Just posted on First Folios: a look at The Complete Sherlock Holmes. https://open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p/the-complete-sherlock-holmes?
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Rob Spence
@Spencro@mastodon.social
mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06Former Eng Lit academic. I am interested in all sorts of literature, especially modern and contemporary literary fiction. I have written about Ford Madox Ford, Louis de Bernieres, Wyndham Lewis, Penelope Fitzgerald, Robert Nye, but mainly about Anthony Burgess, a fellow Mancunian. Trying to learn Italian.
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Joined October 30, 2022
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Just posted on First Folios: a look at Dante’s masterpiece. https://open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p/the-divine-comedy?
Just published on First Folios: a jaunt up the Thames with Jerome K Jerome.
https://open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p/three-men-in-a-boat?
Just up on First Folios: Bassani's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.
https://open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p/the-garden-of-the-finzi-continis?
Latest at First Folios: Shakespeare's Life and World. https://open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p/katherine-duncan-jones-shakespeares?
Just posted on First Folios: a look at Henry Mayhew's account of the poor in Victorian London.
https://open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p/london-characters-and-london-crooks?
Latest review: the poems of William Tait: https://shinynewbooks.co.uk/a-day-between-weathers-collected-poems-1938-1978-by-william-j-tait
Just posted on First Folios: a look at Rumpole, John Mortimer's immortal barrister.
https://rob611.substack.com/p/rumpole
Replying to
Just posted on First Folios: a look at Keith Thomas's magnificent Religion and the Decline of Magic.
https://open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p/religion-and-the-decline-of-magic?
Previewing a forthcoming series of posts on First Folios: https://open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p/italian-cities
Latest from me on First Folios: Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. https://open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p/doctor-faustus?
Just posted on First Folios: Giuseppe di Lampedusa's classic The Leopard. https://rob611.substack.com/p/the-leopard
A new post on First Folios, looking at Charles Dickens in Europe.
Latest on the blog: a look at a classic from America's gilded age. https://robspence.org.uk/2026/04/20/fifty-classics-1-the-house-of-mirth/
Another classic news QTWTAIN: Could saunas become the 'new pub' when it comes to socialising? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c625jp08zl1o
Latest review: Rebecca Solnit’s timely polemic: https://shinynewbooks.co.uk/the-beginning-comes-after-the-end-notes-on-a-world-of-change-by-rebecca-solnit
A classic QTWTAIN Would ex-Google boss Matt Brittin be the right person to steer the BBC? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9mz082y5go
Replying to
@the_roamer@mastodonapp.uk They look lovely! It's remarkable how embedded Sherlock Holmes has become in the English consciousness. Instantly recognisable even by those who have never read a word of Conan Doyle. Those volumes look like a great investment, but I'll stick with the Folio ed. at least for now.
A publisher's email newsletter begins its description of a new book "Beloved by readers on TikTok..." Is this supposed to convince me to buy it?
Found postcard in a second-hand book purchase today. I endorse this message.
My latest dispatch from fifty years ago, this time going all medieval:
https://robspence.org.uk/2026/03/15/middling-english/