Hidden treasures in book collections

David Cranmer, who writes short stories, edits and publishes the in-demand webzine, Beat to a Pulp, and blogs at The Education of a Pulp Writer, recently wrote about the discovery of an 118-year old treasure in his possession—William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice published in 1895. It’s definitely the find of the year as far as rare books in the hands of individual readers are concerned.

I don’t remember the last time I discovered a book of great literary value, buried in a trunk in my attic. Of course, I wouldn’t. I don’t have a trunk. My modest collection of books is stacked in cabinets and on shelves at home and in office. I usually give away the books as soon as I read them though I hold on to the ones I know are rare and hard to find, such as Sudden, the series of ten western novels by Oliver Strange, an Englishman who wrote about the wild west without once crossing the Atlantic, and a few original paperbacks under The Executioner series about Mack Bolan, the one-man army created and written by Don Pendleton before ghostwriters took over.

So which are some of the earliest published books in my collection? I made a random survey of the books I’d immediate access to and found nine in all and out of these the one with the highest vintage tag was The Hell Raisers, a Raw-Action western by Lee Floren (Tower Publications, 1947). The cover of the paperback says “They lived by their guns in a land where death was a way of life.” The original title was Saddle Pals. Lee Floren also wrote as Matt Harding.

My hardback copy of The Tudor Edition of William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, Quatercentenary Edition, belonged to my paternal grandfather and was published in 1965 by The English Language Book Society, also known as The English Library. It has an introduction and glossary by Peter Alexander, a Shakespearean scholar and academic and then Professor Emeritus of English language and Literature, University of Glasgow.

Old Ramon (Pennant Student Edition, 1966), by Jack Schaefer, the author of the famous western novel Shane, is a moving tale of a boy, a man, and a mighty desert. The 110-page paperback has black and white illustrations by Harold West.

The first paperback edition of Through the Wheat by American journalist and novelist Thomas Boyd (1998-1935) is considered one of the finest American novels of World War I. My Award Books Military Library edition, published in 1964, gives the reader a picture of the horror and glory of the Great War.

The oldest book in our Agatha Christie collection is What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!, a Cardinal edition published by Pocket Books, Inc. in 1958. The novel was serialised as Eye Witness to Murder. This tattered copy has a facsimile of Christie’s signature and a strip advertising Lloyd C. Douglas’ famous novel The Robe on the back cover.

While I have partly read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer, the one book I read from start to finish in less than half a day was Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler (Scholastic Inc., 1961), the complete story of Hitler’s beginnings, his triumphs, and his downfall told in 188 pages. I have no idea why I’m still holding on to this book; perhaps, it’s for the cover.

Two titles originally published in the sixties are Carter Brown’s The Brazen and Had I But Groaned. I liked the opening line of The Brazen—“I was just sitting there in the bar minding my own business, when this guy dropped dead at my feet—and the blurb of Had I But Groaned—“An old Hag, a gorgeous Witch, and one ripe Virgin—about to be sacrificed. What more do you need for a swinging Sabbat?”

I haven’t read all of these books yet, not even Shakespeare’s Complete Works entirely, but I’m going to try and see what other early books I can come up with. Who says you got to read all the books you own?

Do you have any original or early editions of books?

Note: The covers displayed above are the ones that adorn the books I mentioned.

The Book Case by Nelson DeMille

This book does not strictly fall under Friday’s Forgotten Books at Patti Abbott’s blog Pattinase but just in case you didn’t know about it.

Otis Parker was dead. Killed by a falling bookcase whose shelves were crammed with very heavy reading. Total weight about a thousand pounds, which flattened Mr. Parker’s slight, 160-pound body. A tragic accident. Or so it seemed.

The Book Case by thriller writer Nelson DeMille is a short fiction about the mysterious death of Otis Parker, the owner of the Dead End Bookstore in New York. As the opening lines reveal, Otis, a bearded man in his early sixties, is killed when a loaded bookcase directly behind his desk falls on top of him. Detective John Corey of the First Precinct Detective Squad finds the bookstore owner “sprawled, splayed, and flattened on his collapsed desk,” his body half on the desk and half on the floor, but with his brains still intact.

John Corey, who has his own detective series, is almost convinced that Otis’ death is an accident until he discovers that the chocks or wedges that held the bookcase upright against the wall are missing. He smells murder.

The detective begins to question three people directly linked to Otis Parker—his young and good looking wife Mia, her lover and a not too successful crime writer Jay K. Lawrence, and a very nervous employee called Scott. He leaves out Otis’ part-time clerk Jennifer and his nameless ex-wife who are never in the picture.

Corey uses an old trick in police investigation—lying to the suspects and pitting one against the other—to ferret out the truth from Mia, who hated her husband and his store and dreamed of an inheritance and a new life with her lover; Jay, who gives her the plot idea but develops cold feet and sleeps with his publicist for an alibi; and Scott whose greed for money and lust for Mia gets the better of him.

“Cops, as I said, are allowed to lie. Half the confessions you get are a result of lying to a suspect.”

Final word
The Book Case (2011) is a light and quick read with just the right touch of suspense, and some humour. The writing style is easy and conversational. Detective Corey is a likeable character who thinks on his feet, is not hard on the suspects, and is determined to nail the murder accused, without ado. I liked the plot. Now why didn't I think of writing this story? Too late. I look forward to reading more books in the series.

The Dead End Bookstore is a nice name for a bookstore. It specialises, ironically, in crime fiction that includes both classic crime novels of Chandler, Sayers, Christie, Doyle and others as well as contemporary authors like Brad Meltzer, James Patterson, David Baldacci, Nelson DeMille, and others—who, as Detective Corey observes, “make more money writing about what I do than I make doing what I do.”

© www.nelsondemille.net

The author
Born in New York and living on Long Island, Nelson DeMille’s earliest books were NYPD detective novels. His first major novel was By the Rivers of Babylon (1978). He is a member of The Authors Guild, the Mystery Writers of America, and American Mensa. He has written over thirty series and standalone novels and contributed short stories, book reviews, and articles to magazines and newspapers. I gleaned this from Nelson DeMille's official website.

The Book Case, one of five short fiction works by the author, is available for Kindle at Amazon.

Sexist ads?

This week I received an email containing over a dozen vintage advertisements that must have appeared in newspapers and magazines in America many years ago. A brief introduction said: "Do you remember seeing any of these ads? Can you believe there used to be such ads!" I scrolled through the images and found some of the most sexist ads I'd seen. I'm thinking: were there any protests when these ads were published? Or were they simply laughed off because they weren't meant to be taken seriously? Or am I missing something? In our world, today, ads like these would be unthinkable. There is another lot which I'll post some other time. For now check these out and if you know something, let me know.

For previous Vintage Ads, look under ‘Labels’.

Richie Rich, 1994, and The Parent Trap, 1998

Since I’m currently in the pre-production stage of a special issue of my newspaper, which goes to print Friday, I thought of missing Overlooked Films, Audio & Video at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom. Besides, I haven't seen, for a long time now, any films that merit serious inclusion in the Tuesday meme. But then, I remembered the two films I saw again recently—action-comedy True Lies (1994) directed by James Cameron and family-comedy Richie Rich (1994) directed by Donald Petrie (Miss Congeniality)—and decided that the temptation to participate was too strong to ignore, whatever be the film.

This post is strictly not about True Lies, an action film about secret spies, a cloak-and-dagger adventure between a husband-wife, nuclear terrorists, a kidnapped girl, and a good dose of humour. The antics of US secret agent Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his wannabe secret agent wife Helen Tasker (Jamie Lee Curtis) are comical. Art Malik, the Pakistan-born British actor who plays Salim Abu Aziz, head of a ragtag bunch of clumsy terrorists, joins the party that also includes spy sidekick Albert Gibson (Tom Arnold) and skirt chaser Simon (Bill Paxton).

One liners too many: “You're fired!” Arnold Schwarzenegger
tells Art Malik before firing the missile.

In one ludicrous scene, Schwarzenegger takes off vertically in a US fighter plane to rescue his daughter Dana (Eliza Dushku) who has escaped from Malik and is hanging precariously from a giant tower crane high above ground. She drops down on to the nose of the plane and clings on to its windshield. Malik follows her swiftly and jumps on to its wing. A brief duel ensues before Malik finds himself hooked to one of the missiles. He looks, rather stupidly, at Schwarzenegger who has no qualms about firing the missile in the direction of a terrorist chopper hovering nearby.

True Lies is a downright silly movie, but very entertaining.

This post is really about Richie Rich and The Parent Trap (1998), the latter directed by Nancy Meyers (The Holiday). The two films are about two kids who must “rescue” their parents in two different situations.

In Richie Rich, Macaulay Culkin plays the poor little rich boy who must rescue his parents, Richard Rich (the affable Edward Herrmann) and Regina Rich (Christine Ebersole), from a scheming Rich Industries’ executive Lawrence Van Dough (John Larroquette) who is after the family vault, predictably, hidden away in the Rich version of Mount Rushmore called Mount Richmore.

As a kid I loved reading Richie Rich and other comics from the Harvey stable like Casper, Hot Stuff, Little Lotta, Wendy, Little Dot, Spooky, Little Audrey, and Sad Sack. Over the years I have formed a certain image of most comic book characters. So I wasn’t surprised when Macaulay Culkin as Richie Rich, Jonathan Hyde as his butler-bodyguard Cadbury, Michael McShane as Rich scientist Professor Keenbean, and Stephi Lineburg as his girlfriend Gloria failed to convince me. Dollar, the Rich dog, was okay. Irona, the robot-maid, was missing. The plot reflected the stories in many of the comics where Richard Rich is kidnapped by his enemies only to be rescued by Richie Rich and Cadbury with help from Professor Keenbean and his outlandish gadgets.

Disbelief is not something I lend easily to film adaptations of cartoons and comics.

In The Parent Trap, two twin girls, Hallie Parker and Annie James (Lindsay Lohan), are living separately with their divorced parents, Nick Parker (Dennis Quaid) and Elizabeth James (Natasha Richardson) in America and Britain, respectively. The girls, who have never been with each other since birth, meet at camp, discover they’re twins, and plot the grand reunion of their parents. They exchange places but their parents don’t know it.

There are some nice moments in the film; for instance, when Grandpa Charles James (Ronnie Stevens), the mother's father, and Chessy (Lisa Ann Walter), the father's maid, discover, separately, that the girls have switched places or when they play a nasty little prank on Meredith Blake (Elaine Hendrix), their father’s girlfriend, in order to drive a wedge between the two.

The Parent Trap is a delightful family drama. What worked for this film was the cute and precocious character of Lindsay Lohan and the on-screen chemistry between Quaid and Richardson who, as parents, decide to bury their past for the sake of their “innocent” girls. A nice, feel good movie.

I’m waiting for an opportunity to see the original version of Walt Disney’s The Parent Trap (1961) starring Hayley Mills as the teenage girl in a double role and Mitch Evers (Brian Keith) and Margaret ‘Maggie’ McKendrick (Maureen O'Hara) as the parents.

It’s sad that the once famous child stars, Culkin and Lohan, who set out to "rescue" their parents in the films, have since needed to be rescued in real life.

Back to work.

Nelson Mandela: 1918-2013

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

© Debbie Yazbek/AFP/Getty Images

The news of Nelson Mandela’s death, at 95, on December 5, was all over the internet. But, as with all major news, you haven’t read it till you have read about it in the papers next morning. There is no need for a separate tribute or obituary on South Africa’s legendary freedom fighter. The headlines across the front pages of Indian newspapers in English said it all. Comparisons with Mahatma Gandhi, that other apostle of peace, were inevitable.

The Mahatma of our times is forever free
The Times of India

‘He was a giant among men’
Hindustan Times

Nelson ‘Gandhi’ Mandela passes away
The Tribune

Mandela leaves heart in darkness
The Asian Age

A giant of forgiveness
The Free Press Journal

‘Mandela has gone up there to sleep with the angels; it's time for him to rest’
DNA (Daily News & Analysis)

© London Herald, February 11, 1990

Mahatma of our time
The Telegraph

Without Mandela

Indian Express

Peace icon Mandela is no more
Deccan Herald

A legend departs
The Hindu

Work done, Mandela bids adieu
The Pioneer

Anti-apartheid icon Mandela passes away
The Assam Tribune

Nelson Mandela was a wise man whose words were filled with wisdom. Of all his sayings, I found this profound—“In my country we go to prison first and then become President.” It spoke of the 27 years he spent in prison, under apartheid, from which he emerged to become a free South Africa's first black president.

The Killers by Ernest Hemingway, 1927

This is my contribution for Friday’s Forgotten Books at Patti Abbott’s blog Pattinase.

“What are you going to kill Old Andreson for? What did he ever do to you?
“He never had a chance to do anything to us. He never even seen us.”
“And he’s only going to see us once,” Al said from the kitchen.

A classic story never dies. It lives on long after it is published and its writer has passed away from this world. The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell (1924) and The Killers by Ernest Hemingway (1927) are just two examples of short stories that continue to enthral readers and viewers through early and modern adaptations retold via stories, novels, plays, films, and even comics. For instance, James Hadley Chase borrowed the basic premise of Richard Connell’s story for his 1969 novel The Vulture is a Patient Bird (1969), reviewed here. At the time it didn’t occur to me that I'd read it somewhere before.

The two short stories are so well written as to inspire the reader to try and write in a similar fashion. Those who write short stories know that writing one is not as easy as it seems. In Hemingway's case, you have to be a miser with words and generous with the narrative. Just as he was in his short story The Killers first published in Scribner’s magazine in March 1927 (see below) .

© www.library.sc.edu

The iconic writer is so annoyingly sparse with words that it’s a wonder there is a story at all. But that was his greatness. There is little description of the two mobsters, Al and Max, who walk into Henry’s lunchroom in Summit, a crime-infested suburb of Chicago, looking for a big Swede called Ole Andreson. They want to kill the former heavyweight prizefighter when he comes in for his daily supper. The hitmen are wearing derby hats, silk mufflers and gloves, and are hiding sawed-off shotguns under their tight overcoats. They look like twins and they're menacing in a quiet way.

While Al and Max wait for double-crosser Ole Andreson at the lunch counter, they order ham and eggs and bacon and eggs, and make fun of its owner, George, and the food on his menu, his black cook, Sam (who is referred to as “nigger”), and the only other diner, Nick Adams (frequently teased as “bright boy”). There is no description of George, Sam and Nick, or their thoughts and expressions, or their state of mind. But you know they're scared of what’s going to happen. If there is any description at all, it is to be found in the dialogue between the five characters, Ole Andreson, and his landlady.

A scene from the 1946 version of The Killers.

There is history behind this short story, just as there is history behind nearly every story written by Hemingway. Reading about it on the internet, I found that the writer lived in Chicago for a while. The city was under prohibition and organised crime was rampant. Summit was ruled by the mob. Those were the days of Al Capone. And a real boxer called Andre Anderson was killed by real gangsters, which formed the basis for this story. While Hemingway had intimate knowledge of gangland crime, he conceded that he left out most of it: “That story probably had more left out of it than anything I ever wrote. I left out all Chicago, which is hard to do in 2,951 words,” he has been quoted as saying.

Prohibition probably got to Hemingway, a heavy drinker, more than the gang wars. He sort of ridicules it in The Killers.

Women protest in Chicago.

“Got anything to drink?” Al asked.
“Silver beer, Bevo, ginger ale,” George said.
“I mean you got anything to drink?”
“Just those I said.”
“This is a hot town,” said the other. “What do they call it?”
“Summit.”

Hemingway was in his late twenties when he wrote the story and I'm not sure if he was already drinking a lot at the time.

Final word
As you read The Killers you'll mentally play it out on a black-and-white cinema screen. It's that kind of a story, fit for a low-budget noir film.

In fact, there are two full-length movies, made in 1946 (directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, and Edmond O'Brien) and in 1964 (directed by Don Siegel and starring Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes, and Ronald Reagan). The 1946 version had Charles McGraw as Al and William Conrad as Max. Besides, there are at least four short films including a student film in 1956 made by Andrei Tarkovsky and others. Having never seen any I don't know how true the films are to the short story.

It’s a real talent to be able to narrate almost an entire story as a conversational piece and still retain all of the suspense intact. Ernest Hemingway was a past master at this storytelling.

Dame Maggie Smith

A fleeting look at the English-born grand dame of Hollywood for Overlooked Films, Audio & Video at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom.

Minerva McGonagall has all but erased my memory of Maggie Smith’s earlier films, some of which I have seen though I don't remember much. Close your eyes, think of Maggie Smith, and up pops her image as the stern but kindly transfiguration professor and head of Gryffindor house at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

I recall her, rather vaguely, in Death on the Nile (1978) and A Room with a View (1985), almost entirely in the Sister Act duet (1992 & 1993) and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), and absolutely everything about her place in Harry Potter’s Voldemortised life. I’m scratching my head over Gosford Park (2001), though.

Dame Maggie Smith was already 67 when the first Harry Potter movie came out in 2001 and a decade older when the two-part film of the seventh in the series was released. Richard Harris, who was slightly older than Smith, died after playing Dumbledore in Harry Potter 1 & 2, making way for another Irish-born actor Michael Gambon, ten years his junior. Maggie Smith, however, continued to lend her distinguished, albeit underrated, presence to the popular franchise till the end. She was overshadowed by the others and most especially by Alan Rickman who played Severus Snape, arguably the best character in the entire series.

Today, Maggie Smith is 79 years old and in spite of health issues is still going strong, delivering fine performances as ever. She is set to appear in a film called My Old Lady (2014) with Kevin Kline and Kristin Scott Thomas. She is also expected to reprise her role in the as-yet unannounced The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 2 along with Judi Dench, Billy Nighy, and Richard Gere. The first part, set in India, was a very nice film and I recommend it to those who haven't seen it.

The earliest Maggie Smith movie I can recall is The V.I.P.’s because I remember liking it as much for the story as for the multicast. Smith plays Miss Mead, a young secretary to Les Mangrum (Rod Taylor), a cash-strapped businessman from Australia who urgently needs funds to prevent a hostile takeover of his tractor company. They are stuck at London airport, en route to New York, along with an assorted group of rich travellers with their own seemingly intractable problems.

There is Paul Andros (Richard Burton), a brooding tycoon desperately trying to prevent his wife Frances Andros (Elizabeth Taylor) from running away with Marc Champselle (Louis Jourdan), a casanova equally desperate to whisk her away; wealthy filmmaker Max Buda (Orson Welles), who is vexed by tax problems, and Miriam Marshall (Linda Christian), his actress and muse; and the Duchess of Brighton (Dame Margaret Rutherford) who has her own reasons for leaving the London fog behind.

Rod Taylor and Maggie Smith 

Miss Mead doesn't say much in the film but her actions as a loyal secretary speak louder than her words would have. She approaches Paul Andros, rather tentatively, with a financial proposal and is taken aback when the distraught tycoon, after realising why she is doing it, signs his chequebook and hands it over without a word. His generosity is guided by a simple philosophy: of what use is his wealth when he is about to lose his love, at least it can help the devoted secretary win something for her charming boss. Miss Mead is clearly besotted by Les Mangrum, the gentleman-employer.

What I liked about The V.I.P.’s were Maggie Smith's separate scenes and dialogues with Rod Taylor and Richard Burton. They lent a nice touch to a story largely characterised by human foibles. I also found Maggie Smith's character more appealing than Elizabeth Taylor's. 

Note: Yvette Banek has written an excellent review of The V.I.P.’s over at her equally excellent blog In so many words… Click on the link to read the review.