The Winter of Our Discontent (42 page)

133 Iver Johnson:
“Suicide Special” pocket pistol produced between 1880 and the early twentieth century.

141
Ars est celare artem:
Latin for “It is art to conceal art.” Ovid,
Ars Amatoria
(
The Art of Love,
A.D. 8).

141
Hic erat demonstrandum:
Latin for “The thing that has to be demonstrated.”

141
Io lo credo:
Latin for “I believe it.”

149 Prime Minister Macmillan:
Harold Macmillan (1894-1986) was prime minister of England from 1957 to 1963.

149 Leda . . . swan:
In Greek mythology, Leda, wife of the king of Sparta, is seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan.

152 Witch of the East . . . Ozma:
In
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
(1900) by L. Frank Baum (1856-1919), the Wicked Witch of the West, ruler of the Munchkins, is killed when Dorothy’s house falls on her. Princess Ozma, daughter of the king of Oz, appears in every other Oz book.

155 Cambellites:
Church founded in 1830 by a Scotch-Irish clergyman and his son; the Cambellites stressed the importance of the New Testament, individual spiritual renewal, education, and the unification of all Christians in Christ.

164 all’s right with the world:
Robert Browning (1812-89),
Pippa Passes
(1841), part 1.

164 sad story of the death of kings:
Shakespeare,
Richard II
, III.ii.156. The original line reads “sad stories.”

165 Nosy Parker:
A busybody or meddler. Also a popular British comic strip, spelled “Nosey Parker,” by Allan Morley, appearing in the
Sunday Post
Fun Section.

166 Old Satchel Paige:
(1906-82) “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” Pitcher in the Negro Baseball Leagues and the American League.

170 speeches of Henry Clay:
(1777-1852) American statesman and persuasive orator whose speeches were often more fervent than carefully documented.

177 Pancho Villa:
(1878-1923) Mexican revolutionary leader and folk hero who advocated agrarian reform.

181
Ora pro me:
Latin for “Pray for me.”

182 Manners maketh man . . . Wickham:
William of Wykeham (1324-1404), bishop of Winchester, chancellor of England, and founder of New College, Oxford (1379), and Winchester College (1394).

191 Deborah the Judge of Israel:
Judges 4-5. Deborah, a prophetess, the only woman judge mentioned in the Bible. With her guidance and aid, the Israelite general Barak conquered Sisera, captain of the Canaanite army, and delivered Israel from Canaanite rule.

195 James G. Blaine:
(1830-93) Prominent American politician who served as congressman, senator, and secretary of state. Famous for maneuvering behind the scenes. In his later life, he wrote
Twenty Years of Congress
(1884-86).

198 high-colored Miss Rheingold
: Rheingold beer, popular in New York, held the venerable Miss Rheingold contest each year starting in 1939, with beer drinkers voting for their favorite of several young women; in 1959 total votes for Miss Rheingold exceeded 22 million.

202 Golgotha:
Hill on which Jesus was crucified.

205 The fifty-star:
With the admission of Hawaii as the fiftieth state in 1959, the fifty-star flag became the official U.S. flag on July 4, 1960.

211 Montauk Point . . . dude ranch:
Deep Hollow Ranch in Montauk, eastern Long Island.

214 Ye wouldna be sae worrit:
“My dear, you wouldn’t worry so much about what people think if you realized how little they care.” According to Jackson Benson, Steinbeck heard this line on a 1956 train trip from Sag Harbor to New York City.

217 Appian Way:
An important Roman road linking Rome to southern Italy.

231 Lupercal on the Palatine:
Lupercalia, the “Wolf Festival” honoring Romulus and Remus, mythical founders of Rome, took place near the cave of Lupercal, the legendary grotto where Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf. The Palatine is one of Rome’s seven hills.

233 Me beswac . . . hire ladteow:
Eve’s reply to God in the Garden of Eden (the serpent deceived me through fair words)—from the Old English poem
Genesis.
Following is a phrase from an Old English proverb about a lioness (the chained lion, if she tastes blood, bites first her master)—from Old English translation of Boethius’s
Consolation of Philosophy
. (See Hassell A. Simpson in the Suggestions for Further Reading.)

237 O Nile serpent:
Antony and Cleopatra,
I.v.25. The actual line refers to “my serpent of old Nile.”

239
Beaux rêves:
French for “pleasant dreams.”

243
Weltschmerz:
German for “world-weariness.”

244 Dick Clark . . . Chessman . . . Dillinger:
Clark (1929- ) hosted
American Bandstand
from 1957 to 1987. Although initially targeted in the payola scandal, he was never charged. Caryl Chessman (1921-60), convicted in 1948 on seventeen counts of robbery, kidnapping, and rape, was executed at San Quentin Prison on May 2, 1960. John Dillinger (1903-34) was an American bank robber, named the country’s first “public enemy number one,” and hunted by law officers doggedly until FBI agents killed him outside a Chicago movie theater in 1934. “Crime doesn’t pay” was the moral J. Edgar Hoover drew from Dillinger’s story.

247 Aunt Harriet—“up in heben she be”:
“Rockin’ Chair” (1929), written by Hoagy Carmichael and performed with Louis Arm-strong: “My dear old aunt Harriet, in Heaven she be.”

251 Presidential nominations:
The Democratic National Convention met at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, July 11-15, 1960, and nominated John F. Kennedy for president and Lyndon B. Johnson for vice president. The Republican National Convention met at Chicago’s International Amphitheater, July 25-28, 1960, and nominated Richard M. Nixon for president and Henry Cabot Lodge for vice president.

252 keelson to skys’l:
The keel is the spine of the ship, providing structural support, and the keelson is a beam or timbers along the keel to add strength. A skysail is the topsail in a square rigger.

256 a heart just like this:
Steinbeck also had a tattoo, similarly etched with a Stanford classmate.

264 ‘What’s My Line?’ . . . ‘Mystery Guest’:
A popular game show that ran from 1950 to 1967 where a panel of four well-known figures tried to guess the unusual occupations of two weekly guests. In the third round of each show, panelists were blindfolded and a celebrity “mystery guest” was questioned.

264 ‘Teen Twisters’:
No quiz show with this name made it to the air, but Chubby Checker recorded “The Twist” in 1959, and by September 1960 it reached the top of the charts, launching a new dance craze.

266 the world being too much with me . . . peace:
William Wordsworth’s sonnet “The World Is Too Much with Us” and allusions to Walt Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass.

267
muleta
and
espada:
A muleta is a red cloth attached to a stick, used by matadors; an
espada
is a matador’s sword.

268 A pleasure dome . . . down to a sunless sea!:
From “Kubla Khan; or, a Vision in a Dream” (1816) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree: / Where Alph, the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea.”

274 What is an individual . . . his country?:
Delivered on July 22, 1850, Henry Clay’s speech on the Compromise of 1850.

279 It’s so much darker when a light goes out . . . shone:
The typescript of the novel ends with this sentence; the rest of the book is a handwritten addition.

279 End. And I hope this time it’s clear. I really do hope so. JS:
The typescript and handwritten addition end with this remark.

THE STORY OF PENGUIN CLASSICS

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1946
Penguin Classics debuts with The Odyssey which promptly sells three million copies. Suddenly, classics are no longer for the privileged few.

1950
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1970s A new generation of translators swells the Penguin Classics ranks, introducing readers of English to classics of world literature from more than twenty languages. The list grows to encompass more history, philosophy science, religion, and politics.

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