"Howard Waldrop - The Wolf-man of Alcatraz" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

Prof. M. H. Nicolson
Smith College

Dear Professor Nicolson:

I have just finished your article on early Moon voyages in the new Smith College Studies in English. I
would like to suggest a line of research for you (since you seem to be ideally suited for it)тАФfor what
reason were there so many plays dealing with the Moon (and other planets) in the late 1600s and early
1700s in EnglandтАФAphra Behn's Emperor of the MoonтАФwhich I think had its base in an Italian or
French farceтАФof 1687; Thomas D'Urfey's Wonders in the Sun (1706), Elkanah Settle's The World in
the Moon of 1697? Was it just, as you imply, a reaction to the new worlds revealed in the telescope and
microscope, to a world also undergoing violent changes in religion? Or just exuberance at the reopening
of the theaters, the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution?

And why should the figure of Domingo Gonsales, The Speedy Messenger, figure in so many of them,
with his framework raft pulled by swans to the Moon, where they overwinter? Surely it can't be because
Bishop Godwin was an EnglishmanтАФthe first edition was published anonymously, and most
peopleтАФbecause of Domingo's name and the fictitious biographyтАФtook it to be a translation from the
Spanish or French?

And why "Speedy Messenger"? Was this Godwin's sly reference to Galileo's Starry Messenger?

I'm sure you, too, have thought about some of these things, but that they weren't in the scope of your
article. Perhaps you're planning more work of this nature, or know of where I can find other articles of
this kind? I would appreciate knowing of any forthcoming works on the same subject.

I have to admit I came across your article quite by chanceтАФthe Smith College Studies was meant for
someone else here and was delivered to me by mistake. But it has been a revelation to me, and I want to
thank you.

Sincerely,

Robert Howlin
#1579




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"I don't know, Doc," he said to the visiting psychiatrist. "I don't remember anything. I wake up weak as
a kitten. The first morning's the worst, because I know it's going to happen two more times before I'm
through with it for the month."
Dr. Fibidjian looked down at the thick bundle of papers in the file.

"And you still don't know how it happened?"

"Like it probably says somewhere there. I was in a clip joint. A fight broke out. Somebody used a chair
on the lights; somebody else took out the bartender, who I had been talking to, with a bottle. I was pretty