Child Commentary
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Dublin Core
Title
Child Commentary
Creator
Sir Herbert Croft
Date
Fall 2017
Contributor
Talbot Child
Commentary Item Type Metadata
Text
"Love and Madness" is based upon the murder of one of the mistresses of Lord Sandwich in 1779. Furthermore, the extended title states that the characters in the novel are actually real people who are so famous and well known that the book uses different names for them to protect their privacy and reputation.
My experimental bibliography is supposed to represent those two pieces of background information in the context of the different meanings of "love" and "madness." To do this, I paired together several images of famous characters or people whose reputations capture "love" and "madness" to some degree. Beneath each image was a random name, capturing the idea that those famous people had their names changed in the novel.
The first set of images is of Cupid and the Mad Hatter who are both icons of love and madness, respectively. The fact that the names and images don't match is supposed to literally capture the novel changing the names of the characters. These characters are very positive and seemingly care-free, capturing the softest, most childish meanings of "love" and "madness."
The second set captures a more adolescent view of "love" and "madness." As with the first set, these are well known characters, in this case Edward Cullen, the famous sparkling vampire who loves a human, and Emperor Palpatine, the crazy ruler of a galaxy far, far away. While these characters represent still youthful concepts of "love" and "madness," there is also a growing sense of maturity to both. Death, sadness, and pain are both very real things to these characters and the universes they exist in compared to Cupid or the Mad Hatter.
The third set is where the mature, darker background to the novel becomes more apparent. This set pairs Hugh Hefner with Charles Manson. These people represent a mature, almost taboo version of "love" and "madness." Gone is any sense of youthfulness; these characters capture the grittier parts of "love" and "madness." This sense of maturity and seriousness is meant to capture the themes of the novel's background (the scandal of a mistress to a lord being murdered).
The final set of images takes the seriousness and maturity of the third set and expands it to a much broader level. This set pairs Mother Teresa, an icon for the love of your fellow human, with George Wallace, one of the faces of the hatred and racism of the American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. These two people represent the opposite end of the spectrum of meanings behind "love" and "madness" from the first set.
When taken in a series, these four sets capture the full range of meanings or versions of "love" and "madness." The increasing level of maturity and scandal to the sets brings in the scandalous origins of the novel, and the literal misnaming of characters acts as a literal representation of the novel protecting it's subjects' privacy and reputations.
My experimental bibliography is supposed to represent those two pieces of background information in the context of the different meanings of "love" and "madness." To do this, I paired together several images of famous characters or people whose reputations capture "love" and "madness" to some degree. Beneath each image was a random name, capturing the idea that those famous people had their names changed in the novel.
The first set of images is of Cupid and the Mad Hatter who are both icons of love and madness, respectively. The fact that the names and images don't match is supposed to literally capture the novel changing the names of the characters. These characters are very positive and seemingly care-free, capturing the softest, most childish meanings of "love" and "madness."
The second set captures a more adolescent view of "love" and "madness." As with the first set, these are well known characters, in this case Edward Cullen, the famous sparkling vampire who loves a human, and Emperor Palpatine, the crazy ruler of a galaxy far, far away. While these characters represent still youthful concepts of "love" and "madness," there is also a growing sense of maturity to both. Death, sadness, and pain are both very real things to these characters and the universes they exist in compared to Cupid or the Mad Hatter.
The third set is where the mature, darker background to the novel becomes more apparent. This set pairs Hugh Hefner with Charles Manson. These people represent a mature, almost taboo version of "love" and "madness." Gone is any sense of youthfulness; these characters capture the grittier parts of "love" and "madness." This sense of maturity and seriousness is meant to capture the themes of the novel's background (the scandal of a mistress to a lord being murdered).
The final set of images takes the seriousness and maturity of the third set and expands it to a much broader level. This set pairs Mother Teresa, an icon for the love of your fellow human, with George Wallace, one of the faces of the hatred and racism of the American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. These two people represent the opposite end of the spectrum of meanings behind "love" and "madness" from the first set.
When taken in a series, these four sets capture the full range of meanings or versions of "love" and "madness." The increasing level of maturity and scandal to the sets brings in the scandalous origins of the novel, and the literal misnaming of characters acts as a literal representation of the novel protecting it's subjects' privacy and reputations.
Text Excerpt
This experimental bibliography tries to display how the novel's title capture's the broad range of meaning behind "love" and "madness" by using contemporary cultural icons and people. This includes referencing several bits of background information to the novel.
Collection
Citation
Sir Herbert Croft, “Child Commentary,” Rise of the Novel, accessed April 20, 2026, https://riseofthenovel.swarthmore.edu/items/show/512.