Interesting plot twists and a good knowledge of his foreign settings. Zenzel may sound a bit strange as a choice of name for one of Electra’s new maids these days, but it is a real one and reflects how much serious research Cobb put into his writing. More […]
The Swabian Alb is indeed the area of Germany with more caves than anywhere else. Around 2000 of them, apparently. That’s because it’s a karst area: a landscape in which limestone is constantly being hollowed out by erosion. Cobb knew his geography well. Hiding in caves is a […]
What would they call a villain or “badguy” in German? An older term was “Boesewicht“, “Boese” meaning bad or naughty, “wicht” being a derogatory term meaning something like “blackguard”, but also a toddler, a naughty child . It is still in use today, along with “Schurke“, which means […]
The first impression of a flight from danger I can remember was that of the Von Trapp family. Good heavens, no, I’m not one of those people that would mar an otherwise perfectly enchanting visit to a beautiful city like Salzburg by insisting on trying to sing songs […]
The German word for “dungeon” is “Verlies“. An unusual word, originating in Low German and Dutch, meaning loss, or leaving. Verlies sounds like the past form of “verlassen“, which means to leave. A place where you leave people, to an awful fate? There were dungeons like that in […]
Trying to get a desperate message through to possibly avoid a looming disaster, a dangerous journey through a dark expanse. Where had I heard that before? It was also in Germany, but not in the Black Forest. This particular journey started from an airfield just outside Munich. The […]
Inheritances. There’s an old German saying, “Wenn’s ums Erben geht, besser frueh handeln, als zu spaet…” (“When it’s a matter of inheritance, it’s better to act early, than too late …”) There’s a fairytale castle Iocked in a bitter dispute about the matter of who inherited it. A […]
Knowing nothing of Sylvanus Cobb Jr’s work, let alone the writer himself, Emerson did not realize the offense his remarks would have caused Cobb’s brother (see “Cobb Biosnip: No Yellowbacks”). In her memoir, Sylvanus’ daughter Ella Waite Cobb omits to mention which brother it was. Sylvanus Jr., the […]
Strange, that Electra’s beloved should say of Thorbrand that he may be “evil” but not “dreadful“, and that he would “never take a penny from a man he knew to be poor”. A German Robin Hood? Some say that the before-mentioned Eppelein von Gailingen was one; however, there […]
Some years after Cobb began writing for the New York Ledger, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered a public lecture in East Boston. The honour of introducing him happened to fall to one of Cobb’s brothers. On the subject of modern literature, Emerson made a contemptuous mention of “yellow-covered literature […]
Furin Chime 