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The True History of the Elephant Man (Paperback, New edition) Loot Price: R228
Discovery Miles 2 280
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The True History of the Elephant Man (Paperback, New edition): Michael Howell, Peter Ford

The True History of the Elephant Man (Paperback, New edition)

Michael Howell, Peter Ford

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List price R278 Loot Price R228 Discovery Miles 2 280 You Save R50 (18%)

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The strange saga - basis of the Broadway play - of one of the most deformed of all men and the Victorian society that first exploited, then succored him. Howell and Ford tell the story straight, with only an occasional dramatic flourish and without attempting to draw out a moral. (They do note that "Like the relationship between Prospero and Caliban. . . the emphasis may seem to shift subtly in time, as new social parables are read in or drawn out.") The simple story itself is compelling. Joseph Merrick's great deformity was said to have come from his pregnant mother's being frightened by a runaway circus elephant. By his teens his rare skin disease had so deformed his body that he would have spent his life in the Leicester Union Workhouse had he not been picked up as a freak for a traveling exhibition. During the showing in London one Frederick Treves, a promising young surgeon, first saw the "elephant man"; and it was to Treves that the elephant man turned after a nasty experience on the Continent. The surgeon arranged for Merrick to be cared for by London Hospital, and in an appeal for funds the hospital management stressed Merrick's high moral character. In Victorian society, as Howell and Ford note, "To be utterly deserving of charity it was essential to be utterly virtuous." Merrick, apparently, was, or nearly so. In any case, the highest of Victorian society responded: actress Madge Kendal and Princess Alexandra became friends of Merrick, visiting him in his hospital quarters and sending mementos and gifts. And many of the elephant man's dreams were granted: he saw a West End play from a private box, and spent a few days on a private estate communing with nature (and collecting violets). Howell and Ford marvel at such philanthropy, remarking "It is chastening to reflect on how society's attempt at the management of the acutely deprived and disabled in our own day would compare. . . ." Throughout, a strange and touching story. (Kirkus Reviews)
Joseph Carey Merrick, born in England on August 5, 1952, is better known as The Elephant Man. Through horrible physical deformities which were almost impossible to describe, he spent much of his life exhibited as a fairground freak until even nineteenth-century sensibilities could take no more. Hounded, persecuted and starving, he ended up at London's Liverpool Street Station where he was rescued, housed and fed by the distinguished surgeon Frederick Treves. To Treves' surprise, he discovered during the course of their friendship that lurking beneath the mass of Merrick's corrupting flesh lived a spirit that was as courageous as it had been tortured, and a nature as gentle and dignified as it had been deprived and tormented. The subject of several books, a Broadway hit, and a film, Joseph Merrick has become part of popular mythology. Here, in this fully revised edition containing new details, are the true and unromantic facts of his life. This is an extraordinary and moving story, set among the brutal realities of the Victorian world, telling of a tragic individual and his survival against overwhelming odds.

General

Imprint: Allison & Busby
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Release date: July 2001
First published: July 2008
Authors: Michael Howell • Peter Ford
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 22mm (L x W x T)
Format: Paperback - B-format
Pages: 240
Edition: New edition
ISBN-13: 978-0-7490-0516-0
Categories: Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > General
Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Historical, political & military
Books > Biography > Historical, political & military
LSN: 0-7490-0516-5
Barcode: 9780749005160

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