Had he felt Death’s breath on his neck and reconsidered his life-long secretive stance regarding his personal record? By letting his mind bounce back like a Mexican jumping bean, was he hoping to parse out his career, his achievement, his place in his profession? He hadn’t bothered to really explain the ‘why’ of the writing, although an array of hints and intimations were strewn about. There was no strict chronological order to the content, although the pieces had been pretty obviously written down one right after the other. Prologue - The Occurrence of the Manuscriptīut what should turn up, out of the blue? It’s the kind of thing that can convert unbelievers or cure the blind.Įvidently sometime near the end of his life, Mahlon Blaine had assembled a journal of sorts: a multi-part crazy patchwork of memories, accounts, opinions, hopes, laments – written on page after page of cheap yellowing paper. If it’s ashes to ashes, then that’s just how it is. Every scuffed trail had grown over, filaments flickered until lightbulbs were barely lit and all the crumbly compost was ready for spreading. Bent twigs and footprints had led nowhere. The truth about Mahlon Blaine? It really looked like he would never succeed in ferreting out the reality, for after four painstaking decades of being researched, old Mahlon had become an ill-defined and ever-fading smudge whose authentic aroma had all but evaporated. Maybe even a pathological bio-embellisher. Maybe Mahlon had merely been a tale-spinner or an inventive self-advertiser.
The frustrated researcher was a truth-seeker and Mahlon Blaine had been a liar. But the nagging question kept surfacing: who, exactly, was the man behind the images? – Mary Shelley, Frankenstein Prelude - Drawing an Unsatisfactory ConclusionĪs a published illustrator, Mahlon Blaine’s drawings were always right there to be seen on the pages. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true but that is a poor medium for the communication of telling. I am not sure what Mahlon Blaine would have said…
Early studio portrait of the artist as a young man Copyright © Oregon Historical Society, used with permission, 74750.Īll epigraphs ( shown in italics) courtesy ofįrankenstein, originally published in 1818.Īll characters and incidents are imaginary andĪny resemblance to persons living or dead
Steinbeck, Oxen, and Mahlon Blaine’s Ex Libris Bookplate images, Copyright © 2007, 2013 Bonhams & Butterfields.
No portion of this book (text or images) may be reproduced – mechanically, electronically, or by any other means including photocopying – without the expressed written permission of the author. Mahlon Blaine’s Blooming Bally Bloody BookĪll rights reserved.
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