Paul Eldridge (1) (1888–1982)

Are you looking for a brief history of the last two thousand years in the form of an adventure novel of ideas featuring a bisexual Nietzschean superman who just happens to be at or near the center of all the greatest events? If so, this is that book. The extended Gilles de Retz sequence was especially gripping.

Our Dead Selves is a twisted little book that I found in a used bookstore in Lake Placid, NY. Aptly titled, it is a collection of poetry about dead animals. The poems aren't particularly good-- most are rather forced-- but it just struck me as something I had to have on my bookshelf, if nothing more than as a conversation starter. I love it for its morbidity and seriousness. It was definitely worth paying $7.00 for.

More than twenty years ago I ran across a hard-cover copy of this book at a garage sale, and subsequently read it. As I recall, it was fairly long, fairly decently done, mostly interesting or I probably wouldn't have finished it; and it had an intriguing premise. It was, I suppose, "sweeping", but no particular bits of it really stand out for me after all these years. In that sense it succeeded less (with me) than some other "autobiographies".

When this was published in 1930 it got rave reviews from some major writers such as Thomas Mann.