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“The Chimes” is Dickens’ second Christmas book, the first being “A Christmas Carol.” It continues his social commentaries on the poor. Structured similarly to “A Christmas Carol,” the main character, Trotty, witnesses an alternative future through a series of visions and ultimately is given a second chance to put things right. “The Chimes” was a bestseller in its day, but has since been eclipsed by “A Christmas Carol.” “The Chimes” is illustrated with thirteen engravings by artists John Leech, John Tenniel, Richard Doyle, Daniel Maclise and Clarkson Stanfield.
In all, Dickens wrote five Christmas books: “A Christmas Carol” (1843), “The Chimes” (though dated 1845 it was released in December 1844), “The Cricket on the Hearth” (1845), “The Battle of Life” (1846), and “The Haunted Man” (1848).
In this classic nineteenth-century thriller, the respectable and mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll develops a potion that unleashes a loathsome character, the dark and evil Mr. Hyde. The author, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer whose most famous works are “Treasure Island” (1883), “Kidnapped” (1886), and “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1886). Stevenson now ranks among the 26 most translated authors in the world.
The “Jekyll and Hyde” story is commonly associated with the rare mental condition called “split personality,” often referred to in psychiatry as dissociative identity disorder, where within the same body there exists more than one distinct personality. In this case, two personalities are within Dr Jekyll, one apparently good and the other evil. The novel's impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the very phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" coming to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next. [Source: Wikipedia]
Giovanni Bartolomeo Bosco (1793-1863) was an Italian magician during the mid-19th century. He is best known for his adroitness with the famous Cups and Balls. When he was nineteen years old, he was drafted into Napoleon's Army. In 1812, Bosco was wounded during the Battle of Borodino by a Cossack lancer. He pretended to be dead as he noticed someone searching the dead bodies for loot. The looter went through Bosco's things while at the same time Bosco picked the looter's pocket. Bosco was taken prisoner in Siberia and entertained the other prisoners and the guards with his magic. After the war, he returned home to Turin in 1814, and studied medicine for a short time. Bosco went on to perform his magic for the ruler of Russia as well as the heads of state of Prussia, Sweden, and France. [Source: Wikipedia]
Corinth was the first to publish the Phantom Detective in book form. The pulp hero actually debuted in February 1933 in "The Phantom Detective Magazine"and continued until 1953 for a total of 170 issues. Wealthy Richard Curtis Van Loan is secretly the Phantom Detective, respected crime-solver and master of disguise and escape, along with his sidekick, Chip Dorian. The Phantom was the obvious inspiration for Batman (who first appeared in May 1939) and, like Batman, the Phantom had a Bat-Signal, a red beacon on the roof of the Clarion building.
Here is a look at the Phantom Detective in an original magazine appearance:
www.flickr.com/photos/57440551@N03/13986873238/in/set-721...
This final collection of the miscellaneous writings of H. P. Lovecraft contains over a dozen poems, the provocative and controversial title essay, "Something About Cats," pieces from Lovecraft's little-known magazine, "The Conservative," the burlesque, "The Battle that Ended the Century," and notes for such famous stories as "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," "At the Mountains of Madness," and "The Shadow Out of Time."
In addition, around half dozen stories by other hands, in which Lovecraft took part, either by revision or suggestion, are included. Among them are "The Invisible Monster," by Sonia H. Greene; "Satan's Servants," by Robert Bloch; "The Last Test" and "The Electric Executioner," by Adolphe de Castro; and "The Horror in the Burying-Ground," by Hazel Heald.
Finally, friends of Lovecraft have contributed to this volume certain studies and appreciations, such as the memoirs by Rheinhart Kleiner and Samuel Loveman; the remembrance by Sonia H. Davis, who was for some years the wife of H. P. Lovecraft; the addenda to "H. P. L.: A Memoir," by August Derleth; a portrait of Lovecraft as few people knew him, by E. Hoffmann Price; Fritz Leiber, Jr.'s study of Lovecraft's work; and poems in tribute by Vincent Starrett and August Derleth.
Robert Bonfils was the art director and cover artist for the San Diego-based Hamling Organization during the sixties and seventies and, for a decade, he worked exclusively for them. He produced some of his best covers during this period. The books were published under imprints such as Nightstand Books, Leisure Books, Adult Books, Candid Readers, Companion Books and other lines within the Hamling group. Before then, he produced book covers for the Chicago-based Merit Books and Newsstand Library and Las Vegas’ Playtime Books. He retired from doing cover art in the mid seventies, but he remained active as a painter of fine art in San Diego. Bonfils covers are now incredibly popular and sought after by book collectors, particularly fans of what is called “good girl art” (or GGA).
Z movie director Ed Wood was responsible for terribly awful cult films: Plan 9 from Outer Space, Bride of the Monster, Orgy of the Dead, and other schlock masterpieces. His books are equally moronic.
Woodcut from The Illustrated News of the World – First Edition 1858.
‘The Illustrated News of the World and National Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages’ was a new publication with numerous large woodcuts to illustrate local and world events, and also featuring a number of fine steel engravings of eminent persons. A competitor to the existing illustrated magazines:- The Illustrated London News and Punch Magazine .
Published by Illustrated News of the World, The Strand, London. Annual bound collection, red cloth boards 338 pages 42cm x 29cm.
Pictured here are the stars of the play: Jayne Mansfield (as Rita Marlowe), Lew Gallo (as the Masseur), Walter Matthau (as Michael Freeman) and Orson Bean (as George MacCauley).
The play is an original comedy in three acts and four scenes. After a try-out run at the Plymouth Theatre in Boston from September 26, 1955, it opened at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway on October 13, starring Jayne Mansfield, Walter Matthau and Orson Bean. Directed by the author and produced by Jule Styne, it closed on November 3, 1956 after 444 performances.
The play is a Faustian comedy about a fan magazine writer who sells his soul to the Devil (in the guise of a literary agent) to become a successful screenwriter. The character of Rita Marlowe (played by Jayne Mansfield) is a vapid blonde sex symbol, an exaggerated lampoon of Marilyn Monroe (who had starred the previous year in the film version of Axelrod's play "The Seven Year Itch"). The surname Marlowe is an homage to 16th century playwright Christopher Marlowe, who wrote the 1604 drama The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, the plot of which served as the inspiration for Axelrod's play.
[Source: Wikipedia]
George Axelrod, born in New York, is probably best known for “The Seven Year Itch” – his first Broadway comedy – which ran for almost three years, toured very successfully, flowered in translation all over the world, and eventually was made into a movie – with this iconic scene:
From the Book "John Lennon In His Own Write." New York: Simon & Schuster, 1964. First American edition.
“Rescue of Jim.”
“Tom Sawyer Abroad” features Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in a parody of adventure stories like those of Jules Verne. In the story, Tom, Huck, and Jim set sail to Africa in a futuristic hot air balloon, where they survive encounters with lions, robbers, and fleas to see some of the world’s greatest wonders, including the Pyramids and the Sphinx. The story is told using the first-person narrative voice of Huck Finn and is a sequel, set in the time following the title story of the Tom Sawyer series, “Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” [Source: Wikipedia]
A used 4-cent United States postage stamp issued on November 1, 1962 (Scott Catalog #1205). This historic issue was the very first official Christmas stamp released by the US Post Office Department. Designed by postal artist Jim Crawford, the stamp features a traditional green Christmas wreath with a red bow alongside two lit white candles. This copy features a faint postal cancellation mark.
Art by J. Allen St. John.
This is the fifth novel in the Tarzan series. Tarzan knows where the gold of fabled Atlantis is hidden and outlaws are determined to get their greedy hands on it.
The Illustrated News of the World – First Edition 1858.
‘The Illustrated News of the World and National Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages’ was a new publication with the strong visual emphasis of numerous large woodcuts to illustrate local and world events, and also featuring a number of fine steel engravings of eminent persons. The publishers stated their hopes that the publication would match or supplement the existing illustrated magazines:- The Illustrated London News and Punch Magazine .
Published by Illustrated News of the World, The Strand, London. Annual bound collection, red cloth boards 338 pages 42cm x 29cm.
Ex-libris bookplate of Toxteth Park Library.
The Illustrated News of the World – First Edition 1858.
‘The Illustrated News of the World and National Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages’ was a new publication with the strong visual emphasis of numerous large woodcuts to illustrate local and world events, and also featuring a number of fine steel engravings of eminent persons. A competitor to the existing illustrated magazines:- The Illustrated London News and Punch Magazine .
Published by Illustrated News of the World, The Strand, London. Annual bound collection, red cloth boards 338 pages 42cm x 29cm.
This book was one of the first color editions and the last Brer Rabbit collection published during the lifetime of the author, Georgia native Joel Chandler Harris (1845-1908). Raised in poverty, Harris was an apprentice to a Southern newspaper as a teenager and he made friends with plantation slaves who passed along their stories. Harris hoped that the charming illustrations and his use of dialect in retelling these old black legends would “suggest a certain picturesque sensitiveness – a curious exaltation of mind and temperament (of the black man).”
The characters of Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit are best known from the classic 1946 Disney movie, “Song of the South.” Here is a memorable scene in that movie:
"In Darkest Africa (1890) is Henry M. Stanley’s own account of his last adventure on the African continent. At the turn of that century, the interior of the African continent was largely unknown to the American and European public. With the accounts of great explorers like Stanley, readers became thrilled by stories of African expeditions and longed to follow in the footsteps of these explorers. In 1888, Stanley led an expedition to come to the aid of Mehmed Emin Pasha. The two volumes that compose 'In Darkest Africa; or, The Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria' are his account of what happened." [www.biblio.com/in-darkest-africa-by-stanley-henry-m/work/...]
Written by William Shakespeare, published in 1623. View all four folios at digital.lib.MiamiOH.edu/folios.
The Lavalite World, the fifth book in Farmer's World of Tiers series, is a world of slow but constant change. Here mountains rise from plains, or sink into rifts; new oceans form as vast hollows collapse and seas rush in. There is only one escape from this world where the very landscape moves. The one gateway to other universes is in the palace of the Lord Urthona. Paul Janus Finnegan -- also known as Kickaha -- must reach it if he is to survive. And he must do so despite the Lords Urthona and Red Orc, the hired thug McKay, flesh-eating vegetation on the run, beasts of prey, and planetary pseudopods.
“Uncle Remus” is a collection of animal stories, songs, and folklore from African-Americans in the South. Uncle Remus is a former slave who serves as a storytelling device, passing on the folktales to children gathered around him. Br’er Rabbit is the main character of the stories, a likable character, prone to tricks and trouble-making, who is often opposed by Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear.
The stories have inspired at least three feature films. The first and best known is Walt Disney’s “Song of the South,” released in 1946. The film combined live action with animation and it starred James Baskett, a vaudeville and radio actor, as the unforgettable Uncle Remus. The film's depiction of black former slaves, and of race relations in Reconstruction-Era Georgia, has been controversial since its original release, with a number of critics – at the time of its release and in later decades – describing it as racist. Consequently it has never been released in its entirety on home video in the United States. [Source: Wikipedia]
Who can possibly forget this song from the film:
Created with the assistance of artificial intelligence, this artwork is based on the original illustration by A. C. Michael and the accompanying description in Wells' book:
"Presently the English Channel was bridged -- a series of great iron Eiffel Tower pillars carrying mono-rail cables at a height of a hundred and fifty feet above the water, except near the middle, where they rose higher to allow the passage of the London and Antwerp shipping and the Hamburg-America liners.
"Then heavy motor-cars began to run about on only a couple of wheels, one behind the other... All this gyroscopic and mono-rail development naturally absorbed a vast amount of public attention..." [Wells' description of a mono-rail crossing the English Channel]
Car: GWM Ora Funky Cat First Edition.
Engine: Electric motor.
Year of manufacture: 2023.
Date of first registration in the UK: 26th May 2023.
Place of registration: Bristol.
Date of last MOT: First MOT due 25th May 2023.
Mileage at last MOT: Not applicable.
Date of last change of keeper: No previous recorded keepers.
Number of previous keepers:0.
Date taken: 4th December 2023.
Album: Carspotting 2023
The plot of the novel follows the life of Nell Trent and her grandfather, both residents of The Old Curiosity Shop in London.
The Old Curiosity Shop was one of two novels (the other being Barnaby Rudge) which Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial Master Humphrey's Clock, which lasted from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York readers stormed the wharf when the ship bearing the final installment arrived in 1841. The Old Curiosity Shop was printed in book form in 1841. [Source: Wikipedia]
Mark Twain penned the following inscription on the inside front cover: “Dear Mrs. Doubleday: This book has wandered into my hands, & as it is too delicate & pretty for a person like me, & just right for a person like you, I wish to beg you to take it. With the affectionate regards of a long-time friend – to wit S. L. Clemens. New York, Xmas 1906.”
The recipient was undoubtedly the naturalist Neltje Doubleday, the wife of his good friend the publisher Frank N. Doubleday. Merle Johnson, in his “A Bibliography of the Works of Mark Twain,” states that this book was “published anonymously August 20, 1906… for the author…Copies of the work were distributed privately to the author’s personal friends and public acknowledgement of authorship was withheld until after his death.”
Percival Lowell (1855-1916) was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars. In 1894, he chose Flagstaff, Arizona as the home of his new observatory, the now famous Lowell Observatory. For the next fifteen years, he studied Mars extensively, and made intricate drawings of the surface markings as he perceived them. He was particularly interested in the canals of Mars, as drawn by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who was director of the Milan Observatory. Lowell published his views in three books: “Mars” (1895), “Mars and Its Canals” (1906), and “Mars As the Abode of Life” (1908).
Lowell’s works include a full account of the “canals,” single and double, the “oases,” as he termed the dark spots at their intersections, and the varying visibility of both, depending partly on the Martian seasons. He theorized that an advanced but desperate culture had built the canals to tap Mars’ polar ice caps, the last source of water on an inexorably drying planet.
While this idea excited the public, the astronomical community was skeptical. Many astronomers could not see these markings, and few believed that they were as extensive as Lowell claimed. In 1909 the sixty-inch Mount Wilson Observatory telescope in Southern California allowed closer observation of the structures Lowell had interpreted as canals, and revealed irregular geological features, probably the result of natural erosion. The existence of canal-like features was definitely disproved in the 1960s by NASA’s Mariner missions. Today, the surface markings taken to be canals are regarded as an optical illusion.
Lowell's greatest contribution to planetary studies came during the last decade of his life, which he devoted to the search for Planet X, a hypothetical planet beyond Neptune. In 1930 Clyde Tombaugh, working at the Lowell Observatory, discovered Pluto near the location expected for Planet X. Partly in recognition of Lowell's efforts, a stylized P-L monogram – the first two letters of the new planet's name and also Lowell's initials – was chosen as Pluto's astronomical symbol.
Although Lowell's theories of the Martian canals are now discredited, his building of an observatory at the position where it would best function has been adopted as a principle for all observatories. He also established the program and an environment which made the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh possible. Craters on the Moon and on Mars have been named after Percival Lowell. He has been described by other planetary scientists as "the most influential popularizer of planetary science in America before Carl Sagan". Lowell is buried on Mars Hill near his observatory. [Source: Wikipedia]
Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is set during the Spanish civil war and tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain. The setting of the story is less important than Hemingway's treatment of the themes of love, death, honor and commitment.
The image is from the 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1892-93, by J. W. Powell, Director, Part 2. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1896. The description which follows summarizes the detailed information accompanying the image in the report.
Short Bull was active in the Ghost Dance religious movement of 1890, and had traveled with fellow Lakota Kicking Bear to visit the movement's leader, Wovoka. The two were instrumental in bringing the movement to the Lakota living on reservations in South Dakota.
On the last day of October, 1890, Short Bull gave an address to a large gathering of Indians near Pine Ridge, in which he said that as the whites were interfering so much in the religious affairs of the Indians he would advance the time for the great change and make it nearer, even within the next month. He urged them all to gather in one place and prepare for the coming messiah, and told them they must dance even though troops should surround them, as the guns of the soldiers would be rendered harmless and the white race itself would soon be annihilated.
Following the murder of Sitting Bull on December 15, 1890, Short Bull was imprisoned at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. On his release in 1891, Short Bull joined Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, and made several trips to Europe with the show. Short Bull died in 1923 on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Writer Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985) is credited with more than 200 stories, his most famous being “More Than Human” which won the 1954 International Fantasy Award. He ghost-wrote an Ellery Queen mystery novel in 1963, “The Player on the Other Side,” which was critically acclaimed. He also wrote the screenplays for two popular Star Trek episodes, “Shore Leave” (1966) and “Amok Time” (1967). In 1951, Sturgeon coined what is now known as Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of [science fiction] is crud, but then, ninety percent of everything is crud."
Theodore Sturgeon vividly recalled being in the same room with L. Ron Hubbard, when Hubbard became testy with someone there and retorted, "Y'know, we're all wasting our time writing this hack science fiction! You wanta make real money, you gotta start a religion!" Hubbard, who was then a science fiction writer, later founded the Church of Scientology. [Source: Wikipedia]
The author supplies a pictorial history of this classic fantasy magazine. Weird Tales was the first and most famous of the fantasy magazines, with its first issue in March 1923. This is a fine selection of its famous front covers, mostly in duotone, some in full color. Many well-known illustrators contributed to these covers, including Margaret Brundage, Virgil Finlay, Hannes Bok and Frank Kelly Freas.
Mughal Emperor's tomb in Delhi.
The Illustrated News of the World – First Edition 1858.
‘The Illustrated News of the World and National Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages’ was a new publication with the strong visual emphasis of numerous large woodcuts to illustrate local and world events, and also featuring a number of fine steel engravings of eminent persons. A competitor to the existing illustrated magazines:- The Illustrated London News and Punch Magazine .
Published by Illustrated News of the World, The Strand, London. Annual bound collection, red cloth boards 338 pages 42cm x 29cm.
More on Humayaon's Tomb (Humayun) here:
Comets have a long history as bad omens and unwelcome visitors, but H. G. Wells’ novel “In the Days of the Comet” turns that silly superstition on its head. A comet enters the Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrates, turning the nitrogen of the air into a healing gas that brings happiness, peace and generosity to even the most violent of humans.
It is interesting to note that Earth was destined to pass through the tail of Halley’s comet in 1910, just four years after the book’s publication. One of the substances discovered in the comet’s tail by spectroscopic analysis was the toxic gas cyanogen. The astronomer Camille Flammarion claimed that, when Earth passed through the tail, the gas "would impregnate the atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet." His pronouncement led to panicked buying of gas masks and quack "anti-comet pills" and "anti-comet umbrellas" by the public. [Source: Wikipedia]
From "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. Art by W. W. Denslow. Chicago: Geo. M. Hill, 1900. 1st ed.
Few Americans are unfamiliar with this century-old children’s tale. A cyclone carries Dorothy from her home in Kansas into the magical Land of Oz where she meets the scarecrow, the tin woodman, and the cowardly lion. Their adventures looking for the Emerald City and the Wizard have become a permanent part of American popular culture. Baum’s work is illustrated by W. W. Denslow and features 24 inserted color plates and many black & white drawings. Denslow’s artwork was an obvious inspiration for the look and feel of the 1939 film starring Judy Garland as Dorothy.
Home of Lord John Russell. The Illustrated News of the World – First Edition 1858.
‘The Illustrated News of the World and National Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages’ was a new publication with the strong visual emphasis of numerous large woodcuts to illustrate local and world events, and also featuring a number of fine steel engravings of eminent persons. A competitor to the existing illustrated magazines:- The Illustrated London News and Punch Magazine .
Published by Illustrated News of the World, The Strand, London. Annual bound collection, red cloth boards 338 pages 42cm x 29cm.
From the book "Uncle Remus: His Songs & His Sayings" by Joel Chandler Harris. NY: D. Appleton, 1881. 1st Edition
“Uncle Remus” is a collection of animal stories, songs, and folklore from African-Americans in the South. Uncle Remus is a former slave who serves as a storytelling device, passing on the folktales to children gathered around him. Br’er Rabbit is the main character of the stories, a likable character, prone to tricks and trouble-making, who is often opposed by Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear.
The stories have inspired at least three feature films. The first and best known is Walt Disney’s “Song of the South,” released in 1946. The film combined live action with animation and it starred James Baskett, a vaudeville and radio actor, as the unforgettable Uncle Remus. The film's depiction of black former slaves, and of race relations in Reconstruction-Era Georgia, has been controversial since its original release, with a number of critics – at the time of its release and in later decades – describing it as racist. Consequently it has never been released in its entirety on home video in the United States. [Source: Wikipedia]
Who can possibly forget this song from the film:
With sales of about 200 million copies, “A Tale of Two Cities” is the biggest selling novel in history. It began as weekly installments from April 30, 1859 to November 26, 1859 in Dickens’ literary periodical titled “All the Year Round.” It depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the French revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same period.
Chapman & Hall published the novel in 8 monthly parts (July – December 1859) and in book form that same year and commissioned Hablot K. Browne [Phiz] to create full page illustrations for the story. It was the last of Dickens’ books to be illustrated by Hablot K. Browne.
The novelist Ernest Hemingway once remarked that “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn,” and other writers such as poet T. S. Eliot and African American novelist Ralph Ellison have added their acclaim. Mark Twain, the pen name of Samuel Clemens, worked for eight years on the story of an outcast white boy, Huck, and his adult friend Jim, a runaway slave, who together flee Missouri on a raft down the Mississippi River in the 1840s. The book has been controversial since the day it was published, opinions ranging from “the book is a masterpiece” to the book is “trash and suitable only for the slums.” The free-spirited and not always truthful Huck narrates the colorful stories in the book in his own coarse and ungrammatical voice. He shows a lack of respect for religion and adult authority and repeatedly uses the “n” word. Some readers view the book as satire and consider it a powerful attack on racism. Others believe it contributes to a “racially hostile environment” and are offended by the language and the portrayal of the slave Jim. In spite of it all, Huck Finn remains the Great American Novel to the many people who have read it and loved it.
Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) was one of the most important rocket developers and champions of space exploration during the period between the 1930s and the 1970s. As a youth he became enamored with the possibilities of space exploration by reading the science fiction of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and from the science fact writings of Hermann Oberth, whose 1923 classic study, Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (By Rocket to Space), prompted young von Braun to master calculus and trigonometry so he could understand the physics of rocketry. From his teenage years, von Braun had held a keen interest in space flight, becoming involved in the German rocket society, Verein fur Raumschiffarht (VfR), as early as 1929. As a means of furthering his desire to build large and capable rockets, in 1932 he went to work for the German army to develop ballistic missiles. While engaged in this work, von Braun received a Ph.D. in physics on July 27, 1934.
Von Braun is well known as the leader of what has been called the “rocket team” which developed the V–2 ballistic missile for the Nazis during World War II. The V–2s were manufactured at a forced labor factory called Mittelwerk. Scholars are still reassessing his role in these controversial activities. Before the Allied capture of the V–2 rocket complex, von Braun engineered the surrender of 500 of his top rocket scientists, along with plans and test vehicles, to the Americans.
In 1960, his rocket development center near Huntsville, Alabama transferred from the Army to the newly established NASA and received a mandate to build the giant Saturn rockets. Accordingly, von Braun became director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that would propel Americans to the Moon.
Von Braun also became one of the most prominent spokesmen of space exploration in the United States during the 1950s. In 1970, NASA leadership asked von Braun to move to Washington, D.C., to head up the strategic planning effort for the agency. He left his home in Huntsville, Ala., but in 1972 he decided to retire from NASA and work for Fairchild Industries of Germantown, Md. He died in Alexandria, Va., on June 16, 1977. [Source: Marshall Space Flight Center at history.msfc.nasa.gov/vonbraun/bio.html]
Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Treatise on Painting,” the most important treatise on art to be written during the Renaissance, was actually compiled by Francesco Melzi, one of Leonardo’s pupils, around 1540. It circulated widely, first in separate manuscripts and later in printed books, and for centuries it was thought to have been written by Leonardo himself. Artists, scientists, and scholars including Galileo, read it avidly as an authoritative record of Leonardo’s thoughts. In the 19th century, when the artist’s original notes became available, scholars realized that the text poorly reflected Leonardo’s sophisticated ideas. The text was very influential nonetheless. For better or worse, it was the primary source for disseminating Leonardo’s art theory in Renaissance and Baroque Europe, from the mid-sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century.
[Source: www.treatiseonpainting.org/]
Owl eye close-up from "Elfinhound" by Richard Tevis, illlustrations by Shirley Holt.
Tres Amigos Pubs; Limited 1st edition (December 1, 1984)
Written by William Shakespeare, published in 1623. View all four folios at digital.lib.MiamiOH.edu/folios.
“We swooped down, now, all of a sudden.”
“Tom Sawyer Abroad” features Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in a parody of adventure stories like those of Jules Verne. In the story, Tom, Huck, and Jim set sail to Africa in a futuristic hot air balloon, where they survive encounters with lions, robbers, and fleas to see some of the world’s greatest wonders, including the Pyramids and the Sphinx. The story is told using the first-person narrative voice of Huck Finn and is a sequel, set in the time following the title story of the Tom Sawyer series, “Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” [Source: Wikipedia]