Queen Victoria at her writing desk in 1891.
• This week marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. A collection of Alice-related ephemera, including drawings, poems, and letters are available in an online exhibition presented by the Morgan Library. (Morgan Library)
• “Somewhere, a child is hearing a bedtime story about kindly Jefferson Davis and brave Nathan Bedford Forrest. This toxic version of the South may not rise again, but its stories linger on.” Teaching children an alternate version of history using picture books in the American South. (Slate)
• Pompeii’s ruins have been a destination for researchers and tourists alike since the eighteenth century. Now, decades of poor management and natural disasters have jeopardized its status as one of the world’s most-beloved ancient sites. (Smithsonian)
• “Hundreds of families volunteered to take children, and money trickled in from donors—not enough to cover all the costs, but Mr. Winton made up the difference himself. He also appealed to the Home Office for entry visas, but the response was slow and time was short. ‘This was a few months before the war broke out,’ he recalled. ‘So we forged the Home Office entry permits.’” Nicholas Winton died this week at the age of 106. During World War II, he orchestrated the escape of more than 600 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia—and kept it a secret for more than 50 years. (New York Times)
• “Wallace has been transformed into an idol of quasi-moral veneration, the bard of ironic self-loathing transformed into a beacon of earnest self-help. And now that he comes to the screen, bandanna and ad hoc spittoon in tow, he stands to become a hero to audiences who haven’t read a word of his work. The cult could become a church.” As a new film attempts to bring David Foster Wallace the character to the screen, a look at what David Foster Wallace the writer has meant to different kinds of readers. (New York Magazine)
• “If the Brontës’ things feel haunted in some way, like Emily’s desk and its contents, then the amethyst bracelet made from the entwined hair of Emily and Anne is positively ghost-ridden.” Understanding three literary sisters through their objects. (Longreads)
• “It was the Pan American Coffee Bureau that invented the ‘coffee break’ in a 1952 campaign, thereby giving us a socially sanctioned reason to leave the cubicle and grab a latte to go. The bureau also created the notion of ‘getting one for the road’ as a safety measure to keep us from falling asleep on America’s Interstate highway system. Coffee gave an edge to great Americans who drove too much and toiled too hard.” The to-go cup of coffee as symbol for the essence of being American. (Pacific Standard)
• What we’d do with an extra 6,200 pounds this week: buy a pair of Queen Victoria’s underpants. (BBC)