Round 3: Waters That Pass Away

The man known as "EvilWaldo" (but whom I call Dave, because that's his name and I'm a jerk like that) decided I've had it too good so far, so he skimmed the list and landed on the first book we've drawn for which I'm not finding a lot of supporting material. In fact, until a few weeks ago, the only online copy was missing several pages, which didn't bode well. Well, my source was fixed just in time for what may be my first penalty round. Dig this, if you will (filed in the original list under "The Summer's Miscellany", a catchall category for "we don't know what to call it, either"):

Waters That Pass Away. By N. B. Winston. New York: G. W. Dillingham Company. $1.25.

This book is of rare interest to people attracted by the study of the formative influences of the human heart. Mr. Winston, whose discernment is rational and whose treatment is as artistic as it is consistent, has written from the depths of the highest possible realization of the true greatness of the human heart. "Waters That Pass Away" will touch most anybody who is at all sympathetic with heart influences. At the same time the author intends his work to stand for the truest moral nobility and for the conscious mastery by humanity of the problems that have so long essayed to unite head and heart into concerted harmony of action.
--New York Times, June 24, 1899.

Mister Winston. Remember that as I run through this pull-quote from the publisher's ad.

"The author of Waters That Pass Away, is a Southerner, whose sex is not to be determined from the name standing upon the title page or from the story itself. There are some things which indicate that the writer is a man and, on the other hand, there are touches that seem to be distinctively feminine..... Each reader will have the pleasure of attempting to solve this mystery for himself; and whether he succeeds or not will have the pleasure to be derived from a well-told story."
--Philadelphia Inquirer.

See? It's a sales angle! You don't know if it's a man or a woman! The suspense is killing me! No, not "killing me"...what's that other thing? Oh yes, "making me scowl in disgust at how ridiculous using this as a promotional angle is".

Let me put you out of your misery. The N is for Nannie. Miss Nannie B. Winston, possibly the same N. B. Winston who was Vice-Regent of the Old Dominon chapter of the DAR...that much I found out (I think...corrections are more than welcome). I love how the Times assumed a Mister out of N. B. Winston, as if gurlz weren't allowed to have initials. You give those chicks a monogram, next thing they'll ask to vote, and wear trousers, and--God forbid--pee standing up! It's like cats wanting to be dogs, I tell ya!

Now that we've gotten that bit of low comedy out of the way, let's see what other reviews the publisher dredged up.

"Waters That Pass Away is one of the rare books that emphasizes notably the true greatness of the human heart. It is written from the depths of the highest possible realization and expressed with an eloquence that touches one irresistibly. It stands for the truest moral nobility, for the conscious mastery by humanity of the problems that have so long essayed to unite head and heart into concerted harmony of action. It is written by N. B. Winston, to whose quality of discernment and rational application it does rare honor for its artistic consistency."
--Boston Ideas

"There is a deep lesson of life to be learned from a book like this, and in it one may study character, and the infallible trend of social consequences, sorrow ever following sin, and sin in its turn yielding to joy when true repentance follows after." --Philadelphia Item

"The author has achieved an interesting problem novel in Waters That Pass Away."
--The Mirror, St. Louis.

In other words, get ready for some world-class suffering. Gee, THANKS Dave.

And now, our sources...um, source.

• Google Books has posted the only web copy (originally from the NY Public Library), which wasn't all there until a recent rescan. Because it looks like this book was scanned "non-destructively"--that is, this rare library copy wasn't chopped up and fed through a high-speed automatic scanner--you can occasionally see the fingers of the person running the machine on the edges of some pages and, even more disconcerting, fingers which were filtered out...along with small bits of the text. (To see the human touch in action, flip to the two images following p. 281...that's a picture of the page actually being turned.) Still, all the pages are there, which means I've got something I can work with, and the blanked-out bits (all in the early chapters) are usually small enough to be read around.
  

Since this time I'm going to have to type in my quote blocks instead of stealing them from a plain text alternate (oh, the tragedy!), any questionable transcriptions I'm compelled to make will be bracketed.

Hang in there, gang! The new adventure begins soon!

Links to the spoiler-laden chapter recaps (links go live as they're posted):
Book I: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. (with a Halftime Report)
Book II: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
And the Post Game Wrap-Up.

Round 2: The Hooligan Nights

This time my project's early adopters let me pull the rabbit out of the hat. Maybe they were demoralized that I had such a good time with the first book.

For round two, filed under the heading of "Travel and Adventure", I've picked The Hooligan Nights by Clarence Rook (1862-1915), who has been described by Gale’s Contemporary Authors Online as “…a shadowy figure whose writing rested uneasily between fiction and journalism.” Already I'm intrigued...

The Hooligan Nights. Being the life and opinions of a young and unrepentant criminal recounted by himself, as set forth by Clarence Rook. 12mo. New York: Henry Holt & Co. $1.25

Mr. Clarence Rook declares that this work of his, with the strange title, is "not a novel, or in any sense a work of imagination." Hooligan is a London burglar, and the main character is a young thief, Alf by name; and Alf, because of his boldness as a pickpocket and general rascal, becomes in time the leader of the Hooligan band. Mr. Rook has made a careful study of the criminal class in London, which wages constant war on society and exists because it robs. Now, writes Mr. Rook, considering Alf as the type, he should be unhappy, "but as a matter of fact he is nothing of the sort; and, when you come to think of it, Alf has had a better time than an average clerk on a limited number of shillings." You never could persuade Alf "that honesty is the best policy." The young villain's conduct is not commended; there is no apology offered. Alf was born a thief, and is bound to die one. "The Hooligan Nights" is curious, as the author gives the peculiar slang or argot of the London thief.

--New York Times, June 24, 1899.

A rascal? Watch out, he's one thrashing away from become a scallywag! I'd hate to be a dustbin in Shaftsbury tonight... (There's also a fuller review available, if you're up for it. It's worth reading just for the telling tidbit that boxing is awesome and manly, while boxing for money is morally repugnant. So if you're going to beat the tar out of someone, do it for free or you're going to Hell...)

Obviously this required further preliminaries, and from just a touch of research I found that The Hooligan Nights, which was reprinted in 1979 (presumably as part of the Victorian pop lit revival that also gave us back Varney the Vampire) and dramatized on BBC radio as recently as last year, casts a respectable shadow over the genre of crime literature. It made such an impression on turn-of-the-century London that the author was actively pursued as an advisor on the criminal and delinquency issues his book raised. The book has been name checked and referenced in modern books and articles about organized crime, juvenile delinquency, and the rise of teen culture, and arguably gave the English language a new word to boot.

And yet somehow all that attention still doesn't ring my chimes. After all, one of the motivators of this project is that lots of books that seemed like a good idea at the time are dire slogs a hundred years down the line. Dammit, I need a tipping point. So let's see what this contemporary ad's pull-quote tells us. C'mon, baby, sell it to me...

"The Hooligan Nights" must be accorded a position of honour in the mean-street library...it is splendid reading, and a valuable revelation of the natural history of Hooliganism... The joys and sorrows of the modern Artful Dodger, the highly developed trickiness and casual brutality of the under-life of London are certainly most fascinating in Mr. Rook's editorial hands.
--Pall Mall Gazette, as quoted in a publisher's advertisement.

Hey, casual brutality! Now we're talking! On top of that, I've been assured that at no time does the story "point to a moral"; Alf's story is what it is, and any heavy-handed judgment must come from the reader. And you know I'm all about that. And just like that, we're off again...

And now, for those of you who want to play along at home, our sources:

• Google Books has two full-view versions of the first American edition--one digitized from Widener Library at Harvard, the other from University of California. Since they're both from the same edition, we're going to assume one is as good as the other until experience or missing pages prove us wrong. At least this time we have the last page of the story. (All page references will be tied to this version.)
  
• The Victorian Dictionary has the full text in HTML (albeit with OCR errors), each chapter on its own page for your convenience...although sadly not the "frontspiece in colours". The full site also has all kinds of dandy illustrations and articles relating to the days and the times, so it'll come in handy.

Chapter Recaps (chock full of spoilers, links go live as they're posted): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and the (less-spoilery) Post-Game Report.

Round One: A Hungarian Nabob

This is the point where I was going to enter the complete introductory piece, to give you the full flavor of the task I've taken on, but thanks to the florid prose that seems so common to this type of 19th century feature writing, this is as far as I got before I surrendered:

What delightful pictures the very name of books for Summer reading brings to our mind--pictures of past holidays as well as visions of past holidays, as well as visions of the many delightful journeys we are always planning; days spent under the trees, in canoes, or flying before the wind on beautiful Long Island Sound; or, as often happens, becalmed in one of its many bays; or perhaps the day may be spent in what Ashby-Sterry called "Happy Hammockuity."

If you swing in a hammock on a summer day through,
And dream with profound assiduity,
A new phase of content it will give unto you,
Which philosophers call Hammockuity.

Or perhaps one's happy lot may be cast by the side of one of Dr. van Dyke's "Little Rivers," in which case, or, in fact, in any circumstances, what pleasanter companion could one have than that delightful book?

In Summer, as at all other times, Dr. Johnson's counsel, to "read the book you do honestly feel a wish and curiosity to read," is the best of advice; but perhaps at this season of the year there is greater latitude in the choice. One could never do much serious studying, or even solid reading, out of doors. There is quite too much to distract one's attention; now a bird, a flower, the outline of the trees against a brilliant sky; now the very changes in that sky itself, the rapidly floating clouds, with their varying shapes; or again, the absolutely cloudless, deep blue sky above us [...]

And it just keeps going on and on like that, and in my mind I picture it being read by a plummy voice with clipped enunciation, glasses sitting on the end of the nose...oh, and I suppose there's a person attached to all that, too. And yeah, I know, it's sentimental because it's supposed to be about the romance of it all--summer and reading and daydreaming and feeling sorry for the poor sods who look at daffodils and only see daffodils--but you'll forgive me if I don't have the stomach to type out the whole thing in one sitting. You're invited to read the whole thing at the New York Times site. In fact, I'd highly recommend it. Cut off a piece. Chew every bite. See if I care.

By the way, I actually have the complete poem. If you're good, I'll even keep it to myself. "Hammockuity". Oy.

As for the first book of the project, I got a grand total of two votes after the list went up the other week, one for Mrs. Hugh Fraser's Letters From Japan, the other for A Hungarian Nabob by Maurus Jokai (or Mór Jókai, if you want to split hairs). In the event of a tie, it falls to me to break the deadlock, so Nabob it is. Before we get to my first thoughts, here's what the listmakers had to say:

A Hungarian Nabob. By Maurus Jokai. Second Edition. Size 5 by 7 1/2. Decorative Binding. 358 pages. The Doubleday & McClure Company $1.25

Maurus Jokai is the Hungarian Alexander Dumas, for Jokai delights in the dramatic situation, and is a master of dialogue. Material for romance abounds in the land of the Magyar, for even up to the first quarter of this century the Hungarian noble was a figure apart. There was still traces of mediaevalism about him, and he was a most picturesque creation. Maurus Jokai's principal personage is an eccentric nabob, and he makes of him an imposing figure among the nobility. The author has an admirable descriptive style, and follows the romantic impulses of the period. In Hungary this novel has attained the position of a classic and has helped to keep alive the national feeling. "A Hungarian Nabob," as translated by Mr. R. Nisbet Bain, loses nothing of its original vigor, but is pervaded with the spirit, the go, of the original text.

As it turns out, Nabob wasn't particularly new in 1899, being about fifty years old at this point; apparently what was "new" about it was this English edition. According to Wikipedia, Jokai was "a combination, in almost equal parts, of Walter Scott, William Beckford, Dumas père, and Charles Dickens, together with a strong hint of Hungarian patriotism." As well-meaning as that description must be, Mark Twain planted a big, red flag for me on the border of Walter Scott-Land, so I'm already on my guard without even opening the book. But as far as 19th century Hungarian novelists go, I've been assured Jokai was important with a capital I, so Nabob should kick us off in the grand manner.

However, before anybody gets a case of national pride from this choice, the guy who recommended Nabob just liked the sound of the word "nabob". And yes, he's an American, too. Thanks for asking.

I'll be posting (possibly spoiler-laden) reports as I go and a post-game wrap-up once I reach the end. And as promised, here's where you can find the full text if you want to play along at home:

• Google Books (Image scans from the University of Michigan collection. Since I'm going for the "original" experience, this is the text I'll be using...at least until I run across pages which are missing or out of order. As much as I dig Google Books, a lot of texts I'm interested in aren't entirely there, even when they're supposed to be. That's when I go to my backup...)
  
• Project Gutenberg (Plain text and HTML versions. If you're interested in just the text, rather than obsessing over some anal-retentive "purity of experience" (guilty as charged), you'll do just fine with this version and it'll only take up a fraction of the space.)

Late addition! Skip to the spoilerific chapter recaps (links go live as they're posted): Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and the Post-Game Wrap-up.