Celebrating 28,000 Titles

August 16, 2014

Celebrating 28.000 titles posted to Project Gutenberg by Distributed Proofreaders.

Distributed Proofreaders has posted its 28,000th title to Project Gutenberg, The Mystery of Choice, an 1897 collection of short stories by Robert W. Chambers.

Thy Mystery of Choice - CoverChambers, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, began his career as an artist, and spent his early twenties in Paris, where his work was exhibited at the 1889 Salon. He came back to New York and found work as a magazine illustrator, but soon turned his hand to writing. He had his first and best success with The King in Yellow, a collection of supernatural tales that is said to have influenced H.P. Lovecraft and other noted writers of the horror genre.

The Mystery of Choice continues the horror theme with seven tales of murder and the macabre, some set in the atmospheric Brittany region of France. The collection also contains some of Chambers’s poetry, and concludes with a florid love-poem, “Envoi.”

Congratulations to the Distributed Proofreaders team who made this milestone possible!

This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer.

 

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Invaders from the Infinite

August 7, 2014

On May 14, 2014, my adventure into a renewed interest in science fiction began. A Distributed Proofreaders volunteer had started a forum thread that requested information about the title of a science fiction book about dog-like invaders of earth. He could not remember the title of the book. Now, I forget titles too, especially to old songs and books of ancient (well, 30 to 50 years ago) fame. I guess this happens to other people too, because there were several posts from people who tried to help. Finally another volunteer answered with a post saying to try Invaders from the Infinite, by John Campbell. The first volunteer answered that it wasn’t the right book, but that he was adding it to his reading list. That settled it: if the book was good enough for them, it was certainly good enough for me.

Invaders cover

The adventure began. I downloaded the book in Kindle form and put it on my Kindle on May 25, 2014. By May 27, I had read it; and in it I traveled from earth to the far end of the galaxy, and then beyond the present universe as we know it to a distant, far distant place of huge suns and planets.

The story begins innocently enough. An earth-guard space ship is approached by an alien ship whose occupants are telepathic creatures who have evolved from a canine race. They gather information from the pilot about earth and streak on to New York City. There they meet the trio of Arcot, Morey, and Wade, who happen to have a research ship that can also be made into a first-class fighting vessel. It turns out that the world of the telepathic people is being attacked by aliens who also have the location of earth and another world in its war plans. Can earth help? And instead of waiting for the politicians to OK an expedition, the Triumvirate decides to go themselves.

The planet of the telepathic people is preparing for war with the only weapon they have. Arcot and his companions help to improve the weapon and duplicate it, so that they can leave the world to help other planets and search for more weapons with which to fight an almost invincible enemy who seems intent on eliminating all intelligent life other than their own. Their adventure takes them to the far corners of the galaxy and immerses them in a dirty war, which forces them to develop their own weapons to a point where they can build a new and more powerful ship that can harness the energy of the universe.

Invaders from the Infinite was released to Project Gutenberg on December 20, 2006, as e-book #20154. I would recommend the book to anyone with an interest in physics, cosmology, or just science fiction.

This post was contributed by Quentin Johnson, a DP volunteer.

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Novanglus and Massachusettensis

July 4, 2014

Many people have a vague idea that the battle for American independence from Great Britain began with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. But the battle really began much earlier—almost a decade earlier, when American colonists first began protesting “taxation without representation” in the British Parliament. Unrest turned to violence in 1770, when a crowd of angry Boston colonists surrounded a group of British soldiers, who fired into the crowd and killed three people in what became known as the Boston Massacre. In 1773 came the Boston Tea Party, during which saboteurs dressed as Mohawks dumped over 300 chests of British tea into Boston Harbor. Punishment was swift: the British government closed Boston Harbor and passed the “Intolerable Acts,” which, among other things, stripped the Massachusetts Bay Colony of its right to self-government.

The battle wasn’t just waged in the streets or in the harbor. A bitter war of words erupted among the intellectual elite of the colonies, who were split in their opinions of Parliament’s actions. Among the combatants was a feisty Boston lawyer named John Adams (1735-1826), a future Founding Father and President of the United States. Adams, ironically, represented several of the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, and his strong self-defense arguments resulted in acquittals. But Adams was no less of a patriot for that. He simply understood how important it was for the American cause to ensure that the soldiers had a fair trial.

Adams

John Adams

A few years later, as American-British relations deteriorated, Adams employed his brilliant legal skills to respond to a series of pro-British letters, by someone calling himself “Massachusettensis,” published in a Loyalist Boston newspaper beginning in December 1774. Writing as “Novanglus,” Adams set forth his argument that the colonies were not answerable to the British Parliament.  In 1819, these letters were collected in a volume entitled Novanglus, and Massachusettensis; or Political Essays, Published in the Years 1774 and 1775, on the Principal Points of Controversy, between Great Britain and Her Colonies. The edition that DP volunteers used to prepare the Project Gutenberg e-book was the presentation copy to John Adams from the printers.

In 1775—more than a year before the Declaration of Independence—Adams was not yet arguing for independence from Britain; he expressly disclaimed such a treasonous view. Instead, he stuck to the more subtle argument that the colonies might be subject to the will of the Crown, but they were not subject to Parliament, because they were self-governing. He argued extensively from British statutes and cases involving the similar status of Ireland and Wales.

Adams’s arguments were brilliant, but his opponent “Massachusettensis” was every bit a match for him, arguing his Loyalist views with equal vigor and skill.  Indeed, because “Massachusettensis” was the better writer, his arguments can seem more compelling than Adams’s “huge pile of learning,” as “Massachusettensis” sneeringly called Adams’s scholarly legal citations.

The exchange between “Novanglus” and “Massachusettensis” came to an abrupt halt in April, 1775, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The revolution had begun, and there was no going back.

The 1819 edition identifies “Massachusettensis” as Adams’s onetime friend Jonathan Sewall, the last King’s Attorney General for Massachusetts, and Adams himself long believed it was Sewall. But “Massachusettensis” was actually Taunton lawyer and Loyalist Daniel Leonard, another friend from whom Adams later became irrevocably estranged in the turmoil of the Revolution. Leonard was forced to flee America when the British evacuated Boston in 1776; he later became chief justice of Bermuda and then retired to London. When the letters were published in London in 1822, he revealed himself to be “Massachusettensis.”

The 1819 edition of Novanglus, and Massachusettensis also features letters that Adams wrote to various friends and colleagues later in life, recounting the events leading up to the American Revolution. John Adams died on July 4, 1826, at the age of 90. His last words were said to be, “Thomas Jefferson survives”—but the author of the Declaration of Independence had also passed away that very day.

Today, July 4, 2014, is the 238th anniversary of American independence.

This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer.

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Ten Years of Music at DP

June 17, 2014

Today Distributed Proofreaders celebrates the 10th anniversary of its Music Team, which has been helping to make beautiful music for Project Gutenberg e-books since June 17, 2004.

music

Medieval French music notation

Founded by DP volunteer David Newman, a classical singer and voice teacher who provided dozens of music-related projects to DP, the Music Team was designed to bring together DPers who wanted to preserve more music books. Thus began a vibrant community of music-lovers, musicians and non-musicians alike, who share thoughts on finding, creating, managing, proofing, formatting, post-processing, and transcribing music-related projects.

Team discussions have wrestled with big issues, like whether and how to incorporate music transcription (i.e., creating sound files from printed music) into the DP formatting rounds, what music notation software should be the DP standard, and how to handle projects consisting solely of music notation with little or no text. DPers have conducted experiments in different methods, and the creative efforts to improve the overall transcription process continue to this day.

But these aren’t the Music Team’s only accomplishments. The team has long been a clearinghouse and sounding board for Content Providers in search of feedback and volunteers to work on important music projects. Post-Processors come to the team to find volunteer transcribers who can create sound files for a vast variety of DP projects, including children’s books and even novels. Some projects might contain some simple melodies; some might have dozens of pages of orchestral music. For projects with lots of music, team members have created “distributed transcription” systems in which any DPer with any music software can participate. One example is the delightful Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, a two-volume set with dozens of children’s game songs, on which several Music Team members collaborated.

Music Team members also lend their expertise to answer a wide array of music questions from DPers. A project might have some arcane bit of music notation, often found in the older texts being worked on at DP. Or there might be a question whether some odd-looking notation is, in fact, a printer error. Music transcribers often ask the team to proofread (or even “proof-listen”) to the music they’ve transcribed, for accuracy or for aesthetics.

One thing is certain: being able to hear the music in an e-book enhances the reader’s experience immeasurably. Happy Anniversary, Music Team, and thanks for the melodies!

This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer.

 

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A Very Special 27,000th Title

March 29, 2014

27,000 titles

It’s time to celebrate another Distributed Proofreaders achievement—our 27,000th title posted to Project Gutenberg, Storia della decadenza e rovina dell’impero romano, an Italian translation of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by the famed English historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794).

Decline and Fall is a monumental work, distinguished not only by Gibbon’s outstanding scholarship, but also by his witty, ironic commentary and iconoclastic views of the events he describes. His theory of Rome’s decline and fall was essentially that her citizens had become spoiled by success. The most controversial part of his argument was that Christianity contributed to Rome’s fall by shifting people’s focus from real-life practicalities to a spiritual afterlife.

The Italian translation, by the noted Italian author Davide Bertolotti, is a 13-volume tour-de-force, published in Milan between 1820 and 1824. He based his translation on a 1791 London edition, which Bertolotti described as “ottima e sicura edizione” (“an excellent and trustworthy edition”), mentioned by Gibbon himself in his Memoirs. Bertolotti promised that, unlike a previous Italian translation, “Non una idea, non una parola importante, venne ad essa tolta, mutata od aggiunta” (“Not a single idea, not a single important word, was deleted, changed or added”). That might be a motto for what DP does.

Congratulazioni e grazie to the dedicated DP volunteers who made this milestone possible!

This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer.

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Mendelssohn in Italy

February 3, 2013

Sometimes we DP volunteers wonder whether anyone actually reads or uses the e-books we produce. After all, with most of the world’s best-known works already posted to Project Gutenberg, nowadays we tend to labor on the somewhat obscure.

Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn in 1839

But the books we produce are being read and used every day, by readers, students, teachers, scholars, and even musicians. Here’s a real-life example: Last year, my husband, an orchestra conductor, asked me to put together some program notes for one of his concerts. His idea was to have me be a sort of narrator, reading the notes to the audience before each piece. One of the pieces was to be Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4, the “Italian.”

Because the notes were to be given live, I wanted to make sure they’d be especially interesting to a general audience.

Technical details about the music were not going to do the trick. With the Italian Symphony, I was in luck twice over. First, in the course of my research, I learned that it had been inspired by Mendelssohn’s first trip to Italy in 1830, when he was just 21. Second, better yet, I remembered a book then in progress at DP and since posted to PG: the Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy from Italy and Switzerland. I decided to take appropriate excerpts from the letters and read one before each movement of the symphony.

These exuberant letters to Mendelssohn’s parents, brother, and sisters back home in Berlin express the manifold wonders he experienced on his journey. The ruined glory of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, the stunning loveliness of the hills, the romantic palazzi and canals of Venice, all spoke to his deepest sense of beauty.

Here is young Mendelssohn, newly arrived in Venice, eagerly writing to his parents on October 10, 1830:

Italy at last! And what I have all my life considered as the greatest possible felicity is now begun, and I am basking in it.

You can hear this youthful enthusiasm in the exciting opening bars of the Italian Symphony, which he began writing on this trip. As he wrote to his sister Fanny from Rome on February 22, 1831:

I have once more begun to compose with fresh vigour, and the Italian symphony makes rapid progress; it will be the most sportive piece I have yet composed, especially the last movement.

Except for the last movement, which is based on a lively Italian dance called the saltarello, there is nothing particularly Italian about the music itself. Rather, it evokes the impressions of an awestruck tourist, impressions he shared with his family in his letters home.

The stately tone of the symphony’s second movement is reflected in this letter to his parents, from Rome, November 8, 1830:

Just as Venice, with her past, reminded me of a vast monument: her crumbling modern palaces, and the perpetual remembrance of former splendour, causing sad and discordant sensations; so does the past of Rome suggest the impersonation of history; her monuments elevate the soul, inspiring solemn yet serene feelings, and it is a thought fraught with exultation that man is capable of producing creations, which, after the lapse of a thousand years, still renovate and animate others.

The third movement of the symphony, a graceful minuet, puts one in mind of Botticelli’s lovely painting, Primavera. It hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, where Mendelssohn immersed himself in the glories of Italian art, as he wrote to his sisters, June 25, 1831:

I have to-day passed the whole forenoon, from ten till three, in the gallery; it was glorious!… I wandered about among the pictures, feeling so much sympathy, and such kindly emotions in gazing at them. I now first thoroughly realized the great charm of a large collection of the highest works of art. You pass from one to the other, sitting and dreaming for an hour before some picture, and then on to the next…. I could not help meditating on all these great men, so long passed away from earth, though their whole inner soul is still displayed in such lustre to us, and to all the world.

The symphony’s rushing, leaping saltarello finale may have been inspired by something like the festival Mendelssohn saw in Florence, as he described it to his sisters on June 26, 1831:

It was Midsummer’s day, and a celebrated fête was to take place in Florence the same evening…. I heard a tumult, and looking out of the window I saw crowds, both young and old, all hurrying in their holiday costumes across the bridges. I followed them to the Corso, and then to the races; afterwards to the illuminated Pergola, and last of all to a masked ball in the Goldoni Theatre…. I recalled to myself the various occurrences of the day, and the thoughts that had chased each other through my mind, and resolved to write them all to you. It is in fact a reminiscence for myself, for it may not be so suggestive to you, but it will one day be of service to me, enabling me to recall various scenes connected with fair Italy.

It was indeed of service to him. The memories and inspirations of the trip, recorded in his letters, enabled him to finish the symphony quickly upon his return to Germany, and he himself conducted the premiere in London in 1833. Although he was never entirely happy with it, it deservedly remains one of the most popular works in the symphonic repertoire.

And, thanks to DP, the audience at my husband’s concert, hearing Mendelssohn’s own words accompany his music, cheered loud and long.

This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer.

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Music and Some Highly Musical People

February 9, 2012

When we think of 19th-century classical music, our minds tend to turn first to the many great European composers and performers who graced the Romantic era. Americans did not really make their mark on classical music until the 20th century. And African-Americans lagged even farther behind—but it was not for lack of trying. After Emancipation, former slaves and the children of slaves participated, as composers and performers, in a rich cultural world that deserves to be studied and remembered.

In Music and Some Highly Musical People, written in 1878, James Monroe Trotter (1842-1892) brings this world to life, with biographical accounts of the notable African-American musicians of the day. Trotter explains his motive for writing the book in his Preface:

While grouping, as has here been done, the musical celebrities of a single race; while gathering from near and far these many fragments of musical history, and recording them in one book,—the writer yet earnestly disavows all motives of a distinctively clannish nature. But the haze of complexional prejudice has so much obscured the vision of many persons, that they cannot see (at least, there are many who affect not to see) that musical faculties, and power for their artistic development, are not in the exclusive possession of the fairer-skinned race, but are alike the beneficent gifts of the Creator to all his children.

James M. Trotter

James M. Trotter

Trotter himself had an interesting history. His mother was a Mississippi slave; his father was her white master. She escaped with Trotter and his brother via the Underground Railroad and settled in Ohio. Trotter became a teacher, and, during the Civil War, enlisted in the Union Army, becoming the first African-American to achieve the rank of Second Lieutenant. He later became the first African-American to be employed by the U.S. Post Office, but resigned in protest when discrimination prevented his promotion. In 1887, President Cleveland appointed Trotter to the office of Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, then the highest government position to be attained by an African-American.

In Music and Some Highly Musical People, Trotter subtly makes his point for equality through his generous portraits of a variety of musical artists. He describes in rich detail their humble beginnings, their perseverance in spite of poverty and prejudice, and their successes. Many of these musicians found a more welcoming home in Europe. The composer Lucien Lambert, for example, “grew restive under the restraints, that, on account of his complexion, were thrown around him in New Orleans. He longed to breathe the air of a free country, where he might have an equal chance with all others to develop his powers: and so, after a while, he went to France; and, continuing his studies in Paris under the best masters of the art, he rapidly attained to great skill in performance and in composition.”

A delightful feature of Trotter’s book is an Appendix containing 13 lovely compositions by some of the composers featured in the text. In Project Gutenberg’s edition, you can hear the music for each piece by clicking on the [Listen] link in the HTML version, and the pieces can be printed out as PDF sheet music.

Distributed Proofreaders posted this book to Project Gutenberg in celebration of Black History Month 2009.

This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer.

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Annie Brassey’s Voyages

January 15, 2012

On September 14, 1887, at sunset, the body of a woman was committed to the sea midway between Christmas Island and the northwestern coast of Australia. Her grieving husband and their four children stood by to pay their last respects, along with the entire crew of the vessel on which they had been sailing for nearly a year.

Annie Brassey

Annie Brassey

The vessel was the yacht Sunbeam, and the woman was 47-year-old Lady Brassey—Annie Brassey, as she styled herself—one of the most celebrated travel writers of her day. Her lengthy voyages with her husband, Sir Thomas Brassey, and their children were simply and beautifully recorded in several lavishly detailed and illustrated books. The volunteers at Distributed Proofreaders have preserved two of them for posterity at Project Gutenberg: the first, A Voyage in the ‘Sunbeam’, published in 1878; and the last, The Last Voyage, published posthumously in 1889.

Annie Brassey was born Anna Allnutt in London in 1839. Her privileged childhood did not spare her from serious health problems. In a memoir of her life published in The Last Voyage, her husband recounted that she suffered from an inherited “weakness of the chest,” apparently in the form of chronic bronchitis. As a young woman, she suffered severe burns when she stood too close to a fireplace and her crinolined skirt caught fire; it took her six months to recover.

When she was 21, Annie married Thomas Brassey, the son of a prominent railway contractor. Thomas was a Member of Parliament who later became Lord of the Admiralty and Baron Brassey of Bulkeley. Annie and Thomas had five children; one of them, Constance, died in 1873 at age five. Annie, despite her chronic illnesses, busied herself with her family and with charitable work, becoming a tireless supporter of the St. John Ambulance, an organization devoted to providing and teaching first aid.

Thomas was a keen yachtsman, and on July 1, 1876, he, Annie, and the children (ranging in age from one to 13) set off to circumnavigate the globe in the Sunbeam—said to be the first private yacht to do so. This was no Kon-Tiki—the Sunbeam was a steam-assisted schooner, and the family and crew totaled 43 people.

Nonetheless, in the nineteenth century, traveling around the world was neither safe nor comfortable, as the Brasseys well knew from prior, shorter voyages. In 1869, Annie had contracted malaria while traveling through the Suez Canal; the disease plagued her for the rest of her life.

But it did not stop her. She entered into the first voyage of the Sunbeam with great enthusiasm, writing extensive letters to her family in England, in which she detailed all the wonders of the exotic lands they visited. Her family urged her to publish these letters in the form of a journal, and the result was A Voyage in the ‘Sunbeam’.

Annie’s journal entries demonstrate a keen eye for observation, boundless curiosity, and a profound sympathy for humankind. It is no wonder that A Voyage in the ‘Sunbeam’ became an instant best-seller. The grace and simplicity of her writing bring the voyage vividly to life, often with understated humor. Here, for example, is her account of what happened after the yacht came through a severe storm:

Soon after this adventure we all went to bed, full of thankfulness that it had ended as well as it did; but, alas, not, so far as I was concerned, to rest in peace. In about two hours I was awakened by a tremendous weight of water suddenly descending upon me and flooding the bed. I immediately sprang out, only to find myself in another pool on the floor. It was pitch dark, and I could not think what had happened; so I rushed on deck, and found that, the weather having moderated a little, some kind sailor, knowing my love of fresh air, had opened the skylight rather too soon; and one of the angry waves had popped on board, deluging the cabin.

Despite Annie’s ill health, the voyages continued, in part because winters in London (with its then dreadful fogs of pollution) were intolerable to her. In the 1880s she published other travelogues, including In the Trades, the Tropics, and the Roaring Forties (1885), currently in progress at DP.

Annie’s last voyage on the Sunbeam began in January 1887. The family toured India and then set sail for Ceylon, explored Burma, Borneo, and nearby islands, and circumnavigated Australia, with fascinating side-trips to the major towns and even into the bush. She participated in these tours in spite of renewed attacks of malarial fever, and throughout her time in Australia she actively promoted the St. John Ambulance.

But the disease that had beset her for so long finally took its toll. Annie wrote her last published journal entry on August 29, 1887, as the Sunbeam lay at Thursday Island, off Cape York in Queensland, Australia. She was so ill that she needed to be carried in a chair as she toured the island that day, but she pressed on, and even discussed starting a chapter of the St. John Ambulance with the local residents.

Thereafter, as her friend and editor, M.A. Broome, puts it in the Preface to The Last Voyage, Annie’s journal entries “are simple records of suffering and helpless weakness, too private and sacred for publication.” She made her last private entry four days before she died. In her husband’s tender memoir in The Last Voyage, addressing their children, he said, “We have seen how your mother used her opportunities to make the world a little better than she found it. . . . I could never tell you what your mother was to me.”

Annie Brassey, with her inspiring courage and humanity, left the world a beautiful legacy in her fascinating journals.

Note: In 1922, the Sunbeam was sold to Sir Walter Runciman. Sir Walter, as it happens, was a distant relative of the late Steven Gibbs, the DP volunteer who provided the scans of The Last Voyage.

This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer.

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Renaissance in Italy: Italian Literature, by John Addington Symonds

May 26, 2011

The Renaissance — French for “rebirth” — was a period of re-flowering for art and literature after the gloom of the Dark Ages. From the 14th through the 16th Centuries, artists and writers all over Europe created an amazing body of masterworks whose beauty and intensity still bring joy to us today. And Italy — though not yet a unified nation — was the birthplace of this re-flowering.

Renaissance in Italy is a monumental series of treatises by English literary critic John Addington Symonds (1840-1893), covering virtually all aspects of the subject. The first three volumes cover the fragmented political landscape of the time; the rise of Humanism; and a detailed study of the great Italian architects, sculptors, and painters.

The fourth and fifth volumes, Italian Literature (Part I, Part II), brilliantly examine Italian literary masters, from Dante to Machiavelli. For Symonds, the Golden Age of Italian literature took place between 1300 and 1530, when poets and essayists moved away from Latin and composed their best works in their native Italian dialects — particularly Tuscan, which became the basis for modern Italian. Sicilian and Provençal troubadours of the 13th Century, writing in their own languages, led to the “dolce stil novo” (sweet new style) of Dante and other poets writing in the Tuscan dialect. The highest expression of this style was, of course, Dante’s Divine Comedy.

From this linguistic and literary transition sprang all that followed: Boccaccio and his Decameron, Ariosto and his Orlando Furioso, Machiavelli and his Prince, and many other masterpieces by many other masters in between. Symonds recognized that Italy’s greatest literature was also born of the artistic ideals of ancient Rome:

When all her deities were decayed or broken, Italy still worshiped beauty in fine art and literary form. When all her energies seemed paralyzed, she still pursued her intellectual development with unremitting ardor… They wrought, thought, painted, carved and built with the antique ideal as a guiding and illuminative principle in view. This principle enabled them to elevate and harmonize, to humanize and beautify the coarser elements existing in the world around them. What they sought and clung to in the heritage of the ancients, was the divinity of form — the form that gives grace, loveliness, sublimity to common flesh and blood in art; style to poetry and prose; urbanity to social manners; richness and elegance to reflections upon history and statecraft and the problems of still infantine science.

Renaissance in Italy: Italian Literature (Part I) was part of DP’s 20,000 titles celebration. The entire Renaissance in Italy series is available at Project Gutenberg: The Age of the Despots, The Revival of Learning, The Fine Arts, Italian Literature (Part I), Italian Literature (Part II), and The Catholic Reaction (Parts I and II).

Banner for DP's 20k celebration

This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer.

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A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys

December 1, 2010

In the spring of 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), having just enjoyed his first great success with The Scarlet Letter, moved with his wife and two young children from bustling Salem, Massachusetts, to the Berkshire Hills in the western part of the state. Although “The Berkshires” are now one of America’s premier cultural and natural resorts, they were then a rather wild and remote place. The beauty and peace of its rolling hills made it the perfect setting for a writer who wanted inspiration and no distractions.

The Hawthornes rented a little red farmhouse in Lenox, on the summer estate of the wealthy Tappan family, and Hawthorne set to work. In just a year and a half, Hawthorne produced his masterpiece, The House of the Seven Gables, as well as The Blithedale Romance. And it was here that he wrote his enchanting book for children, A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys.

Midas

Midas’ Daughter Turned to Gold

A Wonder Book is a collection of stories within a frame story. Eustace Bright, a lively student at nearby Williams College, is visiting Tanglewood (Hawthorne’s fictional name for the Tappan estate). He gathers a group of “little folks” — the Hawthorne and Tappan children under assumed names like “Primrose” and “Cowslip” — and, in various places on and around the estate, charmingly narrates for them several ancient Greek myths.

Here is Perseus, lopping off the Gorgon’s Head; Midas, miserably living with his Golden Touch; Pandora and that terrible box; Hercules braving monsters to retrieve the Three Golden Apples; the generous old couple, Baucis and Philemon, unwittingly entertaining the gods in their poor cottage; Bellerophon taming Pegasus and defeating the Chimæra. Both the frame story and the myths are simply and beautifully told, with Hawthorne’s wonderfully evocative touches:

The golden days of October passed away, as so many other Octobers have, and brown November likewise, and the greater part of chill December, too. At last came merry Christmas, and Eustace Bright along with it, making it all the merrier by his presence. And, the day after his arrival from college, there came a mighty snow-storm. Up to this time, the winter had held back, and had given us a good many mild days, which were like smiles upon its wrinkled visage. The grass had kept itself green, in sheltered places, such as the nooks of southern hill-slopes, and along the lee of the stone fences. It was but a week or two ago, and since the beginning of the month, that the children had found a dandelion in bloom, on the margin of Shadow Brook, where it glides out of the dell.

In spite of his appreciation of the beauty of the Berkshires, his productivity there, and the birth of his daughter Rose in 1851, Hawthorne loathed the changeable climate. In one of his journals (later published as Twenty Days with Julian and Little Bunny by Papa), he wrote, “I detest it! I detest it!! I de-test it!!! I hate Berkshire with my whole soul, and would joyfully see its mountains laid flat.” The Hawthornes went back east in November 1852 and never returned.

But Hawthorne’s Wonder Book lives on, as does its sequel, Tanglewood Tales, published in 1853. The Tappans, in fact, adopted Hawthorne’s name for their estate, and their descendants donated Tanglewood to the Boston Symphony Orchestra for its now-famous summer concert series. The little red farmhouse burned down in 1890 and a privately-owned replica stands in its place.

Project Gutenberg’s version of A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys is the 1893 edition, with lovely, richly-detailed illustrations by Walter Crane.

This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer.

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