Imagine if you will, that you are 25 years old and your wealthy paternal grandfather has died and left you a million dollars. Yet, before you can even begin to think what changes that inheritance will mean in your life, you learn that your even wealthier maternal uncle has died and left you seven million dollars.
Sweet.
The only catch: in order to inherit the seven million you have to spend your grandfather's million dollar inheritance and you have a year to do so. At the end of the year you can have no assets at all or you will lose your uncle's seven million.
Such is the challenge presented to Montgomery Brewster in the 1902 novel Brewster's Millions by George Barr McCutcheon.
Certain other conditions apply. Brewster is not allowed to tell anyone about the terms of his uncle's will. There can be no excessive gifts to charity, no reckless gambling, no indiscriminate giving away of funds, and no endowments to institutions.
What a dilemma to be in! And an adventure I am sure we all would like to have. At first, Brewster figures that he has to spend about $2800 a day over the year and then ups that figure to almost $20,000 a day due to interest being paid by the bank.
His first expenditure is an apartment on which he pays the year's rent - $23,000 - in advance. He pays a decorator $2500 to fix up certain rooms. He then buys furniture to fill those rooms and makes a deal with the dealers that they will buy everything back if he gives up the apartment before the year is up. Then, to try out his new digs, he throws a dinner party for sixty people. It was rumored among the guests that the cost spent on each person was $3000.
If you are keeping track, allowing for the undisclosed cost of the furniture, that still leaves him about $790,000 to go!
That is as far as I have gotten in the spending spree. I can't wait to see how young Brewster manages to deplete his bank account.
The story has been adapted as a stage play and there are no less than ten film versions. Three of them were produced in India. As for any of the American versions, you can stream on Netflix the 1945 film starring Dennis O'Keefe as Brewster. A newer version with the same idea - the 1985 movie starring Richard Pryor as a baseball player - is on YouTube but the quality of the video is not so great.
Now, excuse me. Mr. Brewster and I have some spendin' to do!
It seems as if I am not only a collector of real books, but I now have quite a stockpile of ebooks. Granted, they don't take up any shelf space, but hoarding is hoarding!
Earlier this year I signed up for Early Bird Books, a site that sends me a list of ebooks every weekday that are on offer at discounted prices. There is also one Free Book to be had and I have taken advantage of many of those.
I decided to explore the free titles I have downloaded from that site on my Kindle and was surprised (OK, not really) at the number of books I had shelved but not read.
Here is just a sampling:
Sea and Sardinia by D. H. Lawrence - A recounting of a trip he took in 1921 to the island of Sardinia off the coast of Italy.
The Man Who Knew Too Much by G.K. Chesterton - A series of detective stories. Does anyone remember the movie with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day?
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - An epistolary novel, somewhat autobiographical.
The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope - The adventures of an Englishman who takes the place of a kidnapped king to save the fictional country of Ruritania. Has been adapted into many movies.
Brewster's Millions by George Barr McCutcheon - The story of a young man who has to spend a million dollar inheritance in order to receive a seven million dollar inheritance. How fun would that be?
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce - I also have a paperback edition of this one.
Five Children and It by E. Nesbit - I have heard so much about this popular British author that I wanted to read this book. Apparently the It is a somewhat grouchy fairy.
Adam Bede by George Eliot - I have only read Eliot's Middlemarch. Here is another classic for my entertainment.
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather - Of course! I love the opening paragraphs of this book.
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse - I read this when I was in college and remember nothing about it except that it was quite the rage then.
Candide by Voltaire - Oh, well, why not?
I see, now that I have made this list, that it represents quite a variety of genres. These are all in the public domain and are probably available from many sites online, but it is nice to have titles just show up randomly. I am glad to know I have a wealth of books for the upcoming fall and winter. I feel like a little book-squirrel.
Any suggestions as to where I should begin?
