Blow Out Your Candles, Tennessee

Archives, Museums, and Literary Festivals Celebrate Williams Centennial.

By Nancy Mattoon

Tennessee Williams At
The 20th Anniversary Production
of The Glass Menagerie.
(Image Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.)

Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be ! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger -anything that can blow your candles out !

- for nowadays the world is lit by lightning ! Blow out your candles, Laura - and so good-bye.

--Last lines of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.

Had he not choked to death on the plastic cap from a bottle of baby aspirin, Thomas Lanier Williams would have celebrated his 100th birthday in 2011. His accidental death was the end of a decades-long slide into depression, alcoholism, and addiction, for one of America's three great playwrights of the 20th century. (The others being Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller.) But Williams's legacy is secure, with his best plays constantly revived, and even his lesser-known, late works inspiring new productions as their Gothic, black comic sensibility is discovered to be oddly well-suited for the 21st century stage. And along with theater companies around the globe, archives, libraries, and literary societies with ties to Williams are also pulling out all the stops to mark what has been called "The Tennenniel."

Williams Signs The Author's Door
During A 1973 Visit to The Ransom Center.
(Photo By Franks Armstrong, Courtesy of Harry Ransom Center.)

The Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin is presenting Becoming Tennessee Williams from February 1, 2011 - July 31, 2011. This centenary exhibition draws on the Ransom Center's extensive collection of Tennessee Williams manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, and artwork to illuminate the process by which Thomas Lanier Williams became Tennessee Williams. "There is no more influential 20th-century American playwright than Tennessee Williams," said Charlotte Canning, curator of the exhibition and professor in the Department of Theater and Dance at Austin. "He inspired future generations of writers as diverse as Suzan-Lori Parks, Tony Kushner, David Mamet and John Waters, and his plays remain among the most produced in the world."

1994 United States Postal Service Stamp Honoring Williams.

(Image Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.)

The exhibition is drawn from the Ransom Center's collection of Williams material, which is one of the primary archives of his works. The Center acquired Williams's own papers between 1962 and 1969. That collection documents his career thoroughly, especially his plays The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, and includes more than 1,000 separately titled plays, short stories and poems, correspondence, and newspaper clippings. The collection expanded in 1964 when the Ransom Center purchased the correspondence between Williams and his longtime literary agent, Audrey Wood.

1974 Window Card For
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.
(Image Courtesy of THNOC.)

In 1965, the Center also acquired the Williams family papers from his mother, Edwina Estelle Dakin Williams, along with other important manuscripts from then-Gotham Book Mart owner Andreas Brown. The Center continues to build the Williams collection and recently purchased an extensively revised first-draft screenplay of A Streetcar Named Desire."These rich holdings at the Ransom Center allow us to better understand how these extraordinary works came into being," said Canning. "Glass Menagerie, Streetcar and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are just a few of the masterpieces the exhibit follows from early drafts to full-fledged productions. We believe visitors will find themselves as much in awe of Williams as we are."

Desire Streetcar Sign Box, ca. 1935.
(Image Courtesy of THNOC.)

Meanwhile, Williams's adopted hometown of New Orleans, setting for perhaps his greatest work, A Streetcar Named Desire, celebrates his 100th birthday with both an art exhibit and a literary festival. The Historic New Orleans Collection(THNOC) and the Al Hirschfeld Foundation have collaborated to present Drawn to Life: Al Hirschfeld and the Theater of Tennessee Williams. The exhibition and its companion catalog bring together highlights from the collection’s permanent holdings and dozens of drawings by the legendary artist.

Streetcar A La Hirschfeld.
(Image Courtesy of THNOC.)

Hirschfeld was the foremost artistic chronicler of Williams’s productions on and off Broadway for six decades. His drawings create a virtual archive of the playwright’s career, effectively capturing the essence of the superb performances of the magnificent actors who portrayed his characters on stage and screen. From Marlon Brando, to Elizabeth Ashley, to Richard Burton, to Katharine Hepburn, to Bette Davis, to Uta Hagen, to Jessica Tandy, all are instantly recognizable here, demonstrating their own brilliance through Williams's immense gallery of great theatrical roles.

Poster For NOLA's
Williams Literary Festival.

The Big Easy will also be celebrating its favorite adopted son at the 25th Annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival. This five-day fete, March 23-27, truly covers the waterfront, honoring Williams with acting master classes, panel discussions, a scholars' conference, comedy improv, a poetry slam, an erotica reading, writing competitions, a breakfast book club, French Quarter literary walking tours, a book fair, and even a "Stanley and Stella Shouting Contest." Theatrical and literary luminaries scheduled to appear include Carroll Baker, Shirley Knight, Grace Zabriskie, Zoe Caldwell, Armistead Maupin, Robert Olen Butler, John Waters, Rex Reed, Winston Groom, and Dorothy Allison.

Souvenir program for
A Streetcar Named Desire, 1948.
(Image Courtesy of THNOC.)

The many celebrations and theatrical revivals marking the centennial of Tennessee Williams are a reminder of the timelessness of his writings. As Williams once remarked to his literary agent: "I have only one major theme for my work which is the destructive impact of society on the non-conformist individual." That theme resonates more and more as technology continues to make the world less personal. As they steadfastly cling to their defining idiosyncrasies, Williams' characters are standard-bearers for the artistic temperament. Perhaps his greatest creation, Blanche DuBois, says it best "I don't want realism. I want magic. I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth."
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Italian Big Cheeses At Home In L.A.

By Nancy Mattoon

Parisani d'Ascoli coat of arms (1747),
From the Bourbon Family Archive.
(All Images Courtesy of UCLA Library Special Collections.)

Here's a history pop quiz: Which country, made up of many independent states, was united under a central government first: Italy or the United States of America? Surprisingly, while the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788, the Italian city-states weren't joined together under a single ruler, King Victor Emmanuel II, until 1861. (And even then not completely--Rome was among the hold outs.)

Family genealogical table (ca. 18th-19th century),
From The Bourbon Family Archive.

Before that date, Italy was made up of a large and ever-changing group of kingdoms, each with its own royal family. (For example, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Sicily, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Parma, the Duchy of Milan, and the Papal States, to name just a few.) And each and every one of those Kings rewarded his most loyal followers with both lands and titles. The result was that just as The Godfather's Corleone family "had a lot of buffers," the Italian royals had a lot of nobles.

Papacy of Clement VIII privilege and indulgence (1595),
From the Bourbon Family Archive.

Researching the many, many noble families of Italy is quite a chore. At one time or another there were about 20 major dynasties ruling from "sovereign houses," at least eight different clans commanding loyalty from "royal palaces," and nine more families governing as "papal nobility." Wikipedia has a page for each of 63 separate "nobles houses of Italy," and that is far from a complete list. All in all, one very large antipasto tray stacked high with Italian big cheeses. (And, as Homer Simpson might say, "Mmmmm, Italian cheese...") But take heart -- a newly acquired collection of historic papers makes a single archive a terrific source for savoring several different slices of Italy's noble past.

Drawing of details of Orsini palazzo in Rome, c. 1717,
From the Orsini Family Papers.

As of February 1, 2011 the Charles E. Young Department of Special Collections at the UCLA Library is home to the Bourbon del Monte di San Faustino Family Archive, a comprehensive collection of documents created between the 14th and 19th centuries by, for, and about this prominent and noble Italian family. Among the collection's contents are civil and ecclesiastical contracts, documents from lawsuits and court cases, wills and post-mortem inventories, genealogies, certificates of nobility, correspondence, and family chronicles. The Bourbon del Monte di San Faustino family can trace its origin and lineage back some 1,200 years to the time of Charlemagne, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, who granted the family its original patent of nobility. One of the clan's most celebrated members was a 16th century Cardinal, Francesco Maria Del Monte. A diplomat and connoisseur of the arts, he was the foremost early patron of the great Italian baroque painter, Caravaggio.

Orsini fiefs on Lake Bracciano, 1690s,
From The Orsini Family Papers.

The Bourbon del Monte di San Faustino Family Archive is the perfect compliment to another, much larger collection already housed in the Charles E. Young Research Library, covering the illustrious Orsini family. Comparable in power and influence to the Medici family, the Orsini produced three popes, 28 cardinals and 33 Roman senators. The Orsini Family Papers take up a whopping 572 archival boxes, and span the years 1150 through 1950. The two archives together give UCLA one of the finest collections of Italian history primary source materials in the United States.

Floorplan of Casa del Monte Lippiano (1807),
From the Bourbon Family Archive.

According to UCLA professor of Italian, Massimo Ciavolella,"The Bourbon del Monte family is among the earliest aristocratic families in Italy, thus an integral part of Italian social history and related to many noble families--the Sforza, the Farnese, the Gonzaga, to name a few, and, of course, to the Orsini. This well-organized archive affords us a look at the workings of the family within in a small Umbrian setting and will inform scholars in the fields of economics, law, prosopography, paleography, geography, diplomatic history and, of course, literature and language." That's almost as many disciplines as there are Italian noble families. Or for that matter, Italian cheeses--Wikipedia's "incomplete list" tops out at around 400 varieties.

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To Bee or Not Bee? That is the Spelling Question

by Stephen J. Gertz

Verne (H.G.) [The] Spelling [rebus:] Bee.
A Humourous and Original Comic Song ...
Sung Nightly with the Greatest Success.
Music at Hopwood and Crew’s. 1876.

“On Thursday evening last, your correspondent attended the much talked of ‘Spelling Bee’ held in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, and enjoyed it exceedingly” (Bucks County Gazette, April 1, 1875).

“The spelling fever is playing bob with our pet phrases; ‘too diaphanously attenuated’ is now the substitute for ‘too thin’” (Oakland Daily Evening Tribune, March, 1875).

"The spelling-bee mania has spread over all England, and attacked London with especial virulence" (Harper's New Monthly Magazine, June, 1876).

1876 was a banner year for spelling bees. In addition to The Spelling Bee, a c. 1876 collection of popular English Music Hall songs, COPAC records a flood of spelling bee-related titles in that year; the craze spelled enjoyable, wildly popular recreation on both English-speaking sides of the Atlantic. But the English really went mad for them, bees in their bonnets abuzz.

"Informal spelling contests among neighbours or in schools had long been held for recreation or instruction or as tests. They were called spelling matches, a name which appears in the USA in the 1840s. The term spelling bee wasn’t applied to them at the time, since bee was then firmly attached to the idea of communal manual work (yet another, spelldown, modeled on hoe-down, only arrived at the end of the century). The basis for most of these competitions was the famous Blue-Back Speller of Noah Webster, The Elementary Spelling Book, a work which sold more than 80 million copies in the 100 years after its publication in 1783" (Michael Quinion).

In May of 1875, the Staffordshire Sentinel, a newspaper in Stoke-on-Trent, reported that “On Monday evening an entertainment of novel, amusing, and instructive character, was given in the Temperance Hall, Dresden — a spelling match, or what the Americans call a spelling bee.”

As the fad caught momentum spelling bees actually became fashionable. “The ladies will be behind the age if they don’t have a spelling bee,” the Oakland Daily Evening Tribune reported in March, 1875.

Alas, all fevers eventually break, and fashion is fleeting.

"The craze didn’t last long: as early as May 1875 the Daily Gazette And Bulletin of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, remarked that 'The spelling fever has almost entirely subsided, and the buzz of the bee is scarcely heard any more.' This was premature, at least for other parts of the USA, but the evidence suggests it was not a long-lived fashion; spelling bees went back to being popular in a low-key way, as they had been before the craze erupted" (Quinion).

Bee that as it may, they have persisted, if for no other reason than they are, perhaps, the geekiest of all geek-fests yet enjoyed by all. It's always a humbling thrill to marvel at  a 10-year old who can spell antidisestablishmentarianism when many adults can't spell relief without TUMS.

In 2002, Spellbound, a documentary about guess what, was released to wide critical acclaim. Following the trials of nine contestants in the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee, it won an Emmy award and, in 2008, was voted one the Top Five Documentaries of All Time by the International Documentary Association.

Given current popular culture, I suspect the audience for spelling bees and participants would dramatically increase if "spelling bee" was tossed over the side in favor of "spelling smackdown." I see the WWF's Vince McMahon in the ring announcing the contestants, who have to pin their opponents for a three-count before victory is declared. Cardinal Spellman, 'natch, on deck to provide last rites should the action get too violent and 12-year old Sammy "The Animal" O'Shaunnessy require a visa to Valhalla after dropping that pesky "h" in floccinaucinihilipilification (the act or habit of describing or regarding something as worthless, the word floccinaucinihilipilification, for instance).

Of course, anyone writing about spelling bees would be remiss if not acknowledging the Great Aunt of All Bees:

Now, Barney, if you want a piece of shoo-fly pie
you'll have to spell floccinaucinihilipilification first.

( ! )

Mention must be made of some other ditties within The Spelling Bee, which present what appears to be an all too familiar and tragic narrative:

Fair English Girls; A Little Lock of Hair; Naughty Young Man; Georgie, Georgie, Do; Another Good Man Gone Wrong; I've Gone Wrong for the Sake of Sarah. At this point, things take a really sad turn, the following song providing a denouement of defeat, resignation, and questionable family relations:

Tommy Make Room for Your Uncle.

I omit The Galvanic Battery. For the sake of Sarah, too shocking. I done her wrong already. That's "wrong" with a silent "w."
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Verne (H.G.) [The] Spelling [rebus:] Bee. A Humourous and Original Comic Song ... Sung Nightly with the Greatest Success. Music at Hopwood and Crew’s. [Followed by the titles of nearly 100 songs].  J.T. Wood & Co., [c. 1876],  Folio, [8] pp. Title with very large woodcut of a magnified bee (forming the rebus element of the title), printed on very thin paper, the songs printed in microscopic type in seven columns.

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Image courtesy of Blackwell Rare Books, with our thanks. They are currently offering this scarce title.
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Michael Quinion's World Wide Words has an excellent article about spelling bees here.
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A Rare Book With an Identity Crisis

by Stephen J. Gertz

The second edition? Third edition? Fourth edition? What?

It's enough to make a cataloger/bibliographer do a spit-take.

Renowned bibliographer and entertainer, Danny Thomas -
Master of the spit-take.

The editor of the 1660 edition of Christopher Airay's Fasciculus præceptorum logicorum (A Bundle of Logic) seems a bit confused.

"On the whole it is clear that the editor of the 1660 edition [of Fasciculus præceptorum logicorum] was not aware of the existence of the 3rd edition of 1637, and was careless in allowing ‘altera’ to remain on the title of his own issue ... The book makes a bibliographer gasp. It calls itself the 2nd edition on the title page, and the 3rd edition in the preface, while being in reality the 4th!" (Madan, Oxford Books: A Bibliography of Printed Works Relating to the University and City of Oxford...).

Just in case the editor (alas, unknown; perhaps the publisher, Henry Hall) is reading from the grave, the first edition of this book of logic for the young was published in 1628, and the second edition in 1633.

That a previous owner has inked "1679" over "1660" on the title page certainly doesn't help this copy.

Christopher Airay (1601 - 1670) was a graduate of Queen’s College, Oxford. "The six books of this work show traditional scholastic origins in that Airay divides logic into propositions, which may be true or false, and discourse, which deals with the truth or falsity of particular propositions and the interrelationship between propositions as set out in syllogistic form. His discussion of the nature of discourse shows that he was, to some extent, influenced by the Ramists, particularly in emphasizing the laws of demonstration" (ODNB).

Madan says that Airday "seems to have had nothing to do with any edition of his Logic."  Madan adds, in his notes for this 1660 edition, that "the Restoration definitely ended the medieval period of Oxford ... [and 1660] was a wild year in Oxford."

So wild was 1660 in Oxford that publisher Henry Hall had no idea at all of just what edition of Airay's Logic he was issuing. And Airay, apparently, saw no logic in monitoring the various editions of Fasciculus præceptorum logicorum.

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[AIRAY,  Christopher].  Fasciculus præceptorum logicorum: in gratiam juventutis academiæ [sic] compositus & typis donatus. Editio altera limatior operâ secundâ. Oxford: Henry Hall, 1660. 12mo in 8s. vi, 224 pp.

Madan 2477; . ESTC R202006. Wing A820. Cf. ESTC (2d ed.) 241-243.

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The bibliographical info on this title in Wikipedia's biographical entry for Airay (linked to above) is incorrect.
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Image courtesy of Blackwell Rare Books, with our thanks.

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The Biggest, Most Humongous Book of Poetry (or Anything Else) Ever Published

by Stephen J. Gertz

Book or Slinky?
Bill Voss of University of Iowa opens Poetry City Marathon.
Photo credit: Matthew Holst / Press-Citizen

It's 10,119 pages long as 100 volumes  bound within a single volume two feet thick.

It's Poetry City Marathon, written by Iowa City poet, Dave Morice, aka Dr. Alphabet, the result of an endurance test, Morice writing 100 poems a day for 100 days straight between July and October of last year. The project was part of University of Iowa's Main Library exhibit on the history of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, the Actualist Poetry Movement, and a celebration of  Iowa City being named a city of literature by UNESCO.

Bill Voss, of UI's Libraries Preservation Department, was the binder of this, the largest-ever binding project yet produced by that division. A standard-size book will generally only take a few hours to bind within simple cloth-baked covers. Poetry City Marathon took twenty-four hours spread out over four days, with twelve hours necessary to making the special press required to put it together.

"To even read the book you need to use supports made of bricks and boards to keep the spine from breaking," Nancy Kraft, head the Library Preservation Department said.

"We really did the binding so it could take a little abuse, and with a book this size, a little abuse means reading it," she continued. "[But] we're used to the idea of providing book support, especially in some older books, older manuscripts ... or large, over-sized newspaper."

The plan is to submit the book to the Guinness Book of World Records as evidence of the world's thickest published book. The current record is held by Harper Collins' 4,000 page, twelve-inch thick limited edition (500 copies) of The Complete Miss Marple, containing every single one of the Agatha Christie novels and short stories featuring the Divine Miss M as protagonist.

There are no plans, it seems, to produce any copes for sale; you won't be seeing the book on Amazon discounted to $9.95.

Morice is planning addendums comprised of  twenty-six 7,000 word Afterwords. The aim is to reach the million-word mark. "That would make it longer than War and Peace," he said.

Caveat reader: With poetry it's not the size, it's the sizzle.

Those interested in reading Poetry City Marathon without fear of hernia, slipped disk, or busted gut may access its full content here.

Full story (not much more) at the Iowa Press-Citizen.
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Pulp Fiction Factories: Selling Sin In Sydney

By Nancy Mattoon

W.H. "Bill" Williams writing as Marc Brody.
The Dames In His Death.
Sydney: Horowitz, 1956.
(All Images Courtesy of State Library of Victoria.)

"But I’m just poor, dumb Brody! I can’t write. I’m not in the fiction racket. I’m a wageplug – a slave working for a newspaper. I don’t drive Jaguars or Studebakers, I drive a battered old Chev convertible. All I can do is keep on plugging and plugging, trying to solve crimes that aren’t solved, and at the same time keep out of trouble while I write the story..."

The lament above, from Marc Brody's Sweet, Svelte and Sinful (1959) provides a perfect set-up for a new online exhibit of Australian pulp fiction books from the 1950's created by State Library of Victoria. A half-dozen representative titles from the "golden era for Australian pulp fiction," are part of a much larger online show entitled Mirror of the World: Books and Ideas. The pulps were produced in massive quantities by Australian publishers beginning in the late 1930's, with most written by enthusiastic amateurs willing to sign contracts demanding such insanity as "one 48,000 word crime novel every three weeks for 30 years."

W.H. "Bill" Williams writing as Marc Brody.
Maid For The Morgue.
Sydney: Horowitz, 1956.

The introduction to the pulp fiction section notes that import restrictions on American books and magazines beginning in the 1940's resulted in a "window of opportunity for local publishers to meet a growing demand for American-style fiction." Sydney based Horowitz Publications, now a respectable publisher of glossy magazines and children's books, employed a veritable stable of sleaze slingers in the middle of the last century to churn out "books to order" for the pulp market. Their major competitor was Young's Merchandising Company, which sounds more like a factory than a publisher, because it was.

Don Haring and Des R. Dunn
writing As Larry Kent.
Sweet Danger.
Sydney:
Young's Merchandising Company, 1957.

Series titles ruled the day, each volume bearing the name of a macho private dick, whose hard-boiled adventures were inevitably set on the mean streets of urban America. (In some of the most popular series, the shamus's name served as the author's pseudonym.) The writers of these one-shilling wonders were mindbogglingly prolific. Detective/author "Larry Kent" (nom de plume primarily for American-transplant Don Haring and Queenslander Des R Dunn) lit up his Luckies and got down to cases in 400 separate titles between 1954 and 1983. (At which point Larry apparently left the Big Apple for Scandinavia-- new titles continued to appear there through 1990.)

Audrey Armitage and Muriel Watkins
writing as KT McCall.
The Lady's A Decoy.
Sydney:Horowitz Publications, 1957.

Two of the few fillies in Horowitz's hard boiled stable wrote about 20 novels in just two years under the pen name "K.T. McCall." Audrey Armitage (a professor at the New South Wales Institute of Technology) and her partner Muriel Watkins were described on Decoy's back cover as: "Blonde, beautiful, and with brains." Their Detective, Johnny Buchanan worked for New York City's Silver Star Insurance Company, and never carried a gun. But that didn't mean the books skimped on violence. Decoy begins with Johnny's discovery of a blonde bombshell's disembodied gam: "Anna Karpis had insured her beautiful legs with the Silver Star Insurance Company, and now she was missing...I knew she was dead - I had a leg to prove it."

W.H. "Bill" Williams Writing as Marc Brody.
Write Off The Redhead.
Sydney: Horowitz, 1956.

Between 1955 and 1960 journalist W.H. "Bill" Williams churned out about 80 titles featuring investigative crime reporter Marc Brody. Brody toured the U.S. smoking, drinking, escaping the clutches of double crossing dames, drinking, solving crimes, and drinking. ("Send the lieutenant up… And some liquor. Scotch, rye, bourbon and beer..." Marc Brody in Blackmail Was A Brunette, 1957.) Brody's cases revolved around the newspaper world, and focused on organized crime, police corruption, and the power of the press to put things right. The titles were often the most original parts of the books, for example: Her Column’s a Killer (1955), Dame on a Deadline (1955), The Lady’s Out of Circulation (1957), and Headlines for a Hussy (1957).

Easing of restrictions on book imports and the introduction of television spelled the end of Aussie Pulp's golden era around 1959. But thousands (literally) of these factory fiction titles had been pumped out by then. Meant to be cheap, formulaic, and disposable, these paperbacks are now both rare and highly collectible, especially in pristine condition.

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A Horse's Ass in the Saddle, with Henry Alken

by Stephen J. Gertz

"There's nothing so good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse," Sir Ronald said. But Lord Reagan never rode Flossie, upon whose back my insides were pureed and my outsides left as an ugly  palette of hematomas. Of my bones and sinews the less said the better.

But I get ahead of myself, as I would soon get ahead of the horse.

I am nothing if not a gentleman, and what is a gentleman if not a skilled horseman, I ask? And so, accompanied by my faithful companion, Sancho, I went for a relaxing ride in the country just outside of London where we could walk, trot, and gallop our steeds without fear of moving violations amidst the clamor and clutter of the City. Traffic's a bugger, Jack.

"Dissatisfied."

We mounted our horses at the stable. I was immediately dissatisfied: While the stableman looked on with bloody annoying amusement I attempted to move Flossie off the ten-penny piece she had stalled upon, alas to little effect. It was as if the coin was the last upon earth and Flossie a miser; the nag would not budge. Sancho's horse, apparently a precocious student of geology, was transfixed by the rocks in its immediate path. By the look of him, you'd think the horse a jeweler examining a gem; if the plug had asked for a loupe I would not have been thrown for one.

"Knights - View of the City Road."

Finally, we took off, knights on the City Road. And shortly thereafter, so, too, did the wind, almost taking us off our horses. "No more beans for breakfast," I flatulently noted to Sancho, whose horse, the geologist, looked back at him as if to say, "Hey, Stinky, lay off the Limburger!" The malodorous gale blew out our umbrellas, which we brought along to insure a full day of uninterrupted sunshine. Had we not brought umbrellas a monsoon would have surely engulfed us, its thumb on its nose with fingers wiggling, the universal sign for "na na-na na na!"

"The pleasure of riding in company.
One would stop if the other could."

Nostrils flared and offended our horses took off, alas and appropriately like  farts in a windstorm. We passed a lone gravestone. "The last guy to ride this scrag," I thought to myself as my life simultaneously passed before me. I swear, the horses levitated. Mine had its head to the heavens as if imploring the Creator, "Get this idiot off of me - pleeeze!" It was then that I lost all confidence in my ride, as I suspect Flossie lost all confidence in me. A horse with an opinion cannot be trusted.

"Symptoms of Things going Downhill."

Thus, we soon experienced symptoms of things going downhill, fast, the horses, apparently, of the opinion that, things heading in that direction anyway, the metaphysical should be equally met. While I struggled to get mine moving - the damned dobbin was gazing longingly into the distance as if seeing an end in sight that I was unfortunately blind to and could not enjoy - Sancho's couldn't keep his eyes off of the rocks on the ground in front of him, and I felt sorry for my compatriot: To be ignored in favor of the igneous is an ignominy not soon forgotten.

 

"The consequences of having plenty of company on the road."

How is it that one can be out in the middle of nowhere with not another human being in sight yet a drayman appears out of the blue, onto the ground, and directly in our path to vex us, throw our horses into a tizzy and us nearly off of them? It was as if our Lord, Jesus, had enlisted Loki, the Trickster, to make our day one for the scrapbook of woe. "You gents need a lift?" the drayman impertinently asked with a degree of evil glee usually associated with Satan collecting on a contract. My soul withered as I slipped my steed's withers.

"Preparing for the Easter Hunt (I shall be over Jack)."

"Whither thou goest?" I ruthfully thought afterward. The question was soon answered: right up to a fence. The horses would have none of it. Sancho's decided to tip-toe and take it one leg at a time. Mine, obviously still smarting from the hatchet-job the horse barber gave his tail (ouch!), tried to eject me from the saddle as he took wing over the barrier. My hat remains in mid-air in that spot to this day, testimony to my being scared stiff. The only part of me not stiff was my upper lip, which had  lost all tone, slackened, and now limply flapped when I tried to speak, making enunciation a challenge, to say the least. But since I couldn't say the least or much of anything else, the issue was moot.

"One of the comforts of riding in company."

We now come to the denouement of our equestrian jaunt into Hell in the hinterlands. Just when I thought that things could not get any worse, a bee landed on Flossie's anus, stung, and thence inspired her to perform a psychotic Highland fling that flung me over the high side and onto my backside. Swept up in the choreography, Sancho's horse joined Flossie, and the two performed a pas de deux worthy of Terpsichore,  if Terpsichore had four legs, a snout, and grazed on locoweed. Sancho bounced twice and rolled before coming to a full stop.

I thought of Shakespeare, Henry V: "When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes."

But the down-to-earth pains of reality stabbed my posterior, all romance bled-out, and I recalled the definition of horseback riding: "The art of keeping a horse between you and the ground."

And then: "Horse sense is what keeps horses from betting on people."

Finally: "Horse sense is what keeps amateurs from riding them."

If only I'd had any. Clearly, Bucephalus would be the death of us.

I grabbed my spare hat from mid-air, Sancho and I dusted ourselves off, swallowed our pride, and let the horses ride us home, total  collapse of our spinal columns a small price to pay for peace of mind.
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ALKEN, Henry. Specimens of Riding Near London. Drawn from Life.
London: Published by Thomas M'Lean...,1821.
First edition (second edition, 1823). Oblong folio.
Printed title and eighteen hand-colored engraved plates.
Tooley 52.

The Plates:

1.  One of the comforts of riding in company. H. Alken 1821.
2.  Symptoms of Things going downhill. H. Alken 1821.
3.  The pleasure of riding in company. One would stop if the other Could. H. Alken 1821.
4.  Preparing for the Easter Hunt (I shall be over Jack). H. Alken 1821.
5. The Consequences of having plenty of company on the Road. H. Alken 1821.
6.  A thing of the last consequence. H. Alken 1821.
7.  Delighted. S. Alken del et sc. Augt. 1, 1821.
8.  Perfectly satisfied. S. Alken del et sc. Augt. 1, 1821.
9.  Dissatisfied. S. Alken del et sc. Augt. 1, 1821.
10. Surprised. S. Alken del et sc. Augt. 1, 1821.
11. Displeased. S. Alken del et sc. Augt. 1, 1821.
12. Terrified. S. Alken del et sc. Augt. 1, 1821.
13. 'Taste - View near Knigtsbridge. Drawn and Engraved by S. Alken Septr. 1, 1821.
14. Lords - View in Hyde Park. Oct. 1, 1821.
15. Yeomanry of England paying a visit. H. Alken del et sc. 1821.
16. Fancy - View near Grays Inn Road. Drawn and Engraved by S. Alken Septr.1, 1821.
17. Folly - View near Acton. Drawn and Engraved by S. Alken Septr. 1, 1821.
18. Knights - View in the City Road. Oct. 1, 1821.
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Henry Alken (1785-1851) was an English painter and engraver  known primarily as a caricaturist and illustrator of sporting subjects and coaching scenes, with an eye often cocked to the follies of human behavior.
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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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