Ben Jonson and Cataline

Ben Jonson and Catiline

Around 1611, Ben Jonson wrote a play entitled Catiline about the rebellion. It was a notorious failure. One modern critic said that the play was so terrible, students who cheated should be forced to read it. About 30 years ago, I read the play and concluded that it had been falsely maligned. It didn’t seem to be the weighty bore I had expected. Sometime later I reread the play, and my reaction was, “Hey, this play really does stink!” Strange how our reactions to a given work can vary upon different readings. Strange how our appreciations of works can be affected by extra-literary factors, such as colds, toothaches, quarrels, anxiety, weariness, the afternoon doldrums, etc. Strange also how we pay little attention to these factors and assume that everyone equally is open to each literary work any time it might be picked up. I suppose I owe Jonson a third reading of this play to see, if I can, what I really feel about it.

My Novel on Eliot Ness as a Christmas Present?

The Ness Novel

All three of my novels should be ready well before Christmas. But I am somewhat reluctant to recommend the Ness novel as a gift for someone repelled by fictional violence. This novel rivals my WILDERNESS OF TIGERS, my fictional portrayal of Kentucky's villainous Harpe brothers,perhaps the county's first serial killers--in bodies and violence. When I wrote WILDERNESS, I doubted that I would come across a killer as merciless as they, but the then in reaching the second version of my ELIOT NESS AND THE UNTOUCHABLES, i found that new evidence had been found concerning a still officially unsolved series of murders that occurred when Ness was public safety director of Cleveland. Immediately I knew a book was at hand. I might add that I describe none of the historical murders but do graphically portray their results.

   I wrote THE GRAVE AND THE FIGURE EIGHT  in the early seventies in longhand in about 14 thick 8" by 11" student notebooks, skipping every other line for revisions.  I did some revising, but I looked at the ms. and realized that this book would probably rival WAR AND PEACE in length.  Because of my teaching duties and the extreme unlikelihood of anyone publishing such a long work from an unknown, I put it aside and reworked it in the first decade of the 21st. century.  It was taken by a publisher who accepted unknowns, but the price was set so high that few would buy it!  This occurred when ebooks were getting underway. ((It's  available as an ebook now).   I can't prove the following, but I suspect that the company set prices  so high so that the authors would buy books at a discount (still high) and try to sell the publications on their own.

More on the first edition of THE GRAVE AND THE FIGURE EIGHT

The reason I had the book republished is that the original firm published it traditionally; that is, without my having to pay any money. However, the price was set at $29,00, much too high to attract readers to a book by a new author.  Furthermore, a friend and I were inexperienced in proofreading such a long book and believed we could catch all errors on our own. Drat! We let too many slip by. Now I use a copy editor, one supplied by the publisher. Drat! Still errors slip by.  Alas, I've learned that no book has been published that is totaly error free.

Reduced Prices on first edition of THE GRAVE AND THE FIGURE EIGHT

  On my website, I am offering copies of the first edition of THE GRAVE AND THE FIGURE EIGHT for the reduced prices of $4.00 per paperback and $7.00's per hard back.