Archibald Clavering Gunter’s life exhibits the marks of a new breed of author—one that in turn exemplifies an emerging species of individual. Homo Economicus, or ‘economic man’: a term coined initially in reaction to John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianist theory and the eminently sensible-sounding principle that “actions are right […]
A brief reflection on the theme of eugenics that Brian Armour identifies in Baron Montez, in his preface to Chapter One. Gunter was himself probably of “mixed race” to a modest degree. Legacies of British Slave-ownership, a web site of University College London, reports that his father, Henry […]
Our narrator is at it again, delighting us with wonderful descriptions of island scenery and life, while never missing an opportunity to take a swipe at Montez. Fernando is now increasingly referred to as ‘little’. When a Narrator becomes a character in a story, as I explored in […]
The word “unenthusiastic” well encapsulates Gunter’s critical reception. Observe his appearance in a number of overviews of the history of American letters and theatre. In his Dictionary of American Authors (1899), Adams pronounces Gunter’s “popular sensational romances” as “quite destitute of literary merit” (161). In American Authors, 1600-1900 […]
Welcome to the first instalment of Achibald Clavering Gunter’s 1893 novel Baron Montez of Panama and Paris. The story is integrated with historical events which provide a background for the introduction of the main character, Fernando Gomez Montez. The first chapters take place on a particular day, the […]
Prepare to embark on an idiosyncratic taste thrill, another foray into the paradoxically expanding universe of vanishing literature. This bestselling author-playwright, said to have been better known in his day than his contemporary, Mark Twain (1835-1910), is now reduced to fragments, trivial contributions to popular culture: Played middle-man […]
The term “shotgun wedding”, which most English speaking people are familiar with, loses all its descriptive impact in German. “Mussehe” doesn’t sound as dramatic at all. It means “have-to wedding”. The first word, muss, meaning “have to”, also means “mash” or “sauce”, although that word is pronounced with […]
As the story hurtles towards what appears to be a bloody climax, our heroine and her mother, the baroness, seem like bait in a trap, a trap set to kill the only threat to Pascal Dunwolf’s dastardly plan to force Electra to marry him so he can inherit […]
Odd, that the simple maid should cry “murder, murder!” Or is it? I mean, long before anyone had been done in yet—without giving too much away. Now, any simple English maid who happened to be skulking around in any old dark secret passage and suddenly feeling a hand […]
Secret passages were one of my favourite elements in spooky old black and white movies. There was one in Ghost Breakers (dir. George Marshall) from1940, in which Paulette Goddard plays a particular combination of keys on the dusty old pipe organ of a very haunted castle in Cuba, […]
