Books with title The Autobiography Of A Slander

The Autobiography of a Clown by Isaac Frederick MarcossonWhen the article on which this little book is based appeared in the Saturday Evening Post we were amazed at the response it evoked. It simply proved that all the world loves a clown. In most of the comment and communication, however, there was a question as to the authenticity of the subject. I beg to say that Jules is a real personage and still the nimble producer of many laughs.It was while writing a series of articles on an entirely different phase of the circus that I first met Jules. I heard of him the moment I stepped into the circus world. So thoroughly had he impressed his personality; so deeply had he become attached to its life, and so profoundly had he gained the respect of its people, that not to have heard of him argued that I was deaf and blind to everything about me. I found him the friend, philosopher, and guide of the nomadic city of tents that rose with the dawn and slipped away into the night. Despite its transiency, there was much permanency of character in its varied inhabitants. No one contributed more to its moral structure than Jules, the clown.We who live in this breathless era are wont to look upon the circus as a temporary amusement makeshift. It is here to-day and gone to-morrow. Yet behind its spangled, tinseled array and restless movement are real traditions. Why has the circus endured in an age that craves new diversion? Simply because it is basic; because it fills a fundamental need; because it is a staple like wheat. Laughter is one of the few eternal things; therefore the circus which produces it takes on something of the same quality. More than this, the circus is as much an expression of art as the drama. Like art, it is universal. The clown being a world citizen interprets a world humor in which there is neither border line, race, nor creed. Most of the great humorists have been sad men, and thus the clown, clothed in his right mind, is grave and reflective. Though he wear cap and bells, he has not wanted for recognition among the great. Garrick, Kemble, and Booth have been glad to claim him as fellow-artists. But it is in the heart of the child that he has found his most grateful friend, and in a larger sense all the world is a child when it goes to the circus.In my work I have had to be, on many occasions, the biographer of the great and the chronicler of much timely achievement. In all this swift march of people and events I have yet to meet a man whose devotion to the ideals of his art is more sincere than that which has animated Jules Turnour through the long years of his clowning. I have been with him in the tumult of tented travel and watched him in the roofed arena before the multitudes. Always I have found him proud to be a clown. To know him has indeed been a liberal education in character and loyalty.

Get on the road with this predecessor to gonzo journalism as the Welshman Davies heads off for a life of adventure wandering the expanses of 19th century America, hopping trains and generally vagranting his way around. Following an accident which must have been horrific (but which he lightly skips over in the text) Davies returned to the UK, finding plenty of trouble but eventually succeeding with what must have been one of the world's first viral marketing campaigns.Included are many hints and tips on being a late-1800s super tramp, which are fascinating for both detail of a life far removed from our own and their cleverness. One such cute recommendation is the suggestion to sell showlaces for a living and the many advantages it brings a vagrant. After all these adventures the author eventually settled down with a wife, becoming a successful poet and author, so this is certainly a tale with a happy ending.W. H. Davies has had a solid effect on modern culture, with the title of this book inspiring the name of the band Supertramp and his famous couplet known to nearly all: "What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?" For fans of Wales, American rail, Davies' poetry or just fascinated by the hobo lifestyle this book is a must read. For the rest it is a great story well told.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

General Sir Mike Jackson's illustrious career in the British Army has spanned almost 45 years and all that time he has shown loyalty, courage and commitment to the British army whilst also being an undeniable media attraction.A man of substance where foreign policy is concerned, he has served in theatres from the Artic to the jungle but is perhaps best known for his role in charge of the British troops to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, for assembling the British ground component of the coalition that toppled the Taliban, for equipping and organising the army we dispatched to defeat in Iraq and for re-organising the British army with aplomb. His drive, enthusiasm and dominating personality were always popular with his soldiers and drove him right to the top of his profession. He may have been a general but he never stopped caring about the men and women in his charge, despite the politics.Soldier: The Autobiography exhibits all the qualities for which Jackson is admired; his professionalism, his honesty, his directness, his exuberance and his sense of humour. Most of all it gives a vivid sense of what modern soldiering entails.

This is an autobiography that describes what it was like to be a tramp in the late 19th century in North America. From the preface: "I HASTEN to protest at the outset that I have no personal knowledge of the incorrigible Super-tramp who wrote this amazing book. If he is to be encouraged and approved, then British morality is a mockery, British respectability an imposture, and British industry a vice. Perhaps they are: I have always kept an open mind on the subject; but still one may ask some better ground for pitching them out of window than the caprice of a tramp. I hope these expressions will not excite unreasonable expectations of a thrilling realistic romance, or a scandalous chronicle, to follow. Mr. Davies’ autobiography is not a bit sensational: it might be the Post Office Directory for the matter of that. A less simple minded supertramp would not have thought it worth writing at all; for it mentions nothing that might not have happened to any of us. As to scandal, I, though a most respectable author, have never written half so proper a book.

This is an autobiography that describes what it was like to be a tramp in the late 19th century in North America. From the preface: "I HASTEN to protest at the outset that I have no personal knowledge of the incorrigible Super-tramp who wrote this amazing book. If he is to be encouraged and approved, then British morality is a mockery, British respectability an imposture, and British industry a vice. Perhaps they are: I have always kept an open mind on the subject; but still one may ask some better ground for pitching them out of window than the caprice of a tramp. I hope these expressions will not excite unreasonable expectations of a thrilling realistic romance, or a scandalous chronicle, to follow. Mr. Davies’ autobiography is not a bit sensational: it might be the Post Office Directory for the matter of that. A less simple minded supertramp would not have thought it worth writing at all; for it mentions nothing that might not have happened to any of us. As to scandal, I, though a most respectable author, have never written half so proper a book. These pudent pages are unstained with the frightful language, the debased dialect, of the fictitious proletarians of Mr. Rudyard Kipling and other genteel writers. In them the patrons of the casual ward and the doss house argue with the decorum of Socrates, and narrate in the style of Tacitus. They have that pleasant combination of childish freshness with scrupulous literary conscientiousness only possible to people for whom speech, spoken or written, but especially written, is still a feat to be admired and shewn off for its own sake. Not for the life of me could I capture that boyish charm and combine it with the savoir vivre of an experienced man of the world, much less of an experienced tramp. The innocence of the author’s manner and the perfection of his delicacy is such, that you might read his book aloud in an almshouse without shocking the squeamishness of old age. As for the young, nothing shocks the young."

We who live in this breathless era are wont to look upon the circus as a temporary amusement makeshift. It is here to-day and gone to-morrow. Yet behind its spangled, tinseled array and restless movement are real traditions. Why has the circus endured in an age that craves new diversion? Simply because it is basic; because it fills a fundamental need; because it is a staple like wheat. Laughter is one of the few eternal things; therefore the circus which produces it takes on something of the same quality. More than this, the circus is as much an expression of art as the drama. Like art, it is universal. The clown being a world citizen interprets a world humor in which there is neither border line, race, nor creed. Most of the great humorists have been sad men, and thus the clown, clothed in his right mind, is grave and reflective. Though he wear cap and bells, he has not wanted for recognition among the great. Garrick, Kemble, and Booth have been glad to claim him as fellow-artists. But it is in the heart of the child that he has found his most grateful friend, and in a larger sense all the world is a child when it goes to the circus.

When the article on which this little book is based appeared in the Saturday Evening Post we were amazed at the response it evoked. It simply proved that all the world loves a clown. In most of the comment and communication, however, there was a question as to the authenticity of the subject. I beg to say that Jules is a real personage and still the nimble producer of many laughs.It was while writing a series of articles on an entirely different phase of the circus that I first met Jules. I heard of him the moment I stepped into the circus world. So thoroughly had he impressed his personality; so deeply had he become at[Pg x]tached to its life, and so profoundly had he gained the respect of its people, that not to have heard of him argued that I was deaf and blind to everything about me. I found him the friend, philosopher, and guide of the nomadic city of tents that rose with the dawn and slipped away into the night. Despite its transiency, there was much permanency of character in its varied inhabitants. No one contributed more to its moral structure than Jules, the clown.We who live in this breathless era are wont to look upon the circus as a temporary amusement makeshift. It is here to-day and gone to-morrow. Yet behind its spangled, tinseled array and restless movement are real traditions. Why has the circus endured in an age that craves new diversion? Simply because it is basic; because it fills a fundamental need; because it is a staple like wheat. Laughter is one of the few eternal things; therefore the circus which produces it takes on something of the same quality. More than this, the circus is as much an expression of art as the drama. Like art, it is universal. The clown being a world citizen interprets a world humor in which there is neither border line, race, nor creed. Most of the great humorists have been sad men, and thus the clown, clothed in his right mind, is grave and reflective. Though he wear cap and bells, he has not wanted for recognition among the great. Garrick, Kemble, and Booth have been glad to claim him as fellow-artists. But it is in the heart of the child that he has found his most grateful friend, and in a larger sense all the world is a child when it goes to the circus.In my work I have had to be, on many occasions, the biographer of the great and the chronicler of much timely achievement. In all this swift march of people and events I have yet to meet a man whose devotion to the ideals of his art is more sincere than that which has animated Jules Turnour through the long years of his clowning. I have been with him in the tumult of tented travel and watched him in the roofed arena before the multitudes. Always I have found him proud to be a clown. To know him has indeed been a liberal education in character and loyalty.

For Alex James, music had always been a door to a more exciting life—a way to travel, meet new people, and, hopefully, pick up girls. But as bass player of Blur—one of the most successful British bands of all time—his journey was more exciting and extreme than he could ever have predicted. Success catapulted him from a slug-infested squat in Camberwell to a world of private jets and world-class restaurants. As "the second drunkest member of the world’s drunkest band" Alex James's life was always chaotic, but he retained a boundless enthusiasm and curiosity at odds with his hedonistic lifestyle. From nights in the Groucho with Damien Hirst, to dancing to Sister Sledge with Björk, to being bitten on the nose by the lead singer of Iron Maiden, he offers a fascinating and hilarious insight into the world of celebrity. At its heart, however, this is the picaresque tale of one man’s search to find meaning and happiness in an increasingly surreal world. Pleasingly unrepentant but nonetheless a reformed man, Alex James is the perfect chronicler of his generation—witty, frank and brimming with joie de vivre. A Bit of a Blur is as charming, funny, and deliciously disreputable as its author.