The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter January 7, 2004
eBooks Readable By Both Humans and Computers For Since 1971
Part 1
In this week's Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter:
1) Editorial
2) News and Comment
3) Notes and Queries, Reviews and Features
4) Mailing list information
Editorial
Hello,
Ah, here we are another year older and hopefully, another year
wiser. The end of the production year rolls into view and expect more
from Michael on that later in the week. At this time of year people
seem to do predictions, I don't think I dare at the moment, given the
way that targets and predictions seem to disappear at an ever
increasing rate.
Have a great week.
Happy reading,
Alice
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2) News and Comment
Other news this week
A request from Michael Hart for famous quotations from PG eBooks. Any
suitable candidates to Michael please: hart@beryl.ils.unc.edu
Another request, this time from me. Those nice people at DP are
looking to compile a list of websites that have archive images of
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to millions of text images on it, please let me know at the newsletter
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Radio Gutenberg Update
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channel 1 - Sherlock Holmes "The Sign of Four"
channel 2 - Robert Sheckley's "Bad Medicine"
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3) Notes and Queries, Reviews and Features
'Simple but smashing laughter of the best tales of Mr. W. W. Jacobs'
- Cockneys and their Jokes, G. K. Chesterton
The gloria mundi not only transits but also does some unexpected
twists. The old debauchee-captains, mates in love and resourceful
ship's boys are now almost forgotten, smashed by old scary monkey
paw. And who was once told to represent 'the return of great comic
classics', now deserves one line on the hyperdictionary.com 'English
writer of macabre short stories (1863-1943)' and his books are listed
in the division of horrors. Actually, it fits perfectly to Mr. Jacobs
narrative's style. Almost always twisted at the end, elaborated pieces
of craftsmanship are they, the short stories about turmoils and
affairs of the people dwelling around Thames.
Funny, but besides the sacramental numbers 1863 - 1943 not much info
about this writer can be found in the cobweb-threads, only plaintive
cries for help from those who has to write a school essay about this
once extremely popular author. OK, here is what could be found after
painstaking scraping:
Mister William Wymark Jacobs was born on September 8, 1863 in the
humble house of wharf manager, that was located on the wharf itself in
the docs of Wapping in London. Surely the modesty is a relative thing
and for the most of the seafarers the manager's house was a symbol of
wealth and prosperity. The young Jacobs has got an education in
private schools - small business-like institutions run by an
entrepreneurial proprietor. Opposite to the expensive 'public' schools
for upper classes. After finishing his education at the age of 16,
William took a position as a clerk in Post Office Savings Bank. O, my
after real life of docs, boats and sea journeys during not too
demanding school times, the work as a small clerk was chocking. He
hated this 'captivity' passionately and dreamed about freedom. And
naturally he started to write, creating his own world based on his
limited but colorful experiences. Seafaring adventures without pirates
or big proud galleons, sailing journeys to the nearest river doc,
funny somewhat awkward love affairs of bargemen and dockworkers ? poor
but sympathetic life of the simple people around him. Since 1885 he
started to publish his works in minor magazines, but his first
collection of the short stories 'Many Cargoes' was published only in
the year 1896 (http://gutenberg.net/etext04/mncrg10.txt). For the
person who grew up in the world where earning bread was inexplicitly
by the sweat of one's brow, was very hard to believe that he may draw
his wage from something so ephemeral as writing the stories. So he
allowed to himself to leave his hated post at the Savings Bank only in
1898 after publishing his third collection 'Sea Urchins', that was
also published at the same time in New York as 'More Cargoes' (an
American publisher decided probably to show the connection with first
success more clearly ?). At this time he was already a known and
successful writer, who's works appeared in Jerome K. Jerome's Idle and
To-Day and even accepted in the Strand - the most prestigious fiction
magazine at that time. At the year 1900 he took even more unusual step
and married socialist and suffragette Agnes Eleanor
Williams. According to the rumors their alliance was not perfect.. The
conservative, careful and even little bit pessimistic William was
scarcely a real friend of energetic suffragist that wanted to change
this old world for good. If to apply Freud theory and to analyze his
stories, however, he was ready and accustomed for the confrontational
manner of the male-female relationships. In most of his novel about
married life a woman is demanding and a man tries to avoid fulfilling
her demands as peaceful as possible ? a good example is
http://gutenberg.net/1/0/5/6/10561/10561.txt . In any case Agnes and
William stayed together and even raised four children ? two boys and
two girls. Since 1916 Jacobs writes little and more adapting his old
stories into short plays. He died popular in London nursing house at
the age of eighty the middle of WW2.
And for the summery and discussion part - David Widger is now loading
the collection 'Ship's company' to PG - it will be nice to read
them. Even with not much of intellectual curiosity as snobbishly
said once about the author Arnold Bennet, Jacobs' stories are
enjoyable and perfectly done like a home-made soup of Grandma. So
hopefully the curse of Monkey Paw will be cleared off, and in the
future the writer will take his honorable place somewhere nearby
O'Henry and old Jerome in the long internet reference lists.
There is another collection already on PG:
http://gutenberg.net/etext04/shrcs10.txt, and for those who reads in
Russian http://abssf.narod.ru/st-cap.htm. In web you can find plenty
of terrifying camp-story versions, so if you like to be scared to
death you can help yourself and search for 'Monkey Paw'. That it is
more or less,
Sweet reading to all of you,
Gali
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Credits
Thanks this week to Brett and George for the numbers and the
booklists. Thierry, Gali, Branko, Steve Herber (ask and you will
receive - just don't ask for money though!), Greg, Michael and Larry
Wall. Entertainment for the workers provided as usual by Andrew
Collins and BBC 6Music. 2004 - already !?!?!
pgweekly_2004_01_07_part_1.txt
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