#classicsedit

My Reading List → Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

@litlovers february-march book club pick ↳ little women by louisa may alcott 

@fictionnet event 08: favourite book | @librarysource event 04: nostalgic reads → little women by louisa may alcott

for @hugoevelyns, who deserves the best of everything.

margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain.

@gaybelatalbot asked: nina zenik or amy march

Julia the Elder was the only child of the first Roman emperor Augustus, who divorced her mother Scribonia the day of Julia’s birth. Julia was soon taken from her mother and raised in the household of her father and stepmother Livia. Augustus was strict and controlling of her education and social life, but he also held her in great affection and is said to have fondly remarked that he had two spoiled daughters to put up with, Rome and Julia.

Like many members of Augustus’s family, Julia was married off several times as part of his dynastic plans. Her first marriage at age fourteen to her cousin Marcellus didn’t last long, as he died two years later in 23 BCE. At eighteen, Julia married her father’s general and closest friend Agrippa, who was twenty-five years her senior. They had five children: Gaius Caesar, Julia the Younger, Lucius Caesar, Agrippina the Elder, and Agrippa Postumus. Augustus adopted Gaius and Lucius as his heirs and oversaw their educations. Shortly after Agrippa’s death in 12 BCE, Augustus arranged for Julia to marry her stepbrother Tiberius. The two reportedly held each other in contempt, and the marriage was unhappy. They only had one child, a son who died in infancy, and they separated in at least 6 BCE, when Tiberius retired to Rhodes without Julia, if not earlier.

Julia’s downfall came in 2 BCE when she was accused of violating Augustus’s anti-adultery laws. Some historians, both Roman and modern, also believe that there was an element of political conspiracy to the actions of Julia and her group. Augustus was furious with her behavior and showed no mercy even though she was his only child. Iullus Antonius, the most notable of Julia’s alleged lovers – and the most politically dangerous, as he was the son of Augustus’s enemy Mark Antony – was forced to commit suicide, and Julia and the rest of her alleged lovers were exiled. Julia was confined to the island of Pandateria with her mother, and five years later was moved to Rhegium on the mainland, but she was never permitted to return to Rome. Augustus also forbade her burial in the family mausoleum. She died in exile in 14 CE, not long after Augustus’s death; some Roman historians claim that Tiberius cut off her food supply after he succeeded Augustus as emperor, and others that she wasted away from grief after hearing of Tiberius’s murder of her youngest son.