Edith Wharton

Having grown tired of reading books concerning the Spanish Conquistadors, I went to a folder in my pc where I stash away ebooks downloaded from project gutenberg which, at the time they were downloaded, I had every intention of reading. Sometimes a particular ebook will be read - sometimes not. Looking through the downloaded ebooks, I came across one by Edith Wharton entitled The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories.

I had no recollection of when I originally downloaded this ebook, (or why) but now, the title intrigued me, so I sent the mobi to my Kindle.

After reading the first two short stories, I knew I'd want to read more by Wharton. Going back to the computer file, I discovered that I had also downloaded two other novels by Wharton, The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth. As it turns out, these ebooks have sat unread in my pc since December, 2014. I sent these two to my Kindle as well.

If I enjoy these novels as well as the first short stories I've read, I'll be downloading more by Edith Wharton. Fortunately, project gutenberg has lots for me to choose from. I may have found a writer who I enjoy reading as much as I did Elizabeth von Arnim.

G.A. Henty and Hernán Cortés

After reading a number of books pertaining to the history of the Spanish Conquistadors and other early explorers of the New World, I decided to end with a fictional, historical novel by G.A. Henty, By Right of Conquest Or, With Cortez in Mexico.

Henty had written more than 120 historical novels, which remained popular even twenty years after his death. Many of these novels fall into the category of juvenile adventure stories and Henty's novels were part of F. Scott Fitzgerald's boyhood reading.

The wikipedia article linked to above states that Henty usually researched his novels by ordering several books on the subject he was writing on from libraries, and consulting them before beginning writing. This appears to have been the case with his fictional work on Cortez. Like historian John S.C. Abbott, Henty appears to have relied on The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, although Henty's version of history doesn't always align with Bernal Diaz del Castillo's eye witness account.

Henty has been criticized for being xenophobic towards non-British people and for his glorification of British imperialism. Indeed, the hero of By Right of Conquest is English, and not Spanish. Henty may have held sympathetic views toward many of the Aztec characters in the novels, but his racists view toward blacks manages to make its way into this work.

Of course, having been written in the very early days of the 20th century, this novel has a happy ending. The hero returns to England with his Aztec wife - a princess, no less - along with a fortune in gold and precious gems, living happily ever after.

Hopefully, No More Moore.

For reasons that I do not understand, I have been receiving emails from Roy Moore's campaign for close to two years. I am not now, nor have I ever been registered to vote in Alabama. I have disliked Moore for years - ever since his attempts to post Ten Commandment monuments on government property.

His emails have been going straight into my spam box since the very beginning.

I would never vote for Moore; the claims that he had tried to have sex with a 14 year old girl when he was in his thirties certainly didn't change my mind.

In spite of the fact that Roy Moore says the 'Battle Is Not Over' in Alabama Senate Race, I'm no longer getting spam emails from his campaign. Thank goodness.

I'm hoping I'll hear no more from Moore.

Amerigo Vespucci

A few months ago, my interests took a turn toward the Spanish Conquistadors and the early explorers of the New World. I've just finished reading Frederick Ober's biography of Amerigo Vespucci, downloaded from Project Gutenberg.

In spite of having two continents named for him, Vespucci isn't well known today and most of what people today think they know about the Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer isn't entirely favorable.

Although many believe Columbus is more entitled to have North and South America named for him rather than Vespucci, the fact that Columbus went to his grave believing he had discovered islands located near Asia and the fact that Vespucci knew he had landed in a New World leads me to think that the current names may be appropriate after all.

Black Beetle in the Dumaguete VW Graveyard.

I've frequently posted photos of automobiles found at the Volkswagen Beetle graveyard located near the Dumaguete airport. The last Beetle photo that I posted on this blog was parked there.

For the past few days, I've seen this black Beetle in the graveyard. Today, I pulled off the side of the road to take a quick photo.

I've looked over the photos of the 38 other VW Beetles found in the Dumaguete area and this one is not amoung the bunch. This one is new to me.