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    William Tell Told Again
    William Tell Told Again
    William Tell Told Again
    Ebook116 pages1 hour

    William Tell Told Again

    By P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateApr 1, 2001
    William Tell Told Again

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    Reviews for William Tell Told Again

    3.5/5

    22 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This was a mildly amusing retelling of the William Tell legend. The original edition included color illustrations by Philip Dadd and verses by John W. Houghton. The reader should be careful in selecting an edition. The free Kindle version that I downloaded did not include the illustrations and the verses were all together at the end. Not all paper copies include the pictures either.
    • 3/5
      First released in 1904, this was P. G. Wodehouse’s fifth publication. His first four books are set in an all-boys’ school, whereas this is a complete departure, mixing historical fiction, humour, and child fiction. I almost avoided this tale with it being aimed at children, but after reading a few reviews by adults I thought I’d give it a go. It’s not bad and makes a change whilst featuring elements of what would become Mr Wodehouse’s unique writing style.
    • 4/5
      Endeariŋ, humorous retelliŋ of the legend
    • 3/5
      By 1904, the young P.G. Wodehouse was doing relatively well as a journalist and as an author of public-school stories for boys' magazines, but he was still far from established and was happy to take on anything that promised to pay well. His sole children's book, William Tell told again, clearly falls into this category. It was a kind of Pickwick Papers project: the publisher had already commissioned the illustrations from Kate Greenaway's nephew, Philip Dadd, some years before, but they needed a text go with them, and they obviously wanted to get the book out quickly to benefit from interest in the subject due to the centenary of the Schiller play. Wodehouse obliged with a short, flippant retelling of the story cribbed directly from Schiller (presumably a translation, as he didn't speak German). The only entirely original part is the opening, where he condenses everything that takes up Schiller's Acts I and II into a scene where a delegation of concerned citizens visit Gessler to ask him to reduce their tax burden: he sends them packing with a comically trivial bit of torture. We might have our doubts about whether comic torture belongs in a children's book, but then again, the whole story is "don't try this at home" territory. At least two of Wodehouse's later adult books have scenes where small boys get into trouble for attempting to re-enact Tell's apple shot (in one case the Empress is asked to play the part of Tell jr.).Where Wodehouse really enjoys himself is the scene with the two men-at-arms, which is turned into something like a London crowd jostling a couple of nervous policemen, with some of Schiller's best lines re-used in clever ways. He doesn't bother with the hollow way scene, but borrows Rossini's ending instead, having Tell shoot Gessler in the boat, directly after his leap ashore. As the pictures were done first, it's not always clear who was responsible for the line the narrative takes, of course: Dadd probably had more to do with it than Wodehouse.Most Wodehouse biographers are rather snooty about this book, if they mention it at all (David Jasen: "If nothing else the book must have been a sore disappointment to boys who bought it in expectation of another familiar school story."). That's probably a bit unfair, and might be largely because it was very difficult to get hold of before it was digitised by Project Gutenberg. It's not great literature, but it's no worse than all the other things Wodehouse was doing to earn money at the time, and it's conscientiously executed with quite a few good jokes.
    • 4/5
      This was a mildly amusing retelling of the William Tell legend. The original edition included color illustrations by Philip Dadd and verses by John W. Houghton. The reader should be careful in selecting an edition. The free Kindle version that I downloaded did not include the illustrations and the verses were all together at the end. Not all paper copies include the pictures either.
    • 1/5
      Very disappointing and really rather fatuous. Not at all what I have come to expect from the Master.

    Book preview

    William Tell Told Again - P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of William Tell Told Again, by P. G. Wodehouse and John W. Houghton

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: William Tell Told Again

    Author: P. G. Wodehouse

            John W. Houghton

    Illustrator: Philip Dadd

    Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7298] First posted: April 9, 2003 Last Updated: May 30, 2012

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM TELL TOLD AGAIN ***

    Produced by Branko Collin, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team, and the Oxford College Library of Emory University

    [Transcriber's note: William Tell Told Again is two children's books in one. One is a picture book—16 full-color illustrations by Philip Dadd described in verse by John W. Houghton. The other is a humorous novel by P. G. Wodehouse, based on the picture book. The novel has a lengthier storyline, a more intricate plot, and more characterization. The bound volume intermingled the picture book with the novel, illustrations and poems appearing at regular intervals. Most pictures and verses were distant from the page of the novel that they reflected.

    For this text version, placeholders for the illustrations (with plate numbers) have been inserted following the paragraph in the novel that describes the events being illustrated. The verse descriptions of the illustrations, labelled with plate numbers, have been moved to the end of the novel, so as not to disrupt the story. Each verse also has an illustration placeholder that includes the phrase from the novel shown as a description on the List of Illustrations.]

    [Illustration: Frontispiece]

    WILLIAM TELL TOLD AGAIN

    BY P. G. WODEHOUSE

    1904

    WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY PHILIP DADD DESCRIBED IN VERSE BY JOHN W. HOUGHTON

    [Dedication]

    TO BIDDY O'SULLIVAN

    FOR A CHRISTMAS PRESENT

    LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

    SOMETIMES IT WAS ONLY A BIRD [Frontispiece]

    GESSLER'S METHODS OF PERSUASION [Plate I]

    THEY WOULD MARCH ABOUT, BEATING TIN CANS AND SHOUTING [Plate II]

    AN EGG FLEW ACROSS THE MEADOW, AND BURST OVER LEUTHOLD'S SHOULDER

    [Plate III]

    HERE! HI! SHOUTED THE SOLDIERS, STOP! [Plate IV]

    THEY SAW FRIESSHARDT RAISE HIS PIKE, AND BRING IT DOWN WITH ALL HIS

    FORCE ON TELL'S HEAD [Plate V]

    LOOK HERE! HE BEGAN. LOOK THERE! SAID FRIESSHARDT [Plate VI]

    FRIESSHARDT RUSHED TO STOP HIM [Plate VII]

    THE CROWD DANCED AND SHOUTED [Plate VIII]

    COME, COME, COME! SAID GESSLER, TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT [Plate IX]

    I HAVE HERE AN APPLE [Plate X]

    THERE WAS A STIR OF EXCITEMENT IN THE CROWD [Plate XI]

    A MOMENT'S SUSPENSE, AND THEN A TERRIFIC CHEER AROSE FROM THE

    SPECTATORS [Plate XII]

    SEIZE THAT MAN! HE SHOUTED [Plate XIII]

    HE WAS LED AWAY TO THE SHORE OF THE LAKE [Plate XIV]

    TELL'S SECOND ARROW HAD FOUND ITS MARK [Plate XV]

         The Swiss, against their Austrian foes,

           Had ne'er a soul to lead 'em,

         Till Tell, as you've heard tell, arose

           And guided them to freedom.

         Tell's tale we tell again—an act

           For which pray no one scold us—

         This tale of Tell we tell, in fact,

           As this Tell tale was told us.

    WILLIAM TELL

    CHAPTER I

    Once upon a time, more years ago than anybody can remember, before the first hotel had been built or the first Englishman had taken a photograph of Mont Blanc and brought it home to be pasted in an album and shown after tea to his envious friends, Switzerland belonged to the Emperor of Austria, to do what he liked with.

    One of the first things the Emperor did was to send his friend Hermann Gessler to govern the country. Gessler was not a nice man, and it soon became plain that he would never make himself really popular with the Swiss. The point on which they disagreed in particular was the question of taxes. The Swiss, who were a simple and thrifty people, objected to paying taxes of any sort. They said they wanted to spend their money on all kinds of other things. Gessler, on the other hand, wished to put a tax on everything, and, being Governor, he did it. He made everyone who owned a flock of sheep pay a certain sum of money to him; and if the farmer sold his sheep and bought cows, he had to pay rather more money to Gessler for the cows than he had paid for the sheep. Gessler also taxed bread, and biscuits, and jam, and buns, and lemonade, and, in fact, everything he could think of, till the people of Switzerland determined to complain. They appointed Walter Fürst, who had red hair and looked fierce; Werner Stauffacher, who had gray hair and was always wondering how he ought to pronounce his name; and Arnold of Melchthal, who had light-yellow hair and was supposed to know a great deal about the law, to make the complaint. They called on the Governor one lovely morning in April, and were shown into the Hall of Audience.

    Well, said Gessler, and what's the matter now?

    The other two pushed Walter Fürst forward because he looked fierce, and they thought he might frighten the Governor.

    Walter Fürst coughed.

    Well? asked Gessler.

    Er—ahem! said Walter Fürst.

    That's the way,

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