This was America’s best-selling novel in 1912; a feelgood romance between a young man who grows vast numbers of medicinal herbs in the Indiana woods, and a girl who appears to him in his dreams. She needs to sort out some mildly complex family issues (evil uncle, dead mother, estranged grandparents); he needs to persuade her that she loves him; it’s fairly obvious how things will work out. (I notice that the more recent of the two Hollywood adaptations had to invent a whole new rival romance subplot to make the story interesting.)
The best bits in the book are Stratton-Porter’s lyrical descriptions of the scenery:
They were at the foot of a small levee that ran to the bridge crossing Singing Water. On the left lay the valley through which the stream swept from its hurried rush down the hill, a marshy thicket of vines, shrubs, and bushes, the banks impassable with water growth. Everywhere flamed foxfire and cardinal flower, thousands of wild tiger lilies lifted gorgeous orange-red trumpets, beside pearl-white turtle head and moon daisies, while all the creek bank was a coral line with the first opening bloom of big pink mallows. Rank jewel flower poured gold from dainty cornucopias and lavender beard-tongue offered honey to a million bumbling bees; water smart-weed spread a glowing pink background, and twining amber dodder topped the marsh in lacy mist with its delicate white bloom. Straight before them a white-sanded road climbed to the bridge and up a gentle hill between the young hedge of small trees and bushes, where again flowers and bright colours rioted and led to the cabin yet invisible.
I don’t think I have heard of even half of the individual species named there, but it adds up to a very pleasing picture, and every chapter has several passages like this.
On the other hand, the characters are a little too perfect to be true, apart from the evil uncle of whom the opposite is the case, and also one or two points where our hero gets a bit manipulative with our heroine, though he does get a mild comeuppance from it. Not too long, compared with some of the other century-old blockbusters I have read.
I’ve definitely read Where the Wild Things Are, Cat’s Cradle, Hop on Pop, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold , Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, Planet of the Apes, Glory Road, Way Station, I Am David, Podkayne of Mars, The Castafiore Emerald, Ice Station Zebra, Asterix and the Goths, Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever, Stig of the Dump, The Man Who Fell To Earth, The Shoes of the Fisherman, Puckoon, Sword at Sunset, Sons and Lovers, Swann’s Way, When William Came, Five Weeks in a Balloon and of course Pride and Prejudice. I think I’ve read The Gashlycrumb Tinies, which is apparently the most memorable of Gorey’s alphabet books.
1963 strikes me a a vintage year: Cat’s Cradle, Hop on Pop, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold , The Castafiore Emerald and Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever, are all surely among their respective authors’ very best. I also have particularly fond memories of Way Station, I Am David, The Shoes of the Fisherman, Puckoon and Sword at Sunset. The two Heinleins are lesser works, but from the end of the period when he was still writing good stuff.
I will be interested to seee if anyone except me has actually read When William Came (Germans invade England) and Five Weeks in a Balloon (which I failed to give its original title, Cinq semaines en ballonPride and Prejudice doesn’t top this poll by quite a long way.