Steven J. Venturino
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sjventurino.bsky.social
Steven J. Venturino
@sjventurino.bsky.social
340 followers 330 following 170 posts
Victorian serial fiction & early film. Wrote a book on literary theory & criticism. Silent reading is very important. www.stevenjventurino.com
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Rollin's got all the feels. My upcoming virtual classes at the Newberry Library include "Watching and Reading Shakespeare's Hamlet" and "A Serial Reading of George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss." Available to all. Details to come.
Rollin Hand (played by Martin Landau in the TV series Mission Impossible), holds one hand to his belly in what can only be described as cautiously rapt anticipation. His other hand is on the handle of a glass door indicating that adult education classes are held inside the building. At the upper right, a sign also promises "floor show."
November 14, 2025 at 6:04 PM
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Another great silent film version of Dickens. This time, David Copperfield ( Denmark 1922, directed by A. W. Sandberg). Spoiler alert for readers of Danish. www.dfi.dk/en/viden-om-...
October 3, 2025 at 10:19 PM
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Another wonderful Danish silent film adaptation of Dickens: Great Expectations, 1922. Directed by A. W. Sandberg. www.dfi.dk/en/viden-om-...
October 1, 2025 at 8:07 PM
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This week in Dickens's Our Mutual Friend. Boffin and Wegg near the Bower, in a still from the 1921 Danish silent film version, direct by A. W. Sandberg. Check out the amazing Danish Silent Film website for (most of this) film and more. www.stumfilm.dk/en/stumfilm/...
Two men shake hands at the garbage-strewn dust-heaps near Boffin's Bower, which is the small two-story house behind them. The blue tinting of the image indicates it is evening or night.
September 30, 2025 at 4:13 PM
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‘Come for the stuffed canary.’
‘It’s three and ninepence,’ returns Venus; ‘have you got the money?’
This week in Dickens's Our Mutual Friend: Mr Venus and his art, by Marcus Stone, for the novel's 2nd installment. Copy held by the Newberry Library Special Collections, Case PR4568 .A1 1865.
Mr Wegg with his wooden leg, sitting by the fire. Mr Venus handing a young man a box. Note dueling stuffed frogs at top right. Mr Venus, the young man, and Wegg, in the taxidermy shop. Skeleton, resting, and stuffed monkey, stray skull and bones. Note signature for the engravers, the Dalziel brothers.
September 20, 2025 at 8:11 PM
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September 2, 2025 at 2:54 AM
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August 29, 2025 at 2:27 AM
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Another amazing day at the Newberry Library in Chicago, sitting with original installments of Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend. Illustrations by Marcus Stone.
Detail of the monthly cover of Charles Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend. Illustrations by Marcus Stone. This shows a bespectacled man with a wooden leg named Silas Marner sitting at a little table with a book. A partial glimpse of a startled man below, and a woman comforting someone to the right side. Photo taken at the Newberry Library Special Collections, call number PR4568.A1.1865
August 26, 2025 at 6:02 PM
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This fall, spend Tuesday afternoons with Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens's complex, entertaining, and final masterpiece of corruption and renewal. A Newberry Library Adult Education class—Join from anywhere. stevenjventurino.com/fall-2025-a-...
August 23, 2025 at 5:02 PM
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Chicago. One for winky west.
August 21, 2025 at 3:00 PM
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Source and shadow in Chicago for @twager.bsky.social
August 1, 2025 at 3:17 PM
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New summer class explores Kazuo Ishiguro’s mythic meditation on mortality, love, and art, followed by a close look at the film adaptation of Never Let Me Go.
www.newberry.org/calendar/nev...
Image of a small pile of cassette tapes.
May 24, 2025 at 7:34 PM
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National treasure. RIP Ruthie.
Ruth Buzzi, as Busy Buzzi the celebrity gossip reporter (a Laugh-In character), signing off at the end of the bit with “Bye, from Buzzi.” She’s wearing a nice big hat.
May 2, 2025 at 1:55 PM
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Happy Birthday George Henry Lewes.
A birthday-card image with the text “George Henry Lewes April 18.” Lewes is a bearded, frazzly-haired, good-humored Victorian gentleman, sitting here in a jacket, vest, tie, and light slacks for a photograph with Pug, the dog he took care of with his life partner, the novelist George Eliot. The photo was taken by Charles & John Watkins around 1864. I have added birthday hats to George and Pug, a cake with candles, and three festive stars to the photo.
April 18, 2025 at 2:23 PM
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Image from Singin’ in the Rain. Cosmo throws a calendar with today’s date into the sink as Kathy says “Yes. And what a lovely morning!” Don watches with a dreamy smile in one-quarter profile.
March 24, 2025 at 1:42 PM
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Good times
March 7, 2025 at 3:25 AM
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February 19, 2025 at 1:49 AM
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Early film animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger’s poster, “The Tenth Muse,” with cut-out silhouette images of the nine traditional muses, plus the muse of cinema, “Cinoterpe,” rushing in with a reel of film.
February 1, 2025 at 4:56 PM
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“Looking round at the company with unearthly eyes.”
An illustration by Percy Tarrant, from the Collins’ Illustrated Pocket Classics edition of George Eliot’s Silas Marner. The caption reads, “Looking round at the company with unearthly eyes.” A standing man is, in fact, looking at the (similarly) amazed faces of two other seated men in a pub. Another fellow standing and holding a tankard looks surprised as well. Detail from an illustration by Percy Tarrant, from the Collins’ Illustrated Pocket Classics edition of George Eliot’s Silas Marner. The caption reads, “Looking round at the company with unearthly eyes.” A standing man is, in fact, looking at the (similarly) amazed faces of two other seated men in a pub. Another fellow standing and holding a tankard looks surprised as well.
January 27, 2025 at 8:15 PM
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Coming soon: Read & discuss George Eliot's Middlemarch in eight progressive sessions, starting March 6. We'll meet Thursday afternoons, via Zoom, as part of the wonderful Newberry Library Adult Education Program. For details see stevenjventurino.com. To register see www.newberry.org/calendar/mid...
Notice for a Newberry Library Adult Education class. The text reads, The Newberry Library, A Serial Reading of George Eliot's Middlemarch, Taught by Steven J. Venturino, Thursdays 3/6 to 4/24, 2-4pm, Virtual, 8 sessions. The accompanying image is a portion of a water-color painting titled "Coventry in the Distance," by Sydney John Bunney, showing two small figures in the foreground, one in a white dress with a bright reddish bow, the other in a brown dress and what looks like a jaunty cap. In the background, the spreading verdant landscape extends to a horizon in the distance on which the tiny spires of a city can be seen.
January 14, 2025 at 7:32 PM
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Neat little (6”x4”) volume of George Eliot’s Middlemarch, with illustrations by A. A. Dixon, published around 1910 as part of the Collins’ Illustrated Pocket Classics series.
Page spread with title page and frontispiece of Middlemarch, vol. 2. On the left is an illustration with the caption, “Will, leaning towards her, clasped both her upraised hands.” The illustration shows a man with big swoopy hair (light in color) holding the hands of a brightly dressed woman in the foreground and gazing intently at her. In the background, a darkly dressed woman looks on, with her head cocked a bit to her right in a calm questioning manner. On the right side is the title page with the text, Middlemarch Vol. II, George Eliot, Illustrated by A. A. Dixon, London & Glasgow, Collins’ Clear-Type Press. In the center is an illustration of a seated man reading a book. A little winged angel frames each side of the publisher’s information at the bottom of the page.
January 14, 2025 at 4:47 PM
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You’ve been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who is coming to save you?
January 5, 2025 at 5:44 PM
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Okay 2025, let’s go.
Cover image (pasted onto the inside front cover) from George Eliot’s Adam Bede, the Collins Illustrated Pocket Edition, printed somewhere in the 1920s. The edition’s illustrations are by A. Pearse, and this one shows a plainly dressed fellow with his arm extended because he has just struck a rather well-dressed fellow, who is shown reeling back, squarely in the face. We get the impression this was justified.
January 4, 2025 at 10:24 PM
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“Dr Hamburger usefully reminds us that the fictional world is a verbally created world, not to be confused with the real world.” - David Lodge
Cover of David Lodge’s book, Language of Fiction, first published in 1966. This 2002 Routledge edition features a cover image of black-rimmed glasses, set diagonally behind the words “Lodge” and “Language of Fiction.”
January 3, 2025 at 5:09 PM
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Bowie (in shades) and a bottle of Beefeater.
December 29, 2024 at 4:29 AM