Frankenstein, Volume One, Chapters Three and Four

In which Victor meddles in Things Man Was Not Meant to Know and, spoilers, grants life to a cobbled-together creature and promptly freaks the hell out, and best friend Henry appears just in time to play nursemaid.



And now we've passed through the chocolately backstory and into the caramel and crazynuts of the main narrative. And boy, once there Shelley really leaps right into making the creature, doesn't she? Interesting to note some major differences from the popular conception of the story (which, of course, largely comes from the movies): Victor's a student, not a doctor. No castle, and no assistant, hunchbacked or otherwise, just Victor by himself in the attic room of his apartment. And, of course, the appearance of the creature himself, with his lustrous black hair and pearly teeth.

One sort of general note: Victor mentions several times his visits to charnel houses during his studies and, eventually, his supply runs. These were vaults where bodies and/or bones were piled up, often those found when digging new graves and sometimes those excavated specifically to make more room (I mean, hey, are you really using that grave five years down the line?)

At 7:50, Victor says he "was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead, and found a passage to life aided only by one glimmering, and seemingly ineffectual light." This refers to the Fourth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, (who, of course, made seven voyages total). In this specific tale, to be brief, Sinbad is rescued from cannibals by other island natives, befriends their king, and is given a wealthy and beautiful wife. She gets sick and dies, and Sinbad learns that their custom is that both spouses are entombed when one dies, the living one given a jug of water and seven rations of bread to, I guess, prolong their agony. Luckily, when these are used up, a new living/dead pair are tossed into the cave, so Sinbad, uh, kills the still-living wife and takes her food (along with all the burial jewels and finery). After this happens several more times, Sinbad's got a nice little hoard of food, water, and wealth going on, until he follows the little light and/or a wild animal out an escape route to the sea. So... yeah.

Oh, and we've got another illustration! Also involving a glimmering light.

17:07 - "By the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull,
yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive
motion agitated its limbs, ... I rushed out of the room."

And... that's it for the illustrations. It's gonna be covers from now on. A few more notes, though:

22:10 - "Like one who, on a lonely road, / Doth walk in fear and dread, / And, having once turn'd round, walks on, / And turns no more his head; / Because he knows a frightful fiend / Doth close behind him tread." While wandering the streets, Victor brings us another reference (this time, a direct quotation) to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," much as Walton did in the Letters. In case anyone is nit-picky enough to care (and you know I am), these references rather screw with the supposed timeline of the novel. Coleridge's poem was published in 1798, while Walton's letters were dated December 11th, 17—, to August 19th, 17—. It's possible that both Walton and Victor read the poem (Victor closely enough to memorize passages) in the months before heading up to the Arctic, and those m-dashes conceal 1798 to 1799. Sure. But then, Walton mentioned that they were trapped in the ice "last Monday (July 31st), and July 31, 1799 was a Wednesday. Going back, we first find it on a Monday in 1797, a year before "The Rime" was published! God, it's like Shelley didn't research this AT ALL.

At 22:28, we hear about another mode of conveyance: the diligence. This was a form of stagecoach, a big, sturdy carriage drawn by four or more horses used as a mode of public transport. They could usually seat a bunch of passengers and carry a mess of luggage on the roof.

Last, Henry says that his father was like the "Dutch schoolmaster in The Vicar of Wakefield: 'I have ten thousand florins a year without Greek, I eat heartily without Greek.'" The Vicar of Wakefield was a comedic sentimental novel (or possibly a satire of sentimental novels, depending on who you talk to) from the 1760s that remained popular up through and including the Victorian era.

Okay, so monster's created and immediately abandoned. Let's see how well that turns out!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!

Frankenstein, Volume One, Chapters One and Two

In which we are introduced to Victor Frankenstein, and he relates his backstory of parental death, sweetheart cousin Elizabeth, best friend Henry, fascination with alchemy, and teachers both supportive and non.



All right, so we've broken through the crunchy, frozen outer shell of the framing device and into the smooth, chocolately Swiss backstory of young Victor. This is actually where an interesting change was put in when Shelley edited the story for the 1831 edition. In the original version we're reading, Elisabeth is Victor's cousin, taken in by Victor's father when his sister (Victor's aunt) dies, and Elizabeth's father decides she'd apparently be better with her uncle than with a stepmother. Reading too much Grimm, perhaps.Spoilers, but Elizabeth and Victor become sweethearts, which was not an uncommon thing back then. Charles Darwin, for instance, married his cousin Emma Wedgwood in 1839.

The 1831 edition, in contrast, not only beefs up how much Victor's parents doted on him, but changes Elizabeth into the daughter of an Italian nobleman who, upon his wife's death, left her with a foster family to raise. When the foster father disappeared at war, the family fell into poverty. Victor's parents, traveling through Italy and being of a charitable mindset, frequented the houses of the poor and came across this foster family. They noticed that one of the children "appeared of a different stock. The four others were dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants; this child was thin, and very fair." Obviously, they decided to take this child (and only this child) out of poverty. The family loved her, but wanted the best for her, and so let them take her. Elizabeth was then subsequently given to Victor as a present. Jokingly, but the five-year-old took it seriously.

Personally, I find this 1831 version much creepier and more problematic than the kissing cousins.

Anyway, notes after then jump:

Frankenstein, Volume One, Letters I to IV

In which some guy mounts a voyage to try to sail across the North Pole or something, and meets a mysterious, sorrowful man in the Arctic waste; and in which our narrator goes on at some length on the novel's background information.



FRANKENSTEIN! Yes, the book that essentially invented the entire genre of science fiction, and actually quite different than the story most people are familiar with through adaptations. As discussed at some length in my intro, the story famously grew out of a contest held between Mary (then 18-year-old Mary Godwin); her lover, the married Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; her also-18-year-old pregnant step-sister, Claire Clairmont; her lover and father of her child, the other major Romantic poet, Lord Byron; and Byron's physician-who-was-also-a-writer John Polidori. They were all visiting Geneva, Switzerland, in the summer of 1816, "The Year Without a Summer," where they spent some prolonged periods inside due to the poor weather and amused themselves by reading ghost stories. Byron suggested a contest where they would each write their own ghost story. Byron started and abandoned a "Fragment of a (vampire) Novel," which Polidori turned into the novella "The Vampyre," generally considered the beginning of the vampire literary genre. Mary, after a period of writer's block, was inspired by a dream to start what would of course become Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus. She worked on it for a couple of years, gave her draft to Percy to fancify-up,* and published it in 1818.

So, there was Mary's more plainspoken, pre-Percy draft (only recently published and which I want), the 1818 edition, and the 1831 "popular" edition. Mary made some major rewrites in this last edition, often stylistic but also with an eye towards making the story more conservative, making the characters more pawns of fate than people who made (or are victims of) bad decisions. This is by far the most reprinted edition, but since I strongly lean towards the free will end of the "destiny" spectrum, I'm going with the 1818 edition. A good rundown of the differences between the editions can be found in this excellent essay by Anne K. Mellor, published in Chapter 9 of her 1988 book Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters, which I also want.

Anyway, there are surprisingly few public domain illustrations for this, considering the book has over a hundred years of public domain editions to pull from. The 1831 edition was, for one, but with only two illustrations. I'll include those, but in the meantime I'll fall back on the covers.

This one is from an 1882 edition published by George Routledge and Sons that looks to be part of a series of sixpence reprints that include this one we saw earlier for Sense and Sensibility. And... I don't know about you, but I get a weird USA patriotic vibe from this one. I mean, it's nice to see the monster depicted before he was forever Karloffed (see: pretty much every other cover we'll be looking at), but the red white, and blue color scheme, the military-uniform-looking outfit, the tricorn hat... just me? Okay.

All right, and lastly, a couple of notes. In the Preface at 8:05, the author states that the central conceit of the novel "has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin... as not of impossible occurrence." This is a different Darwin than the one the Time Traveler was referring to, though it's also not Charles. Here, she's talking about Charles's grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin: physician, poet, physiologist, abolitionist, etc. He had some ideas on species and nature that quite clearly prefigured his grandson's famous theory of evolution, touching on ideas that would later be called natural selection and survival of the fittest. Shelley's probably alluding specifically to Darwin's final work, published posthumously in 1803, The Temple of Nature: or, The Origin of Society: A Poem, with Philosophical Notes. Specifically, she probably means the twelfth note, "Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism."

Finally, Walton's reference at 23:33 to "the land of mist and snow" and his further assurance that he wouldn't kill an albatross (and would thus be okay) are references to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's classic 1798 poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." In the poem, a ship is driven by a storm into the Antarctic, from where they are guided out by an albatross. The titular mariner then shoots the bird, for some reason, after which their ship (though now in warmer climes) becomes becalmed in uncharted waters. The crew blames this bad luck on the mariner killing the bird that had saved them, so they force him to wear the dead albatross around his neck in shame. It gets worse from there. But, we don't really care about Walton's fate here, we want to get to Frankenstein!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!

*Some claim that Percy's contributions were so major that he should be considered at least minor co-author. Some even claim that he's the actual author of the book, and that Mary had little or nothing to do with it. The evidence for these claims generally boils down to "But she's just, like, a CHICK and stuff!"

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Part Two

In which Ichabod thoroughly enjoys himself at the party, up until its disappointing end, and has a fateful encounter on the ride home with a horse-mounted man that may or may not have a head.



It's funny, I'd rather forgotten until re-reading this story for the blog that "Sleepy Hollow" doesn't really have any of what you might call "dialogue" in it. Huh.

Illustrations! As last time, the color illustrations are by F. O. C. Darley, 1849, while the black and white ones are by other artists as noted, from 1863.

Oh, first a note for 2:40: the cedar-bird is referred to as wearing a montero cap, which was a type of Spanish hunting cap from the 1600s that has a band going around the crown that can be folded down to protect the ears and/or face, rather like a balaclava.

3:40 - "The Tappan Zee," by John Frederick Kensett

First, the artist. John Frederick Kensett was one of the most well-known and successful artists in the "second generation" of the Hudson River School.  Perhaps his most well-known and longest-lasting contribution to the art world is less his actual work, and more as one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Next, the actual illustration. I probably should've mentioned this last time, but the Tappan Zee is a natural widening of the Hudson River (its widest point, in fact). Its name is taken from the Tappan group of the Lenape tribe, though it's unlikely that's what they called themselves, and the Dutch word "zee," meaning "sea." Several times, the story mentions the bluffs along its edge; these are the basalt cliffs known as the Palisades.

More after the break!

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Part One

In which we are introduced to the town of Sleepy Hollow; its itinerant schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane; wealthy coquette Katrina Van Tassel; and local hero and roustabout Brom Bones; and in which we hear of the local superstition of the headless horseman; and Ichabod departs for a dinner party.



New short story! One of the most enduring examples of early American fiction, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was originally published in 1820 as part of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., a collection of Irving's short works. This book is commonly considered, along with James Fenimore Cooper's The Leatherstocking Tales, one of the first works of American literature to be widely read back in Europe. Perhaps even more than anything by Cooper, "Sleepy Hollow" (and Irving's other best-known work, "Rip Van Winkle," also published in The Sketch Book) is one of those stories that has entered the American lexicon. Even those who've never read the story have an idea what you mean when you describe someone as looking like Ichabod Crane, and the image of the Headless Horseman, brandishing his flaming pumpkin aloft, has indelibly etched itself into our collective brain.

The illustrations I've picked out come from two different sources. The color illustrations are by Felix Octavius Carr Darley (more commonly known by F. O. C. Darley, and who can blame him) from an 1849 printing of The Sketch Book. Darley was considered one of the preeminent "genre" illustrators of the mid-1800s, creating watercolors or line illustrations for Irving, Cooper, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Clement C. Moore, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and many more. The black and white illustrations are from an 1863 edition, and are done by a variety of artists, who will be credited by their respective illustrations. Near as I can tell, only a few of these were actually created specifically to illustrate "Sleepy Hollow;" several are landscapes done by prominent local artists known specifically for, well, landscapes, and not for book illustrations, so I think they were preexisting works pressed into service for this printing. Several of said artists were followers of the Hudson River School of art, which focused on romantic landscapes of the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding mountains.

Oh, and due to the length of this story, I've broken it into two parts, of which this is obviously the first.

3:21 - "View in Sleepy Hollow," by William Hart (from a sketch by J. H. Hill)

This is one of those landscape works I mentioned.  William Hart was one of those members of the Hudson River School, and was known for his landscapes involving strong angled sunlight, foreground shadow, and cows. He, uh, painted a lot of cows. He is also the maternal grandfather of E. B. "bet I can make you cry over a spider" White. I haven't been able to figure out for sure who J. H. Hill was, but another of the pictures are by Hart from a sketch of his, so maybe he was some sort of assistant?

Much more after the jump!

The Marvelous Land of Oz, Chapters Twenty-Two to Twenty-Four

In which Mombi is discovered and there is an exciting chase, after which Mombi reveals the secret of Princess Ozma's disappearance, and all is brought to a happy ending; and in which our narrator expostulates at length about the feminist implications and interpretations of the book.



Last installment, and boy have we got some surprises in store for you! Well, one surprise. Maybe.

More after the jump!

The Marvelous Land of Oz, Chapters Nineteen to Twenty-One

In which our heroes manage to escape the jackdaws, restore their ride through mathematical trickery, beg help of Glinda the Good, and begin an attempt to find the rightful ruler of Oz.


All right folks, we've got only one more installment after this one, so we're circling in to the finale!

So jackdaws, mentioned in the last installment but more fully experienced here, are small members of the crow family that generally have black feathers over most of their bodies, with gray on the back of their necks, and light gray eyes (with some differences among the four known subspecies.) They're known for being very vocal -- they can even learn to speak a few words -- and are (as shown in these chapters) known to collect and hoard small items, like their relative the magpie. They mate monogamously and for life, but do live in hierarchical social groups that have been known to make large nesting platforms, as seen here. Of course, real jackdaws probably wouldn't be able to steal things like handsaws and bicycle pumps, as pictured in one of the last chapter's illustrations, but these birds have at least some resemblance to their real-world counterparts.

Oh, and a group of jackdaws is called "a clattering," or sometimes "a train."

One does wonder why the (brief) long faces over the fate of the Scarecrow. I mean, he's been unstuffed a whole bunch of times! I even had to create the "troubling existential questions" tag for him! Even if they didn't have the convenient pile of money to stuff him with, surely they could have just bundled up his clothes and head and stuffed him when they got back to Oz, right?

Okay, so we get back to Oz here. Now, let's get geographically nerdy! It's assumed that when they overshot the Oz border they ended up in Dorothy's "outside world" -- i.e., our world. We meet a clattering of jackdaws, which live throughout Europe and western Asia, and a couple of spots in northern Africa. Now, to get back to Oz from there, they cross over the great sandy desert that separates Oz from the rest of the world, without crossing over any water or anything. So, we're talking about Oz existing within some sandy desert in Europe or western Asia. It would probably be easiest to say that it's in the Gobi Desert because of its size (magic, of course, protects Oz from the extreme temperature variation of the region.) However, the jackdaws have stashed away a whole bunch of money clearly identified as "dollars" -- though how an Oz-born kid knows what a "dollar" is is another matter -- which of course implies we're somewhere in the US, nowhere near where any jackdaws live. And of course, a tornado and a balloon would have a heck of a way to go to bring people form the American Midwest to central Asia like that. So where were they, really? THIS MAKES NO SENSE, BAUM.

(Though of course, it's probable that they were just mistaken about being in the outside world, and were simply in another part of Nonestica.)

Both General Jinjur's Army of Revolt and Glinda's all-girl army are a little more evidence of Baum writing this book for the stage, as even book reviews of the time noted that they were clearly intended to showcase large groups of chorus girls. Whatever, they're still badass.

Though... this here would be Glinda's officer in charge of fudge? Is that right? I mean, I know you want an army to be well-supplied, and I personally would want fudge before going into battle, but... what?

Okay, Jack, you're... you're being rather terrifying here. Please get out of Jellia's personal space.

Okay, only one more installment to go! Will they find out what happened to the Princess Ozma? Will Jinjur be deposed? Will Jack's head spoil? Find out next time!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg with no pictures, and a fully illustrated facsimile of the first edition can be found at Open Library. No reading ahead, though!

The Marvelous Land of Oz, Chapters Sixteen to Eighteen

In which our heroes gather up a bunch of junk to build a Thing with which they escape the palace, only to get lost in a strange country during the night and crash into a large nest; and in which the narrator begins to lose his patience with Jack Pumpkinhead.



Just a quick note on the Latin phrase used by the Woggle-Bug at 19:30: semper idem, as can be inferred from the context, means "always the same." Idem is the root of the English word "identical," while semper might be familiar as part of the US Marine Corps motto, semper fidelis ("always faithful.") Or, for those of a whimsical bent, the phrase semper ubi sub ubi, which literally translates to "always where under where." Get it? Yeah, I'm sorry. Anyway, semper idem was used as a motto by 17th-century Puritans to describe the unchanging mercy of Christ, and the feminine form, semper eadem, was a motto used by Anne Boleyn, her daughter Queen Elizabeth I, and eventually by Queen Anne. Interesting bit of vaguely related trivia: Anne Boleyn at one point used another (hilarious) motto that she had embroidered on her livery: Ainsi sera, groigne qui groigne, generally translated as "Grumble all you want, this is how it's going to be."

Where was I? Illustrations!

This illustration really seems like it would fit better towards the beginning of the previous channel, but it was put as the prechapter illustration for this one, so there you go.

Not... entirely sure why this chapter gets an image of the Woggle-Bug strutting around as its chapter heading, but there you go again.

More after the jump!

The Marvelous Land of Oz, Chapters Thirteen to Fifteen

In which we learn the backstory of our loquacious insectile friend, who turns out to be fond of the most terrible puns which even the other characters refuse to tolerate; our heroes are led through more of Mombi's enchantments by an old friend, arrive at the Emerald City and make use of outdated gender stereotypes to drive off the invaders, only to become trapped in the palace.



Not much to add this time around, so right onto the illustrations!

More after the jump!

The Marvelous Land of Oz, Chapters Ten to Twelve

In which everyone is reassembled and our heroes make their way to the Tin Woodman's palace, a happy reunion takes place, they set out again and are confounded by magic, and encounter a most interesting insect; and in which our narrator proves to not, in fact, be dead.



Oh, hey! Look, that's right, I've got a podcast thing! I apologize about may absence since... god, August. Anyway, I'm back now, and we're gonna continue right along! We meet up with our old friend the Tin Woodman (covered, at 12:25, by putz pomade), who marvels at the variety of things-that-shouldn't-be-alive-but-are, which of course includes himself. We also, in these pages, meet (sigh) the Woggle-Bug.

So, you of course remember how I said that Baum wrote this book with an eye towards the stage, after the success of the musical adaptation of Wonderful Wizard, yes? And how a lot of the success was due to the actors playing the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, Fred A. Stone and David C. Montgomery? Well, when Baum adapted this book for the stage, the original musical was still running, and Stone and Montgomery didn't want to leave its sure success for an untested sequel. Rather than recast the part for some reason, Baum cut the characters from the story, and promoted the Woggle-Bug to being essentially the main character, even titling the play The Woggle-Bug. There was also a new subplot in which the Woggle-Bug fell in love with a checked dress, and thus anyone wearing it. So... yeah. It closed in less than a month.

Anyway, get ready for some truly terrible jokes.

Illustrations!

More after the jump!

The Marvelous Land of Oz, Chapters Seven to Nine

In which our old friend His Majesty the Scarecrow meets Jack Pumpkinhead and they enact a proto-Abbott-and-Costello routine, whilst Tip encounters a revolting army setting out for conquest, and a daring escape is made; and in which our narrator assures you ahead of time that the required "revolting" joke is made, though not by him.



Oh, General Jinjur, how I love you. Perhaps not very surprisingly, she has become somewhat of a fan favorite among lovers of the Oz books, and often use her in a somewhat more positive, less satirical light than Baum does. I actually have rather a lot to say about the General's straw feminism (which, yes, we will be seeing more of), but it will have to wait so as not to spoil the ending (of this 110-year-old book). Politics aside for the moment, she's still a badass who stone-cold conquers the city while barely breaking a sweat.

Before we get to the illustrations, the only real note I have is at 10:05, when the Scarecrow and Jack Pumpkinhead go to play a game of quoits, which is essentially the game of horseshoes but with a full ring instead of, well, horseshoes. In reality, the game of horseshoes most likely evolved as a cheap alternative to quoits in the first place, but I would most definitely say that horseshoes is now by far more well-known, at least in American culture.

All righty, illustrations!

More after the jump!

The Marvelous Land of Oz, Chapters Four to Six

In which our heroes discover a need for a conveyance of some sort and thus dabble in the dark arts, producing another member of the company; it is demonstrated that said member both walks and swims well, and runs perhaps too well, and the Emerald City is reached.



No notes, though I suppose I should point out that we've got our very first returning characters on Rob Reads to You, with the arrival of (or, more properly, at) the Guardian of the Gates and the Soldier with the Green Whiskers. I had to go back and listen to myself to make sure that, yup, I was basically using the Guardian of the Gates's voice for the Saw-Horse, so he might now sound somewhat more clipped and official than on our last visit.

Anyway, lots of illustrations again!

 More after the break!

The Marvelous Land of Oz, Chapters One to Three

In which a young boy makes a pumpkin-headed man to scare his wicked guardian and is surprised what she does with him, following which he runs away to escape her somewhat harsh punishment; and in which our narrator goes on at rather extreme length before we even get to the story.



The Marvelous Land of Oz was published in 1904, four years after The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and two years after Baum's highly successful stage version of the latter. As such, there are definitely elements of this book that seem to be written with an eye towards the stage. The book is notable among Baum's fourteen original Oz books as one of the few to have a male protagonist, and the only one not to feature Dorothy at all.

This book is also notable for bringing on board a new illustrator. Apparently, Baum and W. W. Denslow, the illustrator of the original, argued over royalties to that 1902 stage version. Denslow had designed the sets and costumes and was co-holder of the copyright of the book, and thus thought he deserved an equal share with Baum and the music composer. Baum disagreed and decided not to work with him again. Don't feel too bad for Denslow, though. The royalties he did receive from the book and the musical were enough for him to purchase an island in Bermuda and declare himself King Denslow I. (Though it seems he sold it again by 1908. So much for the dynasty.)

Thus, instead of Denslow, this book is illustrated by John R. Neill, who would go on to illustrate more than forty different Oz books, including all of the rest of the "Famous Forty" canonical Oz books, minus four that came out after his death in 1943 but including three that he wrote himself. Neill's style rather obviously became the "definitive" style that at least influenced all other Oz illustrators who followed, if they didn't mimic him outright.

Now, while Denslow's illustrations were all in color (even if it was usually only one or two colors), Neill's illustrations here are mostly line drawings, with sixteen full-color plates throughout. The quantity of illustrations, though, remains quite large. AS such, much with the last book, I won't be time-tagging them, as they come a little too thick and fast.

The color plates here come from Old Book Art, the full-page black and white illustrations come from the facsimile of the first edition at OpenLibrary.org, and the remaining line drawings are all from Classics Illustrated (but no, not that Classics Illustrated.) And since this is the first installment, I've included the preliminary illustrations:

Above is the copyright page, showing play posters being pasted up, presumably as a nod to the stage version.

See more after the jump!

"Bernice Bobs Her Hair," by F. Scott Fitzgerald

In which a Jazz Age wallflower from Eau Claire gets some good advice from her cousin, who gets upset when it works a little too well, and revenge is had via haircut; and in which you should be thankful that our narrator decided against attempting a Wisconsin accent.



So, as mentioned in the recording, this installment is largely in honor of my AP English teacher, Mr. Denis Linehan, who would put his hand to his heart when he spoke fondly of "Bernice." Yes, he was on a first-name basis with the story. So, Mr. Linehan, wherever you are now (probably at the track), this one's for you.

"Bernice Bobs Her Hair" was one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's first big stories, published in the May 1, 1920 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, making this the most modern work we've featured so far (and, barring any permissions I get from authors, one of the most modern we're likely to feature.) Fitzgerald had published in the Post before, but this marked the first time he got his name on the cover. The cover painting itself has nothing to do with the story, though; it's titled "Ouija," and is by the legendary Norman Rockwell.

More covers and notes after the jump!

The Time Machine Deleted Text: "The Grey Man"

In which the author gives in to editorial demands and then fixes it when publishing it on his own, and where we see "the ultimate degeneracy of man."



And here is the promised "bonus feature" for The Time Machine. Wells wrote this at his editor's request but took it back out first chance he got, and it really was rather the right choice, in my opinion. It makes for a weird flow to the chapter to have the Time Traveler's escape take him to the far distant future, and then the even farther distant future. But, I like letting you have the option. To listen properly, stop the main recording at about 9:30, then pick it back up after you're done with "The Grey Man" here at 12:05, and continue on from there.

No notes on this one, but a couple of bonus covers for you, from non-English language editions

This first one hails from Germany in 1951, and is interesting to me as it appears to depict the giant centipede-like creature that appears in "The Grey Man," but not in the main text. I wonder if translated version tend to include that more than English-language versions? Or maybe it's not in this text either, and it's just another confusing choice on the part of the artist.

Like this one here, from a 1983 Turkish edition. The Morlocks are carrying off an unconscious Time Traveler, who appears to be wearing a futurey jumpsuit of some sort. Looks pretty cool! But wasn't in the novel.

All right, that's it for our bonus feature! Next up: a new short story.


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Wikisource. No reading ahead, though!

The Time Machine, Chapters Ten to Twelve and Epilogue

In which our hero swaggers right into an obvious trap, is nearly foiled due to strike-on-box matches, escapes due to time travel, sees the even farther distant future, and returns home; and in which we learn in a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey way that our framing story narrator's name is "Hillyer.



And that wraps it up for The Time Machine! As mentioned in the recording, there was a deleted scene called "The Grey Man" (deleted by Wells himself) that I have recorded and will be posting separately.

I've got a few covers for you this time, mostly seeming to go with the design philosophy of "eh, good enough."

This first one here on the right is by Everyman's Library from 1978. Now, this is not really "eh, good enough," as obviously someone put a lot of work and thought into this 'cause there's a LOT GOIng on here. We've got Evel Knieval as the Time Traveler, wearing a sweet checked shirt under a... fishing vest? They've got the multiple-exposure thing to represent time travel we saw before, though here they at least added different poses. We've also got the flying numbers, though less subtle here. Oh, and our guy falls down through a vortex, over some geometric planes, some ruler markings or something, and the odd impression that the year 1970 will be important somehow.

More covers and note after the jump!

The Time Machine, Chapters Eight and Nine

In which our hero explores a museum and find some useful tools, attempts to return to the Sphinx, is waylaid by some Morlocks, and ends up just watching the world burn; and in which our narrator once again wonders at how smart our genius inventor is, but supposes allowances can be made for panic and lack of sleep, I GUESS.



Oh, poor Weena. She was a good little pet humanoid.

Covers! Two more covers tonight:

Haha, oh, this one. It's from 1968, in case you couldn't guess, printed by Berkeley. The blurb at the top reads "The famous novel of one man's defiant gamble with the unknown. The science-fiction masterpiece that heralded the coming of the flower children!" The Eloi on the cover are, of course, wearing mini-skirt-length dresses and are bedecking each other with flowers, while the Time Traveler bursts in on what could very well be a motorcycle through a psychedelic portal between them and the Morlocks below (bearing one of them off). It's, like, a trip, man. I'm not sure if the blurb-writer was trying to make a point of comparing hippies to the childlike, barely sapient Eloi, or if they didn't really look into it that deeply and just wanted to cash in on the latest trend.

Another cover and notes after the jump!

The Time Machine, Chapter Six and Seven

In which our hero descends into the underground with no reliable light source like a CHUMP and gets the Morlocks all stirred up, sets off with Weena towards a distant and mysterious building, and makes a disturbing deduction about the Morlocks; and in which we are suddenly yet briefly thrust back into the framing narrative.



...and now it is made quite clear that the Morlocks are the Bad Guys, if there was any doubt. This was again perhaps a socialist cautionary tale: treat the workers well and make the classes more equitable, or you'll get eaten. Nom. (Oh, hello "dismemberment" tag, I've missed you!)

We've got two covers for you today, because I've found more fun covers than there are installments left in the book. Both for today are from pulp magazines that reprinted the story in the 1950s, because sweet Oz do I love me some pulp covers.

This first one is from volume 11, no. 6 of Famous Fantastic Mysteries, with a cover painting by Norman "Mars Attacks" Saunders. Since this is the pulps, we've got our Time Traveler — who specifically describes himself as "not a young man," but whose appearance is otherwise up to the imagination, so why not — as a rugged young man, and the tiny, childlike Weena as a tall, voluptuous blonde, perfectly coiffed and given a nice little nothing to almost wear. Other than that, it's actually a reasonable depiction of the book, more or less. At least, one could identify it as actually BEING from this story, though sexier and more actiony. Oh, and I also like the numbers randomly flying through the sky.

Another cover and notes after the jump!

The Time Machine, Chapter FIve

In which the Time Machine most mysteriously goes missing, presumed inside the sphinx; the Time Traveler makes a little friend; and discovers new structures an inhabitants that lead him to revise his politico-evolutionary hypothesis.



Enter the Morlocks! They naturally will play a most important part to come, and as the Time Traveler has already mentioned he has not quite gotten the whole picture yet.

Today's cover is from a 1927 edition by Heinemann. And... nope, I have no idea what's going on here. I mean, I may have forgotten some scene after we rejoin the framing narrative wherein someone at the dinner party starts having some sort of convulsions, but I don't think so. And even if there is, or were, that's the scene you put on the cover? Nothing science-fictiony at all? No future world, no strange creatures, no Time Machine, nothing even vaguely time-related, like a clock or the sun? You want it to look like a murder-mystery? Suit yourself, artist whose work was not scanned in hi-res enough for me to make out the signature, and whose cover I can't find anywhere other than here.

And now useful notes, after the jump! Mostly definitions, but also some talk of sewers. Yay!

The Time Machine, Chapters Three to Four

In which the Time Traveler tells his tale of traveling in time, ending in the year 802,701 where he finds that humanity has become largely useless and expostulates incorrect hypotheses as to how this came about.



And now we start the tale proper, and we see what appears to be the remnants of humanity, grown weak and careless from all challenges in the world being conquered. A valid evolutionary theory? Probably not! Heck, even the Time Traveler admits he's wrong, though that is in hindsight to some as-yet-undisclosed evidence....

Our cover art this time around comes from Classics Illustrated #133 from 1956, painted by Lou Cameron. There's a lot to really love about this cover, with little details like the fading sun and the phases of the moon.I'm also rather fond of his depiction of the Time Machine itself, incorporating some of the few details Wells included, like the dual lever control and the saddle (though at the time, "saddle" could also mean a bicycle seat, and as Wells was a bicycling enthusiast many think that's what he meant), while making look cleverly like a gyroscope. Many other artists would rip off this design in years to come.

Oh, and I also love how the Time Traveler looks like Ward Cleaver.

Notes after the jump! They're as numerous as last time, more or less, but somewhat less involved.

The Time Machine, Chapters One and Two

In which there is a gathering of unnamed satirical archetypes with much harrumphing and discussions on the nature of Time, and the Time Traveler claims to have traveled in time; and in which the narrator has already used up all of the voices that will be needed in this book.



Yay, new book! We haven't done a full-on science fiction book yet, so we'll start with one that invented or at least codified one of sci-fi's greatest tropes: TIME TRAVEL. As overly discussed in the intro, The Time Machine had kind of an odd publishing history, starting out as one short story in a college newspaper in 1888, then heavily rewritten to be serialized in another newspaper, never concluded, rewritten again to be serialized in another newspaper, and rewritten versions of both of those latter newspaper texts submitted and accepted by two different publishing companies, and published within three weeks of each other in 1895. Of the two book texts, the "Holt" or "American" version and the "Heinemann" or "British" version, named for their respective publishing companies and countries, the latter is by far the most reprinted. There's also the matter of deleted text, a section from a later chapter that Wells included in the serial due to editorial fiat but cut out once he had the chance. It was, however, inexplicably included in whatever cheap book-fair paperback I read back in elementary school, so it may or may not get read later on. We'll see how I feel.

Anyway, for the first time thus far I was unable to find any public domain illustrations for this book. I know, right? So, we'll just have to do what we did to fill in several chapters back in Green Gables, and show covers from various versions over the years. We'll start with the first edition covers:

Photo via the University of California, Riverside

The one on the left is the more well-known Heinemann version, showing the winged sphinx that will play a major part in the story. The Holt version on the right just has the Henry Holt & Co. logo, with an owl on a book. Not... entirely relevant to the story, but understandable, I suppose.

Luckily (?) there are plenty of notes after the jump to fill the void left by the illustrations! Especially in these here early chapters.

"The Little Mermaid," by Hans Christian Andersen

In which the young mermaid from under the sea wishes to be part of our world, makes a bargain with a sea witch, and attempts to win the love of a young prince in order to... get an immortal soul, a part of the story that our narrator had rather forgotten about.



Since "Snow White and Rose Red" was a bit on the short side, we're going to double up on our short story interlude by returning to Mr. Hans Christian Andersen. "The Little Mermaid," one of Andersen's popular "suffering is totally good for you" stories, was originally published in Denmark in 1836 as "Den lille havfrue," which literally translates as... "The Little Mermaid." As with "The Snow Queen" I had to pick a translation. Now, rather than just go with the one in the Andersen collection I own, because it inexplicably doesn't include "The Little Mermaid," which, what? I went with the original English translation from 1872, by H.P. Paull. As with Alice "Mrs. Edgar" Lucas," this is alternatively credited to H.B. Paull, Mrs. H.B. Paull, Mrs. H.H.B. Paull or various combinations thereof, when it seems her name is, in fact, Susannah Mary Paull.

Also, I, um, may have gone a bit overboard with the illustrations on this one. I found one rather extensive set of illustrations I really liked by Helen Stratton from 1899. Those are most of them, and all but one of the black-and-white illustrations. The full-color illustrations are by our friend Edmund Dulac, from the same 1911 edition that our "Snow Queen" illustrations came from. Then there are two others I threw in from Harry Clarke, 1916, and Hans Tegner, largely because I thought the others didn't include nearly enough pictures of the sea witch, who is awesome.

Oh, and it should be noted that whilst the Victorian era was one of rather notorious prudery, they were still kind of okay with breasts in art and illustrations. So... mermaid boobs ahead, if that kind of thing bothers you.

By the way, I apologize that this is late and that I didn't put in any timestamps for the images, but I need to stop pretending I can get these things done on time during tech week for a show I'm in. The theater people in the audience know what I'm sayin'. If I get a chance, I'll add the timestamps in.

The "F" from the opening line: "Far out in the ocean..." (Stratton)

More illustrations after the jump!

"Snow White and Rose Red," by the Brothers Grimm

In which the titular sisters encounter a very nice bear and a very ungrateful dwarf and between them find a happy-ever-after; and in which the narrator insists on demonstrating that he learned SOMETHING in four years of high school German.



And here's our first fairy tale by Grimm! As described at length in the recording, this Snow White is not the same as that of "...and the Seven Dwarves." The names are different in German: Sneewittchen for the more famous one, and Scnheeweißchen* for this one. They both translate literally to "Little Snow White," but the former is Low German and the latter is High German. There is a dwarf in this one, though!

Much like with Andersen and Verne, there are a multitude of translations of Grimm both in and out of the public domain. A translation by Margaret Hunt from the 1870s is considered the definitive English translation of the nineteenth century. It also, however, has not aged especially well. Instead, I'll be using the version used in the Barnes & Noble Classics edition I got for free a while back, which is an anonymous translation from 1869. Maybe not the best, but definitely usable.

I was, though, very pleased with the number of illustrations I was able to find for this somewhat lesser-known tale. I couldn't entirely decide between three sources, so I used them all! One batch is by Jennie Harbour, from a 1921 compilation edited by Edric Vredenburg called My Book of Fairy Tales. Another is by L. Leslie Brooke, from a 1909 book called The House in the Wood and Other Fairy Stories, and the third is by Alexander Zick from a German edition of Grimm's from sometime in the 1880s, probably. Most of the image files are courtesy of SurLaLune Fairy Tales.

2:37 - They were like the flowers which bloomed on two
rose-bushes which grew before the cottage. (Jennie Harbour)

See more illustrations after the jump!

Sense and Sensibility, Volume the Third, Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen

In which Elinor and Edward are happy, the conduct of Lucy and Robert is explained, the Ferrars are all reconciled, Marianne gives in to the inevitable and falls for Colonel Brandon, and all live happily ever after.



Sorry this is going up a day late! I had the recording ready to go yesterday and the post half-finished, but then I decided to go out to the movies all day with my wife, and I stand by that decision.

And, at last, we find our two heroines settled and happy, with Edward honorably released from his engagement to Lucy, and Marianne getting everyone to shut up about Colonel Brandon but just marrying him already (although, all right, they gave it a couple of years for her to actually fall for him.)

Two quick notes in this last installment, both while talking about Elinor and Edward's new house in Delaford: at 26:50, while talking about improvements they will be making, we hear that they plan on "invent[ing] a sweep," where a "sweep" is a long, winding driveway. Then, John Dashwood talks about how fine the timber is in Delaford Hanger (presumably with dollar signs -- pound signs? -- in his eyes.) A "hanger" here is a wooded area growing on the side of a steep hill or embankment (hanging on the side of it, you see.)

27:45 - "Everything in such respectable condition."

And, with a note about the extraordinariness of two sisters living so closely by without fighting or setting their husbands against one another, we conclude Sense and Sensibility. Thank you for listening, and stay tuned for the next short story interlude!


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg, and high-res copies of the Thompson illustrations can be found in the British Library's Flickr stream. No reading ahead, though!

Sense and Sensibility, Volume the Third, Chapters Eleven and Twelve

In which everyone insists that no, even with Willoughby's "vindication," there is no way Marianne would have been happy with him; it is revealed that Mr. Ferrars and Lucy Steele are now married, to the great agitation of everyone; and Edward comes to pay another most awkward visit.



Oh no! Mr. Ferrars is married! Well, I'm sure they will be very happy together. I must say, I love how wonderfully awkward pretty much every single scene with Edward is, and I don't identify with it at all.

Shut up.

9:37 - "I suppose you know, ma'am, that Mr. Ferrars is married."

Oh, hmm. Was Thomas supposed to be an older gentleman? Should I have, I don't know, baldened up his voice a little bit, or something? I should take a closer look at these illustrations maybe before recording. Ah, well.

17:43 - It was Edward.

Edward! Why you cut off your horse's tail like that? Don't you know that's their flyswatter? Not very nice. Elinor's better off without you, probably.

(All right, maybe I'm just looking for a way to use the "dismemberment" tag in this book. I suppose that's stretching it a bit, though. Seriously though, Jane, you couldn't have had anyone, like, lose a finger? Or something? Pssh.)


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg, and high-res copies of the Thompson illustrations can be found in the British Library's Flickr stream. No reading ahead, though!

Sense and Sensibility, Volume the Third, Chapters Nine and Ten

In which the Dashwood family is happily reunited and returns to Barton, where Marianne continues to recover her strength and settle her spirits, and is made acquainted with Willoughby's story.



And now we're barreling towards our presumably happy ending (unless Marianne pulls a Beth March on us). Marianne's brush with death has apparently taught her a bit of a lesson, re: her feelings, and indulgence thereof. But no one we like has gotten married yet! I assume that will be taken care of soon. ROMANCE.

No illustrations of the happy Dashwoods together again; no, we'll see "how the children go on," or something:

18:16 - "And see how the children go on."

If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg, and high-res copies of the Thompson illustrations can be found in the British Library's Flickr stream. No reading ahead, though!