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"Edward the Conqueror" is a short story written by Roald Dahl and first published in the 31 October 1953 issue of The New Yorker . [1]
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2024) |
"Edward the Conqueror" is a short story written by Roald Dahl and first published in the 31 October 1953 issue of The New Yorker . [1]
A long-haired silver cat is nearly burnt in the bonfire Edward has set up for the autumn leaves, but his wife Louisa rescues it. After the couple unsuccessfully attempt to send the cat back to its home, Edward decides that if the cat does not leave by the afternoon, he will ask the police to make sure it is returned home.
While Louisa is admiring the cat's colour, she notices it has warts on his face. Louisa begins to play one of her daily concerts on the piano, a solitary pleasure that also seems to be one of her greatest passions, and chooses pieces by Vivaldi, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms. Immediately, the cat reacts strongly, and it even appears to be "appreciating the work". The cat seems to be especially enthralled when Louisa plays Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets and Der Weihnachtsbaum, but less impressed with Schumann's Kinderszenen .
Louisa becomes convinced the cat is the reincarnation of Liszt, and informs her husband. Edward isn't convinced, even when his wife shows him the cat's reaction to the piano music. Edward believes the reactions to simply be a trick it was trained to perform, and refuses to take part in his wife's excitement (it is implied he is not as fond of music as Louisa). Louisa decides to go to the library to find out more about both Liszt and reincarnation. The book she checks out on reincarnation is assertive about how long it takes one to be reincarnated, stating it takes longer if your social status is higher. The book also says you can't come back as a lower form of animal — a fact Louisa chooses to ignore. Finally, it mentions historical figures who were, it suggests, reincarnations of one another: (Epictetus, for instance, is said to have come back as Ralph Waldo Emerson). Despite her incredulity, Louisa appears to believe what she is reading. She greets Edward returning from his work by saying, "Listen, my dear, did you know that Theodore Roosevelt was once Caesar's wife?"
When she gets back from the library she calls for Liszt and examines him. She notices the cat's warts are positioned on its face in exactly the same positions as those on Liszt's face. She even notices the cat seems to dislike one particular Chopin scherzo, the only piece of Chopin's which Liszt himself didn't love. By this time, Edward has become noticeably antagonistic to his wife's belief, perhaps spurred on by jealousy. Her plans are to tell the world, after which, she believes, all the world's musicians will want to come and meet her cat. Edward thinks her plans will make the two of them look like fools.
Louisa decides to cook a fancy dinner for the cat, and refuses to let her husband sway her. When she returns from the kitchen, she sees Edward coming in from the garden with black smoke, wet trouser cuffs, and long scratches from his wrist to his knuckle — the implication being he has thrown the cat on the fire. Louisa is horrified and falls into hysterics as Edward tries to calm her down.
When this story was adapted for television in a 1979 episode of Tales of the Unexpected (Season 1, Episode 7), [2] the ending was slightly changed. As Louisa deduces her husband has thrown the cat on the fire, she grabs a knife and it is implied she attacks him. However, in the final scene, the cat enters the house through a window, fine after all.
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation".
Clara Josephine Schumann was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over the course of a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital by lessening the importance of purely virtuosic works. She also composed solo piano pieces, a piano concerto, chamber music, choral pieces, and songs.
Franz Liszt was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic period. With a diverse body of work spanning more than six decades, he is considered to be one of the most prolific and influential composers of his era, and his piano works continue to be widely performed and recorded.
Rosemary Isabel Brown was an English composer, pianist and spirit medium who claimed that dead composers dictated new musical works to her. She created a small media sensation in the 1970s by presenting works purportedly dictated to her by Claude Debussy, Edvard Grieg, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, Igor Stravinsky, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984) is an autobiography written by British writer Roald Dahl. This book describes his life from early childhood until leaving school, focusing on living conditions in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, the public school system at the time, and how his childhood experiences led him to writing children's books as a career. It concludes with his first job, working for Royal Dutch Shell. His life story continues in the book Going Solo.
Kiss Kiss is a collection of short stories by Roald Dahl, first published in 1960 by Alfred A. Knopf. Most of the constituent stories had been previously published elsewhere.
The Twits is a 1980 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. It was first published by Jonathan Cape. The story features The Twits, a spiteful, idle, unkempt couple who continuously play nasty practical jokes on each other to amuse themselves, and exercise their devious wickedness on their pet monkeys.
George's Marvellous Medicine is a children's novel written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake. First published by Jonathan Cape in 1981, it features George Kranky, an eight-year-old boy who concocts his own miracle elixir to replace his tyrannical grandmother's regular prescription medicine.
Friedrich Wilhelm Michael Kalkbrenner, also known as Frédéric Kalkbrenner, was a pianist, composer, piano teacher and piano manufacturer. German by birth, Kalkbrenner studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, starting at a young age and eventually settled in Paris, where he lived until his death in 1849. Kalkbrenner composed more than 200 piano works, as well as many piano concertos and operas.
Alan Walker, FRSC is an English-Canadian musicologist and university professor best known as a biographer and scholar of composer Franz Liszt. Walker has also written on composers Robert Schumann and Frédéric Chopin, as well as conductor Hans von Bülow. He has held posts at a variety of institutions, including the Guildhall School of Music, the University of London, McMaster University and City, University of London.
"The Landlady" is a short horror story by Roald Dahl. It initially appeared in The New Yorker, as did other short stories that would later be reprinted in the 1960 anthology, Kiss Kiss.
"The Way Up to Heaven" is a macabre short story by Roald Dahl. It was originally published in The New Yorker, as were some of the other short stories that would later be reprinted in the 1960 collection Kiss Kiss.
"Lamb to the Slaughter" is a 1954 short story by Roald Dahl. It was initially rejected, along with four other stories, by The New Yorker, but was published in Harper's Magazine in September 1953. It was adapted for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (AHP) that starred Barbara Bel Geddes and Harold J. Stone. Originally broadcast on April 13, 1958, this was one of only 17 AHP episodes directed by Hitchcock. The episode was ranked #59 of the Top 100 Episodes by TV Guide in 2009. The story was adapted for Dahl's British TV series Tales of the Unexpected. Dahl included it in his short story collection Someone Like You. The narrative element of the housewife killing her husband and letting the policemen eat the evidence was used by Pedro Almodóvar in his 1984 movie What Have I Done to Deserve This?, with a leg of mutton.
The Great Automatic Grammatizator is a collection of thirteen short stories written by British author Roald Dahl. The stories were selected for teenagers from Dahl's adult works. All the stories included were published elsewhere originally; their sources are noted below. The stories, with the exception of the war story "Katina", possess a deadpan, ironic, bizarre, or even macabre sense of humor. They generally end with unexpected plot twists.
"The Storm" is a short story written by the American writer Kate Chopin in 1898. The story takes place during the 19th century in the South of the United States, where storms are frequent and dangerous. It did not appear in print in Chopin's lifetime, but it was published in The Complete Works of Kate Chopin in 1969. This story is the sequel to Chopin's "At the 'Cadian Ball".
Dame Felicity Ann Dahl is a British film producer who married the author Roald Dahl in 1983. She was previously married to Charles Reginald Hugh Crosland. The quietly spoken Dahl gave a rare interview in November 2008 to publicise the inaugural Roald Dahl Funny Prize and reflect on her years with the late author.
"Dip in the Pool" is a macabre short story by British writer Roald Dahl, originally published in the 19 January 1952 edition of The New Yorker. It later appeared in the collection Someone Like You (1953).
"Pig" is a macabre short story by Roald Dahl that was published in Dahl's 1960 collection Kiss Kiss. The world it presents is one that is cruel and violent. It is a cautionary tale warning parents of the danger of ill-preparing a child for the dangers and realities of the greater world, particularly the shielding of children from things perceived as bad by the parents, but accepted by the world at large.
"Mrs Bixby and the Colonel's Coat" is a short story by Roald Dahl that first appeared in the 1959 issue of Nugget. The story is Dahl's variation on a popular anecdote dating back at least to 1939: a married woman receives a glamorous mink coat from a man with whom she had an affair. She hopes to sneak the coat into her home without arousing her husband's suspicions, but soon discovers her husband has his own plans.
Olivia Twenty Dahl was the oldest child of the author Roald Dahl and the American actress Patricia Neal. She died at the age of seven from encephalitis caused by measles, before a vaccine against the disease had been developed. Roald Dahl's books James and the Giant Peach (1961) and The BFG (1982) were dedicated to Olivia. As a result of her death, her father Roald became an advocate for vaccination and wrote the pamphlet "Measles: A Dangerous Illness" in 1988.