Christopher Morley
Paperback | Pages: 152 pages Rating: 4.02 | 5129 Users | 1016 Reviews
Identify Books In Favor Of Parnassus on Wheels (Parnassus Series #1)
| Original Title: | Parnassus on Wheels |
| ISBN: | 1414270658 (ISBN13: 9781414270654) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Parnassus |
| Series: | #1 |
| Characters: | Roger Mifflin, Helen McGill, Andrew McGill |
| Setting: | New York State(United States) |
Rendition As Books Parnassus on Wheels (Parnassus Series #1)
This is a pilot for a new feel-good tv series:Opening Credits:
It is a glorious morning on a deserted track somewhere in the rural Midwest. Rolling on the lane is a long gypsy-type wagon being pulled by a great big horse. On the open seat up front holding the reins is a cheery man of middle years with kind brown eyes who is laughing gently in a conversational kind of way with a fat, rather plain but very jolly lady. They are wearing clothes of the era when cars and wagons shared the roads, 1917.
Introduction:
The woman and her older brother have been happily managing their isolated farm together until the brother publishes a book and its success makes him uppity in the extreme. While he swans around being famous, she is left at home running the farm. This is seriously annoying her.
A travelling salesmen, selling books, comes to her door saying he is not just selling books but also his travelling bookstore. He wonders if her brother, the famous author, be interested in buying it? He wants to leave bookselling to go back to the city to write his book.
He shows her his wonderful, magical wagon full of all the necessities for life on the road and shelves and shelves of books. She jumps at the chance and deciding to spend her life savings and take over the business herself. So leaving a note for her brother telling him to look after himself, she closes the front door behind her, jumps on to the seat next to the bookseller and off they go.
Further scenes in the first episode
Much dialogue between the bookseller and the spinster laying out the history of their lives. He is a city man, a professor who wants to write a book. He is passionate about the ability of books to change lives for the better. She's a bit of a disappointed spinster who counts her successes in hens' eggs laid and wholesome loaves baked.
Scenes include:
1. Making the first sale.
2. The caravan being stolen and the bookseller turns out to be handy with his fists.
3. Drama over the cheque for payment being cancelled by the pissed-off brother.
3. A bank scene, an arrest, and a false imprisonment.
The denoument
Love. The stranger with a get-out-of-jail-free-card. The inevitable marriage and then the final winning over the brother. All say ahhhhh.
Can't you just see it? It was just made for tv. The late Mike Landon would have been perfect casting.
Brilliant, lovely, heart-warming book. Beautifully-written without any suspense at all. Each rather obvious episode gives warning of what is to come next and the whole thing unfolds in a pastoral, slower-times, comfy, apple-pie kind of way. A nice book to read curled up on the sofa with a cup of tea or a hot toddy to hand and nothing to do for hours and hours.
Rewritten 24 August 2013
Be Specific About Of Books Parnassus on Wheels (Parnassus Series #1)
| Title | : | Parnassus on Wheels (Parnassus Series #1) |
| Author | : | Christopher Morley |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 152 pages |
| Published | : | January 19th 2004 by IndyPublish.com (first published 1917) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Writing. Books About Books. Classics. Humor. Adventure |
Rating Of Books Parnassus on Wheels (Parnassus Series #1)
Ratings: 4.02 From 5129 Users | 1016 ReviewsCrit Of Books Parnassus on Wheels (Parnassus Series #1)
I discovered that this book was a prequel to The Haunted Bookshop so I just had to read it and it lived up to all my expectations. It is a short but utterly charming tale of how the bookshop came to be and I enjoyed it totally! I always like books about books and Christopher Morley is very good at writing them."What absurd victims of contrary desires we are! If a man is settled in one place he yearns to wander; when he wanders he yearns to have a home. And yet how bestial is contentall the great things in life are done by discontented people."-- Roger Mifflin of Mifflin's Travelling ParnassusThis is a tale of adventure, and although actual mileage is accrued and county lines are crossed, it's really more a personal journey -- one woman's mission to travel outside her comfort borders. For the past 15
A charmingly cozy autumnal read, perfect for book lovers. Why has it taken me so long to dive into this one? The audio was spectacular, too. ❤
This is an old-fashioned, sweet novella published in 1917, about a self-described "fat old woman" (she's only 39) who's never done anything but work as a governess and, later, cook and keep house for her bachelor brother, Andrew. Helen is content with her existence until her brother decides to start writing books about the joys of country life (he calls his first book Paradise Regained) and unexpectedly becomes a celebrity author. Suddenly he's a big "literary man," traveling around looking for
Much can be said of our (a collective our for those on this site) love for books. Especially when, we even read books on the topic of books. That is precisely a theme in the well-known novella penned by Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels. Parnassus on Wheels follows the interaction between a wagon bookseller Roger Mifflin (Houghton-Mifflin, anyone?) and country spinster Helen McGill. Tired of being tied to the farmstead under her brothers eye (and hoping to prevent her author-brother from
Christopher Morleys first novel, first released in 1917, hasnt aged a bit: Its still as funny, touching and thought-provoking as it was a century ago. Spinster Helen McGill has spent most of her life as the unappreciated housekeeper for her impractical brother Andrew, who has made a name and some money writing books on the wonders of rural life in New England. When a traveling book peddler named Roger Mifflin arrives with a horse and cart housing a mobile bookstore dubbed the Parnassus Helen
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