The Mirror of Kong Ho Ernest Bramah Smith |
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| Author:
| Ernest Bramah Smith, Ernest Bramah |
| ISBN: | 979-8-8471-1216-1 |
| Publication Date: | Aug 2022 |
| Publisher: | Independently Published
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| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | USD $9.99 |
Book Description:
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Ernest Bramah (20 March 1868[1] - 27 June 1942), whose name was recorded after his birth as
Ernest Brammah Smith, was an English author.[2] He published 21 books and numerous short stories and features. His humorous works were ranked with Jerome K. Jerome and W. W. Jacobs, his detective stories with Conan Doyle, his politico-science fiction with H. G. Wells, and his supernatural stories with Algernon Blackwood. George Orwell acknowledged that Bramah's book What
Might...
More Description Ernest Bramah (20 March 1868[1] - 27 June 1942), whose name was recorded after his birth as
Ernest Brammah Smith, was an English author.[2] He published 21 books and numerous short stories and features. His humorous works were ranked with Jerome K. Jerome and W. W. Jacobs, his detective stories with Conan Doyle, his politico-science fiction with H. G. Wells, and his supernatural stories with Algernon Blackwood. George Orwell acknowledged that Bramah's book What
Might Have Been influenced his
Nineteen Eighty-Four. Bramah created the characters Kai Lung and Max Carrados.[3]
Bramah attained commercial and critical success with his creation of Kai Lung, an itinerant storyteller. He first appears in The Wallet of Kai Lung which was rejected by eight publishers before Grant Richards published it in 1900. It was still in print a hundred years later. The Kai Lung stories are humorous tales set in China, often with fantasy elements such as dragons and gods.[5]
With Kai Lung, Bramah invented a form of Mandarin English illustrated by the following passages:
- "Kai Lung rose guardedly to his feet, with many gestures of polite assurance and having bowed several times to indicate his pacific nature, he stood in an attitude of deferential admiration. At this display the elder and less attractive of the maidens fled, uttering loud and continuous cries of apprehension to conceal the direction of her flight".[6]
- "In particular, there is among this august crowd of Mandarins one Wang Yu, who has departed on three previous occasions without bestowing the reward of a single cash. If the feeble and covetous Wang Yu will place in his very ordinary bowl the price of one of his exceedingly ill-made pipes, this unworthy person will proceed."[7]
- "After secretly observing the unstudied grace of her movements, the most celebrated picture-maker of the province burned the implements of his craft, and began life anew as a trainer of performing elephants."[8]
The Kai Lung stories are studded with proverbs and aphorisms, such as the following:
- "He who lacks a single tael sees many bargains"[9]
- "It is a mark of insincerity of purpose to spend one's time in looking for the sacred Emperor in low-class teashops"[10]
- "It has been said there are few situations in life that cannot be honourably settled, and without loss of time, either by suicide, a bag of gold or by thrusting a despised antagonist over the edge of a precipice on a dark night"[11]
Bramah also wrote political science fiction. What Might Have Been, published in 1907 and republished as The Secret of the League in 1909, is an anti-socialist dystopia reflecting Bramah's conservative political views.[12] It was acknowledged by George Orwell as a source for Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell credited it with giving a considerably accurate prediction of the rise of Fascism.[13]
At a time when the English Channel had yet to be crossed by an aeroplane, Bramah foresaw aerial express trains traveling at 10,000 feet, a nationwide wireless-telegraphy network, a prototype fax machine and a cypher typewriter similar to the German Enigma machine.[citation needed]
In 1914, Bramah created Max Carrados, a blind detective. Given the outlandish idea that a blind man could be a detective, in the introduction to the second Carrados book The Eyes of Max Carrados, Bramah compared his hero's achievements to those of real-life blind people such as Nicholas Saunderson, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, Blind Jack of Knaresborough the road builder, John Fielding the Bow Street Magistrate (of whom it was said he could identify 3,000 thieves by their voices), and Helen Keller.