Inside Jacket

Military historian Ben Shepard has accused Britain’ s former Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion of ripping off his work for a Remembrance Sunday poem.

According to Shephard, Motion used 17 passages from A War of Nerves in the poem, An Equal Voice which was printed in Sunday’s edition of The Guardian.

Says Shephard, “There is a word for this. It begins with ‘p’ and it isn’t poetry.”

“Ridiculous,” counters Motion who explicitly states in his poem’s introduction that lines from Shephard’s book were used.

Motion states the poem is a compilation in the tradition of “found poetry” that dates back to Shakespeare and that the accounts are drawn from a variety of sources. To this Shephard responds, “the ‘voices from a variety of sources’ were not ‘found’ by Motion, but by myself.”

Circa 1810 Watercolour & pencil sketch of Jane Austen, believed to be drawn by her sister Cassandra

Jane Austen fans have an opportunity to get up close and personal with the English novelist through a collection of over 100 items on display in A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.

The exhibition which runs until March 14, 2010 includes personal correspondence, the autograph manuscript of Lady Susan, the unfinished manuscript of The Watsons,  first and early editions of Austen’s novels  and drawings of people, places and events of significance to the author and the times she lived in.

While only a small number of Austen’s personal letters have survived, what does exist offers insight into her personality, her wit and her relationships.  For example, one letter to her 8-year-old niece is written with all words backwards – a fun puzzle for any child to receive.

Can’t make it to New York? Check out The Morgan Library & Museum’s online exhibition of A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy.

Robert E. Thomas now 83 was still a teenager when he took two old looking books from one of the salt mines where German treasures were stored during World War II.  Plagued more by horrors he witnessed as a soldier than his possession of the two pilfered  books, Thomas has had the historic volumes for more than six decades.

“I’ve had these books since I was 18 years old,” Thomas said. “I’m relieved, for one. I wanted to return them to the original owners but I had no clue where to start.”

According to German ambassador Klaus Scharioth, the books are 16th-century works dating to the time of the Protestant Reformation when Germany was the hub of book-publishing.  The first book was published in 1593 and is a commentary on Roman law written by legal scholar Johannes Borcholt. The second dates to 1578 and examines the court administration in the Duchy of Prussia.

Thomas never read the books but made sure they were kept in safe locations in his California home.

(AP Photo/ Haraz N. Ghanbari)