CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
"Blue Monday," the so-called most depressing day of the year, dates back to 2005, if we are to believe Wikipedia. But we can do a century better, with this Blue Monday from St. Nicholas magazine, 1904.
From Ghosts: Being the Bxperiences of Flaxman Low by Kate O'Brien Prichard and illustrated by B. E. Minns, 1899. The caption reads, "Eyes were looking down into his own, dark eyes full of hatred and despair."
This sounds disconcertingly familiar: "I bewailed my fate, and then sunk down exhausted," from The Casquet of Literature, 1895. Illustration by W. H. Overend.
"The mist has gone by, dear love! The mist has quite gone by!" From The Grey Man by Samuel Rutherford Crockett and illustrated by John Seymour Lucas, 1896.
An illustration by Pamela Colman Smith from a 1903 issue of The Reader magazine. The caption reads: "Led on by courage and death with sorrow at his feet."
