Alger, Horatio, Jr

Bernard Brooks' Adventures Alger, Horatio, Jr

Publisher Marketing: You're a bad lot, Bernard Brooks. I don't think I ever knew a wuss boy." "Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Snowdon. Let me suggest, however, that wuss is hardly correct English." The speaker was fifteen years of age, but as tall as most boys of seventeen. He had a bold, aggressive manner, which he only assumed with those he thought were hostile or unfriendly. He could be a devoted friend, and a loyal subordinate to one who gained his good will. Mr. Snowdon he did not look upon as a friend, though he had been placed in his charge two months before by a cousin of his deceased father. Ezekiel Snowdon, a man of perhaps sixty, tall and with stooping shoulders, colored with anger at the boy's sarcastic words. He claimed to have been educated at a small Wes-tern college, and on the strength of it had established himself in the country and advertised for private pupils at a low rate. These were mostly young, and not competent to see his deficiencies, but Bernard was old enough and well enough educated to perceive and comment on them. This greatly annoyed Mr. Snowdon, who felt that the boy did not treat him with proper respect. "Quit your impudence!" said Snowdon with a vicious look in his greenish lived eyes. "I don't need no criticisms from a whipper snapper like you." "I intended it for your benefit, Mr. Snowdon," said Bernard demurely. "Besides, you criticise me. You called me a bad lot." "And so you are. A wuss-a worse boy I never seen." "Saw would be more correct, Mr. Snowdon." "Young man, you'd better look out. I won't submit to your aggravating impudence. Besides, you are ignorant of the fact that Chaucer and Spenser use seen for saw. Them are my favorite poets, so it is not strange that I should occasionally make use of their diction." "Thank you for the information, Mr. Snowdon. I did not know that you had such high authority. I have read a little of Chaucer and Spenser, and I never observed the word you mention." "Perhaps you have not read the same works as I," said Mr. Snowdon. "Very likely," remarked Bernard, struggling to suppress a smile. Contributor Bio:  Alger, Horatio, Jr A graduate of Duke with his PhD in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Boston is President of the American Public University System. A Board Member of the Education Alliance promoting public/private partnerships serving K-12 public schools, he is a member of the Board of Overseers of the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, the Advisory Board of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, the Arizona State University Education Innovation Advisory Board, and Avalere Health, LLC. Contributor Bio:  Ukray, Murat William Shakespeare (564 - 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon." His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, of which the authorship of some is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories and these works remain regarded as some of the best work produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. It was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as "not of an age, but for all time." His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.