Canon Anselm Bourde de la Rogerie

3rd October 2017
The obituary of a learned and popular priest, who had spent 50 years in Guernsey. From The Guernsey Press, 16th December 1954. Anslem Bourde de la Rogerie was an erudite man who wrote learned articles on the history of the island. He gathered together invaluable information about Victor Hugo and the time he spent in Guernsey and published it in 1944 as Victor Hugo à Guernesey.

Victor Hugo and Guernsey: Le Gouffre

25th September 2017
La Moye Point, Guernsey, or Le Port au Quatrieme Etage
One of Victor Hugo's favourite places to visit. Although with its rocky landscape combined with wild flowers and grassy swards, it is one of the places in Guernsey that would probably most appeal to the Romantic sensibility, one can't help speculating that the name of the place, 'Le Gouffre,' ‘The Abyss,’ went some way towards Hugo's partiality: it was one of his favourite words, found many times in his poetry and prose. Part of the Victor Hugo and Guernsey project. The illustration, by François Chifflart, is 'Le port au quatrième étage,' a nickname coined by Hugo and not otherwise used, from the 1869 edition of Les Travailleurs de la mer. The tiny figures of the fishermen and their families hauling up the boat can just be made out. [By Dinah Bott]

From our family albums

8th September 2017
Proper names from the captions to the photographs in From our family albums (1998), edited by Julie Hargetion of the Société Guernesiaise. Surnames in capitals. This book and its two companion volumes may be viewed by visitors to the Library, but permission for reproduction of the photographs can only be obtained by going through the books' compilers, the Family History Section of the Société Guernesiaise, from whom copies of the books may also be purchased.

Little Wit, 1374

17th July 2017
The Guernsey garrison of men-at-arms and archers in 1374, a time of fear. From a transcript in the Library collection of an original document [Royal Court Library, Records and Documents, III 248.]. In August 1373, Bertrand de Guesclin attacked the islands, occupying part of Gorey Castle in Jersey and causing destruction in Guernsey and Sark; the islands had only recently recovered after a previous French invasion led by Owen of Wales.

Victor Hugo and Guernsey: Hugo's workmen

5th July 2017
An interview with, and the obituary of, 'the oldest man in the island,' Thomas Mauger Gore, carpenter and builder, who helped Victor Hugo realise his vision at Hauteville House and especially at Hauteville II, Juliette Drouet's house in Guernsey. Obituary from The Star of Tuesday March 6, 1928, interview in the same newspaper,  July? 1927. Part of the Victor Hugo and Guernsey project. [By Dinah Bott]

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