Archives

Born October 15th

Oct15

P.G. Wodehouse, b. 1881. I’ve blogged about Wodehouse before, most notably here. I added Wodehouse to the syllabus for my British literature class next spring just because I want to find one more kindred spirit who laughs out loud at Bertie and Jeeves. Eldest Daughter already shares my appreciation for Wodehouse. If you want to laugh and feel “velly English”, read something by Wodehouse. It doesn’t really matter which Jeeves book you read; they all have approximately the same plot. Bertie, a somewhat dim bulb of an aristocrat, gets himself into a pickle usually involving a young woman and an aunt or two, and his manservant, Jeeves, gets him out. It’s not the plot exactly, although the situations Bertie gets into are funny in or of themselves; it’s the dialog and Bertie’s observations on life and love, and Jeeves’ observations on Bertie, and the silly characters they get mixed up with.

The Whole Jolly Lot: In P.G. Wodehouse’s World, Things Are Tiptop And Topsy-Turvy. Just Ask His Biographer by Bob Thompson, Washington Post

George Orwell in Defense of P.G. Wodehouse Wodehouse was interned by the Germans at the beginning of WW II, and in exchange for being released or because he was released and though he owed them something or just because he liked to talk, he agreed to do some broadcasts over German radio. He said a lot of stuff in these broadcasts, but part of what he said was that he didn’t really care who won the war and that he thought the Germans had treated him well during the time he was imprisoned. The reaction in England to these radio broadcasts was to make Wodehouse hugely unpopular. The link is to George Orwell’s 1946 defense of Wodehouse. Orwell basically says what everybody else who defends Wodehouse’s action says: Wodehouse knew next to nothing about politics, and he had no idea that anything he said would be used by the Nazis for the purposes of propaganda.

Enjoy the books; forget the politics.

Born October 11th

Oct11

Her first name was Anna, and she was born October 11, 1884.

Her mother died of diptheria when Anna was only eight, and her father died two years later.

She was educated at home by private tutors until she was fifteen years old.

She was married on St. Patrick’s Day, 1905, to her fifth cousin.

Her husband was a wealthy and accomplished man with a very controlling mother. Anna’s mother-in-law, according to most accounts, made Anna’s marriage difficult.

She gave birth to six children, one of whom died in infancy.

She wrote a syndicated newspaper column, My Day and an autobiography, This Is My Story.

She was an accomplished archer and bowhunter.

She was the first presidential wife to give her own news conference in the White House.

She was the niece of one US president and married to another.

For children I suggest the following books about Anna Eleanor Roosevelt and her times:

A Picture Book of Eleanor Roosevelt by David Adler
A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt by C. Coco De Young Fiction based on fact about an 11-year old girl who writes a letter to Mrs. Roosevelt asking her to help her family during the Great Depression.f
Amelia and Eleanor Go For a Ride by Pam Munoz Ryan A true story about Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart sneaking off for a ride in Amelia’s airplane.

Born October 10th

Oct10

Hugh Miller, b. 1802. Scottish geologist and folklorist, contemporary of Charles Darwin, defender of creationism but not of a worldwide flood, evangelical Christian, one of the founding members of the Free Church of Scotland. “His books, such as The Old Red Sandstone, The Cruise of the Betsey, Footprints of the Creator, Testimony of the Rocks, Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland, and My Schools and Schoolmasters (autobiography) became bestsellers in many editions.” He was self-taught in geology, but respected by the leading scientists of his day. He committed suicide on Christmas Eve, 1856, because he feared that he was going insane. Read more about this fascinating scientist and Christian.

Henry Alford, b. 1810. Henry Alford was also a Christian, a cleric who became dean of Canterbury Cathedral. He edited the poems of John Donne, another Church of England cleric, translated The Odyssey into English, and wrote a four-volume commentary on the Greek New Testament. His deep commitment to God is shown in these words which he wrote in his Bible on November 18, 1827, when he was only seventeen years old: “I do this day, as in the presence of God and my own soul, renew my covenant with God, and solemnly determine henceforth to become His, and to do His work as far as in me lies.” Alford also wrote the hymn Come Ye Thankful People, Come.

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God�s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God�s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take His harvest home;
From His field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store in His garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, in Thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.

It’s going to be a great part of heaven’s harvest to sit down and talk with some of the saints who have gone before us, to hear the complete stories of how God was glorified through their lives. Even those imperfect lives–like mine.

Born October 7th

Oct7

August 2, 1877, the following poem was printed in the Kokomo Indiana Dispatch:

LEONAINIE

Leonainie – angels named her;
And they took the light
Of the laughing stars and framed her
In a smile of white:

And they made her hair of gloomy
Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy
Moonshine, and they brought her to me
In the solemn night.

In a solemn night of summer,
When my heart of gloom
Blossomed up to meet the comer
Like a rose in bloom;

All the forebodings that distressed me
I forgot as joy caressed me —
(Lying joy that caught and pressed me
In the arms of doom!)

Only spake the little lisper
In the angel-tongue;
Yet I, listening, heard her whisper, –
“Songs are only sung

Here below that they may grieve you –
Tales are told you to deceive you –
So must Leonainie leave you
While her love is young.”

Then God smiled and it was morning,
Matchless and supreme;
Heaven’s glory seemed adorning
Earth with its esteem:

Every heart but mine seemed gifted
With the voice of prayer, and lifted
Where my Leonainie drifted
From me like a dream.

The poem was said to be the work of none other than Edgar Allan Poe, posthumously discovered inscribed in the flyleaf of an old book. Within a few days Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley wrote the following response to the discovery of the poem in his own newspaper:

THE POET POE IN KOKOMO
Passing the many assailable points of the story egarding the birth and late discovery of the poem, we will briefly consider first – IS POE THE AUTHOR OF IT? That a poem contains some literary excellence is not assurance that its author is a genius known to fame, for how many waifs of richest worth are now afloat upon the literary sea whose authors are unknown and whose nameless names have never marked the graves that hid their value from the world; and in the present instance we have no right to say, -“This is Poe’s work – for who but Poe could mould a name like LEONAINIE?” and all that sort of flighty flummery. . . . To sum up the poem as a whole we are at some loss. It most certainly contains rare attributes of grace and beauty; and although we have not the temerity to accuse the gifted Poe of its authority, for equal strength of reason we cannot
deny that it is his production . . .

On August 25th, it was revealed that the poem was the work, not of Edgar Allan Poe, but rather of James Whitcomb Riley himself, who perpetrated the hoax in order to prove that his own poetry was worthy of publication in the finest newspapers and journals and had only been rejected because he was not already famous and accepted as a great poet. Riley was also a great admirer of Thomas Chatterton, a forger of poems in his right, but Riley, unlike Chatterton, went on to become famous in his own right as the author of poems such as Little Orphant Annie, The Raggedy Man and When the Frost Is on the Punkin.

Read all about the Leonainie Hoax.

I learned a new word: kenotic. “The term derives from the Greek “kenos” or “empty” and stands for a poetry of humility or of experience “emptied” of ground for boast or pride. Riley’s kenotic poetry is nothing less than poetry that participates in the mind of a humble God situated on a cross noting human events. Such writing requires dialectical or “koine” (as it is called today) expression. No other American writer before or since has proven Riley’s equal. Much of its power derives from Riley’s fervent and pioneer Methodist roots but also much comes from Riley’s experiences in life.”

Riley wrote kenotic peotry, and I write a kenotic blog. Happy Birthday, Mr. Riley, b. 1849, d. 1916.

Born October 4th

Oct4

Edward L. Stratemeyer, b. 1862, creator of the Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift series of mysteries for young readers. He and his Stratemeyer Syndicate published more than 800 titles.
Donald Sobol, b. 1924, author of the series of children’s books about Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective.
Isn’t it interesting that both of these creators of mystery series were born on the same day?

“Readers constantly ask me if Encyclopedia is a real boy. The answer is no … He is, perhaps, the boy I wanted to be — doing the things I wanted to read about but could not find in any book when I was ten.”–Donald Sobol

“Young folks are the most direct critics in the world. Any writer who has the young for an audience can snap his fingers at all the other critics.”–Edward Stratemeyer

Encyclopedia Brown Trivia Test
List of other mini-mystery authors
Website with information about Edward Stratemeyer
New Yorker article on Edward Stratemeyer by Meghan O’Rourke
“Stratemeyer would come up with a three-page plot for each book, describing locale, characters, time frame, and a basic story outline. He mailed this to a writer, who, for a fee ranging from fifty dollars to two hundred and fifty dollars, would write the thing up and “slam-bang!” send it back within a month. Stratemeyer checked the manuscripts for discrepancies, made sure that each book had exactly fifty jokes, and cut or expanded as needed.”

Oh, by the way, speaking of Banned Books (also here, last week was Banned Books Week), the library in my hometown engaged in a bit of “censorship” of its own when I was a kid of a girl; they would purchase books about neither Nancy Drew nor Trixie Belden, my two favorite girl detectives. The librarian said that they were not of sufficient literary quality to be shelved at our public library.
We’re rather fond of kid detectives around here: Encyclopedia Brown, Can Jansen, Nate the Great, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, and Detectives in Togas are all favorites at the Semicolon household. Who are your favorite authors of mysteries for kids? Who are your favorite young detectives?

Born October 3rd

Oct3

Emily Post, b. 1873, d. 1960. She was born Emily Price, daughter of a wealthy architect and his wife. She was educated at home (homeschooled) and later attended a finishing school in New York. Her society marriage ended in divorce, and she was forced by financial circumstances to write in order to support herself. Her 1922 book on etiquette became a bestseller and provided a comfortable living.

Emily Post’s NY Times obituary
Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home by Emily Post, published in 1922.

Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality�the outward manifestation of one�s innate character and attitude toward life…. Etiquette must, if it is to be of more than trifling use, include ethics as well as manners. Certainly what one is, is of far greater importance than what one appears to be.

Rugby

Oct20

Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, was born on this date in 1822. In addition to writing the definitive fictional treatment of the boys’ public school experience in Victorian England, he also started a Utopian community in the mountains of Tennessee called Rugby, named after Dr. Thomas Arnold’s school for boys that is the subject of Tom Brown’s Schooldays.

It was to be a cooperative, class-free, agricultural community for younger sons of English gentry and others wishing to start life anew in America. At its peak, some 350 people lived in the colony. More than 70 buildings of Victorian design graced the East Tennessee townscape.

I am quite interested in intentional comunities, even those of the nineteenth century which rarely seemed to last as established communities. In fact, we were discussing these types of communities and the religious groups that started them in our American Literature discussion group today as we discussed Emerson, Thoreau, and the Transcendentalists. I would like to do a study of Utopian and planned communities and what causes them to fail or succeed or perhaps become manipulative cults.

Drummer Hoff Fired It Off

Oct19

Ed Emberly, children’s book illustrator, was born on this date in Massachusetts in 1931. He’s probably best known for his Caldecott Award winning book, Drummer Hoff. However, some of his most popular books around this house are his drawing books: Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book of Animals(1969), Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book: Make a World (1972), and Ed Emberley’s Great Thumbprint Drawing Book (1977). Karate Kid loves to sit down with a drawing book and produce a masterpiece.