Mister Ron's Basement #1541

Fri, Dec 25 2009

Mister Ron's Basement #1541

This week we are reading pieces that have something or other to do with Christmas.

Today we offer what could only be described as unique.

On December 25, 1881, The Brooklyn Eagle featured, in what they called a Christmas Supplement, on page one, a lengthy story by Stanley Huntley entitled 'Peggy's Christmas.'

Huntley described the story as being written by 'Charles Dickens, Edgar A. Poe, Sir Walter Scott, Bart., Victor Hugo, Bret Harte, and Jules Verne.'

Each chapter was written in a different style, and it is fun to try to figure out which chapters were supposed to written by which authors. 'Bart.' obviously refers to Bartlett's Quotations, as there are quotations at each chapter's heading. Here are Mister Ron's guesses as to the styles of each chapter:

Chapter 1 - Dickens
Chapter 2 - Verne
Chapter 3 - Poe
Chapter 4 - Scott
Chapter 5 - Dickens (?)
Chapter 6 - Harte
Chapter 7 - Hugo
Chapter 8 - Verne
Chapter 9 - Poe
Chapter 10 - Scott
Chapter 11 - Harte
Chapter 12 - Poe

This tale is lengthy and at times confusing, but still fascinating.

Time: approx One Hour and three minutes

The Mister Ron's Basement Full Catalog can be found at:
http://ronevry.com/Mister_Rons_Full_Catalog.html

The Stanley Huntley and Spoopendyke Catalog of Stories is at:

http://ronevry.com/Spoopendyke_Stories.html

John Kelly of The Washington Post has written a lively piece about the Basement. You can read it here.

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A hint to new listeners - you can use the catalogs to find stories by specific authors, or just type their name in the keyword search field.
To find some of the best stories in the Basement, simply click here!

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