Author List Volume VI

Charles Reade (1814-1884) The Cloister and the Hearth (1861) Born: Ipsden House, Oxfordshire, England. Buried: St Mary's Churchyard, Kensal Green, London, England. Castel Sant Angelo, Rome, Lazio, Italy. College: Magdalen (Oxford).

Erasmus (1466-1536) Born: Wijde Kerstraat, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Buried: Basel Minster, Basel, Switzerland. Erasmus House, Rue du Chapitre 31, Brussels, Belgium. Erasmus Bridge, Rotterdam, Netherlands. College: Paris.

Izaak Walton (1593-1683) The Compleat Angler (1653) Born: 62/62A Eastgate Street, Stafford, Staffordshire, England. Buried: Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, Hampshire, England. Izaak Walton Cottage, Shallowford, Staffordshire, England. Izaak Walton Inn, Essex, Montana. Izaak Walton Inn Hotel, Embu, Kenya.

Charles Cotton (1630-1687) Born: Beresford Dale, Derbyshire, England. Buried: St James's Church, St James, London, England. Charles Cotton Hotel, Hartington, Derbyshire, England.

Thomas DeQuincey (1785-1859) Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821-2) Born: 86 Cross Street, Manchester, Lancashire, England. Buried: St Cuthbert's Churchyard, Princes Street, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland. College: Worcester (Oxford). Dove Cottage, Grasmere, Cumbria, England.

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430) The Confessions of St Augustine (399) Born: Souk Ahras, Algeria. Buried: Chiesa San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. Parish Church of St Augustine, Bacong, Phillipines. St. Augustine, Florida.

St Monica (331-387) Born: Souk Ahras, Algeria. Buried: Basilica di Sant' Agostino, Rome, Lazio, Italy. Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California. Santa Monica History Museum, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1882), Huckleberry Finn (1885), A Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King Arthur (1889) Born: Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site, 37352 Shrine Road, Florida, Missouri. (*****5-5-03*****). Buried: Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira, Chemung, New York. Mark Twain House & Museum, 351 Farmington Avenue, Hartford, Connecticut (*****8-12-10*****). Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, 120 N Main Street, Hannibal, Missouri (*****5-3-03*****). Mark Twain Museum, Nevada 341, Virginia City, Nevada. Mark Twain Cave, Hannibal, Missouri. Study, Elmira College, Elmira, Chemung, New York.

Isabella (1451-1504) Born: Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Avila, Castile and Leon, Spain. Buried: Capilla Real, Granada, Andalusia, Spain.

Ferdinand (1452-1516) Born: Sos del Rey Catolico, Aragon, Spain. Buried: Capilla Real, Granada, Andalusia, Spain. Alcazar de Segovia, Segovia, Castile and Leon, Spain.

Margaret Kennedy (1896-1967) The Constant Nymph (1924) Born: 14 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington, London, England. College: Somerville (Oxford). 

Coriolanus (400s B.C.) Born: Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Plutarch (46-120) Born: Chaeronea, Central Greece, Greece.

Andre Gide (1869-1951) The Counterfeiters (1925) Born: 19 Rue de Medicis, 6eme, Paris, France. Buried: Cemetery, Cuverville, Haute-Normandie, France. College: Lycee Henri IV.

Alexandre Dumas pere (1803-1870) The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), The Three Musketeers (1844) Born: 46 Rue Alexandre Dumas, Villers-Cotterets, Picardie, France. Buried: Pantheon, 5eme, Paris, France. Chateau de Monte-Cristo, Le Port-Marly, Yvelines, Ile-de-France, France. Musee Alexandre Dumas, 24 Rue Demoustier, Villers-Cotterets, Picardie, France. Alexandre Dumas Metro Station, 11eme & 20eme, Paris, France. Chateau d'If, Marseilles, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, France. Ateshgah Fire Temple, Abseron Peninsula, Azerbaijan

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896)  Born: Sarah Orne Jewett House, 5 Portland Street, South Berwick, Maine (*****7-19-2019*****). Buried: Portland Street Cemetery, South Berwick, Maine.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) Evangeline (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858) Born: corner of Fore & Hancock Streets, Portland, Maine. Buried: Mt Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts. Longfellow House Washington Headquarters, 105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts. Wadsworth-Longfellow House, 489 Congress Street, Portland, Maine. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Monument, Congress & State Streets, Portland, Maine. Replica of House, Minnehaha Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site, St Martinsville, Louisiana. College: Bowdoin.

Miles Standish (1584-1656) Born: Likely Lancashire, England. Buried: Miles Standish Cemetery, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts. Myles Standish Monument, Crescent Street, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts. Myles Standish State Forest, Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts. Legs of Myles Standish, Route 58, Halifax, Plymouth, Massachusetts.

John Alden (1599-1687) Born: Harwich, Essex, England. Buried: Myles Standish Burial Ground, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts. John Alden's House, 105 Alden Street, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts. John Alden Gift Shop, 74 Water Street, Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts. John Alden Apartments, Seattle, Washington. Plymouth Rock, Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts. The John Alden Sandwich, Waterside Market, 76 Main Street, Vineyard Haven, Martha's Vineyard, Dukes, Massachusetts.

Priscilla Mullins (1602-1685) Born: Dorking, Surrey, England. Buried: Miles Standish Burial Ground, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts. John Alden's House, 105 Alden Street, Duxbury, Massachusetts.

Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) Eugenie Grandet (1833), Pere Goriot (1835), Cousin Bette (1847) Born: 25 Rue de l'armee d'Italie, Tours, Centre, France. Buried: Cimitier du Pere Lachaise, 20eme, Paris, Maison de Balzac, 47 Rue Raynouard, 16eme, Paris, France. Statue, Rue du Faubourg St Honore, 8eme, Paris, France. Monument to Honore de Balzac (Rodin), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. College: University of Paris (Sorbonne)

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865) Cranford (1853) Born: 93 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London, England. Buried: Brook Street Unitarian Chapel, Knutsford, Cheshire, England. Gaskell House, 84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester, Lancashire, England.  Knutsford Heritage Centre, 90A King Street, Knutsford, Cheshire, England.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) The Crescent Moon (1913) Born: Jorasanko Thakur Bari, 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane, Calcutta, India. Ashes: Ganges River, India. Shelaidaha Kuthibari, Bangladesh. Shantiniketan, India (several sights).

Anatole France (1844-1924) The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881), Thais (1890), Penguin Island (1908) Born: Quais Malaquais 19, 6eme, Paris, France. Buried: Cimitiere Ancien, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, Ile-de-France, France. Hotel Anatole France, 104 Rue Anatole France, Le Havre, Upper Normandy, France.

Winston Churchill (1871-1947) The Crisis (1901) Born: St Louis, Missouri. Buried: Plainfield Cemetery, Plainfield, New Hampshire. College: Navy.

Of note to me as a New Hampshire resident, there is a historic marker on the west side of Route 12A about 200 yards south of the Cornish-Plainfield town line commemorating this author. The only references to his burial site I have found are from 1953, which gives the name of a cemetery that does not seem to exist, and the town report from 1967 in which it is recorded that his descendants wanted to give the land where he was buried to the town. It did not specify where the land was, nor can I discover whether the town accepted the offer. I have now found a 3rd reference, which cites that he was buried on his property, which appears to have been on Freeman Road (The Windfield House).

I'm not having any luck finding the address of his birthplace in St Louis, though having been to that city I am pretty confident that wherever it was, there is probably a vacant lot or a highway there now.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965) Born: Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. Buried: St Martin's Church, Bladon, Oxfordshire, England. National Churchill Museum, 501 Westminster Avenue, Fulton, Missouri. Churchill War Rooms, King Charles Street, Westminster, London, England. "The Allies" (statue), Bond Street, Mayfair, London, England. Chartwell, Mapleton Road, Westerham, Kent, England. College: Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) The Rivals (1775), The School For Scandal (1777), The Critic (1779) Born: 12 Upper Dorset Street, Dublin, Ireland (or maybe not, but this has traditionally been thought the birthplace, & there is a plaque commemorating it. On the other hand, the commission to ferret out the truth was financed by 'a private client' and there is a real estate developer eager to demolish the decrepit house and put up an apartment complex, so I am not sure how far I would trust the motivations of those findings either.) Buried: Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London, England. Portrait (by Hoppner), Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia.

David Crockett (1786-1836) Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834) Born: Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park, Greene County, Tennessee. Buried: San Fernando Cathedral, 115 Main Plaza, San Antonio, Texas. David Crockett State Park, Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. David Crockett Cabin Museum, Rutherford, Tennessee. Crockett Tavern Museum, Morrisville, Tennessee. Rifle. Museum of East Tennessee History, Knoxville, Tennesee.

John Wesley Crockett (1807-1852) Born: East Tennessee. Buried: Old City Cemetery, Paris, Tennessee (Historic marker also).

James Stephens (1882-1950) Crock of Gold (1912) Born: Dublin, Ireland (site not documented. Usually reported as being "a poor part of town.") Buried: d. London, England. (I cannot find any information on this as yet. Even my great reference, The Oxford Literary Guide to the British Isles, has not recorded this).

Cymbeline (fl 10's B.C.-40) No specific information. Cymbeline House, 24 Evesham Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England.

Edmond Rostand (1868-1918) Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) Born: 14 Rue Edmond Rostand, Marseilles, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, France. Buried: Cimitiere Sainte Pierre, Marseilles, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, France. La Villa Arnaga, Route du Docteur Camino, Cambo-le-Bains, Aquitaine, France. Hotel Edmond Rostand Logis de France, 31 Rue Dragon, Marseilles, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, France. 

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) Born: Rue des Prouvaires, 1ere, Paris, France. Buried: Church, Sannois, Val d'Oise, Ile-de-France, France. (The actual site appears to be gone/unknown now). Statue, Place de la Myrpe, Bergerac, Dordogne, France. Cyrano de Bergerac Restaurant, Slawkowska 26, Krakow, Poland.

Theodore de Banville (1823-1891) Born: Moulins, Auvergne, France. Buried: Cimitiere du Montparnasse, 14eme, Paris, France. Hotel de Banville, 166 Boulevard Berthier, 17eme, Paris, France.



Willa Cather--Alexander's Bridge (1912)

This is Willa Cather's first, very short novel (128 sparely filled pages). There are not a lot of copies of it currently in circulation. Vintage put out a paperback edition in 2010, which is what I got, and I presume it is available in the Library of America, but I was hoping to find a cheap older (pre-1960s) copy for my collection, and I couldn't find anything, even an expensive one.

As I have written on the parent blog, I think My Antonia is one of the great American novels. Up until now it had been the only Willa Cather I had read. Alexander's Bridge, in contrast to the western pioneer settings with which she had her great later success, takes place mainly among the wealthy, well-dressed, theater and dinner party-going segment of society in Boston and London. The crowd is not unlike an Edith Wharton crowd, though more active in terms of industry. I suppose it could be said that Alexander, who is a great engineer who builds mighty bridges, is something of a pioneer, although that aspect of his character is not really predominant in the story. He is presented as a man of force, blond, blue eyed, strongly built, with a powerful neck and bursting with energy to claim the wealth and status that is rightfully his--such men obviously made a great impression, as they appear frequently in the American literature of this period (Wharton's Elmer Moffatt character is another hard-charger of this type). This is not, however, the Alexander that appears in most of the actual story; the one that is given the reader seems to be in the throes of a midlife crisis unbecoming a mighty builder of the most modern railway bridges, increasingly diffident about his work and pining for his youth and his lost love. The IWE describes the book thus:

"The writing is quiet, restrained--no surprises, no suspense. There is no contrived plot. The characters are conventional or at least self-controlled. Yet without evident effort she makes them real--a quality of her writing that within a few years was to win Willa Cather recognition as a major novelist."

Yes, I would disagree with that. The great shortcoming of Al's Bridge for me is that the characters never become wholly real, or acquire any sort of depth in my mind. I don't understand why Alexander was seemingly losing interest in the life he had, or what he was expecting to attain by giving it up to have his Irish actress. The book is not bad--the writing is good, and the atmosphere of that general time period in the great cities, New York, London, Boston, is captured well enough to hold the reader's interest, and it is short enough to read in a couple days, probably a couple of hours if you are not a ditherer like I am. So I am glad I read it, even though I would not consider it on the whole as satisfying or successful as some of the other books I have read for the IWE list recently.

The Challenge

Another crazy challenge with a shocking (to me) winner. I guess not as many people read the famous books as you would think (or those who do felt less moved or compelled to review it on the internet). It was also notable that women authors were dominant. I should not be surprised that the magic words generated by a Willa Cather novel tilt the power of the search engine heavily towards the feminine. Those things are too clever.

1. Ann Patchett--Bel Canto........................................................................1,034
2. Barbara Kingsolver--Prodgial Summer.....................................................711
3. Lucy Maud Montgomery--Anne of Avonlea..............................................594
4. Salman Rushdie--Satanic Verses...............................................................341
5. A.S. Byatt--Possession...............................................................................315
6. Irene Hunt--Across Five Aprils..................................................................282
7. Paolo Pacigalupi--The Drowned Cities......................................................143
8. Mary E. Braddon--Lady Audley's Secret......................................................72
9. Winifred Watson--Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day.....................................66
10. Virginia Woolf--The Waves........................................................................61
11. Salman Rushdie--East, West.......................................................................31
12. Alexandra Nouri--So You're in Love With a Narcissist..............................28
13. Larsen & Hodge--The Art of Argument......................................................19
14. Margaret Atwood--Good Bones..................................................................17
(tie) Diane Stanley--Bard of Avon: The Story of William Shakespeare............17
16. Winifred Holtby--Anderby Wold..................................................................4
17. Barbara Greenwood--A Pioneer Story..........................................................1

Working With Words: Grade 6, Applications of Grammar 4: Principles of Effective Communication, and Applications of Grammar 6: Mastering Communication Skills tied for last place with the obvious score of zero.

I was certain that the Anne of Green Gables or the A.S. Byatt would win. The relatively low score on the Byatt was especially surprising. Hasn't there been one of the most hyped books of the new century? Ann Patchett appears to be one of these attractive, hyper-focused, morally strident, successfully/triumphantly educated modern people towards whom I am emotionally ambivalent and distant but am conflicted about in my modest forages into mental life. Her book, which is set in South America and involves terrorists and music and substantial people who either undoubtedly have brilliant standardized test scores or are so culturally authentic as to be extremely sexy, is supposedly good. I guess I will have to try it.

Eugene O'Neill--Ah Wilderness! (1933)

Famous for being the happy Eugene O'Neill play--the only one, apparently, that can be thus described. As I noted in my last posting, I am in a stretch of shorter readings for this list, and Ah Wilderness! clocks in at a breezy 141 pages. From the IWE introduction:

"Among O'Neill's most popular plays, Ah Wilderness! deserves a special place as the easiest for any amateur group to produce. Its characters and sets are conventional and it is over at a convenient hour. It has a happy ending."

My 1960s-era Modern Library copy (cast off from the Trenton (Michigan) High School library), was marked up with an actress's notes for the role of Essie, the mother of the family. The aroma of decades old cigarette smoke still emanates deliciously from the pages, which is entirely suitable and welcome to me, given the nature of this list and my motivations for taking it up in midlife, The play itself has a nostalgic aspect, being set on July 4th and 5th, 1906, and featuring young love as one of its main themes. The central family in the drama are a middle-aged husband and wife with six children (though only the younger four still live at home and feature in the play), who live in a spacious Victorian house in Connecticut (New London, most likely). Other than the circumstances that both the parents and children are about ten years further along than we are in age, and the father, who runs the local newspaper, is a man of substance and influence in the town, the situation bears a remarkable resemblance to my own family--indeed, they even share their surname with us. When I was sitting on my porch reading it in the languid last days of August I could almost feel as if I were in the scene, or that it was all taking place in the dining room just behind me. Doubtless all of this influenced my mood and opinion with regard to the play, which were positive.

One of the reasons I was eager to embark on this particular list was all of the American literature that is on it between the Civil War and World War II that was once famous and alive in the general culture (or at least the literate parts of it) that has been forgotten or ceased to be as important. I find that I like a lot of that stuff, and always have. If you subscribe at all to generational theory, Eugene O'Neill's place in the saeculum lines up almost identical to mine (in the theory, generations last approximately 20 years, and there are four generational archetypes; Eugene O'Neill was born 82 years before I was, into the Lost Generation, the last 'nomad' cohort). Generally I don't think of myself as having much in common with Eugene O'Neill, but he was about the same age as I am now when he wrote this, and it was similarly in the midst of a period of difficult economic times and major transitions in the social and economic bases of life. That is about the extent of my insight as to why he suddenly broke from form and wrote a mildly nostalgic comedy--the only such effort of his career--in his mid-40s.

Being Eugene O'Neill even in his light play there is an alcoholic character whose behavior and issues are extreme and disturbing by our standards, and there is a whole long scene set in a dive bar among tarts and tough talking Mickeys. He can never get away from that world entirely.

George M Cohan as Nat Miller in the original production of Ah Wilderness!

The Bourgeois Surrender Challenge

The magic words from this book brought up a deluge of recent best-sellers, which produced a high-scoring and competitive challenge with a (to me) surpise winner.

1. John Sandford--Field of Prey.......................................................................2,972
2. Harlen Coben--Six Years..............................................................................2,798
3. Dale Carnegie--How to Win Friends and Influence People.........................2,306
4. J.R. Ward--Lover at Last..............................................................................2,138
5. Cassandra Clare--Clockwork Princess.........................................................1,919
6. Rick Riordan--The Lost Hero.......................................................................1,833
7. John Grisham--The Confession....................................................................1,665
8. Joel C. Rosenberg--Damascus Countdown.................................................1,568
9. Garcia & Stohl--Beautiful Darkness............................................................1,334
10. James Dashnel--The Scorch Trials............................................................1,326
11. Keith Richards--Life.....................................................................................991
12. Michael Connolly--Reversal........................................................................863
13. David Nicholls--One Day............................................................................622
14. Michael Crichton & Richard Preston--Micro..............................................592
15. Clive Cussler--The Striker...........................................................................591
16. C.J. Box--Breaking Point............................................................................556
17. Becca Fitzpatrick--Crescendo.....................................................................468
18. Bella Andre--Always on my Mind...............................................................341
19. J.R. Ward--Crave........................................................................................249
20. James Rollins--The Sixth Extinction..........................................................169
21. Tracie Peterson--A Sensible Arrangement.................................................140
22. Nicole Krauss--Great House......................................................................137
23. Peggy Hesketh--Telling the Bees................................................................106
24. Chris D'Lacey--Icefire................................................................................102
25. Snyder/Albuquerque/King--American Vampire, Vol. 1...............................88
26. Raymond Khoury--The Templar Salvation..................................................81
27. Wanda Brunstetter--The Healing Quilt........................................................76
28. Ned Beauman--The Teleportation Accident.................................................68
29. Kermit Lynch--Adventures on the Wine Route.............................................44
30. Rae Mariz--Unidentified...............................................................................43
31. Canfield & Hendricks--You've Got to Read This Book................................39
32. George Gissing--The Odd Women................................................................29
33. Sara Yogev--Couples' Guide to Happy Retirement......................................25
34. Emily Eden--The Semi-Detached Couple & The Semi-Detached House.......4
(tie) Elizabeth Taylor--At Mrs Lippincott's..........................................................4
36. Enid Bagnold--The Squire..............................................................................3
37. Rose Macaulay--Non-Combatants & Others..................................................1
38. Erle Stanley Gardner--Case of the Curious Spinster......................................0
(tie) A.E.W. Mason--Dilemmas............................................................................0
(tie) Patricia Lee McComber--Love Lost..............................................................0

The winner is a thriller, another murder book set in the midwest. I don't want to read it. All these murder books strike me as being the same after a while. Maybe it has literary qualities: the author was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner as a journalist before becoming an author of thrillers. If nothing else, I suppose I could learn more about professionalism and the qualities it takes to ascend to that class by reading him. But then again, if I haven't grasped the tenets of professionalism in work by this point of my life, it seems unlikely I will ever be able to do so. My library owns three copies of Field of Prey, but they are all currently checked out, so I might be able to skirt it.

There are a number of books I would have read on this list if they had won. I would have read the Dale Carnegie, probably the Keith Richards. I definitely would have read the Nicole Krauss book (isn't she one of those contemporary with-it Brooklyn literary people?), the old writers at the bottom, Gissing and Bagnold and Eden and Taylor and Gardner. But they didn't win, and I must move on with the master list.