Post by d***@gmail.com<snip stuff about Peter Pan>
Post by Dorothy J HeydtPost by d***@gmail.comAlthough I recall reading an anecdote about a librarian who said that
_The Prisoner of Zenda_ was not suitable for children, because its
opening dealt with bastardy. (In the opening chapter it is said, but a
bit elliptically, that one of Rudolf Rassendyl's female ancestors had
had an affair with the then king of Ruritania, which is why his physical
appearance is so close to that of the about to be crowned king, thus
setting up the whole substitution plot.)
The anecdote would have been set a long time ago. Perhaps the 1920s? I am not sure.
Published in 1894; presumably set in a near-contemporary year.
And once you get a few generations back, there's no telling. I
forget where I read that after twelve hundred years or so, everybody
of European descent has Charlemagne as an ancestor somewhere.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/
I think i was unclear. The anecdote was that sometime in the 1920s or
30s, a librarian alleged that the already classic book _The Prisoner of
Zenda_ was unsuitable for children because of its implication that the
protagonist was descended from the product of an extramarital affair.
I found the book at project Gutenberg, (see
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/95/95-h/95-h.htm) and here is the
<blockquote> ...in the year 1733, George II. sitting then on the throne,
peace reigning for the moment, and the King and the Prince of Wales
being not yet at loggerheads, there came on a visit to the English Court
a certain prince, who was afterwards known to history as Rudolf the
Third of Ruritania. The prince was a tall, handsome young fellow, marked
(maybe marred, it is not for me to say) by a somewhat unusually long,
sharp and straight nose, and a mass of dark-red hairâin fact, the nose
and the hair which have stamped the Elphbergs time out of mind. He
stayed some months in England, where he was most courteously received;
yet, in the end, he left rather under a cloud. For he fought a duel (it
was considered highly well bred of him to waive all question of his
rank) with a nobleman, well known in the society of the day, not only
for his own merits, but as the husband of a very beautiful wife. In that
duel Prince Rudolf received a severe wound, and, recovering therefrom,
was adroitly smuggled off by the Ruritanian ambassador, who had found
him a pretty handful. The nobleman was not wounded in the duel; but the
morning being raw and damp on the occasion of the meeting, he contracted
a severe chill, and, failing to throw it off, he died some six months
after the departure of Prince Rudolf, without having found leisure to
adjust his relations with his wifeâwho, after another two months, bore
an heir to the title and estates of the family of Burlesdon. This lady
was the Countess Amelia, whose picture my sister-in-law wished to remove
from the drawing-room in Park Lane; and her husband was James, fifth
Earl of Burlesdon and twenty-second Baron Rassendyll, both in the
peerage of England, and a Knight of the Garter. As for Rudolf, he went
back to Ruritania, married a wife, and ascended the throne, whereon his
progeny in the direct line have sat from then till this very hourâwith
one short interval. And, finally, if you walk through the picture
galleries at Burlesdon, among the fifty portraits or so of the last
century and a half, you will find five or six, including that of the
sixth earl, distinguished by long, sharp, straight noses and a quantity
of dark-red hair; these five or six have also blue eyes, whereas among
the Rassendylls dark eyes are the commoner. </blockquote>
Now I ask you. Is that sufficient to make the book "unsuitable for children"?
about. It's also a chunk of prose that a child would probably
not be able to wade through.