I was browsing on the webbernets yesterday afternoon, and came across a great article by Bharat Tandon, "Living in Jane Austen's Emma," at Huffington Post. Actually, the article itself isn't what I liked; it was the slideshow of images Bharat used to help him illustrate, in his own mind, Jane Austen's Emma, which I found most interesting.
I don't necessarily think books have to be illustrated, but I love the idea of creating a collection of images that connect with a book you've read. I tend to do this with novels that feature historical figures or actual places. With The Oracle of Stamboul (review here), for example, I created a board on Pinterest with people and places from the novel, such as the Blue Mosque, the Library of the Sultan, and the African Hoopoe. I also had a lot of fun looking up photographs of people from Ferdynand Ossendowski's memoir Beasts, Men and Gods (review at PGP).
Anyway, I thought it would be fun to pick out some images for my current read, The Red Necklace. It takes place in 18th-century France and there's a lot going on: magic, gypsies, automaton, evil counts, and that's just in the first fifty pages!
This automaton was built in the 18th century by Henri Maillardet. Click through to see a video of the automaton writing. Super creepy!
If you didn't already know Regina on Once Upon a Time was evil, her obsessively duo-chromatic office would make it obvious. The description of how the evil count's rooms were decorated in The Red Necklace reminded me of this.
The Marquis de Villeduval's library is fabulous, with two stories of books and spiral staircases leading up to the mezzanine at either end, and reminded me of the Prunksaal in the National Library of Austria.
Setting fashions of the the nobility is important in The Red Necklace to convey the difference in the classes.
What images would you select to illustrate your current read?
