quiz you might not want to take

Theodor Seuss Geisel (/suːs ˈɡaɪzəl, zɔɪs -/ (About this soundlisten);[2][3][4] March 2, 1904 - September 24, 1991)[5] was an American children's author, political cartoonist, illustrator, poet, animator, screenwriter, and filmmaker. He is known for his work writing and illustrating more than 60 books under the pen name Doctor Seuss (/suːs, zuːs/,[4][6] abbreviated Dr. Seuss). His work includes many of the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death.[7] Geisel adopted the name "Dr. Seuss" as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College and as a graduate student at Lincoln College, Oxford. He left Oxford in 1927 to begin his career as an illustrator and cartoonist for Vanity Fair, Life, and various other publications. He also worked as an illustrator for advertising campaigns, most notably for FLIT and Standard Oil, and as a political cartoonist for the New York newspaper PM. He published his first children's book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street in 1937. During World War II, he took a brief hiatus from children's literature to illustrate political cartoons, and he also worked in the animation and film department of the United States Army where he wrote, produced or animated many productions - both live-action and animated - including Design for Death, which later won the 1947 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.[8] After the war, Geisel returned to writing children's books, writing classics like If I Ran the Zoo (1950), Horton Hears a Who! (1955), If I Ran the Circus (1956), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), and Green Eggs and Ham (1960). He published over 60 books during his career, which have spawned numerous adaptations, including 11 television specials, five feature films, a Broadway musical, and four television series. Geisel won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958 for Horton Hatches the Egg and again in 1961 for And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. Geisel's birthday, March 2, has been adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day, an initiative on reading created by the National Education Association. Contents 1 Life and career 1.1 Early years 1.2 Early career 1.3 World War II-era work 1.4 Later years 2 Illness, death, and posthumous honors 3 Pen names and pronunciations 4 Political views 4.1 In his books 5 Poetic meters 6 Artwork 6.1 Recurring images 7 Publications 8 Adaptions 8.1 Theatrical films 8.2 TV specials 8.3 TV series 9 Adaptations 10 See also 11 References 12 Further reading 13 External links Life and career Early years Geisel was born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, the son of Henrietta (née Seuss) and Theodor Robert Geisel.[9][10] His father managed the family brewery and was later appointed to supervise Springfield's public park system by Mayor John A. Denison[11] after the brewery closed because of Prohibition.[12] Mulberry Street in Springfield, made famous in his first children's book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, is near his boyhood home on Fairfield Street.[13] The family was of German descent, and Geisel and his sister Marnie experienced anti-German prejudice from other children following the outbreak of World War I in 1914.[14] Geisel attended Dartmouth College, graduating in 1925.[15] At Dartmouth, he joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity[9] and the humor magazine Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, eventually rising to the rank of editor-in-chief.[9] While at Dartmouth, he was caught drinking gin with nine friends in his room.[16] At the time, the possession and consumption of alcohol was illegal under Prohibition laws, which remained in place between 1920 and 1933. As a result of this infraction, Dean Craven Laycock insisted that Geisel resign from all extracurricular activities, including the Jack-O-Lantern.[17] To continue working on the magazine without the administration's knowledge, Geisel began signing his work with the pen name "Seuss". He was encouraged in his writing by professor of rhetoric W. Benfield Pressey, whom he described as his "big inspiration for writing" at Dartmouth.[18] Upon graduating from Dartmouth, he entered Lincoln College, Oxford, intending to earn a D.Phil. in English literature.[19][20] At Oxford, he met Helen Palmer, who encouraged him to give up becoming an English teacher in favor of pursuing drawing as a career.[19] She later recalled that "Ted's notebooks were always filled with these fabulous animals. So I set to work diverting him; here was a man who could draw such pictures; he should be earning a living doing that."[19] Early career Geisel left Oxford without earning a degree and returned to the United States in February 1927,[21] where he immediately began submitting writings and drawings to magazines, book publishers, and advertising agencies.[22] Making use of his time in Europe, he pitched a series of cartoons called Eminent Europeans to Life magazine, but the magazine passed on it. His first nationally published cartoon appeared in the July 16, 1927, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. This single $25 sale encouraged Geisel to move from Springfield to New York City.[23] Later that year, Geisel accepted a job as writer and illustrator at the humor magazine Judge, and he felt financially stable enough to marry Helen.[24] His first cartoon for Judge appeared on October 22, 1927, and the Geisels were married on November 29. Geisel's first work signed "Dr. Seuss" was published in Judge about six months after he started working there.[25] In early 1928, one of Geisel's cartoons for Judge mentioned Flit, a common bug spray at the time manufactured by Standard Oil of New Jersey.[26] According to Geisel, the wife of an advertising executive in charge of advertising Flit saw Geisel's cartoon at a hairdresser's and urged her husband to sign him.[27] Geisel's first Flit ad appeared on May 31, 1928, and the campaign continued sporadically until 1941. The campaign's catchphrase "Quick, Henry, the Flit!" became a part of popular culture. It spawned a song and was used as a punch line for comedians such as Fred Allen and Jack Benny. As Geisel gained notoriety for the Flit campaign, his work was in demand and began to appear regularly in magazines such as Life, Liberty, and Vanity Fair.[28] The money Geisel earned from his advertising work and magazine submissions made him wealthier than even his most successful Dartmouth classmates.[28] The increased income allowed the Geisels to move to better quarters and to socialize in higher social circles.[29] They became friends with the wealthy family of banker Frank A. Vanderlip. They also traveled extensively: by 1936, Geisel and his wife had visited 30 countries together. They did not have children, neither kept regular office hours, and they had ample money. Geisel also felt that traveling helped his creativity.[30] Geisel's success with the Flit campaign led to more advertising work, including for other Standard Oil products like Essomarine boat fuel and Essolube Motor Oil and for other companies like the Ford Motor Company, NBC Radio Network, and Holly Sugar.[31] His first foray into books, Boners, a collection of children's sayings that he illustrated, was published by Viking Press in 1931. It topped The New York Times non-fiction bestseller list and led to a sequel, More Boners, published the same year. Encouraged by the books' sales and positive critical reception, Geisel wrote and illustrated an ABC book featuring "very strange animals" that failed to interest publishers.[32] In 1936, Geisel and his wife were returning from an ocean voyage to Europe when the rhythm of the ship's engines inspired the poem that became his first children's book: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.[33] Based on Geisel's varied accounts, the book was rejected by between 20 and 43 publishers.[34][35] According to Geisel, he was walking home to burn the manuscript when a chance encounter with an old Dartmouth classmate led to its publication by Vanguard Press.[36] Geisel wrote four more books before the US entered World War II. This included The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins in 1938, as well as The King's Stilts and The Seven Lady Godivas in 1939, all of which were in prose, atypically for him. This was followed by Horton Hatches the Egg in 1940, in which Geisel returned to the use of poetry. World War II-era work File:The Goldbrick.ogv "The Goldbrick", Private Snafu episode written by Geisel, 1943 As World War II began, Geisel turned to political cartoons, drawing over 400 in two years as editorial cartoonist for the left-leaning New York City daily newspaper, PM.[37] Geisel's political cartoons, later published in Dr. Seuss Goes to War, denounced Hitler and Mussolini and were highly critical of non-interventionists ("isolationists"), most notably Charles Lindbergh, who opposed US entry into the war.[38] One cartoon[39] depicted Japanese Americans being handed TNT after a "call from home", while other cartoons deplored the racism at home against Jews and blacks that harmed the war effort.[citation needed] His cartoons were strongly supportive of President Roosevelt's handling of the war, combining the usual exhortations to ration and contribute to the war effort with frequent attacks on Congress[40] (especially the Republican Party),[41] parts of the press (such as the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and Washington Times-Herald),[42] and others for criticism of Roosevelt, criticism of aid to the Soviet Union,[43][44] investigation of suspected Communists,[45] and other offences that he depicted as leading to disunity and helping the Nazis, intentionally or inadvertently. In 1942, Geisel turned his energies to direct support of the U.S. war effort. First, he worked drawing posters for the Treasury Department and the War Production Board. Then, in 1943, he joined the Army as a Captain and was commander of the Animation Department of the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces, where he wrote films that included Your Job in Germany, a 1945 propaganda film about peace in Europe after World War II; Our Job in Japan; and the Private Snafu series of adult army training films. While in the Army, he was awarded the Legion of Merit.[46] Our Job in Japan became the basis for the commercially released film Design for Death (1947), a study of Japanese culture that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.[47] Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950) was based on an original story by Seuss and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.[48] Later years After the war, Geisel and his wife moved to La Jolla, California, where he returned to writing children's books. He published most of his books through Random House in North America and William Collins, Sons (later HarperCollins) internationally. He wrote many, including such favorites as If I Ran the Zoo (1950), Horton Hears a Who! (1955), If I Ran the Circus (1956), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), and Green Eggs and Ham (1960). He received numerous awards throughout his career, but he won neither the Caldecott Medal nor the Newbery Medal. Three of his titles from this period were, however, chosen as Caldecott runners-up (now referred to as Caldecott Honor books): McElligot's Pool (1947), Bartholomew and the Oobleck (1949), and If I Ran the Zoo (1950). Dr Seuss also wrote the musical and fantasy film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T., which was released in 1953. The movie was a critical and financial failure, and Geisel never attempted another feature film. During the 1950s, he also published a number of illustrated short stories, mostly in Redbook Magazine. Some of these were later collected (in volumes such as The Sneetches and Other Stories) or reworked into independent books (If I Ran the Zoo). A number have never been reprinted since their original appearances. In May 1954, Life magazine published a report on illiteracy among school children which concluded that children were not learning to read because their books were boring. William Ellsworth Spaulding was the director of the education division at Houghton Mifflin (he later became its chairman), and he compiled a list of 348 words that he felt were important for first-graders to recognize. He asked Geisel to cut the list to 250 words and to write a book using only those words.[49] Spaulding challenged Geisel to "bring back a book children can't put down".[50] Nine months later, Geisel completed The Cat in the Hat, using 236 of the words given to him. It retained the drawing style, verse rhythms, and all the imaginative power of Geisel's earlier works but, because of its simplified vocabulary, it could be read by beginning readers. The Cat in the Hat and subsequent books written for young children achieved significant international success and they remain very popular today. In 2009, Green Eggs and Ham sold 540,000 copies, The Cat in the Hat sold 452,000 copies, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960) sold 409,000 copies—outselling the majority of newly published children's books.[51] Geisel went on to write many other children's books, both in his new simplified-vocabulary manner (sold as Beginner Books) and in his older, more elaborate style. In 1956, Dartmouth awarded Geisel with an honorary doctorate, finally legitimizing the "Dr." in his pen name. On April 28, 1958, Geisel appeared on an episode of the panel game show To Tell the Truth.[52] Geisel's wife Helen had a long struggle with illnesses, including cancer and emotional pain over Geisel's affair with Audrey Stone Dimond. On October 23, 1967, Helen died by suicide; Geisel married Dimond on June 21, 1968.[53] Although he devoted most of his life to writing children's books, Geisel had no children of his own, saying of children: "You have 'em; I'll entertain 'em."[53] Dimond added that Geisel "lived his whole life without children and he was very happy without children."[53] Audrey oversaw Geisel's estate until her death on December 19, 2018, at the age of 97.[54] Geisel received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the professional children's librarians in 1980, recognizing his "substantial and lasting contributions to children's literature". At the time, it was awarded every five years.[55] He won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1984 citing his "contribution over nearly half a century to the education and enjoyment of America's children and their parents".[56] Illness, death, and posthumous honors Geisel died of oral cancer on September 24, 1991 at his home in La Jolla, California at the age of 87.[19][57] He was cremated and his ashes were scattered. On December 1, 1995, four years after his death, University of California, San Diego's University Library Building was renamed Geisel Library in honor of Geisel and Audrey for the generous contributions that they made to the library and their devotion to improving literacy.[58] While Geisel was living in La Jolla, the United States Postal Service and others frequently confused him with fellow La Jolla resident Dr. Hans Suess, a noted nuclear physicist.[59] In 2002, the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden opened in Springfield, Massachusetts, featuring sculptures of Geisel and of many of his characters. In 2008 he was inducted into the California Hall of Fame. On March 2, 2009, the Web search engine Google temporarily changed its logo to commemorate Geisel's birthday (a practice that it often follows for various holidays and events).[60] In 2004, U.S. children's librarians established the annual Theodor Seuss Geisel Award to recognize "the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year". It should "demonstrate creativity and imagination to engage children in reading" from pre-kindergarten to second grade.[61] At Geisel's alma mater of Dartmouth, more than 90 percent of incoming first-year students participate in pre-matriculation trips run by the Dartmouth Outing Club into the New Hampshire wilderness. It is traditional for students returning from the trips to stay overnight at Dartmouth's Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, where they are served green eggs for breakfast. On April 4, 2012, the Dartmouth Medical School was renamed the Audrey and Theodor Geisel School of Medicine in honor of their many years of generosity to the college.[62] Dr. Seuss's honors include two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, and the Pulitzer Prize. Dr. Seuss has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at the 6500 block of Hollywood Boulevard.[63] Pen names and pronunciations Geisel's most famous pen name is regularly pronounced /suːs/,[3] an anglicized pronunciation inconsistent with his German surname (the standard German pronunciation is German pronunciation: [ˈzɔʏ̯s]). He himself noted that it rhymed with "voice" (his own pronunciation being /sɔɪs/). Alexander Laing, one of his collaborators on the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern,[64] wrote of it: You're wrong as the deuce And you shouldn't rejoice If you're calling him Seuss. He pronounces it Soice[65] (or Zoice)[66] Geisel switched to the anglicized pronunciation because it "evoked a figure advantageous for an author of children's books to be associated with—Mother Goose"[50] and because most people used this pronunciation. He added the "Doctor (abbreviated Dr.)" to his pen name because his father had always wanted him to practice medicine.[67] For books that Geisel wrote and others illustrated, he used the pen name "Theo LeSieg", starting with I Wish That I Had Duck Feet published in 1965. "LeSieg" is "Geisel" spelled backward.[68] Geisel also published one book under the name Rosetta Stone, 1975's Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!!, a collaboration with Michael K. Frith. Frith and Geisel chose the name in honor of Geisel's second wife Audrey, whose maiden name was Stone.[69] Political views Main article: Political messages of Dr. Seuss Geisel was a liberal Democrat and a supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. His early political cartoons show a passionate opposition to fascism, and he urged action against it both before and after the United States entered World War II. His cartoons portrayed the fear of communism as overstated, finding greater threats in the House Un-American Activities Committee and those who threatened to cut the United States' "life line"[44] to Stalin and the USSR, whom he once depicted as a porter carrying "our war load".[43] Dr. Seuss 1942 cartoon with the caption 'Waiting for the Signal from Home' Geisel supported the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. On the issue of the Japanese, he is quoted as saying: But right now, when the Japs are planting their hatchets in our skulls, it seems like a hell of a time for us to smile and warble: "Brothers!" It is a rather flabby battle cry. If we want to win, we've got to kill Japs, whether it depresses John Haynes Holmes or not. We can get palsy-walsy afterward with those that are left.[70] After the war, though, Geisel overcame his feelings of animosity, using his book Horton Hears a Who! (1954) as an allegory for the American post-war occupation of Japan,[71] as well as dedicating the book to a Japanese friend, though Ron Lamothe noted in an interview that even that book has a sense of "American chauvinism" and doesn't mention the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[72] In 1948, after living and working in Hollywood for years, Geisel moved to La Jolla, California, a predominantly Republican community.[73] Geisel converted a copy of one of his famous children's books, Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!, into a polemic shortly before the end of the 1972-1974 Watergate scandal, in which United States president Richard Nixon resigned, by replacing the name of the main character everywhere that it occurred.[74] "Richard M. Nixon, Will You Please Go Now!" was published in major newspapers through the column of his friend Art Buchwald.[74] The line "a person's a person, no matter how small!!" from Horton Hears a Who! has been used widely as a slogan by the pro-life movement in the United States. Geisel and later his widow Audrey objected to this use; according to her attorney, "She doesn't like people to hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material to front their own points of view."[75] In the 1980s Geisel threatened to sue an anti-abortion group for using this phrase on their stationery, according to his biographer, causing them to remove it.[76] The attorney says he never discussed abortion with either of them,[75] and the biographer says Geisel never expressed a public opinion on the subject.[76] After Seuss' death, Audrey gave financial support to Planned Parenthood.[77] In his books Geisel made a point of not beginning to write his stories with a moral in mind, stating that "kids can see a moral coming a mile off." He was not against writing about issues, however; he said that "there's an inherent moral in any story",[78] and he remarked that he was "subversive as hell."[79] Many of Geisel's books express his views on a remarkable variety of social and political issues: The Lorax (1971), about environmentalism and anti-consumerism; The Sneetches (1961), about racial equality; The Butter Battle Book (1984), about the arms race; Yertle the Turtle (1958), about Adolf Hitler and anti-authoritarianism; How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), criticizing the materialism and consumerism of the Christmas season; and Horton Hears a Who! (1954), about anti-isolationism and internationalism.[50][72] Poetic meters Geisel wrote most of his books in anapestic tetrameter, a poetic meter employed by many poets of the English literary canon. This is often suggested as one of the reasons that Geisel's writing was so well received.[80][81] Anapestic tetrameter consists of four rhythmic units called anapests, each composed of two weak syllables followed by one strong syllable (the beat); often, the first weak syllable is omitted, or an additional weak syllable is added at the end. An example of this meter can be found in Geisel's "Yertle the Turtle", from Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories: And today the Great Yertle, that Marvelous he Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.[82] Some books by Geisel that are written mainly in anapestic tetrameter also contain many lines written in amphibrachic tetrameter, such as these from If I Ran the Circus: All ready to put up the tents for my circus. I think I will call it the Circus McGurkus. And NOW comes an act of Enormous Enormance! No former performer's performed this performance! Geisel also wrote verse in trochaic tetrameter, an arrangement of a strong syllable followed by a weak syllable, with four units per line (for example, the title of One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish). Traditionally, English trochaic meter permits the final weak position in the line to be omitted, which allows both masculine and feminine rhymes. Geisel generally maintained trochaic meter for only brief passages, and for longer stretches typically mixed it with iambic tetrameter, which consists of a weak syllable followed by a strong, and is generally considered easier to write. Thus, for example, the magicians in Bartholomew and the Oobleck make their first appearance chanting in trochees (thus resembling the witches of Shakespeare's Macbeth): Shuffle, duffle, muzzle, muff They then switch to iambs for the oobleck spell: Go make the Oobleck tumble down On every street, in every town![83] Artwork This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Dr. Seuss" - news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Geisel at work on a drawing of the Grinch for How the Grinch Stole Christmas! in 1957 Geisel's early artwork often employed the shaded texture of pencil drawings or watercolors, but in his children's books of the postwar period, he generally made use of a starker medium—pen and ink—normally using just black, white, and one or two colors. His later books, such as The Lorax, used more colors. Geisel's style was unique - his figures are often "rounded" and somewhat droopy. This is true, for instance, of the faces of The grinch and the Cat in the Hat. Almost all his buildings and machinery were devoid of straight lines when they were drawn, even when he was representing real objects. For example, If I Ran the Circus shows a droopy hoisting crane and a droopy steam calliope. Geisel evidently enjoyed drawing architecturally elaborate objects. His endlessly varied but never rectilinear palaces, ramps, platforms, and free-standing stairways are among his most evocative creations. Geisel also drew complex imaginary machines, such as the Audio-Telly-O-Tally-O-Count, from Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book, or the "most peculiar machine" of Sylvester McMonkey McBean in The Sneetches. Geisel also liked drawing outlandish arrangements of feathers or fur: for example, the 500th hat of Bartholomew Cubbins, the tail of Gertrude McFuzz, and the pet for girls who like to brush and comb, in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Geisel's illustrations often convey motion vividly. He was fond of a sort of "voilà" gesture in which the hand flips outward and the fingers spread slightly backward with the thumb up. This motion is done by Ish in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish when he creates fish (who perform the gesture with their fins), in the introduction of the various acts of If I Ran the Circus, and in the introduction of the "Little Cats" in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. He was also fond of drawing hands with interlocked fingers, making it look as though his characters were twiddling their thumbs. Geisel also follows the cartoon tradition of showing motion with lines, like in the sweeping lines that accompany Sneelock's final dive in If I Ran the Circus. Cartoon lines are also used to illustrate the action of the senses—sight, smell, and hearing—in The Big Brag, and lines even illustrate "thought", as in the moment when the Grinch conceives his awful plan to ruin Christmas. Recurring images Geisel's early work in advertising and editorial cartooning helped him to produce "sketches" of things that received more perfect realization later in his children's books. Often, the expressive use to which Geisel put an image later on was quite different from the original.[84] Here are some examples: An editorial cartoon from July 16, 1941[85] depicts a whale resting on the top of a mountain as a parody of American isolationists, especially Charles Lindbergh. This was later rendered (with no apparent political content) as the Wumbus of On Beyond Zebra (1955). Seussian whales (cheerful and balloon-shaped, with long eyelashes) also occur in McElligot's Pool, If I Ran the Circus, and other books. Another editorial cartoon from 1941[86] shows a long cow with many legs and udders representing the conquered nations of Europe being milked by Adolf Hitler. This later became the Umbus of On Beyond Zebra. The tower of turtles in a 1942 editorial cartoon[87] prefigures a similar tower in Yertle the Turtle. This theme also appeared in a Judge cartoon as one letter of a hieroglyphic message, and in Geisel's short-lived comic strip Hejji. Geisel once stated that Yertle the Turtle was Adolf Hitler.[88] Little cats A, B, and C (as well as the rest of the alphabet) who spring from each other's hats appeared in a Ford Motor Company ad. The connected beards in Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? appear frequently in Geisel's work, most notably in Hejji, which featured two goats joined at the beard, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T., which featured two roller-skating guards joined at the beard, and a political cartoon in which Nazism and the America First movement are portrayed as "the men with the Siamese Beard". Geisel's earliest elephants were for advertising and had somewhat wrinkly ears, much as real elephants do.[89] With And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street! (1937) and Horton Hatches the Egg (1940), the ears became more stylized, somewhat like angel wings and thus appropriate to the saintly Horton. During World War II, the elephant image appeared as an emblem for India in four editorial cartoons.[90] Horton and similar elephants appear frequently in the postwar children's books. While drawing advertisements for FLIT, Geisel became adept at drawing insects with huge stingers,[91] shaped like a gentle S-curve and with a sharp end that included a rearward-pointing barb on its lower side. Their facial expressions depict gleeful malevolence. These insects were later rendered in an editorial cartoon as a swarm of Allied aircraft[92] (1942), and again as the Sneedle of On Beyond Zebra, and yet again as the Skritz in I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew. There are many examples of creatures who arrange themselves in repeating patterns, such as the "Two and fro walkers, who march in five layers", and the Through-Horns Jumping Deer in If I Ran the Circus, and the arrangement of birds which the protagonist of Oh, the Places You'll Go! walks through, as the narrator admonishes him to "... always be dexterous and deft, and never mix up your right foot with your left." Publications Further information: Dr. Seuss bibliography Geisel wrote more than 60 books over the course of his long career. Most were published under his well-known pseudonym Dr. Seuss, though he also authored more than a dozen books as Theo LeSieg and one as Rosetta Stone. His books have topped many bestseller lists, sold over 600 million copies, and been translated into more than 20 languages.[7] In 2000, Publishers Weekly compiled a list of the best-selling children's books of all time; of the top 100 hardcover books, 16 were written by Geisel, including Green Eggs and Ham, at number 4, The Cat in the Hat, at number 9, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, at number 13.[93] In the years after his death in 1991, two additional books were published based on his sketches and notes: Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! and Daisy-Head Mayzie. My Many Colored Days was originally written in 1973 but was posthumously published in 1996. In September 2011, seven stories originally published in magazines during the 1950s were released in a collection titled The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories.[94] Geisel also wrote a pair of books for adults: The Seven Lady Godivas (1939; reprinted 1987), a retelling of the Lady Godiva legend that included nude depictions; and You're Only Old Once! (written in 1986 when Geisel was 82), which chronicles an old man's journey through a clinic. His last book was Oh, the Places You'll Go!, which was published the year before his death and became a popular gift for graduating students.[95] Adaptions Theatrical films Year Film Format Director Writer Distributor Length Budget Ref(s) 1942 Horton Hatches the Egg traditionally animated Bob Clampett Michael Maltese Warner Bros. Pictures 10 min. - - 1943 The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins stop motion George Pal Paramount Pictures - - 1944 And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street - - 1950 Gerald McBoing-Boing traditionally animated Robert Cannon UPA and Columbia Pictures - - 2000 How the Grinch Stole Christmas live-action Ron Howard Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman Universal Pictures 104 min. $123 million [96] 2003 The Cat in the Hat Bo Welch Alec Berg, David Mandel, and Jeff Schaffer Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures 82 min. $109 million [97] 2008 Horton Hears a Who! computer-animated Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio 20th Century Fox 86 min. $85 million [98] 2012 The Lorax Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda Universal Pictures $70 million [99] 2018 The Grinch Scott Mosier and Yarrow Cheney Michael LeSieur and Tommy Swerdlow 90 min. $75 million [100] TBA The Cat in the Hat - - Warner Bros. Pictures - - - TV specials Year Film Format Director Writer Distributor Length 1966 How the Grinch Stole Christmas! traditionally animated Chuck Jones Dr. Seuss, Irv Spector, and Bob Ogle MGM 25 min. 1970 Horton Hears a Who! Dr. Seuss 1971 The Cat in the Hat Hawley Pratt CBS 1972 The Lorax 1973 Dr. Seuss on the Loose 1975 The Hoober-Bloob Highway Alan Zaslove 1977 Halloween Is Grinch Night Gerald Baldwin ABC 1980 Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You? 1982 The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat Bill Perez 1989 The Butter Battle Book Ralph Bakshi Turner 1995 Daisy-Head Mayzie Tony Collingwood TV series Year Film Format Director Writer Distributor Length 1996-1998 The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss Turner TV series 2010-2012 The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! TV series Adaptations Seuss Landing at Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida For most of his career, Geisel was reluctant to have his characters marketed in contexts outside of his own books. However, he did permit the creation of several animated cartoons, an art form in which he had gained experience during World War II, and he gradually relaxed his policy as he aged. The first adaptation of one of Geisel's works was a cartoon version of Horton Hatches the Egg, animated at Warner Bros. in 1942 and directed by Bob Clampett. It was presented as part of the Merrie Melodies series and included a number of gags not present in the original narrative, including a fish committing suicide and a Katharine Hepburn imitation by Mayzie. As part of the Puppetoon theatrical cartoon series for Paramount Pictures, two of Geisel's works were adapted into stop-motion films by George Pal. The first, "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins", was released in 1943[101] and nominated for an Academy Award for "Short Subject (Cartoon)" the following year.[102] The second, "And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street", with a title slightly altered from the book's, was released in 1944.[103] In 1959, Geisel authorized Revell, the well-known plastic model-making company, to make a series of "animals" that snapped together rather than being glued together, and could be assembled, disassembled, and re-assembled "in thousands" of ways. The series was called the "Dr. Seuss Zoo" and included Gowdy the Dowdy Grackle, Norval the Bashful Blinket, Tingo the Noodle Topped Stroodle, and Roscoe the Many Footed Lion. The basic body parts were the same and all were interchangeable, and so it was possible for children to combine parts from various characters in essentially unlimited ways in creating their own animal characters (Revell encouraged this by selling Gowdy, Norval, and Tingo together in a "Gift Set" as well as individually). Revell also made a conventional glue-together "beginner's kit" of The Cat in the Hat. In 1966, Geisel authorized eminent cartoon artist Chuck Jones - his friend and former colleague from the war - to make a cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Geisel was credited as a co-producer under his real name Ted Geisel, along with Jones. The cartoon was narrated by Boris Karloff, who also provided the voice of the Grinch. It was very faithful to the original book, and is considered a classic to this day by many. It is often broadcast as an annual Christmas television special. Jones directed an adaptation of Horton Hears a Who! in 1970 and produced an adaptation of The Cat in the Hat in 1971. From 1972 to 1983, Geisel wrote six animated specials that were produced by DePatie-Freleng: The Lorax (1972); Dr. Seuss on the Loose (1973); The Hoober-Bloob Highway (1975); Halloween Is Grinch Night (1977); Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You? (1980); and The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat (1982). Several of the specials won multiple Emmy Awards. A Soviet paint-on-glass-animated short film was made in 1986 called Welcome, an adaptation of Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose. The last adaptation of Geisel's work before he died was The Butter Battle Book, a television special based on the book of the same name, directed by Ralph Bakshi. A television film titled In Search of Dr. Seuss was released in 1994, which adapted many of Seuss's stories. It uses both live-action versions and animated versions of the characters and stories featured; however, the animated portions were merely edited versions of previous animated television specials and, in some cases, re-dubbed as well. After Geisel died of cancer at the age of 87 in 1991, his widow Audrey Geisel was placed in charge of all licensing matters. She approved a live-action feature-film version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas starring Jim Carrey, as well as a Seuss-themed Broadway musical called Seussical, and both premiered in 2000. The Grinch has had limited engagement runs on Broadway during the Christmas season, after premiering in 1998 (under the title How the Grinch Stole Christmas) at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, where it has become a Christmas tradition. In 2003, another live-action film was released, this time an adaptation of The Cat in the Hat that featured Mike Myers as the title character. Audrey Geisel spoke critically of the film, especially the casting of Myers as the Cat in the Hat, and stated that she would not allow any further live-action adaptations of Geisel's books.[104] However, a first animated CGI feature film adaptation of Horton Hears a Who! was approved, and was eventually released on March 14, 2008, to positive reviews. A second CGI-animated feature film adaptation of The Lorax was released by Universal on March 2, 2012 (on what would have been Seuss's 108th birthday). A third adaptation of Seuss' story, the CGI-animated feature film, The Grinch, was released by Universal on November 9, 2018. Four television series have been adapted from Geisel's work. The first, Gerald McBoing-Boing, was an animated television adaptation of Geisel's 1951 cartoon of the same name and lasted three months between 1956 and 1957. The second, The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, was a mix of live-action and puppetry by Jim Henson Television, the producers of The Muppets. It aired for one season on Nickelodeon in the United States, from 1996 to 1997. The third, Gerald McBoing-Boing, is a remake of the 1956 series.[105] Produced in Canada by Cookie Jar Entertainment (now DHX Media) and North America by Classic Media (now DreamWorks Classics), it ran from 2005 to 2007. The fourth, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, produced by Portfolio Entertainment Inc., began on August 7, 2010, in Canada and September 6, 2010, in the United States and is producing new episodes as of 2018. Geisel's books and characters are also featured in Seuss Landing, one of many islands at the Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando, Florida. In an attempt to match Geisel's visual style, there are reportedly "no straight lines" in Seuss Landing.[106] The Hollywood Reporter has reported that Warner Animation Group and Dr. Seuss Enterprises have struck a deal to make new animated movies based on the stories of Dr. Seuss. Their first project will be a fully animated version of The Cat in the Hat.[107] See also Biography portal Children's literature portal icon Visual arts portal "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" - a 1992 R.E.M. song referencing a reading from Seuss. References "The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss". How to Mispronounce "Dr. Seuss" It is true that the middle name of Theodor Geisel — "Seuss," which was also his mother's maiden name — was pronounced "Zoice" by the family, and by Theodor Geisel himself. So, if you are pronouncing his full given name, saying "Zoice" instead of "Soose" would not be wrong. You'd have to explain the pronunciation to your listener, but you would be pronouncing it as the family did. "Seuss". Random House Unabridged Dictionary. pronunciation of "Geisel" and "Seuss" in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary "About the Author, Dr. Seuss, Seussville". Timeline. Retrieved February 15, 2012. Seuss on New Zealand TV, 1964 Bernstein, Peter W. (1992). "Unforgettable Dr. Seuss". Unforgettable. Reader's Digest Australia: 192. ISSN 0034-0375. "Theodor Seuss Geisel" (2015). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved July 22, 2015. Mandeville Special Collections Library. "The Dr. Seuss Collection". UC San Diego. Archived from the original on April 20, 2012. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Seuss, Geisel (2005). "Dr. Seuss Biography". In Taylor, Constance (ed.). Theodor Seuss Geisel The Early Works of Dr. Seuss. 1. Miamisburg, OH: Checker Book Publishing Group. p. 6. ISBN 978-1-933160-01-6 ), Springfield (Mass (1912). Municipal register of the city of Springfield - Springfield (Mass.) - Google Books. Retrieved December 29, 2013. "Who Knew Dr. Seuss Could Brew?". Narragansett Beer. December 17, 2009. Retrieved February 12, 2012. "Mulberry Street". Seuss in Springfield. March 17, 2015. Retrieved March 4, 2019. Pease, Donald (2011). "Dr. Seuss in Ted Geisel's Never-Never Land on JSTOR". Pmla. 126 (1): 197-202. doi:10.1632/pmla.2011.126.1.197. JSTOR 41414092. Minear (1999), p. 9. Nell, Phillip (March-April 2009). "Impertient Questions". Humanities. National Endowment for the Humanities. Retrieved June 20, 2009. Morgan, Judith; Morgan, Neil (August 1996). Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: a biography. ISBN 978-0-306-80736-7. Retrieved September 5, 2010. Fensch, Thomas (2001). The Man Who Was Dr. Seuss. Woodlands: New Century Books. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-930751-11-1. Pace, Eric (September 26, 1991). "Dr. Seuss, Modern Mother Goose, Dies at 87". The New York Times. New York City: NYTC. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 10, 2011. "Famous Lincoln Alumni". Lincoln College, Oxford. Retrieved July 26, 2018. Morgan (1995), p. 57 Pease (2010), pp. 41-42 Cohen (2004), pp. 72-73 Morgan (1995), pp. 59-62 Cohen (2004), p. 86 Cohen (2004), p. 83 Morgan (1995), p. 65 Pease (2010), pp. 48-49 Pease (2010), p. 49 Morgan (1995), p. 79 1968-, Levine, Stuart P. (2001). Dr. Seuss. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books. ISBN 978-1560067481. OCLC 44075999. Morgan (1995), pp. 71-72 Baker, Andrew (March 3, 2010). "Ten Things You May Not Have Known About Dr. Seuss". The Peel. Retrieved April 9, 2012. Nel (2004), pp. 119-21 Lurie, Alison (1992). The Cabinet of Dr. Seuss. Popular Culture: An Introductory Text. ISBN 9780879725723. Retrieved October 30, 2013. Morgan (1995), pp. 79-85 Richard H. Minear, Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel p. 16. ISBN 1-56584-704-0 Minear, Richard H. (1999). Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisell. New York City: The New Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-56584-565-7. Dr. Seuss (w, a). "Waiting for the Signal from Home" PM (February 13, 1942) Mandeville Special Collections Library. "Congress". Dr. Seuss Went to War: A Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr. Seuss. UC San Diego. Archived from the original on May 12, 2012. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Mandeville Special Collections Library. "Republican Party". Dr. Seuss Went to War: A Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr. Seuss. UC San Diego. Archived from the original on May 12, 2012. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Minear (1999), p. 191. Mandeville Special Collections Library. "February 19". Dr. Seuss Went to War: A Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr. Seuss. UC San Diego. Archived from the original on April 17, 2012. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Mandeville Special Collections Library. "March 11". Dr. Seuss Went to War: A Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr. Seuss. UC San Diego. Archived from the original on April 17, 2012. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Minear (1999), pp. 190-91. Morgan (1995), p. 116 Morgan (1995), pp. 119-20 Ellin, Abby (October 2, 2005). "The Return of Gerlad McBoing Boing?". The New York Times. Kahn, Jr., E.J. (December 17, 1960). "Profiles: Children's Friend". The New Yorker. Condé Nast Publications. Retrieved September 20, 2008. Menand, Louis (December 23, 2002). "Cat People: What Dr. Seuss Really Taught Us". The New Yorker. Condé Nast Publications. Retrieved September 16, 2008. Roback, Diane (March 22, 2010). "The Reign Continues". Publishes Weekly. Retrieved April 9, 2012. "To Tell the Truth Primetime Episode Guide 1956-67". "To Tell the Truth" on the Web. Retrieved June 16, 2016. Wadler, Joyce (November 29, 2000). "Public Lives: Mrs. Seuss Hears a Who, and Tells About It". The New York Times. Retrieved May 28, 2008. "Audrey Geisel, caretaker of the Dr. Seuss literary estate, dies at 97". The Washington Post. December 19, 2018. Retrieved December 22, 2018. Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, Past winners. Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) - American Library Association (ALA). About the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award. ALSC - ALA. Retrieved June 17, 2013. "Special Awards and Citations". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved December 2, 2013. Gorman, Tom; Miles Corwin (September 26, 1991). "Theodor Geisel Dies at 87; Wrote 47 Dr. Seuss Books, Author: His last new work, 'Oh, the Places You'll Go!' has proved popular with executives as well as children". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 2, 2012. "About the Geisel Library Building". UC San Diego. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Mandeville Special Collections Library. "Register of Hans Suess Papers 1875 - 1989". UC San Diego. Archived from the original on July 2, 2015. Retrieved April 10, 2012. "Google Holiday Logos". 2009. Retrieved May 12, 2010. "Welcome to the (Theodor Seuss) Geisel Award home page!". ALSC. ALA. "Theodor Seuss Geisel Award". ALSC. ALA. Retrieved June 17, 2013. "Dartmouth Names Medical School in Honor of Audrey and Theodor Geisel". Geisel School of Medicine. April 4, 2012. Retrieved April 9, 2012. Corwin, Miles; Gorman, Tom (September 26, 1991). "Dr. Seuss - Hollywood Star Walk". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 9, 2012. "And to Think That It Happened at Dartmouth". now.dartmouth.edu. 2010. Archived from the original on April 12, 2016. Retrieved May 12, 2016. Kaplan, Melissa (December 18, 2009). "Theodor Seuss Geisel: Author Study". anapsid.org. Retrieved December 2, 2011. (Source in PDF.) "About the Author, Dr. Seuss, Seussville". Biography. Retrieved February 15, 2012. "15 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Dr. Seuss". Thefw.com. Retrieved December 16, 2013. Morgan (1995), p. 219 Morgan (1995), p. 218 Minear (1999), p. 184. "Dr. Seuss Draws Anti-Japanese Cartoons During WWII, Then Atones with Horton Hears a Who!". Open Culture. August 20, 2014. Retrieved January 7, 2019. Wood, Hayley and Ron Lamothe (interview) (August 2004). "Interview with filmmaker Ron Lamothe about The Political Dr. Seuss". MassHumanities eNews. Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. Archived from the original on September 16, 2007. Retrieved September 16, 2008. Lamothe, Ron (October 27, 2004). "PBS Independent Lens: The Political Dr. Seuss". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Buchwald, Art (July 30, 1974). "Richard M. Nixon Will You Please Go Now!". The Washington Post. Katharine Weymouth. p. B01. Retrieved September 17, 2008. "In 'Horton' Movie, Abortion Foes Hear an Ally". NPR. March 14, 2008. Retrieved January 7, 2019. Baram, Marcus (March 17, 2008). "Horton's Who: The Unborn?". ABC News. Retrieved January 7, 2019. "Who Would Dr. Seuss Support?". Catholic Exchange. January 2, 2004. Retrieved January 7, 2019. Bunzel, Peter (April 6, 1959). "The Wacky World of Dr. Seuss Delights the Child—and Adult—Readers of His Books". Life. Chicago: Time Inc. ISSN 0024-3019. OCLC 1643958. Most of Geisel's books point a moral, though he insists that he never starts with one. 'Kids,' he says, 'can see a moral coming a mile off and they gag at it. But there's an inherent moral in any story.' Cott, Jonathan (1984). "The Good Dr. Seuss". Pipers at the Gates of Dawn: The Wisdom of Children's Literature (Reprint ed.). New York City: Random House. ISBN 978-0-394-50464-3. OCLC 8728388. Mensch, Betty; Freeman, Alan (1987). "Getting to Solla Sollew: The Existentialist Politics of Dr. Seuss". Tikkun: 30. In opposition to the conventional—indeed, hegemonic—iambic voice, his metric triplets offer the power of a more primal chant that quickly draws the reader in with relentless repetition. Fensch, Thomas, ed. (1997). Of Sneetches and Whos and the Good Dr. Seuss. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-0388-2. OCLC 37418407. Dr. Seuss (1958). Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. Random House. OCLC 18181636. Dr. Seuss (1949). Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Random House. OCLC 391115. "Mandeville Special Collections Library, UC San Diego". UC San Diego. Archived from the original on May 12, 2012. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Dr. Seuss (w, a). "The Isolationist" PM (July 16, 1941), retrieved on April 9, 2012 Archived April 17, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Dr. Seuss (w, a). "The head eats.. the rest gets milked" PM (May 19, 1941), retrieved on April 9, 2012 Archived April 17, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Dr. Seuss (w, a). "You can't build a substantial V out of turtles!" PM (March 21, 1942), retrieved on April 9, 2012 Archived April 17, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Roberts, Chuck (October 17, 1999). "Serious Seuss: Children's author as political cartoonist". CNN. Retrieved April 9, 2012. Geisel, Theodor. "You can't kill an elephant with a pop gun!". L.P.C.Co.[permanent dead link] Geisel, Theodor. "India List". Archived from the original on May 12, 2012. Retrieved April 9, 2012. Geisel, Theordor. "Flit kills!".[permanent dead link] Theodor Geisel (w, a). "Try and pull the wings off these butterflies, Benito!" PM (November 11, 1942), retrieved on April 9, 2012 Archived April 17, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Turvey, Debbie Hochman (December 17, 2001). "All-Time Bestselling Children's Books". Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on April 6, 2011. Retrieved March 23, 2011. "Random Uncovers 'New' Seuss Stories". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved June 27, 2013. Blais, Jacqueline; Memmott, Carol; Minzesheimer, Bob (May 16, 2007). "Book buzz: Dave Barry really rocks". USA Today. Retrieved January 17, 2012. "How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2010)". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database (IMDb). n.d. Retrieved November 24, 2018. "The Cat in the Hat (2003)". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database (IMDb). n.d. Retrieved November 24, 2018. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! (2008)". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database (IMDb). n.d. Retrieved November 24, 2018. "Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (2012)". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database (IMDb). n.d. Retrieved November 24, 2018. "Dr. Seuss' The Grinch (2018)". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database (IMDb). n.d. Retrieved November 24, 2018. "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins". IMDB. Retrieved March 3, 2017. "The 16th Academy Awards (1944)". Archived from the original on July 15, 2015. Retrieved March 3, 2017. "The Big Cartoon Database". Retrieved March 3, 2017. Associated Press (February 26, 2004). Seussentenial: 100 years of Dr. Seuss. MSNBC. Retrieved on April 6, 2008. Ellin, Abby (October 2, 2005). "The Return of ... Gerald McBoing Boing?". nytimes.com. The New York Times. Retrieved April 7, 2008. Universal Orlando.com. The Cat in the Hat ride. Retrieved on April 6, 2008. Kit, Borys; Fernandez, Jay A. (January 24, 2018). "New 'Cat in the Hat' Movie in the Works From Warner Bros". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media, LLC. Further reading Cohen, Charles (2004). The Seuss, the Whole Seuss and Nothing But the Seuss: A Visual Biography of Theodor Seuss Geisel. Random House Books for Young Readers. ISBN 978-0-375-82248-3. OCLC 53075980. Fensch, Thomas (ed.) (1997). Of Sneetches and Whos and the Good Dr. Seuss: Essays on the Writings and Life of Theodor Geisel. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-0388-2. Geisel, Audrey (1995). The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss. Random House. ISBN 978-0-679-43448-1. Geisel, Theodor (1987). Dr. Seuss from Then to Now: A Catalogue of the Retrospective Exhibition. Random House. ISBN 978-0-394-89268-9. Geisel, Theodor (2001). Minnear, Richard (ed.). Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel. New Press. ISBN 978-1-56584-704-0. Geisel, Theodor (2004). The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss: An Informal Reminiscence. Dartmouth College. Geisel, Theodor (2005). Theodor Seuss Geisel: The Early Works, Volume 1. Checker Book Publishing. ISBN 978-1-933160-01-6. Geisel, Theodor (1987). Minnear, Richard (ed.). The Tough Coughs as He Ploughs the Dough: Early Writings and Cartoons by Dr. Seuss. New York: Morrow/Remco Worldservice Books. ISBN 978-0-688-06548-5. Lamothe, Ron (2004). The Political Dr. Seuss (DVD). Terra Incognita Films. Documentary aired on the Public Television System. Lathem, Edward Connery (2000). Who's Who and What's What in the Books of Dr. Seuss. Dartmouth College. MacDonald, Ruth K. (1988). Dr. Seuss. Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8057-7524-2. Morgan, Judith; Morgan, Neil (1995). Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel. Random House. ISBN 978-0-679-41686-9. Nel, Philip (2007). The Annotated Cat: Under the Hats of Seuss and His Cats. Random House. ISBN 978-0-375-83369-4. Nel, Philip (2004). Dr. Seuss: American Icon. Continuum Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8264-1434-2. Pease, Donald E. (2010). Theodor Seuss Geisel. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-532302-3. Weidt, Maryann; Maguire, Kerry (1994). Oh, the Places He Went. Carolrhoda Books. ISBN 978-0-87614-627-9. External links Dr. Seuss at Wikipedia's sister projects Media from Wikimedia Commons News from Wikinews Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Textbooks from Wikibooks Resources from Wikiversity Seussville site Random House Dr. Seuss at the Internet Broadway Database Dr. Seuss at Internet Off-Broadway Database Dr. Seuss biography on Lambiek Comiclopedia Dr. Seuss Went to War: A Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr. Seuss The Advertising Artwork of Dr. Seuss The Register of Dr. Seuss Collection UC San Diego Hotchkiss, Eugene III (Spring 2004). "Dr. Seuss Keeps Me Guessing: A Commencement story by President Emeritus Eugene Hotchkiss III". lakeforest.edu. Archived from the original on August 14, 2004. Retrieved November 10, 2011. Dr. Seuss / Theodor Geisel artwork can be viewed at American Art Archives web site Dr. Seuss on IMDb The Dr. Seuss That Switched His Voice - poem by Joe Dolce, first published in Quadrant magazine. Register of the Dr. Seuss Collection, UC San Diego Dr. Seuss at Library of Congress Authorities, with 190 catalog records Theodor Seuss Geisel (real name), Theo. LeSieg (pseud.), and Rosetta Stone (joint pseud.) at LC Authorities with 30, 9, and 1 records vte Dr. Seuss vte Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat (1957) vte Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! vte Pulitzer Prize Special Citations and Awards (Letters) Authority control Edit this at Wikidata BNE: XX846595BNF: cb12044517b (data)GND: 107380153ISNI: 0000 0001 2119 3188LCCN: n91084846MusicBrainz: e7a94b95-e339-48eb-83c3-7ba856969bbeNDL: 00440695NKC: jx20120913001NLA: 35710419NLA-person: 1052619NLI: 000170967NTA: 06974226XRKD: 431824SELIBR: 184009SNAC: w6vd6zswSUDOC: 030083303ULAN: 500116672VIAF: 7408695WorldCat Identities (via VIAF): 7408695 Categories: Dr. Seuss1904 births1991 deaths20th-century American poetsAlumni of Lincoln College, OxfordAmerican anti-fascistsAmerican children's writersAmerican editorial cartoonistsAmerican illustratorsAmerican male poetsAmerican military personnel of World War IIAmerican people of German descentArtists from Springfield, MassachusettsChildren's poetsDartmouth College alumniDeaths from cancer in CaliforniaDeaths from oral cancerFirst Motion Picture Unit personnelLaura Ingalls Wilder Medal winnersMassachusetts DemocratsMilitary personnel from MassachusettsPeople from La Jolla, San DiegoPrimetime Emmy Award winnersPoets from CaliforniaPoets from MassachusettsPseudonymous writersPulitzer Prize winnersRCA Records artistsRecipients of the Legion of MeritUnited States Army Air Forces officersWarner Bros. Cartoons peopleWriters from Springfield, MassachusettsWriters who illustrated their own writing Navigation menu Not logged inTalkContributionsCreate accountLog inArticleTalkReadView sourceView historySearch Search Wikipedia Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Donate to Wikipedia Wikipedia store Interaction Help About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact page Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Wikidata item Cite this page In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Print/export Create a book Download as PDF Printable version Languages العربية Deutsch Español Français 한국어 Bahasa Indonesia Italiano Русский 中文 36 more Edit links This page was last edited on 24 September 2019, at 18:03 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation

Dr. Seuss

Blogs · Bookmark/Share · Contact Us Search Archives.gov Main menu RESEARCH OUR RECORDS VETERANS' SERVICE RECORDS EDUCATOR RESOURCES VISIT US AMERICA'S FOUNDING DOCUMENTS America's Founding Documents Home > America's Founding Documents > Declaration of Independence Transcript America's Founding Documents Main Page Explore the Documents Declaration of Independence Constitution of the United States Bill of Rights Special Features High Resolution Downloads Sign the Declaration The Faulkner Murals Meet the Framers of the Constitution Other Resources Visit the National Archives Museum Browse Teaching Resources for the Revolutionary Era Explore Online Exhibits Search the National Archives Catalog Discover the Founders Online Shop the Archives Store Ask a Question on History Hub Declaration of Independence: A Transcription Note: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original. In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

declaration of independence

The more

you know

Page semi-protected Mickey Mouse From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Mickey Mouse" - news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) For other uses, see Mickey Mouse (disambiguation). Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse.png First appearance Steamboat Willie (1928) [1] Created by Walt Disney Ub Iwerks Voiced by Walt Disney (1928-1947; 1955-1962; 2013) Carl W. Stalling (1929) Jimmy MacDonald (1947-1977) Clarence Nash (1951-1952) Wayne Allwine (1977-2009)[2] Les Perkins (1986-1987) Bret Iwan (2009-present) Chris Diamantopoulos (2013-present) (see voice actors) Developed by Les Clark Fred Moore Floyd Gottfredson Information Alias Bob Cratchit King Mickey Mickey (Wizards of Mickey) Species Mouse Gender Male Occupation Detective (MM - Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine) Family Mickey Mouse family Significant other Minnie Mouse Pet dog Pluto Mickey Mouse is a funny animal cartoon character and the mascot of The Walt Disney Company. He was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at the Walt Disney Studios in 1928. An anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves, Mickey is one of the world's most recognizable characters. Created as a replacement for a prior Disney character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Mickey first appeared in the short Plane Crazy, debuting publicly in the short film Steamboat Willie (1928), one of the first sound cartoons. He went on to appear in over 130 films, including The Band Concert (1935), Brave Little Tailor (1938), and Fantasia (1940). Mickey appeared primarily in short films, but also occasionally in feature-length films. Ten of Mickey's cartoons were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, one of which, Lend a Paw, won the award in 1942. In 1978, Mickey became the first cartoon character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Beginning in 1930, Mickey has also been featured extensively as a comic strip character. The Mickey Mouse comic strip, drawn primarily by Floyd Gottfredson, ran for 45 years. Mickey has also appeared in comic books such as Disney Italy's Topolino, MM - Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine, and Wizards of Mickey, and in television series such as The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-1996) and others. He also appears in other media such as video games as well as merchandising and is a meetable character at the Disney parks. Mickey generally appears alongside his girlfriend Minnie Mouse, his pet dog Pluto, his friends Donald Duck and Goofy, and his nemesis Pete, among others (see Mickey Mouse universe). Though originally characterized as a cheeky lovable rogue, Mickey was rebranded over time as a nice guy, usually seen as an honest and bodacious hero. In 2009, Disney began to rebrand the character again by putting less emphasis on his friendly, well-meaning persona and reintroducing the more menacing and stubborn sides of his personality, beginning with the video game Epic Mickey.[3] Contents 1 History 1.1 Film 1.2 Television and later films 1.3 Comics 2 Portrayal 2.1 Design 2.2 Voice actors 3 Merchandising 3.1 Disney parks 3.2 Video games 3.3 Watches and clocks 3.4 Other products 4 Social impact 4.1 Use in politics 4.2 Pejorative use of Mickey's name 4.3 Parodies and criticism 5 Legal issues 5.1 Walt Disney Productions v. Air Pirates 5.2 Copyright status 5.3 Censorship 6 Filmography 6.1 Selected short films 6.2 Full-length films 6.3 Television series 7 Awards and honors 8 See also 9 References 9.1 Citations 9.2 Bibliography 10 External links History See also: Mickey Mouse film series Film Origin Concept art of Mickey from early 1928, from the collection of The Walt Disney Family Museum. The sketches are the earliest known drawings of the character. I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse. — Walt Disney, Disneyland; October 27, 1954 Mickey Mouse was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an earlier cartoon character created by the Disney studio for Charles Mintz, a film producer who distributed product through Universal Studios.[4] In 1928, with the series going strong, Disney asked Mintz for an increase in the budget. But Mintz instead demanded that Walt take a 20 percent budget cut, and as leverage, he reminded Disney that Universal owned the character, and revealed that he had already signed most of Disney's current employees to his new contract. Angrily, Disney refused the deal and returned to produce the final Oswald cartoons he contractually owed Mintz. Disney was dismayed at the betrayal by his staff but determined to restart from scratch. The new Disney Studio initially consisted of animator Ub Iwerks and a loyal apprentice artist, Les Clark, who together with Wilfred Jackson were among the few who remained loyal to Walt. One lesson Disney learned from the experience was to thereafter always make sure that he owned all rights to the characters produced by his company.[citation needed] In 1928, Disney asked Ub Iwerks to start drawing up new character ideas. Iwerks tried sketches of various animals, such as dogs and cats, but none of these appealed to Disney. A female cow and male horse were also rejected. They would later turn up as Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar. A male frog was also rejected. It would later show up in Iwerks' own Flip the Frog series.[5] Walt Disney got the inspiration for Mickey Mouse from a tame mouse at his desk at Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri.[6] In 1925, Hugh Harman drew some sketches of mice around a photograph of Walt Disney. These inspired Ub Iwerks to create a new mouse character for Disney.[5] "Mortimer Mouse" had been Disney's original name for the character before his wife, Lillian, convinced him to change it, and ultimately Mickey Mouse came to be.[7][8] The actor Mickey Rooney claimed that, during his Mickey McGuire days, he met cartoonist Walt Disney at the Warner Brothers studio, and that Disney was inspired to name Mickey Mouse after him.[9] This claim, however, has been debunked by Disney historian Jim Korkis, since at the time of Mickey Mouse's development, Disney Studios had been located on Hyperion Avenue for several years, and Walt Disney never kept an office or other working space at Warner Brothers, having no professional relationship with Warner Brothers, as the Alice Comedies and Oswald cartoons were distributed by Universal.[10][11] Debut (1928) Mickey's first appearance in Steamboat Willie (1928) Disney had Ub Iwerks secretly begin animating a new cartoon while still under contract with Universal. The cartoon was co-directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Iwerks was the main animator for the short and reportedly spent six weeks working on it. In fact, Iwerks was the main animator for every Disney short released in 1928 and 1929. Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising also assisted Disney during those years. They had already signed their contracts with Charles Mintz, but he was still in the process of forming his new studio and so for the time being they were still employed by Disney. This short would be the last they animated under this somewhat awkward situation.[1] Mickey was first seen in a test screening of the cartoon short Plane Crazy, on May 15, 1928, but it failed to impress the audience and, to add insult to injury, Walt could not find a distributor. Though understandably disappointed, Walt went on to produce a second Mickey short, The Gallopin' Gaucho, which was also not released for lack of a distributor.[1] Steamboat Willie was first released on November 18, 1928, in New York. It was co-directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Iwerks again served as the head animator, assisted by Johnny Cannon, Les Clark, Wilfred Jackson and Dick Lundy. This short was intended as a parody of Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr., first released on May 12 of the same year. Although it was the third Mickey cartoon produced, it was the first to find a distributor, and thus is considered by The Disney Company as Mickey's debut. Willie featured changes to Mickey's appearance (in particular, simplifying his eyes to large dots) that established his look for later cartoons and in numerous Walt Disney films.[12][13] The cartoon was not the first cartoon to feature a soundtrack connected to the action. Fleischer Studios, headed by brothers Dave and Max Fleischer, had already released a number of sound cartoons using the DeForest system in the mid-1920s. However, these cartoons did not keep the sound synchronized throughout the film. For Willie, Disney had the sound recorded with a click track that kept the musicians on the beat. This precise timing is apparent during the "Turkey in the Straw" sequence when Mickey's actions exactly match the accompanying instruments. Animation historians have long debated who had served as the composer for the film's original music. This role has been variously attributed to Wilfred Jackson, Carl Stalling and Bert Lewis, but identification remains uncertain. Walt Disney himself was voice actor for both Mickey and Minnie and would remain the source of Mickey's voice through 1946 for theatrical cartoons. Jimmy MacDonald took over the role in 1946, but Walt provided Mickey's voice again from 1955 to 1959 for The Mickey Mouse Club television series on ABC.[citation needed] Audiences at the time of Steamboat Willie's release were reportedly impressed by the use of sound for comedic purposes. Sound films or "talkies" were still considered innovative. The first feature-length movie with dialogue sequences, The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson, was released on October 6, 1927. Within a year of its success, most United States movie theaters had installed sound film equipment. Walt Disney apparently intended to take advantage of this new trend and, arguably, managed to succeed. Most other cartoon studios were still producing silent products and so were unable to effectively act as competition to Disney. As a result, Mickey would soon become the most prominent animated character of the time. Walt Disney soon worked on adding sound to both Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho (which had originally been silent releases) and their new release added to Mickey's success and popularity. A fourth Mickey short, The Barn Dance, was also put into production; however, Mickey does not actually speak until The Karnival Kid in 1929 when his first spoken words were "Hot dogs, Hot dogs!" After Steamboat Willie was released, Mickey became a close competitor to Felix the Cat, and his popularity would grow as he was continuously featured in sound cartoons. By 1929, Felix would lose popularity among theater audiences, and Pat Sullivan decided to produce all future Felix cartoons in sound as a result.[14] Unfortunately, audiences did not respond well to Felix's transition to sound and by 1930, Felix had faded from the screen.[15] Black and white films (1929-1935) Mickey with Minnie Mouse in Building a Building (1933) In Mickey's early films he was often characterized not as a hero, but as an ineffective young suitor to Minnie Mouse. The Barn Dance (March 14, 1929) is the first time in which Mickey is turned down by Minnie in favor of Pete. The Opry House (March 28, 1929) was the first time in which Mickey wore his white gloves. Mickey wears them in almost all of his subsequent appearances and many other characters followed suit. The three lines on the back of Mickey's gloves represent darts in the gloves' fabric extending from between the digits of the hand, typical of glove design of the era. When the Cat's Away (April 18, 1929), essentially a remake of the Alice Comedy, "Alice Rattled by Rats", was an unusual appearance for Mickey. Although Mickey and Minnie still maintained their anthropomorphic characteristics, they were depicted as the size of regular mice and living with a community of many other mice as pests in a home. Mickey and Minnie would later appear the size of regular humans in their own setting. In appearances with real humans, Mickey has been shown to be about two to three feet high.[16] The next Mickey short was also unusual. The Barnyard Battle (April 25, 1929) was the only film to depict Mickey as a soldier and also the first to place him in combat. The Karnival Kid (1929) was the first time Mickey spoke. Before this he had only whistled, laughed, and grunted. His first words were "Hot dogs! Hot dogs!" said while trying to sell hot dogs at a carnival. Mickey's Follies (1929) introduced the song "Minnie's Yoo-Hoo" which would become the theme song for Mickey Mouse films for the next several years. The "Minnie's Yoo-Hoo" song sequence was also later reused with different background animation as its own special short shown only at the commencement of 1930s theater-based Mickey Mouse Clubs.[17][18] Mickey's dog Pluto first appeared as Mickey's pet in The Moose Hunt (1931) after previously appearing as Minnie's dog "Rover" in The Picnic (1930). The Cactus Kid (April 11, 1930) was the last film to be animated by Ub Iwerks at Disney. Shortly before the release of the film, Iwerks left to start his own studio, bankrolled by Disney's then-distributor Pat Powers. Powers and Disney had a falling out over money due Disney from the distribution deal. It was in response to losing the right to distribute Disney's cartoons that Powers made the deal with Iwerks, who had long harbored a desire to head his own studio. The departure is considered a turning point in Mickey's career, as well as that of Walt Disney. Walt lost the man who served as his closest colleague and confidant since 1919. Mickey lost the man responsible for his original design and for the direction or animation of several of the shorts released till this point. Advertising for the early Mickey Mouse cartoons credited them as "A Walt Disney Comic, drawn by Ub Iwerks". Later Disney Company reissues of the early cartoons tend to credit Walt Disney alone. Disney and his remaining staff continued the production of the Mickey series, and he was able to eventually find a number of animators to replace Iwerks. As the Great Depression progressed and Felix the Cat faded from the movie screen, Mickey's popularity would rise, and by 1932 The Mickey Mouse Club would have one million members.[19] At the 5th Academy Awards in 1932, Mickey received his first Academy Award nomination, received for Mickey's Orphans (1931). Walt Disney also received an honorary Academy Award for the creation of Mickey Mouse. Despite being eclipsed by the Silly Symphony short the Three Little Pigs in 1933, Mickey still maintained great popularity among theater audiences too, until 1935, when polls showed that Popeye was more popular than Mickey.[20][21][22] By 1934, Mickey merchandise had earned $600,000.00 a year.[23] In 1935, Disney began to phase out the Mickey Mouse Clubs, due to administration problems.[24] About this time, story artists at Disney were finding it increasingly difficult to write material for Mickey. As he had developed into a role model for children, they were limited in the types of gags they could make. This led to Mickey taking more of a secondary role in some of his next films allowing for more emphasis on other characters. In Orphan's Benefit (August 11, 1934) Mickey first appeared with Donald Duck who had been introduced earlier that year in the Silly Symphony series. The tempestuous duck would provide Disney with seemingly endless story ideas and would remain a recurring character in Mickey's cartoons. Color films (1935-1953) Mickey in The Band Concert (1935) Mickey in Fantasia (1940) Mickey first appeared animated in color in Parade of the Award Nominees in 1932, however, the film strip was created for the 5th Academy Awards ceremony and was not released to the public. Mickey's official first color film came in 1935 with The Band Concert. The Technicolor film process was used in the film production. Here Mickey conducted the William Tell Overture, but the band is swept up by a tornado. It is said that conductor Arturo Toscanini so loved this short that, upon first seeing it, he asked the projectionist to run it again. In 1994, The Band Concert was voted the third-greatest cartoon of all time in a poll of animation professionals. By colorizing and partially redesigning Mickey, Walt would put Mickey back on top once again, and Mickey would reach popularity he never reached before as audiences now gave him more appeal.[25] Also in 1935, Walt would receive a special award from the League of Nations for creating Mickey. However, by 1938, the more manic Donald Duck would surpass the passive Mickey, resulting in a redesign of the mouse between 1938 and 1940 that put Mickey at the peak of his popularity.[25] The second half of the 1930s saw the character Goofy reintroduced as a series regular. Together, Mickey, Donald Duck, and Goofy would go on several adventures together. Several of the films by the comic trio are some of Mickey's most critically acclaimed films, including Mickey's Fire Brigade (1935), Moose Hunters (1937), Clock Cleaners (1937), Lonesome Ghosts (1937), Boat Builders (1938), and Mickey's Trailer (1938). Also during this era, Mickey would star in Brave Little Tailor (1938), an adaptation of The Valiant Little Tailor, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Mickey was redesigned by animator Fred Moore which was first seen in The Pointer (1939). Instead of having solid black eyes, Mickey was given white eyes with pupils, a Caucasian skin colored face, and a pear-shaped body. In the 40's, he changed once more in The Little Whirlwind, where he used his trademark pants for the last time in decades, lost his tail, got more realistic ears that changed with perspective and a different body anatomy. But this change would only last for a short period of time before returning to the one in "The Pointer", with the exception of his pants. In his final theatrical cartoons in the 1950s, he was given eyebrows, which were removed in the more recent cartoons. In 1940, Mickey appeared in his first feature-length film, Fantasia. His screen role as The Sorcerer's Apprentice, set to the symphonic poem of the same name by Paul Dukas, is perhaps the most famous segment of the film and one of Mickey's most iconic roles. The segment features no dialogue at all, only the music. The apprentice (Mickey), not willing to do his chores, puts on the sorcerer's magic hat after the sorcerer goes to bed and casts a spell on a broom, which causes the broom to come to life and perform the most tiring chore—filling up a deep well using two buckets of water. When the well eventually overflows, Mickey finds himself unable to control the broom, leading to a near-flood. After the segment ends, Mickey is seen in silhouette shaking hands with Leopold Stokowski, who conducts all the music heard in Fantasia. Mickey has often been pictured in the red robe and blue sorcerer's hat in merchandising. It was also featured into the climax of Fantasmic!, an attraction at the Disney theme parks. After 1940, Mickey's popularity would decline until his 1955 re-emergence as a daily children's television personality.[26] Despite this, the character continued to appear regularly in animated shorts until 1943 (winning his only competitive Academy Award—with canine companion Pluto—for a short subject, Lend a Paw) and again from 1946 to 1952. The last regular installment of the Mickey Mouse film series came in 1953 with The Simple Things in which Mickey and Pluto go fishing and are pestered by a flock of seagulls. Television and later films Mickey in Disney's House of Mouse (2001-2003) In the 1950s, Mickey became more known for his appearances on television, particularly with The Mickey Mouse Club. Many of his theatrical cartoon shorts were rereleased on television series such as Ink & Paint Club, various forms of the Walt Disney anthology television series, and on home video. Mickey returned to theatrical animation in 1983 with Mickey's Christmas Carol, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol in which Mickey played Bob Cratchit. This was followed up in 1990 with The Prince and the Pauper. Throughout the decades, Mickey Mouse competed with Warner Bros.' Bugs Bunny for animated popularity. But in 1988, the two rivals finally shared screen time in the Robert Zemeckis Disney/Amblin film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Disney and Warner signed an agreement stating that each character had the same amount of screen time in the scene. Similar to his animated inclusion into a live-action film on Roger Rabbit, Mickey made a featured cameo appearance in the 1990 television special The Muppets at Walt Disney World where he met Kermit the Frog. The two are established in the story as having been old friends. The Muppets have otherwise spoofed and referenced Mickey over a dozen times since the 1970s. Eventually, The Muppets were purchased by the Walt Disney Company in 2004. His most recent theatrical cartoon short was 2013's Get a Horse! which was preceded by 1995's Runaway Brain, while from 1999 to 2004, he appeared in direct-to-video features like Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers and the computer-animated Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas. Many television series have centered on Mickey, such as the ABC shows Mickey Mouse Works (1999-2000), Disney's House of Mouse (2001-2003), Disney Channel's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (2006-2016), and Mickey and the Roadster Racers (2017-). Prior to all these, Mickey was also featured as an unseen character in the Bonkers episode "You Oughta Be In Toons". Mickey has recently been announced to star in two films. One is being based on the Magic Kingdom theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort, while the other is a film idea pitched by Walt Disney Animation Studios veteran Burny Mattinson centering on Mickey, Donald, and Goofy.[27] Since June 28, 2013, Disney Channel has been airing new 3-minute Mickey Mouse shorts, with animator Paul Rudish at the helm, incorporating elements of Mickey's late twenties-early thirties look with a contemporary twist.[28] The creative team behind the 2017 DuckTales reboot had hoped to have Mickey Mouse in the series, but this idea was rejected by Disney executives.[29] However, this didn't stop them from including a watermelon shaped like Mickey Mouse that Donald Duck made and used like a ventriloquist dummy (to the point where he had perfectly replicated his voice (supplied by Chris Diamantopoulos)) while he was stranded on a deserted island during the season two finale.[30] In August 2018, ABC television announced a two-hour prime time special, Mickey's 90th Spectacular, in honor of Mickey's 90th birthday. The program featured never-before-seen short videos and several other celebrities who wanted to share their memories about Mickey Mouse and performed some of the Disney songs to impress Mickey. The show took place at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles and was produced and directed by Don Mischer on November 4, 2018.[31][32] On November 18, 2018, a 90th anniversary event for the character was celebrated around the world.[33] Comics Main articles: Mickey Mouse (comic book) and Mickey Mouse (comic strip) Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse - Blaggard Castle.png Mickey and Horace Horsecollar from the Mickey Mouse daily strip; created by Floyd Gottfredson and published December 1932 Author(s) Walt Disney (1930) Win Smith (1930) Floyd Gottfredson (1930-1932) Ted Osborne (1932-1937) Merrill De Maris (1933-1934, 1938-1942) Bill Walsh (1943-1964) Dick Shaw (1964-1969) Del Connell (1969-1988) Floyd Norman (Sundays:1984-1986, 1986-1990) Daan Jippes (Sundays only, 1986-1989) Illustrator(s) Ub Iwerks (1930) Win Smith (1930) Floyd Gottfredson (dailies: May 5, 1930 - November 15, 1975) (Sundays: 1932-1938, 1950-1976) Manuel Gonzales (Sundays: 1939-1981) Bill Wright (Sundays only, 1942-1946, 1956, 1979-1983) Carson Van Osten (1974-1975) Roman Arambula (1975-1989) Daan Jippes (Sundays only, 1981-1982) Rick Hoover (Sundays only, 1989-1995) Current status/schedule Concluded daily & Sunday strip Launch date Daily: January 13, 1930 Sunday: January 10, 1932[34] End date July 29, 1995[34] Syndicate(s) King Features Syndicate Genre(s) Humor Adventure Anthropomorphic animals Mickey first appeared in comics after he had appeared in 15 commercially successful animated shorts and was easily recognized by the public. Walt Disney was approached by King Features Syndicate with the offer to license Mickey and his supporting characters for use in a comic strip. Disney accepted and Mickey Mouse made its first appearance on January 13, 1930. The comical plot was credited to Disney himself, art to Ub Iwerks and inking to Win Smith. The first week or so of the strip featured a loose adaptation of "Plane Crazy". Minnie soon became the first addition to the cast. The strips first released between January 13, 1930, and March 31, 1930, has been occasionally reprinted in comic book form under the collective title "Lost on a Desert Island". Animation historian Jim Korkis notes "After the eighteenth strip, Iwerks left and his inker, Win Smith, continued drawing the gag-a-day format..."[35] In early 1930, after Iwerks' departure, Disney was at first content to continue scripting the Mickey Mouse comic strip, assigning the art to Win Smith. However, Disney's focus had always been in animation and Smith was soon assigned with the scripting as well. Smith was apparently discontent at the prospect of having to script, draw, and ink a series by himself as evidenced by his sudden resignation. Disney then searched for a replacement among the remaining staff of the Studio. He selected Floyd Gottfredson, a recently hired employee. At the time Gottfredson was reportedly eager to work in animation and somewhat reluctant to accept his new assignment. Disney had to assure him the assignment was only temporary and that he would eventually return to animation. Gottfredson accepted and ended up holding this "temporary" assignment from May 5, 1930, to November 15, 1975. Walt Disney's last script for the strip appeared May 17, 1930.[35] Gottfredson's first task was to finish the storyline Disney had started on April 1, 1930. The storyline was completed on September 20, 1930, and later reprinted in comic book form as Mickey Mouse in Death Valley. This early adventure expanded the cast of the strip which to this point only included Mickey and Minnie. Among the characters who had their first comic strip appearances in this story were Clarabelle Cow, Horace Horsecollar, and Black Pete as well as the debuts of corrupted lawyer Sylvester Shyster and Minnie's uncle Mortimer Mouse. The Death Valley narrative was followed by Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers, first printed between September 22 and December 26, 1930, which introduced Marcus Mouse and his wife as Minnie's parents. Starting with these two early comic strip stories, Mickey's versions in animation and comics are considered to have diverged from each other. While Disney and his cartoon shorts would continue to focus on comedy, the comic strip effectively combined comedy and adventure. This adventurous version of Mickey would continue to appear in comic strips and later comic books throughout the 20th and into the 21st century. Floyd Gottfredson left his mark with stories such as Mickey Mouse Joins the Foreign Legion (1936) and The Gleam (1942). He also created the Phantom Blot, Eega Beeva, Morty and Ferdie, Captain Churchmouse, and Butch. Besides Gottfredson artists for the strip over the years included Roman Arambula, Rick Hoover, Manuel Gonzales, Carson Van Osten, Jim Engel, Bill Wright, Ted Thwailes and Daan Jippes; writers included Ted Osborne, Merrill De Maris, Bill Walsh, Dick Shaw, Roy Williams, Del Connell, and Floyd Norman. The next artist to leave his mark on the character was Paul Murry in Dell Comics. His first Mickey tale appeared in 1950 but Mickey did not become a specialty until Murry's first serial for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories in 1953 ("The Last Resort"). In the same period, Romano Scarpa in Italy for the magazine Topolino began to revitalize Mickey in stories that brought back the Phantom Blot and Eega Beeva along with new creations such as the Atomo Bleep-Bleep. While the stories at Western Publishing during the Silver Age emphasized Mickey as a detective in the style of Sherlock Holmes, in the modern era several editors and creators have consciously undertaken to depict a more vigorous Mickey in the mold of the classic Gottfredson adventures. This renaissance has been spearheaded by Byron Erickson, David Gerstein, Noel Van Horn, Michael T. Gilbert and César Ferioli. In Europe, Mickey Mouse became the main attraction of a number of comics magazines, the most famous being Topolino in Italy from 1932 onward, Le Journal de Mickey in France from 1934 onward, Don Miki in Spain and the Greek Miky Maous. Mickey was the main character for the series MM Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine, published in Italy from 1999 to 2001. In 2006, he appeared in the Italian fantasy comic saga Wizards of Mickey. In 1958, Mickey Mouse was introduced to the Arab world through another comic book called "Sameer". He became very popular in Egypt and got a comic book with his name. Mickey's comics in Egypt are licensed by Disney and were published since 1959 by "Dar Al-Hilal" and they were success, however Dar Al-Hilal stopped the publication in 2003 because of problems with Disney. The comics were re-released by "Nahdat Masr" in 2004 and the first issues were sold out in less than 8 hours.[36] Portrayal Design This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Mickey Mouse" - news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) The silhouette of Mickey Mouse's head has become an iconic image. Throughout the earlier years, Mickey's design bore heavy resemblance to Oswald, save for the ears, nose, and tail.[37][38][39] Ub Iwerks designed Mickey's body out of circles in order to make the character simple to animate. Disney employees John Hench and Marc Davis believed that this design was part of Mickey's success as it made him more dynamic and appealing to audiences. Mickey's circular design is most noticeable in his ears. In animation in the 1940s, Mickey's ears were animated in a more realistic perspective. Later, they were drawn to always appear circular no matter which way Mickey was facing. This made Mickey easily recognizable to audiences and made his ears an unofficial personal trademark. The circular rule later created a dilemma for toy creators who had to recreate a three-dimensional Mickey. In 1938, animator Fred Moore redesigned Mickey's body away from its circular design to a pear-shaped design. Colleague Ward Kimball praised Moore for being the first animator to break from Mickey's "rubber hose, round circle" design. Although Moore himself was nervous at first about changing Mickey, Walt Disney liked the new design and told Moore "that's the way I want Mickey to be drawn from now on." Each of Mickey's hands has only three fingers and a thumb. Disney said that this was both an artistic and financial decision, explaining "Artistically five digits are too many for a mouse. His hand would look like a bunch of bananas. Financially, not having an extra finger in each of 45,000 drawings that make up a six and one-half minute short has saved the Studio millions." In the film The Opry House (1929), Mickey was first given white gloves as a way of contrasting his naturally black hands against his black body. The use of white gloves would prove to be an influential design for cartoon characters, particularly with later Disney characters, but also with non-Disney characters such as Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Mighty Mouse, and Mario. Mickey's eyes, as drawn in Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho, were large and white with black outlines. In Steamboat Willie, the bottom portion of the black outlines was removed, although the upper edges still contrasted with his head. Mickey's eyes were later re-imagined as only consisting of the small black dots which were originally his pupils, while what were the upper edges of his eyes became a hairline. This is evident only when Mickey blinks. Fred Moore later redesigned the eyes to be small white eyes with pupils and gave his face a Caucasian skin tone instead of plain white. This new Mickey first appeared in 1938 on the cover of a party program, and in animation the following year with the release of The Pointer.[40] Mickey is sometimes given eyebrows as seen in The Simple Things (1953) and in the comic strip, although he does not have eyebrows in his subsequent appearances.[citation needed] Some of Mickey's early appearance, particularly the gloves, and facial characteristics, evolved from blackface caricatures used in minstrel shows.[41][42][43][44][45] Besides Mickey's gloves and shoes, he typically wears only a pair of shorts with two large buttons in the front. Before Mickey was seen regularly in color animation, Mickey's shorts were either red or a dull blue-green. With the advent of Mickey's color films, the shorts were always red. When Mickey is not wearing his red shorts, he is often still wearing red clothing such as a red bandmaster coat (The Band Concert, The Mickey Mouse Club), red overalls (Clock Cleaners, Boat Builders), a red cloak (Fantasia, Fun and Fancy Free), a red coat (Squatter's Rights, Mickey's Christmas Carol), or a red shirt (Mickey Down Under, The Simple Things). Voice actors Walt Disney (1901-1966), the co-creator of Mickey Mouse and founder of The Walt Disney Company, was the original voice of Mickey. A large part of Mickey's screen persona is his famously shy, falsetto voice. From 1928 onward, Mickey was voiced by Walt Disney himself, a task in which Disney took great personal pride. Composer Carl W. Stalling was the very first person to provide lines for Mickey in the 1929 short The Karnival Kid, and J. Donald Wilson and Joe Twerp provided the voice in some 1938 broadcasts of The Mickey Mouse Theater of the Air,[46] although Disney remained Mickey's official voice during this period. However, by 1946, Disney was becoming too busy with running the studio to do regular voice work which meant he could not do Mickey's voice on a regular basis anymore. It is also speculated that his cigarette habit had damaged his voice over the years.[citation needed] After recording the Mickey and the Beanstalk section of Fun and Fancy Free, Mickey's voice was handed over to veteran Disney musician and actor Jimmy MacDonald. Walt would reprise Mickey's voice occasionally until his passing in 1966, such as in the introductions to the original 1955-1959 run of The Mickey Mouse Club TV series, the "Fourth Anniversary Show" episode of the Walt Disney's Disneyland TV series that aired on September 11, 1957 and the Disneyland USA at Radio City Music Hall show from 1962.[47] MacDonald voiced Mickey in most of the remaining theatrical shorts and for various television and publicity projects up until his retirement in 1977. However, other actors would occasionally play the role during this era. Clarence Nash, the voice of Donald Duck, provided the voice in some of Mickey's later theatrical shorts, such as R'coon Dawg and Pluto's Party.[48] Stan Freberg voiced Mickey in the Freberg-produced record Mickey Mouse's Birthday Party. Alan Young voiced Mickey in the Disneyland record album An Adaptation of Dickens' Christmas Carol, Performed by The Walt Disney Players in 1974.[49][50] The 1983 short film Mickey's Christmas Carol marked the theatrical debut of Wayne Allwine as Mickey Mouse, who was the official voice of Mickey from 1977 until his death in 2009.[51] Allwine once recounted something MacDonald had told him about voicing Mickey: "The main piece of advice that Jim gave me about Mickey helped me keep things in perspective. He said, 'Just remember kid, you're only filling in for the boss.' And that's the way he treated doing Mickey for years and years. From Walt, and now from Jimmy."[52] In 1991, Allwine married Russi Taylor, the voice of Minnie Mouse from 1986 until her death in 2019. Les Perkins did the voice of Mickey in two TV specials, "Down and Out with Donald Duck" and "DTV Valentine", in the mid-1980s. Peter Renaday voiced Mickey in the 1980s Disney albums Yankee Doodle Mickey and Mickey Mouse Splashdance.[53][54] He also provided his voice for The Talking Mickey Mouse toy in 1986.[55][56] Quinton Flynn briefly filled in for Allwine as the voice of Mickey in a few episodes of the first season of Mickey Mouse Works whenever Allwine was unavailable to record.[57] Bret Iwan, a former Hallmark greeting card artist, is the current voice of Mickey. Iwan was originally cast as an understudy for Allwine due to the latter's declining health; however, Allwine died before Iwan could meet him and Iwan became the new official voice of the character. Iwan's early recordings in 2009 included work for the Disney Cruise Line, Mickey toys, the Disney theme parks and the Disney on Ice: Celebrations! ice show.[58] He directly replaced Allwine as Mickey for the Kingdom Hearts video game series and the TV series Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. His first video game voice-over of Mickey Mouse can be heard in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Iwan also became the first voice actor to portray Mickey during Disney's rebranding of the character, providing the vocal effects of Mickey in Epic Mickey as well as his voice in Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two and the remake of Castle of Illusion. Despite Iwan being Mickey's primary voice actor, the character's voice is provided by Chris Diamantopoulos in the 2013 animated series[59] and the 2017 DuckTales reboot (in the form of a watermelon that Donald uses as a ventriloquist dummy) as the producers were looking for a voice closer to Walt Disney's portrayal of the character in order to match the vintage look of that series.[60] Merchandising Since his early years, Mickey Mouse has been licensed by Disney to appear on many different kinds of merchandise. Mickey was produced as plush toys and figurines, and Mickey's image has graced almost everything from T-shirts to lunchboxes. Largely responsible for Disney merchandising in the 1930s was Kay Kamen (1892-1949) who was called a "stickler for quality." Kamen was recognized by The Walt Disney Company as having a significant part in Mickey's rise to stardom and was named a Disney Legend in 1998.[61] At the time of his 80th-anniversary celebration in 2008, Time declared Mickey Mouse one of the world's most recognized characters, even when compared against Santa Claus.[62] Disney officials have stated that 98% of children aged 3-11 around the world are at least aware of the character.[62] Disney parks HKMickeyMinnieMainStreetSummer07.JPG Disneyland park - Anaheim Los Angeles California USA (9894366226).jpg Minnie and Mickey at Hong Kong Disneyland (top) and Mickey's house at Mickey's Toontown (bottom) As the official Walt Disney mascot, Mickey has played a central role in the Disney parks since the opening of Disneyland in 1955. As with other characters, Mickey is often portrayed by a non-speaking costumed actor. In this form, he has participated in ceremonies and countless parades. A popular activity with guests is getting to meet and pose for photographs with the mouse. As of the presidency of Barack Obama (who jokingly referred to him as "a world leader who has bigger ears than me")[63] Mickey has met every U.S. President since Harry Truman, with the exception of Lyndon B. Johnson.[39] Mickey also features in several specific attractions at the Disney parks. Mickey's Toontown (Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland) is a themed land which is a recreation of Mickey's neighborhood. Buildings are built in a cartoon style and guests can visit Mickey or Minnie's houses, Donald Duck's boat, or Goofy's garage. This is a common place to meet the characters.[64] Mickey's PhilharMagic (Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland) is a 4D film which features Mickey in the familiar role of symphony conductor. At Main Street Cinema several of Mickey's short films are shown on a rotating basis; the sixth film is always Steamboat Willie. Mickey plays a central role in Fantasmic! (Disneyland Resort, Disney's Hollywood Studios) a live nighttime show which famously features Mickey in his role as the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Mickey was also a central character in the now-defunct Mickey Mouse Revue (Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland) which was an indoor show featuring animatronic characters. Mickey's face currently graces the Mickey's Fun Wheel at Disney California Adventure Park, where a figure of him also stands on top of Silly Symphony Swings. In addition to Mickey's overt presence in the parks, numerous images of him are also subtly included in sometimes unexpected places. This phenomenon is known as "Hidden Mickey", involving hidden images in Disney films, theme parks, and merchandise. Video games Main article: List of Disney video games (Mickey Mouse Series) Like many popular characters, Mickey has starred in many video games, including Mickey Mousecapade on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse, Mickey's Ultimate Challenge, and Disney's Magical Quest on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse on the Mega Drive/Genesis, Mickey Mouse: Magic Wands! on the Game Boy, and many others. In the 2000s, the Disney's Magical Quest series were ported to the Game Boy Advance, while Mickey made his sixth generation era debut in Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse, a Nintendo GameCube title aimed at younger audiences. Mickey plays a major role in the Kingdom Hearts series, as the king of Disney Castle and aide to the protagonist, Sora. King Mickey wields the Keyblade, a weapon in the form of a key that has the power to open any lock and combat darkness. Epic Mickey, featuring a darker version of the Disney universe, was released in 2010 for the Wii. The game is part of an effort by The Walt Disney Company to re-brand the Mickey Mouse character by moving away from his current squeaky clean image and reintroducing the mischievous side of his personality.[3] Watches and clocks A 1933 Ingersoll Mickey Mouse wristwatch Mickey was most famously featured on wristwatches and alarm clocks, typically utilizing his hands as the actual hands on the face of the clock. The first Mickey Mouse watches were manufactured in 1933 by the Ingersoll Watch Company. The seconds were indicated by a turning disk below Mickey. The first Mickey watch was sold at the Century of Progress in Chicago, 1933 for $3.75 (equivalent to $73 in 2018). Mickey Mouse watches have been sold by other companies and designers throughout the years, including Timex, Elgin, Helbros, Bradley, Lorus, and Gérald Genta[65] The fictional character Robert Langdon from Dan Brown's novels was said to wear a Mickey Mouse watch as a reminder "to stay young at heart."[66] Other products In 1989, Milton Bradley released the electronic talking game titled Mickey Says, with three modes featuring Mickey Mouse as its host. Mickey also appeared in other toys and games, including the Worlds of Wonder released The Talking Mickey Mouse. Fisher-Price has recently produced a line of talking animatronic Mickey dolls including "Dance Star Mickey" (2010)[67] and "Rock Star Mickey" (2011).[68] In total, approximately 40% of Disney's revenues for consumer products are derived from Mickey Mouse merchandise, with revenues peaking in 1997.[62] Social impact Use in politics In the United States, protest votes are often made in order to indicate dissatisfaction with the slate of candidates presented on a particular ballot or to highlight the inadequacies of a particular voting procedure. Since most states' electoral systems do not provide for blank balloting or a choice of "None of the Above", most protest votes take the form of a clearly non-serious candidate's name entered as a write-in vote. Mickey Mouse is often selected for this purpose.[69][70] As an election supervisor in Georgia observed, "If [Mickey Mouse] doesn't get votes in our election, it's a bad election."[71] The earliest known mention of Mickey Mouse as a write-in candidate dates back to the 1932 New York City mayoral elections.[72] Mickey Mouse's name has also been known to appear fraudulently on voter registration lists, such as in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election.[73][74] Pejorative use of Mickey's name "Mickey Mouse" is a slang expression meaning small-time, amateurish or trivial. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, it also means poor quality or counterfeit. However, in parts of Australia it can mean excellent or very good (rhyming slang for "grouse").[75] Examples of the former two of the three usages include the following: In The Godfather Part II, Fredo's justification of betraying Michael is that his orders in the family usually were "Send Fredo off to do this, send Fredo off to do that! Let Fredo take care of some Mickey Mouse nightclub somewhere!" as opposed to more meaningful tasks. In an early episode of the 1978-82 sitcom Mork & Mindy, Mork stated that Pluto was "a Mickey Mouse planet", referring to the future dwarf planet having the same name as Mickey's pet dog Pluto. In reality, the planet was named about 20 years before the dog was. In 1984, just after an ice hockey game in which Wayne Gretzky's Edmonton Oilers beat the New Jersey Devils 13-4, Gretzky was quoted as saying to a reporter, "Well, it's time they got their act together, they're ruining the whole league. They had better stop running a Mickey Mouse organization and put somebody on the ice". Reacting to Gretzky's comment, Devils fans wore Mickey Mouse apparel when the Oilers returned to New Jersey.[76] In the 1993 Warner Bros. film Demolition Man, as Sylvester Stallone's character is fighting the malfunctioning AI of his out-of-control police car, he shouts for the system to "Brake! Brake! Brake now, you Mickey Mouse piece of shit!"[77] In the 1996 Warner Bros. film Space Jam, Bugs Bunny derogatorily comments on Daffy Duck's idea for the name of their basketball team, asking: "What kind of Mickey Mouse organization would name a team 'The Ducks?'" (This also referenced the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, an NHL team that was then owned by Disney, as well as the Disney-made The Mighty Ducks movie franchise. This was referencing the Disney/Warner Brothers rivalry.) In the United States armed forces, actions that look good but have little or no practical use (such as the specific manner of making beds in basic training or the polishing of brass fittings on board ship) are commonly referred to as "Mickey Mouse work."[citation needed] In schools a "Mickey Mouse course", "Mickey Mouse major", or "Mickey Mouse degree" is a class, college major, or degree where very little effort is necessary in order to attain a good grade (especially an A) or one where the subject matter of such a class is not of any importance in the labor market.[78] Musicians often refer to a film score that directly follows each action on screen, sometimes pejoratively, as Mickey Mousing (also mickey-mousing and mickeymousing).[79] Software company Microsoft has been derogatorily called "Mickeysoft".[80] In the beginning of the 1980s, then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once called the European Parliament a "Mickey Mouse parliament", meaning a discussion club without influence.[81] In the British sitcom Red Dwarf, in the episode "Quarantine", after the team's substandard equipment nearly cost them their lives, Lister pointed out, "We're a real Mickey Mouse operation, aren't we?" The Cat replied, "Mickey Mouse? We ain't even Betty Boop!" The combined road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway used for the F1 U.S. Grand Prix has been described by Jacques Villeneuve and other competitors as "Mickey Mouse"[82] due to its slow uninteresting corners, and lack of challenging corners. Parodies and criticism Mickey Mouse's global fame has made him both a symbol of The Walt Disney Company and of the United States itself. For this reason, Mickey has been used frequently in anti-American satire, such as the infamous underground cartoon "Mickey Mouse in Vietnam" (1969). There have been numerous parodies of Mickey Mouse, such as the 2-page parody "Mickey Rodent" by Will Elder (published in Mad #19, 1955) in which the mouse walks around unshaven and jails Donald Duck out of jealousy over the duck's larger popularity.[83] The grotesque Rat Fink character was created by Ed "Big Daddy" Roth over his hatred of Mickey Mouse. In The Simpsons Movie, Bart Simpson puts a black bra on his head to mimic Mickey Mouse and says: "I'm the mascot of an evil corporation!"[84] On the Comedy Central series South Park, Mickey is depicted as the sadistic, greedy, foul-mouthed boss of The Walt Disney Company, only interested in money. He also appears briefly with Donald Duck in the comic Squeak the Mouse by the Italian cartoonist Massimo Mattioli. Horst Rosenthal created a comic book, Mickey au Camp de Gurs (Mickey Mouse in the Gurs Internment Camp) while detained in the Gurs internment camp during the Second World War; he added "Publié Sans Autorisation de Walt Disney" ("Published without Walt Disney's Permission") to the front cover.[85] In the 1969 parody novel Bored of the Rings, Mickey Mouse is satirized as Dickey Dragon. In the fifth episode of the Japanese anime, Pop Team Epic, Popuko, one of the main characters, attempts an impression of Mickey, but does so poorly. Legal issues Like all major Disney characters, Mickey Mouse is not only copyrighted but also trademarked, which lasts in perpetuity as long as it continues to be used commercially by its owner. So, whether or not a particular Disney cartoon goes into the public domain, the characters themselves may not be used as trademarks without authorization. Because of the Copyright Term Extension Act of the United States (sometimes called the 'Mickey Mouse Protection Act' because of extensive lobbying by the Disney corporation) and similar legislation within the European Union and other jurisdictions where copyright terms have been extended, works such as the early Mickey Mouse cartoons will remain under copyright until at least 2023. However, some copyright scholars argue that Disney's copyright on the earliest version of the character may be invalid due to ambiguity in the copyright notice for Steamboat Willie.[86] The Walt Disney Company has become well known for protecting its trademark on the Mickey Mouse character—whose likeness is closely associated with the company—with particular zeal. In 1989, Disney threatened legal action against three daycare centers in the Orlando, Florida region (where Walt Disney World is a dominant employer) for having Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters painted on their walls. The characters were removed, and the newly-opened rival Universal Studios Florida allowed the centers to use their own cartoon characters with their blessing, to build community goodwill.[87] Walt Disney Productions v. Air Pirates In 1971, a group of underground cartoonists calling themselves the Air Pirates, after a group of villains from early Mickey Mouse films, produced a comic called Air Pirates Funnies. In the first issue, cartoonist Dan O'Neill depicted Mickey and Minnie Mouse engaging in explicit sexual behavior and consuming drugs. As O'Neill explained, "The air pirates were...some sort of bizarre concept to steal the air, pirate the air, steal the media....Since we were cartoonists, the logical thing was Disney."[88] Rather than change the appearance or name of the character, which O'Neill felt would dilute the parody, the mouse depicted in Air Pirates Funnies looks like and is named "Mickey Mouse". Disney sued for copyright infringement, and after a series of appeals, O'Neill eventually lost and was ordered to pay Disney $1.9 million. The outcome of the case remains controversial among free-speech advocates. New York Law School professor Edward Samuels said, "[The Air Pirates] set parody back twenty years."[89][better source needed] Copyright status There have been multiple attempts to argue that certain versions of Mickey Mouse are in fact in the public domain. In the 1980s, archivist George S. Brown attempted to recreate and sell cels from the 1933 short "The Mad Doctor", on the theory that they were in the public domain because Disney had failed to renew the copyright as required by current law.[90] However, Disney successfully sued Brown to prevent such sale, arguing that the lapse in copyright for "The Mad Doctor" did not put Mickey Mouse in the public domain because of the copyright in the earlier films.[90] Brown attempted to appeal, noting imperfections in the earlier copyright claims, but the court dismissed his argument as untimely.[90] In 1999, Lauren Vanpelt, a law student at Arizona State University, wrote a paper making a similar argument.[90][91] Vanpelt points out that copyright law at the time required a copyright notice specify the year of the copyright and the copyright owner's name. The title cards to early Mickey Mouse films "Steamboat Willie", "Plane Crazy", and "Gallopin' Gaucho" do not clearly identify the copyright owner, and also misidentify the copyright year. However, Vanpelt notes that copyright cards in other early films may have been done correctly, which could make Mickey Mouse "protected as a component part of the larger copyrighted films".[91] A 2003 article by Douglas A. Hedenkamp in the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Law Journal analyzed Vanpelt's arguments, and concluded that she is likely correct.[90][92] Hedenkamp provided additional arguments, and identified some errors in Vanpelt's paper, but still found that due to imperfections in the copyright notice on the title cards, Walt Disney forfeited his copyright in Mickey Mouse. He concluded: "The forfeiture occurred at the moment of publication, and the law of that time was clear: publication without proper notice irrevocably forfeited copyright protection."[92] Disney threatened to sue Hedenkamp for slander of title, but did not follow through.[90] The claims in Vanpelt and Hedenkamp's articles have not been tested in court.[citation needed] Censorship In 1930, the German Board of Film Censors prohibited any presentations of the Mickey Mouse cartoon The Barnyard Battle (1929). The animated short, which features the mouse as a kepi-wearing soldier fighting cat enemies in German-style helmets, was viewed by censors as a negative portrayal of Germany.[93] It was claimed by the board that the film would "reawaken the latest anti-German feeling existing abroad since the War".[94] The Barnyard Battle incident did not incite wider anti-Mickey sentiment in Germany in 1930; however, after Adolf Hitler came to power several years later, the Nazi regime unambiguously propagandized against Disney. A mid-1930s German newspaper article read: Mickey Mouse is the most miserable ideal ever revealed...Healthy emotions tell every independent young man and every honorable youth that the dirty and filth-covered vermin, the greatest bacteria carrier in the animal kingdom, cannot be the ideal type of animal...Away with Jewish brutalization of the people! Down with Mickey Mouse! Wear the Swastika Cross![95][96][97] American cartoonist and writer Art Spiegelman would later use this quote on the opening page of the second volume of his graphic novel Maus. In 1935 Romanian authorities also banned Mickey Mouse films from cinemas, purportedly fearing that children would be "scared to see a ten-foot mouse in the movie theatre".[98] In 1938, based on the Ministry of Popular Culture's recommendation that a reform was necessary "to raise children in the firm and imperialist spirit of the Fascist revolution", the Italian Government banned foreign children's literature[99] except Mickey; Disney characters were exempted from the decree for the "acknowledged artistic merit" of Disney's work.[100] Actually, Mussolini's children were fond of Mickey Mouse, so they managed to delay his ban as long as possible.[101] In 1942, after Italy declared war on the United States, fascism immediately forced Italian publishers to stop printing any Disney stories. Mickey's stories were replaced by the adventures of Tuffolino, a new human character created by Federico Pedrocchi (script) and Pier Lorenzo De Vita (art). After the downfall of Italy's fascist government in 1945, the ban was removed.

Mickey Mouse

Page protected with pending changes Moby-Dick From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search For other uses, see Moby-Dick (disambiguation). Moby-Dick; or, The Whale Moby-Dick FE title page.jpg Title page, first American edition of Moby-Dick Author Herman Melville Illustrator Rockwell Kent (1930 Lakeside Press ed.) Country United States Language English Genre Novel, adventure fiction, epic, sea story, encyclopedic novel Publisher Richard Bentley (Britain) Harper & Brothers (US) Publication date October 18, 1851 (Britain) November 14, 1851 (US) Dewey Decimal 813.3 LC Class PZ3.M498 Mo3 Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, the work's genre classifications range from late Romantic to early Symbolist. Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a "Great American Novel" was established only in the 20th century, after the centennial of its author's birth. William Faulkner confessed he wished he had written the book himself,[1] and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written".[2] Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.[3] Melville began writing Moby-Dick in February 1850, and would eventually take 18 months to write the book, a full year more than he had first anticipated. Writing was interrupted by his making the acquaintance of Nathaniel Hawthorne in August 1850, and by the creation of the "Mosses from an Old Manse" essay as a first result of that friendship. The book is dedicated to Hawthorne, "in token of my admiration for his genius". The basis for the work is Melville's 1841 whaling voyage aboard the Acushnet. The novel also draws on whaling literature, and on literary inspirations such as Shakespeare and the Bible. The white whale is modeled on the notoriously hard-to-catch albino whale Mocha Dick, and the book's ending is based on the sinking of the whaleship Essex in 1820. The detailed and realistic descriptions of whale hunting and of extracting whale oil, as well as life aboard ship among a culturally diverse crew, are mixed with exploration of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God. In addition to narrative prose, Melville uses styles and literary devices ranging from songs, poetry, and catalogs to Shakespearean stage directions, soliloquies, and asides. In October 1851, the chapter "The Town Ho's Story" was published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine. The same month, the whole book was first published (in three volumes) as The Whale in London, and under its definitive title in a single-volume edition in New York in November. There are hundreds of differences between the two editions, most slight but some important and illuminating. The London publisher, Richard Bentley, censored or changed sensitive passages; Melville made revisions as well, including a last-minute change to the title for the New York edition. The whale, however, appears in the text of both editions as "Moby Dick", without the hyphen.[4] One factor that led British reviewers to scorn the book was that it seemed to be told by a narrator who perished with the ship: the British edition lacked the Epilogue, which recounts Ishmael's survival. About 3,200 copies were sold during the author's life. Contents 1 Plot 2 Structure 2.1 Point of view 2.2 Chapter structure 2.3 Nine meetings with other ships 3 Themes 4 Style 4.1 Assimilation of Shakespeare 5 Background 5.1 Autobiographical elements 5.2 Whaling sources 5.3 Composition 6 Publication history 6.1 Melville's revisions and British editorial revisions 6.2 British censorship and missing "Epilogue" 6.3 Last-minute change of title 6.4 Sales and earnings 7 Reception 7.1 British 7.2 American 8 Legacy and adaptations 9 Editions 10 Footnotes 11 References 12 External links Plot See also: List of Moby-Dick characters Ishmael travels in December from Manhattan Island to New Bedford, Massachusetts with plans to sign up for a whaling voyage. The inn where he arrives is overcrowded, so he must share a bed with the tattooed cannibal Polynesian Queequeg, a harpooneer whose father was king of the fictional island of Rokovoko. The next morning, Ishmael and Queequeg attend Father Mapple's sermon on Jonah, then head for Nantucket. Ishmael signs up with the Quaker ship-owners Bildad and Peleg for a voyage on their whaler Pequod. Peleg describes Captain Ahab: "He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man" who nevertheless "has his humanities". They hire Queequeg the following morning. A man named Elijah prophesies a dire fate should Ishmael and Queequeg join Ahab. While provisions are loaded, shadowy figures board the ship. On a cold Christmas Day, the Pequod leaves the harbor. Ishmael discusses cetology (the zoological classification and natural history of the whale), and describes the crew members. The chief mate is 30-year-old Starbuck, a Nantucket Quaker with a realist mentality, whose harpooneer is Queequeg; second mate is Stubb, from Cape Cod, happy-go-lucky and cheerful, whose harpooneer is Tashtego, a proud, pure-blooded Indian from Gay Head, and the third mate is Flask, also from Martha's Vineyard, short, stout, whose harpooneer is Daggoo, a tall African, now a resident of Nantucket. When Ahab finally appears on the quarterdeck, he announces he is out for revenge on the white whale which took one leg from the knee down and left him with a prosthesis fashioned from a whale's jawbone. Ahab will give the first man to sight Moby Dick a doubloon, a gold coin, which he nails to the mast. Starbuck objects that he has not come for vengeance but for profit. Ahab's purpose exercises a mysterious spell on Ishmael: "Ahab's quenchless feud seemed mine". Instead of rounding Cape Horn, Ahab heads for the equatorial Pacific Ocean via southern Africa. One afternoon, as Ishmael and Queequeg are weaving a mat — "its warp seemed necessity, his hand free will, and Queequeg's sword chance" — Tashtego sights a sperm whale. Five previously unknown men appear on deck and are revealed to be a special crew selected by Ahab and explain the shadowy figures seen boarding the ship. Their leader, Fedallah, a Parsee, is Ahab's harpooneer. The pursuit is unsuccessful. Moby Dick attacking a whaling boat. Southeast of the Cape of Good Hope, the Pequod makes the first of nine sea-encounters, or "gams", with other ships: Ahab hails the Goney (Albatross) to ask whether they have seen the White Whale, but the trumpet through which her captain tries to speak falls into the sea before he can answer. Ishmael explains that because of Ahab's absorption with Moby Dick, he sails on without the customary "gam", which defines as a "social meeting of two (or more) Whale-ships", in which the two captains remain on one ship and the chief mates on the other. In the second gam off the Cape of Good Hope, with the Town-Ho, a Nantucket whaler, the concealed story of a "judgment of God" is revealed, but only to the crew: a defiant sailor who struck an oppressive officer is flogged, and when that officer led the chase for Moby Dick, he fell from the boat and was killed by the whale. Ishmael digresses on pictures of whales, brit (microscopic sea creatures on which whales feed), squid and — after four boats lowered in vain because Daggoo mistook a giant squid for the white whale — whale-lines. The next day, in the Indian Ocean, Stubb kills a sperm whale, and that night Fleece, the Pequod's black cook, prepares him a rare whale steak. Fleece, at Stubb's request, delivers a sermon to the sharks that fight each other to feast on the whale's carcass, tied to the ship, saying that their nature is to be voracious, but they must overcome it. The whale is prepared, beheaded, and barrels of oil are tried out. Standing at the head of the whale, Ahab begs it to speak of the depths of the sea. The Pequod next encounters the Jeroboam, which not only lost its chief mate to Moby Dick, but also is now plagued by an epidemic. The whale carcass still lies in the water. Queequeg mounts it, tied to Ishmael's belt by a monkey-rope as if they were Siamese twins. Stubb and Flask kill a right whale whose head is fastened to a yardarm opposite the sperm whale's head. Ishmael compares the two heads in a philosophical way: the right whale is Lockean, stoic, and the sperm whale as Kantean, platonic. Tashtego cuts into the head of the sperm whale and retrieves buckets of oil. He falls into the head, and the head falls off the yardarm into the sea. Queequeg dives after him and frees his mate with his sword. The Pequod next gams with the Jungfrau from Bremen. Both ships sight whales simultaneously, with the Pequod winning the contest. The three harpooneers dart their harpoons, and Flask delivers the mortal strike with a lance. The carcass sinks, and Queequeg barely manages to escape. The Pequod's next gam is with the French whaler Bouton de Rose, whose crew is ignorant of the ambergris in the gut of the diseased whale in their possession. Stubb talks them out of it, but Ahab orders him away. Days later, an encounter with a harpooned whale prompts Pip, a little black cabin-boy from Connecticut, to jump out of his whale boat. The whale must be cut loose, because the line has Pip so entangled in it. Furious, Stubb orders Pip to stay in the whale boat, but Pip later jumps again, and is left alone in the immense sea and has gone insane by the time he is picked up. Cooled sperm oil congeals and must be squeezed back into liquid state; blubber is boiled in the try-pots on deck; the warm oil is decanted into casks, and then stowed in the ship. After the operation, the decks are scrubbed. The coin hammered to the main mast shows three Andes summits, one with a flame, one with a tower, and one a crowing cock. Ahab stops to look at the doubloon and interprets the coin as signs of his firmness, volcanic energy, and victory; Starbuck takes the high peaks as evidence of the Trinity; Stubb focuses on the zodiacal arch over the mountains; and Flask sees nothing of any symbolic value at all. The Manxman mutters in front of the mast, and Pip declines the verb "look". Queequeg The Pequod next gams with the Samuel Enderby of London, captained by Boomer, a down-to-earth fellow who lost his right arm to Moby Dick. Nevertheless, he carries no ill will toward the whale, which he regards not as malicious, but as awkward. Ahab puts an end to the gam by rushing back to his ship. The narrator now discusses the subjects of (1) whalers supply; (2) a glen in Tranque in the Arsacides islands full of carved whale bones, fossil whales, whale skeleton measurements; (3) the chance that the magnitude of the whale will diminish and that the leviathan might perish. Leaving the Samuel Enderby, Ahab wrenches his ivory leg and orders the carpenter to fashion him another. Starbuck informs Ahab of oil leakage in the hold. Reluctantly, Ahab orders the harpooneers to inspect the casks. Queequeg, sweating all day below decks, develops a chill and soon is almost mortally feverish. The carpenter makes a coffin for Queequeg, who fears an ordinary burial at sea. Queequeg tries it for size, with Pip sobbing and beating his tambourine, standing by and calling himself a coward while he praises Queequeg for his gameness. Yet Queequeg suddenly rallies, briefly convalesces, and leaps up, back in good health. Henceforth, he uses his coffin for a spare seachest, which is later caulked and pitched to replace the Pequod's life buoy. The Pequod sails northeast toward Formosa and into the Pacific Ocean. Ahab, with one nostril, smells the musk from the Bashee isles, and with the other, the salt of the waters where Moby Dick swims. Ahab goes to Perth, the blacksmith, with a bag of racehorse shoenail stubs to be forged into the shank of a special harpoon, and with his razors for Perth to melt and fashion into a harpoon barb. Ahab tempers the barb in blood from Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo. The Pequod gams next with the Bachelor, a Nantucket ship heading home full of sperm oil. Every now and then, the Pequod lowers for whales with success. On one of those nights in the whaleboat, Fedallah prophesies that neither hearse nor coffin can be Ahab's, that before he dies, Ahab must see two hearses — one not made by mortal hands and the other made of American wood — that Fedallah will precede his captain in death, and finally that only hemp can kill Ahab. As the Pequod approaches the Equator, Ahab scolds his quadrant for telling him only where he is and not where he will be. He dashes it to the deck. That evening, an impressive typhoon attacks the ship. Lightning strikes the mast, setting the doubloon and Ahab's harpoon aglow. Ahab delivers a speech on the spirit of fire, seeing the lightning as a portent of Moby Dick. Starbuck sees the lightning as a warning, and feels tempted to shoot the sleeping Ahab with a musket. Next morning, when he finds that the lightning disoriented the compass, Ahab makes a new one out of a lance, a maul, and a sailmaker's needle. He orders the log be heaved, but the weathered line snaps, leaving the ship with no way to fix its location. Moby Dick The Pequod is now heading southeast toward Moby Dick. A man falls overboard from the mast. The life buoy is thrown, but both sink. Now Queequeg proposes that his superfluous coffin be used as a new life buoy. Starbuck orders the carpenter take care it is lidded and caulked. Next morning, the ship meets in another truncated gam with the Rachel, commanded by Captain Gardiner from Nantucket. The Rachel is seeking survivors from one of her whaleboats which had gone after Moby Dick. Among the missing is Gardiner's young son. Ahab refuses to join the search. Twenty-four hours a day, Ahab now stands and walks the deck, while Fedallah shadows him. Suddenly, a sea hawk grabs Ahab's slouched hat and flies off with it. Next, the Pequod, in a ninth and final gam, meets the Delight, badly damaged and with five of her crew left dead by Moby Dick. Her captain shouts that the harpoon which can kill the white whale has yet to be forged, but Ahab flourishes his special lance and once more orders the ship forward. Ahab shares a moment of contemplation with Starbuck. Ahab speaks about his wife and child, calls himself a fool for spending 40 years on whaling, and claims he can see his own child in Starbuck's eye. Starbuck tries to persuade Ahab to return to Nantucket to meet both their families, but Ahab simply crosses the deck and stands near Fedallah. On the first day of the chase, Ahab smells the whale, climbs the mast, and sights Moby Dick. He claims the doubloon for himself, and orders all boats to lower except for Starbuck's. The whale bites Ahab's boat in two, tosses the captain out of it, and scatters the crew. On the second day of the chase, Ahab leaves Starbuck in charge of the Pequod. Moby Dick smashes the three boats that seek him into splinters and tangles their lines. Ahab is rescued, but his ivory leg and Fedallah are lost. Starbuck begs Ahab to desist, but Ahab vows to slay the white whale, even if he would have to dive through the globe itself to get his revenge. On the third day of the chase, Ahab sights Moby Dick at noon, and sharks appear, as well. Ahab lowers his boat for a final time, leaving Starbuck again on board. Moby Dick breaches and destroys two boats. Fedallah's corpse, still entangled in the fouled lines, is lashed to the whale's back, so Moby Dick turns out to be the hearse Fedallah prophesied. "Possessed by all the fallen angels", Ahab plants his harpoon in the whale's flank. Moby Dick smites the whaleboat, tossing its men into the sea. Only Ishmael is unable to return to the boat. He is left behind in the sea, and so is the only crewman of the Pequod to survive the final encounter. The whale now fatally attacks the Pequod. Ahab then realizes that the destroyed ship is the hearse made of American wood in Fedallah's prophesy. The whale returns to Ahab, who stabs at him again. As he does so, the line gets tangled, and Ahab bends over to free it. In doing so the line loops around Ahab's neck, and as the stricken whale swims away, the captain is drawn with him out of sight. Queequeg's coffin comes to the surface, the only thing to escape the vortex when Pequod sank. For an entire day, Ishmael floats on it, until the Rachel, still looking for its lost seamen, rescues him. Structure Point of view Ishmael is the narrator, shaping his story with use of many different genres including sermons, stage plays, soliloquies, and emblematical readings.[5] Repeatedly, Ishmael refers to his writing of the book: "But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught."[6] Scholar John Bryant calls him the novel's "central consciousness and narrative voice."[7] Walter Bezanson first distinguishes Ishmael as narrator from Ishmael as character, whom he calls "forecastle Ishmael", the younger Ishmael of some years ago. Narrator Ishmael, then, is "merely young Ishmael grown older."[5] A second distinction avoids confusion of either of both Ishmaels with the author Herman Melville. Bezanson warns readers to "resist any one-to-one equation of Melville and Ishmael."[8] Chapter structure According to critic Walter Bezanson, the chapter structure can be divided into "chapter sequences", "chapter clusters", and "balancing chapters". The simplest sequences are of narrative progression, then sequences of theme such as the three chapters on whale painting, and sequences of structural similarity, such as the five dramatic chapters beginning with "The Quarter-Deck" or the four chapters beginning with "The Candles". Chapter clusters are the chapters on the significance of the colour white, and those on the meaning of fire. Balancing chapters are chapters of opposites, such as "Loomings" versus the "Epilogue," or similars, such as "The Quarter-Deck" and "The Candles".[9] Scholar Lawrence Buell describes the arrangement of the non-narrative chapters as structured around three patterns: first, the nine meetings of the Pequod with ships that have encountered Moby Dick. Each has been more and more severely damaged, foreshadowing the Pequod's own fate. Second, the increasingly impressive encounters with whales. In the early encounters, the whaleboats hardly make contact; later there are false alarms and routine chases; finally, the massive assembling of whales at the edges of the China Sea in "The Grand Armada". A typhoon near Japan sets the stage for Ahab's confrontation with Moby Dick.[3] The third pattern is the cetological documentation, so lavish that it can be divided into two subpatterns. These chapters start with the ancient history of whaling and a bibliographical classification of whales, getting closer with second-hand stories of the evil of whales in general and of Moby Dick in particular, a chronologically ordered commentary on pictures of whales. The climax to this section is chapter 57, "Of whales in paint etc.", which begins with the humble (a beggar in London) and ends with the sublime (the constellation Cetus). The next chapter ("Brit"), thus the other half of this pattern, begins with the book's first description of live whales, and next the anatomy of the sperm whale is studied, more or less from front to rear and from outer to inner parts, all the way down to the skeleton. Two concluding chapters set forth the whale's evolution as a species and claim its eternal nature.[3] Some "ten or more" of the chapters on whale killings, beginning at two-fifths of the book, are developed enough to be called "events". As Bezanson writes, "in each case a killing provokes either a chapter sequence or a chapter cluster of cetological lore growing out of the circumstance of the particular killing," thus these killings are "structural occasions for ordering the whaling essays and sermons".[10] Buell observes that the "narrative architecture" is an "idiosyncratic variant of the bipolar observer/hero narrative", that is, the novel is structured around the two main characters, Ahab and Ishmael, who are intertwined and contrasted with each other, with Ishmael the observer and narrator.[11] As the story of Ishmael, remarks Robert Milder, it is a "narrative of education".[12] Bryant and Springer find that the book is structured around the two consciousnesses of Ahab and Ishmael, with Ahab as a force of linearity and Ishmael a force of digression.[13] While both have an angry sense of being orphaned, they try to come to terms with this hole in their beings in different ways: Ahab with violence, Ishmael with meditation. And while the plot in Moby-Dick may be driven by Ahab's anger, Ishmael's desire to get a hold of the "ungraspable" accounts for the novel's lyricism.[14] Buell sees a double quest in the book: Ahab's is to hunt Moby Dick, Ishmael's is "to understand what to make of both whale and hunt".[11] One of the most distinctive features of the book is the variety of genres. Bezanson mentions sermons, dreams, travel account, autobiography, Elizabethan plays, and epic poetry.[15] He calls Ishmael's explanatory footnotes to establish the documentary genre "a Nabokovian touch".[16] Nine meetings with other ships A significant structural device is the series of nine meetings (gams) between the Pequod and other ships. These meetings are important in three ways. First, their placement in the narrative. The initial two meetings and the last two are both close to each other. The central group of five gams are separated by about 12 chapters, more or less. This pattern provides a structural element, remarks Bezanson, as if the encounters were "bones to the book's flesh". Second, Ahab's developing responses to the meetings plot the "rising curve of his passion" and of his monomania. Third, in contrast to Ahab, Ishmael interprets the significance of each ship individually: "each ship is a scroll which the narrator unrolls and reads."[10] Bezanson sees no single way to account for the meaning of all of these ships. Instead, they may be interpreted as "a group of metaphysical parables, a series of biblical analogues, a masque of the situation confronting man, a pageant of the humors within men, a parade of the nations, and so forth, as well as concrete and symbolic ways of thinking about the White Whale".[17] Scholar Nathalia Wright sees the meetings and the significance of the vessels along other lines. She singles out the four vessels which have already encountered Moby Dick. The first, the Jeroboam, is named after the predecessor of the biblical King Ahab. Her "prophetic" fate is "a message of warning to all who follow, articulated by Gabriel and vindicated by the Samuel Enderby, the Rachel, the Delight, and at last the Pequod". None of the other ships has been completely destroyed because none of their captains shared Ahab's monomania; the fate of the Jeroboam reinforces the structural parallel between Ahab and his biblical namesake: "Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him" (I Kings 16:33).[18] Themes An early enthusiast for the Melville Revival, British author E. M. Forster, remarked in 1927: "Moby-Dick is full of meanings: its meaning is a different problem."[19] Yet he saw as "the essential" in the book "its prophetic song", which flows "like an undercurrent" beneath the surface action and morality.[20] Biographer Laurie Robertson-Lorant sees epistemology as the book's theme. Ishmael's taxonomy of whales merely demonstrates "the limitations of scientific knowledge and the impossibility of achieving certainty". She also contrasts Ishmael and Ahab's attitudes toward life, with Ishmael's open-minded and meditative, "polypositional stance" as antithetical to Ahab's monomania, adhering to dogmatic rigidity.[21] Melville biographer Delbanco cites race as an example of this search for truth beneath surface differences. All races are represented among the crew members of the Pequod. Although Ishmael initially is afraid of Queequeg as a tattooed cannibal, he soon decides, "Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."[22] While it may be rare for a mid-19th century American book to feature black characters in a nonslavery context, slavery is frequently mentioned. The theme of race is primarily carried by Pip, the diminutive black cabin boy.[23] When Pip has almost drowned, Ahab, genuinely touched by Pip's suffering, questions him gently, Pip "can only parrot the language of an advertisement for the return of a fugitive slave: 'Pip! Reward for Pip!'".[24] Editors Bryant and Springer suggest perception is a central theme, the difficulty of seeing and understanding, which makes deep reality hard to discover and truth hard to pin down. Ahab explains that, like all things, the evil whale wears a disguise: "All visible objects, man, are but pasteboard masks" — and Ahab is determined to "strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside, except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall" (Ch. 36, "The Quarter-Deck"). This theme pervades the novel, perhaps never so emphatically as in "The Doubloon" (Ch. 99), where each crewmember perceives the coin in a way shaped by his own personality. Later, the American edition has Ahab "discover no sign" (Ch. 133) of the whale when he is staring into the deep. In fact, Moby Dick is then swimming up at him. In the British edition, Melville changed the word "discover" to "perceive", and with good reason, for "discovery" means finding what is already there, but "perceiving", or better still, perception, is "a matter of shaping what exists by the way in which we see it".[25] The point is not that Ahab would discover the whale as an object, but that he would perceive it as a symbol of his making.[25] Yet Melville does not offer easy solutions. Ishmael and Queequeg's sensual friendship initiates a kind of racial harmony that is shattered when the crew's dancing erupts into racial conflict in "Midnight, Forecastle" (Ch. 40).[13] Fifty chapters later, Pip suffers mental disintegration after he is reminded that as a slave he would be worth less money than a whale. Commodified and brutalized, "Pip becomes the ship's conscience".[26] His views of property are another example of wrestling with moral choice. In Chapter 89, Ishmael expounds the concept of the fast-fish and the loose-fish, which gives right of ownership to those who take possession of an abandoned fish or ship, and observes that the British Empire took possession of American Indian lands in colonial times in just the way that whalers take possession of an unclaimed whale.[27] The novel has also been read as being critical of the contemporary literary and philosophical movement Transcendentalism, attacking the thought of leading Transcendentalist[28] Ralph Waldo Emerson in particular.[29] The life and death of Ahab has been read as an attack on Emerson's philosophy of self reliance, for one, in its destructive potential and potential justification for egoism. Richard Chase writes that for Melville, 'Death-spiritual, emotional, physical-is the price of self-reliance when it is pushed to the point of solipsism, where the world has no existence apart from the all-sufficient self.'[30] In that regard, Chase sees Melville's art as antithetical to that of Emerson's thought, in that Melville '[points] up the dangers of an exaggerated self-regard, rather than, as ... Emerson loved to do, [suggested] the vital possibilities of the self.'[30] Newton Arvin further suggests that self-reliance was, for Melville, really the '[masquerade in kingly weeds of] a wild egoism, anarchic, irresponsible, and destructive.'[31] Style An incomplete inventory of the language of Moby-Dick by editors Bryant and Springer includes "nautical, biblical, Homeric, Shakespearean, Miltonic, cetological" influences, and his style is "alliterative, fanciful, colloquial, archaic, and unceasingly allusive": Melville tests and exhausts the possibilities of grammar, quotes from a range of well-known or obscure sources, and swings from calm prose to high rhetoric, technical exposition, seaman's slang, mystic speculation, or wild prophetic archaism.[32] Many words that make up the vocabulary of Moby-Dick are Melville's own coinages, critic Newton Arvin recognizes, as if the English vocabulary were too limited for the complex things Melville had to express. Perhaps the most striking example is the use of verbal nouns, mostly plural, such as allurings, coincidings, and leewardings. Equally abundant are unfamiliar adjectives and adverbs, including participial adjectives such as officered, omnitooled, and uncatastrophied; participial adverbs such as intermixingly, postponedly, and uninterpenetratingly; rarities such as the adjectives unsmoothable, spermy, and leviathanic, and adverbs such as sultanically, Spanishly, and Venetianly; and adjectival compounds ranging from odd to magnificent, such as "the message-carrying air", "the circus-running sun", and "teeth-tiered sharks".[33] It is rarer for Melville to create his own verbs from nouns, but he does this with what Arvin calls "irresistible effect", such as in "who didst thunder him higher than a throne", and "my fingers ... began ... to serpentine and spiralize".[34] For Arvin, the essence of the writing style of Moby-Dick lies in the manner in which the parts of speech are 'intermixingly' assorted in Melville's style--so that the distinction between verbs and nouns, substantives and modifiers, becomes a half unreal one--this is the prime characteristic of his language. No feature of it could express more tellingly the awareness that lies below and behind Moby-Dick--the awareness that action and condition, movement and stasis, object and idea, are but surface aspects of one underlying reality.[35] Arvin's categories have been slightly expanded by later critics, most notably Warner Berthoff. The superabundant vocabulary of the work can be broken down into strategies used individually and in combination. First, the original modification of words as "Leviathanism"[36] and the exaggerated repetition of modified words, as in the series "pitiable", "pity", "pitied" and "piteous" (Ch. 81, "The Pequod Meets the Virgin").[37] Second, the use of existing words in new ways, as when the whale "heaps" and "tasks".[36] Third, words lifted from specialized fields, as "fossiliferous".[36] Fourth, the use of unusual adjective-noun combinations, as in "concentrating brow" and "immaculate manliness" (Ch. 26, "Knights and Squires").[38] Fifth, using the participial modifier to emphasize and to reinforce the already established expectations of the reader, as the words "preluding" and "foreshadowing" ("so still and subdued and yet somehow preluding was all the scene ..."; "In this foreshadowing interval ...").[37] Characteristic stylistic elements of another kind are the echoes and overtones.[39] Responsible for this are both Melville's imitation of certain distinct styles and his habitual use of sources to shape his own work. His three most important sources, in order, are the Bible, Shakespeare, and Milton.[40] Another notable stylistic element are the several levels of rhetoric, the simplest of which is "a relatively straightforward expository style" that is evident of many passages in the cetological chapters, though they are "rarely sustained, and serve chiefly as transitions" between more sophisticated levels. One of these is the "poetic" level of rhetoric, which Bezanson sees "well exemplified" in Ahab's quarter-deck soliloquy, to the point that it can be set as blank verse.[41] Set over a metrical patern, the rhythms are "evenly controlled—too evenly perhaps for prose," Bezanson suggests.[42] A third level of rhetoric is the idiomatic, and just as the poetic it hardly is present in pure form. Examples of this are "the consistently excellent idiom" of Stubb, such as in the way he encourages the rowing crew in a rhythm of speech that suggests "the beat of the oars takes the place of the metronomic meter". The fourth and final level of rhetoric is the composite, "a magnificent blending" of the first three and possible other elements: The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation. There is his home; there lies his buisiness, which a Noah's flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales. ("Nantucket," Ch. 14). This passage, from a chapter that Bezanson calls a comical "prose poem", blends "high and low with a relaxed assurance". Similar great passages include the "marvelous hymn to spiritual democracy" that can be found in the middle of "Knights and Squires".[43] The elaborate use of the Homeric simile may not have been learned from Homer himself, yet Matthiessen finds the writing "more consistently alive" on the Homeric than on the Shakespearean level, especially during the final chase the "controlled accumulation" of such similes emphasizes Ahab's hubris through a succession of land-images, for instance: "The ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a cannon-ball, missent, becomes a ploughshare and turns up the level field" ("The Chase - Second Day," Ch. 134).[44] One paragraph-long simile describes how the 30 men of the crew became a single unit: For as the one ship that held them all; though it was put together of all contrasting things—oak, and maple, and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp—yet all these ran into each other in the one concrete hull, which shot on its way, both balanced and directed by the long central keel; even so, all the individualities of the crew, this man's valor, that man's fear; guilt and guiltiness, all varieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to that fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to. ("The Chase - Second Day," Ch. 134). The final phrase fuses the two halves of the comparison, the men become identical with the ship, which follows Ahab's direction. The concentration only gives way to more imagery, with the "mastheads, like the tops of tall palms, were outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs". All these images contribute their "startling energy" to the advance of the narrative. When the boats are lowered, the imagery serves to dwarf everything but Ahab's will in the presence of Moby Dick.[44] These similes, with their astonishing "imaginative abundance," are not only invaluable in creating the dramatic movement, Matthiessen observes: "They are no less notable for breadth; and the more sustained among them, for an heroic dignity."[45] Assimilation of Shakespeare The influence of Shakespeare on the book has been analyzed by F.O. Matthiessen in his 1941 study of the American Renaissance with such results that almost a half century later Bezanson still considered him "the richest critic on these matters."[46] According to Matthiesen, then, Melville's "possession by Shakespeare went far beyond all other influences"[47] in that it made Melville discover his own full strength "through the challenge of the most abundant imagination in history".[47] Especially the influence of King Lear and Macbeth has attracted scholarly attention.[48] On almost every page debts to Shakespeare can be discovered, whether hard or easy to recognize. Matthiessen points out that the "mere sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing" at the end of "Cetology" (Ch.32) echo the famous phrase in Macbeth: "Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."[47] As Matthiessen demonstrates, Ahab's first extended speech to the crew, in the "Quarter-Deck" (Ch.36), is "virtually blank verse, and can be printed as such":[47] But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, That thing unsays itself. There are men From whom warm words are small indignity. I mean not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn-- Living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The pagan leopards—the unrecking and Unworshipping things, that live; and seek and give No reason for the torrid life they feel![49] Most importantly, through Shakespeare, Melville infused Moby-Dick with a power of expression he had not previously possessed.[50] Reading Shakespeare, Matthiessen observes, had been "a catalytic agent" for Melville, one that transformed his writing "from limited reporting to the expression of profound natural forces".[51] The extent to which Melville was in full possession of his powers is demonstrated by Matthiessen through the description of Ahab, which ends in language "that suggests Shakespeare's but is not an imitation of it: 'Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it must needs be plucked from the skies and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!' The imaginative richness of the final phrase seems particularly Shakespearean, "but its two key words appear only once each in the plays ... and to neither of these usages is Melville indebted for his fresh combination."[52] Melville's assimilation of Shakespeare, Matthiessen concludes, gave Moby-Dick "a kind of diction that depended upon no source",[53] and that could, as D.H. Lawrence put it, convey something "almost superhuman or inhuman, bigger than life".[54] The prose is not based on anybody else's verse but on "a sense of speech rhythm".[55] In addition to this sense of rhythm, Melville acquired verbal resources which for Matthiessen showed that he "now mastered Shakespeare's mature secret of how to make language itself dramatic".[55] He had learned three essential things, Matthiessen sums up: To rely on verbs of action, "which lend their dynamic pressure to both movement and meaning."[55] The effective tension caused by the contrast of "thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds" and "there's that in here that still remains indifferent" in "The Candles" (Ch. 119) makes the last clause lead to a "compulsion to strike the breast", which suggests "how thoroughly the drama has come to inhere in the words;"[56] The Shakespearean energy of verbal compounds was not lost on him ("full-freighted"); And, finally, Melville learned how to handle "the quickened sense of life that comes from making one part of speech act as another - for example, 'earthquake' as an adjective, or the coining of 'placeless', an adjective from a noun."[57] The creation of Ahab, Melville biographer Leon Howard discovered, followed an observation by Coleridge in his lecture on Hamlet: "one of Shakespeare's modes of creating characters is to conceive any one intellectual or moral faculty in morbid excess, and then to place himself. ... thus mutilated or diseased, under given circumstances".[58] Coleridge's vocabulary is echoed in some phrases that describe Ahab. Ahab seemed to have "what seems a half-wilful over-ruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature", and "all men tragically great", Melville added, "are made so through a certain morbidness; "all mortal greatness is but disease". In addition to this, in Howard's view, the self-references of Ishmael as a "tragic dramatist", and his defense of his choice of a hero who lacked "all outward majestical trappings" is evidence that Melville "consciously thought of his protagonist as a tragic hero of the sort found in Hamlet and King Lear".[59] Background Autobiographical elements Moby-Dick is based on Melville's experience on the whaler Acushnet, however even the book's most factual accounts of whaling are not straight autobiography. On December 30, 1840, he signed on as a green hand for the maiden voyage of the Acushnet, planned to last for 52 months. Its owner, Melvin O. Bradford, resembled Bildad, who signed on Ishmael, in that he was a Quaker: on several instances when he signed documents, he erased the word "swear" and replaced it with "affirm". But the shareholders of the Acushnet were relatively wealthy, whereas the owners of the Pequod included poor widows and orphaned children.[60] Its captain was Valentine Pease, Jr., who was 43 years old at the start of the voyage.[61] Although 26 men signed up as crew members, two did not show up for the ship's departure and were replaced by one new crew member. The crew was not as heterogenous or exotic as the crew of the Pequod. Five of the crew were foreigners, four of them Portuguese, and the others were American, either at birth or naturalized. Three black men were in the crew, two seamen and the cook. Fleece, the cook of the Pequod, was also black, so probably modeled on this Philadelphia-born William Maiden, who was 38 years old when he signed for the Acushnet.[62] Only 11 of the 26 original crew members completed the voyage. The others either deserted or were regularly discharged.[63] The First Officer, Frederic Raymond, left the ship after a "fight" with the captain.[64] A first mate, actually called Edward C. Starbuck, was on an earlier voyage with Captain Pease, in the early 1830s, and was discharged at Tahiti under mysterious circumstances.[65] The second mate on the Acushnet was John Hall, English-born but a naturalized American.[66] He is identified as Stubb in an annotation in the book's copy of crew member Henry Hubbard, who, like Melville, had joined the voyage as a green hand. Hubbard also identified the model for Pip: John Backus, a little black man added to the crew during the voyage.[67] Hubbard's annotation appears in the chapter "The Castaway" and reveals that Pip's falling into the water was authentic; Hubbard was with him in the same boat when the incident occurred.[68] Ahab seems to have had no model in real life, though his death may have been based on an actual event. On May 18, 1843, Melville was aboard The Star, which sailed for Honolulu. Aboard were two sailors from the Nantucket who could have told him that they had seen their second mate "taken out of a whaleboat by a foul line and drowned".[69] The model for the Whaleman's Chapel of chapter 7 is the Seamen's Bethel on Johnny Cake Hill. Melville attended a service there shortly before he shipped out on the Acushnet, and he heard a sermon by the chaplain, 63-year-old Reverend Enoch Mudge, who is at least in part the model for Father Mapple. Even the topic of Jonah and the Whale may be authentic, for Mudge was a contributor to Sailor's Magazine, which printed in December 1840 the ninth of a series of sermons on Jonah.[70] Whaling sources Melville's copy of Natural History of the Sperm Whale, 1839 In addition to his own experience on the whaling ship Acushnet, two actual events served as the genesis for Melville's tale. One was the sinking of the Nantucket ship Essex in 1820, after a sperm whale rammed her 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the western coast of South America. First mate Owen Chase, one of eight survivors, recorded the events in his 1821 Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex.[71] The other event was the alleged killing in the late 1830s of the albino sperm whale Mocha Dick, in the waters off the Chilean island of Mocha. Mocha Dick was rumored to have 20 or so harpoons in his back from other whalers, and appeared to attack ships with premeditated ferocity. One of his battles with a whaler served as subject for an article by explorer Jeremiah N. Reynolds in the May 1839 issue of The Knickerbocker or New-York Monthly Magazine.[72] Melville was familiar with the article, which described: This renowned monster, who had come off victorious in a hundred fights with his pursuers, was an old bull whale, of prodigious size and strength. From the effect of age, or more probably from a freak of nature ... a singular consequence had resulted — he was white as wool![72] Significantly, Reynolds writes a first-person narration that serves as a frame for the story of a whaling captain he meets. The captain resembles Ahab and suggests a similar symbolism and single-minded motivation in hunting this whale, in that when his crew first encounters Mocha Dick and cowers from him, the captain rallies them: As he drew near, with his long curved back looming occasionally above the surface of the billows, we perceived that it was white as the surf around him; and the men stared aghast at each other, as they uttered, in a suppressed tone, the terrible name of MOCHA DICK! "Mocha Dick or the d----l [devil]', said I, 'this boat never sheers off from any thing that wears the shape of a whale."[72] Mocha Dick had over 100 encounters with whalers in the decades between 1810 and the 1830s. He was described as being gigantic and covered in barnacles. Although he was the most famous, Mocha Dick was not the only white whale in the sea, nor the only whale to attack hunters.[73] While an accidental collision with a sperm whale at night accounted for sinking of the Union in 1807,[74] it was not until August 1851 that the whaler Ann Alexander, while hunting in the Pacific off the Galápagos Islands, became the second vessel since the Essex to be attacked, holed, and sunk by a whale. Melville remarked, "Ye Gods! What a commentator is this Ann Alexander whale. What he has to say is short & pithy & very much to the point. I wonder if my evil art has raised this monster."[75] While Melville had already drawn on his different sailing experiences in his previous novels, such as Mardi, he had never focused specifically on whaling. The 18 months he spent as an ordinary seaman aboard the whaler Acushnet in 1841-42, and one incident in particular, now served as inspiration. During a mid-ocean "gam" (rendezvous at sea between ships), he met Chase's son William, who lent him his father's book. Melville later wrote: I questioned him concerning his father's adventure; ... he went to his chest & handed me a complete copy ... of the Narrative [of the Essex catastrophe]. This was the first printed account of it I had ever seen. The reading of this wondrous story on the landless sea, and so close to the very latitude of the shipwreck, had a surprising effect upon me.[76] The book was out of print, and rare. Melville let his interest in the book be known to his father-in-law, Lemuel Shaw, whose friend in Nantucket procured an imperfect but clean copy which Shaw gave to Melville in April 1851. Melville read this copy avidly, made copious notes in it, and had it bound, keeping it in his library for the rest of his life. [77] Herman Melville Moby-Dick contains large sections—most of them narrated by Ishmael—that seemingly have nothing to do with the plot, but describe aspects of the whaling business. Although a successful earlier novel about Nantucket whalers had been written, Miriam Coffin or The Whale-Fisherman (1835) by Joseph C. Hart,[78] which is credited with influencing elements of Melville's work, most accounts of whaling tended to be sensational tales of bloody mutiny, and Melville believed that no book up to that time had portrayed the whaling industry in as fascinating or immediate a way as he had experienced it. Melville found the bulk of his data on whales and whaling in five books, the most important of which was by the English ship's surgeon Thomas Beale, Natural History of the Sperm Whale (1839), a book of reputed authority which Melville bought on July 10, 1850.[79] "In scale and complexity," scholar Steven Olsen-Smith writes, "the significance of [this source] to the composition of Moby-Dick surpasses that of any other source book from which Melville is known to have drawn."[80] According to scholar Howard P. Vincent, the general influence of this source is to supply the arrangement of whaling data in chapter groupings.[81] Melville followed Beale's grouping closely, yet adapted it to what art demanded, and he changed the original's prosaic phrases into graphic figures of speech.[82] The second most important whaling book is Frederick Debell Bennett, A Whaling Voyage Round the Globe, from the Year 1833 to 1836 (1840), from which Melville also took the chapter organization, but in a lesser degree than he learned from Beale.[82] The third book was the one Melville reviewed for the Literary World in 1847, J. Ross Browne's Etchings of a Whaling Cruise (1846), which may have given Melville the first thought for a whaling book, and in any case contains passages embarrassingly similar to passages in Moby-Dick.[83] The fourth book, Reverend Henry T. Cheever's The Whale and His Captors (1850), was used for two episodes in Moby-Dick but probably appeared too late in the writing of the novel to be of much more use.[83] Melville did plunder a fifth book, William Scoresby, Jr., An Account of the Arctic Regions with a History and Description of the Northern Whale Fishery (1820), though—unlike the other four books—its subject is the Greenland whale rather than the sperm whale. Although the book became the standard whaling reference soon after publication, Melville satirized and parodied it on several occasions—for instance in the description of narwhales in the chapter "Cetology", where he called Scoresby "Charley Coffin" and gave his account "a humorous twist of fact": "Scoresby will help out Melville several times, and on each occasion Melville will satirize him under a pseudonym." Vincent suggests several reasons for Melville's attitude towards Scoresby, including his dryness and abundance of irrelevant data, but the major reason seems to have been that the Greenland whale was the sperm whale's closest competitor for the public's attention, so Melville felt obliged to dismiss anything dealing with it.[84] Composition The earliest surviving mention of the composition of what became Moby-Dick[85][86] is the final paragraph of the letter Melville wrote to Richard Henry Dana, Jr. on May 1, 1850: About the "whaling voyage" — I am half way in the work, & am very glad that your suggestion so jumps with mine. It will be a strange sort of book, tho', I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you may get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree; — & to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the thing, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves. Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this.[87] Some scholars have concluded that Melville composed Moby-Dick in two or even three stages. Reasoning from a series of inconsistencies and structural developments in the final version, they hypothesize that the work he mentioned to Dana was, in the words of Lawrence Buell, a "relatively straightforward" whaling adventure, but that reading Shakespeare and his encounters with Hawthorne inspired him to rewrite it as "an epic of cosmic encyclopedic proportions".[88] Bezanson objects that the letter contains too many ambiguities to assume "that Dana's 'suggestion' would obviously be that Melville do for whaling what he had done for life on a man-of-war in White-Jacket".[85] In addition, Dana had experienced how incomparable Melville was in dramatic story telling when he met him in Boston, so perhaps "his 'suggestion' was that Melville do a book that captured that gift".[85] And the long sentence in the middle of the above quotation simply acknowledges that Melville is struggling with the problem, not of choosing between fact and fancy but of how to interrelate them. The most positive statements are that it will be a strange sort of a book and that Melville means to give the truth of the thing, but what thing exactly is not clear.[85] Melville may have found the plot before writing or developed it after the writing process was underway. Considering his elaborate use of sources, "it is safe to say" that they helped him shape the narrative, its plot included.[89] Scholars John Bryant and Haskell Springer cite the development of the character Ishmael as another factor which prolonged Melville's process of composition and which can be deduced from the structure of the final version of the book. Ishmael, in the early chapters, is simply the narrator, just as the narrators in Melville's earlier sea adventures had been, but in later chapters becomes a mystical stage manager who is central to the tragedy.[90] Less than two months after mentioning the project to Dana, Melville reported in a letter of June 27 to Richard Bentley, his English publisher: My Dear Sir, — In the latter part of the coming autumn I shall have ready a new work; and I write you now to propose its publication in England. The book is a romance of adventure, founded upon certain wild legends in the Southern Sperm Whale Fisheries, and illustrated by the author's own personal experience, of two years & more, as a harpooneer.[91] Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family had moved to a small red farmhouse near Lenox, Massachusetts, at the end of March 1850.[92] He became friends with Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and Melville beginning on August 5, 1850, when the authors met at a picnic hosted by a mutual friend.[93] Melville wrote an unsigned review of Hawthorne's short story collection Mosses from an Old Manse titled "Hawthorne and His Mosses", which appeared in The Literary World on August 17 and 24.[94] Bezanson finds the essay "so deeply related to Melville's imaginative and intellectual world while writing Moby-Dick" that it could be regarded as a virtual preface and should be "everybody's prime piece of contextual reading".[85] In the essay, Melville compares Hawthorne to Shakespeare and Dante, and his "self-projection" is evident in the repeats of the word "genius", the more than two dozen references to Shakespeare, and in the insistence that Shakespeare's "unapproachability" is nonsense for an American.[85] Arrowhead, the house in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in which Melville worked on Moby-Dick. The most intense work on the book was done during the winter of 1850-1851, when Melville had changed the noise of New York City for a farm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The move may well have delayed finishing the book.[95] During these months, he wrote several excited letters to Hawthorne, including one of June 1851 in which he summarizes his career: "What I feel most moved to write, that is banned, — it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches."[96] This is the stubborn Melville who stood by Mardi and talked about his other, more commercial books with contempt. The letter also reveals how Melville experienced his development from his 25th year: "Three weeks have scarcely passed, at any time between then and now, that I have not unfolded within myself. But I feel that I am now come to the inmost leaf of the bulb, and that shortly the flower must fall to the mould."[97] One other theory holds that getting to know Hawthorne first inspired him to write Ahab's tragic obsession into the book, but Bryant and Springer object that Melville already had experienced other encounters which could just as well have triggered his imagination, such as the Bible's Jonah and Job, Milton's Satan, Shakespeare's King Lear, Byron's heroes.[90] Theories of the composition of the book have been harpooned in three ways, first by raising objections against the use of evidence and the evidence itself. Scholar Robert Milder sees "insufficient evidence and doubtful methodology" at work.[98] John Bryant finds "little concrete evidence, and nothing at all conclusive, to show that Melville radically altered the structure or conception of the book".[99] A second type of objection is based upon Melville's intellectual development. Bezanson is not convinced that before he met Hawthorne, "Melville was not ready for the kind of book Moby-Dick became",[85] because in his letters from the time Melville denounces his last two "straight narratives, Redburn and White-Jacket, as two books written just for the money, and he firmly stood by Mardi as the kind of book he believed in. His language is already "richly steeped in 17th-century mannerisms", characteristics of Moby-Dick. A third type calls upon the literary nature of passages used as evidence. According to Milder, the cetological chapters cannot be leftovers from an earlier stage of composition and any theory that they are "will eventually founder on the stubborn meaningfulness of these chapters", because no scholar adhering to the theory has yet explained how these chapters "can bear intimate thematic relation to a symbolic story not yet conceived".[100] Buell finds that theories based on a combination of selected passages from letters and what are perceived as "loose ends" in the book not only "tend to dissolve into guesswork", but he also suggests that these so-called loose ends may be intended by the author: repeatedly the book mentions "the necessary unfinishedness of immense endeavors". Despite all this, Buell finds the evidence that Melville changed his ambitions during writing "on the whole convincing".[88] Publication history Melville first proposed the English publication in a 27 June 1850 letter to Richard Bentley, London publisher of his earlier works. Textual scholar G. Thomas Tanselle explains that for these earlier books, American proof sheets had been sent to the English publisher and that publication in the United States had been held off until the work had been set in type and published in England. This procedure was intended to provide the best (though still uncertain) claim for the English copyright of an American work.[101] In the case of Moby-Dick, Melville had taken almost a year longer than promised, and could not rely on Harpers to prepare the proofs as they had done for the earlier books. Indeed, Harpers had denied him an advance, and since he was already in debt to them for almost $700, he was forced to borrow money and to arrange for the typesetting and plating himself.[102] John Bryant suggests that he did so "to reduce the number of hands playing with his text".[103] The final stages of composition overlapped with the early stages of publication. In June 1851, Melville wrote to Hawthorne that he was in New York to "work and slave on my 'Whale' while it is driving through the press".[104] By the end of the month, "wearied with the long delay of printers", Melville came back to finish work on the book in Pittsfield. Three weeks later, the typesetting was almost done, as he announced to Bentley on 20 July: "I am now passing thro' the press, the closing sheets of my new work".[104] While Melville was simultaneously writing and proofreading what had been set, the corrected proof would be plated, that is, the type fixed in final form. Since earlier chapters were already plated when he was revising the later ones, Melville must have "felt restricted in the kinds of revisions that were feasible".[105] On 3 July 1851, Bentley offered Melville £150 and "half profits", that is, half the profits that remained after the expenses of production and advertising. On 20 July, Melville accepted, after which Bentley drew up a contract on 13 August.[106] Melville signed and returned the contract in early September, and then went to New York with the proof sheets, made from the finished plates, which he sent to London by his brother Allan on 10 September. For over a month, these proofs had been in Melville's possession, and because the book would be set anew in England, he could devote all his time to correcting and revising them. He still had no American publisher, so the usual hurry about getting the English publication to precede the American was not present.[107] Only on 12 September was the Harper publishing contract signed.[108] Bentley received the proof sheets with Melville's corrections and revisions marked on them on September 24. He published the book less than four weeks later. In the October 1851 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine "The Town Ho's Story" was published, with a footnote reading: "From 'The Whale'. The title of a new work by Mr. Melville, in the press of Harper and Brothers, and now publishing in London by Mr. Bentley."[109] On 18 October, the English edition, The Whale, was published in a printing of only 500 copies, fewer than Melville's previous books. Their slow sales had convinced Bentley that a smaller number was more realistic. The London Morning Herald on October 20 printed the earliest known review.[110] On 14 November, the American edition, Moby-Dick, was published and the same day reviewed in both the Albany Argus and the Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer. On 19 November, Washington received the copy to be deposited for copyright purposes. The first American printing of 2,915 copies was almost the same as the first of Mardi, but the first printing of Melville's other three Harper books had been a thousand copies more.[111] Melville's revisions and British editorial revisions The English edition, set by Bentley's printers from the American page proofs with Melville's revisions and corrections, differs from the American edition in over 700 wordings and thousands of punctuation and spelling changes.[107] Excluding the preliminaries and the one extract, the three volumes of the English edition came to 927 pages[112] and the single American volume to 635 pages.[113] Accordingly, the dedication to Hawthorne in the American edition — "this book is inscribed to"— became "these volumes are inscribed to" in the English.[114] The table of contents in the English edition generally follows the actual chapter titles in the American edition, but 19 titles in the American table of contents differ from the titles above the chapters themselves. This list was probably drawn up by Melville himself: the titles of chapters describing encounters of the Pequod with other ships had—apparently to stress the parallelisms between these chapters—been standardized to "The Pequod meets the ...," with the exception of the already published 'The Town-Ho's Story'.[115] For unknown reasons, the "Etymology" and "Extracts" were moved to the end of the third volume.[116] An epigraph from Paradise Lost, taken from the second of the two quotations from that work in the American edition, appears on the title page of each of the three English volumes. Melville's involvement with this rearrangement is not clear: if it was Bentley's gesture toward accommodating Melville, as Tanselle suggests,[116] its selection put an emphasis on the quotation Melville may not have agreed with. The largest of Melville's revisions is the addition to the English edition of a 139-word footnote in Chapter 87 explaining the word "gally". The edition also contains six short phrases and some 60 single words lacking in the American edition.[117] In addition, about 35 changes produce genuine improvements, as opposed to mere corrections: "Melville may not have made every one of the changes in this category, but it seems certain that he was responsible for the great majority of them."[118] British censorship and missing "Epilogue" The British publisher hired one or more revisers who were, in the evaluation of scholar Steven Olsen-Smith, responsible for "unauthorized changes ranging from typographical errors and omissions to acts of outright censorship".[119] According to biographer Robertson-Lorant, the result was that the English edition was "badly mutilated".[120] The expurgations fall into four categories, ranked according to the apparent priorities of the censor: Sacrilegious passages, more than 1200 words: Attributing human failures to God was grounds for excision or revision, as was comparing human shortcomings to divine ones. For example, in chapter 28, "Ahab", Ahab stands with "a crucifixion in his face" was revised to "an apparently eternal anguish";[121] Sexual matters, including the sex life of whales and even Ishmael's worried anticipation of the nature of Queequeg's underwear, as well as allusions to fornication or harlots, and "our hearts' honeymoon" (in relation to Ishmael and Queequeg)[122] Chapter 95, however, "The Cassock", referring to the whale's genital organ, was untouched, perhaps because of Melville's indirect language. Remarks "belittling royalty or implying a criticism of the British": This meant the exclusion of the complete chapter 25, a "Postscript" on the use of sperm oil at coronations;[123] Perceived grammatical or stylistic anomalies were treated with "a highly conservative interpretatio

Moby Dick

War and Peace From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search This article is about the novel by Leo Tolstoy. For other uses, see War and Peace (disambiguation). War and Peace Tolstoy - War and Peace - first edition, 1869.jpg Front page of War and Peace, first edition, 1869 (Russian) Author Leo Tolstoy Original title Война и миръ Translator The first translation of War and Peace into English was by American Nathan Haskell Dole, in 1899 Country Russia Language Russian, with some French Genre Novel (Historical novel) Publisher The Russian Messenger (serial) Publication date Serialised 1865-1867; book 1869 Media type Print Pages 1,225 (first published edition) War and Peace (pre-reform Russian: Война и миръ; post-reform Russian: Война и мир, romanized: Vojna i mir [vɐjˈna i ˈmʲir]) is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, published serially, then in its entirety in 1869. It is regarded as a central work of world literature and one of Tolstoy's finest literary achievements.[1][2][3] The novel chronicles the French invasion of Russia and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society through the stories of five Russian aristocratic families. Portions of an earlier version, titled The Year 1805,[4] were serialized in The Russian Messenger from 1865 to 1867, then published in its entirety in 1869.[5] Tolstoy said War and Peace is "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle." Large sections, especially the later chapters, are philosophical discussion rather than narrative.[6] Tolstoy also said that the best Russian literature does not conform to standards and hence hesitated to call War and Peace a novel. Instead, he regarded Anna Karenina as his first true novel. The Encyclopædia Britannica states: "It can be argued that no single English novel attains the universality of the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace".[7] Contents 1 Crafting the novel 2 Realism 3 Language 4 Background and historical context 5 Principal characters 6 Plot summary 6.1 Book One 6.2 Book Two 6.3 Book Three 6.4 Book Four 6.5 Epilogue in two parts 6.5.1 First part 6.5.2 Second part 7 Reception 8 English and other translations 8.1 Full translations into English 8.2 Abridged translations into English 8.3 Comparing translations 9 Adaptations 9.1 Film 9.2 Television 9.3 Music 9.4 Opera 9.5 Theatre 9.6 Radio 10 See also 11 References 12 External links Crafting the novel Only known color photograph of the author, Leo Tolstoy, taken at his Yasnaya Polyana estate in 1908 (age 79) by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky. Tolstoy's notes from the ninth draft of War and Peace, 1864. Tolstoy began writing War and Peace in 1863, the year that he finally married and settled down at his country estate. The first half of the book was written under the name "1805". During the writing of the second half, he read widely and acknowledged Schopenhauer as one of his main inspirations. Tolstoy wrote in a letter to Afanasy Fet that what he has written in War and Peace is also said by Schopenhauer in The World as Will and Representation. However, Tolstoy approaches "it from the other side."[8] The first draft of the novel was completed in 1863. In 1865, the periodical Russkiy Vestnik (The Russian Messenger) published the first part of this draft under the title 1805 and published more the following year. Tolstoy was dissatisfied with this version, although he allowed several parts of it to be published with a different ending in 1867. He heavily rewrote the entire novel between 1866 and 1869.[5][9] Tolstoy's wife, Sophia Tolstaya, copied as many as seven separate complete manuscripts before Tolstoy considered it again ready for publication.[9] The version that was published in Russkiy Vestnik had a very different ending from the version eventually published under the title War and Peace in 1869. Russians who had read the serialized version were eager to buy the complete novel, and it sold out almost immediately. The novel was translated almost immediately after publication into many other languages.[citation needed] It is unknown why Tolstoy changed the name to War and Peace. He may have borrowed the title from the 1861 work of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: La Guerre et la Paix ("The War and the Peace" in French).[4] The title may also be another reference to Titus, described as being a master of "war and peace" in The Twelve Caesars, written by Suetonius in 119. The completed novel was then called Voyna i mir (Война и мир in new-style orthography; in English War and Peace).[citation needed] The 1805 manuscript was re-edited and annotated in Russia in 1893 and since has been translated into English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Albanian, Korean, and Czech. Tolstoy was instrumental in bringing a new kind of consciousness to the novel. His narrative structure is noted for its "god-like" ability to hover over and within events, but also in the way it swiftly and seamlessly portrayed a particular character's point of view. His use of visual detail is often cinematic in scope, using the literary equivalents of panning, wide shots and close-ups. These devices, while not exclusive to Tolstoy, are part of the new style of the novel that arose in the mid-19th century and of which Tolstoy proved himself a master.[10] The standard Russian text of War and Peace is divided into four books (comprising fifteen parts) and an epilogue in two parts. Roughly the first half is concerned strictly with the fictional characters, whereas the latter parts, as well as the second part of the epilogue, increasingly consist of essays about the nature of war, power, history, and historiography. Tolstoy interspersed these essays into the story in a way that defies previous fictional convention. Certain abridged versions remove these essays entirely, while others, published even during Tolstoy's life, simply moved these essays into an appendix.[citation needed] Realism The novel is set 60 years before Tolstoy's day, but he had spoken with people who lived through the 1812 French invasion of Russia. He read all the standard histories available in Russian and French about the Napoleonic Wars and had read letters, journals, autobiographies and biographies of Napoleon and other key players of that era. There are approximately 160 real persons named or referred to in War and Peace.[11] He worked from primary source materials (interviews and other documents), as well as from history books, philosophy texts and other historical novels.[9] Tolstoy also used a great deal of his own experience in the Crimean War to bring vivid detail and first-hand accounts of how the Imperial Russian Army was structured.[12] Tolstoy was critical of standard history, especially military history, in War and Peace. He explains at the start of the novel's third volume his own views on how history ought to be written. His aim was to blur the line between fiction and history, to get closer to the truth, as he states in Volume II.[citation needed] Language Cover of War and Peace, Italian translation, 1899. Although the book is mainly in Russian, significant portions of dialogue are in French. It has been suggested[13] that the use of French is a deliberate literary device, to portray artifice while Russian emerges as a language of sincerity, honesty, and seriousness. It could, however, also simply represent another element of the realistic style in which the book is written, since French was the common language of the Russian aristocracy at the time.[14] In fact, the Russian nobility often knew only enough Russian to command their servants; Tolstoy illustrates this by showing that Julie Karagina, a character in the novel, is so unfamiliar with her country's native language that she has to take Russian lessons. The use of French diminishes as the book progresses. It is suggested that this is to demonstrate Russia freeing itself from foreign cultural domination,[13] and to show that a once-friendly nation has turned into an enemy. By midway through the book, several of the Russian aristocracy are eager to find Russian tutors for themselves. Background and historical context In 1812 by the Russian artist Illarion Pryanishnikov The novel spans the period 1805 to 1820. The era of Catherine the Great was still fresh in the minds of older people. Catherine had made French the language of her royal court.[15] For the next one hundred years, it became a social requirement for members of the Russian nobility to speak French and understand French culture.[15] The historical context of the novel begins with the execution of Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien in 1805, while Russia is ruled by Alexander I during the Napoleonic Wars. Key historical events woven into the novel include the Ulm Campaign, the Battle of Austerlitz, the Treaties of Tilsit, and the Congress of Erfurt. Tolstoy also references the Great Comet of 1811 just before the French invasion of Russia.[16]:1,6,79,83,167,235,240,246,363-364 Tolstoy then uses the Battle of Ostrovno and the Battle of Shevardino Redoubt in his novel, before the occupation of Moscow and the subsequent fire. The novel continues with the Battle of Tarutino, the Battle of Maloyaroslavets, the Battle of Vyazma, and the Battle of Krasnoi. The final battle cited is the Battle of Berezina, after which the characters move onward with rebuilding Moscow and their lives.[16]:392-396,449-481,523,586-591,601,613,635,638,655,640 Principal characters Main article: List of War and Peace characters War and Peace simple family tree War and Peace detailed family tree Natasha Rostova, a postcard by Elisabeth Bohm The novel tells the story of five families—the Bezukhovs, the Bolkonskys, the Rostovs, the Kuragins, and the Drubetskoys. The main characters are: The Bezukhovs Count Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhov, father of Pierre Count Pyotr Kirillovich ("Pierre" Bezukhov): The central character and often a voice for Tolstoy's own beliefs or struggles. Pierre is the socially awkward illegitimate son of Count Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhov, who has fathered dozens of illegitimate sons. Educated abroad, Pierre returns to Russia as a misfit. His unexpected inheritance of a large fortune makes him socially desirable. The Bolkonskys Prince Nikolai Andreich Bolkonsky: The father of Andrei and Maria, the eccentric prince possesses a gruff exterior and displays great insensitivity to the emotional needs of his children. Nevertheless, his harshness often belies hidden depth of feeling. Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky: A strong but skeptical, thoughtful and philosophical aide-de-camp in the Napoleonic Wars. Princess Maria Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya: Sister of Prince Andrei, Princess Maria is a pious woman whose father attempted to give her a good education. The caring, nurturing nature of her large eyes in her otherwise plain face is frequently mentioned. The Rostovs Count Ilya Andreyevich Rostov: The pater-familias of the Rostov family; hopeless with finances, generous to a fault. As a result, the Rostovs never have enough cash, in spite of having many estates. Countess Natalya Ilyinichna "Natasha" Rostova: A central character, introduced as "not pretty but full of life", romantic, impulsive and highly strung. She is an accomplished singer and dancer. Count Nikolai Ilyich "Nikolenka" Rostov: A hussar, the beloved eldest son of the Rostov family. Sofia Alexandrovna "Sonya" Rostova: Orphaned cousin of Vera, Nikolai, Natasha, and Petya Rostov and is in love with Nikolai. Countess Vera Ilyinichna Rostova: Eldest of the Rostov children, she marries the German career soldier, Berg. Pyotr Ilyich "Petya" Rostov: Youngest of the Rostov children. The Kuragins Prince Vasily Sergeyevich Kuragin: A ruthless man who is determined to marry his children into wealth at any cost. Princess Elena Vasilyevna "Hélène" Kuragina: A beautiful and sexually alluring woman who has many affairs, including (it is rumoured) with her brother Anatole. Prince Anatole Vasilyevich Kuragin: Hélène's brother, a handsome and amoral pleasure seeker who is secretly married yet tries to elope with Natasha Rostova. Prince Ippolit Vasilyevich (Hippolyte) Kuragin: The eldest and perhaps most dim-witted of the three Kuragin children. The Drubetskoys Prince Boris Drubetskoy: A poor but aristocratic young man driven by ambition, even at the expense of his friends and benefactors, who marries Julie Karagina for money and is rumored to have had an affair with Hélène Bezukov. Princess Anna Mihalovna Drubetskaya: The impoverished mother of Boris, whom she wishes to push up the career ladder. Other prominent characters Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov: A cold, almost psychopathic officer, he ruins Nikolai Rostov by luring him into an outrageous gambling debt after unsuccessfully proposing to Sonya Rostova. He is also rumored to have had an affair with Hélène Bezukhov and he provides for his poor mother and hunchbacked sister. Adolf Karlovich Berg: A young Russian officer, who desires to be just like everyone else and marries the young Vera Rostova. Anna Pavlovna Scherer: Also known as Annette, she is the hostess of the salon that is the site of much of the novel's action in Petersburg and schemes with Prince Vassily Kuragin. Maria Dmitryevna Akhrosimova: An older Moscow society lady, good-humored but brutally honest. Amalia Evgenyevna Bourienne: A French woman who lives with the Bolkonskys, primarily as Princess Maria's companion and later at Maria's expense. Vasily Dmitrich Denisov: Nikolai Rostov's friend and brother officer, who unsuccessfully proposes to Natasha. Platon Karataev: The archetypal good Russian peasant, whom Pierre meets in the prisoner of war camp. Osip Bazdeyev: the Freemason who interests Pierre in his mysterious group, starting a lengthy subplot. In addition, several real-life historical characters (such as Napoleon and Prince Mikhail Kutuzov) play a prominent part in the book. Many of Tolstoy's characters were based on real people. His grandparents and their friends were the models for many of the main characters; his great-grandparents would have been of the generation of Prince Vassily or Count Ilya Rostov. Plot summary Book One The Empress Dowager, Maria Feodorovna, mother of reigning Tsar Alexander I, is the most powerful woman in the Russian royal court. The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg, at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer—the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. Many of the main characters are introduced as they enter the salon. Pierre (Pyotr Kirilovich) Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of a wealthy count, who is dying after a series of strokes. Pierre is about to become embroiled in a struggle for his inheritance. Educated abroad at his father's expense following his mother's death, Pierre is kindhearted but socially awkward, and finds it difficult to integrate into Petersburg society. It is known to everyone at the soirée that Pierre is his father's favorite of all the old count's illegitimate progeny. Also attending the soirée is Pierre's friend, Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky, husband of Lise, a charming society favourite. He is disillusioned with Petersburg society and with married life, feeling that his wife is empty and superficial, he comes to hate her and all women, expressing patently misogynistic views to Pierre when the two are alone. Pierre doesn't quite know what to do with this, and is made uncomfortable witnessing the marital discord. Andrei tells Pierre he has decided to become aide-de-camp to Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov in the coming war against Napoleon in order to escape a life he can't stand. The plot moves to Moscow, Russia's former capital, contrasting its provincial, more Russian ways to the more European society of Saint Petersburg. The Rostov family are introduced. Count Ilya Andreyevich Rostov and Countess Natalya Rostova are an affectionate couple but forever worried about their disordered finances. They have four children. Thirteen-year-old Natasha (Natalia Ilyinichna) believes herself in love with Boris Drubetskoy, a young man who is about to join the army as an officer. Twenty-year-old Nikolai Ilyich pledges his love to Sonya (Sofia Alexandrovna), his fifteen-year-old cousin, an orphan who has been brought up by the Rostovs. The eldest child, Vera Ilyinichna, is cold and somewhat haughty but has a good prospective marriage in a Russian-German officer, Adolf Karlovich Berg. Petya (Pyotr Ilyich) at nine is the youngest; like his brother, he is impetuous and eager to join the army when of age. At Bald Hills, the Bolkonskys' country estate, Prince Andrei departs for war and leaves his terrified, pregnant wife Lise with his eccentric father Prince Nikolai Andreyevich and devoutly religious sister Maria Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya, who refuses to marry the son of a wealthy aristocrat on account of her devotion to her father and suspicion that the young man would be unfaithful to her. The second part opens with descriptions of the impending Russian-French war preparations. At the Schöngrabern engagement, Nikolai Rostov, now an ensign in the Hussars, has his first taste of battle. Boris Drubetskoy introduces him to Prince Andrei, whom Rostov insults in a fit of impetuousness. He is deeply attracted by Tsar Alexander's charisma. Nikolai gambles and socializes with his officer, Vasily Dmitrich Denisov, and befriends the ruthless and perhaps psychopathic Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov. Bolkonsky, Rostov and Denisov are involved in the disastrous Battle of Austerlitz, in which Prince Andrei is badly wounded as he attempts to rescue a Russian standard. The Battle of Austerlitz is a major event in the book. As the battle is about to start, Prince Andrei thinks the approaching "day [will] be his Toulon, or his Arcola",[17] references to Napoleon's early victories. Later in the battle, however, Andrei falls into enemy hands and even meets his hero, Napoleon. But his previous enthusiasm has been shattered; he no longer thinks much of Napoleon, "so petty did his hero with his paltry vanity and delight in victory appear, compared to that lofty, righteous and kindly sky which he had seen and comprehended".[18] Tolstoy portrays Austerlitz as an early test for Russia, one which ended badly because the soldiers fought for irrelevant things like glory or renown rather than the higher virtues which would produce, according to Tolstoy, a victory at Borodino during the 1812 invasion. Book Two Book Two begins with Nikolai Rostov briefly returning on leave to Moscow accompanied by his friend Denisov, his officer from his Pavlograd Regiment. He spends an eventful winter at home. Natasha has blossomed into a beautiful young girl. Denisov falls in love with her, proposes marriage but is rejected. Although his mother pleads with Nikolai to marry a wealthy heiress to rescue the family from its dire financial straits, Nikolai refuses. Instead, he promises to marry his childhood sweetheart and orphaned cousin, the dowry-less Sonya. Pierre Bezukhov, upon finally receiving his massive inheritance, is suddenly transformed from a bumbling young man into the most eligible bachelor in Russian society. Despite knowing that it is wrong, he is convinced into marriage with Prince Kuragin's beautiful and immoral daughter Hélène (Elena Vasilyevna Kuragina). Hélène, who is rumoured to be involved in an incestuous affair with her brother Anatole, tells Pierre that she will never have children with him. Hélène is also rumoured to have an affair with Dolokhov, who mocks Pierre in public. Pierre loses his temper and challenges Dolokhov to a duel. Unexpectedly (because Dolokhov is a seasoned dueller), Pierre wounds Dolokhov. Hélène denies her affair, but Pierre is convinced of her guilt and leaves her. In his moral and spiritual confusion, Pierre joins the Freemasons. Much of Book Two concerns his struggles with his passions and his spiritual conflicts. He abandons his former carefree behavior and enters upon a philosophical quest particular to Tolstoy: how should one live a moral life in an ethically imperfect world? The question continually baffles Pierre. He attempts to liberate his serfs, but ultimately achieves nothing of note. Pierre is contrasted with Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. Andrei recovers from his near-fatal wound in a military hospital and returns home, only to find his wife Lise dying in childbirth. He is stricken by his guilty conscience for not treating her better. His child, Nikolai, survives. Burdened with nihilistic disillusionment, Prince Andrei does not return to the army but remains on his estate, working on a project that would codify military behavior to solve problems of disorganization responsible for the loss of life on the Russian side. Pierre visits him and brings new questions: where is God in this amoral world? Pierre is interested in panentheism and the possibility of an afterlife. Scene in Red Square, Moscow, 1801. Oil on canvas by Fedor Yakovlevich Alekseev. Pierre's wife, Hélène, begs him to take her back, and trying to abide by the Freemason laws of forgiveness, he agrees. Hélène establishes herself as an influential hostess in Petersburg society. Prince Andrei feels impelled to take his newly written military notions to Saint Petersburg, naively expecting to influence either the Emperor himself or those close to him. Young Natasha, also in Saint Petersburg, is caught up in the excitement of her first grand ball, where she meets Prince Andrei and briefly reinvigorates him with her vivacious charm. Andrei believes he has found purpose in life again and, after paying the Rostovs several visits, proposes marriage to Natasha. However, Andrei's father dislikes the Rostovs and opposes the marriage, and he insists the couple wait a year before marrying. Prince Andrei leaves to recuperate from his wounds abroad, leaving Natasha initially distraught. Count Rostov takes her and Sonya to Moscow in order to raise funds for her trousseau. Natasha visits the Moscow opera, where she meets Hélène and her brother Anatole. Anatole has since married a Polish woman whom he has abandoned in Poland. He is very attracted to Natasha and determined to seduce her, and conspires with his sister to do so. Anatole succeeds in making Natasha believe he loves her, eventually establishing plans to elope. Natasha writes to Princess Maria, Andrei's sister, breaking off her engagement. At the last moment, Sonya discovers her plans to elope and foils them. Natasha learns from Pierre of Anatole's marriage. Devastated, Natasha makes a suicide attempt and is left seriously ill. Pierre is initially horrified by Natasha's behavior, but realizes he has fallen in love with her. As the Great Comet of 1811-12 streaks the sky, life appears to begin anew for Pierre. Prince Andrei coldly accepts Natasha's breaking of the engagement. He tells Pierre that his pride will not allow him to renew his proposal. Book Three The Battle of Borodino, fought on September 7, 1812 and involving more than a quarter of a million troops and seventy thousand casualties was a turning point in Napoleon's failed campaign to take Russia. It is vividly depicted through the plot and characters of War and Peace. Painting by Louis-François, Baron Lejeune, 1822. With the help of her family, and the stirrings of religious faith, Natasha manages to persevere in Moscow through this dark period. Meanwhile, the whole of Russia is affected by the coming confrontation between Napoleon's army and the Russian army. Pierre convinces himself through gematria that Napoleon is the Antichrist of the Book of Revelation. Old Prince Bolkonsky dies of a stroke knowing that French marauders are coming for his estate. No organized help from any Russian army seems available to the Bolkonskys, but Nikolai Rostov turns up at their estate in time to help put down an incipient peasant revolt. He finds himself attracted to the distraught Princess Maria. Back in Moscow, the patriotic Petya joins a crowd in audience of Czar Alexander and manages to snatch a biscuit thrown from the balcony window of the Cathedral of the Assumption by the Czar. He is nearly crushed by the throngs in his effort. Under the influence of the same patriotism, his father finally allows him to enlist. Napoleon himself is the main character in this section, and the novel presents him in vivid detail, both personally and as both a thinker and would-be strategist. Also described are the well-organized force of over four hundred thousand troops of the French Grande Armée (only one hundred and forty thousand of them actually French-speaking) that marches through the Russian countryside in the late summer and reaches the outskirts of the city of Smolensk. Pierre decides to leave Moscow and go to watch the Battle of Borodino from a vantage point next to a Russian artillery crew. After watching for a time, he begins to join in carrying ammunition. In the midst of the turmoil he experiences first-hand the death and destruction of war; Eugène's artillery continues to pound Russian support columns, while Marshals Ney and Davout set up a crossfire with artillery positioned on the Semyonovskaya heights. The battle becomes a hideous slaughter for both armies and ends in a standoff. The Russians, however, have won a moral victory by standing up to Napoleon's reputedly invincible army. The Russian army withdraws the next day, allowing Napoleon to march on to Moscow. Among the casualties are Anatole Kuragin and Prince Andrei. Anatole loses a leg, and Andrei suffers a grenade wound in the abdomen. Both are reported dead, but their families are in such disarray that no one can be notified. Book Four The Rostovs have waited until the last minute to abandon Moscow, even after it is clear that Kutuzov has retreated past Moscow and Muscovites are being given contradictory instructions on how to either flee or fight. Count Fyodor Rostopchin, the commander in chief of Moscow, is publishing posters, rousing the citizens to put their faith in religious icons, while at the same time urging them to fight with pitchforks if necessary. Before fleeing himself, he gives orders to burn the city. The Rostovs have a difficult time deciding what to take with them, but in the end, Natasha convinces them to load their carts with the wounded and dying from the Battle of Borodino. Unknown to Natasha, Prince Andrei is amongst the wounded. When Napoleon's army finally occupies an abandoned and burning Moscow, Pierre takes off on a quixotic mission to assassinate Napoleon. He becomes anonymous in all the chaos, shedding his responsibilities by wearing peasant clothes and shunning his duties and lifestyle. The only people he sees are Natasha and some of her family, as they depart Moscow. Natasha recognizes and smiles at him, and he in turn realizes the full scope of his love for her. Pierre saves the life of a French officer who enters his home looking for shelter, and they have a long, amicable conversation. The next day Pierre goes into the street to resume his assassination plan, and comes across two French soldiers robbing an Armenian family. When one of the soldiers tries to rip the necklace off the young Armenian woman's neck, Pierre intervenes by attacking the soldiers, and is taken prisoner by the French army. Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. Painting by Adolf Northern (1828-1876) Pierre becomes friends with a fellow prisoner, Platon Karataev, a Russian peasant with a saintly demeanor. In Karataev, Pierre finally finds what he has been seeking: an honest person of integrity, who is utterly without pretense. Pierre discovers meaning in life simply by interacting with him. After witnessing French soldiers sacking Moscow and shooting Russian civilians arbitrarily, Pierre is forced to march with the Grand Army during its disastrous retreat from Moscow in the harsh Russian winter. After months of trial and tribulation—during which the fever-plagued Karataev is shot by the French—Pierre is finally freed by a Russian raiding party led by Dolokhov and Denisov, after a small skirmish with the French that sees the young Petya Rostov killed in action. Meanwhile, Andrei has been taken in and cared for by the Rostovs, fleeing from Moscow to Yaroslavl. He is reunited with Natasha and his sister Maria before the end of the war. Having lost all will to live, he forgives Natasha in a last act before dying. As the novel draws to a close, Pierre's wife Hélène dies from an overdose of an abortifacient (Tolstoy does not state it explicitly but the euphemism he uses is unambiguous). Pierre is reunited with Natasha, while the victorious Russians rebuild Moscow. Natasha speaks of Prince Andrei's death and Pierre of Karataev's. Both are aware of a growing bond between them in their bereavement. With the help of Princess Maria, Pierre finds love at last and marries Natasha. Epilogue in two parts First part The first part of the epilogue begins with the wedding of Pierre and Natasha in 1813. Count Rostov dies soon after, leaving his eldest son Nikolai to take charge of the debt-ridden estate. Nikolai finds himself with the task of maintaining the family on the verge of bankruptcy. His abhorrence at the idea of marrying for wealth almost gets in his way, but finally he marries the now-rich Maria Bolkonskaya and in so doing saves his family from financial ruin (though manages to do so without selling any of his wife's property). Nikolai and Maria then move to Bald Hills with his mother and Sonya, whom he supports for the rest of their lives. They also raise Prince Andrei's orphaned son, Nikolai Andreyevich (Nikolenka) Bolkonsky. As in all good marriages, there are misunderstandings, but the couples—Pierre and Natasha, Nikolai and Maria—remain devoted to their spouses. Pierre and Natasha visit Bald Hills in 1820. There is a hint in the closing chapters that the idealistic, boyish Nikolenka and Pierre would both become part of the Decembrist Uprising. The first epilogue concludes with Nikolenka promising he would do something with which even his late father "would be satisfied" (presumably as a revolutionary in the Decembrist revolt). Second part The second part of the epilogue contains Tolstoy's critique of all existing forms of mainstream history. The 19th-century Great Man Theory claims that historical events are the result of the actions of "heroes" and other great individuals; Tolstoy argues that this is impossible because of how rarely these actions result in great historical events. Rather, he argues, great historical events are the result of many smaller events driven by the thousands of individuals involved (he compares this to calculus, and the sum of infinitesimals). He then goes on to argue that these smaller events are the result of an inverse relationship between necessity and free-will, necessity being based on reason and therefore explainable by historical analysis, and free-will being based on "consciousness" and therefore inherently unpredictable. Reception Leonid Pasternak's 1893 illustration to War and Peace The novel that made its author "the true lion of the Russian literature" (according to Ivan Goncharov)[19][20] enjoyed great success with the reading public upon its publication and spawned dozens of reviews and analytical essays, some of which (by Dmitry Pisarev, Pavel Annenkov, Dragomirov and Strakhov) formed the basis for the research of later Tolstoy scholars.[20] Yet the Russian press's initial response to the novel was muted, most critics unable to decide how to classify it. The liberal newspaper Golos (The Voice, April 3, #93, 1865) was one of the first to react. Its anonymous reviewer posed a question later repeated by many others: "What could this possibly be? What kind of genre are we supposed to file it to?.. Where is fiction in it, and where is real history?"[20] Writer and critic Nikolai Akhsharumov, writing in Vsemirny Trud (#6, 1867) suggested that War and Peace was "neither a chronicle, nor a historical novel", but a genre merger, this ambiguity never undermining its immense value. Annenkov, who praised the novel too, was equally vague when trying to classify it. "The cultural history of one large section of our society, the political and social panorama of it in the beginning of the current century", was his suggestion. "It is the [social] epic, the history novel and the vast picture of the whole nation's life", wrote Ivan Turgenev in his bid to define War and Peace in the foreword for his French translation of "The Two Hussars" (published in Paris by Le Temps in 1875). In general, the literary left received the novel coldly. They saw it as devoid of social critique, and keen on the idea of national unity. They saw its major fault as the "author's inability to portray a new kind of revolutionary intelligentsia in his novel", as critic Varfolomey Zaytsev put it.[21] Articles by D. Minayev, Vasily Bervi-Flerovsky [ru] and N. Shelgunov in Delo magazine characterized the novel as "lacking realism", showing its characters as "cruel and rough", "mentally stoned", "morally depraved" and promoting "the philosophy of stagnation". Still, Mikhail Saltykov-Schedrin, who never expressed his opinion of the novel publicly, in private conversation was reported to have expressed delight with "how strongly this Count has stung our higher society".[22] Dmitry Pisarev in his unfinished article "Russian Gentry of Old" (Staroye barstvo, Otechestvennye Zapiski, #2, 1868), while praising Tolstoy's realism in portraying members of high society, was still unhappy with the way the author, as he saw it, 'idealized' the old nobility, expressing "unconscious and quite natural tenderness towards" the Russian dvoryanstvo. On the opposite front, the conservative press and "patriotic" authors (A. S. Norov and P. A. Vyazemsky among them) were accusing Tolstoy of consciously distorting 1812 history, desecrating the "patriotic feelings of our fathers" and ridiculing dvoryanstvo.[20] One of the first comprehensive articles on the novel was that of Pavel Annenkov, published in #2, 1868 issue of Vestnik Evropy. The critic praised Tolstoy's masterful portrayal of man at war, marveled at the complexity of the whole composition, organically merging historical facts and fiction. "The dazzling side of the novel", according to Annenkov, was "the natural simplicity with which [the author] transports the worldly affairs and big social events down to the level of a character who witnesses them." Annekov thought the historical gallery of the novel was incomplete with the two "great raznotchintsys", Speransky and Arakcheev, and deplored the fact that the author stopped at introducing to the novel "this relatively rough but original element". In the end the critic called the novel "the whole epoch in the Russian fiction".[20] Slavophiles declared Tolstoy their "bogatyr" and pronounced War and Peace "the Bible of the new national idea". Several articles on War and Peace were published in 1869-70 in Zarya magazine by Nikolai Strakhov. "War and Peace is the work of genius, equal to everything that the Russian literature has produced before", he pronounced in the first, smaller essay. "It is now quite clear that from 1868 when the War and Peace was published the very essence of what we call Russian literature has become quite different, acquired the new form and meaning", the critic continued later. Strakhov was the first critic in Russia who declared Tolstoy's novel to be a masterpiece of level previously unknown in Russian literature. Still, being a true Slavophile, he could not fail to see the novel as promoting the major Slavophiliac ideas of "meek Russian character's supremacy over the rapacious European kind" (using Apollon Grigoriev's formula). Years later, in 1878, discussing Strakhov's own book The World as a Whole, Tolstoy criticized both Grigoriev's concept (of "Russian meekness vs. Western bestiality") and Strakhov's interpretation of it.[23] Battle of Schöngrabern by K.Bujnitsky Among the reviewers were military men and authors specializing in the war literature. Most assessed highly the artfulness and realism of Tolstoy's battle scenes. N. Lachinov, a member of the Russky Invalid newspaper staff (#69, April 10, 1868) called the Battle of Schöngrabern scenes "bearing the highest degree of historical and artistic truthfulness" and totally agreed with the author's view on the Battle of Borodino, which some of his opponents disputed. The army general and respected military writer Mikhail Dragomirov, in an article published in Oruzheiny Sbornik (The Military Almanac, 1868-70), while disputing some of Tolstoy's ideas concerning the "spontaneity" of wars and the role of commander in battles, advised all the Russian Army officers to use War and Peace as their desk book, describing its battle scenes as "incomparable" and "serving for an ideal manual to every textbook on theories of military art."[20] Unlike professional literary critics, most prominent Russian writers of the time supported the novel wholeheartedly. Goncharov, Turgenev, Leskov, Dostoyevsky and Fet have all gone on record as declaring War and Peace the masterpiece of the Russian literature. Ivan Goncharov in a July 17, 1878 letter to Pyotr Ganzen advised him to choose for translating into Danish War and Peace, adding: "This is positively what might be called a Russian Iliad. Embracing the whole epoch, it is the grandiose literary event, showcasing the gallery of great men painted by a lively brush of the great master ... This is one of the most, if not the most profound literary work ever".[24] In 1879, unhappy with Ganzen having chosen Anna Karenina to start with, Goncharov insisted: "War and Peace is the extraordinary poem of a novel, both in content and execution. It also serves as a monument to Russian history's glorious epoch when whatever figure you take is a colossus, a statue in bronze. Even [the novel's] minor characters carry all the characteristic features of the Russian people and its life."[25] In 1885, expressing satisfaction with the fact that Tolstoy's works have now been translated into Danish, Goncharov again stressed the immense importance of War and Peace. "Count Tolstoy really mounts over everybody else here [in Russia]", he remarked.[26] Fyodor Dostoyevsky (in a May 30, 1871 letter to Strakhov) described War and Peace as "the last word of the landlord's literature and the brilliant one at that". In a draft version of The Raw Youth he described Tolstoy as "a historiograph of the dvoryanstvo, or rather, its cultural elite". "The objectivity and realism impart wonderful charm to all scenes, and alongside people of talent, honour and duty he exposes numerous scoundrels, worthless goons and fools", he added.[27] In 1876 Dostoyevsky wrote: "My strong conviction is that a writer of fiction has to have most profound knowledge—not only of the poetic side of his art, but also the reality he deals with, in its historical as well as contemporary context. Here [in Russia], as far as I see it, only one writer excels in this, Count Lev Tolstoy."[28] Nikolai Leskov, then an anonymous reviewer in Birzhevy Vestnik (The Stock Exchange Herald), wrote several articles praising highly War and Peace, calling it "the best ever Russian historical novel" and "the pride of the contemporary literature". Marveling at the realism and factual truthfulness of Tolstoy's book, Leskov thought the author deserved the special credit for "having lifted up the people's spirit upon the high pedestal it deserved". "While working most elaborately upon individual characters, the author, apparently, has been studying most diligently the character of the nation as a whole; the life of people whose moral strength came to be concentrated in the Army that came up to fight mighty Napoleon. In this respect the novel of Count Tolstoy could be seen as an epic of the Great national war which up until now has had its historians but never had its singers", Leskov wrote.[20] Afanasy Fet, in a January 1, 1870 letter to Tolstoy, expressed his great delight with the novel. "You've managed to show us in great detail the other, mundane side of life and explain how organically does it feed the outer, heroic side of it", he added.[29] Ivan Turgenev gradually re-considered his initial skepticism as to the novel's historical aspect and also the style of Tolstoy's psychological analysis. In his 1880 article written in the form of a letter addressed to Edmond Abou, the editor of the French newspaper Le XIXe Siècle, Turgenev described Tolstoy as "the most popular Russian writer" and War and Peace as "one of the most remarkable books of our age".[30] "This vast work has the spirit of an epic, where the life of Russia of the beginning of our century in general and in details has been recreated by the hand of a true master ... The manner in which Count Tolstoy conducts his treatise is innovative and original. This is the great work of a great writer, and in it there's true, real Russia", Turgenev wrote.[31] It was largely due to Turgenev's efforts that the novel started to gain popularity with the European readership. The first French edition of the War and Peace (1879) paved the way for the worldwide success of Leo Tolstoy and his works.[20] Since then many world-famous authors have praised War and Peace as a masterpiece of the world literature. Gustave Flaubert expressed his delight in a January 1880 letter to Turgenev, writing: "This is the first class work! What an artist and what a psychologist! The first two volumes are exquisite. I used to utter shrieks of delight while reading. This is powerful, very powerful indeed."[32] Later John Galsworthy called War and Peace "the best novel that had ever been written". Romain Rolland, remembering his reading the novel as a student, wrote: "this work, like life itself, has no beginning, no end. It is life itself in its eternal movement."[33] Thomas Mann thought War and Peace to be "the greatest ever war novel in the history of literature."[34] Ernest Hemingway confessed that it was from Tolstoy that he'd been taking lessons on how to "write about war in the most straightforward, honest, objective and stark way." "I don't know anybody who could write about war better than Tolstoy did", Hemingway asserted in his 1955 Men at War. The Best War Stories of All Time anthology.[20] Isaak Babel said, after reading War and Peace, "If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy."[35] Tolstoy "gives us a unique combination of the 'naive objectivity' of the oral narrator with the interest in detail characteristic of realism. This is the reason for our trust in his presentation."[36] War and Peace is one of Five Books most recommended books with philosophers, literary scholars, novelists and historians citing it as a influential text.[37] English and other translations War and Peace has been translated into many languages. It has been translated into English on several occasions, starting with Clara Bell working from a French translation. The translators Constance Garnett and Louise and Aylmer Maude knew Tolstoy personally. Translations have to deal with Tolstoy's often peculiar syntax and his fondness for repetitions. Only about 2 percent of War and Peace is in French; Tolstoy removed the French in a revised 1873 edition, only to restore it later.[13] Most translators follow Garnett retaining some French; Briggs uses no French, while Pevear-Volokhonsky and Amy Mandelker's revision of the Maude translation both retain the French fully.[13] (For a list of translations see below.) Full translations into English Clara Bell (from a French version) (1885-86) Nathan Haskell Dole (1898) Leo Wiener (1904) Constance Garnett (1904) Aylmer and Louise Maude (1922-23) Rosemary Edmonds (1957, revised 1978) Ann Dunnigan (1968) Anthony Briggs (2005) Andrew Bromfield (2007), translation of the first completed draft, approx. 400 pages shorter than other English translations Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (2007) Amy Mandelker (2010), revision of Maude translation ISBN 978-0-19-923276-5 Abridged translations into English Princess Alexandra Kropotkin (1949)[16] Comparing translations In the Encyclopedia of Literary Translation into English, academic Zoja Pavlovskis-Petit has this to say about the translations of War and Peace available in 2000: "Of all the translations of War and Peace, Dunnigan's (1968) is the best. ... Unlike the other translators, Dunnigan even succeeds with many characteristically Russian folk expressions and proverbs. ... She is faithful to the text and does not hesitate to render conscientiously those details that the uninitiated may find bewildering: for instance, the statement that Boris's mother pronounced his name with a stress on the o - an indication to the Russian reader of the old lady's affectation." On the Garnett translation Pavlovskis-Petit writes: "her ...War and Peace is frequently inexact and contains too many anglicisms. Her style is awkward and turgid, very unsuitable for Tolstoi." On the Maudes' translation she comments: "this should have been the best translation, but the Maudes' lack of adroitness in dealing with Russian folk idiom, and their style in general, place this version below Dunnigan's." She further comments on Edmonds's revised translation, formerly on Penguin: "[it] is the work of a sound scholar but not the best possible translator; it frequently lacks resourcefulness and imagination in its use of English. ... a respectable translation but not on the level of Dunnigan or Maude."[38] Adaptations Film The first Russian adaptation was Война и мир (Voyna i mir) in 1915, which was directed by Vladimir Gardin and starred Gardin and the Russian ballerina Vera Karalli. F. Kamei produced a version in Japan in 1947. The 208-minute-long American 1956 version was directed by King Vidor and starred Audrey Hepburn (Natasha), Henry Fonda (Pierre) and Mel Ferrer (Andrei). Audrey Hepburn was nominated for a BAFTA Award for best British actress and for a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a drama production. The critically acclaimed, four-part and 431-minutes long Soviet War and Peace (film series), by director Sergei Bondarchuk, was released in 1966 and 1967. It starred Lyudmila Savelyeva (as Natasha Rostova) and Vyacheslav Tikhonov (as Andrei Bolkonsky). Bondarchuk himself played the character of Pierre Bezukhov. It involved thousands of extras and took six years to finish the shooting, as a result of which the actors age changed dramatically from scene to scene. It won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for its authenticity and massive scale.[citation needed] Bondarchuk's film is considered to be the best screen version of the novel. It attracted some controversy due to the number of horses killed during the making of the battle sequences and screenings were actively boycotted in several US cities by the ASPCA.[39] Television War and Peace (1972): The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) made a television serial based on the novel, broadcast in 1972-73. Anthony Hopkins played the lead role of Pierre. Other lead characters were played by Rupert Davies, Faith Brook, Morag Hood, Alan Dobie, Angela Down and Sylvester Morand. This version faithfully included many of Tolstoy's minor characters, including Platon Karataev (Harry Locke).[40][41] La guerre et la paix (2000): French TV production of Prokofiev's opera War and Peace, directed by François Roussillon. Robert Brubaker played the lead role of Pierre.[42] War and Peace (2007): produced by the Italian Lux Vide, a TV mini-series in Russian & English co-produced in Russia, France, Germany, Poland and Italy. Directed by Robert Dornhelm, with screenplay written by Lorenzo Favella, Enrico Medioli and Gavin Scott. It features an international cast with Alexander Beyer playing the lead role of Pierre assisted by Malcolm McDowell, Clémence Poésy, Alessio Boni, Pilar Abella, J. Kimo Arbas, Ken Duken, Juozapas Bagdonas and Toni Bertorelli.[43] On 8 December 2015, Russian state television channel Russia-K began a four-day broadcast of a reading of the novel, one volume per day, involving 1,300 readers in over 30 cities.[44] War & Peace (2016): The BBC aired a six-part adaptation of the novel scripted by Andrew Davies on BBC One in 2016.[45][46] Music English progressive rock band Yes's song "The Gates of Delirium" from their 1974 album Relayer was inspired by War and Peace. Opera Initiated by a proposal of the German director Erwin Piscator in 1938, the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev composed his opera War and Peace (Op. 91, libretto by Mira Mendelson) based on this epic novel during the 1940s. The complete musical work premièred in Leningrad in 1955. It was the first opera to be given a public performance at the Sydney Opera House (1973).[47] Theatre The first successful stage adaptations of War and Peace were produced by Alfred Neumann and Erwin Piscator (1942, revised 1955, published by Macgibbon & Kee in London 1963, and staged in 16 countries since) and R. Lucas (1943). A stage adaptation by Helen Edmundson, first produced in 1996 at the Royal National Theatre, was published that year by Nick Hern Books, London. Edmundson added to and amended the play[48] for a 2008 production as two 3-hour parts by Shared Experience, directed by Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale.[49] This was first put on at the Nottingham Playhouse, then toured in the UK to Liverpool, Darlington, Bath, Warwick, Oxford, Truro, London (the Hampstead Theatre) and Cheltenham. A musical adaptation by OBIE Award-winner Dave Malloy, called Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 premiered at the Ars Nova theater in Manhattan on October 1, 2012. The show is described as an electropop opera, and is based on Book 8 of War and Peace, focusing on Natasha's affair with Anatole.[50] The show opened on Broadway in the fall of 2016, starring Josh Groban as Pierre and Denée Benton as Natasha. It received twelve Tony Award nominations including Best Musical, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Original Score, and Best Book of a Musical. Radio The BBC Home Service broadcast an eight-part adaptation by Walter Peacock from 17 January to 7 February 1943 with two episodes on each Sunday. All but the last instalment, which ran for one and a half hours, were one hour long. Leslie Banks played Pierre while Celia Johnson was Natasha. In December 1970, Pacifica Radio station WBAI broadcast a reading of the entire novel (the 1968 Dunnigan translation) read by over 140 celebrities and ordinary people.[51] A dramatised full-cast adaptation in 20 parts, edited by Michael Bakewell, was broadcast by the BBC between 30 December 1969 and 12 May 1970, with a cast including David Buck, Kate Binchy and Martin Jarvis. A dramatised full-cast adaptation in ten parts was written by Marcy Kahan and Mike Walker in 1997 for BBC Radio 4. The production won the 1998 Talkie award for Best Drama and was around 9.5 hours in length. It was directed by Janet Whitaker and featured Simon Russell Beale, Gerard Murphy, Richard Johnson, and others.[52] On New Year's Day 2015, BBC Radio 4[53] broadcast a dramatisation over 10 hours. The dramatisation, by playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, was directed by Celia de Wolff and starred Paterson Joseph and John Hurt. It was accompanied by a Tweetalong: live tweets throughout the day that offered a playful companion to the book and included plot summaries and entertaining commentary. The Twitter feed also shared maps, family trees and battle plans.[54]

War and Peace