A change of coast

Since my last post, I have retrieved my computer, done a ton of research, packed up and gone to visit the opposite coast.

It is the cool of the evening in Kirkland Washington, just across the lake from Seattle. I am sitting on the back deck of my son's house after a delightful dinner. The sky is a brilliant blue and the sun's low angle highlights the leaves of the laurel, the horse-chestnut, and the Douglas fir in what Kipling might have called "more than oriental splendor." Speaking of which, my soundtrack for this post is a quiet shakuhachi rendition of "Depicting the Cranes in their Nest" (Sokaku Reibo).

My oldest granddaughter just quietly sneaked out here and, announcing that she was a ninja (not a contradiction to someone who is almost five-years-old) stole my pen. She also tried to steal a fast-food premium toy that my youngest granddaughter had carelessly forgotten in my pocket, but I was quick enough to move it out of harm's way.

I've made some progress. I have now written my way into the first part of Chapter 4 and Henry's first attempt at a major crime, I spent a good portion of the day, however, pondering the problem posed to me by the writing group I participate in.

The question has to do with the formatting of the book. The group seems split on whether my use of footnotes as an integral part of the structure will annoy or repel a significant portion of my potential readers. Half of the group seems convinced that there is a strong prejudice against footnoted text no matter how entertaining. The other half seems to think, as I do, that in this case, since the footnotes constitute a parallel narrative, people will get over it and read them anyway. I can't help but think that if people can deal with "House of Leaves" they can deal with a book that has footnotes.

On the other hand, I do want to be able to sell this book, and although HoL has a reputation as an experimental novel, the truth is that I have not seen it mentioned on many 10 best lists other than those by gleefully obscurantist hipsters.

So it looks as if I need to think about this.

My immediate reaction is to say "to hell with it ... leave it as it is." It was good enough for Sir Richard Burton's translation of "A Thousand Nights and a Night." But it isn't as if there weren't some viable alternatives, to wit:

• I could increase the size of the footnote typeface to that of the text.
• I could draw a line across the page with the text on the top and the commentary on the bottom.
• I could do side notes a la The Annotated Alice.
• I could place the paragraphs of commentary immediately after that which is being commented on and in a drastically different typeface.

I'm not quite sure how to solve this. It is a puzzlement.

Sloane Ranger

I took a break from writing this morning and went out hunting. My fields were the second-hand bookstores of Newburyport and my prey was to be old magazines with useful engravings and woodcuts for my 18th and 19th century clipart files. In this, I was disappointed, but all was not lost.

Much to my delight, one of the stores had a handful of Eric Sloane books in hardcover and with plastic protective wraps over the dust jackets. They weren't cheap, but Sloane is such a blessing to people who work in subjects concerning early American life, that I didn't hesitate more than half a heartbeat before snapping all of them up. They will be the backups for the paperback versions that I have been using for so long. Some of which are tied together with twine to keep the loose pages from escaping.

Here's what I found today:
Sloane, Eric. Diary of an Early American Boy. New York: Funk & Wagnall's. 1962
Sloane, Eric. An Age of Barns. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company. 1985
Sloane, Eric. The Seasons of America Past, New York: Funk & Wagnall's. 1958
Sloane, Eric. Eric Sloane's America. New York: Promontory Press. 1982

The best of the bunch for me is his "Diary of an Early American Boy" which is a core inspiration for my project about Henry, but "Eric Sloane's America" is also great since it is three books in one: "American Barns and Covered Bridges" from 1954, "Our Vanishing Landscape" from 1955, and "American Yesterday" from 1956. This is from the book "The Seasons of America Past".

I would love to be able to illustrate the way he does, but I cannot. I will have to hope for an artist who is interested in the material, or track down some ancient woodcuts or lithographs.

... and another reference! Alice Morse Earle mentions Henry in "Stagecoach and Tavern Days".

Curiouser and Curiouser ...

... as Alice might have exclaimed. I have just, this morning, found two books that mention Henry. The first is in a book that is still in print:

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. The Age of Homespun. New York: Vintage, 2002

Ulrich, also known for the wonderful "A Midwife's Tale" uses material from Henry's account of his meeting with Molly Ockett and his two year stay with the Abenaki. 

A somewhat more serendipitous discovery occurred as I was sorting some of the books that I've retrieved from my father's library. One of them, a slightly battered octavo bound in dark red buckram, turned out to be:

Charles Hamilton, ed. Men of the Underworld. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1952

Chapter 1 of this book is "The Adventure of the Drugged Grooms" (Henry Tufts, Horse Thief). If you'd like to read it, I linked to the digital version of the book in Questia.

The funny thing was that I was sorting books to get away from Henry for a while.

I notice that my father bought it second-hand. He paid $2.50 for it, and judging by the handwriting used for the price, I'm guessing that he bought it from the Starr Bookshop which used to live underneath the Harvard Lampoon Building just outside Harvard Square. This might sound funny to folks in the age of Amazon, but those of us who love second hand bookstores quickly learned the various booksellers' codes and handwriting. At least a dozen books on my shelves have this particular handwriting on their flyleaves.

Another clue, of course, is that someone has written "Frank Monahan" in neat but childlike script about three quarters of an inch high using a fat-nibbed pen dipped in grass-green ink.

You can take yer damned kindle and its sterile interface.

Great good cheer!

One of the things that I've been meaning to do is find a copy of the original 1807 edition of the book.

It's not that I don't trust Edmund Pearson's instincts and editorial judgment, it's just ... well ... I always get a better feel for something if I have a more direct experience.

So I'm really happy today!

A few days ago Sara(h?) one of the reference librarians at my town's temple of words told me about how to get electronic access to a larger libraries databases. One of their databases contained a high-resolution scan of the book! SCORE!!

I still intend to travel to Boston's Rare Book Room or the American Antiquarian Society to actually lay hands on a copy (even if only through thin cotton gloves). One of the two is Thomas Higginson's personal copy. (I'll be speaking more about him later.)

Through the good auspices of a Boston reference librarian, I may have found one of the rare copies of "The Compendium of Tufts Kinsmen: a Substitutive Genealogy by Herbert Freeman Adams." at the Malden Public Library. Since it is listed as “In Library Use Only”, It sounds like a short road-trip is in my near future.

Speaking of which ... I am seriously considering an extended road trip to visit all the towns in which Henry stayed, stole, was jailed, or got married. I'd send out letters to the historical societies and libraries requesting access, and then just parallel his journeys. It seems like it would be an interesting trip; reading "then", seeing "now".

I've been meaning to do the same for another history project, but the subject of that one was more sedentary and I guess it just doesn't have the same appeal as tracing the vagabond.

A bit of a Hiatus

I had intended to post nearly every day, but the combination of research mania and having to conform to the library hours while my computer is held hostage by the repair company, has made for a series of "dammit I forgot again moments."

And don't think that I am complaining about the library either. Librarians are God's gift to researchers and writers. The fact that I want to work longer hours than they have librarians for is my problem. I am thankful for all the help and patience they have with me. They let me move in at opening and set up my barricades around a computer; piles of reference books, notebooks, and pads of paper topped off with my battered old straw hat as a single crenelation. Unlike the libraries of my youth, they even supply me with coffee (though I do wish that they'd dump the flavored stuff and get in some French roast).

I've run into a couple of stumbling blocks. Although I trust Edmund Pearson's assessment, I still think it behooves me to check out the original 1807 publication of the Tufts book. EP said that he'd seen it at the Boston Public Library, so I've sent off a note to them to make sure that it's still there and that I can get access. I also want to find a copy of Herbert Freeman Adams' Compendium of Tufts Kinsmen, to see if he was able to fill in some of the blanks that dot the mimeographed newsletter he sent out back in the 70s and 80s. The Kinsmen organization seems to still exist, but I am still trying to track down who is running or maintaining it.

I am about to start working on Chapter 4. I have left a trail of breadcrumbs behind me in the footnotes for areas of research which would just slow me down. For example, there is the question, "how much should I assume that people know about the period?" The problem is that so much faulty information is out there. The historical record is based so much on men of substance and power and so little on the ordinary man. I really want to paint a good and comprehensive picture of the time, but at the same time I want it to be readable.

Another thing that I have to think about is that my footnotes are becoming more conversational. I think I like the idea, I don't want my readers to have to deal with dry academic information, but I can't help but be a little nervous about going too far.

That's enough for today, though. Time to start Chapter 4.