On a recent visit to Cambridge, I found a marvel in a local antiquarian booksellers'. I have always been very fond of Roald Dahl's books and almost had a seizure when I found the American first edition of Roald Dahl's The Witches. With shaky hands I opened the front cover and had to go for a breath of fresh air. This was what greeted me:
Signed by Roald Dahl (author) and Quentin Blake (illustrator)
The tale revolves around a seven year old boy who, when visiting a seaside hotel which happens to host a witches convention at the same time, discovers a sinister plot to get rid of all children. Wiches look like ordinary women but they wear wigs and gloves to cover their bald heads and claws, hence the quote in the title, and they have no toes. Most importantly, they hate children. Filled with Dahls customary gruesome thrills, the novel is a marvel and it even has the ominous number 86 thrown in everywhere for superstitious nuts.
Whether I am one of them, I could not say. Suffice to tell, I dearly wanted that book, gloriously sporting the signatures of both author and illustrator as it was. However, the price tag was a bit on the steep side and the lady behind the her messy desk would not budge. In fact, budging did not seem to be very high up on the list of popular pastimes for this portly proprietor. As she wanted a whooping £300 for the book, I had to go for another stoll.
Detail from the front cover
They say walking is good for you. Good exercise and beneficial to the heart just about sums it up. Under the circs, I was inclined to applaud the notion as my heart was about to make a formidable leap. I checked the ilab web pages where I discovered a British first edition, signed by Dahl but not by Blake to the exhilarating sum of £1250!
I am not much of a mathematician, but I fear my strained, squeaky voice gave my conclusions away as I feebly tried to negotiate the price. It was, of course, to no avail. However, the woman's sedentary business style had surprisingly ceased to trouble me and it was with a song on my lips I parted with the stated.
Dahl drawn by Blake
Having been on display at my abode for a month now, I will have to turn my attention to redecorating the old den to accomodate its entry into my shelves. I might even take Roald Dahl's advice, sung by the Oompa-Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory upon the fate of Mike Teavee...
I guess we are all just a barrell of lonely monkeys. I have been challenged by Lady B to write seven things about myself in a post "shorter than the Paleozoic era" (the Lady is a fond student of all things between a rock an a hard place). Assuming the Paleozoic era, like the parsec, is a unit of length rather than time as might be conjectured, I for one will not stand in the way of such contests of dispensing the excretory fluid. Setting the tattered manifest charter of impersonality aside for a second time (those scarred will remember the horrid lapse of standards of February this year) I will boldly endeavour to oblige the gaggle of coquettes in their thirst for brass tax.
1.
I could be compared to a summer's day
Though I am more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Some too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft is his gold complection dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But my eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair I oweth;
Nor shall Death brag I wander'th in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time I groweth:
So long as men can breathe and eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to me
2. Most Terry Gilliam films presents a fairly accurate description of my mindscape.
Terry G
3. I invented the Spanish question mark and the royalties afforded me anually are partly to blame for the current economic turmoil in Spain.
The other one is copyright infringement
4. I am fascinated by the apparent humanity behind much of the lofty cultural expressions of history. Consider this: although civilisation has gradually become more advanced through the ages our perception of the value of cultural remnants of history has described an oppositely declining trajectory, as has our understanding of the basic functions of humanity behind those remnants. Therefore, discovering the lewdness of Hamlet, the greatest emo of all times, the fact that the English Enlightenment poet Stephen Duck died by ducking in 1756 or that Virgil got his name for not sleeping with ladies (because he was secretly otherwise inclined) delights me to no end.
5. My latest purchase is LaPucelle d'Orléans by Voltaire. A dirty sexist satire over the life of Joan of Arc, the book was found too licentious by the 18th century French! Since it was outlawed, banned and burned throughout France Voltaire brought it to London whose printers published in great excess and delight. I have found one of these copies from 1774 in a Viennese antiquarian bookstore and it is in the mail as this post is being written. Now all that remains is to learn French and I should be able to look forward to many a hearty, bawdy guffaw.
Juicy Joan, too frivolous for the French
6. My hobbies are golf, masturbation and strangling animals. Simultaneously.
7. I get the creeps by the following: open drawers, clingfilm, thick ropes, dentists' drills, pictures of VD and jutting my jaw forwards so my lower front teeth get on the outside of my upper front teeth. On the other hand, I have been cut, shot (by myself), bitten by lots of different animals, had surgery in my stomach without anasthetic, cut the inside of my eyelid on rusty barbed wire, climbed a switched on electric fence and bled quite substantial amounts of blood on a wall. However, I am genetically conditioned to cry when animals in distress are rescued or when those two Italians sing and play for Lady and the Tramp in the original movie.
In August, Rev. Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida announced his church's plans to burn copies of the Qu'ran in what they called "International Burn the Koran Day" on the 11th of September. To the horror of bibliophiles and sensible people around the world, Jones was claiming to want to send a message to the followers of "the religion of the Devil". In this capacity, he prepared to add a new chapter to a shameful history which has had unknown, damning consequences for our cultural heritage. Jones' plans were thwarted after urgings from the President and, in his own words, God. However, after such a close encounter with the horrible spectre of libricide we should take pains to familiarise ourselves with this phenomenon. Below is a bibliophile´s introduction to the nature and psychology of book burnings exemplified by three historic cases.
Rev. Terry Jones
Nature of Book Burnings
One of the benefits of civilisation is that its inherent safety of subsistence allows its members to transfer their efforts into creating expressions of culture. Thus, society and culture has always had a reciprocally reliant relationship. However, this relationship has never been a tranquil one and all too often disputes between the political or religious leadership and the cultural element have flared up, sometimes literally.
The Ancient Roman practice of damnatio memoriae could serve as an introduction to the mechanics and motivations of libricide. If a member of Roman public life had been considered as tainting the state, its leadership, be it Senate or Emperor, could decide to have every memory or mention of the individual erased. They would have his memory condemned, as it were. Following such a decision, statues would be destroyed or resculpted, property would be confiscated, mention of his name or deeds would become punishable and any written records of their existence would be obliterated. The political and religious leaders wished to remove any threat to their hegemony, and as cultural expressions such as scrolls and books are the sole conveyors of such threats the removal of these would be most expedient.
The same recognition that prompted leading political figures like Augustus, Churchill and Kissinger to have their histories recorded thus offering invaluable historical source material also led Diocletian to burn Christian texts, Torquemada to burn Islamic ones and Nazis to burn "Entartete Texte". Thus, Jones follows up a tradition with inglorious forefathers whose actions contribute more to demonising his own position than the one he wants to fight.
Diocletian
Tomàs de Torquemada
Nazi Book Burnings
What these leders saw was the importance of any physical representation of ideas.Although ideas can be preserved in the human mind or transmitted by word of mouth no extended existence can be guaranteed until the ideas are encoded in some physical medium. This is the reason for the Church's hegemony in Post-Roman times and the tremendous significance of the printing press. Today's internet constitutes a similar manifestation. By suppressing such media, the authorities would be able to suppress the ideas.
Psychology of Book Burnings
Psychologically, the destruction of such media serves a significant purpose. It establishes or maintains a social hierarchy. This can be done either by safeguarding or elevating one's own position or by degrading or dominating the other's and libricide falls into the second category. As with personal relationships, destroying what is personally central to others effectively belittles and harms these individuals' self esteem, social standing and cause. Heinrich Heine tapped into a psychological truth when he in his 1821 play Almansor commented on the above mentioned burning of the Qu'ran by Torquemada through the now familiar phrase "Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings."
"Where they burn books..." (Nazi book burnings of 1933)
"... so too will they in the end burn human beings." (The furnaces of Auschwitz)
The responses to such tactics are limited but often as drastic as the tactics themselves and the effects are invariably regressive. Either the target is destroyed, like Senator Aulus Cremutius Cordus who had his History of the Roman people destroyed in 25 AD and was forced to commit suicide or some reaction is occasioned, like the reactions to Rev. Jones. In these latter instances, libricide tends to polarize whatever discourse it is part of.
Three Cases of Book Burnings
To illustrate, I will present three cases of libricide; how these were the result of intolerant, misguided zeal and their destructive effects. For a good essay on the context of the case at hand, click here.
Fra Girolamo Savonarola
I have earlier written on Renaissance Florence as the birthplace of Humanism. However, in 1494 the most influential patrons of the arts, the Medici, were ousted by the invading French. The Dominican Friar Girolamo Savonarola assumed leadership of Florence and proclaimed a republic. Tapping into fears of the supposedly apocalyptic turn of the half millenium, the arrival of syphilis (with the French) and discontent with the ousted Medici rulers and the Papacy Savonarola urged a return to a simpler and more morally correct life. In pursuit of this he instigated the Falò delle vanità, the "Bonfires of Vanity". In 1495 he
Statue of Savonarola in Ferrara
"organised [the children of Florence] into bands, with standard-bearers and officers like the time-honored city companies with ther gonfaloniers, and sent them round the city to seize vanities, forcibly stop gambling, to collect alms for the poor, and even to exercise a supervision over the ladies' dresses."
The vanities; books, paintings, instruments were all burnt most notably in the early days of 1497. By this time the violent upheaval in Northern Italy following the French incursion, pestilence, famine and internal discontent in Florence gave this, the largest bonfire this far, an omnious atmosphere. As priceless works of antiquity like the works of Ovid and Renaissance art were consumed by the flames a resentment within the Fiorentine population was about to bring matters to a head. Later that year Savonarola was excommunicated by the Pope and several groups started a riot which became a full scale revolt. The Signoria, the government of Florence, joined this revolt and with their sanction Savonarola was burnt in the same place as his largest bonfire of vanities on May 23rd 1498. Savonarola was an influential character who in part inspired the Reformation but whose suppression of ideas through libricide heralded the end of the Fiorentine golden age.
Fray Diego de Landa
In Spanish historiography there is a tradition called "La Layenda Negra", "The Black Legend". This tries to depict Spanish colonialism as a thoroughly destructive and shameful. Although the tradition itself is somewhat discredited some of its examples are controversially extreme enough to astonish even the soundest historian.
Page from the Relación de las cosas de Yucatán
Fray Diego de Landa was the Fransiscan Bishop of Yucatan from 1573 to his death in 1579. As a monk he travelled extensively in the newly conquered lands of the Yucatan and became quite an authority on Maya culture. De Landa was a millenarist, which meant that he believed that the second coming of Christ would coincide with the turn of the century, much like Savonarola did in the preceding century. Thus, he had to fight Maya religion and culture as effectively as possible and convert the population to Catholic Christianity before the turn of the century.
On the 12th of July 1562 he ordered an inquisition in the Mayan town of Mani. In what is called an auto de fé, an act of faith, he had more than 40 Maya books and 20.000 Maya images burnt, dramatically reducing our source material of this culture. In addition, de Landa´s fanatical paranoia made him disregard both the decree that forbid religious persecution of indigenous peoples and the formal requirements of the inquisition. This lead to an excessive use of torture which appalled and dismayed even inquisition authorities.
The Black Legend is however counterweighed by the White Legend´s attention to a consolatory poetic justice. Like Savonarola, de Landa wrote a number of texts where he tried to justify his actions. Ironically, one of these, the Relación de las cosas de Yucatán ("Account of the matters of Yucatán"), became vital for the preservation and study of Maya language and culture.
The Nazis
The spectre of cultural "cleansing by fire" arose several times between de Landa and the 20th century, but the most famous case of book burning is undoubtedly the Nazi book burnings of May and June 1933. Based in a number of extreme theses and an initiative from the German Student Association Jewish, anti-nationalistic and "un-German" literature was gathered. More than 25.000 books were burnt accompanied by speeches by Nazi officials like Goebbels. Only interrupted by rain, the book burnings marked the beginning of a period of state control with culture and censorship.
The books deemed fit for the fires were surprisingly diverse. Books the Nazis defined as "products of Jewish intellectualism" were obvious choices (once more exemplifying how book burnings target humans as much as literature itself), as were literature by socialists. Helen Keller, Jack London and Ernest Hemingway, on the other hand, might seem like odd targets for the Nazis. Helen Keller, of course, was an example of a successful multi-handicapped author which did not sit well with Nazi ideology. Hemingway and London were simly deemed un-German because they represented foreign influence and literary success. Most noteworthy was perhaps Heinrich Heine, the 19th century German Jew who foresaw the atrocities to come.
The book burnings were broadcast to the rest of Germany
It should be noted that although it did not lead to genocide, the Allies followed up with a libricide of their own after the war. As related in TIME Magazine, the Allies targeted "undemocratic, militaristic and Nazi" literature for destruction. While the ideological motivations for this action can be understood from its contemporary context, the soundness of it was also contested by contemporary observers who "condemned the order as a piece of unenforceable foolishness which would only increase interest in the verboten books, and martyrize Germany's nationalistic spirit". This highlights two issues of libricide. Firsly how justifiable book burnings can seem in an athmosphere of fear and power struggle and secondly the sensitivity of the issue the closer we get to our own context.
The Lessons of History - a Conclusion Book burings seem to be one of the extreme alternatives to responsible literacy and cultural sensitivity. When the multi-faceted nature of literature with its roles and effects is not responsibly assessed it can become the target of irresponsible and dangerous actions which may have serious consequences. Heine´s link between literature and humanity is obvious. Sadly, acts of libricide as acts against human identity has too often preceded acts of violence against humanity itself. The line between destroying elements central to human identity and conseption of self and the destruction of humans is dangerously easy to cross once the first act has been commited. No matter the religious or ideological motivation, no good can come from book burnings. Not only do they push the extremes of human interaction for those who burn books; they also provoke reactions of an excessively extreme nature in the targets of these actions. Of course, these target groups should ascertain whether these crude acts are representative of the societal structures to which the book burner belongs and adjust their reactions accordingly, but the extent of the reaction does not justify the provocation. Book burnings show a contempt for humanity, a cultural ignorance and a lack of cultural sensitivity which is unfitting a member of modern society. The case of the Florida pastor has shown that the world is ready to bury the spectre of libricide.
Sources:
As given
Blom, Frans: The Conquest of Yucatan, Cambridge 1936
Clendinnen, Inga: Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517–1570, (2nd ed.), New York 2003
Gardner, Edmund G.:The Story of Florence, London 1928
Goldstein, Cora: Purges, Exclusions and Limits: Art Policies in Germany 1933-1949, link (last visited 17.9.2010)
During the summer vacation I succumbed to my bibliophilic streak and bought a monstrous number of books. In the course of this quest for literature, I visited many exciting bookshops. I went to Oxford and found a fantastic bookstore. Blackwell Rare Books in Broad Street seemed, in this bibliophile's opinion, to be able to cater to my every need. With a seemingly infinite number of departments spanning a number of buildings, a small café and an allegedly wonderful at ordering what they might not have they met my every need. Also, G. David Bookseller in Saint Edwards Passage in Cambridge proved to be a gold mine for old and rare books. I wish I had been able to spend more time there. Once you have held the first ever printed copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped in your hands there you know there are no limits to what you might find. Finally, The Haunted Bookshop in the same alley deserves to be mentioned not because of the staff, which was less than obliging, but because I spent quite a lot of money there.
I bought the following:
A first edition of Mulliner Nights by P.G. Wodehouse
P.G. Wodehouse - Mulliner Nights (London 1933)
This set me back £50, but it was worth it. I had considered buying a number of Wodehouse books, but there is something special about a first edition. This one, from 1933, would have cost ten times as much with its dust jacket which is fortunately missing. There is something relic-like over a first edition by your favourite author; imagining how it was first read by eager eyes in the interbellum years, how reader after reader inherited and enjoyed the book until it finally, surprisingly, is bought and soon to go international.
The plot revolves around Adrian Mulliner, a private detective who has not smiled since he was twelve. However, re-learning how to smile he finds that his smile has a most astounding effect on those with something to hide. As the book is packed with these individuals, hilarity, in the colloquial lingo, ensues.
I am looking forward to being the latest in a long line to enjoy exposure to the Wodehouse wit. In the end, many years from now, I will pass on the book. As the antiquarian said, "we do not own books, we borrow them."
Three More Wodehouse First Editions
P.G. Wodehouse - Ice In the Bedroom (London 1961)
P.G. Wodehouse - Mr. Mulliner Speaking (London 1929)
P.G. Wodehouse - If I were You (London 1931)
Of these three, only Ice in the Bedroom has still got its dust jacket. It turns out that the reason why first editions of Wodehouse books with their dust jackets are much more valuable than those without is because they have generally been popular enough for the dustjackets to get worn away. However, my reasons for buying them were not financial. These books were highly anticipated. People with bobs queued up to buy them and then passed them on to people they thought well of. The last in this line of vehemence is me.
P.G. Wodehouse - The Heart of a Goof (London 2008)
just to prove that I am not judging books solely by their covers, these are two other books I bought. Incidentally they were both bought at G. David's for half their original price although they were perfectly, crisply new.
Virgil - Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid 1-6 translated by H.R. Fairclough (New York 1925)
Printed in 1925 and immediately bought by one J.W.D. Calman this is the first of two volumes covering Virgil's works. The other volume could not be found, neither could the dust jacket, which might explain the price of £3. Professor Fairclough of Harvard University spent the First World War years translating Virgil into English and the book nicely displays the original Latin text on the left side and the translated English text on the right.
The Eclogues is a set of text where herdsmen in a pastoral setting discuss and consider political, moral and even eroticist questions. They can be read as propaganda texts for Virgil's patron Augustus augmenting the political mythology he built for himself. The Georgics is a collection of four books in which a treatise on society and man is disguised as a handbook on agriculture. Analogically reminiscent of Hesiod's Erga the Georgics compare man to bees and emphasises the virtue of labour. Finally, the book contains the first six books of the Aeneid, the analogue of Homer's The Odyssey. Like The Odyssey the Aeneid begins with the fall of Troy and follow Aeneas, the mythical forefather of all Romans on his flight from Troy to Italy. I am especially looking forward to reading the better half of the epos, as I have not looked at it for 8 years now.
Edmund G. Gardner - The Story of Florence(London 1928)
St. Zenobius resuscitating a child who has been hit by a runaway cart (Domenico Veneziano - St. Zenobius Performs a Miracle (c. 1445))
I take a special interest in Florence and especially Renaissance Florence. This is where the Renaissance started and whence what I consider to be the most seminal works of art and literature of the period came. This is where Petrarch was born, where Michelangelo, Donatello and Botticelli made their David, Annunciationand Primavera, where Brunellesci built the first Renaissance dome atop the Santa Maria del Fiore. It is also where Niccolò Machiavelli wrote his The Prince and the setting of Dante's Divine Comedy and Boccaccio's Decameron(all available here). All this was funded by wealthy banker patrons such as the Medici who controlled Europe's largest bank. Culture flowed forth from Florence together with textiles and florins, which because of their purity became the standard coinage of Europe. Thus, Florence was the hub of Renaissance culture. For an astonishingly visual and appealing visit, play through the video game Assassin's Creed II. For a more toned down but still interesting approach, seek this book.
The book I have bought is not Machiavelli's Florentine Histories from 1532 although it refers to it. His style is unfortunately rather erratic and not fit for a travel guide such as the one I actually bought. However, it seems informative and I have already found the guide useful: during a visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, I came across a painting of Florence's St. Zenobius and recognised the motif from what I had read. In seeking to understand human nature, such links are always most gratifying.
Christian is fed up with the "City of Destruction"
John Bunyan - The Pilgrim's Progress(London, date unknown)
This must be the weirdest box of frogs I've ever probed my nasal appendage into. The text can best be classified as a Christian allegory. John Bunyan wrote it while serving several consecutive jail sentences in 17th century England for preaching weird stuff. Like Hitler he found it necessary to write down his strange ideas while imprisoned and this book is further proof that pen and ink should be prohibited for those incarcerated, as weird or dangerous products are the result (Marco Polo excepted). It was published in installments between 1678 and 1686. The allegory's plot consists of the main character, Christian, who travels from the "City of Destruction" to the "Celestial City" (the pious Christian's ascension). On his way through "Plain Ease", "The Delectable Mountains", the "Valley of the Shadow of Death" and , interestingly, "Vanity Fair" he meets personifications like Mrs. Bat's-Eyes, Madame Bubble, Mr. Wordly Wiseman and even Beelzebub. The book certainly makes you both bewildered and uncomfortable but it is still curiously fascinating. For the full text, click here.
Gender and 18th Century Literature
Charlotte Lennox - The Female Quixote (My ed. London 1970)
Henry Fielding - The Adventures of Joseph Andrews (My ed. London 1912)
This coming fall I will try to write posts about a number of 18th century novels offering different views of gender in contemporary England. I bought two of these in Oxford: Charlotte Lennox' The Female Quixoteand Henry Fielding's The Adventures of Joseph Andrews. My edition of The Female Quixote has a special history attached to it. I had already bought a recent edition, but at Blackwell's in Oxford something happened which made me buy another edition. Having browsed for some hours, I came over all peckish and bought a scone with butter and jam and a cup of tea in the in-store cafe. An elderly, Ernest Hemingway-looking gentleman was seated all alone in a group of comfy chairs, so I asked whether one of them was taken to which he replied in the negative. We ended up conversing on this and that, as he turned out to be "a semi-retired professor". I told him what I was planning on reading, pointing to a second-hand edition of the above mentioned book on a nearby shelf. He told me that this was rather a happy coincidence as he knew the previous owner. He was a fellow at Merton College and had signed his name, unintelligibly for mere mortals, in the cover. So, obviously, I picked up the thing following our little conference and brought the Oxford Press product, formerly owned by an Oxford fellow.
Dara Ó Briain - Tickling the English (London 2009)
For those poor souls unfamiliar with the wit and down to earth sense of Irish stand-up comedian Dara Ó Briain, now is the time to expand your horizons. He is sharper than a carpet tack; he studied maths and theoretical physics, audited the local debating society, founded a newspaper, wrestled killer whales, won debating championships and is fluent in Irish. Also he makes sense. Funnily. Just look:
Dara Ó Briain - Tickling the English (London 2009)
He has been host and/or participant on most of the good panel shows on the British airwaves, perhaps most notably on Mock the Week, and has toured the isles with several stand-up shows. The book was written while doing this.
One of his routines involves asking the audience for adjectives that describe people from obscure countries. This resulted in highlights like "the Azerbaijanis are Crazy and Bouncy [...] the Bhuthanese are Happy and Unwashed [and] the people of Fiji are Well-read and promiscuous"(p.15). However, the audience could never do the same with the British and so, throughout his tour and book, Ó Briain tries to find his adjectives.
Tom Bryant (ed.) - Debrett's Guide for the Modern Gentleman (Richmond 2010)
From its beginnings in the 1780s, Debrett's has produced a who is who of British nobility and peerage. Originally the official publisher to the East India Company, they were well suited to gather material for their most famous 20/21st century products; their books on etiquette. The Guide for the Modern Gentleman informs such an individual on subjects as diverse as dress code, how to survive a plane crash, how to buy underwear and bed basics. Try, for instance, to find whether one should wear silk, satin or cotton in bed at their homepage. If you do, should the same material be worn at all seasons?
Lewis Carroll - The Hunting of the Snark (London 1928)
Lewis Carroll's Hunting of the Snark or agony in eight fits is a delightful read. Being a mathematician and a wordsmith the poem is a metrical delight as well as a lexical one. In its absurdity the poem is highly reminiscent of the Alice books and even incorporates some of its characters (though unfortunately not my fravourite, the Red Queen). What is a snark, then? As Carroll explains in his preface:
"take the two words “fuming” and “furious.” Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. [...] if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say “frumious.” (p. xi-xii)
Is it a snail, snake or a shark? The mind boggles. It does not really matter, of course, as long as the snark is not a boojum.
A crew of ten, all with occupations beginning with "b" apart from the lace-making beaver of course, departs on a fantastical journey to capture a snark. Throughout the poem, different situations arise with hilarious effects:
"He came as a Butcher: but gravely declared,
When the ship had been sailing a week,
He could only kill Beavers. The Bellman looked scared,
And was almost too frightened to speak:
The Beaver, who happened to hear the remark, Protested, with tears in its eyes, That not even the rapture of hunting the Snark Could atone for that dismal surprise!" (p. 9)
"Whenever the Butcher was by, the Beaver kept looking the opposite way and appeared unaccountably shy"
Some of the characters such as the Baker also have hidden phobias:
"“For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm, Yet, I feel it my duty to say, Some are Boojums —” The Bellman broke off in alarm, For the Baker had fainted away
They roused him with muffins — they roused him with ice — They roused him with mustard and cress — They roused him with jam and judicious advice — They set him conundrums to guess." (p. 24-27)
For the reader who is into absurd literature or who simply likes the beauty and pleasantness of delectably metric poetry, the poem is available here in its entirety. You are welcome!
Saul David - Victoria's Wars (London 2007)
Having read George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series I was delighted to find Victoria's Wars at Waterstones in Cambridge. It was one of those books that tagged along. The book gives a reader friendly insight into some of the major conflicts of the British Empire while keeping a second focus on the responses of the monarch herself. Quotation from sources and numerous anecdotes make narration flow nicely and captivate the reader to such an extent that one tends to be reminded of the memoirs of the notorious cad himself. Indeed, the book covers much the same area as the Flashman books do; The Opium Wars (Flashman and the Dragon), The First Afghan War (Flashman), The Sikh Wars (Flashman and the Mountain of Light), The Crimea (Flashman at the Charge) and The Indian Revolt (Flashman in the Great Game).
Saul David - Victoria's Wars (London 2007)
Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC, KCB and KCIE
The book includes all the central heroes, villains and incompetent fools of the era including respectively George Broadfoot, Sir Campbell and Toughguy Napier, Sher Singh and Akbar Khan and finally Macnaghten and Elphinstone. It also provides some analysis of the role of each of these personages perhaps a bit less subjective than the Honorable H.P. Flashman, although both are wonderful and vivid presentations of some of the most fascinating aspects of Britain's imperial history.
A Final Curiosity: Alexander Pope's Last Letters and Will(London 1776)
The WORKS of ALEXANDER POPE, Esq. VOLUME the SIXTH. Containing The last of his LETTERS, and WILL (London 1776)
Feast your imagination on this, dear reader! Not only does the book contain Alexander Pope's letters to his friend John Gay and his will but it is a historic relic as well a work of art in its own right. The pages are beautifully textured, the pages are wonderfully composed (like the title page above) and the book is old enough for the words to have modern "s'es" only at the ends of words and "f's" in their place otherwise. Also it is intriguing to imagine previous readers. The person who bought this book would probably not live to see the Napoleonic Wars, perhaps he would even have relatives fighting across the sea in America. Perhaps he also bought the first volume of Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Perhaps he mourned the death of Edward Wortley Montagu or rejoiced in that of David Hume or Nathan Hale. Perhaps he expressed outrage in the House of Lords at the loss of the thirteen colonies on 4th of July or at the madness of the regent.
Of course, one cannot know these things but such a book can trigger quite a nice bit of intellectual exercise or plain imaginative pleasure through its content and its existence. As with all books, one can and should be somewhat awestruck.
