This Day In Writing History
On March 30th, 1820, the famous British children's book writer Anna Sewell was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. She was born into a devoutly religious Quaker family. She had one sibling, a younger brother named Philip.
As a young girl, Anna Sewell was mostly educated at home by her mother, who established a strict regime of schooling heavily influenced by her religious beliefs.
When Anna was twelve, her family moved to Stoke Newington, where she began her formal education. For the first time, she was able to study subjects new to her, such as mathematics and foreign languages.
Two years later, at the age of fourteen, Anna took a nasty fall while walking home from school. She severely injured both her ankles, and medicine in 1834 was primitive. She never received proper treatment.
As a result, Anna would remain practically lame for the rest of her life, unable to stand without a crutch or walk more than a few steps.
In 1836, Anna's father took a job in Brighton, partly because he hoped the climate there would improve his daughter's health. Meanwhile, Anna used horse-drawn carriages to get around, which led her to develop a love of horses and a strong belief in the humane treatment of animals.
Anna Sewell's first introduction to professional writing was through her mother, who was a children's book writer. Mary Wright Sewell had written a series of evangelical children's books that was quite popular during its time.
Another of her books, a poetry collection called Mother's Last Words, sold millions of copies. Anna would often help edit her mother's manuscripts.
Later, when she was a grown woman, Anna met many writers, artists, and philosophers as she traveled throughout Europe, visiting spas in an attempt to restore her health. Unfortunately, her health would continue to deteriorate.
Anna would return to England and settle in Old Catton, a village outside of Norwich in Norfolk. She contracted tuberculosis, and her health would decline to the point that she was often bedridden. In 1871, at the age of 51, she began work on a novel.
She wrote it partly to pass the time, partly to inspire those who worked with horses to be kind to the animals. At the time, horses were often beaten by their owners and forced to pull wagons and carriages that were overloaded. Many horses died on their feet from exhaustion - while still wearing their harnesses.
To make carriage horses look attractive, some cruel fashions were employed, such as docking, where a horse's tail would be cut short, causing the animal great pain and leaving it vulnerable to insect bites and stings. Another cruel fashion was the bearing rein.
The bearing rein held the horse's head toward its chest. This gave the horse's neck a graceful arc, but it also left the animal unable to breathe properly, which resulted in respiratory problems. The bearing rein also caused horses to suffer from very poor vision and loss of balance.
Anna Sewell completed her novel six years later, in 1877. She struggled to write it, but was determined to finish it. When she was too weak to write, she dictated to her mother. When the novel was completed, Anna sold it to a publisher, Jarrolds, for £40.
Although she never intended it to be a children's book, Black Beauty would rightfully be considered one of the greatest works of children's literature ever written.
Black Beauty is a novel in the form of a memoir - the autobiography of a black stallion named Black Beauty. Beginning with his carefree childhood as a colt on an English farm, he tells the story of his life.
Most poignant are his recollections of his hard life in London, where he pulled taxicabs for a living. Black Beauty tells many tales of cruelty and kindness as he chronicles his life, ending his story on a bright note as he retires to a happy life in the country.
Anna Sewell's eye for detail - specifically, her extensive and accurate descriptions of the behavior of horses - gives the novel a great sense of realism, despite the fact that it's a story narrated by a horse.
Her descriptions of the hard life of working horses led to reforms benefiting horse-drawn taxi drivers so they wouldn't have to work the animals so hard to make a decent living.
The initial sales of Black Beauty would break all the current publishing records. The novel would go on to sell over 30,000,000 copies.
Sadly, Anna Sewell wouldn't live to see the runaway success of her novel. She died of tuberculosis five months after it was published, in 1878, at the age of 58. Black Beauty would be adapted several times for the screen and television.
Quote Of The Day "There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham." - Anna Sewell
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a reading of the first chapter of Anna Sewell's classic children's novel, Black Beauty. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History
On March 29th, 1936, the famous American novelist Judith Guest was born in Detroit, Michigan. The famous poet Edgar Guest was her great-uncle. Judith Guest studied English and psychology at the University of Michigan, where she belonged to the Sigma Kappa sorority.
In 1975, Guest wrote her first novel. Having no agent, she decided to sell it herself. Her first two submissions were rejected. The first publisher rejected the novel without comment.
The second enclosed a note with her rejection slip saying that "While the book has some satiric bite, overall the level of writing does not sustain interest and we will have to decline it."
The third submission proved to be the charm. An editor at Viking Press immediately bought Guest's novel. It was the first time in over 25 years that Viking had bought and published an unsolicited manuscript.
The release of the novel was far from immediate; the editor held it back for eight months, so that it would hit bookstores in July of 1976 - the time of the bicentennial celebration in the United States.
To release this particular novel around the time of the country's 200th birthday was clever, as it told the story of an all-American family that falls apart after its mask of perfection is suddenly ripped off. Ordinary People would become a classic novel and make Judith Guest's name as a writer.
Ordinary People opens with the Jarretts, a wealthy upper class family who live in a big house in an exclusive neighborhood in Lake Forest, Illinois, appearing to have come to terms with the sudden death of oldest son Buck in a sailing accident six months earlier.
Then, younger son Conrad, 17, attempts suicide by slashing his wrists. He had been suffering from severe depression, as he was on the boat with Buck when a sudden storm hit, and his brother was killed.
Conrad's parents, Cal and Beth, commit him to a psychiatric hospital. After eight months of treatment, he returns home and goes back to school, but his unresolved issues threaten his sanity.
His father, Cal, encourages him to see a therapist. Resistant at first, Conrad agrees to therapy and begins seeing Dr. Tyrone Berger, an eccentric psychiatrist. He begins to open up and Dr. Berger helps him work through his issues.
Conrad's issues include survivor's guilt and an apathetic mother. Beth Jarrett has an anal-retentive "type A" personality and is maniacally devoted to perfection. Determined to be the perfect wife and mother, she keeps a perfect house and had built a perfect family.
But that perfection was shattered when Buck died, and now she is incapable of grieving for him, feeling for her troubled surviving son, or dealing with the fact that her perfect life has been shattered.
Beth's husband, Cal, a tax attorney, grew up in an orphanage after losing his mother at the age of 11. He never knew his father. Becoming successful and wealthy after enduring a poor and unhappy childhood is a source of great pride to Cal.
He always believed himself lucky, but now that his family is falling apart, he begins to wonder who and what he really is and where his life is headed. To add to his mid life crisis, his wife Beth has become cold, distant, and frigid. His marriage is crumbling.
The experimental narrative switches between Cal and Conrad's points of view and includes interior monologues and stream-of-consciousness narration. Ordinary People won Judith Guest the Janet Heidiger Kafka Prize for best first novel.
Before the novel hit the bookstores, legendary actor-filmmaker Robert Redford got a hold of a preview edition. He loved the book, bought the movie rights, and directed the feature film adaptation, which was released in 1980.
The highly acclaimed film, which starred Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, and Timothy Hutton, won several Academy Awards. Redford took home the Best Director Oscar for his directorial debut.
With the success of the film, the novel became a subject of study for middle and high school English classes. This led to challenges from some disgruntled parents due to the dark subject matter and a brief sex scene between the troubled, teenage Conrad and his new girlfriend, Jeannine.
Ordinary People would be the first of several novels by Judith Guest that dealt with adolescents in crisis. Her most recent novel, A Tarnished Eye, (2004) was loosely based on a real life crime that took place in her native Michigan.
In this novel, the rural community of Blessed, Michigan, is shattered when an entire family - a couple and their four children - are found savagely murdered in their summer home. The Sheriff, Hugh DeWitt, still reeling from the death of his infant son, must deal with his grief as he tries to solve the murders.
There had been a history of conflict between the locals and the rich city folk who come to Blessed to buy up the land for their vacation estates. Could that have been the motivation for such a monstrous crime?
Quote Of The Day
"I wanted to explore the anatomy of depression — how it works and why it happens to people; how you can go from being down but able to handle it, to being so down that you don’t even want to handle it, and then taking a radical step with your life — trying to commit suicide — and failing at that, coming back to the world and having to 'act normal' when, in fact, you have been forever changed." - Judith Guest on her classic novel, Ordinary People.
Vanguard Video
Today's video features the original theatrical trailer for the highly acclaimed 1980 feature film adaptation of Judith Guest's classic debut novel, Ordinary People. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History
On March 28th, 1909, the famous American writer Nelson Algren was born. He was born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham in Detroit, Michigan, to a German Jewish mother and a Swedish father who had converted to Judaism. When Nelson was three, his family moved to Chicago.
The Abrahams first settled in the South Side. When Nelson was eight, they moved to an apartment in the North Side. Nelson would remain a lifelong White Sox fan.
As a child growing up in Cubs country, the other kids teased him frequently for being a White Sox fan. The teasing would increase exponentially during the Black Sox Scandal of 1920, when it was revealed that eight White Sox players had been bribed to throw the World Series.
In 1931, Neslon Algren graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor's degree in journalism. Unfortunately, with the Great Depression in full effect, all he could do to make ends meet was drift around the country looking for work like so many others did.
Two years later, Algren wrote his first short story, So Help Me. At the time, he was working at a gas station in Texas. Before his planned return home to Chicago, he found a typewriter in an abandoned classroom and decided to take it, as very few publications accepted handwritten manuscripts.
Algren was caught, arrested, convicted of theft, and sentenced to prison. He was released after serving five months of a possible three and a half year term. While in prison, he was moved by the scores of men who were also incarcerated for taking desperate measures in desperate times.
He found kindred spirits among the outsiders, misfits, failures, and other tragic characters spawned by the Depression. They would strongly influence his writing. In 1935, his short story The Brother's House, was published by Story magazine. It won him his first of three O. Henry Awards.
That same year, Algren published his first novel, Somebody in Boots. It sold only 750 copies before going out of print, which didn't bother the author because he considered it primitive - his worst work.
His second novel, Never Come Morning (1942), courted many good reviews. Ernest Hemingway wrote of it, "I think it very, very good. It is as fine and good stuff to come out of Chicago..." The novel also courted controversy.
Never Come Morning told the haunting, tragic, and lyrical story of Bruno "Lefty" Bicek, a small time hoodlum and aspiring prizefighter from the "Polish Triangle" - the Polish section of Chicago's North Side. Algren tells the story without pronouncing any moral judgement on his characters.
Growing up desperately poor, Bruno dreams of escaping the slums by becoming a boxing champion, but ultimately realizes that he was born a thug and will be a thug until the day he dies - a revelation that comes when he fails to save his girlfriend Steffi Rostenkowski from being gang raped by his thug buddies.
Algren's grim and frank depictions of the Polish Triangle as a cesspool of crime, corruption, misery, and hopelessness outraged Polish-American groups in Chicago, who accused him of being a Nordic Nazi sympathizer, not realizing that he was actually Jewish and a leftist. Nevertheless, the pressure groups succeeded in getting Never Come Morning banned by the Chicago Public Library.
In 1949, Nelson Algren published his most famous novel, The Man With the Golden Arm. It would win him the National Book Award. In this classic novel, the Polish-American protagonist Francis Majcinek, known as Frankie Machine, is a professional card sharp and aspiring jazz drummer who longs to escape the seedy world of professional gambling by becoming a professional musician.
When he served in World War 2, Frankie took shrapnel in his liver and was treated with morphine. Now he's a morphine addict - a habit he refers to as the "thirty-five-pound monkey on his back." He keeps his friends and wife in the dark about his habit, which is a source of shame for him.
Speaking of his wife, Frankie is trapped in a miserable marriage to wheelchair-bound Sophie, whom he thinks he crippled in a drunk driving accident. Her paralysis is actually psychological, and she takes her frustration out on Frankie, using guilt to keep him from leaving her. The stress adds to his drug habit.
After Frankie ends up accidentally killing his drug supplier "Nifty Louie" Fomorowski, he and his friend, petty crook Sparrow Saltskin, cover up Frankie's involvement in the crime. Then, Frankie's life takes a turn for the better when he has an affair with his childhood sweetheart, Molly "Molly-O" Novotny.
Molly was also trapped in a rotten marriage until her abusive husband got arrested. Reunited with Frankie, she uses her love to help him beat his drug addiction. Unfortunately, Frankie screws up again, but in a different way - he gets busted for shoplifting.
While Frankie serves his time, Molly moves away and they lose contact. After his release, without Molly to lean on, Frankie goes back on the needle. After his friend Sparrow breaks down during an intense police interrogation over the death of Nifty Louie, Frankie must go on the lam.
While on the run, Frankie finds Molly working at a strip joint. He hides out at her apartment and, with her help, kicks his drug addiction once and for all. The cops learn where he's hiding and he's forced to flee again. He barely escapes from them.
Hiding out in a sleazy flophouse, Frankie realizes that he'll never be free or have his Molly again, so he commits suicide, hanging himself in his room. The novel ends with a poem for Frankie called Epitaph.
Several years after The Man With the Golden Arm was published, the legendary director Otto Preminger decided to adapt it as a feature film. Unfortunately, the stifling Production Code was still in effect, and the Code forbade any stories dealing with drugs.
In 1953, Preminger successfully defied the Production Code to adapt the risque romantic comedy The Moon is Blue, which had been a hit Broadway play. When the PCA (Production Code Administration) once again denied him a Code Seal for The Man With the Golden Arm, Preminger released it without one.
He had several key factors working in his favor. The Legion of Decency didn't condemn the film. Theater owners, granted independence from the studios in a landmark Supreme Court antitrust decision in 1948, didn't care about the Code Seal anymore. Last, but certainly not least, Preminger had cast legendary singer Frank Sinatra in the lead role.
The film adaptation of The Man With the Golden Arm was a cinematic milestone in that it finally cajoled Hollywood to amend the Production Code, which hadn't changed in over 25 years. It was also the first Hollywood feature film in over two decades to deal with drug addiction as its main theme.
Even anti-drug propaganda films like Reefer Madness (1936), Marihuana (1936), and The Cocaine Fiends (1935) had to be made by low budget exploitation filmmakers and booked into small, local theaters; the Production Code forbade studios from making drug movies, and first run theaters, mostly owned by the studios themselves, were prohibited from booking movies without Code Seals.
Despite Frank Sinatra's excellent performance as Frankie Machine, Nelson Algren hated Otto Preminger's adaptation of his novel. He had been brought in as a screenwriter, then quickly replaced by Walter Newman.
Although an acclaimed film and a big hit at the box office, the screenplay took extensive liberties with the novel and featured a completely different ending. To make matters worse, Algren, believing he had been duped into selling the adaptation rights for far less than they were worth, sued producer-director Otto Preminger for his fair share. He lost.
During the 1950s, Nelson Algren ran afoul of McCarthyism - the government's relentless and mostly illegal persecutions of suspected communists and communist sympathizers. Algren never joined the Communist Party because of negative experiences he and his friend, legendary African-American novelist Richard Wright, had at the hands of party members.
However, Algren had belonged to the John Reed Club, a social club for left-leaning artists, writers, and intellectuals. He had also belonged to a committee that protested the persecution of alleged spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were both executed. So, the FBI began surveillance of Algren, who had been deemed a subversive.
The FBI's dossier on Nelson Algren would clock in at over 500 pages long, but never contain any concrete evidence against him. Still, the government denied him a passport until 1960. He had wanted to visit his girlfriend, legendary French writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, in Paris. By the time he finally got his passport, their relationship had begun to wane.
In 1956, Algren finally followed up The Man With the Golden Arm with another classic novel. A Walk on the Wild Side opens in South Texas during the early years of the Great Depression, telling the story of Dove Linkhorn, another casualty of the Depression and of his own upbringing.
At 16, Dove is illiterate. His father refused to allow him to go to school because the principal was Catholic. So, he learned about life from the movies and from the hobos, pimps, prostitutes, hustlers, and bootleggers who lived and worked nearby.
Another denizen of the town is Terasina Vidavarri, the owner of a bleak little cafe who teaches Dove how to read. Terasina was once raped by a soldier. She and Dove become lovers, though he rapes her as well.
Dove begins hopping trains to look for work. His surreal, poetic, tragicomic adventures find him working everywhere from a steamship to a brothel to a condom factory. He also gets caught up in petty crime and has many affairs before ultimately returning to Terasina's cafe.
This novel was most famous for containing Nelson Algren's "three rules of life," which were "Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own."
A Walk on the Wild Side was adapted as a feature film in 1962, but because the Production Code was still in effect, the novel was bowdlerized and changed considerably for the screen. Despite the efforts of the great director Edward Dmytryk behind the camera and Laurence Harvey in the lead role, the film was a bomb at the box office.
Bosley Crowther, the celebrated film critic for The New York Times, described it as a "lurid, tawdry, and sleazy melodrama."
In 1975, Nelson Algren was commissioned to write a magazine article on the trial of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who had been convicted again for a double murder he didn't commit. Carter wouldn't be acquitted until 1985, when his convictions were overturned after a Federal Appeals Court determined that he'd been the victim of racism and malicious prosecution.
While researching his article, Algren visited Carter's hometown of Paterson, New Jersey, and liked it so much that he decided to live there. He spent five years in Paterson before moving to Long Island, where he died at home of a heart attack. He was 72 years old.
Quote Of The Day
"A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery." - Nelson Algren
Vanguard Video
Today's video features rare footage of Nelson Algren chatting with Studs Terkel at a party in Chicago, circa 1975. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History
On March 27th, 1923, the famous poet Louis Simpson was born. He was born in Jamaica to a Scottish father and a Russian mother. He emigrated to the United States at the age of 17, settling in New York City.
Louis soon enrolled at Columbia University, where he majored in English. One of his professors was the famous writer and critic, Mark Van Doren. In 1943, Simpson cut his education short to enlist in the U.S. Army, as World War 2 was raging.
Simpson became a member of the Army's 101st Airborne Division. He served as a courier for the company captain, which required him to deliver orders from company headquarters to officers at the front. In doing so, he saw action in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.
While stationed in France, Simpson's company fought a fierce and bloody battle against Nazi forces which had ambushed them on the west bank of the Carentan France Marina. The battle would inspire Simpson to write his classic poem Carentan O Carentan, which included these memorable verses:
There is a whistling in the leaves,
And it is not the wind,
The twigs are falling from the knives
That cut men to the ground.
Tell me, Master-Sergeant,
The way to turn and shoot.
But the Sergeant's silent
That taught me how to do it.
O Captain, show us quickly
Our place upon the map.
But the Captain's sickly
And taking a long nap.
Lieutenant, what's my duty,
My place in the platoon?
He too's a sleeping beauty,
Charmed by that strange tune.
Carentan O Carentan
Before we met with you
We never yet had lost a man
Or known what death could do.
After the war ended, Louis Simpson enrolled at the University of Paris and continued his studies. He then returned to New York City, where he worked as a book editor while doing his graduate studies. He earned a PhD from Columbia University.
He would become a respected professor of English and poetry, teaching at not only Columbia University, but also at the University of California - Berkeley and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Simpson's first poetry collection, The Arrivistes, was published in 1949. In the beginning, he was strongly devoted to formal verse and was acclaimed for this work. However, as the years passed, he moved away from this style and embraced free verse.
Whether he worked in formal or free verse, as a poet, Simpson was always known for both his strong sense of narrative and for his lyricism, which was never compromised by his narrative voice.
Louis Simpson's 1963 poetry collection, At the End of the Open Road, won him a Pulitzer Prize. Edward Hirsch, critic for the Washington Post, described it as "a sustained meditation on the American character... the moral genius of this book is that it traverses the open road of American mythology and brings us back to ourselves; it sees us not as we wish to be but as we are."
In this poem from At the End of the Open Road, titled In California, Simpson tips his hat to one of his favorite authors of free verse, the great Walt Whitman:
Here I am, troubling the dream coast
With my New York face,
Bearing among the realtors
And tennis-players my dark preoccupation.
There once was an epical clatter --
Voices and banjos, Tennessee, Ohio,
Rising like incense in the sight of heaven.
Today, there is an angel in the gate.
Lie back, Walt Whitman,
There, on the fabulous raft with the King and the
Duke!
For the white row of the Marina
Faces the Rock. Turn round the wagons here.
Lie back! We cannot bear
The stars any more, those infinite spaces.
Let the realtors divide the mountain,
For they have already subdivided the valley.
Rectangular city blocks astonished
Herodotus in Babylon,
Cortez in Tenochtitlan,
And here's the same old city-planner, death.
We cannot turn or stay.
For though we sleep, and let the reins fall slack,
The great cloud-wagons move
Outward still, dreaming of a Pacific.
In addition to his poetry collections, Louis Simpson has also written nearly a dozen works of non-fiction including studies of famous poets from T.S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams to Allen Ginsberg and Sylvia Plath. He lives on the north shore of Long Island near Stony Brook.
Quote Of The Day
“The aim of military training is not just to prepare men for battle, but to make them long for it.” - Louis Simpson
Vanguard Video
Today's video features Louis Simpson reading one of his poems. Enjoy!
What an awesome day! Crooked Lines, made it to the quarterfinalists for the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award in General Fiction. Moving on to the next round. Woohoo!
This is as much for Gayle Surrette as me. I get a real charge when I receive an ARC with a quote from one of my reviews (no mention of my name, just the website:). It's now happened several times and by authors I've never met. I'll take what I can get. Of course, these were mostly favorable reviews.
Peggy Vincent
Today, Dew on the Kudzu released my story, “The Lights of Summer,” about lightning bugs in North Carolina. No payment, but this piece has been rattling around my files going nowhere
for about 5 yrs, so WTH. http://www.dewonthekudzu.net/
Thanks to Sarah Morgan who posted the e-zine was seeking submissions with a southern theme.
Pat St. Pierre
My poem "Endless Rain" (changed to "Dark Days") which was critiqued by the group has been selected as a finalist in the current 15th Mattia International Poetry Contest. The contest is still going on but they select finalists until the contest ends. www.mattia.ca Go to enter contest, then competition rules, then post poems on board. You'll see the list of entered poems. If you click on finalists then you'll see that list. Thanks to all who helped with it.
A Day's Encounter has a poem of mine, “The Mirror.”
Here's a Yahoo I'm particularly happy with, although there's no money involved. The Feathered Flounder has accepted my story, “The First Day,” for their next issue due out in May. The story was recently critiqued in Fiction and was originally written as a series of flashes in Practice about a recently retired man and his daughter, who just had her first child. The Feathered Flounder targets writers over the age of sixty, a familiar demographic for me. The editor is enthusiastic and a pleasure to work with. And he's looking for more fiction and nonfiction submission. (http://www.thefeatheredflounder.com/)
Today I received confirmation that my article, “Home Delivery in the Late 30's/Early 40's,” will be published in the January/February issue of Michigan History Magazine. If you Google Michigan History Magazine you will be able to read a couple articles online, but not the entire mag. My article, coming out in Jan/Feb issue, will be under the heading, “Remember the Time.” It is a feature for memoirs of early times in Michigan
My e-book, Tell a Thousand Lies, was published on Amazon March 9. http://ow.ly/9A83N
Twenty-four sales to date. Didn't realize I had that many friends and family. :) Paperback should be out in a month. I have been lucky to get some terrific reviews, one of them from our own Holly Michael. www.writingstraight.com
Fate works in a strange way sometimes. Two different websites feature me as
the guest blogger today. “The Birth of a Novelist.” The topic should produce a thousand interesting stories. I've pinpointed mine in two different ways. The first feature is on our own Deb Oneiille from novels-L: http://debioneille.blogspot.com/
Dew on the Kudzu has published, “The Lights of Summer,” about lightning bugs in North Carolina. Thanks to Sarah Morgan who posted that they were seeking submissions for essays with a southern theme. http://www.dewonthekudzu.net/
Prepared by: Norman Cooper Posted on: 25 March 2012
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Write a scene, in 400 words or less, where some part of the scene is inappropriate for the time period. You might have an event that occurs before or after the actual timeline. Or you might include / reference a person that would be impossible, given the setting. Or you might simply include an item created or an expression coined many years later.
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There are many examples of anachronism in literature where time and events don’t agree. Whether a mistake or planned, anachronism plays a part in many of our favorite stories.
Hank Morgan, after receiving a blow to the head in 19th century Hartford, Connecticut, awakens to find himself in medieval England during the time of the legendary King Arthur in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. T.H. White also uses anachronism in another Arthurian tale in his 1958 novel The Once and Future King. In this retelling of the legend, Merlyn lives backwards through time, and because of this makes many references that are not in the correct time period, namely a reference about Hitler and the presence of the Encyclopedia Britannica in Merlyn's house.
In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare makes reference to a clock that didn’t exist in 44 AD. In Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark attends the University of Halle-Wittenberg, which was established in 1502 AD, but the play was set sometime between the 7th and 13th century. Also, the rapiers (straight swords) that Hamlet and Laertes used in their duel didn’t exist until early in the 16th century and Cleopatra plays billiards in Antony and Cleopatra about 1,500 years before the game was invented.
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Write a scene, in 400 words or less, where some part of the scene is inappropriate for the time period. You might have an event that occurs before or after the actual timeline. Or you might include / reference a person that would be impossible, given the setting. Or you might simply include an item created or an expression coined many years later.
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In your critiques, let the author know how well the anachronism was applied.
These exercises were written by IWW members and administrators to provide structured practice opportunities for its members. You are welcome to use them for practice as well. Please mention that you found them at the Internet Writing Workshop.
This Day In Writing History
On March 23rd, 1999, the famous American horror novelist Thomas Harris delivered the completed manuscript for his third novel, Hannibal, to his publishers.
It was the third in a series of four novels featuring his most famous character - Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist, classical music enthusiast, wine connoisseur, and gourmet turned cannibalistic serial killer, who had been terrifying readers for nearly 20 years.
Lecter made his debut in Red Dragon (1981), where he was called upon by Will Graham - the FBI agent who captured him - to help profile a new serial killer, Francis Dolarhyde, aka the Red Dragon.
The sequel, The Silence of the Lambs (1988) found Lecter called on again, this time by trainee FBI agent Clarice Starling, to help her gain insight into the mind of Buffalo Bill, aka Jame Gumb, a depraved serial killer who has abducted a Senator's daughter.
Although Red Dragon was filmed first in 1986 as Manhunter, (featuring British actor Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecter) it would be the film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 that made Hannibal Lecter a pop culture icon.
Stylishly directed by Jonathan Demme and featuring stellar performances by Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, and Ted Levine as Jame Gumb, the film swept the Academy Awards.
It became only the third movie in history to win all five major Oscars - Best Actor (Hopkins), Best Actress (Foster), Best Director (Demme), Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
After the huge success of The Silence of the Lambs, fans were clamoring for a sequel. It took some ten years for Thomas Harris to deliver. Hannibal was the result.
In this novel, Lecter himself is Agent Starling's quarry, as he escaped from custody in The Silence of the Lambs. What Starling doesn't know is that someone else is hunting Lecter.
Mason Verger is a victim of Lecter's who survived. Verger, the wealthy heir to a meat packing empire, was a depraved, sadistic pedophile whose long list of victims included his own little sister, Margot. When his father established a Christian summer camp for children, Verger used it to prey on more young victims.
When he was finally caught and arrested, Verger avoided jail time because of his family's wealth and position. He was ordered to perform community service and receive therapy. His court appointed psychiatrist? Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
The good doctor's idea of therapy was to have Verger take hallucinogenic drugs, manipulate him into demonstrating his technique of autoerotic asphyxiation via hanging, then make him slash his own face to ribbons with a shard of broken glass and feed his mutilated flesh to his dogs.
Lecter then hanged Verger with his own noose, breaking his neck. Verger survived, but was left a quadriplegic with a horribly mangled face. He wants to catch Lecter before Agent Starling does and take revenge. The revenge Verger has planned is a fate worse than death, and he has FBI officials on his payroll - including Starling's superior, Paul Krendler.
Hannibal received mixed reviews because of the ending, which I won't give away. I will say that it does make sense after all that happens to Clarice Starling throughout the novel, and fits in well with the dark surrealism of the story.
I for one enjoyed Hannibal immensely. I believe it's the best book Harris has written so far, second only to The Silence of the Lambs. Horror master Stephen King, a big fan of the Hannibal Lecter series, proclaimed Hannibal, along with William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist (1971), to be the two greatest modern horror novels of all time.
Hannibal would be adapted as a feature film in 2001, with Anthony Hopkins returning as Lecter and Julianne Moore taking over the role of Clarice Starling.
Directed by Ridley Scott, it received mixed reviews from fans because the screenplay (written by David Mamet and Steven Zaillian) omitted a major character (Margot Verger) and changed the ending of the novel.
To placate fans, the screenwriters did include part of the novel's ending - the famous Grand Guignol scene where Dr. Lecter lobotomizes corrupt FBI official Paul Krendler and... well... serves him a most unusual gourmet dinner.
Unfortunately, the most shocking part of the novel's ending - the fate of Clarice Starling - was omitted from the screenplay, which featured a completely different outcome.
Thomas Harris followed Hannibal with a a fourth novel, a prequel called Hannibal Rising (2006), which was published seven years later.
Expanding on flashbacks that appeared in Hannibal, it told the dark and chilling story of how a frighteningly intelligent little Lithuanian boy named Hannibal Lecter grew up to be the monster we know and love.
Quote Of The Day
"Problem solving is hunting. It is savage pleasure and we are born to it." - Thomas Harris
Vanguard Video
Today's video features the original theatrical trailer for the 2001 feature film adaptation of Thomas Harris' 1999 novel, Hannibal. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History
On March 22nd, 1947, the legendary American suspense novelist James Patterson was born in Newburgh, New York. He earned his Master's Degree from Vanderbilt University. In 1985, at the age of 38, Patterson retired from his successful advertising career to write full time.
Before he retired from advertising, Patterson had written three novels. His first, a mystery novel called The Thomas Berryman Number (1976), won him an Edgar Award for Best First Novel. His fifth novel, the first in a classic series of suspense thrillers, was a huge bestseller and established him as one of the greatest suspense novelists of all time.
Along Came a Spider (1993) introduced Patterson's most famous character, Alex Cross, an African-American homicide detective for the Washington, D.C. police. He's also a brilliant forensic psychologist.
The novel opens with Cross suddenly pulled off the case he's been working on - the bizarre and savage murder of two black prostitutes - and reassigned to investigate the kidnapping of two students from an exclusive private school.
Cross is angered at being pulled off his double murder case, and feels that the department cares more about rich white children that poor black women. What he doesn't know is that both cases are linked.
They are the work of Gary Soneji, a math teacher at the private school the children attended. After a standoff at a McDonald's restaurant, Soneji is captured, and Cross must figure out what he did with the children.
Using his skills as a psychologist, Cross hypnotizes Soneji several times and pieces together the horrifying truth. Soneji is a split personality. He is both Gary Murphy, a gentle teacher and loving family man, and Gary Soneji, a vicious, bloodthirsty psychopathic serial killer.
The kidnapping of the children was part of a ransom plot. In order to save the children, Cross must track down Soneji's partners in crime - a task that is complicated when Soneji escapes from prison. He wants to get to his partners - and the ransom money - before Cross does.
Along Came a Spider was adapted as a feature film in 2001, featuring Morgan Freeman as Alex Cross. There are eighteen novels in the Alex Cross series so far, with the 19th, Free Alex Cross, due for release in October. Another of James Patterson's popular suspense novel series is the Women's Murder Club series.
The first Women's Murder Club novel, 1st To Die, was published in 2001. In it, San Francisco police detective Lindsay Boxer, suffering from severe depression and a life threatening blood disease, is called to the scene of a horrific crime - a young newlywed couple has been viciously murdered in their hotel room on their wedding night, the bride still in her wedding gown.
Covering the story of the crime is Cindy Thomas, a rookie investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. Lindsay and Cindy form an unlikely friendship as Lindsay begins tracking down a brutal, twisted serial killer.
Soon, two new friends join in - city medical examiner Claire Washburn and Assistant District Attorney Jill Bernhardt. The four ladies decide to pool their talents and resources to help catch the serial killer, and The Women's Murder Club is born. So far, there are ten Women's Murder Club novels, with the eleventh, 11th Hour, due for release in May.
In 2005, James Patterson began a new series of novels in a new genre - young adult fantasy. The series was called Maximum Ride and the first book, The Angel Experiment, introduced the heroine, Maximum "Max" Ride.
14-year-old Max is the leader of The Flock, a group of children ages 6-14 who are winged human-bird hybrids (98% human, 2% bird) created by genetic engineering. In addition to being able to fly, the Flock possesses other powers.
The Flock, which also includes Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel, are on the run from the scientists who created them. The scientists have dispatched superhuman assassins called Erasers to kill off The Flock in order to keep their creations a secret.
A feature film adaptation of The Angel Experiment, tentatively titled Maximum Ride, is in development and tentatively scheduled for a 2013 release.
In addition to his series novels, James Patterson has written many stand-alone novels. Most of his novels are huge bestsellers. In recent years, he has outsold Stephen King, John Grisham, and Dan Brown - combined. One in 17 hardcover novels sold in the United States is by James Patterson.
Patterson's philanthropic endeavors are geared toward promoting literacy. In 2005, he established the James Patterson Page Turner Awards, which awarded nearly a million dollars a year to schools, institutions, companies, and individuals who encourage people to read.
In 2008, Patterson put the Page Turner Awards on hold and began a new initiative, ReadKiddoRead.com, which is for parents, teachers, librarians, and others who want to encourage children to read. The site helps them find the best books for kids and provides information such as lesson plans for teachers and social networking.
James Patterson lives in Palm Beach, Florida, with his wife and son.
Quote Of The Day
"When I write I pretend I'm telling a story to someone in the room and I don't want them to get up until I'm finished." - James Patterson
Vanguard Video
Today's video features James Patterson's appearance at the 2009 National Book Festival. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History
On March 21st, 1556, the famous English writer and cleric Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake. Cranmer, a leader of the English Reformation and the Archbishop of Canterbury, was part of the Oxford Martyrs - three men who were executed by order of Queen Mary I.
The other two Oxford Martyrs were Hugh Latimer, the Bishop of Worcester, and Nicholas Ridley, the Bishop of Rochester.
The Oxford Martyrs had run afoul of the heresy laws of Queen Mary I, England's notorious Catholic monarch who would be known as "Bloody Mary" for executing over 300 Protestant clerics and reformers during her five-year reign.
Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was Queen Mary's most prized target, for he had championed William Tyndale's English language Bible and been partly responsible for the Church of England's break with the Holy See by building a case for the divorce of Mary's father, King Henry VIII, from her mother, Catherine of Aragon.
Cranmer also wrote and compiled the first two editions of The Book of Common Prayer which contained not just prayers but also the complete liturgy of the Anglican Church. This was the ultimate violation of Queen Mary's heresy laws.
The Queen had not originally intended to execute Cranmer; she had a different plan for him which she hoped would result in a huge propaganda coup against the Anglican Church.
First, Cranmer was forced to watch his friends Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley be tried, convicted, and executed by burning right after the verdicts were delivered.
Then, Cranmer himself was tried for heresy and treason. He appealed to Rome to be tried by a papal court instead of the Queen's secular court. His appeal was denied.
After his conviction, he was sent to prison to await execution. He was offered a commutation of his death sentence if he would recant his Protestant faith in writing.
Thomas Cranmer would write not one, not two, but four recantations during the two years he spent in prison. Believing his fourth recantation was most likely genuine, the authorities released him to the custody of the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. While living at the Dean's house, Cranmer was counselled by a Dominican friar, Juan de Villagarcia.
Although Cranmer had in writing pledged his loyalty to the English monarchy and recognized the Pope's authority as head of the Church, he had conceded little in the matter of Protestant versus Catholic doctrine, so he was returned to prison.
Two days after a writ for Cranmer's execution was issued, he wrote a fifth recantation which was deemed genuine. He was a broken old man so desperate to save his life that he wrote a sweeping confession.
In his detailed catalog of his sins against the Catholic Church, Cranmer begged for mercy, but Queen Mary would have none. She ordered his execution to take place, though he was told that he could make one final, public recantation to plead for his life. So he wrote one.
Then, the day before his execution, while on the pulpit at University Church to make his final recantation, Thomas Cranmer decided to go out in a blaze of glory - literally.
Instead of delivering a final, ultimate recantation of his Protestant faith, he renounced all of his previous recantations, blasted the Catholic Church, and denounced the Pope.
Cranmer was seized, removed from the pulpit, taken to the place where Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were burned at the stake before him, and executed. He put his right hand, which he used to write his recantations, into the fire before it consumed the rest of his body.
Ironically, two years later, Queen Mary I died of influenza at the age of 42. Her successor and half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I, would restore the Anglican Church to power, repeal the heresy laws, and broker a historic settlement between the Anglican and Catholic Churches.
An adapted version of Thomas Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer would be designated the new Anglican Church's official liturgy.
The burning of Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley would inspire the legendary American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury to write his classic novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953), in which the hero, Guy Montag, resists the government's attempts to force him to recant his belief that books shouldn't be burned. Bradbury quotes Latimer's last words to Ridley before their execution:
Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
Quote Of The Day
"I have sinned, in that I signed with my hand what I did not believe with my heart. When the flames are lit, this hand shall be the first to burn." - Thomas Cranmer, his last words
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a clip from a documentary about the execution of Thomas Cranmer. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History
On March 20th, 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin, the classic novel by the legendary American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, was published. Like most novels of the time, it first appeared in a serialized version. It was published by The National Era, an abolitionist magazine.
The author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and her husband, Calvin Stowe, were both ferocious abolitionists and dedicated their home to the Underground Railroad - the famous secret network of safe houses for fugitive slaves. The escaped slaves would move from house to house as they traveled en route to free states, where slavery was illegal.
In 1850, Congress, bowing to pressure from the South, tried to tighten the screws on the Underground Railroad by passing the Fugitive Slave Act, which made it illegal for people - even those living in free states - to assist fugitive slaves.
The law also compelled local law enforcement to arrest fugitive slaves and provide assistance to the vicious bounty hunters privately hired to track runaway slaves.
The free states reacted with outrage to the Fugitive Slave Act, which resulted in gross abuses. Many openly defied it. Several free states passed laws granting personal liberties, including the right to a fair trial, to fugitive slaves.
Wisconsin's state Supreme Court declared the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional. The law failed to disrupt the Underground Railroad; by the time it was passed, the network had become far more efficient. Afterward, it grew as the unjust law inspired scores of moderate abolitionists to become passionate activists.
Uncle Tom's Cabin was written as a response to the Fugitive Slave Act - to educate people about the horrors of slavery. The novel told the unforgettable story of a kind and noble slave whose faith and spirit cannot be broken by the evils of slavery. The novel opens on a Kentucky farm owned by Arthur and Emily Shelby, who like to think that they're kind to their slaves.
However, when he needs money, Arthur has no problem selling two of his slaves without regard to where they might end up. The slaves in question are Uncle Tom, a wise and compassionate middle-aged man, and Harry, the son of Emily's maid, Eliza. The Shelbys' son George, who looked upon Uncle Tom as a friend and mentor, hates to see him go.
Uncle Tom and Harry are sold to a slave trader and shipped by riverboat down the Mississippi. While on the boat, Uncle Tom strikes up a friendship with Eva, a little white girl. When she falls into the river, he saves her life.
Her grateful father, Augustine St. Clare, buys Uncle Tom from the slave trader and takes him to his home in New Orleans. There, the friendship between Uncle Tom and Eva deepens. Sadly, Eva becomes severely ill and dies - but not before sharing her vision of heaven.
Moved by how much Uncle Tom meant to Eva, her father vows to help him become a free man. His racist cousin Ophelia is moved to reject her prejudice against blacks. Unfortunately, Augustine St. Clare is killed at a tavern, and his wife reneges on his promise to help Uncle Tom. She sells him at auction to Simon Legree, who owns a plantation in Louisiana.
Simon Legree is an evil, perverse, sadistic racist who tortures his male slaves and sexually abuses the women. When Uncle Tom refuses to follow Legree's order to whip another slave, Legree beats him savagely.
It fails to break Uncle Tom's spirit or his faith in God. The sight of Uncle Tom reading his bible and comforting other slaves makes Legree's blood boil. He determines to break Uncle Tom and nearly succeeds, as the daily horrors of life on the plantation erode the slave's faith and hope.
Just when it seems that Uncle Tom will succumb to hopelessness, he has two visions - one of little Eva and one of Jesus himself. Moved by these visions, Uncle Tom vows to remain a faithful Christian until the day he dies.
He encourages two fellow slaves, Cassy and Emmeline, to run away. Later, when Simon Legree demands that Uncle Tom reveal their whereabouts, he refuses. A furious Legree orders his overseers to beat Uncle Tom to death.
As he lay dying, Uncle Tom forgives the overseers, which inspires them to repent. George Shelby arrives with money to buy Uncle Tom's freedom. Sadly, he is too late. Uncle Tom dies before he can become a free man. George returns to his parents' farm in Kentucky and frees their slaves, telling them to always remember Uncle Tom's sacrifice and unshakable faith.
That's actually just a bare outline of this classic epic novel. The publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin caused a national uproar. In the North, it was regarded as the bible of abolitionism and inspired many closet abolitionists to come out and join in the fight against slavery. In the South, the book was regarded as an outrage. It was called utterly false and slanderous - a criminal defamation of the South.
Many Southern writers who supported slavery took to writing literature dedicated to debunking Harriet Beecher Stowe's expose of the horrors of slavery. Their writings, called "Anti-Tom" literature, portrayed white Southerners as benevolent supervisors of blacks, who were depicted as a helpless, child-like people unable to live without the direct supervision of their white masters.
To defend herself against the South's accusations of slander and defamation, Stowe wrote and published A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853), a non-fiction book documenting the horrors of slavery that she both witnessed herself and researched, which inspired her to write Uncle Tom's Cabin.
The book included surprisingly graphic descriptions of the sexual abuse of female slaves, who, in addition to being molested or raped by their white masters and overseers, were also prostituted and forced to "mate" with male slaves to produce offspring that would make a good profit on the auction block.
When Uncle Tom's Cabin first appeared in book form in 1852, it was published in an initial press run of 5,000 copies. That year, it sold 300,000 copies. Its London edition sold 200,000 copies throughout the United Kingdom. It became a hit throughout Europe as well.
Ironically, by the time the Civil War broke out in 1861, the book was out of print in the United States, as Stowe's original publisher had gone out of business. She found another publisher, and when the book was republished in 1862, the demand for copies became huge.
That same year, Harriet Beecher Stowe was invited to Washington D.C. to meet with President Abraham Lincoln, who supposedly said to her, "So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."
The novel would be adapted many times for the stage, screen, radio, and television.
In the 20th century, Uncle Tom's Cabin courted a new controversy that continues to this day. African-American activists have accused the abolitionist novel of being racist itself, with its racial stereotypes and epithets.
This, like the accusations of racism leveled against Mark Twain's classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) comes from a failure to place the novel in its proper historical perspective and consider its overall message.
Quote Of The Day
"I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did his dictation." - Harriet Beecher Stowe on her classic novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Vanguard Video
Today's video features the rare 1903 silent film adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin - produced by Thomas Edison's movie studio! Enjoy!
What do you do when a friend gifts you the perfect, spherical eggplant? Cook it. Poyemn it. I’m thrilled to announce publication of “Eggplant Rhapsody,” on Pure Slush. Thanks, Wayne, for pointing me there. http://bit.ly/xOPBcp or : http://pureslush.webs.com/eggplantrhapsody.htm
An old student of mine has just published her novel on Amazon. Another student helped edit it. Here's a link, you Kindle guys might want to check it out. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JCKG2E/ref=tsm_1_fb_lk
Pat St. Pierre
I just heard from an English publisher, Alfie Dog Limited. They have accepted my children’s short story, “Mr. Sandman to the Rescue.” The editor was very good to work with.
Their website will be up and running in May and people can download stories for 99 cents.
Two of my 3 line poems have been accepted to Three Line Poetry, Issue 10. threelinepoetry.com
My article, “So You Want to Write A Story,” is up on Debi Oneille’s blog, Writing against the Wind. It is lesson #2 in the blog spot for young writers. (right hand column) http://debioneille.blogspot.com/
MuseItUp Publishing accepted my novel, “Crumple Zone,” a travel adventure with
psychological suspense set in Chile. The e-book release date is February 2013.
Thank you so much to everyone who helped me develop and polish this novel when
I submitted it to Novels-L under the working title Ruta 5.
Prepared by: Carter Jefferson Reposted on: March 18, 2011 -------------------------
Exercise: In 400 words or less, write a scene involving two characters related to one another by birth or marriage, one more than 75 years old, the other at least 25 years younger.
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The characters may be almost anyone: mother and daughter, grandfather and granddaughter, first cousins or siblings, uncle and nephew, even wife and husband. Don't tell us their ages--let them show us.
The setting may be a family residence, a nursing home, a golf course, a kitchen, a prison, anywhere. They may be meeting after a long separation, or they may live together and associate with each other daily. See if you can give us an idea of their previous attitudes toward each other--loving, hostile, or something else--and explore the emotions generated during this meeting.
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Exercise: In 400 words or less, write a scene involving two characters related to one another by birth or marriage, one more than 75 years old, the other at least 25 years younger.
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Critique: Do the characters ring true? Does their dialogue seem lifelike? Is the scene properly set? Consider all aspects of the writing.
These exercises were written by IWW members and administrators to provide structured practice opportunities for its members. You are welcome to use them for practice as well. Please mention that you found them at the Internet Writing Workshop.
This Day In Writing History
On March 16th, 1850, The Scarlet Letter, the classic novel by the legendary American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, was published in the United States.
Set in a Puritan village in 17th century Boston, The Scarlet Letter told the story of Hester Prynne, a married woman whose much older husband had sent her ahead to America while he settled some business affairs.
He never came to join her in Boston and is presumed dead, lost at sea. In the meantime, the lonely Hester had an affair and became pregnant as a result.
The novel opens with Hester being led from the town prison with her baby daughter Pearl in her arms and a piece of scarlet cloth in the shape of the capital letter A pinned to the breast of her dress - a penalty for her adultery.
The scarlet letter is a badge of shame that she must wear for all to see. Hester is led to the town scaffold, where she is forced to endure the verbal abuse of the town fathers. An elderly spectator asks what's going on, and a man in the crowd tells him.
The elderly spectator is actually Hester's missing husband, who is now a doctor living under the assumed name of Roger Chillingworth. He wants to take revenge on the man who seduced his wife. He reveals his true identity to Hester, but she won't reveal the identity of her lover.
Several years pass, and Pearl has become a willful and impish little girl. Hester supports herself and her daughter by working as a seamstress.
Still scorned by the community, they live in a small cottage on the outskirts of Boston. When town officials try to take Pearl away from her mother, the young, eloquent minister Arthur Dimmesdale intervenes to thwart their plans.
Dimmesdale appears to be dying, wasting away from a mysterious heart condition. Chillingworth takes him on as a patient, later moving in with him to provide round-the-clock medical care. The doctor believes that Dimmesdale's condition is psychosomatic, perhaps caused by guilt.
He begins to suspect that the minister is his wife's lover. One day, while Dimmesdale sleeps, Chillingworth discovers something that convinces him that his suspicions are correct - supposedly the capital letter A burned into the minister's chest.
Meanwhile, Hester Prynne's kindness, charity, and quiet humility finally earn her a reprieve from public scorn. When she and Pearl return home one night, they find Dimmesdale atop the town scaffold, trying to punish himself for his sins. They join him on the scaffold.
The three hold hands, and Pearl asks the minister to publicly acknowledge that she is his daughter. He refuses. A streaking meteor forms a dull letter A in the night sky. Dimmesdale believes it's the sign of adultery, but the townspeople think that it means "angel," as a prominent member of the community died that night.
When Chillingworth refuses to abandon his plan for revenge, Hester tells Dimmesdale that Chillingworth is really her missing husband. The lovers decide to flee with Pearl to Europe, where they can live as a family.
They both feel a great sense of release and relief. Hester removes her scarlet letter and lets down her hair. In one of the novel's most striking metaphors, sunlight immediately breaks through the clouds and trees to illuminate Hester's joyous release.
The day before their ship is to sail, Dimmesdale gives his most eloquent sermon ever. Hester finds out that her husband has learned of her plans and booked passage on her ship. When Dimmesdale leaves the church, he sees Hester and Pearl standing before the town scaffold.
Dimmesdale impulsively takes them to the top and publicly confesses to being Hester's lover and the father of her child, exposing the mark supposedly seared into his chest. Pearl kisses him. Relieved of his burden, Dimmesdale collapses and dies.
Frustrated over being denied his revenge, a bitter Chillingworth dies a year later, and Hester and Pearl leave Boston. Although she is not his daughter, Pearl inherits all of Chillingworth's money.
Many years later, Hester Prynne returns to her old cottage alone and resumes her charity work. She receives letters from Pearl, now married to a European aristocrat and with children of her own. The townspeople finally forgive Hester for her indiscretion, and she - and the other women in town - feel a strong sense of liberation.
The Scarlet Letter is rightfully considered one of the greatest works of 19th century literature, and is still widely read and appreciated. It would be adapted numerous times for the radio, stage, screen, and television.
The most famous feature film adaptations were the brilliant 1973 version directed by legendary German filmmaker Wim Wenders, and the dreadful 1995 Hollywood version starring Demi Moore as Hester Prynne - which took great liberties with the novel and was widely - and rightfully - panned by critics.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the greatest writers of his generation. His other great works include the novel The House of the Seven Gables (1851) and the short story collections Twice-Told Tales (1837) and Tanglewood Tales (1853). He died in 1864 at the age of 59.
Quote Of The Day
"It is beautiful, admirable, extraordinary; it has in the highest degree that merit which I have spoken of as the mark of Hawthorne's best things - an indefinable purity and lightness of conception... one can often return to it; it supports familiarity and has the inexhaustible charm and mystery of great works of art." - Henry James on Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel, The Scarlet Letter.
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a clip from the rare 1926 silent film adaptation of The Scarlet Letter, starring Lillian Gish as Hester Prynne and Lars Hanson as Arthur Dimmesdale. Enjoy!
This Day In Writing History
On March 15th, 1956, My Fair Lady, the acclaimed hit musical based on the play Pygmalion by legendary Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, opened on Broadway.
It premiered at the Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York City. The production then moved to the Broadhurst Theatre, and finally, to the Broadway Theatre, where it closed in 1962 after 2,717 performances.
Set in Edwardian London, My Fair Lady told the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics who meets a young flower seller named Eliza Dolittle when she tells off a young man named Freddy Eynsford-Hill for spilling her violets.
The ill-mannered Eliza speaks with an ear-torturing Cockney accent, her words filled with slang expressions and colloquialisms.
Professor Higgins makes a wager with his linguist friend Colonel Pickering, betting that Eliza could be taught to speak and act like a proper lady, after which, he will introduce her at the Embassy Ball. Pickering doesn't believe that Higgins can make a lady out of such a vulgar girl.
Eliza moves into Higgins' house and begins taking lessons from him. Her father soon pays a visit, concerned that the Professor is compromising her virtue. Higgins buys him off with five pounds.
As Eliza's lessons progress, she grows frustrated and fantasizes about killing Higgins. But soon, the flower seller begins to bloom.
Eliza's first public presentation, at the Ascot Racecourse, proves successful, but then she suffers a relapse, returning to her Cockney vulgarity. This charms Freddy Eynsford-Hill, the young man she had met and scolded earlier. He falls in love with her.
Higgins continues with Eliza's lessons. She faces her final test at the Embassy Ball and passes with flying colors. Afterward, Colonel Pickering praises Higgins for his triumph in making a lady out of Eliza.
When she learns of their bet, she feels that Higgins used her and is now abandoning her. Their relationship ends in a huff when Higgins insults Eliza and she storms off.
Soon, even Colonel Pickering becomes annoyed with Higgins, who has always been a self-absorbed misogynist.
When Eliza plans to marry Freddy Eynsford-Hill, Higgins realizes that he loves her, but can't bring himself to confess his true feelings to her. The musical ends on an ambiguous note, suggesting a possible reconciliation between Higgins and Eliza.
My Fair Lady became a huge hit, one of Broadway's most famous and popular musicals. It was written by the legendary team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe.
The original cast featured Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins, and a young, virtually unknown British actress named Julie Andrews as Eliza. The Original Cast Recording became the best selling album of 1957 and 1958.
George Bernard Shaw died in 1950; he never lived to see the Broadway musical adaptation of his play, Pygmalion. If he had, there wouldn't have been a musical for him to see.
In 1908, Shaw's classic play The Chocolate Soldier was adapted as an operetta, and he hated it so much that he vowed that none of his plays would ever be set to music again. He kept that vow for the rest of his life.
In 1964, eight years after the musical debuted on Broadway, My Fair Lady was adapted as a feature film, directed by George Cukor.
Rex Harrison reprised his role as Professor Higgins, but producer and studio boss Jack Warner decided to cast Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Dolittle instead of Julie Andrews.
This decision angered fans of the musical, but Warner was concerned that casting Andrews would be risky because she had no film experience.
Then he found that Audrey Hepburn couldn't sing, so her vocals had to be dubbed by Marni Nixon. To make matters worse, that same year, Julie Andrews gave an Oscar winning performance in the classic Disney movie musical Mary Poppins - beating Hepburn for the Academy Award!
Quote Of The Day
"All great truths begin as blasphemies." - George Bernard Shaw
Vanguard Video
Today's video features the original theatrical trailer for the 1964 feature film adaptation of My Fair Lady. Enjoy!
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