This is supposedly history for people who hate history. The irony comes from the fact that the more you know history, the more you will enjoy and app This is supposedly history for people who hate history. The irony comes from the fact that the more you know history, the more you will enjoy and appreciate these tongue in cheek biographies and sketches of famous and infamous personages ranging Cheops and Cleopatra through Nero, Attila, Charlemagne, various Greats (Peter, Catherine, Frederick), several Tudors, to Montezuma and Miles Standish, not neglecting naughty ladies such as Lucrezia Borgia and Lady Godiva. The late Will Cuppy worked on the sketches in this book from 1933 until his death in 1964. Before penning one of his historical vignettes, he would engage in extensive research and amass all the information he could find on his subject, making extensive notes on 3 X 5 cards. Upon his death it fell to Fred Feldkamp to organize some 200 file boxes of material into a coherent publication. Perhaps that is why GR lists some 30 different editions over the half century since his death. My edition, for example has 28 sketches rather than the 22 the GR description mentions, as well as pencil illustrations of the biographees by William Steig. Each biography is accompanied by a dozen or so irreverent footnotes commenting on the subjects' contemporaries and their foibles. If you can find a copy, buy it and enjoy.
Books like this should be banned! Or at the very least hidden away from those like me who have a serious task to perform. In my case winnowing my ext Books like this should be banned! Or at the very least hidden away from those like me who have a serious task to perform. In my case winnowing my extensive library by disposing of 90% of its contents (200 plus linear feet on the shelves) in preparation of downsizing to smaller quarters. This Complete New Yorker Cartoons book is too heavy to simply toss into a box. One has to pick it up, and, once you have picked it up, you have to at least take a peek inside, see an amusing cartoon, often featuring a naked lady ----the New Yorker apparently reveled in naked ladies --- and then turn the page, and you are lost. Time passes and your shelved books remain unsorted. Thankfully, the weight of the book is such that one can't hold it forever so one puts it aside and reluctantly returns to the task of sorting and discarding. And, sadly, I put it into the KEEP pile instead of among the DISCARDs so inevitably this scenario will be repeated again at a later date. If I ever put the CDs containing the 60,000 or so cartoons that did not make it into the printed version, I will be truly lost and condemned to live in this house forever. Books like this should be banned. ...more
In this book of cartoons, Zelig-type character J. Wesley Smith pops up at various points in western history uttering fatuous, impertinent, and otherw In this book of cartoons, Zelig-type character J. Wesley Smith pops up at various points in western history uttering fatuous, impertinent, and otherwise impertinent remarks, such as looking over the shoulder of an Arab drawing circles and saying, "So you have invented zero. What do you have? Nothing," ...more
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