Meredith Nicholson (1866–1947)
Autore di The House of a Thousand Candles
Sull'Autore
Opere di Meredith Nicholson
Short Flights 1 copia
Style and the Man 1 copia
Old Familiar Faces 1 copia
The War of the Carolinas 1 copia
Opere correlate
The Second Christmas Megapack: 29 Modern and Classic Christmas Stories (2012) — Collaboratore — 3 copie
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1866-12-09
- Data di morte
- 1947-12-22
- Luogo di sepoltura
- Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- USA
- Luogo di nascita
- Crawfordsville, Indiana, USA
- Luogo di morte
- Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
- Attività lavorative
- author
diplomat
lecturer - Organizzazioni
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature ∙ 1908)
Democratic Party
Utenti
Recensioni
My spouse recently found an old newspaper from 1905 behind a mirror on an old piece of furniture we had bought in Cambridge when we were newly weds, back in the dark ages. Interestingly, the paper was from Baltimore, the city of my birth. How it got into a mirror on a bureau in Cambridge, MA is a mystery.
Anyway, one of its pages listed some books one might buy as Christmas presents. The list had little summaries. I decided to check a few of them out. I could find several of the authors listed, but not the books listed with them, with one exception. I did find The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson. Actually, that's not quite true. I found a couple of the others, but only in pay form. I won't pay for books on kindle unless I actually own them, i.e. can lend them or give them away with impunity.
Whatever, this book is a sort of gothic novel, I suppose. A young man inherits a strange old, unfinished mansion in the Indiana woods, but only on the proviso that he lives in the house for a full year, that he doesn't have a bunch of live-in guests, and that he doesn't leave, other than for short trips into town (an easy 2-mile walk--yes people used to walk to get places and 2 miles wasn't all that unusual.) to the post office and such like.
As soon as he gets to the house, someone tries shooting him through the window. He begins to hear weird sounds, e.g. foot steps in the walls. He hears snatches of conversation that tells him people are out to get him. People think there's buried treasure of some sort in the house, but no one can find it. There's a girls school, run by nuns, protestant ones no less, just on the other side of the wall, and at least one of the school's inhabitants is bewitching. And so forth.
This is not deathless literature, and is obviously dated. Some of the attitudes expressed in the book are a bit creepy to a more modern sensibility (e.g. attitudes toward women and "rubes", i.e. midwesterners--oh wait some folks still think we're ignorant rubes [I have midwestern roots and lived in both Kansas and Ohio for extended periods of time]). But it's an interesting enough yarn and perfectly fine escapist literature, even if the main character is a bit of an ass. I've read much worse.
… (altro)
Anyway, one of its pages listed some books one might buy as Christmas presents. The list had little summaries. I decided to check a few of them out. I could find several of the authors listed, but not the books listed with them, with one exception. I did find The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson. Actually, that's not quite true. I found a couple of the others, but only in pay form. I won't pay for books on kindle unless I actually own them, i.e. can lend them or give them away with impunity.
Whatever, this book is a sort of gothic novel, I suppose. A young man inherits a strange old, unfinished mansion in the Indiana woods, but only on the proviso that he lives in the house for a full year, that he doesn't have a bunch of live-in guests, and that he doesn't leave, other than for short trips into town (an easy 2-mile walk--yes people used to walk to get places and 2 miles wasn't all that unusual.) to the post office and such like.
As soon as he gets to the house, someone tries shooting him through the window. He begins to hear weird sounds, e.g. foot steps in the walls. He hears snatches of conversation that tells him people are out to get him. People think there's buried treasure of some sort in the house, but no one can find it. There's a girls school, run by nuns, protestant ones no less, just on the other side of the wall, and at least one of the school's inhabitants is bewitching. And so forth.
This is not deathless literature, and is obviously dated. Some of the attitudes expressed in the book are a bit creepy to a more modern sensibility (e.g. attitudes toward women and "rubes", i.e. midwesterners--oh wait some folks still think we're ignorant rubes [I have midwestern roots and lived in both Kansas and Ohio for extended periods of time]). But it's an interesting enough yarn and perfectly fine escapist literature, even if the main character is a bit of an ass. I've read much worse.
… (altro)
1 
lgpiper | 6 altre recensioni | Jun 21, 2019 |
lgpiper | 6 altre recensioni | Jun 21, 2019 | 
A man meets a mysterious older lady in a strange coffee shop. She invites him to her estate where he assumes he is to fix her chimneys as he is a chimney doctor. Her niece lives with her and has seven suitors who have a pact to court her en masse so no one had an unfair advantage over the others. There is a mystery with the chimneys and the suitors. Pretty predictable. Funny, but drags on a bit. The "old maid" aunt is a strange and eccentric character that would not make sense in modern times.
I saw this book a few years ago, but objected to the $15 price tag, so I walked away, and then kicked myself when I returned and it was gone. Non-fiction survey of the top writers considered Hoosiers. Densely written. Drat!
Liste
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Statistiche
- Opere
- 27
- Opere correlate
- 3
- Utenti
- 323
- Popolarità
- #73,309
- Voto
- 3.6
- Recensioni
- 11
- ISBN
- 183
- Lingue
- 2
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