Throughout literature, a trek of discovery may become a trek of self-discovery as well. Such is Ken Kaleta’s search for the author, Victor Bridges. Kaleta’s exhaustive and personal research uncovered the lost career of this 20th century literary figure: short-story writer, poet, nonfiction writer, playwright, film writer, but mostly a writer of adventure thrillers. As Kaleta dug into the world archives to seek, find, buy, and borrow every shred of Bridges history, he realized, “I somehow always knew that each Bridges purchase I made was destiny: his and mine.”
Growing up in Clifton, Bristol, UK, Bridges was instinctively aware of the location’s history and heroes: Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his bridge, his railway, and his shipbuilding; as well as the Clifton-born poet, Thomas Chatterton, and his tragic death. Attending boarding schools, Bridges studied British literature and lived under the shadow of literary heroes, too.
Beginning his creative career in 1909, Bridges fashioned all those heroes and heroics into his “Gentleman Camper Hero” in Camping Out: For Boy Scouts and Others. He told how values, behaviors, and skills were at the center of living tastefully. By the following year and until his 33rd and final thriller in 1961, The Girl from Belfast, Bridges created and espoused his protagonist: the Gentleman Camper Hero: a vulnerable Hero in motion, at times defenseless, but never vanquished.
Kaleta traces Bridges and understands the development of the Bridges Hero through the 20th century. At the same time, Kaleta recognizes his own life, times, and values in Bridges and his stories. Kaleta tells two stories of the 20th century with personal, academic, and artistic insights. Impacted by world war, the Cold War, Post-modernism, and the atomic bomb, both writers embrace their idealistic heroes to look forward, move forward, and push forward while living in a realistic world.
A full Victor Bridges bibliography, complete with summaries, is included.
Cover illustration by Kel Broomhead.
Amazon.com: Victor Bridges eBook : Kaleta, Ken: Kindle Store
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