George Ade (1866–1944)

This book was published in 1972, as the Christmas limited edition gift of the Westvaco Corporation. It is one of 50 in a series stretching over 50 years. Hence the appeal is to collect the series . It came in a slip case and is a very attractive book , designed by Bradley Thompson George Ade was from Indiana, (dates 1866 to 1944)his writing career peaked at the turn of the century . He wrote newspaper columns , plays and musicals . He was a Broadway success. In fact wrote some 2500 published works . In his lifetime his Fables were short moral stories in mid west idiom , language and style , thus his writing is very American in feel . They are a particular genre of American literature. His idol and model was Mark Twain and Ade is regarded as the first American humorist. Extraordinarily, he wrote 10 volumes of fables plus another 250 fables for magazines and newspapers. He was a best seller in his day and became rich on his writings. Westvaco reproduced 26 of the fables in this celebratory issue . I think the annual volumes must have been given as Christmas presents by the corporation . The fables today are rather dated and the morals a bit obscure, the humor is forced and you need to read the tales for their irony. It comes across as a winning formula that appealed to the readers of his era; he had an ear for language and local dialect and the slang is really colloquial speech. I learnt that Hoosier is a name for people from Indiana and I presume the type who would have chuckled at Ade's writing . I am not American so my appreciation lies in the quality of the book and the charm of the Louis Sullivan delicate decorative drawings which preface each tale. The book falls into the collectable quaint category, as a stylish production, with the red embossed red cloth cover . Unless you are a mid westerner buy it for the attractiveness of the book rather than the content .… (meer)