Henry James dies in London at the age of 72 on this day in 1916 after suffering a stroke two months earlier. As a young boy, James was tutored by governesses and shuttled back and forth between Europe and America. He went to Harvard Law School and was set to be a “man of letters” writing criticisms and essays. But today, James is most well-known as a novelist and with […]
ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA — There’s something familiar about the largest private residence in the United States. Not that it looks like any house I’ve ever been inside nor even the grandest hotel I’ve ever stayed in on my travels (or ducked into to find a public washroom while pretending I was a guest). It was the Downton Abbey connection. Watching Downton Abbey before my arrival in Asheville, North Carolina where George […]
Oct. 13: In 1686, wigmaker and bookseller Allan Ramsay was born in Lanarkshire and later start Scotland’s first lending library around 1720 in Edinburgh.
