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Geo. Newbern

My copy of "I Don't Want to Shoot an Elephant" Issue date 1958 First Edition page 100 states

I made love to it all the way home, and Alice swears I slept with it that night. But the following morning, while preening and primping it for a hunting trip, I made a mortifying discovery: my precious Lefever had Damascus barrels.

In which book were you looking, what page and what edition?

Thanks
Mike

Not disputing what you read and quoted and cited, Mike, but we were talking about the story, "FALLEN LADY", not "I Don't Want To Shoot An Elephant", both Babcock classics. The fallen lady story may not be in the collection you have, I checked the story in my copy of "The Best of Havilah Babcock" to be sure I had not misremembered the make of the gun; trust me that story was about a Parker. Respectfully...Geo

I have ALL the Babcocks books,

Maybe old Havilah was having fun with us????

Fallen Lady is a great story of the old South, wonder if it could be published today?

Respectfully...Mike

You make an interesting point there, Mike. Both Babcock and Buckingham as well as Faulkner, for that matter were Southern authors with a distinctly Southern perspective, writing in a time far different from our own. Havilah Babcock was head of the English department at the University of South Carolina. I don't find his writings to be nearly as out of touch with modern political correctness as I do Buckingham.

Some of Nash's work reflects a mindset that would be termed bigoted and racist today. I don't think he'd be recieved kindly in this day and time. Eightbore is clearly fond of his work though, and so am I..Geo

Poor analogy. Try this........ wonder how many people would buy a book of answers to a book of crossword puzzles that had been around for 60 plus years and had never been successfully answered.

Lots of people, prolly.

George, I think you have proven my point. "Fallen Lady" may have been about a Damascus Parker. However, the identical story in "I Don't Want to Shoot an Elephant" was titled "as I grow older", yes, in lower case letters, and the gun was a Lefever. I suggested that he made the gun a Parker in other books to make it more digestible to the readers. As I said before, Babcock was no Nash Buckingham.

Sure he would George... just not by everyone and we Americans should not be ashamed of this great old literature or those who could emulate it again in modern times. Heck, there's many millions that think very kindly of all of the gansta rappers that produce exponentially more media exposure than HB and NB could ever get in print and their stuff ain't exactly impartial..

JMC

Eightbore, no, and these two great Southern authors are not particularly comparable in my mind. Nash has been my favorite outdoor writer since I discovered his work in the Jr. High library during study hall, many many years ago. Its a matter of taste , I guess, which was the better writer, but if you want the winner to be Buckingham, that's ok with me.

I really have no idea what you mean by fictional fantasy or whatever you called it, but the works of both were fiction in my mind, although Nash insisted on writing in the first person as though all he wrote about was a recollection of his own experiences...Geo

JMC, hope I did not give the impression that I'm ashamed of Southern literature or of my own personal Southern heritage, because I am certainly not. I love the works of Buckingham, though I do suspect his works, if published today, would create an uproar.

As for Babcock, I don't remember anything in it that I think would be particularly objectional even today. Faulkner was no apoligist for the Southern heritage, but he clearly renunciated it. He wrote of what was as what was. He also wrote some of the best Southern hunting literature in existance...Geo

Why should we ever expect Nash Buckingham or any other writer of earlier times to ever be "in touch with anything 'modern'"? They wrote of things they knew in their times and had no inkling, nor did they give a care, of "modern times". It was just the way it was in their world - bigoted by today's standards or not, we can appreciate Buckingham's work and not be offended by it for it was of an honest, unashamed time in America. Did Buckingham ever mistreat Ho'ace or Aunt Tildy or any of his beloved "colored" friends? I should say not!! He loved them and respected them deeply and the reader, if he isn't too embarassed by 'words', can easily see that. Nash Buckingham wrote of things and people he knew and loved and in order to bring us along with him he "talked the talk".