Posts Tagged ‘Charles Dickens’
Bonaparte’s Boom-Stick*…
“The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries,” Jacques-Louis David (1812)
In 1821, the year of Napoleon Bonaparte’s death from stomach cancer, his penis embarked on a journey that rivaled its owner’s bloodthirsty trek across Europe. It began on an autopsy table on the British island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, which had been the emperor’s home since the ill-fated Battle of Waterloo…
Shortly after the autopsy, rumors circulated in Paris that the doctor’s aides had smuggled various souvenirs from the island: strips of the bloody bed sheet, teeth, nail clippings, splinters of rib, locks of hair, chunks of bowels. Dr. Antommarchi himself filched the emperor’s death mask and two pieces of lower intestine, which he left with friends in London. Napoleon’s chaplain, Abbé Ange Vignali, laid claim to the most intimate part of the royal anatomy, boasting about his treasure when he went home to Corsica. Two decades later, when the British government allowed Napoleon’s body to be returned to Paris, Vignali’s relatives kept Napoleon’s penis for themselves—at least until 1916, when descendants put the Vignali collection up for auction. The organ was described thusly in the catalogue: “a mummified tendon taken from [Napoleon’s] body during post-mortem.”
An unknown British collector purchased the penis, which had been exposed to the air over the previous century and shrunk considerably. In 1924, eccentric American collector A.S.W. Rosenbach bought it for £400. Home in Philadelphia, he boasted of the relic, used it as a conversation piece for parties, and temporarily loaned it to the Museum of French Art in New York, which displayed it on a small velvet cushion. “Maudlin sympathizers sniffed; shallow women giggled, pointed,” Time magazine reported. “In a glass case they saw something looking like a maltreated strip of buckskin shoelace or a shriveled eel”—a verdict that would give anyone a complex.
In 1969, the Vignali Collection was shipped back to London for auction, but Napoleon’s penis failed to sell. Eight years later, the collection was broken up and auctioned in Paris, where Columbia University professor Dr. John K. Lattimer—America’s leading urologist—bought it for 13,000 francs, about $2900. He had it X-rayed at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, which confirmed that it is definitely a penis (although French cultural officials remain skeptical of its provenance, and refuse to exhume Napoleon’s body for examination). Lattimer kept his Napoleonic trophy in a suitcase under his bed in Englewood, New Jersey, where it stayed until he died in 2007. His daughter has fielded at least one $100,000 offer and has so far showed it to only one person, author Tony Perrottet, who deemed it “certainly small, shrunken to the size of a baby’s finger, with white shriveled skin and desiccated beige flesh”…
Read the whole tale at “The Strange Journey of Napoleon’s Penis.”
[C.F. also: Rasputin’s penis, on display in Moscow, where the museum director avers that “having this exhibit, we can stop envying America, where Napoleon Bonaparte’s penis is now kept. Napoleon’s penis is but a small ‘pod’, it cannot stand comparison to our organ of 30 centimeters.”]
* your correspondent’s own nomination for addition to the (self-proclaimed) “world’s longest list of penis euphemisms”
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As we wonder at all this jones-ing for johnsons, we might recall that it was on this date in 1859 that the final installment of what is surely the English language’s best-known (and loved) account of the preface to Napoleon’s rise, Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, was published in Dickens’ periodical All the Year Round.
Out, out, damned spot…
As The Raw Story reports, newsstands in Poland now offer Egzorcysta:
With exorcism booming in Poland, Roman Catholic priests have joined forces with a publisher to launch what they claim is the world’s first monthly magazine focused exclusively on chasing out the devil.
“The rise in the number or exorcists from four to more than 120 over the course of 15 years in Poland is telling,” Father Aleksander Posacki, a professor of philosophy, theology and leading demonologist and exorcist told reporters in Warsaw at the Monday launch of the Egzorcysta monthly.
Ironically, he attributed the rise in demonic possessions in what remains one of Europe’s most devoutly Catholic nations partly to the switch from atheist communism to free market capitalism in 1989.
“It’s indirectly due to changes in the system: capitalism creates more opportunities to do business in the area of occultism. Fortune telling has even been categorised as employment for taxation,” Posacki said…
Turn on all of the lights, then read the whole story here.
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As we wonder where we can find Max von Sydow, we might send an ironically-drawn birthday card to George Cruikshank; he was born on this date in 1792. The “modern Hogarth,” Cruikshank was a caricaturist, cartoonist, and illustrator who worked with his friend Charles Dickens (Sketches by Boz, The Mudfog Papers, and Oliver Twist), Lawrence Sterne (The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman), and many others.
Cruikshank’s “Fagin in his cell”
Judging books by their covers…
When Charles Dickens moved into Tavistock House in 1851, he decided to fill two spaces in his new study with bookcases containing fake books, the witty titles of which he had invented. And so, on October 22nd, he wrote to a bookbinder named Thomas Robert Eeles and supplied him with the following “list of imitation book-backs” to be produced.
(Source: The Letters of Charles Dickens; Image of Dickens, c.1860, via.)
History of a Short Chancery Suit
Catalogue of Statues of the Duke of Wellington
Five Minutes in China. 3 vols.
Forty Winks at the Pyramids. 2 vols.
Abernethy on the Constitution. 2 vols.
Mr. Green’s Overland Mail. 2 vols.
Captain Cook’s Life of Savage. 2 vols.
A Carpenter’s Bench of Bishops. 2 vols.
Toot’s Universal Letter-Writer. 2 vols.
Orson’s Art of Etiquette.
Downeaster’s Complete Calculator.
History of the Middling Ages. 6 vols.
Jonah’s Account of the Whale.
Captain Parry’s Virtues of Cold Tar.
Kant’s Ancient Humbugs. 10 vols.
Bowwowdom. A Poem.
The Quarrelly Review. 4 vols.
The Gunpowder Magazine. 4 vols.
Steele. By the Author of “Ion.”
The Art of Cutting the Teeth.
Matthew’s Nursery Songs. 2 vols.
Paxton’s Bloomers. 5 vols.
On the Use of Mercury by the Ancient Poets.
Drowsy’s Recollections of Nothing. 3 vols.
Heavyside’s Conversations with Nobody. 3 vols.
Commonplace Book of the Oldest Inhabitant. 2 vols.
Growler’s Gruffiology, with Appendix. 4 vols.
The Books of Moses and Sons. 2 vols.
Burke (of Edinburgh) on the Sublime and Beautiful. 2 vols.
Teazer’s Commentaries.
King Henry the Eighth’s Evidences of Christianity. 5 vols.
Miss Biffin on Deportment.
Morrison’s Pills Progress. 2 vols.
Lady Godiva on the Horse.
Munchausen’s Modern Miracles. 4 vols.
Richardson’s Show of Dramatic Literature. 12 vols.
Hansard’s Guide to Refreshing Sleep. As many volumes as possible.
Your correspondent is headed for the stacks in the Bodleian, where wi-fi signals do not penetrate; regular service will resume in a week or so… In the meantime, readers will find many more inspiring indices and edifying enumerations at Lists of Note, from whence the treasure above.
As we check to be sure that we’re wearing at least a bit of green, we might send revolutionary birthday greetings to guitarist and co-founder of Jefferson Airplane, Paul Kantner; he was born on this date in 1941…
“If you can remember anything about the sixties, you weren’t really there.” (source)
… and to “the ‘noir prophet’ of the cyberpunk movement,” author William Gibson; he was born on this date in 1948.
“The future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed.” (source)
“He do the Police in different voices”…
Caricature of Charles Dickens, Alfred Bryan (1852–1899)
superimposed on
Our Mutual Friend, autograph manuscript, 1862–65, Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
Charles Dickens was Britain’s first true literary superstar; the greatest novelist of the Victorian period, he enjoyed unprecedented fame in his lifetime, in the U.K. and around the world. And, of course, he remains a fixture of The Canon even today– his work is still not only widely read but also widely adapted for stage and screen.
In commemoration of Dickens’ bi-centennial (his two-hundredth birthday will be February 7), The Morgan Library is throwing a party: “Dickens at 200“:
The Morgan Library & Museum’s collection of Dickens manuscripts and letters is the largest in the United States and is one of the two greatest collections in the world, along with the holdings of Britain’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Charles Dickens at 200 celebrates the bicentennial of the great writer’s birth in 1812 with manuscripts of his novels and stories, letters, books, photographs, original illustrations, and caricatures. Sweeping in scope, the exhibition captures the art and life of a man whose literary and cultural legacy is unrivaled.
The exhibit opens this week, and runs through February 12.
As we note that even though it was the best of times, it was also the worst of times, we might recall that it was on this date in 1856 that Revue de Paris published the first installment of Madame Bovary, by the Anti-Dickens, Gustave Flaubert. The novel’s final chapters ran on December 15, 1856; it was published in book form in 1857.
Title page of the first edition (source)
Take two aspirin, hop down the chimney, and call me in the morning…
From the British Medical Journal, Christmas Edition:
Guidance from the General Medical Council recommends that doctors should not disclose confidential patient information, even to rectify false assertions made by the patient or others in the press. There may be occasions, however, when disclosure “in the public interest” is appropriate. On this basis, with the informed consent of the patient, and after discussion with respected colleagues and my defence union, I would like to set the record straight.
Father Christmas (FC) registered as a patient with Stirchley Medical Practice in 1991, using the name Nicholas S Claus. His relationship with GPs and staff has been, for much of the past 20 years, somewhat tense, but despite his repeated threats to leave our list, we have managed to maintain engagement with him.
He has not been the easiest of patients to deal with…
Read the delightful details in “Primary Care: Reflections of Father Christmas’s GP,” and check out the other articles in this special issue.
As we’re grateful that April Fool’s Day doesn’t come only on April Fool’s Day, we might recall that it was on this date in 1843 that Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol— a novella he’d written over the prior six weeks– was formally published; it was released to book stores and the public two days later. The first run of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve, and the book continued to sell well through twenty-four editions in its original form.
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