John Kendrick Bangs

 

Home
Resume
UlyCO
Living On Food
Comics
Journal
What's Your IP?
Coffee
Roasting

I first encountered John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922) when I was a kid, working in my father's used book store. One of the rare books that he had was a copy of A House-Boat on the Styx. I enjoyed it immensely, though I certainly didn't understand all of it.

In those days (this would have been somewhere between 1980 and 1982) you didn't have the same options for tracking things down that you do now. Finding more Bangs would have been both difficult and expensive; I opted instead to think, "This was good. Too bad that's all there is of it."

Nowdays its different. Published before 1923, his works aren't subject to the slow-motion book burning that happens to later works. Gutenberg currently has thirty-nine (39!!!) books by him, freely available, including four in the Hades series.

I've read several of his books so far, and have yet to find one that wasn't delightful. His books tend towards lots of conversation, characters standing around making clever and oft-times contentious remarks to each other. His Hades series, which consists of The House-Boat on the Styx and three sequels, ended up giving his name to the Bangsian Fantasy genre, a fantasy genre where historical and sometimes fictional characters meet in the afterlife to have adventures or a chat.


All material Copyright © 2009–2014 Ulysses Somers, except where otherwise noted.