Unclassified Classics

 

Tyll Ulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, by Moritz Jagendorf. Illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg.

Ex-library book. The child’s version of the German trickster, with a lot less dung in the stories. Emphasizes his pranks upon the rich and powerful as sort of a joking Robin Hood. Really embellished by Eichenberg’s artwork, evoking a medieval style.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Folk Tale. Humor. Hardback.

Till Eulenspiegel, Translated by Paul Oppenheimer.

The classic stories of the German trickster. “Till Eulenspiegel is the most famous German folk hero, a roving jester whose exploits, translated into dozens of languages, and influencing composers such as Richard Strauss, have fascinated and delighted millions for nearly five hundred years. This is the first translation of the earliest known complete edition of 1515, with interpolations from previous fragments. Its introduction recreates the historical context of the tales, while exploring their meanings and considering the controversial question of their authorship. This edition also includes the entire set of sixteenth-century woodcuts, which perfectly illustrate Till Eulenspiegel's piercing and bawdy wit.” – Amazon.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Folk Tales. German. Softcover.

The Amplified New Testament, Zondervan Publishing House.

Can’t even find a principal managing editor; probably quite a large committee. Mom had this second-hand book and wrote her name in it. Volumes such as this can be useful for triangulating a doubtful meaning, but it also seems to me to arouse quibbles and debates.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: New Testament. Translation Variants. Hardback.

Byron: Poetical Works, by George Gordon, Lord Byron.

“Oxford Standard Authors.” A chunky little book, in good shape for its age (1966). Bought it at the new Seguin Library. Never know when I might get into one of these Romantic poets.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Poetry. Softcover.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo.

The Book League of America Edition. This is the old copy we had since childhood, and that I read from in Daryl Fleming’s drama class. It’s in pretty rough shape; I think it was one of Pop’s dump rescues and spent some time in the garage. But here it is. Somewhat edited and given the more sensational title.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Novel. Classic. Hardback.

Blake’s Poetry and Designs, Edited by Mary Lynn Johnson and John E. Grant.

A Norton Critical Edition. I have always been interested in Blake, since high school, though it seems that his poetry takes a great deal of sifting to find the undoubted gold. And his artwork, though visionary, always seem like images printed on clouds rather than anything you could see in waking life. Perhaps that is their strength. Puzzling, significant, teasing, Blake is a presence that continues to intrigue me. Bought at the new Seguin library bookstore. [My cover has a red border; possibly an older edition. Otherwise it is identical.]

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Poetry. Art. Softcover.

The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce. Compiled by Ernest Jerome Hopkins.

It is hard to calculate the particular appeal of Bierce’s prose style, or the affect of one of his stories. His viewpoint appears to be clinical, unemotional, almost Olympian; he observes landscape with a keen eye, clothing and persons with the assessment of a pawnbroker or an anatomist. What emotion he expresses is a contrast of facts: a deaf child wandering in a storm, a corpse laid on a kitchen table, a soldier in danger of his life wandering through a wild landscape. He describes circumstances with a detached irony, never invoking our pity or terror, but evoking it from the circumstances. You can sense his attitude – a kind of cynical acceptance of the hard ways of the world, almost arising to but never reaching sympathy with life’s victims, the mild tutting of one who has his own problems and would not bear the emotional burden of empathy with another. I can imagine him saying, “I can see how you feel, kid, but them’s the breaks,” though not in such bald words. Anyway, his horror stories are almost unparalleled, and his true-life stories are horrors.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Short Stories. Softcover.