Find Books

 

Detail from Lithograph by Alexander Ver Huell

Author Index

Subject Index

Title Index

Search Site

Facebook Page

The Ex-Classics Web Site

The Reader, by Alexander Ver Huell, c. 1880

Book of the Month -- February 2025 

Richard Griffin was born in 1857 on New York to a family of English extraction. When he was a child, they moved to a cranberry bog in New Jersey. At the age of sixteen he started work as a clerk in New York City. In his spare time he was involved in amateur theatrical productions, subsequently becoming a professional actor and touring extensively throughout the United States and abroad. He served in the Spanish-American war of 1895. According to his own account, he also served in World War I as an intelligence officer, and arrested a German spy after a punch-up. Before and after this service, he lived in Greenwich Village and other parts of Manhattan, and wrote poetry which he self-published. From internal evidence it seems likely that at some stage he spent time in a mental institution. His date of death is unknown but was subsequent to 1931, the date of his last book.

The poems have a certain quirky charm which reminds one somewhat of the Dada and Surrealist poetry, and show maybe even closer connections to the movies of the Marx Brothers, W. C. Fields, and the Ring Lardner of nonsense plays like The Tridget of Greva. They have a style and charm of their own which has given him a certain cult following.  An acquired taste, maybe -- but one well worth acquiring.

AboutUs

The Ex-Classics project was founded in 2000 to fill an unmet need.  When reading the blurb etc. to a book by Charles Dickens or Charlotte Bronte, say, we would often come across sentences like "Favourite reading included . . ."  If  it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us. So off we go to the library or bookshop, to be met first with blank stares and then with the information that the book has been out of print for decades. Our first two books were Gil Blas and Hudibras, which are prime examples of thisThis web site is dedicated to rescuing these works from obscurity and making them available online, both for reading directly, and for downloading.

What do you think?

Any comments about this site or its contents? E-mail us (Click here) We have an occasional newsletter - please say if you want to be added to the mailing list. We never give out your details to spammers, or anyone else, for that matter.

No-Copyright notice

This site and its contents are public domain and free to the world. Anything in it may be copied and distributed free of charge or obligation. [There are one or two exceptions to this,which are clearly marked where they occur.] We expect this policy to be passed on - anyone who copies our texts or web pages and tries to claim copyright for themselves is stealing - not from us, but from you, and from everyone. An example of what we mean.

 

Extras

Max Adeler contemplating the Patent Office Report, by Arthur B. Frost

Latest Additions

In Preparation

Ex-classics at Other Web Sites