[Cover of 'House-Boat']I am posting this solely to show you this picture of a cover that I came across while browsing Many Books. For some reason it resonates with me. BoingBoing might call this Book Cover Zen. But do read more about the book, A House-Boat on the Styx (1895) by John Kendrick Bangs, because it seems to have spawned an interesting lineage (mostly in science fiction).

(Note that though the Wikipedia article seems to suggest otherwise, all the related books and films mentioned came well after “House-Boat”.)


8 COMMENTS

  1. Missing from the lineage list on Wikipedia is its appearance in Alan Moore’s incredible occult-primer-as-comic, ‘Promethea’. The principle character, Sophie Bangs, is written as an ancestor of John Kendrick Bangs, mirroring the ‘related-through-fiction’ theme of the work.

    Moore has worked on a lot of ‘integrationist’ fiction, similar to Bang’s sequel, ‘Pursuit of the House-Boat’, which collected fictional characters rather than historical: ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ is an incredible tapestry woven from Victorian literature while his more recent (and much lesser) ‘Albion’ attempts the same with character’s from UK children’s comics.

    Both ‘House-Boat’ and ‘Pursuit’ are available through Gutenberg as well, although I agree with you on the cover…I def. need to track down a copy now.

  2. Hi, Roger. I’d love to see more book-related items. That’s why I asked Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti to be this blog’s book reviewer, and you’ll notice she’s come up with some beautiful reflections on a few books.

    Her big interest in writing for us, however, is in publishing rather than in individual books. Plus, she is busy with an annotation project.

    So I’ve changed Sadi’s title to Book Editor–while still hoping we can find a regular Book Reviewer who will cover both classics and modern texts. I’d love to do reviews myself, but it’s challenging enough just finding time to cover the e-book news, the stuff you won’t find elsewhere.

    Especially I’d love to locate a reviewer eager to do good, original e-books.

    Plus, I’d love to see not just regular reviews but discussions of the publishing processes associated with individual books.

    Ideas welcomed! Meanwhile I’d enocurage Branko to post more items like the Stynx one.

    David

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