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The Doctor’s Library: all the books in Doctor Who, from the 9th-12th doctors
I compiled this list in 2018, so forgive me but I can no longer remember if I have all the right citations. It took about a year to collect all this and I apologise for the questionable formatting.
At a certain point, I stopped writing things up and just trailed off with bullet-point notes.
I always meant to organise this into a bookshelf of some sort.
The 9th Doctor: Christopher Eccleston
S1, E3 The Unquiet Dead: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, The Old Curiosity Shop, The Mystery of Edwin Drood,
The only Dickens’ novel I have ever read is A Christmas Carol, but I know that the lives and difficulties of orphans come up repeatedly in Dickens’ work. In Bleak House, Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Great Expectations, Esther Summerson, Oliver Twist, Nell Trent, and Pip are all orphans. In “The Unquiet Dead”, Gwynth is an orphan working for a mortuary, which seems a suitable setting for a Dickens episode given his preoccupations with crime and poverty.
On arrival, the Doctor says they’re in Naples on December 24, 1860 in Naples. In early 1845, as part of a larger European tour, Dickens did go to Naples. He returned in 1853 and published a short story “The Italian Prisoner”, which was set in that area.
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/gallery/tours.html Great Expectations began publication as a serial in December 1860. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Expectations
In the first scene in which Dickens appears there is a poster behind him for a reading in Cardiff on December 24, 1969. The real Dickens did do readings between 1968-1970 but not in December of 1969 due to health problems
Ghosts appear in A Christmas Carol and ghost-like figures appear in “The Unquiet Dead” as the Gelth and the bodies they take over.
“I’m like a ghost, condemned to repeat myself though all of eternity”—Charles Dickens in “The Unquiet Dead”.
The first time Rose and the Doctor see Dickens, he’s in a theatre reciting an abridged part of stave one of A Christmas Carol, and is interrupted just before talk of ghosts by the dead woman glowing and then emitting what seems to be a ghost.
“Now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of London, even including–which is a bold word–the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind. that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his last mention of his seven-years’-dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change–not a knocker, but Marley’s face. Marley’s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow, as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead.”—Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
When the Doctor gets into Dickens’ coach, he exclaims “You’re brilliant, you are!” and says he’s read all of his work and calls him a genius after which Dickens agrees that he can stay in the coach. The doctor says he’s the number one fan of Dickens before criticizing the “American bit” of Martin Chuzzlewit. He then says “Do the death of Little Nell. It cracks me up”. Oscar Wilde once said “You would need to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the death of little Nell.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens#cite_note-149)
When the doctor interrupts this discussion to tell the driver to go faster so they can get Rose back, Dickens asks why he was “wasting my time talking about dry old books. This is much more important”.
Charles Dickens & the Doctor in “The Unquiet Dead”.
When Dickens and the Doctor arrive at the mortuary, Dickens says “What the Shakespeare is going on?”
Sidebar: “Mistress Page. I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my
husband had him of. What do you call your knight’s
name, sirrah?” –Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 3, Scene 2
Merriam-Webster defines “dickens” as “devil” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dickens
On entering the morgue: “Talk about Bleak House” –The doctor
Near the end, Dickens quotes Shakespeare, saying “There are more things in heaven and earth, [Horatio], Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” —Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5
At the end, Dickens decides to use his experiences of the Gelth for the ending of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, “Perhaps the killer was not the boy’s uncle. Perhaps he was not of this earth!…The Mystery of Edwin Drood and the Blue Elementals”. He died before finishing, as the doctor knew he would. When Dickens asked if his books last the Doctor responds that they last forever.
The episode ends with Dickens walking down the street, saying “God bless us, every one!” which Tiny Tim says at the Christmas dinner in A Christmas Carol, a phrase Dickens repeats at the end of the novella.
P.S.
This is the first episode that Mark Gatiss wrote for Doctor Who. He subsequently wrote wrote “The Idiot’s Lantern” (S2, E7), “Victory of the Daleks” (S5, E3), “Night Terrors” (S6, E9), “Cold War” (S7, E8), “The Crimson Horror” (S7, E11), “Robot of Sherwood” (S8, E3), “Sleep No More” (S9, E9), and “Empress of Mars” (S10, E9). He has written four Doctor Who novels Nightshade, St Anthony’s Fire, The Roundheads, and Last of the Gaderene. He has acted in three Doctor Who episodes: “The Lazarus Experiment” in (S3, E6), “The Wedding of River Song” (S6, E13), and “Twice Upon a Time” (2017 Christmas Special after series 13). He has written three Lucifer Box spy novels: The Vesuvius Club, The Devil in Amber, Black Butterfly.
S1, E9 The Empty Child: Star Trek
Ok, so I’m just using the fact that there have been Star Trek books published to include this. When they land in London at the beginning of this episode, Rose said “Not very “Spock”, is it” referring to the Doctor just asking people if they’d noticed an unusual bang in the middle of London rather than doing “a scan for alien tech”. “I think you should do a scan for alien tech. Give me some Spock, for once. Would it kill you?”
When Jack Harkness did exactly this a little while later she said “very Spock” and she told him her “time agent” companion was “Mr. Spock” aka the Doctor.
The Doctor: “Mr. Spock?”
Rose: “What was I supposed to say? You don’t have a name. Don’t you ever get tired of Doctor? Doctor who?”
The Doctor: “Nine centuries in. I’m coping”.
The Doctor: “Feeding frenzy for the homeless kids of London town. Puddings for all, as long as the bombs don’t get you…
Nancy: “Something wrong with that?
The Doctor: Wrong? It’s brilliant! I’m not sure if it’s Marxism in action or a West End musical.
The 10th Doctor: David Tennant
Christmas Special 2005 The Christmas Invasion: The Lion King, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Lion King “From the day they arrive on the planet and, blinking, step into the sun, there is more to see than can ever be seen, more to do than…”
After beating the Sycorax in a duel, he says “Not bad for a man in his jim jams. Very Arthur Dent. Now, there was a nice man”, a reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in which Arthur Dent spends several years wandering around space in his bathrobe. Hitchhiker’s author Douglas Adams wrote for Doctor Who during the tenure of the 4th doctor.
Rose helping the doctor into a bathrobe.
S2, E2 Tooth & Claw: “Books are the best weapons in the world”, Torchwood Library, Queen Victoria
“Since my husband’s death, I find myself with more of a taste for supernatural fiction…And that’ the charm of a ghost story, isn’t it? Not the scares and chills, that’s just for children, but the hope of some contact from the great beyond.” –Queen Victoria
After which Sir Robert tells a story of a wolf and a missing child once per generation.
“You want weapons? We’re in a library. Books! Best weapons in the world. This room’s the greatest arsenal we could have. Arm yourself!” –The Doctor
The Doctor, Rose, Queen Victoria, & Sir Robert in the Torchwood Library
S2, E5 The Girl in the Fireplace: My Fair Lady
After dancing with Madame de Pompadour, the doctor returns to the broken spaceship singing, somewhat drunkenly, “I could have danced all night, I could have danced all night, and still have begged for more. I could have spread my wings and done a th—“ from My Fair Lady, which is based on the play Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw.
S3, E1 Smith and Jones: Emily Pankhurst
Martha asks the Doctor if he has a laser spanner. He says he did, but it was stolen by Emily (Emmeline) Pankhurst, “cheeky woman”, a British activist for women’s rights and educational and social reforms who published her autobiography, My Own Story, in 1914. In it, she describes her experiences of being able to read from a very young age.
S3, E2 The Shakespeare Code: Love’s Labour’s Lost, Sonnet 18, “57 academics just punched the air” regarding his possible bisexuality. expelliarmus “Good old J.K.?” , cites Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”
-J.K. Rowling & the doctor got read HP before release & has a “collection of all 11 Harry Potter books” on the TARDIS.
-Elizabeth I (The Tudors)
Set in London 1599
DOCTOR: Oh, yes, the Globe Theatre! Brand new. Just opened. Through, strictly speaking, it’s not a globe, it’s a tetradecagon. Fourteen sides. Containing the man himself.
MARTHA: Whoa, you don’t mean. Is Shakespeare in there?
DOCTOR: Oh, yes. Miss Jones, will you accompany me to the theatre?
MARTHA: That’s amazing! Just amazing. It’s worth putting up with the smell. And those are men dressed as women, yeah?
DOCTOR: London never changes.
MARTHA: Where’s Shakespeare? I want to see Shakespeare. Author! Author! Do people shout that? Do they shout Author?
MAN: Author! Author!
(And the crowd take up the chant.)
DOCTOR: Well, they do now.
(Shakespeare comes onto the stage, very full of himself, to rapturous applause.)
MARTHA: He’s a bit different from his portraits.
(Lilith is dressed like an aristocrat, and sitting alone in one of the upper boxes. She takes a rough doll with a strand of hair stuck to its head from her purse.)
DOCTOR: Genius. He’s a genius. The genius. The most human human there’s ever been. Now we’re going to hear him speak. Always he chooses the best words. New, beautiful, brilliant words.
SHAKESPEARE: Ah, shut your big fat mouths!
(Laughter.)
DOCTOR: Oh, well.
MARTHA: You should never meet your heroes.
SHAKESPEARE: You’ve got excellent taste, I’ll give you that. Oh, that’s a wig.
(Lilith pulls the hair on her doll.)
LILITH: Wind the craft of ancient harm. The time approaches for our charm.
SHAKESPEARE: I know what you’re all saying. Loves Labour’s Lost, that’s a funny ending, isn’t it? It just stops. Will the boys get the girls? Well, don’t get your hose in a tangle, you’ll find out soon. Yeah, yeah. All in good time. You don’t rush a genius.
(Lilith kisses her doll and Shakespeare suddenly goes rigid and blank.)
SHAKESPEARE: When? Tomorrow night. The premiere of my brand new play. A sequel, no less, and I call it Loves Labour’s Won.
(A short while later, everyone is filing out of the theatre.)
MARTHA: I’m not an expert, but I’ve never heard of Loves Labour’s Won.
DOCTOR: Exactly. The lost play. It doesn’t exist, only in rumours. It’s mentioned in lists of his plays but never ever turns up. And no one knows why.
SHAKESPEARE: And you, Sir Doctor. How can a man so young have eyes so old?
DOCTOR: I do a lot of reading.
SHAKESPEARE: A trite reply. Yeah, that’s what I’d do.
MARTHA: So, magic and stuff. That’s a surprise. It’s all a little bit Harry Potter.
DOCTOR: Wait till you read book seven. (published 2007) Oh, I cried.
DOCTOR: The columns there, right? Fourteen sides. I’ve always wondered, but I never asked. Tell me, Will. Why fourteen sides?
SHAKESPEARE: It was the shape Peter Streete thought best, that’s all. Said it carried the sound well.
DOCTOR: Fourteen. Why does that ring a bell? Fourteen.
MARTHA: There’s fourteen lines in a sonnet.
DOCTOR: So there is. Good point. Words and shapes following the same design. Fourteen lines, fourteen sides, fourteen facets. Oh, my head. Tetradecagon. Think, think, think! Words, letters, numbers, lines!
SHAKESPEARE: This is just a theatre.
DOCTOR: Oh yeah, but a theatre’s magic, isn’t it? You should know. Stand on this stage, say the right words with the right emphasis a the right time. Oh, you can make men weep, or cry with joy. Change them. You can change people’s minds just with words in this place.
[Southwark]
SHAKESPEARE: So, tell me of Freedonia, where women can be doctors, writers, actors.
MARTHA: This country’s ruled by a woman.
SHAKESPEARE: Ah, she’s royal. That’s God’s business. Though you are a royal beauty.
MARTHA: Whoa, Nelly. I know for a fact you’ve got a wife in the country.
SHAKESPEARE: But Martha, this is Town.
DOCTOR: Come on. We can all have a good flirt later.
SHAKESPEARE: Is that a promise, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Oh, fifty seven academics just punched the air. Now move!
[Globe stage]
BURBAGE: Loves Labour’s Won. I don’t think much of sequels. They’re never as good as the original.
KEMPE: Have you seen this last bit? He must have been dozing off when he wrote that. I don’t even know what it means.
BURBAGE: Yeah? Well, that goes for most of his stuff. Ah, but at least it’s my speech. Ah ha! I get centre stage. (reads) The light of Shadmock’s hollow moon doth shine onto a point in space betwixt Dravidian shores
(A wind suddenly blows through the auditorium.)
KEMPE: What was that?
BURBAGE: Dravidian shores linear five nine three oh one six
SHAKESPEARE: I’ve been mad. I’ve lost my mind. Fear of this place set me right again. It serves its purpose.
MARTHA: Mad in what way?
DOCTOR: You lost your son.
SHAKESPEARE: My only boy. The Black Death took him. I wasn’t even there.
MARTHA: I didn’t know. I’m sorry.
SHAKESPEARE: It made me question everything. The futility of this fleeting existence. To be or not to be. Oh, that’s quite good.
(Hamlet hadn’t been written yet.)
DOCTOR: You should write that down.
SHAKESPEARE: Maybe not. A bit pretentious?
[Streete’s cell]
(The Doctor puts his fingers on Streete’s temples. It is mind meld time.)
DOCTOR: Peter, I’m the Doctor. Go into the past. One year ago. Let your mind go back. Back to when everything was fine and shining. Everything that happened in this year since happened to somebody else. It was just a story. A Winter’s Tale. Let go. That’s it. That’s it, just let go.
(He lies Streete down on his cot.)
DOCTOR: Tell me the story, Peter. Tell me about the witches.
DOCTOR: I’m looking at the man with the words.
SHAKESPEARE: Me? But I’ve done nothing.
MARTHA: Hold on, though. What were you doing last night, when that Carrionite was in the room?
SHAKESPEARE: Finishing the play.
DOCTOR: What happens on the last page?
SHAKESPEARE: The boys get the girls. They have a bit of a dance. It’s all as funny and thought provoking as usual. Except those last few lines. Funny thing is, I don’t actually remember writing them.
DOCTOR: That’s it. They used you. They gave you the final words like a spell, like a code. Love’s Labours Won. It’s a weapon. The right combination of words, spoken at the right place, with the shape of the Globe as an energy converter! The play’s the thing! (Hamlet) And yes, you can have that.
…
DOCTOR: Good luck, Shakespeare. Once more unto the breach.
(Henry V)
SHAKESPEARE: I like that. Wait a minute, that’s one of mine.
DOCTOR: (pokes his head around door) Oh, just shift!
MARTHA: The thing is, though am I missing something here? The world didn’t end in 1599. It just didn’t. Look at me. I’m living proof.
DOCTOR: Oh, how to explain the mechanics of the infinite temporal flux? I know. Back to the Future. It’s like Back to the Future.
MARTHA: The film?
DOCTOR: No, the novelisation. Yes, the film. Marty McFly goes back and changes history.
MARTHA: And he starts fading away. Oh my God, am I going to fade?
DOCTOR: You and the entire future of the human race. It ends right now in 1599 if we don’t stop it. But which house?
(A door creaks open invitingly.)
DOCTOR: Ah. Make that witch house.
(The Doctor runs out onto the stage, followed by Martha and Shakespeare.)
LILITH: The Doctor. He lives. Then watch this world become a blasted heath! (Macbeth) They come. They come!
(Lilith holds the crystal out into the red light and bat-like creatures fly into the theatre. They circle a bit then fly up into the sky.)
DOCTOR: Come on, Will! History needs you!
SHAKESPEARE: But what can I do?
DOCTOR: Reverse it!
SHAKESPEARE: How am I supposed to do that?
DOCTOR: The shape of the Globe gives words power, but you’re the wordsmith, the one true genius. The only man clever enough to do it.
SHAKESPEARE: But what words? I have none ready!
DOCTOR: You’re William Shakespeare!
SHAKESPEARE: But these Carrionite phrases, the need such precision.
DOCTOR: Trust yourself. When you’re locked away in your room, the words just come, don’t they, like magic. Words of the right sound, the right shape, the right rhythm. Words that last forever. That’s what you do, Will. You choose perfect words. Do it. Improvise.
SHAKESPEARE: Close up this din of hateful, dire decay, decomposition of your witches’ plot. You thieve my brains, consider me your toy. My doting Doctor tells me I am not!
LILITH: No! Words of power!
SHAKESPEARE: Foul Carrionite spectres, cease your show! Between the points
DOCTOR: Seven six one three nine oh!
SHAKESPEARE: Seven six one three nine oh! Banished like a tinker’s cuss, I say to thee
MARTHA: Expelliarmus!
DOCTOR: Expelliarmus!
SHAKESPEARE: Expelliarmus!
DOCTOR: Good old JK!
(The Carrionites scream.)
LILITH: The deep darkness! They are consumed!
(The Carrionites are sucked into a tornado, along with all the extant pages of the play.)
DOCTOR: Love’s Labours Won. There it goes.
(The sky clears with a flash and bang. After a few moments, someone starts clapping, then all the audience joins in.)
MARTHA: They think it was all special effects?
SHAKESPEARE: Your effect is special indeed.
MARTHA: It’s not your best line.
…
(The Doctor enters wearing a small stiff ruff and carrying an animal skull.)
DOCTOR: Good props store back there. I’m not sure about this though. Reminds me of a Sycorax.
SHAKESPEARE: Sycorax. Nice word. I’ll have that off you as well.
DOCTOR: I should be on ten percent. How’s your head?
SHAKESPEARE: Still aching.
DOCTOR: Here, I got you this.
(The Doctor takes off the ruff and puts it on Shakespeare.)
DOCTOR: Neck brace. Wear that for a few days till it’s better, although you might want to keep it. It suits you.
MARTHA: What about the play?
DOCTOR: Gone. I looked all over. Every single copy of Love’s Labours Won went up in the sky.
SHAKESPEARE: My lost masterpiece.
MARTHA: You could write it up again.
DOCTOR: Yeah, better not, Will. There’s still power in those words. Maybe it should best stay forgotten.
SHAKESPEARE: Oh, but I’ve got new ideas. Perhaps it’s time I wrote about fathers and sons, in memory of my boy, my precious Hamnet.
MARTHA: Hamnet?
SHAKESPEARE: That’s him.
MARTHA: Hamnet?
SHAKESPEARE: What’s wrong with that?
DOCTOR: Anyway, time we were off. I’ve got a nice attic in the Tardis where this lot can scream for all eternity, and I’ve got to take Martha back to Freedonia.
SHAKESPEARE: You mean travel on through time and space.
DOCTOR: You what?
SHAKESPEARE: You’re from another world like the Carrionites, and Martha is from the future. It’s not hard to work out.
DOCTOR: That’s incredible. You are incredible.
SHAKESPEARE: We’re alike in many ways, Doctor. Martha, let me say goodbye to you in a new verse. A sonnet for my Dark Lady. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
(Burbage and Kempe enter from the street.)
BURBAGE: Will!
KEMPE: Will, you’ll never believe it. She’s here! She’s turned up!
BURBAGE: We’re the talk of the town. She heard about last night. She wants us to perform it again.
MARTHA: Who?
BURBAGE: Her Majesty. She’s here.
(Fanfare and the elderly Elizabeth enters with two pikemen.)
DOCTOR: Queen Elizabeth the First!
ELIZABETH: Doctor?
DOCTOR: What?
ELIZABETH: My sworn enemy.
DOCTOR: What?
ELIZABETH: Off with his head!
DOCTOR: What?
MARTHA: Never mind what, just run! See you, Will, and thanks.
ELIZABETH: Stop that pernicious Doctor.
S3, E6 The Lazarus Experiment: Lazarus, T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men”
The title and the name of the professor and lab refer to the Biblical story of Lazarus being raised from the dead.
LAZARUS: I find that nothing’s ever exactly like you expect. There’s always something to surprise you. Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act
DOCTOR: Falls the Shadow.
(The Hollow Men, by TS Eliot.)
LAZARUS: So the mysterious Doctor knows his Eliot. I’m impressed.
From The Hollow Men:
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Notes:
8. prickly pear: cactus
9. Between…act: a reference to “Julius Caesar” “Between the acting of a dreadful thing/And the first motion, all the interim is/Like a phantasma or a hideous dream.”
10. For…Kingdom: the beginning of the closing words of the Lord’s Prayer. © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
https://allpoetry.com/The-Hollow-Men
MARTHA: Oh, God. He seems so human again. It’s kind of pitiful.
DOCTOR: Eliot saw that, too. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
S3, E7 42: The answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything
SCANNELL: Nothing’s any use. We’ve got no engines, no time, and no chance.
DOCTOR: Oh, listen to you. Defeated before you’ve even started. Where’s your Dunkirk spirit?
The number 42, which in the Hitchhiker’s series was the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything
S3, E8 Human Nature: “I appear to be holding your books”, John Smith’s journal, The Definitive Account of Mafeking by Aitchison Price
BOY: Excuse me, ma’am.
(A neat woman in starched nurses uniform meets the Doctor, who is carrying a large pile of books.)
JOAN: Oh, good morning, Mister Smith.
(He drops some of the books.)
DOCTOR: There we go.
JOAN: Let me help you.
DOCTOR: No, no, I’ve got it, no. Er, how best to retrieve? Tell you what. If you could take these
(Joan takes the books from his arms, and he picks up the fallen ones.)
JOAN: Good.
DOCTOR: No harm done. So, er, how was Jenkins?
JOAN: Oh just a cold. Nothing serious. I think he’s missing his mother more than anything.
DOCTOR: Oh, we can’t have that.
JOAN: He received a letter this morning, so he’s a lot more chipper. I appear to be holding your books.
DOCTOR: Yes, so you are. Sorry, sorry. Just let me.
JOAN: No, why don’t I take half?
DOCTOR: Ah, brilliant idea. Brilliant. Perfect. Division of labour.
JOAN: We make quite a team.
DOCTOR: Don’t we just.
JOAN: So, these books. Were they being taken in any particular direction?
DOCTOR: Yes. This way.
DOCTOR: I was just telling Nurse Redfern, Matron, about my dreams. They are quite remarkable tales. I keep imagining that I’m someone else, and that I’m hiding.
JOAN: Hiding? In what way?
DOCTOR: They’re almost every night. This is going to sound silly.
JOAN: Tell me.
DOCTOR: I dream, quite often, that I have two hearts.
JOAN: Well, then. I can be the judge of that. Let’s find out.
(Joan uses her stethoscope to listen to the Doctor’s chest.)
JOAN: I can confirm the diagnosis. Just one heart, singular.
DOCTOR: I have er, I have written down some of these dreams in the form of fiction. Not that it would be of any interest.
JOAN: I’d be very interested.
DOCTOR: Well, I’ve never actually shown it to anyone before.
(The Doctor gives Joan the handwritten book.)
JOAN: A Journal of Impossible Things.
(Lots of inky scrawl and pictures.)
JOAN: Just look at these creatures.
(A Dalek.)
JOAN: Such imagination.
DOCTOR: It’s become quite a hobby.
(The Moxx of Balhoon, Autons labelled as plastic men, one of the Pompadour clockwork robots.)
JOAN: It’s wonderful. And quite an eye for the pretty girls.
(Rose Tyler.)
DOCTOR: Oh no, no, she’s just an invention. This character, Rose. I call her, Rose. Seems to disappear later on.
(Cybermen and the Tardis, labelled magic box.)
DOCTOR: Ah, that’s the box. The blue box. It’s always there. Like a like a magic carpet. This funny little box that transports me to far away places.
JOAN: Like a doorway?
DOCTOR: Mmm.
(Sketches of earlier Doctors.)
DOCTOR: I sometimes think how magical life would be if stories like this were true.
JOAN: If only.
DOCTOR: It’s just a dream.
(And drawings of the pocket watch.)
[Doctor’s study]
(Latimer knocks on the door, and the Doctor opens it.)
LATIMER: You told me to come and collect that book, sir.
DOCTOR: Good lad. Yes. Yes! The Definitive Account of Mafeking by Aitchison Price. Where did I put it? And I wanted a little word. Your marks aren’t quite good enough.
LATIMER: I’m top ten in my class, sir.
DOCTOR: Now, be honest, Timothy, you should be the very top. You’re a clever boy. You seem to be hiding it. Where is that book? And I know why. Keeping your head low avoids the mockery of your classmates. But no man should hide himself, don’t you think?
LATIMER: Yes, sir.
(The Doctor searches the shelves of his library alcove, and Latimer notices the watch.)
DOCTOR [OC]: You’re clever. Be proud of it. Use it.
(Latimer picks up the watch and hears voices.)
MOTHER [watch]: Time Lord. Hide yourself.
DOCTOR [watch]: The secret lies within. I’m trapped. I’m kept inside the cogs.
(Latimer opens the watch, and outside in the grounds, Baines turns around.)
DOCTOR [watch]: In the dark, waiting. Always waiting.
(Latimer closes the watch and puts it in his pocket. The Doctor returns with the book.)
DOCTOR: Fascinating details about the siege. Really quite remarkable. Are you all right?
LATIMER: Yes, sir. Fine, sir.
DOCTOR: Right then. Good. And remember. Use that brain of yours.
DOCTOR [watch]: Power of a Time Lord.
(As the Doctor hands the book to Latimer, he sees images of the Doctor using his sonic screwdriver.)
DOCTOR: You’re really not looking yourself, old chap. Anything bothering you?
LATIMER: No, sir Thank you, sir.
(The Doctor is making a sketch of Joan.)
JOAN: Can I see?
(The Doctor sits next to her on the Chesterfield.)
JOAN: Oh, goodness Do I look like that? Are you sure that’s not me?
(A Slitheen on the previous page.)
DOCTOR: Most definitely this page. Do you like it?
JOAN: You’ve made me far too beautiful.
DOCTOR: Well, that’s how I see you.
JOAN: Widows aren’t supposed to be beautiful. I think the world would rather we stopped. Is that fair? That we stop?
DOCTOR: That’s not fair at all.
(He strokes her hair and then kisses her.)
DOCTOR: I’ve never er
(They kiss again, then the door opens.)
S3, E9 The Family of Blood: John Smith’s journal
JOAN: I’ve still got this. The journal.
DOCTOR: Those are just stories.
JOAN: Now we know that’s not true. Perhaps there’s something in here.
…
JOAN: Then it all ends in destruction. I never read to the end, but those creatures would live forever to breed and conquer, for war across the stars for every child. Martha, Timothy, would you leave us alone, please?
(Martha and Latimer leave. Joan hugs a sobbing Doctor. The bombardment on the village continues as Martha and Latimer sit outside, then she hugs him.)
JOAN: If I could do this instead of you, then I would. I’d hoped. But my hopes aren’t important.
DOCTOR: He won’t love you.
JOAN: If he’s not you, then I don’t want him to. I had one husband, and he died. I never thought, ever again. And then you were so
DOCTOR: And it was real. I wasn’t. I really thought.
S3, E10 Blink: Sparrow and Nightingale: Antiquarian Books and Rare DVDs
SALLY: Doctor! Doctor! Doctor!
DOCTOR: Hello. Sorry, bit of a rush. There’s a sort of thing happening. Fairly important we stop it.
SALLY: My God, it’s you. It really is you. Oh, you don’t remember me, do you?
(Martha is carrying a quiver of arrows, and the Doctor has a long bow.)
MARTHA: Doctor, we haven’t have time for this. The migration’s started.
DOCTOR: Look, sorry, I’ve got a bit of a complex life. Things don’t always happen to me in quite the right order. Gets a bit confusing at times, especially at weddings. I’m rubbish at weddings, especially my own.
SALLY: Oh, my God, of course. You’re a time traveller. It hasn’t happened to you yet. None of it. It’s still in your future.
DOCTOR: What hasn’t happened?
MARTHA: Doctor, please. Twenty minutes to red hatching.
SALLY: It was me. Oh, for God’s sake, it was me all along. You got it all from me.
DOCTOR: Got what?
SALLY: Okay, listen. One day you’re going to get stuck in 1969. Make sure you’ve got this with you. You’re going to need it.
(Sally hands her file of documents to the Doctor.)
MARTHA: Doctor!
DOCTOR: Yeah, listen, listen, got to dash. Things happening. Well, four things. Well, four things and a lizard.
SALLY: Okay. No worries. On you go. See you around some day.
DOCTOR: What was your name?
SALLY: Sally Sparrow.
DOCTOR: Good to meet you, Sally Sparrow.
(Larry returns with the milk. Sally takes his hand.)
SALLY: Goodbye, Doctor.
(Sally and Larry go back into the DVD store, now retitled Sparrow and Nightingale, Antiquarian Books and Rare DVDs. The camera pans up to the next building where a grotesque is sitting on the roof.)
DOCTOR [on screen]: Don’t blink.
(Montage of public statuary.)
DOCTOR [on screen]: Blink and you’re dead. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t blink. Good luck.
S3, E13 Last of the Time Lords: Agatha Christie
DOCTOR: Right then, off we go. The open road. There is a burst of starfire right now over the coast of Meta Sigmafolio. Oh, the sky is like oil on water. Fancy a look? Or back in time. We could, I don’t know, Charles the Second? Henry the Eighth. I know. What about Agatha Christie? I’d love to meet Agatha Christie. I bet she’s brilliant. Okay.
MARTHA: I just can’t.
DOCTOR: Yeah.
MARTHA: Spent all these years training to be a doctor. Now I’ve got people to look after. They saw half the planet slaughtered and they’re devastated. I can’t leave them.
DOCTOR: Of course not. Thank you. Martha Jones, you saved the world.
MARTHA: Yes, I did. I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best, but you know what? I am good. You going to be all right?
DOCTOR: Always. Yeah.
Christmas Special 2007 Voyage of the Damned: Journalist Gordon Thomas and Producer Max Morgan-Witts, Red Alert, and the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything
The episode shares a title with a movie and book.
Voyage of the Damned is a 1976 drama film, which was based on a 1974 book written by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts with the same title.[1]
The story was inspired by true events concerning the fate of the MS St. Louis ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees from Germany to Cuba in 1939.
Electronic Voice: Red alert. Red alert.
The number 42, which in the Hitchhiker’s series was the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything, was one of the numbers the Tenth Doctor guessed when trying to find out the security protocol for the Host.
DOCTOR: No! No, no, no, no. That wasn’t a question either. Blimey. One question left. One question. So, you’ve been given orders to kill the survivors but survivors must therefore be passengers or staff, but not me. I’m not a passenger. I’m not staff. Go on, scan me. You must have bio-records. No such person on board. I don’t exist, therefore you can’t kill me. Therefore, I’m a stowaway, and stowaways should be arrested and taken to the nearest figure of authority. And I reckon the nearest figure of authority is on deck thirty one. Final question. Am I right?
HOST: Information. Correct.
DOCTOR: Brilliant. Take me to your leader. I’ve always wanted to say that.
- “I want you to do something for me”, she said, and unexpectedly laughed. “I want,” she said, and laughed again. She put her hand over her mouth and said with a straight face, “I want you to take me to your leader.”
(from Life, the Universe and Everything (1982) by Douglas Adams, describing Trillian addressing the inhabitants of Krikkit)
- Numerous uses on BBC television series Doctor Who (1963—present), usually spoken by the Doctor in a tongue-in-cheek or annoyed manner
S4, E1 The Fires of Pompeii
The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire
S4, E6 The Doctor’s Daughter: Miss Saigon
DONNA: But this is a theatre.
DOCTOR: Maybe they’re doing Miss Saigon.
S4, E7 The Unicorn & the Wasp: Agatha Christie (Donna Noble), Death in the Clouds
A murder in the library:
Using the little grey cells:
The maid’s cat among the pigeons comment:
A dead man’s folly, nothing more.
It can’t be a monster. It’s a trick. They do it with mirrors:
She had an appointment with death instead:
Cards on the table:
Donna and Agatha Christie talking about her books
Taking about Edward Lear and Miss Marple
The doctor poisoned with cyanide
The moving finger points at
The mechanics of those novels became a template in your brain:
Death comes as the end and justice is served
Donna unimpressed with “Murder at the Vicar’s Rage”
They solved the mystery of Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie. Christie had written the novel by 1926 when she attended a garden party at the home of Lady Eddison. Since Lady Eddison had been reading the novel when the alien biology of her long-lost son, Reverend Arnold Golightly, was first awakened in a moment of anger, in this moment Golightly accidentally received the works of Agatha Christie as his style of the murders. (TV: The Unicorn and the Wasp)
· The episode is littered with references to Agatha Christie novels and short stories, including:
- Donna mentions Miss Marple and the story of the murder on the Orient Express before Agatha Christie has written about them, and may therefore have inadvertently caused the creation of them.
- When the Doctor is poisoned Agatha is heard to utter the words “sparkling cyanide”, which was the title of one of her future novels.
- The Colonel faking his inability to walk and the Unicorn posing as Robina Redmond are ideas that appeared in the Christie novel After the Funeral.
- The Man in the Brown Suit: The Doctor wears a brown suit throughout the course of the episode; in the original teaser sequence the elderly Agatha wonders who “the man in the brown suit” was that had haunted her for fifty years.
- Dead Man’s Folly: Miss Chandrakala’s description of the Professor’s book (as in “a dead man’s folly”; not the actual name of the book)
- The Body in the Library: Donna’s remark about Professor Peach’s death
- Cat Among the Pigeons: A servant’s remark about the murder
- Nemesis: One of Agatha’s nicknames for the murderer; also used for the episode title of the Doctor Who Confidential episode looking at The Unicorn and the Wasp
- The Secret Adversary: Another of Agatha’s nicknames for the murderer
- N or M?: The Doctor’s question to Agatha about the piece of paper she found.
- Murder on the Orient Express: Donna mentions it to Agatha Christie, unaware that the book hasn’t been written yet
- Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?: The Professor’s remark before he dies is “Why didn’t they ask… heavens!” (the book’s title refers to the murder victim’s last words)
- They Do It With Mirrors: Agatha’s explanation about the giant wasp, believing it to be a hoax
- Appointment with Death: Lady Eddison says Chandrakala had “an appointment with death” when mourning over her son’s death
- Cards on the Table: The phrase the Colonel used when he asked Agatha about what she knew about the mystery
- Sparkling Cyanide: Agatha Christie says after detecting cyanide in the Doctor’s lemonade
- Yellow Iris (a short story included in The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories): at the dinner where the Doctor spikes the soup with pepper to smoke out the Vespiform, there is a vase of yellow iris as a table centrepiece. It was later expanded to novel length as Sparkling Cyanide.
- Crooked House: How Agatha described the history of the four remaining suspects – and consequently, Eddison Manor
- Endless Night: How the Doctor described the evening of the events at the start of the debriefing
- Taken at the Flood: Lady Eddison said Christopher “was taken with the flood”
- The Moving Finger: The Doctor pointed at Donna, Agatha and then Lady Eddison at the start of his portion of the debriefing and literally said, “The moving finger points at you…” when he turned to Lady Eddison, even going so far as moving his finger in a circular motion
- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Lady Eddison is reading the book when the Firestone activated. Moreover, Lady Eddison’s son is named Roger.
- Death Comes as the End: Agatha said “Death comes as the end and justice is served” after Golightly’s death
- The Murder at the Vicarage: The Doctor called the events “Murder at the Vicar’s Rage” after Golightly’s death, though after Donna recognised his verbal mangling, he admitted it could do with some work
- Death in the Clouds: In the TARDIS, the Doctor showed Donna a facsimile copy of this book published in the year 5 billion, with the Fontana edition cover showing a giant wasp attacking a plane. In the original final scene when the Doctor shows the elderly Agatha Christie the facsimile edition, she says that the cover with the giant wasp gave her a shock when she first saw it. In the book, the murder victim is originally thought to have died from a wasp sting.
- Ten Little Niggers (also known as Ten Little Indians or And Then There Were None): The main enemy is a bee-like creature, and the Doctor is poisoned with cyanide. One of the murders in the novel involves a bee and a cyanide injection.
S4, E8 Silence in the Library- mentions Bridget Jones & Monty Python’s Big Red Book, loves biographies, tells Donna not to read ahead (spoilers)
The biggest library in the universe:
DOCTOR: Books. People never really stop loving books.
[Library]
(The Tardis is in a mostly empty area with just a few small cases of books.)
DOCTOR: Fifty first century. By now you’ve got holovids, direct to brain downloads, fiction mist, but you need the smell. The smell of books, Donna. Deep breath.
[Staircase]
(A massive marble job.)
DOCTOR: The Library. So big it doesn’t need a name. Just a great big The.
DONNA: It’s like a city.
DOCTOR: It’s a world. Literally, a world. The whole core of the planet is the index computer. Biggest hard drive ever. And up here, every book ever written. Whole continents of Jeffrey Archer, Bridget Jones, Monty Python’s Big Red Book. Brand new editions, specially printed.
(They look over a balcony onto roofs below.)
DOCTOR: We’re near the equator, so this must be biographies. I love biographies.
DONNA: Yeah, very you. Always a death at the end.
DOCTOR: You need a good death. Without death, there’d only be comedies. Dying gives us size.
(Donna picks up a book and the Doctor takes it from her.)
DOCTOR: Way-a. Spoilers.
DONNA: What?
DOCTOR: These books are from your future. You don’t want to read ahead. Spoil all the surprises. Like peeking at the end.
DONNA: Isn’t travelling with you one big spoiler?
DOCTOR: I try to keep you away from major plot developments. Which, to be honest, I seem to be very bad at, because you know what? This is the biggest library in the universe. So where is everyone? It’s silent.
(The Doctor uses his screwdriver on a nearby information screen, bringing it online.)
DONNA: The library?
DOCTOR: The planet. The whole planet.
DONNA: Maybe it’s a Sunday.
DOCTOR: No, I never land on Sundays. Sundays are boring.
DONNA: Well, maybe everyone’s really, really quiet.
DOCTOR: Yeah, maybe. But they’d still show up on the system.
DONNA: Doctor, why are we here? Really, why?
DOCTOR: Oh, you know, just passing.
DONNA: No, seriously. It was all let’s hit the beach, then suddenly we’re in a library. Why?
And up here, every book ever written:
A million, million life forms, and silence in the library:
NODE: Additional. There follows a brief message from the Head Librarian for your urgent attention. It has been edited for tone and content by a Felman Lux Automated Decency Filter. Message follows. Run. For God’s sake, run. No way is safe. The library has sealed itself, we can’t. Oh, they’re here. Argh. Slarg. Snick. Message ends. Please switch off your mobile comm. units for the comfort of other readers.
DOCTOR: So that’s why we’re here. Any other messages, same date stamp?
NODE: One additional message. This message carries a Felman Lux coherency warning of five zero eleven
DOCTOR: Yeah, yeah, fine, fine, fine. Just play it.
NODE: Message follows. Count the shadows. For God’s sake, remember, if you want to live, count the shadows. Message ends.
DOCTOR: Donna?
DONNA: Yeah?
DOCTOR: Stay out of the shadows.
DONNA: Why, what’s in the shadows?
Shadows in the library:
An irrational fear of the dark?
River Song’s diary:
Spoilers:
Running through the library:
Donna Noble has been saved:
Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved:
S4, E9 Forest of the Dead
There are not trees in a library. … Books. You came in the books.
A million, million books hatching shadows.
I’m the doctor. You’re in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up.
Why am I handcuffed. Why do you even have handcuffs? “Spoilers”
The Towers Sang. And you cried.
You even gave me your screwdriver. That should’ve been a clue.
You can’t run forever:
RIVER [OC]: When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it will never end. But however hard you try, you can’t run for ever. Everybody knows that everybody dies, and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark, if he ever, for one moment, accepts it.
One last run:
Everybody lives:
S4, E10 Midnight: Christina Rossetti
We must not look at goblin men:
It’s a poem. Christina Rosetti:
DEE DEE + SKY: We must not look at goblin men.
BIFF + SKY: What’s that supposed to mean?
DOCTOR + SKY: It’s a poem. Christina Rossetti.
DEE DEE + SKY: We must not look at goblin men. We must not buy their fruits. Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry, thirsty roots?
DOCTOR + SKY: Actually, I don’t think that’s helping.
HOBBES + SKY: She’s not a goblin, or a monster. She’s just a very sick woman.
Goblin Market
By Christina Rossetti
Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
All ripe together
In summer weather,—
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.”
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bow’d her head to hear,
Lizzie veil’d her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger tips.
“Lie close,” Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
“Come buy,” call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.
“Oh,” cried Lizzie, “Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men.”
Lizzie cover’d up her eyes,
Cover’d close lest they should look;
Laura rear’d her glossy head,
And whisper’d like the restless brook:
“Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen tramp little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes.”
“No,” said Lizzie, “No, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us.”
She thrust a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One had a cat’s face,
One whisk’d a tail,
One tramp’d at a rat’s pace,
One crawl’d like a snail,
One like a wombat prowl’d obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.
She heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.
Laura stretch’d her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
Like a vessel at the launch
When its last restraint is gone.
Backwards up the mossy glen
Turn’d and troop’d the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
“Come buy, come buy.”
When they reach’d where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other,
Brother with queer brother;
Signalling each other,
Brother with sly brother.
One set his basket down,
One rear’d his plate;
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town);
One heav’d the golden weight
Of dish and fruit to offer her:
“Come buy, come buy,” was still their cry.
Laura stared but did not stir,
Long’d but had no money:
The whisk-tail’d merchant bade her taste
In tones as smooth as honey,
The cat-faced purr’d,
The rat-faced spoke a word
Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;
One parrot-voiced and jolly
Cried “Pretty Goblin” still for “Pretty Polly;”—
One whistled like a bird.
But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:
“Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather.”
“You have much gold upon your head,”
They answer’d all together:
“Buy from us with a golden curl.”
She clipp’d a precious golden lock,
She dropp’d a tear more rare than pearl,
Then suck’d their fruit globes fair or red:
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flow’d that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?
She suck’d and suck’d and suck’d the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She suck’d until her lips were sore;
Then flung the emptied rinds away
But gather’d up one kernel stone,
And knew not was it night or day
As she turn’d home alone.
Lizzie met her at the gate
Full of wise upbraidings:
“Dear, you should not stay so late,
Twilight is not good for maidens;
Should not loiter in the glen
In the haunts of goblin men.
Do you not remember Jeanie,
How she met them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and many,
Ate their fruits and wore their flowers
Pluck’d from bowers
Where summer ripens at all hours?
But ever in the noonlight
She pined and pined away;
Sought them by night and day,
Found them no more, but dwindled and grew grey;
Then fell with the first snow,
While to this day no grass will grow
Where she lies low:
I planted daisies there a year ago
That never blow.
You should not loiter so.”
“Nay, hush,” said Laura:
“Nay, hush, my sister:
I ate and ate my fill,
Yet my mouth waters still;
To-morrow night I will
Buy more;” and kiss’d her:
“Have done with sorrow;
I’ll bring you plums to-morrow
Fresh on their mother twigs,
Cherries worth getting;
You cannot think what figs
My teeth have met in,
What melons icy-cold
Piled on a dish of gold
Too huge for me to hold,
What peaches with a velvet nap,
Pellucid grapes without one seed:
Odorous indeed must be the mead
Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink
With lilies at the brink,
And sugar-sweet their sap.”
Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other’s wings,
They lay down in their curtain’d bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem,
Like two flakes of new-fall’n snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipp’d with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars gaz’d in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Lumbering owls forbore to fly,
Not a bat flapp’d to and fro
Round their rest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Lock’d together in one nest.
Early in the morning
When the first cock crow’d his warning,
Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,
Laura rose with Lizzie:
Fetch’d in honey, milk’d the cows,
Air’d and set to rights the house,
Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,
Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,
Next churn’d butter, whipp’d up cream,
Fed their poultry, sat and sew’d;
Talk’d as modest maidens should:
Lizzie with an open heart,
Laura in an absent dream,
One content, one sick in part;
One warbling for the mere bright day’s delight,
One longing for the night.
At length slow evening came:
They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;
Lizzie most placid in her look,
Laura most like a leaping flame.
They drew the gurgling water from its deep;
Lizzie pluck’d purple and rich golden flags,
Then turning homeward said: “The sunset flushes
Those furthest loftiest crags;
Come, Laura, not another maiden lags.
No wilful squirrel wags,
The beasts and birds are fast asleep.”
But Laura loiter’d still among the rushes
And said the bank was steep.
And said the hour was early still
The dew not fall’n, the wind not chill;
Listening ever, but not catching
The customary cry,
“Come buy, come buy,”
With its iterated jingle
Of sugar-baited words:
Not for all her watching
Once discerning even one goblin
Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;
Let alone the herds
That used to tramp along the glen,
In groups or single,
Of brisk fruit-merchant men.
Till Lizzie urged, “O Laura, come;
I hear the fruit-call but I dare not look:
You should not loiter longer at this brook:
Come with me home.
The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,
Each glowworm winks her spark,
Let us get home before the night grows dark:
For clouds may gather
Though this is summer weather,
Put out the lights and drench us through;
Then if we lost our way what should we do?”
Laura turn’d cold as stone
To find her sister heard that cry alone,
That goblin cry,
“Come buy our fruits, come buy.”
Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?
Must she no more such succous pasture find,
Gone deaf and blind?
Her tree of life droop’d from the root:
She said not one word in her heart’s sore ache;
But peering thro’ the dimness, nought discerning,
Trudg’d home, her pitcher dripping all the way;
So crept to bed, and lay
Silent till Lizzie slept;
Then sat up in a passionate yearning,
And gnash’d her teeth for baulk’d desire, and wept
As if her heart would break.
Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
“Come buy, come buy;”—
She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the noon wax’d bright
Her hair grew thin and grey;
She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn
To swift decay and burn
Her fire away.
One day remembering her kernel-stone
She set it by a wall that faced the south;
Dew’d it with tears, hoped for a root,
Watch’d for a waxing shoot,
But there came none;
It never saw the sun,
It never felt the trickling moisture run:
While with sunk eyes and faded mouth
She dream’d of melons, as a traveller sees
False waves in desert drouth
With shade of leaf-crown’d trees,
And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.
She no more swept the house,
Tended the fowls or cows,
Fetch’d honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,
Brought water from the brook:
But sat down listless in the chimney-nook
And would not eat.
Tender Lizzie could not bear
To watch her sister’s cankerous care
Yet not to share.
She night and morning
Caught the goblins’ cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy;”—
Beside the brook, along the glen,
She heard the tramp of goblin men,
The yoke and stir
Poor Laura could not hear;
Long’d to buy fruit to comfort her,
But fear’d to pay too dear.
She thought of Jeanie in her grave,
Who should have been a bride;
But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died
In her gay prime,
In earliest winter time
With the first glazing rime,
With the first snow-fall of crisp winter time.
Till Laura dwindling
Seem’d knocking at Death’s door:
Then Lizzie weigh’d no more
Better and worse;
But put a silver penny in her purse,
Kiss’d Laura, cross’d the heath with clumps of furze
At twilight, halted by the brook:
And for the first time in her life
Began to listen and look.
Laugh’d every goblin
When they spied her peeping:
Came towards her hobbling,
Flying, running, leaping,
Puffing and blowing,
Chuckling, clapping, crowing,
Clucking and gobbling,
Mopping and mowing,
Full of airs and graces,
Pulling wry faces,
Demure grimaces,
Cat-like and rat-like,
Ratel- and wombat-like,
Snail-paced in a hurry,
Parrot-voiced and whistler,
Helter skelter, hurry skurry,
Chattering like magpies,
Fluttering like pigeons,
Gliding like fishes,—
Hugg’d her and kiss’d her:
Squeez’d and caress’d her:
Stretch’d up their dishes,
Panniers, and plates:
“Look at our apples
Russet and dun,
Bob at our cherries,
Bite at our peaches,
Citrons and dates,
Grapes for the asking,
Pears red with basking
Out in the sun,
Plums on their twigs;
Pluck them and suck them,
Pomegranates, figs.”—
“Good folk,” said Lizzie,
Mindful of Jeanie:
“Give me much and many: —
Held out her apron,
Toss’d them her penny.
“Nay, take a seat with us,
Honour and eat with us,”
They answer’d grinning:
“Our feast is but beginning.
Night yet is early,
Warm and dew-pearly,
Wakeful and starry:
Such fruits as these
No man can carry:
Half their bloom would fly,
Half their dew would dry,
Half their flavour would pass by.
Sit down and feast with us,
Be welcome guest with us,
Cheer you and rest with us.”—
“Thank you,” said Lizzie: “But one waits
At home alone for me:
So without further parleying,
If you will not sell me any
Of your fruits though much and many,
Give me back my silver penny
I toss’d you for a fee.”—
They began to scratch their pates,
No longer wagging, purring,
But visibly demurring,
Grunting and snarling.
One call’d her proud,
Cross-grain’d, uncivil;
Their tones wax’d loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbow’d and jostled her,
Claw’d with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soil’d her stocking,
Twitch’d her hair out by the roots,
Stamp’d upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeez’d their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat.
White and golden Lizzie stood,
Like a lily in a flood,—
Like a rock of blue-vein’d stone
Lash’d by tides obstreperously,—
Like a beacon left alone
In a hoary roaring sea,
Sending up a golden fire,—
Like a fruit-crown’d orange-tree
White with blossoms honey-sweet
Sore beset by wasp and bee,—
Like a royal virgin town
Topp’d with gilded dome and spire
Close beleaguer’d by a fleet
Mad to tug her standard down.
One may lead a horse to water,
Twenty cannot make him drink.
Though the goblins cuff’d and caught her,
Coax’d and fought her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratch’d her, pinch’d her black as ink,
Kick’d and knock’d her,
Maul’d and mock’d her,
Lizzie utter’d not a word;
Would not open lip from lip
Lest they should cram a mouthful in:
But laugh’d in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syrupp’d all her face,
And lodg’d in dimples of her chin,
And streak’d her neck which quaked like curd.
At last the evil people,
Worn out by her resistance,
Flung back her penny, kick’d their fruit
Along whichever road they took,
Not leaving root or stone or shoot;
Some writh’d into the ground,
Some div’d into the brook
With ring and ripple,
Some scudded on the gale without a sound,
Some vanish’d in the distance.
In a smart, ache, tingle,
Lizzie went her way;
Knew not was it night or day;
Sprang up the bank, tore thro’ the furze,
Threaded copse and dingle,
And heard her penny jingle
Bouncing in her purse,—
Its bounce was music to her ear.
She ran and ran
As if she fear’d some goblin man
Dogg’d her with gibe or curse
Or something worse:
But not one goblin scurried after,
Nor was she prick’d by fear;
The kind heart made her windy-paced
That urged her home quite out of breath with haste
And inward laughter.
She cried, “Laura,” up the garden,
“Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeez’d from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me;
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men.”
Laura started from her chair,
Flung her arms up in the air,
Clutch’d her hair:
“Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted
For my sake the fruit forbidden?
Must your light like mine be hidden,
Your young life like mine be wasted,
Undone in mine undoing,
And ruin’d in my ruin,
Thirsty, canker’d, goblin-ridden?”—
She clung about her sister,
Kiss’d and kiss’d and kiss’d her:
Tears once again
Refresh’d her shrunken eyes,
Dropping like rain
After long sultry drouth;
Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,
She kiss’d and kiss’d her with a hungry mouth.
Her lips began to scorch,
That juice was wormwood to her tongue,
She loath’d the feast:
Writhing as one possess’d she leap’d and sung,
Rent all her robe, and wrung
Her hands in lamentable haste,
And beat her breast.
Her locks stream’d like the torch
Borne by a racer at full speed,
Or like the mane of horses in their flight,
Or like an eagle when she stems the light
Straight toward the sun,
Or like a caged thing freed,
Or like a flying flag when armies run.
Swift fire spread through her veins, knock’d at her heart,
Met the fire smouldering there
And overbore its lesser flame;
She gorged on bitterness without a name:
Ah! fool, to choose such part
Of soul-consuming care!
Sense fail’d in the mortal strife:
Like the watch-tower of a town
Which an earthquake shatters down,
Like a lightning-stricken mast,
Like a wind-uprooted tree
Spun about,
Like a foam-topp’d waterspout
Cast down headlong in the sea,
She fell at last;
Pleasure past and anguish past,
Is it death or is it life?
Life out of death.
That night long Lizzie watch’d by her,
Counted her pulse’s flagging stir,
Felt for her breath,
Held water to her lips, and cool’d her face
With tears and fanning leaves:
But when the first birds chirp’d about their eaves,
And early reapers plodded to the place
Of golden sheaves,
And dew-wet grass
Bow’d in the morning winds so brisk to pass,
And new buds with new day
Open’d of cup-like lilies on the stream,
Laura awoke as from a dream,
Laugh’d in the innocent old way,
Hugg’d Lizzie but not twice or thrice;
Her gleaming locks show’d not one thread of grey,
Her breath was sweet as May
And light danced in her eyes.
Days, weeks, months, years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own;
Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone
Of not-returning time:
Would talk about the haunted glen,
The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat
But poison in the blood;
(Men sell not such in any town):
Would tell them how her sister stood
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands
Would bid them cling together,
“For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44996/goblin-market
S4, E12 The Stolen Earth: Richard Dawkins
AMNN [on TV]: The United Nations has issued an edict, asking the citizens of the world not to panic. So far, there has been no explanation of the twenty six planets which have appeared in the sky
RICHARD DAWKINS [on TV]: But it’s an empirical fact. The planets didn’t come to us, we came to them. Just look at the stars. We’re in a completely different region of space. We’ve travelled.
PAUL O’GRADY [on TV]: do you know what, I look up and there’s all these moons and things. Have you seen them? Did you see them?
AUDIENCE [on TV]: Yeah!
PAUL O’GRADY [on TV]: I thought, what was I drinking last night, furniture polish?
(Ianto laughs with the studio audience.)
The 11th Doctor: Matt Smith
-Journey to the Centre of the Tardis-library & Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth
-Pretends to be Sherlock Holmes (Christmas Special (2012) after Angels Take Manhattan)
-Quoted Alice in Wonderland
-Advanced Quantum Mechanics with TARDIS on dust jacket-Wears reading glasses
-On Virginia Woolf’s bowling team
-“I’m a Space Gandalf”-The Hobbit or LOTR
-“It’s a beautiful word, “shenanigans”
-S6, E9 Night Terrors-The Emperor Dalek’s New Clothes
· When the Doctor was pointing out species to Clara, one of the species were the Hooloovoo, a species name in Hitchhiker’s. (TV: The Rings of Akhaten)
S5, E3-Victory of the Daleks: Churchill
AMY: What, so you mean I’ve got to stay safe down here in the middle of the London Blitz?
DOCTOR: Safe as it gets around me.
(The Doctor goes into the Tardis and it dematerialises.)
AMY: What’s he expect us to do now?
CHURCHILL: K B O, of course.
AMY: What?
CHURCHILL: Keep buggering on.
DOCTOR: Tying up loose ends. I’ve taken out all the alien tech Bracewell put in.
CHURCHILL: Won’t you reconsider, Doctor? Those Spitfires would win me the war in twenty hours.
DOCTOR: Exactly.
CHURCHILL: But why not? Why can’t we put an end to all this misery?
DOCTOR: Oh, it doesn’t work like that, Winston, and it’s going to be tough. There are terrible days to come. The darkest days. But you can do it. You know you can.
CHURCHILL: Stay with us, and help us win through. The world needs you.
DOCTOR: The world doesn’t need me.
CHURCHILL: No?
DOCTOR: The world’s got Winston Spencer Churchill.
CHURCHILL: It’s been a pleasure, Doctor, as always.
DOCTOR: Too right.
CHURCHILL: Goodbye, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Oh, shall we say adieu?
(The Doctor and Churchill embrace.)
CHURCHILL: Indeed. Goodbye, Miss Pond.
AMY: It’s, it’s been amazing, meeting you.
CHURCHILL: I’m sure it has.
(Amy kisses Churchill, and he walks away.)
AMY: Oi, Churchill. Tardis key. The one you just took from the Doctor.
CHURCHILL: Oh, she’s good, Doctor. As sharp as a pin. Almost as sharp as me.
(Churchill returns the key to Amy.)
CHURCHILL: K B O.
(Amy gives the key to the Doctor.)
http://www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/31-3.htm
Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister during WWII) ended almost every phonecall with KBO. KBO is an acronym for “Keep Buggering On”
S5, E8-The Hungry Earth-Elliot listens to audiobooks inc. Sherlock Holmes & The Gruffalo “But who is this creature with terrible claws, Terrible teeth in his terrible jaws?”
Pandorica Opens-Amy’s books on the Romans and Pandora’s Box, Churchill?—or the Big Bang
Big Bang-Richard Dawkins
Christmas Carol-Dickens, Mary Poppins
S06, E03 The Curse of the Black Spot
(The hatch to the hold bursts open.)
DOCTOR: Yo ho ho! Or does nobody actually say that?
AMY: What is that thing?
AVERY: The legend. The siren. Many a merchant ship laden with treasure has fallen prey to her. She’s been hunting us ever since we were becalmed, picking off the injured.
BOATSWAIN: Like a shark. A shark can smell blood.
DOCTOR: Okay. Just like a shark, in a dress. And singing. And green? A green singing shark in an evening gown.
AVERY: The ship is cursed!
DOCTOR: Yeah, right. Cursed is big with humans. It means bad things are happening but you can’t be bothered to find an explanation.
DOCTOR: We’ve got to destroy every reflection. Gold, silver, glass, she could spring from any of them. Oh, yes, yes, I know, I know. Very bad luck to break it. But look at it this way. There’s a stroppy homicidal mermaid trying to kill all.
AVERY: How much worse can things get?
DOCTOR: Yep. Help me lug this lot out.
http://www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/32-3.htm
-S06, E04 The Doctor’s Wife-Neil Gaiman
S06, E12 Closing Time
River Song in the last scene with a notebook after just becoming a doctor.
2011 Christmas Special The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Photo of the kids crawling
S07, E01 Asylum of the Daleks
Carmen & take a photo of Julia Child’s soufflé recipe
S07, E02 Dinosaurs on a Spaceship
-Dinosaurs on a Spaceship-Rory’s dad (who also played Mr. Weasley) reference’s Arthur C. Clarke
The Power of Three
Brian Cox is interviewed on the “news”
Brian Cox was a British scientist. In the early 21st century, he appeared on television, claiming that the Shakri cubes could not have been falling space debris but was uncertain if they were of extraterrestrial origin saying you would have to find someone better than himself to explain them. (TV: The Power of Three)
The Angels Take Manhatten
-Angels take Manhattan-rips out last page of Melody Melone’s mystery by River Song so he doesn’t know the ending, Amy reads the chapter titles. He found it in his pocket. Yowza.
The 12th Doctor: Peter Capaldi
-Robin Hood
-S8, E11 Dark Water-TARDIS key in a copy of The Time Traveller’s Wife ?
-quotes Macbeth in sleep episode (series 9)
-Maisie Williams (game of thrones) (series 9)
-The Caretaker-Pride and Prejudice written in 1796
-The Magician’s Apprentic-Austen (Clara: very good kisser)
-Clara argued with Gandhi
-S8, E4 Listen-Where’s Wally
-Murder on the Orient Express
-The Return of Doctor Mysterio-children’s books
-The Forest of the Night (Series 8)-hasn’t seen Les Miz
-Kill the Moon-Clara teaches David Copperfield?
-S10, E6 Extremis-Moby Dick-“Honestly, shut up and get the whale”
-S9, E11 Heaven Sent-The Brothers Grimm “Lovely fellows. They were on my darts team.”
The 13th Doctor: Jodie Whittaker
My to do list from 2018:
-Add index or quick list to website. Also list of series and episodes since 2005, inc. Christmas specials
-1970s-Douglas Adams wrote for Doctor Who.
-“Beyond those doors-brave new world” with Martha in 1599 London
-Tells Amy “We’re all stories in the end”
Return to the Library:
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