Other Non-Fiction Morley, Christopher: Plum Pudding, (Illustrated) v1, 1 Jan 2009

[Seabound]

Plum Pudding (1921)
Of divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned
by Christopher Morley (1890-1957),
merrily embellished by Walter Jack Duncan (1881-1941)

Christopher Morley is perhaps best known for his Parnassus on Wheels and its sequel, The Haunted Bookshop. He was an American "modern humorist with the tang of an Elizabethan." According to his own words, he was:

"...father, professor of mathematics and a poet: mother a musician, poet, and fine cook. I was handicapped by intellectual society and good nourishment. I am and always have been well fed. Great literature proceeds from an empty stomach." (Refer to the end of the book for more of his short "autobiography".)

Plum Pudding is a collection of entertaining but thoughtful sketches, originally published in various magazines and newspapers, where Morley writes about a variety of topics, including reading, writing, poetry and poets, literature, love of books, ships and books about the sea, his imagined cookbook introduction written by Joseph Conrad, and many others. It features the Three Hours for Lunch Club, of which he seems to have been a founding member. In between lighthearted wit, there are moments of profound insight shared ("The truly great writer is more likely to write in the hope of expressing the hearts of others than his own.").

The original book's advertisements were retained at the back.

Contents:
The Perfect Reader
The Autogenesis of a Poet
The Old Reliable
In Memoriam, Francis Barton Gummere
Adventures at Lunch Time
Secret Transactions of the Three Hours for Lunch Club
Initiation
Creed of the Three Hours for Lunch Club
A Preface to the Profession of Journalism
Fulton Street, and Walt Whitman
McSorley's
A Portrait
Going to Philadelphia
Our Tricolour Tie
The Club of Abandoned Husbands
West Broadway
The Rudeness of Poets
1100 Words
Some Inns
The Club in Hoboken
The Club at Its Worst
A Suburban Sentimentalist
Gissing
A Dialogue
At the Gasthof zum Ochsen
Mr. Conrad's New Preface
The Little House
Tadpoles
Magic in Salamis
Consider the Commuter
The Permanence of Poetry
Books of the Sea
Fallacious Meditations on Criticism
Letting Out the Furnace
By the Fireplace
A City Note-Book
Thoughts in the Subway
Dempsey vs. Carpentier
A Letter to a Sea Captain