Oliver Twist; or, the Parish Boy's Progress is Charles Dickens's second novel, and was published as a serial from 1837 to 1839 and released as a three-volume book in 1838, before the serialisation ended.   The story centres on orphan Oliver Twist, born in a workhouse and sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker.  After escaping, Oliver travels to London, where he meets the "Artful Dodger", a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin.  Oliver Twist contains an unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid lives, and exposes the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-19th century.  The alternative title, The Parish Boy's Progress, alludes to Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, as well as the 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress and A Harlot's Progress.  In this early example of the social novel, Dickens satirises the hypocrisies of his time, including child labour, domestic violence, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children.  The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of working as a child labourer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s.  It is likely that Dickens's own experiences as a youth contributed as well.  Oliver Twist has been the subject of numerous adaptations, including a highly successful musical play, Oliver!, and the multiple Academy Award-winning 1968 motion picture.  Disney also put its spin on the novel with the animated film called Oliver & Company in 1988.  Read much more, see graphics and a list of adaptations at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Twist 

The war in California between Mexico and the United States ended with a treaty signed (in 1847) in a small adobe mission known as Campo de Cahuenga.  The mission was preserved, but it now stood invisible and unnoticed, hidden in plain sight by freeway ramps, parking lots and two strange towers marking the entrance to a subway station.  The Watchman (Elvis Cole, #11; Joe Pike, #1), a novel by Robert Crais  See https://waterandpower.org/museum/Early_Views_of_Cahuenga_Pass.html and https://www.laparks.org/historic/campo-de-cahuenga and http://www.militarymuseum.org/Cahuenga.html

John Milton coined the phrase 'silver lining' in his poem Comus:  A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634.   'Clouds' and 'silver linings' were referred to often in literature from then onward, usually citing Milton and frequently referring to them as Milton's clouds.  It isn't until the days of the uplifting language of Victoria's England that we begin to hear the proverbial form that we are now familiar with--'every cloud has a silver lining'.  The first occurrence that unequivocally expresses that notion comes in The Dublin Magazine, Volume 1, 1840, in a review of the novel Marian; or, a Young Maid's Fortunes, by Mrs S. Hall, which was published in 1840.  The currently used 'every cloud has a silver lining' first appeared, in another literary review, in 1849.  The New Monthly Belle Assemblée, Volume 31, included what purported to be a quotation from Mrs. Hall's book.  In fact the text they printed, "Every cloud has a silver lining", was actually a misprint.  It didn't appear in Marian, which merely reproduced Milton's original text.  Despite being printed in error, the New Monthly Belle Assemblée entry does appear to be the first use of the proverb as we now use it.  The proverb very quickly gained public acceptance.  It appears very frequently in newspapers, on both sides of the Atlantic, from 1853 onward.  This was undoubtedly due to the work of the American writer Sarah Payson Parton.  She had been commissioned by the editor of the Home Journal magazine to write a weekly motivational essay on various topics, under the pen-name of Fanny Fern.  These became very popular and Parton soon became the highest paid writer in the USA.  One of her best-known essays was a piece of purple prose entitled Nil desperandum, which included "Every cloud has a silver lining" in the first line and which was published in 1853.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining.html  See Nil desperandum by “Fanny Fern” at http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/sentimnt/snesffa8t.html

Fanny Fern (born Sara Payson Willis; 1811–1872), was an American novelist, children's writer, humorist, and newspaper columnist in the 1850s to 1870s.  Fern's popularity has been attributed to her conversational style and sense of what mattered to her mostly middle-class female readers.  By 1855, Fern was the highest-paid columnist in the United States, commanding $100 per week for her New York Ledger column.   A collection of her columns published in 1853 sold 70,000 copies in its first year.  Her best-known work, the fictional autobiography Ruth Hall (1854), has become a popular subject among feminist literary scholars.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Fern 

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

canary  (kuh-NAYR-ee)  noun  1.  A small finch, native to the Canary Islands, having greenish to yellow color, and known for its melodious song.  2.  A bright yellow color.  3.  A singer.  4.  An informer.  From French canari (canary), from Spanish canario (canary; of the Canary Islands), from Latin canis (dog).   Ultimately from the Indo-European root kwon- (dog), which also gave us canine, chenille (from French chenille:  caterpillar, literally, little dog), kennel, canary, hound, dachshund, corgi, cynic, cynosure, canaille, canicular, and cynophobia.  Earliest documented use:  1568. 

The New York Ledger was a weekly story paper published in Manhattan.  It was established in 1855 by Robert E. Bonner, by transforming the weekly financial journal called The Merchant's Ledger that he had purchased in 1851.  Bonner turned the paper over to three sons to operate in 1887.  The date of last issue was 1898, when it was changed to The Ledger Monthly, which disappeared by 1903.   Notable contributors included Ethel Lynn Beers, Sylvanus Cobb, Jr. (The Gunmaker of Moscow), Fanny Fern (whose first column appeared in 1855), William H. Peck, and E. D. E. N. Southworth (The Hidden Hand, among many others).  The Ledger's principles were denoted to be "devoted", "choice literature", "romance", "the news", and "commerce".  The Ledger also regularly published some of the most popular mid-century women poets including Sarah M. B. Piatt, Lydia Sigourney, and the Cary sisters, Alice and Phoebe.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Ledger

Dox Thrash (1893–1965) was an African-American artist who was famed as a skilled draftsman, printmaker, and painter of African American life and as the co-inventor of the Carborundum printmaking process.  The artist spent much of his career living and working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  After having served in the war, Thrash qualified as a war veteran and enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago with the support of federal funding.  After finishing his education, he traveled intermittently from Georgia to Chicago, Boston, New York, and finally Philadelphia, working odd jobs--experiences that provided him with subject matter to later paint.  Settling in Philadelphia by 1925, he took a job working as a janitor.  In his free time, he continued his art career and used his talent to create emblems, like for the North Philadelphia Businessmen's Association, and posters in exhibitions and festivals, including the 2nd Annual National Negro Music Festival and the Tra Club of Philadelphia.  This gained him local recognition and opened doors for new artistic endeavors.  By 1929, Thrash found himself attending nightly classes within these clubs, namely with Earl Horter of the Graphic Sketch Club, now known as the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial.  In 1937 Thrash joined the government-sponsored Works Progress Administration (WPA)'s Federal Art Project.  Through the WPA, Thrash began working at the Fine Print Workshop of Philadelphia.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dox_Thrash  See also https://philamuseum.org/doc_downloads/education/ex_resources/doxThrash.pdf

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2375  June 9, 2021