middle school literature

   Bartleby was an individualist who was hired to copy law documents and to model a calm demeanor that hopefully his co-workers would emulate. Bartleby calmly did these things very well, but only briefly, for he quickly preferred not to copy law documents and, being an individualist who acted in line with his preferences, he would not. Bartleby was seemingly endowed with his calm demeanor and evidently always conformed with this gift, probably by not preferring to be anybody but himself, for his calm demeanor never varied. Yet that quality proved entirely worthless to his employer—it lost all its modeling value when Bartleby refused to work.

Adapted Classics will soon present two human interest stories by Irish author Donn Byrne. Both stories are about professional boxers who fight opponents in the ring while simultaneously battling psychological demons within themselves. “Irish” follows a popular, young boxer on the rise who knowingly risks his spotless record by taking a match he believes unwinnable for money he needed to support to his unappreciative, delusional father. The second story, A Man’s Game, tells of an aging boxing champion who is harassed by his conscience in the ring for accepting a match he didn’t want and an outcome he couldn’t abide for bribe money he would use to advance his son’s education. The fighting scenes in these stories are vividly described, partly owing to Donn Byrne’s experience as an amateur boxer who attained the lightweight championship while attending Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

There is no evidence to support Ernesto Hermeteby’s speculative musings in his recent blog regarding a Melville/Gandhi connection. Granted, at no point does he suggest there is evidence. But then why did he speculate about it? Is it because he thinks our recent changing-of-the guard demands Bartleby-style non-cooperation? Hermeteby does concede that, when Melville’s Bartleby devolved from limited consumption of food to total non-consumption, he had taken his negative preferences more than a little bit too far. So was he was suggesting that non-cooperation with things as they currently are could potentially go too far? And would 'going real, real far' be a risk Hermeteby would be willing to take? I mean, given present circumstances?

Some public administrators meet and decide that certain books by certain authors like Mark Twain and Harper Lee should be banned because they make readers uncomfortable. Oh, my! Uncomfortable! 

I’m quite sure that when Harper Lee wrote her celebrated “To Kill a Mockingbird”, she had ‘uncomfortable’ exactly in mind. Since it examined southern culture and questioned its morals, she must have known her book would make at least some, and likely many readers squirm in their skin. Furthermore, she must have hoped such readers would bear their discomfort until the end of the book, then shift whatever perceptions and attitudes had caused their discomfort to a better place — for their own good and the good of all. Many authors design their books to cause at least a little discomfort with the same hope and motives in mind. And some of these books wind up being banned in one place or another.

   Unsurprisingly, when critics reach their conclusions about literary works, they do not always agree on the meaning of the most challenging literature, which would include Bartleby the Scrivener, a story that requires deeply penetrating discernment powers. For decades all critics worth their salt have wondered (and some have incessantly) what Herman Melville meant to say when he created Bartleby the Scrivener. And that includes avid readers (i.e.; amateur critics) like me. 

Bartleby the Scrivener is the most popular and widely analyzed of Herman Melville’s short fiction. The story, set in a law office on Wall Street, is told by an elderly lawyer who employs two copyists, or ‘scriveners’. Their job is to copy out legal documents by hand. When the lawyer decides he needs a third scrivener, he hires Bartleby, mainly because he thinks his calm demeanor will provide a good example for the other two, whose eccentric personalities were creating havoc in the workplace. However, Bartleby soon proves to be the worst workplace model ever when he refuses to do any of the work the lawyer assigns him. And so it goes, on and on and far beyond, in what is one of the most mysterious and thought-provoking stories ever written.

Fans of Adam might dislike ArtWrite Productions, the publisher of the Adapted Classics book Mark Twain’s the Diaries of Eve and Adam. The reason? The publisher decided to place Eve’s name before Adam’s in the title of the book. This upsets tradition, fans of Adam might say, and you do not upset tradition to appease women or to appeal to them for financial gain (women do buy more books than men, and men almost never buy books for their children). Well, fans of Adam, do you want to know what lake you can jump into? How about the first lake you come upon? 

Breaking News! Pause your doubting nature and brace yourself. As previously reported, Mark Twain will not Run for Governor of the state of Florida (even if he could have, why would he have bothered with that small potato!). Okay, I know you knew that. Now here’s the big news that’s breaking—thanks for your patience—Mark Twain will run for Vice-President of the USA in 2026 under the guise of—get this—Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota.

Mark Twain will soon announce he is Running for Governor of the state of Florida in the November election. OK – you know that's not gonna happen. As iconic as Mark Twain is—a status he’ll forever retain despite having guys like Ron DeSantis ban the books he wrote—he cannot come back from wherever he resides in eternity and run in 2024 because the election for governor of Florida is not until 2026. So, sadly Mr. Twain, as much as you'd like to get your revenge right away, you must drop this idea and try again in two years.

But wait up. Let’s reconsider. You have been convicted, or more correctly, banned from Florida classrooms for being a corrupting influence on youth. Doesn’t your disregard for the rule of law, regardless of whether it be moral or civil, disqualify you from running for office anyway? But then, if that be so, that means you gonna have to forget about running for Florida Governor in 2026 as well. Or maybe for any office whatever whereever it may be.

Mark Twain wanted to bring Eve and Adam together, but his goal went unrealized until after his death. Twain wanted to unite his "creation stories" so Eve and Adam’s different perspectives on creation would stand in high contrast. As Twain said, “They score points against each other — so, if not bound together, some of the points would not be perceived.” In 1931, 21 years after Mark Twain died, Harper finally brought the stories together by publishing a book titled “The Private Life of Adam and Eve”.

In 2024, 87 years after Harper first published the book to satisfy Twain's wishes, Adapted Classics is presenting a FREE PDF version of The Diaries of Eve and Adam  in advance the revised reissue of our softcover version of Twain's classic retelling of Genesis whether Mr. Twain would like that or not. No offense, Master! We're still bringing and keeping them togeher as you wished.

Once it was common to see illustrations sprinkled within the pages of novels, but it has always been hard to find fully illustrated literature for adults. The two Mark Twain stories I combined to create “The Diaries of Eve and Adam” (FREE PDF) were notable exceptions. “Extracts from Adam’s Diary”, published in 1904, and “Eve’s Diary”, published in 1906, were hardcover books intended primarily for adult readers and both were fully illustrated, both with illustrations on every other page. 

The illustrations in “Extracts from Adam’s Diary” had an abstract, hieroglyphic design. The artist, F. (Frederick) Strothmann, must have chosen this design to create an ancient effect. Or did he choose an abstract design to steer clear of controversy? A conventionally illustrated book about Adam and Eve would depict them unclothed - pre-fall - because that’s how the story goes. But illustrations of nude adults, no matter how discrete, risk offending someone. F. Strothmann may have intentionally avoided taking that risk. Lester Ralph, the illustrator of “Eve’s Diary”, was not so cautious. His illustrations of Adam and Eve are conventional, and they did cause a stir.  A library in Charlton MA banned “Eve’s Diary” because library staff objected to the nude depictions of Eve.

Near the end of his life, Mark Twain wrote a series of six stories commonly known as the ‘Adamic Diaries’. Four of the stories poke fun at Christianity and are dark in tone. These stories were not published until after Twain died in 1910. Two of the six stories in the series were published as illustrated books while Twain lived—Extracts from Adam’s Diary in 1904 and Eve’s Diary in 1906. These two stories are less pointed and much lighter in tone. In 2017 I intertwined them in “Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Eve and Adam” by rearranging text and adding a little new material. I have now created a revised edition of this book that features new formatting and additional illustrations. It also carries a new title: simply, The Diaries of Eve and Adam. The paperback will be available for purchase on July 12, 2024.

The six humorous, illustrated essays in the soon-to-be-published Self-Made Men by Stephen Leacock are drawn from three separate sources of Leacock material. The title essay, Self-Made Men, was published in 1910 in a collection of essays titled Literary Lapses. This was Leacock’s first venture into collecting and self-publishing his humorous essays, all of which had been first published in a variety of magazines. It was an immediate success, garnering him praise and then a contract with a book publisher. From this first venture he proceeded to have an extremely successful career, mainly writing humorous fiction, but also other works. Between the years 1915 and 1925 he was the most popular humorist in the English speaking world.

   Way up north there was once a Canuck humorist by the name of Stephen Leacock who, as a practicing humorist, was comparable to Mark Twain. Yes indeed, he was. Just as worthy comedians and humorists in the USA are annually awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, worthy humor writers in Canada are annually awarded the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. And yet, despite his grand reputation, many avid readers in the USA and elsewhere have never heard of Mr. Leacock.

Twain Illustrated contains three funny stories by Mark Twain. All three stories are funny, but one, Running for Governor, is also scary, since it strikes so closely to what is currently happening in the USA and elsewhere. Democracy is in danger because so many people don’t know what to believe in this information/disinformation age of ours. Of course, as the story shows, this phenomenon is not exactly brand new. For most of the nineteenth century, politicians funded major newspapers throughout the US. In 1870, only 11% of urban daily newspapers were independent of corrupt influence by politicians. Twain surely had this in mind while writing Running for Governor for his monthly column in The Galaxy, a literary magazine, in which he portrayed his fictional candidacy for Governor to be just as hopelessly futile as it would have been in fact.  Enjoy a Read-Along Video of Running for Governor Here!
Big News! The Midwest Publishers Association (MIPA) has named Twain Illustrated 2023 Winner for Short Story/Anthology 

In two previous blogs (here and here), and within the book Tolstoy illustrated, I claimed that Leo Tolstoy formed his worldview based on the teaching of Jesus Christ and that he was a radical Christian.But to identify Tolstoy as a radical Christian requires explanation. First however, there is no doubt that Tolstoy's worldview was based upon a very literal—and thus radical–understanding of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. Each of the three stories in Tolstoy Illustrated highlight different aspects of Christ's uncommonly iridescent teaching.

It is beyond dispute that Leo Tolstoy scorned all manner of institutional authority. Each of the three stories in Tolstoy Illustrated hint at different aspects of his disdain, a point-of-view he broadened in other writing to include all conceivable feelings and attitudes that institutions transmit to adherents or victims under their influence or control. In this lightly edited and greatly truncated version of Patriotism and Government, an article he wrote in 1900, here’s what Mr. Tolstoy thought about one such feeling—patriotism.

Mark Twain and Leo Tolstoy – birds of a feather? Why would anybody think so? Leo Tolstoy was a radical Christian and Mark Twain was something close to an atheist. Leo Tolstoy was financially secure from the time of his birth until his death, while Mark Twain went broke in his constant pursuit of wealth. Mark Twain was spontaneously sociable, Tolstoy guarded, and at least eventually, something close to reclusive. And yet… their attitudes toward institutional power were nearly identical.

Tolstoy Illustrated: Three Stories by Leo Tolstoy contains three illustrated fables adapted by Leo Tolstoy, then adapted once again by me for the purpose of fitting them with illustrations. Tolstoy adapted these and many other moral fables hoping to convert readers, especially young readers, to genuine Christianity. This was the motive behind most of his literary work from about the age of 50 until the age of 75. Of course, to be honest, as time has played out, he would doubtlessly be gravely disappointed to know how little affect his writing would have inspiring such conversion.