Love, Sex, Death & Words, By John Sutherland & Stephen Fender

Beguiled by a literary calendar

Reviewed,Jonathan Sale
Wednesday 20 October 2010 00:00 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Doesn't the Trades Descriptions Act cover book titles? How can Love, Sex, Death & Words be justified for a volume of literary dates, all based on the solitary act of an author sitting down quietly with a quill, pencil, typewriter or keyboard?

In fact, not only the fourth noun but also the first three are mots justes for the entrancing events detailed here: in particular for the 9 June 1865 entry, which narrates Dickens's involvement in a fatal train crash. Together with his mistress (love and sex) and her mother, he was in the only first-class carriage which did not plunge (death) to the riverbed below. A perfect gent, he rescued fellow-passengers before going back for the latest episode (words) of Our Mutual Friend.

Professors Sutherland and Fender have found a literary event for every one of the year's 366 days (including 29 February, the date in 1728 of the first night of The Beggar's Opera, which got this rave review from the Duke of Argyll: "It will do"). They provide not mere dates but intriguing narratives, idiosyncratic expositions and witty essays.

Their calendar runs from the perpetual copyright granted on 1 January 1988 to Peter Pan (all proceeds to Great Ormond Street Hospital), to the publication of Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates's novel, on 31 December 1961. It ranges from 480BC (29 September, Battle of Salamis, subject of Aeschylus's play The Persians) to 2008 (9 April, Bob Dylan awarded the Pulitzer Prize).

Some of their best dates are for events which never happened: Holmes and Moriarty plunging to their apparent deaths over the Reichenbach Falls (4 May 1891), and Mr Charles Pooter commencing his Diary of a Nobody (3 April 1892). Some are engagingly small: on 28 October 1853 Thoreau picked up 703 unsold copies (out of a vanity print run of 1,000) of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. One of their dates is wrong: it was not on 10 November 1960 (the day of publication) that Lady Chatterley's Lover was acquitted of obscenity, but on 2 November. The book was one of seven, not 10, Lawrence titles brought out by Penguin.

Another mistake – not of the authors but the people concerned – was the "modernist dinner party from hell" on 18 May 1922. Proust, Joyce, Stravinsky and Diaghilev got together and up one another's noses. "Roll on post-modernism," they must have thought.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in