-1920.
Photos: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library
1849: Badly drawn paintings of nude women adorn the walls of the best cafes in the city. Prostitutes begin to arrive from the east. They are frequently auctioned off from the decks of the arriving ships. Cafe owners often hire them to pose nude in displays in the dining halls. Gambling houses were everywhere. At the El Dorado it was reported that $80,000 once changed hands on the turn of a single card. Liquor and female companionship were often provided free of charge by the house as an incentive to frequent patrons.
May 4, 1975 – January 9, 1976
Barbary Coast is a short-lived American television series that aired on ABC. The pilot movie first aired on May 4, 1975 and the series itself premiered September 8, 1975; the last episode aired January 9, 1976. One of the episodes didn’t even air in it’s entirety. President Ford gave about a twenty minute spech at the top of the hour and Monday Night Football had to start at the next hour, so when they joined it in progress, an announcer quickly described what the audience missed. Barbary Coast was inspired by a similar 19th-century spy series, The Wild Wild West, and like the earlier program, Barbary Coast mixed the genres of Western and secret agent drama.
Rebuilding San Francisco and California
Posted on August 6, 2022 by Royal Rosamond Press
At 7:40 A.M. on August, 6, 2022, I discovered articles written about my German Ancestor, by Jack London. He testifies to Grand Marshal Robert Wienke leading an army of Goths against Rome. My grandmother, Mary Magdalene Rosamond, was born of the Wienke family who contributed a Father and three Nuns to Order of Saint Francis that fled Germany. I have found a Lost Generation and Kingdom. The German influence in America was immense. Due to the two world wars, the history of the German American was oppressed, and, went into hiding. My mother did not know who the people are in the top photo. She said they were my father’s people “Bohunks” she believed. There is a rifle in one of the trees. I believe this photo was taken in Twin Peaks Park in Belmont.
This is an astounding Literary Discovery, being, John Fremont co-founded the Republican Party with the help of German Immigrants. A group of people are forming a new Republican party due to the evangelical radicals who came out of the Red Slave States. These Germans fought the Confederacy. Gavin Newsom has declared Cultural Warfare against proponents of Christian Nationalism that is born of Neo-Nazis and Neo-Confederates who took over Fremont’s party. To have London mention my Wieneke kin and the Turnverein Rifle events the Jankes took part in, is to say…..
The North has risen again!
John Presco
Grandly Opens the Third National Bundes Shooting Fest | The Archive (wordpress.com)
In one of the film’s final scenes, M picks up a book and delivers a eulogy: “The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
If you’re wondering about the origin of those lines, look no further — but fair warning, there will be spoilers ahead. The lines that M reads come from Jack London, the 20th-century American novelist best known for adventure books like “The Call of the Wild” and “The Sea Wolf.” The passage was first published in the San Francisco Bulletin in 1916, which said that the author “is known to have said these words, just two months before his death, to a group of friends with whom he was discussing life and living.”
What Does M Read at the End of ‘No Time to Die’ About the ‘Proper Function of Man’? (thewrap.com)
MGM
Warning: This story contains major
The Goths have entered Rome! Aye, it is so. But there was no cry in the night, no clamor of hasty flight, no scurrying with household gods to the citadel. Rather, did San Francisco throw wide her gates and fraternize with her Teutonic invaders. On the other hand, these descendants of the Germanic tribesmen who swept down out of the forests of middle Europe some two thousand years ago, are quite unlike their savage forebears.
Grand Marshal Robert Weineke, for all that he had done, was honored by the addition of another badge to the many on his coat. But he was not alone, for the breasts of the President and the group about him on the platform were bespangled and blazing with innumerable medals. It was a martial scene, and it dissolved in true martial manner to the rattle of drums, the unisoned tramp of feet and ringing German cheers.
The European Union Kingdom of Heligoland | Rosamond Press
Here is the e-mail I sent Gavin Newson, the Governor of California.
Dear Governor; I am kin to all members of the Getty family via Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, and thus all the Gettys are kin to Ian Fleming the author of James Bond novels. I began my own Bond novel ‘The Royal Janitor’ three years ago. The newest Bond movie has been delayed for over a year due to the Coronavirus. There many not be any profits from this movie. Hollywood must be hurting.
Today, I founded the European Union Kingdom of Helgoland, and made Harry and Meghan Windsor the titular King and Queen of this amazing island. I have suggested this royal couple read the names of the Knights of the Garter whose cote of arms are found in the stalls of Saint George Chapel where both Princess Diana’s sons got married. In researching Queen Califia, a African pagan, it occurred to me that Megan could play her in a movie, a propaganda movie aimed at weakening the threat of China. My 9th. grandfather is buried in Saint Georges and has a stall. His son was the Puritan leader, John Wilson.
I just had a vison: As Meghan and Harry take turns reading the list outside their home in Montecito, one by one – they appear – the Knights of the Garter of Saint George. Suddenly, Meghan is transformed into the ancient pagan queen who ruled California. Her court of beautiful Amazons are startled to see these English Knights, and a battle looks eminent. Just then, three ancient Chinese Knights appear – from the past. They are the Dragons of Buddha. They plead for peace, and ask for the Queen and King of Helgoland to help defeat the oppressive rulers of China, and restore the beautiful rituals that made China famous.
My kin, Carl Janke, was a Pioneer of Belmont. His sons wore the flag of the California Fusiliers that were a legitimate militia. Today is Archie Mountbatten-Windsor’s birthday. He lives in California. He will soon have a sibling – that will be born in California. His mother has been in great distress due to royal protection not provided her child – and his parents.
What I suggest, is, you reform the California Fusiliers, and have them be bodyguards to all the Windsors who have migrated to our beloved State. They will be financed by The Movie Lottery you will establish, where many citizens of all nations, can purchase stock in all movies made in Hollywood – before they are made! The common people who love Movie Goddesses, can read a synopsis of a script, and purchase a ticket in advance. When the movie comes out, they are given a free ticket to another movie. I see three sequels to California and Her Knights. Contact Meg Whitman to see if she could help make all this possible.
Sincerely
John Presco:
President: Belmont Soda Works
Portrait of Jack London Square | Rosamond Press
The Casino – In Belmont | Rosamond Press
THE ARCHIVE
Historic American Journalism
Grandly Opens the Third National Bundes Shooting Fest
San Francisco Examiner/July 15, 1901
Author of “Son of Wolf” Describes Great Invasion
Peaceful Conquest by the German Sharpshooters
Parade Promptness
One of the Most Picturesque Processions This City Has Seen
The Goths have entered Rome! Aye, it is so. But there was no cry in the night, no clamor of hasty flight, no scurrying with household gods to the citadel. Rather, did San Francisco throw wide her gates and fraternize with her Teutonic invaders. On the other hand, these descendants of the Germanic tribesmen who swept down out of the forests of middle Europe some two thousand years ago, are quite unlike their savage forebears. They are not clad in the skins of wild beasts, and though they bear weapons in their hands, we do not fear; for they come not in war, but in love; not as foes, but as blood-brothers. And though their ancestors of old time looted many a fair city, we need keep no anxious eye upon our possessions. We have but one thing which they might appropriate, and which they surely would appropriate if they were able—and that is our climate.
It was a unique parade, that which passes through San Francisco’s peaceful streets Sunday forenoon. Beneath fluttering banners and between packed rows of spectators, to the martial music of band and fife and drum, marched two thousand men, and picked men all. Not since our own “Californias” has so splendid a body of men been in our midst. And picked men they certainly are, picked from all the States, these men of the shooting clubs, these sharpshooters, these Schützenbrüder.
Men from the cities and men from the fields and forests; riflemen and sharpshooters from the Eastern centers, and hunters and fighters from the plains and mountains of the West. From Montana, Idaho, Arizona and Colorado, from Chicago, New York and Boston, and even from Europe they have come to take part in the Third National Bundes Shooting Festival. They are skillful men, eagle-eyed and steady of nerve, who have won trophies everywhere—gun experts and crowned kings of the target, to say nothing of princes and knights galore, who have demonstrated their fitness in rifle ranges the world over, and who have come together here, by the shores of the Pacific, in friendly contest.
Promptly at the target The Examiner’s siren the parade swung into motion from the corner of Market and New Montgomery streets; and right here, in passing, it is meet to state that promptness pre-eminently characterizes these riflemen. No delays; no lagging. They achieve the impossible feat of doing everything on schedule time.
Grand Marshal Robert Weineke led the long column of many divisions, and with the assistance of innumerable aides on gaily caparisoned horses, went over the line of march in splendid order. The route was up Market to City Hall Avenue, around the Lick monument, countermarch on Market to Kearny, to California, to Montgomery and down Market to the Oakland ferry.
The banners were many and beautiful, but it was the uniforms that especially caught the eye. Gray and green predominated. And it is indeed a pretty sight, a body of stalwart men clad in the traditional hunting green, with black drooping plumes of ostrich in their dark slouch hats. But with the recent developments of the machinery of warfare in one’s mind, one would not forbear looking a second time at the unobtrusive, inconspicuous grays. They would surely conceal more easily a sharpshooter’s movements at a time when discovery would mean to invite a whirlwind of death-dealing missiles. And the grays were pretty, too—in fact, all the uniforms were neat and tasty.
From the ferry a special boat, and from the Oakland mole a special train, carried the sharpshooters to Shell Mound Park. And there, at 12 noon, to the stroke, Captain F. A. Kuhls, President of the Shooting Bund, made the opening address. This part of the programme took place in the big pavilion, with the furled standards swaying beneath golden eagles of victory and the marksmen leaning picturesquely on their rifles.
Grand Marshal Robert Weineke, for all that he had done, was honored by the addition of another badge to the many on his coat. But he was not alone, for the breasts of the President and the group about him on the platform were bespangled and blazing with innumerable medals. It was a martial scene, and it dissolved in true martial manner to the rattle of drums, the unisoned tramp of feet and ringing German cheers.
Then the great crowd scattered and spread over the grounds in quest of restaurants or quiet places where hampers and lunch baskets might be opened, and also in quest of that national beverage that made Milwaukee famous.
At 1 o’clock sharp President F. A. Kuhls opened the great shooting contest by firing three shots into the air. The first was “for our adopted country,” the second “for the old Fatherland,” and the third “for the commonweal of the National Shooting Bund.”
At once followed a wild scramble for the honor of making the first bull’s-eye, and the hasty firing only eased down when loud cheers proclaimed the lucky individual.
Then what seemed like an indiscriminate fusillade set in. There were so many targets and so many shooting boxes that the whole thing seemed confused and disorderly. That there was any sanity about it, an adjacent lady could not be convinced. “How does anybody know anything?” she demanded excitedly, her voice pitched high in order to get above the roar of the guns. “Who is shooting? What are they scoring? Who is judging? Who is keeping track? And where are the targets?”
Nay, she could not see them. There were no targets. Preposterous! But a young fellow in the uniform of the United States artillery calmed her apprehensions after a quarter of an hour of endeavor, whereupon she undertook the hopeless task of re-explaining everything to her grandfather.
And well might she be forgiven her minutes of anxiety lest the whole shooting contest had gone to smash. At first glance it was indeed hard to locate the targets amid the maze of timbers and uprights that studded the range. Besides, two hundred yards is not to [be] sneezed at, and a black bull’s-eye at that distance does not appear over large.
What really gave the impression of disorder, however, was the smoothness with which the machinery was running. The whole trouble was subjective. There was no evidence of the mind of some man behind and directing it all; no creaking of the wheels, as it were; but gradually, as one grew accustomed, order began to appear out of chaos. Each man was firing in turn. The shooting secretaries were at their posts; and down at the far end of the range the targets were constantly being replaced, and the long-handled spotters and vari-colored flags of the markers were indicating the scores as fast as they were made.
And in this manner did the ten days’ contest commence; and not only is it the greatest shooting festival California has ever had, but it is the greatest ever held in the United States. It might well put the tournaments of the Middle Ages to scorn; for in those same Middle Ages it is to be doubted if knights ever jousted for as princely prizes or for honors more highly esteemed and verily, in those days it was a rare knight who fared three thousand miles or more to a tilting match.
The glittering array of prizes in the Temple of Gifts cost not a cent less than $100,000, while the honor that accompanies them is something that cannot be measured by worldly and commercial standards. Yes; the standards are quite different from those of old time. Here at the Bundesfest they will crown a man king. He will be a common-man king, crowned not because of what his father or grandfather chanced to do, but crowned because of the things he himself has done; and to be king of American riflemen; to possess the steadiest nerve, the keenest eye, the finest and subtlest judgment, and to be so adjudged by one’s own fellows —surely this is finer and bigger than to sit vacuously in a high place because, forsooth, some greater and stronger robber-ancestor ground a people under the iron heel.
And while the sires and sons and husbands and brothers line up at the firing butts their womenkind and children are not a whit behind in enjoying themselves. All over the big grounds is frolicking and merrymaking of young and old; children in the swings and on the hobby-horses; lusty young fellows doing the giant swing on the bars or striking with the heavy mallet till they ring the bell three clips out of four; and then, since there are many men to shoot and only so many targets, there is dancing going on at both pavilions, and it must be confessed the floors are crowded with whirling couples. Everywhere is the clink of glasses to genial laughter, while over all, ringing and reverberating throughout the place, are the rifles. And for ten days without intermission, with balls, receptions and concerts in the evenings, this will continue. This is the Schützenfest.
The works of Jack London and other major journalists are freely available from The Archive of American Journalism: www.historicjournalism.com
A London Eulogy
Posted on October 7, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
The London Eulogy
by
John Presco
Copyright 2021
On April 14, 2021 I posted on Jack London’s connection to Ian Fleming and James Bond. With the release of ‘No Time To Die’ that post has proved very prophetic. It was my goal to ground Ian Fleming and my Bond book in Belmont California co-founded by my great grandfather, Carl Janke. I was met with opposition that will be in my book ‘The London Eulogy’.
Martin Eden Comes Home To Belmont
Posted on March 24, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
Capturing Beauty
by
John Presco
Copyright 2021
With the discovery Jack London lived and worked in Belmont, I have grounded my life’s work, and the creative direction of several generations of my family. who were Belmont Pioneers. And San Francisco Pioneers who helped found Fruit Vale that became a part of Oakland.
Jack London helped found the City of Carmel with the help of George Serling who was a founder of the Bohemian Club. My sister Rosamond had two galleries in Carmel. I bring my grandfather genetic DNA to Belmont where I found this day ‘The Belmont Bohemians’. I bring Ludwig Wittgenstein to Belmont. Like London and Martin, he was a philosopher. Edgar Albee said you got to fight for your bench. I own Belmont in a Literary Way.
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press
Rosamond Crippled In Car Wreck | Rosamond Press
Black Mask Authors
Posted on July 28, 2013 by Royal Rosamond Press
This extremely rare photo of the first west coast Black Mask get-together on January 11, 1936 captures possibly the only meeting of several of these authors.
Pictured in the back row, from left to right, are Raymond J. Moffatt, Raymond Chandler, Herbert Stinson, Dwight Babcock, Eric Taylor and Dashiell Hammett. In the front row, again from left to right, are Arthur Barnes (?), John K. Butler, W. T. Ballard, Horace McCoy and Norbert Davis.
Rosemary told me her father, Royal Rosamond, used to sail to the Channel Islands and camp with his friend, Dashiell Hammett who is seen standing on the right in the photo above.
Aunt Lillian told me she would fall asleep listening to Royal and Erle Stanley Gardner on the typewriter in the living room. Royal was Gardner’s teacher and a member of the Black Mask. I believe I can almost recoginize Black Mask authors under the tree on Santa Cruz Island sitting under a tree with my grandmother, Mary Magdalene Rosamond, who does not look very happy as she embraces a black dog. Who is that woman? Is she a writer? She looks a bit crazed, as does the guy holding a gun. Is Mary hearing some far-out and weird ideas around the campfire?
When I was fifteen Rosemary showed me about six magazines wherein her father’s stories appeared. There were several mysteries. I am going to send the camping photo to some experts. That looks like Raymond Chandler in front of the tent. Is he the guy packing heat?
Hammett wrote the Maltese Falcon that begins with a story about the Knight Templars. Was this a tale passed around the campfire on Santa Cruz Island?
Jon Presco
Copyright 2013
Martin Eden Comes Home
Posted on December 31, 2019 by Royal Rosamond Press
The Second Coming of Martin Eden
by
John Presco
Copyright 2019
The child plays
The toy boat sails across the pond
The work now has just begun
Oh child
Look what you have done.
I could not believe Rosemary had given me her father’s ship lanterns that once hung in the cabin of his sail boat. It was the last tour we would take together of the secret treasures that lie at the bottom of her cedar chest. My mother let me thumb through several issues of Out West magazine while telling me her father was a writer and a poet, but, she never let me read the work of a man I never met, never saw face to face. When my best friend, Bill Arnold, told me Rosemary had shown him the evidence Royal Rosamond was a writer, I was puzzled, and jealous. What gives?
The Old California Barrel Company
Posted on March 24, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
Jack London studied Communism. I guessed at what the wharf area of Belmont looed like when I had Victoria Rosamond Bond, and Miriam Starfish Christling come to Belmont to investigate the California Barrel. Company. Jack’s parents were psychics, I believe involved in Remote Viewing. Company. I saw the coming War of Words between the United States and China. I posted on the facebook of Jon Rosamond yesterday. I introduced him to the Sea Lord Caspar John who is the son of the artist, Augustus John, who is kin to Ian Fleming. The Bohemian Ghost (Caspar) fleet has landed in Bohemian Belmont. The knight under White Mountain – ride out to meet the enemy!
When I began the Royal Janitor I founded a THINK TANK – my think tank! It sits at the end of this wharf in Bohemian Belmont. There is a fading sign facing the Bay….
‘The California Barrel Company’
Turn Verein Earthquake With Oktoberfest
Posted on March 4, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
Here is a fantastic article about my great grandfather, Carl Janke, rebuilding the Turn Verein Hall that was destroyed in the infamous 1906 Earthquake! Wow! This makes all members of my family SURVIVORS of one of the greatest Historic Events – IN HISTORY!!!!
Too bad I can’t post it on the Belmont Historical Society because I have been banned because I threatened all of the members that I would go to the Mayor of Belmont. Did they think I was going to get them in trouble – for not giving me a warm greeting, and inviting me to MC events at the next Oktoberfest! I’m gong to write the German Consulate and tell them how my plan to esteem the German People of the Bay Area was thwarted. I mean, other races from other nations are honored.
My mother’s favorite movie is Gone With The Wind, followed by ‘San Francisco. My father looked like Jimmy Stuart when young, and a bit like Clark. Vic was born in San Francisco. After THREATENING to make a movie about Belmont, on the Mayor’s facebook, he took down all my posts, and banned me! I was still being a BAD BOY, a roguish rebel who does not want to go along with the program. My history must be taken from me, and I sent to Siberia-Mont.
Rosemary Rosamond’s favorite movie of all time, is ‘Withering Heights’. She died knowing nothing of our roots in Belmont, where Carl – was just like Clark! She did not know we are kin to Robert-E. Lee. With Lawrence Ferlinghetti out of the way – I’m the King of San Francisco. See?
This morning I awoke, and felt THEM combing through this blog – to really get something on me. They gleefully found some real dirt – and have taken it to The Mayor!
“We found some good shit, your honor. Mr. Presco has an inflamed ego – out the here!’
“Who does he think he is – GOD!”
“Exactly! He’s been playing GOD with us. But, he’s a scallywag and a cad!”
Below is a photo of Janke’s descendants at General Vallejo’s house. Then at the Janke crypt. This family built, and helped rebuild – SAN FRANCISCO! Hit it boys!
Wait a minute! Hold your horses! I think ‘Sweet Home Belabama’ should be a musical!
John Presco
Copyright 2021
(52) Jeanette MacDonald sings ‘San Francisco’ – YouTube
(52) San Francisco – Scott McKenzie – YouTube
“Sweet Home Alabama” | Rosamond Press
(52) San Francisco Official Trailer #1 – Clark Gable Movie (1936) HD – YouTube
Daily Alta California 19 July 1864 — California Digital Newspaper Collection (ucr.edu)
San Francisco Call 14 August 1906 — California Digital Newspaper Collection (ucr.edu)
Unfaithful, too striking… why William Morris’s wife was painted out of the Arts and Crafts movement
This article is more than 1 year old
Jane Morris’s creative influence on her husband’s design empire has finally been revealed in a new book
Sun 5 Jun 2022 08.00 EDTShare
Revered for his textiles, his art and his socialism, William Morris is the celebrated leader of the Arts and Crafts movement, a renowned intellectual who revolutionised decorative art and design in Britain. His wife, Jane, meanwhile, has been relegated to the status of a silent muse.
Now, the first joint biography of the couple will shine a light on their personal and creative partnership, and reassert the rightful place of Jane Morris – a skilled embroiderer and talented designer – in the history books.
“Jane’s work has been undervalued and generally ignored,” said Suzanne Fagence Cooper, author of the forthcoming biography, How We Might Live. “She is seen as just a face and not as a maker with her own ideas.”
OAKLAND.
THOU rose-land! Oakland! thou, mine own!
Thou sun-land! leaf-land! land of seas
Wide crescented in walls of stone!
Thy lion’s mane is to the breeze!
Thy tawny, sunlit lion steeps
Leap forward, as the lion leaps!
And thou, the lion’s whelp, begot
Of Argonauts, in fearful strength
And supple beauty yieldeth naught!
Thine arm is as a river’s length.
Thy reach is foremost! Thou shalt be
The throned queen of this vast west sea!
Yet here sits peace; and rest sits here;
These wide-boughed oaks, they house wise men:
The student and the sage austere,
The men of wondrous thought and ken.
Here men of God in holy guise
Invoke the peace of paradise.
Be this my home till some fair star
Stoops earthward and shall beckon me;
For surely Godland lies not far
From these Greek heights and this great sea.
My friend, my lover, trend this way;
Not far along lies Arcady.
https://london.sonoma.edu/londons-writings/poetry
Remarks: My father was the first to bring portable houses to the city. I believe two were erected where Sherman & Clays Music store now stands (Sutter & Kearney). One on Montgomery Street on part of the lot now occupied by the D.O Mills building and two on Folsom Street near First All were covered with slate roofs. My two brothers wore the flag of the Old Fusilier Guard. A building company called California Fusiliers (German) of which Colonel Little was the captain. My father also built and managed the first Turn Verein Hall situated on Bush Street near Powell. The hall was dedicated Christmas Eve and all the people of note in the city attended the exercises.
Norbert And Mary Magdalene
Posted on August 27, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
Yesterday I owned a very clear picture of Garth and Drew Benton in Christine Benton’s
Dinner At Dante Rossetti’s
Posted on February 27, 2020 by Royal Rosamond Press
I am heir to the literary kingdoms of Tolkien, Fleming, and London. When I searched the internet for a replacement muse of Rena Easton, I gasped when I saw the three photographs of Lara Roozemond. If she was born in another time, and she came upon them, The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood would have fought bloody battles over her. Would Joaquin Miller join the fray?
There is a debate over the source of the name Rosamond. Some say it means “rose mouth”. Lara’s lips are like rose blossoms.
John Presco
John & John
Posted on June 15, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
Dinner at Rossetti’s
by Joaquin Miller
________________________________________
There is no thing that hath not worth;
There is no evil anywhere;
There is no ill on all this earth,
If man seeks not to see it there.
September 28. I cannot forget that dinner with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, just before leaving London, nor can I hope to recall its shining and enduring glory. I am a better, larger man, because of it. And how nearly our feet are set on the same way. It was as if we were all crossing the plains, and I for a day’s journey and a night’s encampment fell in with and conversed with the captains of the march.
But one may not gave names and dates and details over there as here. The home is entirely a castle. The secrets of the board and fireside are sacred. And then these honest toilers and worshippers of the beautiful are shy, so shy and modest. But I like this decent English way of keeping your name down and out of sight till the coffin-lid hides your blushes–so modest these Pre-Raphaelites are that I should be in disgrace forever if I dared set down any living man’s name.
But here are a few of the pearls picked up, as they were tossed about the table at intervals and sandwiched in between tales of love and lighter thoughts and things.
All London, or rather all the brain of London, the literary brain, was there. And the brain of all the world, I think, was in London. These giants of thought, champions of the beautiful earth, passed the secrets of all time and all lands before me like a mighty panorama. All night sol We dined so late that we missed breakfast. If I could remember and write down truly and exactly what these men said, I would have the best and the greatest book that ever was written, I have been trying a week in vain, I have written down and scratched out and revised till I have lost the soul of it, it seems to me; no individuality to it; only like my own stuff. If I only had set their words down on the next day instead of attempting to remember their thoughts! Alas! the sheaves have been tossed and beaten about over sea and land for days and days, till the golden grain is gone, and here is but the straw and chaff.
The master sat silent for the most part; there was a little man away down at the other end, conspicuously modest. There was a cynical fat man, and a lean philanthropist all sorts and sizes, but all lovers of the beautiful of earth. Here is what one, a painter, a ruddy-faced and a rollicking gentleman, remarked merrily to me as he poured out a glass of red wine at the beginning of the dinner:
“When travelling in the mountains of Italy, I observed that the pretty peasant women made the wine by putting grapes m a great tub, and then, getting into this tub, barefooted, on top of the grapes, treading them out with their brown, bare feet. At first I did not like to drink this wine. I did not think it was clean. But I afterward watched these pretty brown women” and here all leaned to listen, at the mention of pretty brown women– I watched these pretty brown women at their work in the primitive winepress, and I noticed that they always washed their feet after they got done treading out the wine.”
All laughed at this, and the red-faced painter was so delighted that he poured out and swallowed another full glass. The master sighed as he sat at the head of the table rolling a bit of bread between thumb and finger, and said, sitting close to me: “I am an Italian who has neven seen Italy. Belle Italia!…”
By and by he quietly said that silence was the noblest attitude in all things; that the greatest poets refused to write, and that all great artists in all lines were above the folly of expression. A voice from far down the table echoed this sentiment by saying:”Heard melodies are sweet; but unheard melodies are sweeter.” “Written poems are delicious; but unwritten poems are divine,” cried the triumphant cynic. “What is poetry?” cries a neighbor. “All true, pure life is poetry,” answers one. “But the inspiration of poetry?” “The art of poetry is in books. The inspiration of poetry in nature.” To this all agreed.
Then the master very quietly spoke: “And yet do not despise the books of man. All religions, said the Chinese philosophers, are good. The only difference is, some religions are better than others, and the apparent merit of each depends largely upon a mans capacity for understanding it. This is true of .poetry. All poetry is good. I never read a poem in my life that did not have some merit, and teach some sweet lesson. The fault in reading the poems of man, as well as reading the poetry of nature, lies largely at the door of the reader. Now, what do you call poetry?” and he turned his great Italian eyes tenderly to where I sat at his side.
To me a poem must be a picture,” I answered.
Proud I was when a great poet then said: “And it must be a picture–if a good poem so simple that you can understand it at a glance, eh? And see it and remember it as you would see and remember a sunset, eh?” “Aye,” answered the master, “I also demand that it shall be lofty in sentiment and sublime in expression. The only rule I have for measuring the merits of a written poem, is by the height of it. Why not be able to measure its altitude as you measure one of your sublime peaks of America?”
He looked at me as he spoke of America, and I was encouraged to answer:”Yes, I do not want to remember the words. But I do want it to remain with me a picture and become a part of my life. Take this one verse from Mr. Longfellow:
“And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.’”
“Good!” cried the fat cynic, who, I am sure, had never heard the couplet before, it was so sweet to him; “Good! There is a picture that will depart from no impressible clay. The silent night, the far sweet melody falling on the weary mind, the tawny picturesque Arabs stealing away m the darkness, the perfect peace, the stillness and the rest. It appeals to all the Ishmaelite in our natures, and all the time we see the tents gathered up and the silent children of the desert gliding away in the gloaming.”
A transplanted American, away down at the other end by a little man among bottles, said: “The poem of Evangeline is a succession of pictures. I never read Evangeline but once.” “It is a waste of time to look twice at a sunset,” said Rossetti, sotto voce, and the end man went on: “But i believe I can see every picture in that poem as distinctly as if I had been the unhappy Arcadian; for here the author has called in ail the elements that go to make up a perfect poem.”
“When the great epic of this new, solid Saxon tongue comes to be written,” said one who sat near and was dear to the master’s heart, “it will embrace all that this embraces: new and unnamed lands; ships on the sea; the still deep waters hidden away in a deep and voiceless continent; the fresh and fragrant wilderness; the curling smoke of the camp-fire; action, movement, journeys; the presence–the inspiring presence of woman; the ennobl- ing sentiment of love, devotion, and devotion to the death; faith, hope and charity,- and all in the open air.”
“Yes,” said the master thoughtfully, ‘no great poem has ever been or ever will be fitted in a parlor, or even fashioned from a city. There is not room for it there.”
“Hear! hear! you might as well try to grow a California pine in the shell of a peanut,” cried I. Some laughed, some applauded, all looked curiously at me. Of course, I did not say it that well, yet I did say it far better, I mean I did not use the words carefully, but I had the advantage of action and sympathy.
Then the master said, after a bit of reflection: “Homer’s Ulysses, out of which have grown books enough to cover the earth, owes its immortality to all this, and its out-door exercise. Yet it is a bloody book a bad book, in many respects–full of revenge, treachery, avarice and wrong. And old Ulysses himself seems to have been the most colossal liar on record. But for all this, the constant change of scene, the moving ships and the roar of waters, the rush of battle and the anger of the gods, the divine valor of the hero, and, above all, and over all, like a broad, white-bosomed moon through the broken clouds, the splendid life of that one woman; the shining faith, the constancy, the truth and purity of Penelope–all these make a series of pictures that pass before us like a panorama, and we will not leave off reading till we have seen them all happy together again, and been assured that the faith and constancy of that woman has had it reward. And we love him, even if he does lie!”
How all at that board leaned and listened. Yet let me again and again humbly confess to you that I do him such injustice to try thus to quote from memory. After a while he said: “Take the picture of the old, blind, slobber-mouthed dog, that has been driven forth by the wooers to die. For twenty years he has not heard the voice of his master. The master now comes, in the guise of a beggar. The dog knows his voice, struggles to rise from the ground, staggers toward him, licks his hand, falls, and dies at his feet.”
Such was the soul, heart, gentleness of this greatest man that I ever saw walking in the fields of art….
William Morris and Joaquin Miller
Posted on August 1, 2018by Royal Rosamond Press
Joaquin Miller had dinner with the Pre-Raphaelites and was my grandmother’s friend. This history is being compiled for the grant I am applying for. The history of the Pre-Raphaelites has not been discarded, thus, Kehinde Wiley has no right to claim it and hand it out to NOBODIES who don’t deserve it! I don’t give a rat’s ass what the color of their skin is, and how badly they were oppressed. Let them work for their bragging rights. Just because Wyley thinks he has immortalized these non-artists, does not give them any titles. I will see to that.
Miller built a monument to my kin, John Fremont, the first Presidential Candidate for the Abolitionist Republican Party, and the first to emancipate slaves, forcing Lincoln’s hand.
Honoring The Visions of George Miller
Posted on May 30, 2016by Royal Rosamond Press
I will be going out to Coburg today to plant another flower at the grave of George Miller, the brother of Joaquin Miller, a honorary member of the Bohemian Club that was a place for Bay Area Journalists to gather and compare notes. If Miller lived in the Bay Area, then he too would be a honorary member.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=29810634
Elizabeth Maude “Lischen” or “Lizzie” Cogswell married George Miller. Lizzie was the foremost literary woman in Oregon. On Feb. 6, 1897, Idaho Cogswell, married Feb. 6, 1897, Ira L. Campbell, who was editor, publisher and co-owner (with his brother John) of the Daily Eugene Guard newspaper. The Campbell Center is named after Ira.
The Wedding of John Cogswell to Mary Frances Gay, was the first recorded in Lane County where I registered my newspaper, Royal Rosamond Press. Idaho Campbell was a charter member of the Fortnightly Club that raised funds for the first Eugene Library.
George Melvin Miller was a frequent visitor to ‘The Hights’ his brothers visionary utopia where gathered famous artists and writers in the hills above my great grandfather’s farm. The Miller brothers promoted Arts and Literature, as well as Civic Celebrations. Joaquin’s contact with the Pre-Raphaelites in England, lent credence to the notion that George and Joaquin were Oregon’s Cultural Shamans, verses, he-men with big saw cutting down trees.
A year ago I received in the mail a book I ordered on E-Bay. I quickly scanned it to see if their were any illustrations or photographs. Then, I found it, what amounts to my personal Holy Grail. Joaquin Miller dedicated his book of poems ‘Songs of The Sun-Land’ to the Rossetti family that includes Gabriel, Michael, and, Christine. Gabriel was a artist and poet, Michael, a publisher, and Christine, a poet.
“TO THE ROSSETTIS”
Gabriel, who had Joaquin over to his house for dinner, where he met several members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Miller sends Michael a photograph of himself, and is sent a photo. This photo may be the famous one taken by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who is better known as Lewis Carrol the author of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. If Joaquin had glued this portrait to a piece of paper, then we might have seen it on the dedication page.
What is going on here is extremely profound. Miller has exported his vision and lifestyle to the England, where he wrote Song of the Sierras, and now he is importing to America a cultural brand that contains Grail and Arthurian subject matter that was at the epicenter of the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Lewis Carrol posed two children as Fair Rosamond and Queen Eleanore. I associate Fairmount with Rosamond. Johnnny Depp is starring in another Alice in Wonderland movie. Eugene can celebrate our Land of Make Believe, our White Rabbit made famous by the Jefferson Airplane. I stood before the Mayor of Eugene and suggested a Newspaper Museum at Kesey Square wherein is a model of Miller’s Fantastic Flying Machine. We could build a parade around this contraptions, a world contest that would bring creative people to our Fair City. Children would love this! They too would be in costume for the White Rabbit Run!
Here is what amounts to MY FANTASTIC MOVIE shot in Eugene. What an Amazing Journey is has been!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Club
Juanita Miller ‘The White Witch’
Posted on December 6, 2014by Royal Rosamond Press
Joaquin Miller, William Morris & Me
Posted on August 5, 2013by Royal Rosamond Press
Christine Rosamond Benton and I were drawn into Tolkien’s Trilogy. The artist known as ‘Rosamond’ could not put these books down, nr could I. This caused our mutual friend, Keith Purvis, a British subject, to comment;
“She doesn’t know these books are real.”
We three were original hippies who took the Lord of the Rings to heart as we modified the modern world, made it over more to our liking, we oblivious to what normal folk were about. This is exactly what William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelite Brother and Sisterhood did. They – returned!
I discovered the Pre-Raphaelites in 1969 and let my hair grow long for the first time. I gave up drugs in 1967 and was looking for a spiritual format. I came under the spell of the Rossetti family who were friendly with Joaquin Miller. We Presco children knew Miller’s daughter as ‘The White Witch’ and we would call her for advice. Miller’s home ‘The Abbye’ was above our home in the Oakland Hills. Our kindred were friends of Miller, who was also a friend of Swineburn, who wrote ‘The Queen-Mother and Rosamund’ and ‘Rosamund Queen of Lombards. Tolkien was inspired by the Lombards.
Filed away in Rosamond’s probate is my plea to the executor to allow me to be my sister’s historian. I mention Miller and Rossetti. I saw myself in the role of Michael Rossetti who had his own publishing company. He published Miller and other famous poets. When I was twelve, my mother read evidence I might become a famous poet.
All my imput has been ruthlessly ignored, because petty un-creative minds have forced our families creative legacy down the tiny holes of their hidden agendas, into the mouths of worms and parasites, because these ignorant people sensed I and the real Art World, did not let them in the door – would never admit them into our circle, our ring of genius!
Jon Presco
Copyright 2011
William Morris had a major influence on J. R. R. Tolkien. As John Garth points out, unlike most authors traumatized by the experience of World War I, Tolkien did not “discard the old ways of writing, the classicism or medievalism championed by Lord Tennyson and William Morris. In his hands these traditions were reinvigorated so that they remain powerfully alive for readers today” (40). His love of Morris, in particular, goes back to his undergraduate days when he turned from studying the Greek and Latin classics to the the northern traditions — the language and literature of the Scandinavian and Germanic past. According Garth,
William Morris, from the late 1870s on, decided to “remedy” the defects of the real historical record by producing specific works of “pseudo-history,” fully-fleshed stories that he could present as “re-discovered” manuscripts of ancient tribal lore. So eager were the Germanic speakers of 19th century Europe to know more about their ancestors, that sometimes even academically trained scholars would be fooled by the books Morris wrote, and asked him for his sources, and wanted to read the original saga manuscripts themselves. To which requests Morris replied “Doesn’t the fool realize, that it’s a romance, a work of fiction — that it’s all lies!” (from May Morris, daughter of W. Morris recollections).
JRRT, a generation later than Morris, got in on the tail end of this nationalistic/ romantic period, and became as fully enmeshed in its allures as Morris. Tolkien went on to “sub-create” his own “pseudo-histories,” manufacturing his versions of the source myths that would allow a richer understanding of the Nordic tradition, especially the Anglo-Saxon phenomena of England. Between them, as much by accident as firm intent, Morris and Tolkien established an entire genre of pseudo-history that has, by now in the 21st century, become one of the most popular fields of literature.
“These two men knew either much (Morris) or most (Tolkien) of all that was known about these [northern] people and their lives. They used that wealth of knowledge to create ‘dreamed realities’ (Morris) or an ‘imaginary history’ (Tolkien) about what it might have been like to live in those days. While what they wrote wasn’t necessarily true in a strict sense, both knew enough about the past and were talented enough as writers that what they wrote created a strong sense that they described what might have been.” ( Michael W. Perry, More to William Morris, p. 7, 2003)
So, the question then becomes, for Tolkien readers, how does Morris stand up to JRRT? Is it worth the money to buy Morris’s books? Will I get the same, or at least a very similar thrill from reading them as I get when running through the pages of LotR and The Hobbit? Well, that’s what I am trying to decide in the next few installments of this topic. How do the works of the two authors compare, in what ways are they similar, in what ways do they differ?
http://tolkiensring.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=authors&action=display&thread=675
Joaquin Miller looked me up at Somerset House, and left with me
the remaining proofs of his forthcoming volume. He showed me the dedication, ‘To the Rossettis.’ I strongly recommended him to write direct to Gabriel as to the matter before anything further is done. I mentioned the dedication to Christina. She feels some hesitation in sanctioning it, not knowing what the book may contain. If she makes up her mind to object, she is to write to Miller. I looked through the proofs and noted down some remarks on them. They include a series of poems about Christ, named Olive Leaves, implying a sort of religious, or at least personal, enthusiasm, mixed up with a good deal that has more relation to a sense of the picturesque than of the devotional. These poems, though far from worthless from their own point of view, are very defective, and would, I think be highly obnoxious to many readers and Reviewers. I have suggested to Miller the expediency of omitting them altogether. – Christina, I find, has already read these particular poems, and to some considerable extent likes them, which is so far in their favour as affecting religious readers”
The wider world of Victorian London is present: Turgenev comes to dinner, Browning sends his new volumes, Swinburne arrives drunk, and the American poet and adventurer Joaquin Miller makes himself known to the Rossetti circle. Nine appendices include five devoted to Poems and one to the Fleshly School controversy.
Joaquin Miller Cabin is located in Washington, DC. The Hights, the Oakland home Miller built at the end of his life, is currently known as the Joaquin Miller House and is part of Joaquin Miller Park. He planted the surrounding trees and he personally built, on the eminence to the north, his own funeral pyre and monuments dedicated to Moses, General John C. Frémont, and the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The Japanese poet Yone Noguchi began his literary career while living in the cabin adjoining Millers’ during the latter half of the 1890s. The Hights was purchased by the city of Oakland in 1919 and can be found in Joaquin Miller Park.[42] It is now a designated California Historical Landmark.
Miller went to England, where he was celebrated as a frontier oddity. There, in May 1871, Miller published Songs of the Sierras, the book which finalized his nickname as the “Poet of the Sierras”.[22] It was well-received by the British press and members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, particularly Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Michael Rossetti.
While in England, he was one of the few Americans invited into the Savage Club along with Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel Hawthorne. The younger Hawthorne referred to Miller as “a licensed libertine” but admitted him “charming, amiable, and harmless”.[
The Savage Club was formed to supply the want which Dr Samuel Johnson and his friends experienced when they founded the Literary Club. A little band of authors, journalists and artists felt the need of a place of reunion where, in their hours of leisure, they might gather together and enjoy each other’s society, apart from the publicity of that which was known in Johnson’s time as the coffee house, and equally apart from the chilling splendour of the modern club.
At present, there are 315 members. The club maintains a tradition of fortnightly dinners for members and their guests, always followed by entertainment. These dinners often feature a variety of famous performers from music hall to concert hall. Several times a year members invite ladies to share both the dinner and the entertainment — sometimes as performers. On these occasions guests always include widows of former Savages, who are known as Rosemaries (after rosemary, a symbol of remembrance).
Born in London, he was a son of immigrant Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti, and the brother of Maria Francesca Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Georgina Rossetti.
He was one of the seven founder members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848, and became the movement’s unofficial organizer and bibliographer. He edited the Brotherhood’s literary magazine The Germ which published four issues in 1850 and wrote the poetry reviews for it.
It was William Michael Rossetti who recorded the aims of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood at their founding meeting in September 1848:
1. To have genuine ideas to express;
2. To study nature attentively, so as to know how to express them;
3. To sympathize with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote;
4. And most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.
Although Rossetti worked full time as a civil servant, he maintained a prolific output of criticism and biography across a range of interests from Algernon Swinburne to James McNeill Whistler. He edited the diaries of his maternal uncle John William Polidori (author of The Vampyre and physician to Lord Byron), a comprehensive biography of D. G. Rossetti, and edited the collected works of D. G. Rossetti and Christina Rossetti.
Rossetti edited the first British edition of the poetry of Walt Whitman, which was published in 1868; however, this edition was bowdlerized.[1] Anne Gilchrist, who became one of the first to write about Whitman, first read his poetry from Rossetti’s edition, and Rossetti helped initiate their correspondence.[2]
In 1874 he married Lucy Madox Brown, daughter of the painter Ford Madox Brown. They honeymooned in France and Italy. Their first child, Olivia Frances Madox, was born in September 1875, and her birth was celebrated in an ode of Swinburne.
William Michael Rosetti was a major contributor to the 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica; his contributions on artistic subjects were criticised by many reviewers at the time and since, as showing little evidence of having absorbed the mounting body of work by academic art historians, mostly writing in German.
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