Jonathan Keates
Seismic Shift
Wrath of God: The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755
By Edward Paice
Quercus Books 280pp £20 order from our bookshop
The Lisbon earthquake is the most famous natural disaster in European history. In the space of little more than an hour on the morning of 1 November 1755, while much of the city’s population was at Mass for the feast of All Saints, three distinct tremors, followed by a forty-foot tidal wave, reduced the Portuguese capital to a heap of rubble, completely destroyed the port of Setúbal further south, and ravaged towns along the coastline of the Algarve. ‘So Dreadfull was ye Seen,’ wrote an English merchant to his father, ‘it is almost impossibell to Discribe it to you in Less you where Eye Witnesses, the Lord grant you neaver may.’
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Sabotage became so prevalent that bankers even created their own terms – ‘asymmetric information’, ‘lack of financial literacy’, ‘the principal-agent dilemma’ – to describe how they might turn a dime from customers’ gullibility or ignorance.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/master-criminals-of-the-universe
'Unlike much that was extracted from India, these paintings were not plunder, and those who created them were properly remunerated and often received due credit.'
@PParkerWriting on 'Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/artists-for-hire
‘"I feel", Lowell told Hardwick ... "as if I were pulled apart and thinning into mist, or rather being torn apart and still preferring that state to making a decision."'
Richard Davenport-Hines on the letters of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/yours-unfaithfully-2