Capitola's Election Special

We're back with the Rare Reads Book Club and Capitola. For those of you who don't know what we're talking about, catch up here and here.

In the meantime, it's Chapter 2 and once again we are starting in the middle of a story with a bunch of new people we know nothing about.

It begins with somebody named Old Hurricane raging that another guy named Black Donald has tricked him by disguising himself and freeing some prisoners. Hurricane is furious! Mad at himself and everyone around him who didn't recognize the dastardly Donald.

"I've coddled him up with negusses! I've pampered him up with possets and put him to sleep in my own bed!" cries Old Hurricane.

Sounds pretty serious! What in the heck are negusses and possets anyway? cried Stephanie.

Google to the rescue. A quick search of the word negus brought up two definitions. The first is a king, specifically the title of a sovereign of Ethiopia. That revelation brought me to a very interesting article on the origin of the word negus and its use in modern-day music, but after reading that article, I figured that the second definition was probably the one that E.D.E.N. Southworth meant here. A hot drink of port, sugar, lemon, and spices.

A little more searching, and guess what. There are a few recipes for negusses floating around the Internet, like this one from Jane Austen's Cookbook and this other one from Esquire magazine. It was invented, according to the Esquire article, by Colonel Francis Negus in the early 1700s, and, since it is served warm, makes a dandy mid-winter drink.

Posset, it turns out, is another kind of drink--a drink made of hot milk curdled with booze and typically flavored with spices--which sounds kind of ewwww until I realized that pretty much describes Bailey's, Kahlua, and Rumchata.

Interesting tidbit, according to the website, historicfoods.com, a posset was served in a posset pot that had this little pipe sticking out of it. Once set, a posset settled into three layers. The top layer was the foam on the top. People called it the grace, and they ate it with a spoon. The middle turned into a spicy custard, also consumed with a spoon. The grace and the custard sat on top of the boozy stuff at the bottom that you sucked out of the posset pot through the pipe.

So Old Hurricane went to the trouble of concocting a dish like that for Black Donald and then Donald turned around and tricked him? No wonder Hurricane was ticked.

In the middle of this tirade, we read:
"'Uncle!' said Capitola."

Hey, we finally meet our heroine--at least I think she's going to be our heroine. And she's Old Hurricane's niece. The pieces are starting to fall into place. But her interjection doesn't stop her uncle from continuing to rant--this one for your election enjoyment:

"...at the very next convention of our party I'll nominate him to represent us in the National Congress; for, of all the fools that ever I have met in my life the people of this county are the greatest! And fools should at least be represented by one clever man--and Black Donald is the very fellow! He is decidedly the ablest man in this congressional district."

Finally, the party breaks up and Hurricane--whose real name is apparently Major Warfield--goes out to take care of his animals and that's when a servant tells him about the beautiful young girl who has been brought to the nearby Hidden House.

"She had better be dead than in the power of that atrocious villain and consummate hypocrite!" the Major rails. So Colonel Lenoir's reputation precedes him.

The chapter ends with Capitola also finding out from her servant, Pitapat, that there is a new neighbor at Hidden House. Capitola immediately decides to arrange a visit to the consternation of poor Pat, who has been told by Major Warfiled not to spill the beans about the new next door beauty.

"Now why doesn't he wish me to call there? I shall have to go in order to find out, and so I will," thought Cap.

I think I'm gonna like this chick.

Rare Reads Book Club: Where's Capitola?

Here we go. Book Club post #1!

So I opened my copy of Capitola's Peril and began to read:

"At nine o'clock the next morning Traverse went to the library to keep his tryst with Colonel LeNoir."

That, my friends, is how you start a sequel! No dilly-dallying with those who haven't read the first book. If you're going to read this book, then you better know what happened on the last page of the first book.

But even if you didn't read the first book, you can't help but be drawn in by the drama on the very first page of this one, right? Some guy named Traverse tells this Colonel LeNoir that a lady named Clara Day is staying at her childhood home with her old companion, Marah Rocke, based on the deathbed wishes of Clara's father. LeNoir accuses Traverse of wanting to keep the heiress for himself—ah! she's an heiress—and that maybe he isn't being totally truthful. To which Traverse says how dare you, and LeNoir says how dare you back.

At which point I'm asking myself, wait, isn't this supposed to be about someone named Capitola?

So then comes the reading of the dead father's will and when nothing is included about Clara staying put, LeNoir says ok, she's coming with me to my place called (cue ominous music: dun dun dun) Hidden House. And then the doctor that brought the will to the house says now wait a minute, I was there when the good man died, and and I testify that he wanted his daughter to stay with Mrs Rocke PLUS did you know that Clara and Traverse are engaged and the recently deceased daddy knew and approved? But LeNoir (cue maniacal laughter) says she ain't staying and she sure ain't getting married; she's coming with me.

Then Traverse Rocke (oh yeah, I forgot the part where we find out that Traverse is Marah Rocke's son) says not so fast, I'm going to take this to Orphan Court in the morning. So the next morning everyone heads to Orphan Court, and after 3 hours the judge sides with Colonel LeNoir. Gasp! After a tearful goodbye and a pledge to stay faithful, Traverse and Clara split, and LeNoir deposits Clara into his carriage and takes off. Despondent Mrs Rocke heads back to her cabin, and heartbroken Traverse takes off to bide his time in the West.

And holy schmoley that is just Chapter One!

Well-known fact (and if you didn't know it before, you know it now): The author E.D.E.N. Southworth was known for her sensational plots.
Lesser-known fact: Her contemporary, Louisa May Alcott, made fun of Southworth for that very thing in her book, Little Women. Check this out from Chapter 27, where we find Jo stealing a look at a newspaper held by a boy sitting next to her.

Pausing to turn a page, the lad saw her looking and, with boyish good nature offered half his paper, saying bluntly, "Want to read it? That's a first-rate story." 

Jo accepted it with a smile, for she had never outgrown her liking for lads, and soon found herself involved in the usual labyrinth of love, mystery, and murder, for the story belonged to that class of light literature in which the passions have a holiday, and when the author's invention fails, a grand catastrophe clears the stage of one half the dramatis personae, leaving the other half to exult over their downfall. 

"Prime, isn't it?" asked the boy, as her eye went down the last paragraph of her portion. 

"I think you and I could do as well as that if we tried," returned Jo, amused at his admiration of the trash. 

"I should think I was a pretty lucky chap if I could. She makes a good living out of such stories, they say;" And he pointed to the name of Mrs. S.L.A.N.G. Northbury, under the title of the tale.

"Do you know her?" asked Jo, with sudden interest.

"No, but I read all her pieces, and I know a fellow who works in the office where this paper is printed."

"Do you say she makes a good living out of stories like this?" And Jo looked more respectfully at the agitated group and thickly sprinkled exclamation points that adorned the page.

"Guess she does! She knows just what folks like, and gets paid well for writing it."

Here the lecture began, but Jo heard very little of it, for while Professor Sands was prosing away about Belzoni, Cheops, scarabei, and hieroglyphics, she was covertly taking down the address of the paper, and boldly resolving to try for the hundred-dollar prize offered in its columns for a sensational story. By the time the lecture ended and the audience awoke, she had built up a splendid fortune for herself (not the first founded on paper), and was already deep in the concoction of her story, being unable to decide whether the duel should come before the elopement or after the murder. 

Trash? S.L.A.N.G. Northbury? Thickly sprinkled exclamation points!?!?!

But I have to confess that "being unable to decide whether the duel should come before the elopement or after the murder" cracked me up. (Should the Orphan Court come before or after the reading of the will?)

Don't you love being in on the joke?

Anyway, we're on to more fun next time.  If you haven't started reading yet, download your copy here. Here's a preview: Capitola actually shows up in Chapter 2!!!!!!

Meet Capitola

One of the best parts about having a business based on old books is that I have an excellent excuse to visit estate sales on the weekends. When Captain America raises his eyebrows, I just say, “Hey, it’s for Reading with Scissors. I have to, because you know, I’m making you rich one art project at a time.” Sometimes that even works!

So it was the other day when I found myself way out in the country in someone’s house searching for books. I always hope to find sales that have big walls of books, but this one wasn’t like that. The owners had books scattered throughout the house--a shelf of books here and another shelf of books there. However, when I got to the living room I finally saw a big shelf of books…with an even bigger man standing in front of it. I stood over his shoulder for a bit, watching him carefully open each book, thumb through all the pages, close it up, put it back, take the next book off the shelf. It was obviously going to be a while.

That’s when I turned around and saw another small shelf near the door I came in. Many of the books on this shelf were decidedly older than anything I would cut up. First I grabbed this 1935 jewel about fellow Oklahoman, Will Rogers.

And then I found this one, The Spirit of the Border, by Zane Grey, published in 1906. Is that an awesome cover or what?

But then I saw this one, and I had to have it.

I mean, c’mon, isn’t that a great title? Capitola’s Peril! And if that’s her on the front cover, I figured the peril had to be from that big ole scarf around her neck that was causing her to walk around with an s-shaped spine! She’s so bent over, her bosom is even with her elbow. Girlfriend, I can relate!

The title page held even more intrigue…

First, this isn’t the first the world had heard of Capitola. It’s a sequel!

Second, E.D.E.N. Southworth – What kind of initials are those?

I had to go check it out. A Wikipedia search later and I had my answer. The author’s full name is Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth, and according to the article, she was the most popular American novelist of her day. And her day included Hawthorne, Melville, Alcott, Twain, and James. So there.

Why hadn’t I ever heard of her before? And what made her so popular?

That’s when I got the idea that I should actually read Capitola’s Peril. The problem was the pages in the book, while in fairly good shape, are still pretty brittle. I was afraid that they could end up disintegrating in my hand.

Kindle to the rescue! Capitola’s Peril is available on Amazon—for free!

So wanna read along? Download it on your gadget and join the first selection of the Reading With Scissors Rare Reads Book Club. And sign up for my newsletter so you can keep up with all the fun.

Here's some chocolate and some wine to set the mood. Now get going!