Posted on 10/06/2019 9:09:58 PM PDT by vannrox
People did have a fear of being buried alive. Prior to 1900, embalming was not practiced and I have read of some studies that, judging by the scratching on the lids of exhumed coffins, suggest that about 100,000 people a year could well have been buried alive in the US before the wide use of embalming. There are still tales of it happening in 3rd world countries.
And we know the old stories of ‘saved by the bell’ and the like.
Poe, Lovecraft, Bierce. Staples of my childhood reading.
Ok, I see your point. I hope your happy. Haven’t seen IT. I think I’m on creeped out overload lately with movies and TV.
I miss Bonanza.. Ben, Boss, little Joe.
Great stuff. Also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAE1XTvKLXA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5NN8fK1tXo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHNxBheFAt4
Bonanza!!!!
I liked that show a lot :)
Everything is going to have a gay guy/girl and maybe a tranny in it.
Hope life finds you well :)
True. But that was pretty much par for the course for anyone living in the 19th Century.
One of my prized books was The Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce- I see that a similar edition is available on Kindle for $3, prolly half what I paid for the big paperback 45 yrs ago.
His writing holds up well. Although soldier that he was, in some stories he used Civil War military terminology that at first was unfamiliar to me.
A lot of people will know Bierce from his ‘An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge’ that a French filmmaker and Twilight Zone turned into a gem:
A few years earlier, I was mesmerized by a book of my mothers, that contains the essays of Montaigne, but it was the Dali illustrations that scared and fascinated me. At 6, Montaigne was so far above my ability to read, let alone understand, that that doesn't count at all. But many years latter, I did read that book and now own it.
It's so nice to see all of the posters who were earlier readers and who still cherish great literary works!
Very clever of you to throw in the old saying: "save by the bell" and so casually!
We appear to have read the same 3 authors as kids! :-)
Do you also have his other works as well? I have a couple of others and especially enjoyed THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY.
Yes, that TWILIGHT ZONE episode sent me off to find and read his works.
Watching ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, sent me off to search out and read books and stories by Harlan Ellison and the adult books by Roald Dahl, who I had NO idea had written/was writing books for kids.
I took the opposite route from your Mother: I did nonfiction first.
If you're not familiar with them, you might enjoy the works of M.R. James.
I think that the edition I had may have included some of his Devil’s Dictionary; but I’m not sure anymore and the book is boxed away somewhere.
I checked a little more and I think that what I had is “The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce, with an introduction by Clifton Fadiman”. That introduction is the tipoff for me, and it looks like there was a 1973 reprint of a 1946 book. 1973 sounds like when I purchased it.
Being something of a misanthrope, Bierce appeals to me. As does Florence King, who’s a misanthrope and funny as hell.
Somehow I’ve never read Harlan Ellison and Road Dahl that I can remember. I have been on a Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Black Mask kick with Audible, I’ll see if they have some Ellison and Dahl.
I really don't know why, but everyone in my immediate family, going back several generations and forward one after me, does the fiction first. My grandson, OTOH, has always read fiction and non-fiction, about to the same extent; though now is a bit heavier in reading non-required/for his own pleasure, non-fiction books.
As long as a person is well versed in both kinds, I doubt it matters how one begins/ends up with reading choices.
This seems to be a common denominator for all avid readers (and highly intelligent people). They were encouraged to read from an early age by their parents and had no restrictions on what they could read.
My own parents never believed I was "too young" to read something. If I was able to read it, then I was able to absorb it, understand it and put it in the proper context.
Like you, if I found something I liked, I endeavored to read everything by that author. I remember reading Jack London's "Call Of The Wild" in fourth grade. Within a year of that, I had read everything that Jack London wrote, including "John Barleycorn" and "People of the Abyss" - which was heady reading for a 4th grader.
He also wrote tons of T.V. and movie critiques; all of which I have have also read. He has a very mordant wit, which I find quite funny.
Hitchcock used quite a few of Dahl's short stories for his show; my favorite one is, IIRC, called :"THE LEG OF LAMB". I don't know if they are still in print, but his stories, in this vein, used to be available in paperback collections; which is what I bought in the late '50s.
I'm not certain just when I bought the Bierce anthology, but I think that it must have been about the same time that you bought it. THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY was just an excerpt, so I bought the entire book and another one too, at the same time.
Have you ever read any of Jack Finney's books/short stories/novellas? You might enjoy him. His best known is probably INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, due to all of the movies made from that book. But his other work is also VERY good; though his much awaited sequel to TIME AND AGAIN ( my favorite of his books ) was NOT up to snuff; sadly.
Dickens, Twain, W.S. Gilbert, and James Fenimore Cooper were my 3rd & 4th grade authors of choice for me. It was in the 4th grade that I found Robert Heinlein, which got me hooked on Sci-Fi.
I don’t know Finney, I’ll have to investigate. I see than Audible has some Ellison that I can try. The Dahl that they have are his kid’s books.
Some of his short stories are also fantasy, one novella is a ghost story and also marvelous. The movie made from it was not well done at all; sadly.
Too bad re Dahl's adult work; his murder mysteries are delightful and wickedly funny!
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