Tidbits of Times Past

The Mirror of Taste and Dramatic Censor, Volume 1, Number 2, February 1810, edited by Stephen Cullen Carpenter. Published 1810.

This issue includes the play Man and Wife; or, More Secrets than One: A Comedy by Samuel James Arnold.

Thanks to Nigel Blower for post-processing this project!

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Werwolves, by Elliott O’Donnell. Published 1912.

Thanks to Lisa Reigel for post-processing this project!

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Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking, by unknown. Publishers unstated, undated [ca. 1960?].

This was a pretty fun cookbook to do. I’ve made the Sugar Pie, and am planning on trying a couple of other recipes, too (likely something with Rivels).

• 2 cups flour
• 1 heaping cup brown sugar
• 1½ tblsp. shortening
• 1 tsp. soda
• ½ cup buttermilk or sour cream
• salt
• 1 9-inch, unbaked pastry shell

Combine sugar, flour and soda. Cut in the shortening and blend well. Add the liquid and rub into coarse crumbs. Put crumbs loosely into the unbaked pie shell. Bake in moderate oven (375-f) for 40 minutes. This is a breakfast treat especially good for dunking in coffee.

Pennsylvania Dutch Cookery, undated, unattributed, publisher unstated. Distributed by Dutchcraft Company, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The Making of Bobby Burnit; Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man, by George Randolph Chester. Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg and F. R. Gruger. ©1908 & 1909.

Every so often I take a break from Buchanan’s Journal of Man and The Knickerbocker and post-process somebody else’s project. Usually it’s an essay book or some crap vintage fiction. This time it’s a novel that can best be described as a “business romance” with overtones of creepiness and the occasional thrill.

Bobby Burnit’s successful merchant father, John Burnit, has died, leaving his 3 million dollar estate wholly to his son. Half has been placed in trust so that Bobby can maintain a good living, and the other half is to be doled out in 250k chunks for Bobby to either succeed or fail in business. Each failure leads to another draw. The idea is that the elder Burnit had not done well to train his son in Business, and therefore is using this staged bankruptcy to help Bobby determine if he is just going to have to live on Daddy’s fortune or if he can create his own.

That’s the business part. Without giving away too much of the plot, Bobby is basically a good guy, though a bit naïve, and invests in everything from swampland to public utilities to a newspaper to an opera company, and is continually taken for a ride. At his side is Agnes, Bobby’s sweetheart and one of his father’s trustees. She, of course, is smart, forthright and beautiful, and refuses to marry Bobby until he has either succeeded or failed. That’s the romance part.

The thrills are some political machinations, bits of fisticuffs, and a near drowning.

The creepy part isn’t eldritch so much as just well, creepy. Bobby’s father knew just what Bobby’s path to success or failure would be, and left short letters with his trustees to be given to Bobby at appropriate points. So throughout the book, Bobby is handed a gray envelope, often labeled something like “To my son, on the occasion of his buying swampland” or “To my son, on the loss of the business to that Silas Trimmer.” John Burnit is as much a character as the ex-pugilist sidekick (and has better lines), but except for the original fault of training Bobby correctly the first time, was apparently perfect at everything he did. Perhaps he was just precognitive.

This book was made into a 4-reel movie in 1914. The synopsis, according to TCM:

Bobby Burnit, a naïve young man, inherits $300,000 from his father, a hard-working entrepreneur. Because the will specifies that the money must be invested, Agnes Elliston, Bobby’s sweetheart, suggests that he take over his father’s chain of stores. Soon Bobby becomes the dupe of various swindlers and charlatans, among them Sam Stone and Bobby’s shady lawyer. With the help of Bobby’s friend Biff Bates and Daniel Johnson, a loyal employee of Bobby’s father, the swindlers are exposed in the newspaper and Bobby’s inheritance is saved. Finally, after rescuing Agnes from Stone’s advances, Bobby proposes to her, thus complying with all of his late father’s wishes.

Like most movies based on novels, it seems to be merely inspired by the novel. Bobby didn’t have a “shady lawyer” in the book. For other changes, you’ll just have to read it for yourself.

Buchanan’s Journal of Man, Volume 1, Number 5, by Joseph Rodes Buchanan. Published June 1887.

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It seems that biography as well as history will have to be re-written in the light of modern progress. Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography has sent out its first volume, edited by Gen. Wilson and Prof. John Fiske. The sources of this volume do not promise much liberality, and the first volume does not show it. While professing to record the lives of all who are eminent or noteworthy, it fulfils this promise by recording many who are not very eminent or noteworthy; indeed, Mr. Lowell says, by way of commendation, that he has hunted for obscure names and found them. What then is the reason of the omission of the Hon. Cassius M. Clay, our former minister to Russia, one of the most conspicuous figures for many years in American politics and par excellence, the lion of the struggle which ended in negro emancipation? His life, recently published is a volume of fascinating and romantic interest. Mr. Clay might treat this omission as the old Roman said of having a statue in the forum–that he would rather men should ask why he had no statue there, than to ask why his statue was there. Dr. Joseph Rodes Buchanan is briefly noticed, his name incorrectly spelled, a catalogue of his publications given, and a volume attributed to him which was written by the notorious Dr. John Buchanan of Philadelphia. But nothing is said of the new school of philosophy, or of the new sciences, established by Dr. Buchanan. Evidently this is old fogy biography. The editors have gathered their material with a scoop, unable to distinguish between dirt, pebbles and jewels. Nevertheless they have made a valuable record if not a fair one.

Frenzied Finance; Volume 1: The Crime of Amalgamated, by Thomas W. Lawson. Published 1905.

Thanks to Anonymous for post-processing this project!

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