The Pope's Erotic Novel

One of the most popular books of the 15th century was the Historia de duobus amantibus or the Story of two lovers, written by Enea Silvio Piccolomini from Siena in 1444. It was first published in Cologne in 1468 and then in Rome in 1476, whereupon it followed a meteoric increase in publication. One reason for its popularity could be that it is one of the first notable erotic novels, only preceded by Petronius Arbiter's Satyricon and Boccaccio's Decameron, and the first epistolary erotic novel. Another reason could be that Piccolomini went on to become Pope Pius II in 1458.

Piccolomini in his older, more frumpy times

The novel follows the adulterous love of Lucretia, a married woman in Piccolomini's native Siena, and Euryalus, companion of Sigismund, the visiting Duke of Austria. Their relationship progresses from the search for reciprocal affection following a chance meeting, through love letters and secret meetings to a tragic finale. This plot has often been likened to that of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and the popularity of the novel might have made it available to Shakespeare 153 years later.

Euryalus and Lucretia meeting on the title page of
an edition from 1500 (click the image to zoom)

Interestingly, the novel is in many ways highly transitional. It occured at a time of budding Renaissance, including a topic and imagery which, save for Boccaccio, had been taboo in Medieval times. Whereas modern readers might find that the relative absence of sex and the poetically introspective and psychological approach to love remind them more of romance than of erotica, contemporary ones would relish in the novel's deviance from the religious rigidity of a waning era.

Euryalus delivers a love letter. 
The illustration breaks with standards of Medieval illumination. 
These were kept alive in Venice, but the Florentine printers 
developed this style because they were printing for
a larger, less wealthy public. (click the image to zoom)

No one exemplifies this change more distinctly than the author himself, albeit in unexpected ways. As a young Poet Laureate of Gaspar Schlick, the Chancellor of the Holy Roman Emperor (Sigismund of Austria...), Piccolomini seems to have embraced the ideals of the Renaissance. In the novel, one of Euryalus' last resort for gaining access to Lucretia, her husband's cousin Pandalus, points out that "Why, she is so changed by love, you would not think her the same person. Alas for piety, alas for grief! No one, until this happened, in all the city was chaster than she, no one more modest. It is indeed amazing that nature has given to love so much power over men’s thoughts." (i). Nature, as Fransesco de Sanctis points out, and in particular human nature, is now what is right (ii). Lucretia and Euryalus are clearly meant to be together, while the laws of society, which were the prevailing good in Medieval texts and the authority behind Lucretia's faltering marriage, is now what is wrong. While Dante viewed nature as evil and Medieval literature tended to view love as something granted by external, supernatural powers, Piccolomini places love in human nature. This Renaissance humanism which focuses on man and nature rather than religion and religious concepts saturates the novel and rules of society and honour which causes the tragic end to their relationship confirms this attitude.

The lovers, in a fond embrace, are being warned by a servant that
Lucretia's husband is at the door. The print is probably 
re-used from some other work. (click  the image to zoom)

However, Piccolomini soon became Pope, resulting in a remarkable volte-face. As Pope Pius II, he famously stated "Aeneam rejicite, Pium suscipite!" ("Reject Aeneas, accept Pius!"). He distanced himself from the favourable descriptions of nature, and particularly that of Lucretia, as well as the success of his younger self, albeit unsuccessfully. In this sense, upon ascending to the top of the Holy See, Aeneas returned to pre-Renaissance sentiments, luckily for us, to no avail.

The erstwhile poet had already made his mark, providing posterity with lyrical and heartfelt descriptions of love and the experience of it. The English translation, introduced by the below paragraphs, makes for a delightful read and a story which remains as engaging and vivid today as it did almost six hundred years ago.

"

THE city of Siena, your native town and mine, did great honour to the Emperor Sigismund on his arrival, as is now well known; and a palace was made ready for him by the church of Saint Martha, on the road that leads to the narrow gate of sandstone. As Sigismund came hither, after the ceremonies, he met four married ladies, for birth and beauty, age and ornament, almost equal. All thought them goddesses rather than mortal women, and had they been only three, they might have seemed those whom Paris, we are told, saw in a dream. Now Sigismund, though advanced in years, was quick to passion; he took great pleasure in the company of women, and loved feminine caresses. Indeed he liked nothing better than the presence of great ladies. So when he saw these, he leaped from his horse, and they received him with outstretched hands. Then, turning to his companions, he said: ‘Have you ever seen women like these: For my part, I cannot say whether their faces are human or angelic. Surely they are from heaven.’ 

They cast down their eyes, and their modesty made them lovelier. For, as the blushes spread over their cheeks, their faces took the colour of Indian ivory stained with scarlet, or white lilies mixed with crimson roses. And chief among them all, shone the beauty of Lucretia. A young girl, barely twenty years of age, she came of the house of the Camilli, and was wife to Menelaus, a wealthy man, but quite unworthy that such a treasure should look after his home; deserving rather that his wife should deceive him or, as we say, give him horns. 

This lady was taller than the others. Her hair was long, the colour of beaten gold, and she wore it not hanging down her back, as maidens do, but bound up with gold and precious stones. Her lofty forehead, of good proportions, was without a wrinkle, and her arched eyebrows were dark and slender, with a due space between. Such was the splendour of her eyes that, like the sun, they dazzled all who looked on them; with such eyes she could kill whom she chose and, when she would, restore the dead to life. Her nose was straight in contour, evenly dividing her rosy cheeks, while nothing could be sweeter, nothing more pleasant to see than those cheeks which, when she laughed, broke in a little dimple on either side. And all who saw those dimples longed to kiss them. A small and well-shaped mouth, coral lips made to be bitten, straight little teeth, that shone like crystal, and between them, running to and fro, a tremulous tongue that uttered not speech, but sweetest harmonies. And how can I describe the beauty of her mind, the whiteness of her breast?

"

The remaider of the novel can be found by clicking here.

What do you think?

What is your opinion of the about-face of Pius the poet pope? He could have distanced himself from his earlier work either because of the requirements of office, because of old age and changed values but also for a number of other reasons. What do you think these might be and can you sympathise with his choices?

Also, an erotic novel more or less without sex: is that a contradiction in terms? Is it an erotic novel at all or would you classify it as something else? If so, what and why?

Finally, the personal aspect. Love, romance and sexuality are highly personal themes. Could this be the reason for the novel's popularity back then? What is your personal reaction to the novel? Who deserves your personal sympathy, Aeneas or Pius?

Comments on The Tale of Sir Bob are always welcome! 

Further reading: A quick but good introduction, a thorough analysis, a look at illustrations and a young literate's reactions

Sources: (i), (ii), Pic1, Pic2, Pic3, Pic4

Death, Thou Shalt Die - Last Photos

With the net overflowing with image collections of every form and fashion, the Tale of Sir Bob has given these a wide berth. However, traditions are there to be broken, and by presenting this collection of photos, being the last known photos taken of well-known people alive, this departure from my own beaten path seems justified.

However, true to the blog's own particular idiom, this is not merely a cavalcade of sombre photos. John Donne, the English Renaissance poet, probably wrote his Holy Sonnet X in 1609 and it was published in 1633, two years after his death. This Petrarchan sonnet is one of the most moving and consoling poetic reactions to death in existence, and beautifully accompanies and complements these pictures.

There is something tremendously poignant about this collection of photos. Knowing that the people in the photos had sometimes only minutes left to live, makes one appreciate the enormous value of human life and the privilege of experiencing that of others. There is also a sad beauty to the transitory nature of life, and seeing these outstanding human beings; artists, politicians, athletes and more at their last should remind us to live life to the fullest.

Or as Oscar Wilde put it through his character Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray: "make life burn with the hardest flame."

Abraham Lincoln, 1865

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so, 

Mark Twain, 1910, Amelia Earhart, 1939,
Anne Frank and Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1945

For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

Mahatma Gandhi and Babe Ruth, 1948
Albert Einstein and James Dean, 1955

For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, 

Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. 

Marilyn Monroe, 1962, John F. Kennedy, 1963
Jim Morrison, 1971 and Martin Luther King Jr., 1968

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be 

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, 

Jimi Hendrix, 1976, Elvis Presley, 1977,
Keith Moon, 1978 and John Lennon, 1980

And soonest our best men with thee do go, 

Rest of their bones, and souls' delivery.

Bob Marley, 1981, Freddie Mercury, 1991,
Kurt Cobain, 1994 and Tupac Shakur 1996

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, 

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, 

 George Harrison, 2001, Ronald Reagan, 2004,
Heath Ledger, 2008 and Steve Jobs 2011

And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well, 

And better then thy stroke; why swell'st thou then; 

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, 

And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die

Sources: as given and Pics

Two Satirical Poems About One Man

Jonathan Swift's A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General and Robert Southey's After Blenheim both take a satirical approach to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. One of Winston Churchill's ancestors, he served as a general in the British Army, most notably in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) where he famously won the Battle of Blenheim in 1704.

Both poems give interesting comments on war and warmongering contrasting the glory and skill of soldiering with the death and devastation of war. They both exhibit the tone which would appear more prominently in war poets such as Wilfred Owen two hundred years later.

A few notes...

A Satirical Elegy

• The poem is written in iambic tetrameter. In English, heroic verse, a form traditionally used in epic and dramatic poetry, is iambic pentameter. The missing iamb, then, signifies a lack and reflects the satirical content in form. The rhyme is masculine end rhyme in couplets (aabbccdd...)
• The elegy as a poetic composition usually laments and pays tribute to someone who has died. However, Swift does the opposite, making this the second formal reflection of satirical content. For my post on the mock-epic, click here.
• Swift's satires were, in general, Juvenalian ones. These are opposed to Horatian satires, which are gently mocking folly. Named after Horace, the Horatian satire is fairly sympathetic while Juvenalian satire, named after Juvenal, takes a more scornful view of its target, which is evil rather than folly. Juvenalian satires are more likely to use dark humour and sarcasm and see no hope where Horatian satires do. Swift's comments on Marlborough here are distinctly Juvenalian.
• A few explanatory notes:
• Swift takes a scornful view of the life and achievements of Marlborough which is shown amongst other things in the lines mentioned below.
• Line 6-8: This refers to the final judgement. According to Swift, Marlborough will not do well at the last trump.
• Line 16: Swift emphasises the physical and unpleasant for satirical effect. This he commonly did, perhaps most notably in The Lady's Dressing Room. For my discussion of this satire, click here.
• Line 17-22: Nobody grieves for him because he caused enough grief "in his day".
• Line 26: The praise of the general is like a bubble; seems substantial , but is hollow and easily undone.
• Line 32: This line refers to Genesis 2.7 albeit with a twist. While Genesis states that "[...]God formed man of the dust of the ground [...]", Swift claims that Marlborough sprung from dirt, which has slightly different connotations. See my note on line 16 in relation to this.

After Blenheim

• The poem is written in alternating iambic tetra- and trimeter. The final couplet consists of two lines of iambic tetrameter, decisively ending the stanza but also disrupting the metric pattern. The masculine end rhyme follows an abcbdd pattern in all stanzas, except the second which plays a disruptive role. Here, the word found is repeated in the fourth and fifth line, adding tension and changing the rhyme pattern to abcbbb.
• The ballad was originally sung, which accounts for the first four lines, corresponding to the four line ballad stanza. This, coupled with alliteration, also accounts for the relatively harmonious feel of the poem.
• Where Swift uses the properties of the elegy to create a sense of the uncanny and grotesque, Southey does so with those of the ballad. Incidentally, Freud's "uncanny" is discussed in these three posts.
• The effect of the poem stems largely from the combination of the peaceful, sunlit setting, the violent events discussed and the old farmer's repeated insistence that the victory was supposedly great and famous.

What do you think? 

In both these poems, structure is used as much to produce an emotional response as content. What do you think of this strategy? Is it a necessity of satire? Does it help the satire along or does it obscure the message of the poems and mar their content? On a slightly different note, do the reader have to be aware of standards of structure to be affected by the form of the poem? If so, how much awareness or literary competence is required?

The Tale of Sir Bob appreciates your input!

"Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll

This poem from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There is a lingering one. There is something about the language which makes me return to the poem over and over. Carroll had a knack for language, inventing words as he went along with great success. He explained his procedure in the preface to The Hunting of The Snark:

"

As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give it the sound of the "o" in "worry. Such is Human Perversity.

This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard works in that poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.

For instance, 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. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards " fuming," you will say "fuming-furious;" if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards "furious," you will say "furious-fuming;" but if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious."

Supposing that, when Pistol uttered the well-known words--

Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!"

Justice Shallow had felt certain that it was either William or Richard, but had not been able to settle which, so that he could not possibly say either name before the other, can it be doubted that, rather than die, he would have gasped out "Rilchiam!

"

I interviewed a few people and asked them to go "galumphing", a word coined and frequently used by Carroll. Although none of them knew the word from before, they all did what Eddie Izzard, miming a moving giraffe does here. That is the true mark of linguistic genius.

So, without further ado, on with the poem!

"

Jabberwocky

by

Lewis Carroll

"

And Alice described it very well:

"

"It seems very pretty," she said when she had finished it, "but it's rather hard to understand!" (You see she didn't like to confess even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas--only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate---"

"

Sources: Preface, Poem, End Quotation

"In An Artist's Studio" Illustrated

In An Artist's Studio

One face looks out from all his canvasses,

One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans;

We found her hidden just behind those screens,

That mirror gave back all her loveliness.

A queen in opal or in ruby dress,

A nameless girl in freshest summer greens,

A saint, an angel; -- every canvass means

The same one meaning, neither more nor less.

He feeds upon her face by day and night,

And she with true kind eyes looks back on him

Fair as the moon and joyful as the light;

Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;

Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;

Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.

Description

This collage, made with Christina Rossetti's poem and portraits and details by Botticelli would seem an unlikely match. Not only did they work in different periods but also under different artistic paradigms. However, it is the content which makes them compliment each other.

The poem is Rossetti's reaction to her brother, the Pre-Raphalite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti's use of his female models. She notes, somewhat disdainfully, how each paining takes something away from the model and how the artist's relationship can be an exploitiative one. She explains how the painter's obsession with his model ("feeds upon her face" "not as she is, but as she fills his dream") has become detached from her and intimates that the model might have some unreturned romantic interest in him.

This ties in well with the Botticelli paintings. All of them depict the same model, Simonetta Vespucci, regarded as the most beautiful woman of Renaissance Florence. It has been suggested that she and Botticelli had an affair, although there is no evidence to prove this. She does, however frequent his paintings at an astonishing rate. Simonetta died in 1476 from tubercholosis, only 22 years old having turned the heads of artists and statesmen alike. When Botticelli completed his Birth of Venus, from which the first detail is taken, nine years later, he was very much doing what Rossetti described in the poem. Who knows, perhaps he might have been doing so all the time.

At any rate, the fascination led Botticelli to request to be buried at her feet when he died. Their graves can be seen in the Church of Ognissanti in Florence. 

Collins and Goya's Candle Hat

This is Fransisco Goya, most famous for Los Fusilamientos del Tres de Mayo 1808. I am thinking of buying a reproduction of this painting, mainly for its playfulness but also because of the following poem by American poet Billy Collins.

Candle Hat

In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,
Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather
from painting The Blinding of Sampson.

But in this one Goya stands well back from the mirror
and is seen posed in the clutter of his studio
addressing a canvas tilted back on a tall easel.

He appears to be smiling out at us as if he knew
we would be amused by the extraordinary hat on his head
which is fitted around the brim with candle holders,
a device that allowed him to work into the night.

You can only wonder what it would be like
to be wearing such a chandelier on your head
as if you were a walking dining room or concert hall.

But once you see this hat there is no need to read
any biography of Goya or to memorize his dates.

To understand Goya you only have to imagine him
lighting the candles one by one, then placing
the hat on his head, ready for a night of work.

Imagine him surprising his wife with his new invention,
the laughing like a birthday cake when she saw the glow.

Imagine him flickering through the rooms of his house
with all the shadows flying across the walls.

Imagine a lost traveler knocking on his door
one dark night in the hill country of Spain.
"Come in, " he would say, "I was just painting myself,"
as he stood in the doorway holding up the wand of a brush,
illuminated in the blaze of his famous candle hat.

Sources: 1, 2

Don McLean's "Crossroads"

This is one of the most beautiful songs I know. It features on Don McLean's iconic album American Pie. The lyric and intensely personal nature of the text moves me in a way very few poems do. Apart from W.H. Auden's Funeral Blues, there would be hard to find any verse that echoes within me like Crossoads does. Like Coleridge and Shelley's aeolian harp.

And just like their aeolian harp and, indeed, the first poems this text is accompanied by music. Don McLean has his song presented in simple vocals and solitary piano which combine to give us as complete an experience as we can possibly wish for.

Don McLean - Crossroads

I’ve got nothing on my mind:

nothing to remember,

Nothing to forget,

and I’ve got nothing to regret,

But I’m all tied up on the inside,

No one knows quite what I’ve got;

And I know that on the outside

What I used to be, I’m not

anymore.

You know I’ve heard about people like me,

But I never made the connection.

They walk one road to set them free

And find they’ve gone the wrong direction.

But there’s no need for turning back

`cause all roads lead to where I stand.

And I believe I’ll walk them all

No matter what I may have planned.

Can you remember who I was?

can you still feel it?

Can you find my pain?

can you heal it?

Then lay your hands upon me now

And cast this darkness from my soul.

You alone can light my way.

You alone can make me whole once again.

We’ve walked both sides of every street

Through all kinds of windy weather.

But that was never our defeat

As long as we could walk together.

So there’s no need for turning back

`cause all roads lead to where we stand.

And I believe we’ll walk them all

No matter what we may have planned.

Aerobics and Cardigans

Seeing as my first post were, rather strangely, on the subject of squash it is equally strangely fitting that the first post on the blog's one year anniversary should be on sports.

After endless hours at work, I was commuting home by train the other day. My fellow travellers and I were alone and palely loitering, bent double like old beggars under sacks and only the yet to be subdued endeavoured to look out the window as the train slowed down for a sharp turn. What we saw was eerily uncanny.

There was a room with large windows at some considerable distance. Despite this we were able to see a group of about 60 persons, all female, clad in unflatteringly tight and gaudily coloured sportswear. They were erratically stomping from side to side and throwing their arms about with wild, fantastic and feral abandon. Contrasted with the abject and monochrome state in which we found ourselves in our carriage this would seem merely unsettling if it had not been for the fact that they were all doing it in perfect unison. Clearly, there was method to the madness, a method I had been somehow aware of but had chosen to repress. I was reminded of a stanza from The Cardigans' Godspell and the words stuck with me for the rest of the day.

You can hear it in the beat they march to

And you can feel the earth shake when they start to dance

You can tell by the way they move you

It's not murder, it's an act of faith.

Socialler and Socialler

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 La Pucelle 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.

You've read it!

You can't un-read it!

Stay tuned for more verisimilitude!

Look it up.

Sources: pic1, pic3, pic5 

First Editions and Other Marvels of Bibliophilia

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)

P.G. Wodehouse -
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
(London 2008)

And...

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, Annunciation and 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 Quixote and 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.

Sources:
http://www.theoi.com/image/book_virgil_lg.jpg

http://www.lamdhabooks.com.au/large%20pix/37348.jpg

http://www.learner.org/interactives/renaissance/florence.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/portuguese/images/021209_catherine150.jpg

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=230496173698

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vMwdarNGL.jpg
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu:8080/DQIIMAGES/largeimages/472/1752-London-Millar-01-001-t.jpg
http://www.offthekerb.co.uk/images/artists/dara-obriain/Tickling-The-English-304.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/09/22/article-1059756-02C1C4FB00000578-479_233x307.jpg
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2008/01/03/flashman460.jpg
http://www.sauldavid.co.uk/photos/victoria%27s-wars.jpg
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/carroll/lewis/snark/images/snark3.jpg

Other images from Wikimedia Commons