Ruins of Despair
LightNews LightNews
banner
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Ruins of Despair
@ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
360 followers 390 following 270 posts
A weary pilgrim on the grave of the Romantic Hero, a forlorn eulogist cast upon the desolate shore of the exquisite agony that is The Gothic.

#books #gothic #romanticism

'Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' (P.B. Shelley)
Posts Replies Media Videos
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Kloster Walkenried im Schnee (Walkenried Abbey in Snow)

Carl Hasenpflug (1802–1858)
An oil painting in brown and white tones. Snow-covered ruins of a stone abbey, with broken arches and partial walls standing amid a wintry landscape. The foreground shows uneven stone blocks and leafless shrubs dusted with snow, while taller arched structures and columns recede into the background under a pale winter sky.
January 13, 2026 at 1:46 PM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone'

– Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III, 1816

#art by László Mednyánszky
#poetry #booksky #gothic
'Zimná noc. Postava na moste' (Winter Night. Figure on the Bridge) by László Mednyánszky 1888. An oil painting of a snowy night scene in hazy pale blues,yellows, and greyish browns. Someone stands on a small bridge across a moonlit forest brook.
January 13, 2026 at 7:18 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Lille interiør med brændende lys (Small interior with candlelight)

Laurits Andersen Ring 1898
An oil painting: a dark, atmospheric scene with an old wall mirror with two candles. Beneath the mirror, on a small easel, is a greyscale sketch of a male figure.
January 11, 2026 at 3:03 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
The gloomiest nook of the gloomy Castle Dracula: the chapel.

'There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest; huge it was, and nobly proportioned. On it was but one word

DRACULA.

This then was the Un-Dead home of the King-Vampire, to whom so many more were due.'

#BookWormSat
'Blick aus der Gruft Draculas' (View of Draculas' tomb) by Fritz Schwimbeck 1922. A drawing in black ink on sepia paper. A view out from an opening in thick castle wall. Bats are flying out. There are skulls placed in indentations in the wall, and skulls and bones on the floor.
January 10, 2026 at 12:15 PM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Sheep in a Snowstorm

Joseph Farquharson 1892–1893
#art #painting #winter
An oil painting in white, grey, and brown tones. A flock of sheep on a snowy field. A row of bare trees leads away from the viewer towards the white haze. There's also a small straw hut under the trees.
January 10, 2026 at 12:08 PM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is enveloped in darkness, beginning with the Paradise Lost quote:

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?

and ending:

He was soon borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance.

#BookWormSat
Hammershus i måneskin (Hammershus in the moonlight) by Holger Drachmann 1870. An almost black oil painting depicting the medieval Hammershus castle ruins on the island of Bornholm under a moonlit sky.
January 10, 2026 at 11:37 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light'

Jonathan Harker describes Castle Dracula as he first encounters it in the Carpathian Mountains in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel.

#BookWormSat #gothic
The cover of Dracula—A Mystery Story, published by W. R. Caldwell & Co. 1910. Artist unknown. An image in black, grey, and white, with a dark castle rising against the moonlit mountain range.
January 10, 2026 at 8:52 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Reading Moth by Candlelight

Fritz Schwimbeck (1889 - 1972)
A black-and-white drawing of a moth reading a book many times its size. The flame of the candle resembles a skull, and the twirling smoke looks like a hand reaching towards the moth.
January 9, 2026 at 2:40 PM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Vinterparti med åløb gennem skoven (Winter scene with a stream through the forest)

Anders Andersen-Lundby 1882
An oil painting of a snowy daytime view of a road by a large, frozen river. A few prints in the snow. Tall trees are covered in snow. The sky bright, yet hazy white.
January 9, 2026 at 10:23 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream,
And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
The transient pleasures as a vision seem,
And yet we think the greatest pain's to die.'

– John Keats in 1814 in a letter to his brother Thomas who was on his deathbed.

#PhantomsFriday #poetry #booksky
'The ghost of Bernadette Soubirous', unknown artist 1890. An old multiple-exposure photograph of a woman in a white cloak walking across a view infront of a brick house, appearing five times, gradually fading from right to left.
January 9, 2026 at 9:29 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She sucked until her lips were sore;
Then flung the emptied rinds away
But gathered up one kernel-stone,
And knew not was it night or day
As she turned home alone.

Laura gets hooked on fruit in Christina Rossetti's 1862 Goblin Market.

#BookologyThursday 💙📚
Illustration by L. Housman 1893 Black-and-white image of a young woman, Lizzie, who is being smeared in fruit by the goblin merchands as she attempts to buy fruit to help her sister Laura's withdrawal symptoms. Lizzie looks entranced as the creatures lather her. The poem lets us know that she is only smiling internally whilst she resists the assault.
January 8, 2026 at 1:46 PM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
I cannot believe #InternationalUnsolicitedDuckPicDay escaped me completely!
'Mallard Duck in Flight' by Archibald Thorburn 1897. A watercolour of a male mallard flapping up from the reeds, alarmed.
January 8, 2026 at 11:18 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'Ym raed Yssac
I hsiw uoy a yppah wen raey.'

wrote the mysterious 'Enai Netsua' to her 8-year-old niece Cassy, #OnThisDay 8 January 1817. The letter informs her that 'Knarf sah nugeb gninrael Nital' and 'ew deef eht Nibor yreve gninrom'.

#history #otd #JaneAusten
A scan of a handwritten letter from Morgan Library. Text: Ym raed Yssac I hsiw uoy a yppah wen raey. Ruoy xis snisuoc emac ereh yadretsey, dna dah hcae a eciep fo ekac. Siht si elttil Yssac's yadhtrib, dna ehs si eerht sraey dlo. Knarf sah nugeb gninrael Nital. Ew deef eht Nibor yreve gninrom. Yllas netfo seriuqne retfa uoy. Yllas Mahneb sah tog a wen neerg nwog. Teirrah Thgink semoc yreve yad ot daer ot Tnua Ardnassac.— Doog eyb ym raed Yssac.— Tnua Ardnassac sndes rwh tseb evol, dna os ew od lla. Ruoy etanoitceffa Tnua Enai Netsua Notwahc, Naj. 8.
January 8, 2026 at 8:33 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Klosterkreuzgang im Winter mit Blick auf eine zweitürmige Kathedrale (Cloister in winter with a view of a twin-towered cathedral)

Carl Hasenpflug (1802–1858)

#art #painting #gothic #winter
An oil painting in brown and white tones. A snowy daytime view from the inside of a ruined cloister through the archways towards the yard, a distant cathedral, and other old buildings. There are crosses on tombs in the yard.
January 7, 2026 at 4:25 PM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'Winter'

#art Dudley Hardy 1887
A black-and-white image of an oil painting. A dark-haired woman reposes on a bare tree branch in a snowy moonlit forest, looking at the viewer. She is veiled in an icy dress, dripping icicles. An owl sits on a branch above her, and two necking doves further back.
January 7, 2026 at 1:55 PM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'It was moonlight. The moon shines in all around just as the sun does.

I hate to see it sometimes, it creeps so slowly, and always comes in by one window or another.'

Woman locked in the nursery due to 'a slight hysterical tendency' in 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by C.Perkins Gilman 1892 #WyrdWednesday
'A Desperate Woman' by Jusepe de Ribera 1638, cropped. An oil painting with a dark background. A partial view of a portrait of a dark-haired woman with a white shawl, a deeply distressed look on her face, looking at the viewer.
January 7, 2026 at 11:44 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is passed in sleep

– Lord Byron, 'Don Juan', Canto XIV, 1823

#poetry #booksky #gothic #art #painting by J. H. Füssli
Lycidas by Johann Heinrich Füssli (1794–1796) An oil painting of a young Greek shepherd asleep in dark dress under the grey, moonlight sky.
January 6, 2026 at 8:35 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
Has grown familiar with your song;
I hear it in the opening year,
I listen, and it cheers me long.

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 'Woods in Winter' 1839

#art by Louis Apol
#poetry #booksky
A January Evening in the Woods of The Hague by Louis Apol 1875. An oil painting in white, grey, and yellowish tones. A brook in a snowy forest, with a footbridge over it.
January 4, 2026 at 1:49 PM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'I discovered, to my infinite surprise, that she had taken the opportunity of my indisposition to bring into light a litter of three little kittens.'

The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall (Poe 1835), where a man sets off from Rotterdam to the Moon with a cat.

#BookWormSat 🪐📚💙 #caturday
'Hans Phaall in the cabin' by Julian Portch (engraving by George Pike Nicholls) From Tales of Mystery, Imagination, and Humour. Second Series of “Readable Books” 1853 A black-and-sepia image of a satisfied looking Dutch man smoking a long pipe in the cabin of his balloon. There are barrels, a trunk, books, and different kinda of scientific instruments. A shirt and socks hang from a clothesline. A cat with tiny kittens reposes on the bed.
January 3, 2026 at 10:29 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
A Street in Winter

Jakub Schikaneder 1905

#art #painting #winter
An oil painting, night-time scene with overcast sky. A narrow snow-covered street lined with tall, old stone buildings featuring arched windows and doors. Wall-mounted lanterns cast yellow light onto the snow. Some windows are lit. In the hazy distance, we see a steaple. An old-looking figure with cane, wearing a long dark coat and a bonnet, walks away from the viewer along the center of the street.
January 3, 2026 at 6:59 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
so haunted at moonlight with bat and owl and ghostly moth

#PhantomsFriday #illustration

Elizabeth Shippen Green for An Old Country House by Richard Le Gallienne 1902
A black-and-sepia picture of a tree nymph in a tree, wearing a flowery tunic. There's also a bat, and I might be imagining an owl, but I cannot for the life of me find the ghostly moth.
January 2, 2026 at 9:01 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Hmmmmmmm.
potato
January 1, 2026 at 4:45 PM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
M. R. James's New Year’s ghost story features a ritual for conjuring spirits, taken from an actual 16c. scribble in a 15c. book.

He mistranscribed one of the angels invoked as a guide, though. It's not 'Raffaell' – it's 'Assaell' 💀

Details:
specialcollections-b... #BookologyThursday #occultsky
The original medieval text where we may find Azazel’s name (‘the Lord Assaell’). From the Cambridge University Library article: 'Turning to the medieval manuscript that James relied on (Dd.11.45), we find the ritual added by a sixteenth-century hand to the empty lower margin of a fifteenth-century collection of medical recipes in Middle English and Latin. A comparison between the manuscript and James’s transcription shows that he has omitted a few lines but closely followed the manuscript otherwise.' From James's The Experiment—A New Year’s Eve Ghost Story, published 31 Dec 1931 in the The Morning Post: Bishop Moore's book of recipes is now in the University Library at Cambridge, marked Dd 11. 45, and on the leaf numbered 144 this is written : " An experiment most ofte proved true, to find out tresure hidden in the ground, theft, manslaughter, or anie other thynge. Go to the grave of a ded man, and three tymes call hym by his nam at the hed of the grave, and say. Thou, N., N., N., I coniure the, I require the, and I charge the, by thi Christendome that thou takest leave of the Lord Raffaell and Nares and then askest leave this night to come and tell me trewlie of the tresure that lyith hid in such a place. Then take of the earth of the grave at the dead bodves hed, and knitt it in a lynnen clothe and put itt under thi right eare and sleape ther- uppon: and wheresoever thou lvest or slepest, that night he will com and tell thee trewlie in waking or sleping."
January 1, 2026 at 3:37 PM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Out with the old, in with the new!

Hell Gate by Franz Sedlacek 1916
#gothic #art #painting #newyear
A black-and-sepia toned moonlit scene with two dark cliffs, a bright light shining from between them. All sorts of little demonic creatures are being flown out of the light, bats circling round. There are skeletons scattered on the ground.
January 1, 2026 at 10:59 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Also Tennyson, a few stanzas later:

Step from the corpse, and let him in
That standeth there alone,
And waiteth at the door.
There's a new foot on the floor, my friend,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.

#poetry #NewYear
Der Astralmensch, or: Der Chodem, Offenbarung, Das Gewissen (The Astral Body) by Sascha Schneider 1903. A black-and-white painting of two male figures: closer, a darker figure with his back to the viewer, wearing a long cloth on his waist, and nothing else. He is in a dramatic pose, shielding his eyes from the light. The second figure is made of light, or very bright, with wild hair and a fierce look in his face as he gazes the man before him, his arms and legs stretched out.
January 1, 2026 at 9:45 AM