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This is the time of year when I think of the brave lovers, the unsung lovers, the well-known lovers and the unstrung lovers.
Poor Charlie Brown with his on-going wish to be noticed by the little red-haired girl and his sad lack of Valentines comes to mind first. It is lucky that he has Snoopy to console him.
Can Schroeder be blamed for ignoring the ever present Lucy?
Snoopy has Woodstock who admires him and Peppermint Patty has a crush on “Chuck”.
It is all very complicated in the Peanuts world as written by Charles M. Schulz.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The Eternal Triangle is also a basic love problem. Tragedy strikes when two lovers are separated by a third.
King Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot are immortal legends.
There are the star-crossed lovers who break our heart.
Romeo and Juliet and Tristan and Isolde are first on this list. Heathcliff and Cathy of Wuthering Heights are not far behind.
Happy Ever After couples are Leia and Han Solo of Star Wars, Aragorn and Arwen, Cinderella and her Prince Charming, and Sam Gamgee and "Rosie" Cotton.
Unstrung lovers? Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Wiki says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Eleanor's marriage to Henry was reputed to be tumultuous and argumentative, although sufficiently cooperative to produce at least eight pregnancies. Henry was by no means faithful to his wife and had a reputation for philandering. Henry fathered other illegitimate children throughout the marriage. Eleanor appears to have taken an ambivalent attitude towards these affairs: for example, Geoffrey of York, an illegitimate son of Henry, was acknowledged by Henry as his child and raised at Westminster in the care of the Queen.
The period between Henry's accession and the birth of Eleanor's youngest son was turbulent: Aquitaine, as was the norm, defied the authority of Henry as Eleanor's husband; attempts to claim Toulouse, the rightful inheritance of Eleanor's grandmother and father, were made, ending in failure; the news of Louis of France's widowhood and remarriage was followed by the marriage of Henry's son (young Henry) to Louis' daughter Marguerite; and, most climactically, the feud between the King and Thomas Becket, his Chancellor, and later Archbishop of Canterbury. Little is known of Eleanor's involvement in these events. By late 1166, and the birth of her final child, however, Henry's notorious affair with Rosamund Clifford had become known, and her marriage to Henry appears to have become terminally strained.
1167 saw the marriage of Eleanor's third daughter, Matilda, to Henry the Lion of Saxony; Eleanor remained in England with her daughter for the year prior to Matilda's departure to Normandy in September. Afterwards, Eleanor proceeded to gather together her movable possessions in England and transport them on several ships in December to Argentan. At the royal court, celebrated there that Christmas, she appears to have agreed to a separation from Henry. Certainly, she left for her own city of Poitiers immediately after Christmas. Henry did not stop her; on the contrary, he and his army personally escorted her there, before attacking a castle belonging to the rebellious Lusignan family. Henry then went about his own business outside Aquitaine, leaving Earl Patrick (his regional military commander) as her protective custodian. When Patrick was killed in a skirmish, Eleanor (who proceeded to ransom his captured nephew, the young William Marshal), was left in control of her inheritance.
In March 1173, aggrieved at his lack of power and egged on by his father's enemies, the younger Henry launched the Revolt of 1173–1174. He fled to Paris. From there 'the younger Henry, devising evil against his father from every side by the advice of the French King, went secretly into Aquitaine where his two youthful brothers, Richard and Geoffrey, were living with their mother, and with her connivance, so it is said, he incited them to join him'. One source claimed that the Queen sent her younger sons to France 'to join with him against their father the King'. Once her sons had left for Paris, Eleanor may have encouraged the lords of the south to rise up and support them.
Sometime between the end of March and the beginning of May, Eleanor left Poitiers but was arrested and sent to the King at Rouen. The King did not announce the arrest publicly; for the next year, the Queen's whereabouts were unknown. On 8 July 1174, Henry and Eleanor took ship for England from Barfleur. As soon as they disembarked at Southampton, Eleanor was taken either to Winchester Castle or Sarum Castle and held there.
Eleanor was imprisoned for the next sixteen years, much of the time in various locations in England.
Real lovers of note are Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. Their story is poignant and Elizabeth’s sonnets are unforgettable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Sonnet VI: Go From Me
Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforth in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore--
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The story of
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert is one of undying love.
Abigail & John Adams are favorites of mine. I have always admired
Paul Newman & Joanne Woodward as well.
Mystery lovers include Queen Elizabeth I and Thomas Seymour when she was young, and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester for the rest of her life.
Wiki says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Robert Dudley
In the spring of 1559 it became evident that Elizabeth was in love with her childhood friend Robert Dudley. It was said that Amy Robsart, his wife, was suffering from a "malady in one of her breasts", and that the Queen would like to marry Dudley if his wife should die. By the autumn of 1559 several foreign suitors were vying for Elizabeth's hand; their impatient envoys engaged in ever more scandalous talk and reported that a marriage with her favourite was not welcome in England: "There is not a man who does not cry out on him and her with indignation ... she will marry none but the favoured Robert".
Amy Dudley died in September 1560 from a fall from a flight of stairs and, despite the coroner's inquest finding of accident, many people suspected Dudley to have arranged her death so that he could marry the queen. Elizabeth seriously considered marrying Dudley for some time. However, William Cecil, Nicholas Throckmorton, and some conservative peers made their disapproval unmistakably clear. There were even rumours that the nobility would rise if the marriage took place.
Among other marriages being considered for the queen, Robert Dudley was regarded as a possible candidate for nearly another decade. Elizabeth was extremely jealous of his affections, even when she no longer meant to marry him herself. In 1564 Elizabeth raised Dudley to the peerage as Earl of Leicester. He finally remarried in 1578, to which the queen reacted with repeated scenes of displeasure and lifelong hatred towards his wife.Still, Dudley always "remained at the centre of [Elizabeth's] emotional life", as historian Susan Doran has described the situation. He died shortly after the defeat of the Armada. After Elizabeth's own death, a note from him was found among her most personal belongings, marked "his last letter" in her handwriting.
Books with wonderful love stories:
Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin
They are filming Winter’s Tale:
Wiki says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Winter's Tale is an upcoming supernatural drama based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Mark Helprin. The film is directed and written by Akiva Goldsman and stars Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, Jessica Brown Findlay and Jennifer Connelly. Winter's Tale is Goldsman's debut as director of a feature film.
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Beauty and the Beast by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont
Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Cygnet and the Firebird by Patricia McKillip
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Mrs. Mike by the Freedmans
The Falco stories by Lindsey Davis
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Dragondoom by Dennis L. McKiernan
Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay and his trilogy:
Fionavar Tapestry series
Summer Tree
Wandering Fire
Darkest Road
The Scarlet Pimpernell by Baroness Orczy
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Charioteer by Mary Renault
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, pere
The Opera La Boheme by Puccini
Musetta sings:
http://www.youtube.com/...
The film Ladyhawke
Who are your favorite lovers?
Diaries of the Week:
Write On! Settings that interest you.
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Update: melpomene1 says:
My time-travel romance As You Wish is in print
again, if anyone is interested. :) Here's the blurb:
While touring an English estate, American Leah Cantrell finds an antique coin in a spring and tosses it back, casually wishing she knew who originally made a wish with it. The next thing she knows, she slips into the water and finds herself drowning in an abyss.
In 1815, David Traymore, illegitimate son of the Marquess of Solebury, saves Leah from drowning on his father's property. In his view, she's dressed scantily, speaks with a strange accent and talks a lot of nonsense. Is this mysterious woman a madwoman, a French spy, the victim of a crime ... or the answer to his wish?
Get 25% off the $14 list price on CreateSpace
https://www.createspace.com/...
with the discount code SQ55F9SW. If you're an Amazon Prime member and can get free shipping there, might be just as cheap to order it on Amazon at list price:
http://www.amazon.com/...
I'll be giving away 5 copies on Goodreads, but I don't have the contest set up yet. If I can get it set up tonight, I'll post a link later.
Also, I'll be on vacay next week, so I will miss the next Bookflurries. :(
Happy Lupercalia -- and happy reading!
NOTE:
plf515 has book talk on
Wednesday mornings early