The “Whore of Babylon” appears in the New Testament Book of Revelation 17:1-7.
The whore sits on a scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns. She holds a cup of abominations and has written on her forehead:
“Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.”
She was probably meant originally to represent the Roman Empire.
Ten years separated parts one and two of Cervantes’s Don Quixote. Part One was published in 1605; Part Two in 1615.
“Udolpho” in Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho was the castle of the evil Montoni in the Italian Apennines, and site of many scary events.
Increase Mather(1639-1723) was the father of Cotton Mather(16631728). Both were clergymen, theologians, and prolific writers in Puritan New England.
The name of Miss Havisham’s house in Dickens’s Great Expectations is Satis House.
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) wrote, “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive”, not Shakespeare.
Ogden Nash wrote the ditty in 1931. In 1968, he updated it: Candy is dandy But liquor is quicker. Pot is not.