Double Birthday is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in The Forum in February 1929. [1]
Willa Sibert Cather was an American writer who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Ántonia (1918). In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours (1922), a novel set during World War I.
Albert is organizing a birthday party for his uncle soon.
Although the birthday party is for Uncle Albert, it is also Albert's birthday.
In Pittsburgh, Judge Hammersley runs into Albert, who says it is soon to be his uncle's birthday; the judge says he should come round to his house before, so he can give him some alcohol. Back home, he tells his daughter he has run into him; she goes off to a ball. Meanwhile, the two Alberts are playing classical music and reading decadent literature.
Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western culture, including both liturgical (religious) and secular music. While a more precise term is also used to refer to the period from 1750 to 1820, this article is about the broad span of time from before the 6th century AD to the present day, which includes the Classical period and various other periods. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common-practice period. The major time divisions of Western art music are as follows:
The Decadent movement was a late-19th-century artistic and literary movement, centered in Western Europe, that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality. The visual artist Félicien Rops's body of work and Joris-Karl Huysmans's novel Against Nature (1884) are considered the prime examples of the decadent movement. It first flourished in France and then spread throughout Europe and to the United States. The movement was characterized by self-disgust, sickness at the world, general skepticism, delight in perversion and employment of crude humor and a belief in the superiority of human creativity over logic and the natural world.
In an analepsis, the reader gets an account of Uncle Albert when he was working as a throat doctor in Allegheny. He once came upon a singer whom he wanted to bring to New York City, since he believed her to be very talented. However, after graduation, she eloped to Chicago, but eventually came back and was fairly successful until she came down with a throat disease, which proved fatal.
Allegheny City (1788–1907) was a Pennsylvania municipality, now reorganized and merged into the modern City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Allegheny City was a right bank municipality located west across the Allegheny River from downtown Pittsburgh, with its southwest border formed by the Ohio River and is known today as the North Side of Pittsburgh. It was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907. Its waterfront district, along the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, is known as Pittsburgh's North Shore — it is along the north side of the confluence of the Allegheny River with the Monongahela, where they form the Ohio River — the locale achieved fame as the riverside site of Three Rivers Stadium.
The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States and the U.S. state of New York. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in Illinois as well as the third most populous city in the United States. With an estimated population of 2,716,450 (2017), it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the United States, and the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, which is often referred to as "Chicagoland." The Chicago metropolitan area, at nearly 10 million people, is the third-largest in the United States; the fourth largest in North America ; and the third largest metropolitan area in the world by land area.
Albert goes to Judge Hammersley's to get the alcohol. He is greeted by Margaret, and they talk about the time they spent in Rome when they were younger. Her father gives him two bottles of champagne. Later, Margaret comes to the birthday party and Albert tells her about the last time he saw their former music teacher, Rafael Joseffy, noting that he was sick. Finally, they toast to Lenore, the singer Uncle Albert had brought to success in New York.
Rome is the capital city and a special comune of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region. With 2,872,800 residents in 1,285 km2 (496.1 sq mi), it is also the country's most populated comune. It is the fourth most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4,355,725 residents, thus making it the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio (Latium), along the shores of the Tiber. The Vatican City is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city: for this reason Rome has been often defined as capital of two states.
A soprano[soˈpraːno] is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) =880 Hz in choral music, or to "soprano C" (C6, two octaves above middle C) =1046 Hz or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which often encompasses the melody. The soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, soubrette, lyric, spinto, and dramatic soprano.
Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933.
The Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution established the prohibition of "intoxicating liquors" in the United States. The amendment was proposed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and was ratified by the requisite number of states on January 16, 1919. The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment on December 5, 1933.
The American Civil War was a war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The Civil War is the most studied and written about episode in U.S. history. Primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people, war broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States. The loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights to uphold slavery.
Alexander's Bridge is the first novel by American author Willa Cather. First published in 1912, it was re-released with an author's preface in 1922. It also ran as a serial in McClure's, giving Cather some free time from her work for that magazine.
O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by American author Willa Cather, written while she was living in New York. It is the first novel of her Great Plains trilogy, followed by The Song of the Lark (1915) and My Ántonia (1918).
The Burglar's Christmas is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Home Monthly in 1896 under the pseudonym of Elizabeth L. Seymour, her cousin's name.
"A Wagner Matinee" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Everybody's Magazine in February 1904. In 1906, it appeared in Cather's first published collection of short stories, The Troll Garden.
"A Gold Slipper" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Harper's in January 1917.
Uncle Valentine is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Woman's Home Companion in February 1925.
The Bookkeeper's Wife is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Century in May 1916.
Coming, Eden Bower! is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Smart Set in August 1920, and it was republished in Youth and the Bright Medusa under the title of Coming, Aphrodite, with minor alterations.
The Joy of Nelly Deane is a short story by American writer Willa Cather. It was first published in Century in October 1911.
The Enchanted Bluff is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Harper's in April 1909.
The Bohemian Girl is a short story by Willa Cather. It was written when Cather was living in Cherry Valley, New York, with Isabelle McClung whilst Alexander's Bridge was being serialised in McClure's. It was first published in McClure's in August 1912.
The Count of Crow's Nest is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Home Monthly in October 1896.
"A Resurrection" is a short story by American writer Willa Cather. It was first published in Home Monthly in April 1897.
"The Prodigies" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Home Monthly in July 1897.
"Eric Hermannson's Soul" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Cosmopolitan in April 1900.
Eleanor's House is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in McClure's in October 1907.
The Profile is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in McClure's in June 1907.
The Treasure of Far Island is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in New England Magazine in October 1902.
The Professor's Commencement is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in New England Magazine in June 1902
My Mortal Enemy is the eighth novel by American author Willa Cather. It was first published in 1926.