4/26/22

5522. The Man Without a Country & Other Tales, by Edward Everett Hale (read 23 Dec 2017) I read the title story when I was young but it was not in a book (and thus does not show up in my list of books read), so I thought I would re-read it and read the other 'tales' in this book (A Piece of Possible History;The Old and the New, Fact to Face; The Last Voyage of the Resolute; My Double and How He Undid Me; and The Children of the Public). I remembered The Man Without a Country but had forgotten that it was written during the Civil War and was designed to denigrate and shame the Southerners who had turned traitors to their country. The story about the Resolute appears to be factual and relates the valiant efforts to find the Franklin and is quite an account. . The same is true for the fictional story about the Double which did make me laugh at times, somewhat to my surprise, since it is an unlikely scenario. The fictional The Children of the Public also is unlikely but less impressive. But on the whole I am glad I read this book. I read the Wikipedia article on its author and was duly impressed by him and his relatives but surprised and dismayed to learn that he apparently was false to his wife and the religion he preached! ( )