Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial Practice
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- The Tragedy of Crusoe, C.S.
- Twenty Years After
- Dis Aliter Visum
- De Profundis
- The Unlimited “Draw” of “Tick” Boileau
- My Christmas Caller
- The History of a Crime
- Prisoners and Captives
- “From Olympus to Hades”
- “Les Miserables.”
- A Nightmare of Rule
- What Came of It
- An Official Secret
- Le Roi en Exil
- A Scrap of Paper
- The Mystification of Santa Claus
- “Love in Old Cloathes”
- The Case of Adamah
- A Tale of ’98
- A Rather More Fishy Case
- The House of Shadows
- The Confession of an Impostor
- The Judgment of Paris
- Five Days After Date
- The Hill of Illusion
- Le Monde ou L'On S'Amuse
- An Intercepted Letter
- The Recurring Smash
- How Liberty Came to the Bolan
- “Under Sentence”
- The Dreitarbund
- In Memoriam
- On Signatures
- The Great Strike
- “The Biggest Liar in Asia”
- Deputating a Viceroy
- A Merry Christmas
- The New Year's Sermon
- New Year's Gifts
- Mister Anthony Dawking
- “The Luck of Roaring Camp”
- The Wedding Guest
- The Tracking of Chuckerbutti
- “Bread upon the Waters”
- A Free Gift
- A Hill Homily
- The “Kingdom” of Bombay
- Bombaystes Furioso
- A Day Off
- The Unpunishable Cherub
- In Gilded Halls
- “Till the Day Break”
- The Fountain of Honour
- The Burden of Nineveh
- His Natural Destiny
- That District Log-Book
- An Unequal Match
- A Horrible Scandal
- An Exercise in Administration
- My New Purchase
- Exercises in Administration
- The Dignity of It.
- Exercises in Administration
- In Wonderland
- In the Year ’92
- “A Free Hand”
- Susannah and the Elder
- The Coming K
- What the World Said
- An Interesting Condition
- The Comet of a Season
- Gallihauk's Pup
- The Inauthorated Corpses
- One Lady at Wairakei
- The Princess in the Pickle-Bottle
- Why Snow Falls at Vernet
- The Cause of Humanity
- appendices
- Juvenilia
- Incomplete and Fragmentary Stories
- Stories Doubtfully Attributed
- “Verbatim et Literatim”
- The Minstrel
- A Parable
- Glossary
“Verbatim et Literatim”
from Stories Doubtfully Attributed
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial Practice
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- The Tragedy of Crusoe, C.S.
- Twenty Years After
- Dis Aliter Visum
- De Profundis
- The Unlimited “Draw” of “Tick” Boileau
- My Christmas Caller
- The History of a Crime
- Prisoners and Captives
- “From Olympus to Hades”
- “Les Miserables.”
- A Nightmare of Rule
- What Came of It
- An Official Secret
- Le Roi en Exil
- A Scrap of Paper
- The Mystification of Santa Claus
- “Love in Old Cloathes”
- The Case of Adamah
- A Tale of ’98
- A Rather More Fishy Case
- The House of Shadows
- The Confession of an Impostor
- The Judgment of Paris
- Five Days After Date
- The Hill of Illusion
- Le Monde ou L'On S'Amuse
- An Intercepted Letter
- The Recurring Smash
- How Liberty Came to the Bolan
- “Under Sentence”
- The Dreitarbund
- In Memoriam
- On Signatures
- The Great Strike
- “The Biggest Liar in Asia”
- Deputating a Viceroy
- A Merry Christmas
- The New Year's Sermon
- New Year's Gifts
- Mister Anthony Dawking
- “The Luck of Roaring Camp”
- The Wedding Guest
- The Tracking of Chuckerbutti
- “Bread upon the Waters”
- A Free Gift
- A Hill Homily
- The “Kingdom” of Bombay
- Bombaystes Furioso
- A Day Off
- The Unpunishable Cherub
- In Gilded Halls
- “Till the Day Break”
- The Fountain of Honour
- The Burden of Nineveh
- His Natural Destiny
- That District Log-Book
- An Unequal Match
- A Horrible Scandal
- An Exercise in Administration
- My New Purchase
- Exercises in Administration
- The Dignity of It.
- Exercises in Administration
- In Wonderland
- In the Year ’92
- “A Free Hand”
- Susannah and the Elder
- The Coming K
- What the World Said
- An Interesting Condition
- The Comet of a Season
- Gallihauk's Pup
- The Inauthorated Corpses
- One Lady at Wairakei
- The Princess in the Pickle-Bottle
- Why Snow Falls at Vernet
- The Cause of Humanity
- appendices
- Juvenilia
- Incomplete and Fragmentary Stories
- Stories Doubtfully Attributed
- “Verbatim et Literatim”
- The Minstrel
- A Parable
- Glossary
Summary
Published: Civil and Military Gazette, 3 February 1888.
Attribution: The story is one of a series of eight items in the CMG signed by ‘The Traveller’ or ‘A Traveller’. Five of them appeared in close succession in the CMG in 1888, all signed ‘The Traveller’, thus: ‘Mr. Anthony Dawking’, 11 January; ‘Bubbling Well Road’, 18 January; ‘Landmarks in the Wilderness’, 30 January; ‘“Verbatim et Literatim”’, 3 February; ‘The Wedding Guest’, 16 February. Two more appeared in the CMG signed ‘A (not “The”) Traveller’: ‘The City of Patan’, 13 March; ‘Pak Patan’, 24 March. ‘A Pointsman's Error’, signed ‘The Traveller’, appeared on 4 September.
RK denied authorship of the last three items in both his copy of Chandler's Summary and in his copy of Livingston's Bibliography. He neither claimed nor denied ‘“Verbatim et Literatim”’. The other titles named above are known to be his. ‘“Verbatim et Literatim’” is not in the Scrapbooks, but that is not decisive. Its appearance within the close sequence of five stories by ‘The Traveller’ published over slightly more than a month, four of which are known to be by RK, makes his authorship highly likely though not certain. The story comes from the period in which RK was travelling throughout India on assignment from the Pioneer, during which he knew many tourists, hotels and railway stations.
Text: Civil and Military Gazette.
Note: ‘“Verbatim et Literatim”’ has been reprinted in the Martindell–Ballard pamphlets and in Harbord, iv, 1967–70.
Scene. Any hotel in India. Time 7.30 p.m.in January. Enter confusedly, drove of globe-trotters, and sit down.
Bride of two months, grey travelling dress, and red feather in toque, to husband. “Teddy, I wish this black man wouldn't stand just behind me. It makes me nervous.”
Teddy, striped negro-minstrel “unmentionables”, huge solah topi, and many-pocketed jacket. Hi! Here! Oh! H'm. Hi you!
Fellow Passenger, from bottom of table, very loudly:– “Jao!” Bride. “Oh! Mr. Smiffkins, how quickly you're picking up the language.
That's the word, of course. But he's gone out of the room altogether. Smiffkins, with unconcealed delight in his attainments, louder still.
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- Information
- The Cause of Humanity and Other StoriesThe Cause of Humanity and Other Stories Uncollected Prose Fictions, pp. 417 - 420Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018