Now that’s journalism.
I’m about halfway through His Family, and it occurred to me to check the New York Times archive to see if I could read the original review of the book. I haven’t found the review yet, but I have found articles such as:
“D. GRAHAM PHILLIPS LEFT ONLY $13,000; Novelist’s Bank Account $298.48 — He Had No Real Estate
Mrs. Carolyn Frevert, the sister of David Graham Phillips, novelist and short story writer, who was shot and killed by Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, an insane musician, on Jan. 23, 1911, will probably receive not more than $13,000 as his sole heir…”
And:
“VICTORIA GETS ANGRY; MR. MOROSINI’S OVERTURES REPELLED WITH CONTEMPT.MRS. RULSKAMP SENDS WORD TO HER…
The published accounts of the settled determination of Mrs. Ernest Hulskamp nee Morosini, to go on the stage unless her father relented toward her and her husband have had their effect upon the old gentleman…”
Apparently she ran away and married the coachman, so her father disowned her, sold all his properties, and returned to Italy on the next boat.
You don’t get that kind of dirt these days, you know? Makes you long for the past.
March 8, 2008 at 8:27 pm
I’m going to go around threatening to “go on the stage” with “settled determination” in my daily life and see where it gets me.
March 8, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Maybe someday if I’m very lucky I’ll get to use an appositive like “an insane musician.” I would love to live in a word where there could possibly be some confusion between, say, Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, the financier and second-cousin to the Top-Hatted Gent from Monopoly, and Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, the homicidally insane musician.