Monday, November 5, 2007

1842 to 1844

Literature

The Mysteries of Paris. Eugene Sue. French. 1842. Romance. Kaleidoscope of life in Paris.

"Locksley Hall." Alfred Lord Tennyson. British. 1842. Poetry. Last look at youthful home where his lover married a rich clown because of social, parental pressure.

"Pied Piper of Hamelin." Robert Browning. British. 1842. Poetry. Piper lures rats to drowning. When he is not paid, he lures children, who vanish.

American Notes. Charles Dickens. British. 1842. Travel. Travel sketches. Gave great offense in U.S. Harsh, patronizing observations.

Society
1843. Former Boston schoolteacher Dorothea Lynde Dix reveals inhumane treatment of mental patients to the Massachusetts legislature.

1843. Yellow Fever sweeps the Mississippi Valley, killing 13,000.

1843. Congress appropriates $30,000 to enable Samuel F.B. Morse to build an experimental telegraph line between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

1843. The typewriter patented by Worcester, Mass., inventor Charles Thurber is a hand-printing "chirographer" with a cylinder that moves horizontally and contains a device for letter spacing.

Literature
"The Tell-Tale Heart." Edgar Allan Poe. American. 1843. Story. Buries dismembered victim. While police search, hears beating of dead man's heart. In a frenzy, he confesses to the killing; ticking was the dead man's watch.

"A Christmas Carol." Charles Dickens. British. 1843. Story. Conversion of Scrooge by visions of Christmases past, present and to come. Becomes benevolent, loving.

The Cry of the Children. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. British. 1843. Poetry. Intense sympathy for victims of child labor in English mines and factories.

"The Gold Bug." Edgar Allan Poe. American. 1843. Story. Sullivan's Island off South Carolina. Location of buried treasure. Unravels instructions. Beetle - the gold bug.

The Bible in Spain. George Borrow. British. 1843. Travel. Travel book. Vivid pictures of Spanish life during Carlist troubles.

Modern Painters (5 Vols.) John Ruskin. British. 1843/60. Art Criticism. Landscape painters; superirority of contemporary artists over old masters.

Society
1844. A band of 15 Texas Rangers led by Col. John Coffee Hays attacks a party of some 300 Comanches. The Rangers kill half the Indians and intimidate the rest with Colt revolvers that can fire six shots without reloading.

1844. The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is founded at London.

1844. Mormon leader Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum are jailed at Carthage, Ill., for wrecking the offices and press of a rival Mormon newspaper in town. A mob of 200 men drags the Smiths from their jail cell the night of June 27 and lynches them. Brigham Young is chosen to succeed Smith.

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