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The Queen of the Pirate Isle By: Bret Harte (1836-1902) |
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OF THE PIRATE ISLE
BY BRET HARTE
ILLUSTRATED BY KATE GREENAWAY
A FACSIMILE FROM THE ORIGINAL PUBLICATION OF 1885 [Illustration] UNIVERSAL BOOKS LTD, LONDON, ENGLAND Harte, Bret, 1836 1902. ISBN 0 86441 018 2.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE MRS SMITH 7 POLLY 10 BEGGAR CHILD 12 SCHOOL MISTRESS 12 INDIAN MAIDEN 13 PROUD LADY 14 CHINESE JUNK 15 SWIMMING FOR HIS LIFE 16 A TENT 17 CAPTURE OF MERCHANTMAN 18 AT SUPPER 20 POLLY IN THE BRANCHES 23 PATSEY 25 SLUMGULLION 28 EACH OTHER'S HANDS 30 EDGE OF CLIFF 31 SLIDING DOWN HILL 32 PIG TAIL ROPE 34 FIREWORKS IN CAVE 37 LADY MARY'S HAIR GONE 39 INVISIBLE MEDICINE 42 CLAD IN DEEPEST MOURNING 44 BROTHER STEP AND FETCH IT 48 WAN LEE 54 NOT ALWAYS PIRATES 56 POLLY BROUGHT HOME 58 ASLEEP WITH DOLL 60
[Illustration]
THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE.
I first knew her as the Queen of the Pirate Isle. To the best of my
recollection she had no reasonable right to that title. She was only
nine years old, inclined to plumpness and good humour, deprecated
violence and had never been to sea. Need it be added that she did
not live in an island and that her name was "Polly." [Illustration] [Illustration] Perhaps I ought to explain that she had already known other
experiences of a purely imaginative character. Part of her existence
had been passed as a Beggar Child solely indicated by a shawl
tightly folded round her shoulders and chills, as a Schoolmistress,
unnecessarily severe; as a Preacher, singularly personal in his
remarks, and once, after reading one of Cooper's novels, as an
Indian Maiden. This was, I believe, the only instance when she had
borrowed from another's fiction. Most of the characters that she
assumed for days and sometimes weeks at a time were purely original
in conception; some so much so as to be vague to the general
understanding. I remember that her personation of a certain Mrs.
Smith, whose individuality was supposed to be sufficiently
represented by a sun bonnet worn wrong side before and a weekly
addition to her family, was never perfectly appreciated by her own
circle although she lived the character for a month. Another
creation known as "The Proud Lady" a being whose excessive and
unreasonable haughtiness was so pronounced as to give her features
the expression of extreme nausea, caused her mother so much alarm
that it had to be abandoned. This was easily effected. The Proud
Lady was understood to have died. Indeed, most of Polly's
impersonations were got rid of in this way, although it by no means
prevented their subsequent reappearance. "I thought Mrs. Smith was
dead," remonstrated her mother at the posthumous appearance of that
lady with a new infant. "She was buried alive and kem to!" said
Polly with a melancholy air. Fortunately, the representation of a
resuscitated person required such extraordinary acting, and was,
through some uncertainty of conception, so closely allied in facial
expression to the Proud Lady, that Mrs. Smith was resuscitated only
for a day. [Illustration] [Illustration] The origin of the title of the Queen of the Pirate Isle, may be
briefly stated as follows: An hour after luncheon, one day, Polly, Hickory Hunt, her cousin,
and Wan Lee, a Chinese page, were crossing the nursery floor in a
Chinese junk. The sea was calm and the sky cloudless. Any change in
the weather was as unexpected as it is in books. Suddenly a West
Indian Hurricane, purely local in character and unfelt anywhere
else, struck Master Hickory and threw him overboard, whence, wildly
swimming for his life and carrying Polly on his back, he eventually
reached a Desert Island in the closet. Here the rescued party put up
a tent made of a table cloth providentially snatched from the raging
billows, and from two o'clock until four, passed six weeks on the
island supported only by a piece of candle, a box of matches, and
two peppermint lozenges... Continue reading book >>
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