#bicentenary

More countries celebrated their bicentenaries in 2010 and 2011, but Peru is still waiting even today.

Have you ever wanted to know more about your favorite classic authors? Each month, we share various facts about the lives and works of our Author of the Month.

During November, we honored George Eliot as our Author of the Month. She was born on November 22nd 1819 in Nuneaton and 2019 marks the bicentenary of Eliot’s birth. Some of the most interesting things we learned about her this month were…

Mary Ann Evans, known more widely by her pen name George Eliot was the third child of Robert Evans, the manager of the large estates of the Newdigate family. The young Mary Ann was strongly religious, in contrast with her only somewhat observant Anglican family.

While living in London, Eliot fell in love with George Henry Lewes. Lewes was a regular contributor to the magazine Eliot wrote for, the Westminster Review. Lewes had an open marriage but by 1853 Eliot and Lewes were living together as man and wife despite his married status. It was in 1856, encouraged by Lewes, that Eliot began to write fiction.

Eliot did not achieve fame until the publication of her first novel, Adam Bede. Charles Dickens admired the novel and guessed that its author was a woman; Elizabeth Gaskell was flattered when she was asked if she were the author. 

George Henry Lewes died in November of 1878, sending Eliot into a deep depression. She married a friend, John Walter Cross, whose mother had died at the same time as Lewes in an attempt to get over her grief, however Cross became depressed on the honeymoon and fell, or threw himself, from the balcony of their Venice hotel into the Grand Canal.

On December 22nd 1880, Eliot died of a kidney disease she had suffered from for several years. She was buried beside Lewes in Highgate Cemetery, and is known to this day as one of the greatest Victorian writers who deftly and unflinchingly captured the social change that occurred in her lifetime.

Célébrations du bicentenaire napoléonien

Napoleonic Bicentennial Celebrations

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the death of Napoleon I, Emperor Napoleon IV launched a series of celebrations in the holy imperial year with foreign rulers.

The first country to celebrate the bicentenary with the imperial family was the Empire of Pierreland (@officalroyalsofpierreland). Emperor David I of Pierreland, Empress Katalina and their son, Crown Prince Louis, paid tribute to the first of the Simparte dynasty at Notre-Dame of Paris.

Soldiers of the imperial guard brought the relics of the body of the deceased emperor to the cathedral. This was the first time since the 19th century that such a grandiose tribute to Napoleon I was paid at the high altar.

Emperor Napoleon IV was dressed in his coronation robes for the ceremony, in the colours of the First Empire outfits, wearing the Legion of Honour instituted by Napoleon I.

In the afternoon, His Imperial Majesty greeted those who "paid homage to the first of the Simparte", and "the efforts of historians to re-establish the truth concerning the formidable epic of his ancestor". According to him, Napoleon's empire made Francesim shine throughout the world and the 19th century. Emperor promises more celebrations in the coming months.