Urbain Grandier

In was in the early 1980s that I first learned of Urbain Grandier, a 17th century French Catholic priest who was burned at the stake, after being found guilty of witchcraft in a case involving "demonic possession" of nuns in the town of Loudun, France. One of the cable movie channels (Showtime, Cinemax, or HBO) was running the 1971 Ken Russell film, The Devils. The film was based on the 1952 non-fiction novel by Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun.

Being curious, I went on a search for Huxley's book. A copy of the book was supposed to be available at my local public library, but I was told that the book was frequently stolen when placed on the shelf. There was a copy available behind the main desk, but it could not be checked out. The book could only be read in the library.

Fortunately for me, there was a very nice used book store in town. The owner could find any book - for a price, of course. I purchased a copy from her. I cannot say what became of the book.

I bring this up now because the story of Grandier is told in volume four of Alexandre Dumas' Celebrated Crimes. Sadly, the series could have been entitled Celebrated Crimes by Christians. A good many of the crimes described by Dumas illustrate the horrors committed by some using God's name.

According to a Wikipedia article, the French historian Jules Michelet discussed Grandier in a chapter of La Sorcière. An English translation of La Sorcière is available at Project Gutenberg. That book is now on my list of books to read in 2018.

The Polish composer, Krzysztof Penderecki wrote an opera, Die Teufel von Loudun based on the story. I was unable to find a copy of the opera on Spotify - although many of Penderecki's works are - but a TV version of the opera can be found on Youtube.

The 2017 Book List

Following a New Year's tradition that I've maintained for a number of years, I'm posting a list of the books I've read - or reread the previous year.

The 2015 book list contained 37 books. The following year, the number of books I had read dropped down to 36. I had hoped to read one book a week in 2017. I was able to keep up the average for most of the year, but I hit a slow point with José Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and I was unable to catch up. The total for 2017 was 45, if you count the audio book I listened to on Francisco Pizarro and the Conquest of Peru. Otherwise, the total is 44.

Highlights of the year for me was my reading everything available by Elizabeth von Arnim,  in addition to the top ten best selling novels of 1917.

The list is as follows:

 Elizabeth and Her German Garden                   Elizabeth von Arnim
The Solitary Summer                                           Elizabeth von Arnim
The Benefactress                                                 Elizabeth von Arnim
The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen                Elizabeth von Arnim
Mr. Britling Sees It Through                               H. G. Wells
The Light In The Clearing                                   Irving Bacheller
The Red Planet                                                     William J. Locke
The Road to Understanding                                 Eleanor H. Porter
Wildfire                                                                 Zane Grey
Christine                                                               Alice Cholmondeley
In the Wilderness                                                   Robert S. Hichens
His Family                                                             Ernest Poole
The Definite Object                                                Jeffery Farnol
The Hundredth Chance                                           Ethel M. Dell
Jerusalem                                                               Selma Lagerlöf
The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight                          Elizabeth von Arnim
Uncle Silas                                                              Sheridan Le Fanu
Three Short Works                                                   Gustave Flaubert
Herodias                                                                  Gustave Flaubert
Burmese Days                                                          George Orwell
1984                                                                          George Orwell
The Time Machine                                                     H.G.Wells
The War of the Worlds                                               H.G.Wells
The Island of Doctor Moreau                                    H.G.Wells
The Invisible Man                                                      H.G.Wells
Noli Me Tangere                                                         José Rizal
Fräulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther                         Elizabeth von Arnim
The Pastor's Wife                                                        Elizabeth von Arnim
Christopher and Columbus                                        Elizabeth von Arnim
Out of the Silent Planet                                              C.S. Lewis
Perelandra                                                                  C.S. Lewis
In the Mountains                                                         Elizabeth von Arnim
The Enchanted April                                                   Elizabeth von Arnim
Fatima in Lucia's Own Words - Vol.1                        Sister Maria Lúcia of Jesus
Fatima in Lucia's Own Words - Vol.2                        Sister Maria Lúcia of Jesus
Hernando Cortez                                                         John S.C. Abbott
Francisco Pizarro and the Conquest of Peru             Frederick A. Ober (audio book)
Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol.1     Bernal Diaz del Castillo
Vasco Núñez de Balboa                                               Frederick A. Ober
Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol.2     Bernal Diaz del Castillo
Americo Vespucci                                                        Frederick A. Ober
By Right of Conquest Or, With Cortez in Mexico         G.A. Henty
The Hermit and The Wild Woman                                Edith Wharton
The House of Mirth                                                       Edith Wharton
The Age of Innocence                                                    Edith Wharton

Celebrated Crimes

When I wrote yesterday's post, I thought that there might be a possibility that I'd finish reading volume one of Alexandre Dumas' Celebrated Crimes before the year's end. I see now that that won't happen.

The last book read in 2017 will be The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton.

Volume one of Celebrated Crimes contains two essays - The Borgias and The Cenci. It was the story of Beatrice Cenci which brought me to this collection. The Borgias contains so much historical information that I'm not certain that putting that essay into a work on celebrated crimes is entirely appropriate. However, because the tale of the Borgia family takes place during the First Italian War, it fits in perfectly with my recent exploration of the Spanish Conquistadors - quite a few of the soldiers whom fought alongside Cortés had also fought in the Italian Wars.

The main focus of The Borgias revolves around Pope Alexander VI. His story does not speak well for the Catholic Church during the Renaissance. Actually, his story does not speak well for humanity.

2017 Winding Down

2017 is almost at an end and I will be posting my list of books read this year in a few days. The last three books read were written by Edith Wharton; a collection of short stories - The Hermit and The Wild Woman - and two novels - The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. I've enjoyed Wharton's work, but I doubt that she will surpass Elizabeth von Arnim as my favorite.

Although there are two days left in this year, it doesn't appear likely that I will finish the book I am reading currently, Celebrated Crimes by Alexandre Dumas (pere). There are eight volumes in the complete work, but it's possible that I may finish volume one before year's end.

I became interested in Dumas' Celebrated Crimes when I learned of the story of Beatrice Cenci. Her story is included in volume one of Dumas' book.

I've downloaded 16 ebooks from Project Gutenberg to start off 2018. These sixteen, plus the Dumas' collection should keep me occupied for quite some time.

Beatrice Cenci

At nearly the half-way point of Edith Wharton's novel, The House of Mirth, Wharton's makes mention of a "bronze box with a miniature of Beatrice Cenci in the lid".

"After luncheon, when Grace Stepney's prying eyes had been removed, Lily asked for a word with her aunt. The two ladies went upstairs to the sitting-room, where Mrs. Peniston seated herself in her black satin arm-chair tufted with yellow buttons, beside a bead-work table bearing a bronze box with a miniature of Beatrice Cenci in the lid. Lily felt for these objects the same distaste which the prisoner may entertain for the fittings of the court-room. It was here that her aunt received her rare confidences, and the pink-eyed smirk of the turbaned Beatrice was associated in her mind with the gradual fading of the smile from Mrs. Peniston's lips. That lady's dread of a scene gave her an inexorableness which the greatest strength of character could not have produced, since it was independent of all considerations of right or wrong; and knowing this, Lily seldom ventured to assail it. She had never felt less like making the attempt than on the present occasion; but she had sought in vain for any other means of escape from an intolerable situation."

Having never heard of Beatrice Cenci, I immediately searched the name in order to get a sense of why Wharton might make use of this bronze box in her description of Lily's conversation with her aunt.

Wikipedia describes Cenci this way.

"Beatrice Cenci (6 February 1577 – 11 September 1599) was a young Roman noblewoman who murdered her father, Count Francesco Cenci. The subsequent, lurid murder trial in Rome gave rise to an enduring legend about her. She was condemned and beheaded for the crime in 1599."

And according to historical accounts, Francesco Cenci abused his first wife Ersilia Santa Croce and his sons and raped Beatrice multiple times. This abuse eventually led to Beatrice, her siblings, and their stepmother bludgeoning Francesco to death with a hammer and throwing his body off a balcony to make it look like an accident.

The four members of the Cenci family were arrested, tried and convicted of the murder and sentenced to death.

Down through the centuries, Beatrice Cenci's tragic story has had an influence on literature and the arts. Many of the works are either not in English, or are unavailable at Project Gutenberg. However, I was able to download Les Cenci, a short story by Stendhal and The Cenci, an essay by Alexandre Dumas in Volume 1 of Celebrated Crimes.

I haven't yet decided if I'll read those before or after I read Wharton's novel, The Age of Innocence.

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.

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.

Current Reading List

While I haven't done just a good job keeping this blog up to date the last few months, I have managed to get a bit of reading done. True, the pace of my reading was higher earlier in the year, but I'm still way ahead of last year.

I'm not at all certain how or why I've taken this route, but I recently became interested in books concerning the Spanish Conquistadors, first reading John S.C. Abbott's book on Hernando Cortez. From there, I've gone on to Bernal Diaz del Castillo's first hand account of his adventures with Cortez (in two volumes) and an audio book of Frederick A. Ober's Francisco Pizarro and the Conquest of Peru. I've downloaded, and will soon begin reading, Ober's book on Balboa.

I've no idea where I'll be heading when I've finished the book on Balboa. I'm not sure if I'll continue reading additional books on the Conquistadors or if I'll take some other path. I suppose I'll wait see where Project Gutenberg takes me.

Conquistadors

It's been more than a month since I last mentioned in this blog anything that I've been reading. At that time, I had just finished reading In the Mountains by Elizabeth von Arnim and had begun reading her novel, The Enchanted April. As I mentioned I would do at that time, when I completed The Enchanted April, I began to reread two books I had previously read in 2005 - Volumes One and Two of Sister Maria Lúcia of Jesus' memoirs.

Next on my list was a biography of Hernando Cortez written in the early 19th century by historian, John S.C. Abbott. Abbott had made use of The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo in writing his book. I had downloaded both volumes of del Castillo's memoirs quite a long time ago and I began reading volume one after finishing Abbott.

While reading del Castillo, I found a LibriVox recording of Francisco Pizarro and the Conquest of Peru by Frederick A.Ober. I've listened to three chapters and have located an ebook copy of the book at archive.org. Unfortunately, the ebook is a scanned copy of the hardbound copy of the book which doesn't read well on Kindle. If I end up listening to the entire book on LiberVox, I'll consider that the same as having read the book.

If You Post Confederate Flags on Facebook..........

........go ahead and unfriend me now.

I've been quiet about the riots going on in the U.S. now. I've thought, I'm not there now, let those folks sort this out without my comments. However, after seeing one of my Facebook "friends" post a Confederate flag onto his Facebook page, and write something about our heritage blah, blah, blah, blah, I've changed my mind about keeping silent.

Four years ago, when I discovered that someone I went to high school with was behind the movement to permit homosexuals into the Boy Scouts, I wrote a blog piece entitled Go Ahead, Unfriend Me. It that piece, I mentioned that I had "unfriended" four people over their support of homosexuals in Scouts, and asked that, if I had missed anyone then, by all means unfriend me now.

I feel the same now about this Confederate flag and monument dust up. Within the next 24 hours, after allowing one Facebook friend the opportunity to read this link on Facebook, I will remove him from my list. Should any of my other "friends" post the flag, and I'm not aware of it, go ahead and "unfriend" me.

To show the seriousness of this, I am uploading onto this post a photo of the man most hated by Confederate supporters, the man who burned Atlanta - William Tecumseh Sherman.

Philippine Independence Day

Today is Independence Day in Philippines, commemorating the Philippine Declaration of Independence from Spain in 1898. Neither Spain nor the United States recognized Philippine independence, with the U.S. gaining control later that year.

In a blatant display of colonialism, the United States officially granted independence to Philippines on July 4, 1946. July 4th was chosen by the U.S. in order that the date would be forever tied to the U.S. Independence Day. However, the date was officially changed by Presidential Proclamation No. 28, in 1962, which declared June 12 a special public holiday throughout the Philippines.

Coincidentally, I am currently reading a novel by Philippine national hero, José Rizal. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had read Rizal's Noli Me Tángere, as translated by María Soledad Lacson-Locsin, about fifteen years ago. I know fifteen years is a very long time, and one's memory can play tricks, but I see few similarities between that translation and the 1912 translation by Charles Derbyshire that I'm reading now. Nothing seems familiar.

Also, as I mentioned in the earlier post, following Noli Me Tángere, I'll move on to Derbyshire's translation of the novel's sequel, El Filibusterismo.

Paper Peso

It celebration of Memorial Day in the U.S., a friend on Facebook shared a photo, originally posted by her local newspaper, of the edition published on August 14, 1945 announcing the U.S. victory over Japan ending World War Two.

The item I found particularly interesting was the paper Philippine peso in the lower right-hand corner. The 1 peso paper bank note was withdrawn from circulation in the 1970s. The note in the photo is part of the VICTORY-CBP Overprints series printed in 1949, and were not in circulation (obviously) when the August 14, 1945 newspaper was printed.

It's difficult to read, but the note states that, on demand, the bearer could receive either silver peso or legal tender currency of the United States.

William J. Locke

As I've mentioned in posts before, I've begun reading from the top ten best selling novels of 1917. As of this writing, I finished numbers one and two - Mr. Britling Sees It Through, by H. G. Wells, and The Light in the Clearing, by Irving Bacheller. I'm currently reading # 3 on the list, The Red Planet, by William J. Locke.

World War I was still being fought when these books were published, so it's not surprising that two of these first three concern the Great War. The Light in the Clearing is an historical novel of sorts, but takes place during the time of U.S. President Van Buren.

William J. Locke was a very good writer - five of Locke's books made the top ten best sellers list in the U.S.. I was so impressed with the first few pages of The Red Planet that I considered reading Locke's other top best sellers after I've read all the 1917 books on my list. However, I'll wait and decide on that after I've completed The Red Planet. As I said, Locke was a very good writer, but unfortunately, at this point in the novel, I am not at all fond of the protagonist, Major Meredyth. Major Meredyth appears to be more chauvinistic than I would like - but who knows, in Wells' novel, the character Mr. Britling becomes less enthused with World War I as the novel progressed, so perhaps there will be a change in the character of Major Meredyth as well.

Californians Want to Cut off Their Noses to Spite Their Faces

Just as Democrats in eleven States attempted to secede from the United States and form the Confederate States of America after the election of the first Republican POTUS, some Democrat leaning individuals in California want their State to leave the Union after the election of the current Republican POTUS. I suspect that their endeavor will be as unsuccessful as the attempt made by the Confederate Democrats in the 1860s.

Even if the Union decides to look the other way and allow the secession (a big IF), it is doubtful that the country of California could survive as a Progressive Utopia without U.S. Federal assistance. While 12% of the total U.S. population live in California, 34% of welfare recipients in the U.S. live in California. With secession, this Federal welfare ends.

According to the California Legislature's Nonpartisan Fiscal and Policy Advisor, total annual federal expenditures in California are around $368 billion. With an estimated population of 38.9 million in early 2015, this corresponds to federal payments of about $9,500 per person in the state of California. Could the country of California make up for this loss of Federal spending? Some of this Federal spending is in the form of Social Security retirement benefits which the U.S. would be required to pay to individuals residing in a foreign country, but even taking that into consideration, the financial burden to the country of California would be tremendous.

No more military. No defense spending.

Should California secede, I predict it would only be a few years before portions of the country will attempt to reunite with the United States of America. California could be readmitted into the Union, but probably as two or more States. California would have fewer electoral votes and less political clout. This could prove a plus to the U.S.A., but a bad move for the State of California.

100 Year Old Best Sellers

As mentioned in an earlier post, I've begun reading the best selling novels from 1917. The first on the list is Mr. Britling Sees It Through., by H. G. Wells. The novel begins just before the start of World War I and tells of the experiences of a writer and his family and acquaintances during the war. It's a thought provoking  novel and it's being on the best seller list of 1917 is perfectly understandable.

At the end of the book, Wells uses a letter written by Britling to the parents of a German friend to voice his views on how the world should evolve after the war. Unfortunately, Wells was not able to visit the future as a character from another of his novels was able to do, and Wells' idea for a one world government haven't panned out quite the way he would have wanted.

Like a good many following the Great War, many felt that the League of Nations would make certain that it would be the War to End All Wars. Hindsight is 20/20, and we can see now that the treatment of Germany following their loss in the Great War help bring about the Second World War.

The second novel on the list of best sellers of 1917 is The Light in the Clearing by Irving Bacheller. . As I write this, I am 31% into the e-book (downloaded from Project Gutenberg. I tend to agree with the review (linked to above).

"The Light In The Clearing is a book that is worth a read, but not so much for pleasure as for studies of history. For history it is a fantastic fictional source but for pleasure the dampening of themes and 180 degree changes are too irregular to invite particular acclaim. It’s a good book, but its purpose has been served better elsewhere".

The reviewer also writes that the book "has not stood the test of time as well as it could have, and that is a shame". That said, I will do my best to finish the book. The reviewer says the "last few chapters are excellent, but it’s difficult to get that far". I'm going to try.

The Book List Turns to WWI

Having finished reading The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen, I've begun reading the first of the top selling books of 1917, Mr. Britling Sees It Through, by H. G. Wells. It was one book in particular which lead me to the decision to read the 1917 best sellers - Christine by Alice Cholmondeley. Alice Cholmondeley was a pen name used by Elizabeth von Arnim.

The last five books I've read were written by von Arnim, and it was my plan, originally, to read Christine first. However, after The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen, I changed my mind. That book did not impress me as much as the other four von Arnim books and I decided to take a short break from her.

Mr. Britling Sees It Through begins just prior to World War I. There are references to the Irish War of Independence which escape me, but overall, the book is enjoyable.

Following H. G. Wells, The Light in the Clearing by Irving Bacheller is next on the list.

The Dumbing Down of the American Electorate.

As someone with a strong desire to improve my writing, I will, on occasion, visit a website which utilizes a tool for measuring the readability of written text. The website, Readability Score.com, uses several readability algorithms to provide an average score, which should tell what level of education someone will need to be able to read a particular piece of text easily. The website provides scores based on the Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning-Fog, Coleman-Liau Index, and SMOG Index readability tests.

According to another website, the average American adult reads at the 9th-grade level and experts recommend writing documents, intended for the general public, at that level.

On January 10, 2017, maintaining a tradition followed (off and on) by departing Presidents since George Washington, President Barack Obama delivered his Farewell Address to the American people. George Washington's Farewell Address from 1796 is considered by most, to be the Gold Standard for Presidential Farewell Addresses and naturally, writers have compared Obama's address to Washington's.

To compare the two Presidential Farewell Addresses, I copied both and pasted each one onto the Readability Score.com testing algorithm to find out the grade level of each. After testing each, I took a screen shot of the results, which I've posted below. Following today's standard, Obama's text was written at a 9th Grade reading level - par for the average American today. The reading level of Washington's Farewell Address is at a grade level of 18. To understand Washington's address, the reader should have, not only 4 years of college, but an additional 2 years of post graduate study.

As an aside - the reading level of this blog post is 14.7. Maybe that's why I have so few readers.

1917

In 2015, after watching probably every film version of The Hounds of the Baskervilles ever produced, I decided to download a copy of the book from Project Gutenberg and re-read the novel. As I mentioned in a post from that time, I learned, shortly after reading the book, that The Hounds of the Baskervilles was among the top ten best selling books of 1902. Knowing that lead me to take a look at the entire list for that year and a desire to read a few of the books that were best sellers in 1902. As it turned out, counting the Conan Doyle novel, I read five of the top ten books for that particular year.

I've mentioned in more than one post that after learning of her through reading E. Phillips Oppenheim's memoir, Elizabeth von Arnim has become my current favorite writer. I ended 2016 by reading Arnim's most highly acclaimed novel, Vera, and began 2017 by reading Arnim's first book Elizabeth and Her German Garden. Although very different in tone, I loved both of the books and went to Project Gutenberg to download additional e-books of von Arnim's work. I immediately began von Arnim's 2nd book (and companion to her first) The Solitary Summer. Her third book is classified as "juvenile literature". Sadly, it is not available in e-book format. I downloaded the next two -The Benefactress and The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen. I've read 50% of The Benefactress and I'm looking forward to reading my 5th work by von Arnim.

I had already begun thinking of what books I might read following The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen and thought I might return to reading some of the top ten novels of years ago. Rather than go on to 1903 - which might have been a logical follow up to the 1902 list, I thought it might be better to jump ahead to 1917 and read the best sellers from one hundred years ago.

I looked at the list:

1) Mr. Britling Sees It Through by H. G. Wells
2) The Light in the Clearing by Irving Bacheller
3) The Red Planet by William J. Locke
4) The Road to Understanding by Eleanor H. Porter
5) Wildfire by Zane Grey
6) Christine by Alice Cholmondeley
7) In the Wilderness by Robert S. Hichens
8) His Family by Ernest Poole
9) The Definite Object by Jeffery Farnol
10) The Hundredth Chance by Ethel M. Dell

Number six, Christine by Alice Cholmondeley, threw me. Alice Cholmondeley was a nom de plume used by Elizabeth von Arnim.

Reading the wikipedia article of the novel, I've become fascinated by yet another side of Elizabeth von Arnim. The pen name was used by her in order to hide, from the public, the truth that the novel was not what the publishers claimed it to be. It was presented as a series of letters, written by a gifted young English girl studying in Germany just before the outbreak of World War I, to her mother in England. In actuality, Christine was a completely fictional work, written by von Arnim, for British propaganda purposes, in order to convince the American public to enter the war as Britain's ally.

In spite of this - or maybe because of this - I'll read Christine after I've finished reading The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen. It will be an appropriate way to begin my reading the 1917 best sellers. The rest of the list will be read in order.

September 11

As I write this, it is already September 11 here in Philippines, but actually 12 hours away from the time of the coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda on the United States of America in 2001.

As this, the fifteenth anniversary of the attack approached, I considered writing about my memories of that horrific day, but as this day came closer, I arrived at the conclusion that nothing I could say, nothing I could put down in words, could do sufficient honor to those who died in that attack.

I can only say that my prayers still go out for the eternal rest of those souls that perished that day, as well as prayers for the family and loved ones of the victims of that tragedy.

I also hope that the American people never forget.

Stanley and Livingstone

In a post from last week, I related how my habit of watching movies from the 1930's and 40's on Youtube had introduced me to the novelist George Agnew Chamberlain. At the time of that writing, I had been able to find only one (free) ebook of Chamberlain's work - Through Stained Glass - and had read 20% of that novel on Kindle. Having finished Through Stained Glass, I am not nearly as impressed with the novel as I was at the 20% marker.

I mentioned in the same post that I had downloaded two novels by Jack London, The Call of the Wild and White Fang. I've finished reading The Call of the Wild, having thoroughly enjoyed the ebook.

A few days back, I watched the 1939 classic film, Stanley and Livingstone starring Spencer Tracy. The wikipedia article regarding the film says that it's "based loosely upon the true story of Welsh reporter Sir Henry M. Stanley's quest to find Dr. David Livingstone". No truer words have ever appeared on wikipedia than the words "based loosely".

After watching the film, I downloaded Henry Stanley's book, How I Found Livingstone from the Project Gutenberg website. I haven't finished reading this one yet, but so far, the only similarity I can find between the book and the film is that both have a character named Stanley who travels to Africa to look for Dr. Livingstone. Other than that, I don't believe the script writers actually read a single page of Stanley's book.

At the beginning of the film, Stanley is found among the Indians in Wyoming and returns to New York city to meet the publisher of the New York Herald newspaper. In the novel, Stanley is in Spain, the publisher in Paris. In the film, there is a rivalry between the Herald publisher and the publisher of the London Globe. No such rivalry exists in the book. Do I even need to mention the love interest created just for the movie?

The characters portrayed by Nancy Kelly, Richard Greene and Walter Brennan do not appear in the novel and were created out of whole cloth for the film.

If one enjoys movies from the 1930's, Stanley and Livingstone is entertaining, if one doesn't require 100% accuracy in your "historical" films. Stanley's book might be entertaining for those interested in history of the 1870s.