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Post by dem bones on Jun 3, 2020 19:07:13 GMT
Walter Harris - The Day I Died (Star, 1974) Blurb Not since Tom Jones has a character shared in the horrors and delights of eighteenth-century England with so passionate a love of life and adventure. Wheatcroft Hazel — venturesome, loving, impulsive, a man whose natural ingenuity reigns supreme from birth to death and far beyond. Torture, execution, the warm embrace of lusty wench, the thrill of love and war, the final joyous recompense of daring deeds... Throughout his life he stretches every sinue of his virile soul. And when he dies his world is born again to last until eternity. Delightedly possessing each and every person he may choose, Wheatcroft creates merry havoc in the world in which he used to live. You will laugh with Wheatcroft Hazel at his supernatural amatory escapades. But when you finish, pause awhile. Maybe you can sense someone nearer than beside you, who without foul intent has (for a spasm of eternity) usurped your mind and body... and mated you with one unknown...The Saliva man and sometime 'Carl Dreadstone' turns his hand to an historical adventure novel incorporating mildly bawdy supernatural intrigue. The first half, My Life 1759-1815 sees fourteen-year-old Wheatcroft Hazel leave the rural village of Pepton Harbinger, Gloucestershire, for London after witnessing the cruel murder of his Aunt Brennan, swam as a witch by friends and neighbours keen to believe she was consorting with the Devil. Arriving in the capital, Wheatcroft fortuitously lands an apprenticeship with Cheapside merchants Mendip & Crozier. Wheatcroft is sweet on Mendip's eldest daughter, Kate, and vows to marry her come what may. Life is looking good until the night he visits a notorious Covent Garden whorehouse bent on losing his virginity. Mission accomplished, he is press-ganged on staggering from The White Cock Tavern and shipped off to New York to fight for King and Empire versus the upstart George Washington. After a bloody skirmish in which a shipmate has his head blown clean off his shoulders, Wheatcroft seizes his first chance to desert. On docking in Manhattan, he disappears into the crowd and takes up with Miss Emma Forbes, a sixteen year old rebel, who just happens to be Washington's niece. The President elect has no time for 'turncoats,' but the boy persuades him that he bears no animosity toward Englishmen or Americans, he merely wishes to pursue his career. Perhaps, when peace is restored, the two countries will continue trading? Washington sees the benefit in this. He is also keen to evacuate Emma from the war zone and refers the pair to a relative, Junious Morgan, a Charlottesville plantation owner and tobacco smuggler of daring and some genius. Wheatcroft is soon to learn the joys of Piracy. Morgan and his jolly crew of misfits and cut-throats steal a ship from the Brits, load it with the evil weed and set sail for London. I had a last embrace of Emma the previous evening, a kiss and a mite of fondling in the Farquharson warehouse amidst sacks of flour which made phantoms of our garment; surely I was not condemned forever to tumble her on her feet, but might hope at some distant time to sail into her on the horizontal? Light-hearted tone is sporadically scuppered by outbreaks of grisly violence, most notably the massacre of women and children by a Redskin - Redcoat alliance. To be continued ...
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Post by dem bones on Jun 8, 2020 17:56:47 GMT
Wheatcroft Hazel, fabulously wealthy through business transactions legal and otherwise, marries Kate, sires three sons, returns to Pepton Harbinger to build his dream home. Work on Pepton Grange is completed in 1783, whereupon he moves back to the capital to erect a town house on Park Lane. After several escapades (highlights include a bloody pub battle with smugglers and a non-fatal duel with Sir Joshua Frayte), many an illicit love affair, and a string of bereavements - eldest son, Hannibal, is killed in a ballooning accident - he dies peacefully in bed, having run out of things to do. Whereupon .... My Death: 1815 .... the novel transforms into a supernatural sex comedy. Even as he gazes down upon his corpse, Wheatcroft is joined by the ghost of Kate, furious at his having fathered a bastard son by Patsy, the the sex-mad maid (that's her on the cover). She is, nonetheless, delighted at their reunion. "Even as a ghost with a phantom cod, you speak seductively." Lacking physicality, Wheatcroft can no longer satisfy his carnal desires and must instead settle for ogling the living as they go about their bedtime business. Fortunately, son Gavin has recently wed and returned home with swordfish-faced Charlotte. Unfortunately, Charlotte is an innocent, mortally afeared of Gavin's member, and it is many a night before they finally enjoy a tumble - we know, because Wheatcroft provides a running commentary throughout the ups and downs. Playing Peeping Tom is all very well, but the novelty wears off. "I intend again to partake of corporeal pastimes, I shall not spend eternity an evanescent witness!" If he is to make good his vow, Wheatcroft must first somehow commandeer a healthy body ... To be continued
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