The Lipstick Papers: MERMAIDS AND SOLDIERS

What do ancient Greek soldier writer Xenophon, and Victorian actress Fanny Kemble have in common? They wrote about the sea, of course! Xenophon made the cry, "The sea, the sea," famous all over the Greek speaking world. "Θάλαττα, θάλαττα", cried the Greek soldiers who had gone to fight for Cyrus the younger in Persia. Xenophon was one of them and wrote all about it later. After the expedition failed, the ten thousand made the journey back to Greece on foot. Reaching the sea, they realized that they were back home. But the love affair between Greeks and the sea had started earlier, even earlier than the Odyssey, back to when the first Greek tribes inhabited the Cyclades and created the amazing minimalist statues we all know and love. My book here is not about Greece, but it is an anthology of sea literature from Greek publishing house Narcissus ( Νάρκισσος).

This is a two volume collection, comprising translations from British and US literature from the 19th and 20th centuries. There are passages from famous authors, like Edgar Alan Poe, and less famous ones, such as George Henry Preble.

The fonts you can see in the pic are my absolute favorites. They are the coolest Greek fonts, and I don't know what they are called! They are not available in Word.

However, I didn't like this collection too much, despite the fonts. Many passages are boring or depressing. There is nothing about mermaids! Grrrrrrr!!!

My favorite was the excerpt from Fanny Kemble's memoir. Fanny was a famous British actress who crossed the Atlantic and went to the US for a tour. There she met, fell in love and married a Southerner who took her to live in his plantation. The marriage was unhappy in part because Fanny could not get used to slave owning (Britain had abolished slavery in 1833). Eventually, she divorced her husband & returned to Britain.