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Guttersnipe

Just a critter in the Gutter.

“Insect Jewelry of the Victorian Era”

At JSTOR Daily, Amelia Soth writes about fashionable Victorians and their insect jewelry. “The wing-cases of gold-enameled weevils hung from necklaces; muslin gowns were embroidered with the iridescent green elytra of jewel beetles. Tiny golden scarabs were glued to the petals of artificial flowers. Delicate moths were perched […]

“The Hat Pin Peril”

“On the afternoon of May 28, 1903, Leoti Blaker, a young Kansan touring New York City, boarded a Fifth Avenue stagecoach at 23rd Street and settled in for the ride. The coach was crowded, and when it jostled she noticed that the man next to her settled himself […]

“The Crime of Blackness”

At the New Yorker, Christine Smallwood looks at Dorothy B. Hughes’ “forgotten Noir,” The Expendable Man (1963). “The creation of difference itself was her subject. Her books were widely praised for their atmospheres of fear and suspense, and criticized when they reached, as the New York Times said […]