PhonoLiterature

Literature with Phonograph Connections

 

By Doug Boilesen 2012

This is the Phonographia Library of PhonoLiterature.

In June of 1888 Edison's wrote that his "Perfected Phonograph" will soon be able to record "on four cylinders eight inches long, with a diameter of five... the whole of “Nicholas Nickleby” in phonogram form."

PhonoLiterature, however, is not about books on phonograph records but about its library of books, poetry, plays, 'sketches,' and short stories with at least one phonograph in each written work.

The importance of the phonograph in these books runs the gamut, from the single word of "gramophone" in T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland to the existential impact of the phonograph as seen in The Record by Ray Bradbury where the playing of a phonograph record saves humanity from extinction.

Some of the books have illustrations of the phonograph. Some have references to songs that were phonograph records. But whatever the degree of connection all are enjoyed by Friends of the Phonograph as each is an example of how the phonograph has been part of popular culture since December 6, 1877 when Edison's tinfoil phonograph repeated back to him "a little piece of practical poetry" - "Mary had a Little Lamb."

Select from the following bookshelf or use the alphabetized PhonoLiterature list in Phonographia's Table of Contents.

"A Recollection" by Mari Sandoz

 

"a live phonograph...in the Land of Oz" by L. Frank Baum , 1913

 

 

The Rocket Book by Peter Newell, 1912

 

The Christmas Secret by David Delamare, 1991

             

Tea Rex by Molly Idle, 2013

 

 

Curious George Goes to the Hospital by Margret Rey & H.A. Rey, 1966

 

 

One of Ours by Willa Cather, 1922

 

The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, 2003

   

 

 

 

   

Scandal and A Gold Slipper by Willa Cather, (Youth and the Bright Medusa) 1920

 

The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather 1915

 

 

Coming, Aphrodite! by Willa Cather, (Youth and the Bright Medusa) 1920

 

 

Another Adventure of Elsie and the Bunny by Cadbury Ltd., 1920

   

     

The Phonograph of Jean Bouvet by Henry S. Kingwell and written for the Talking Machine World, 1915

 

 

Abide / Poems by Jake Adam York, 2014

 

 

Albumazar, The Phonogram, February 1892

 

The Phonograph and the Graft by O. Henry McClure's Magazine, February 1903 (Disclaimer)

 

           

The Jukebox Man by Jacqueline K. Ogburn, 1998

 

Good Night Sesame Streetm by David Korr and Michael J. Smollin, 1978

 

 

What Happened To Mary, Episodes I and VII, August 1912 and January 1913

 

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, 2010

             

Dead Musicians poem by Siegfried Sassoon, 1918

 

The Phonograph Witness. A Drama in Five Acts by George W. Hill, 1883

 

Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories by Jean Shepherd, 1971

 

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, 1922

             

A Voyage to the Moon by Cyrano de Bergerac, published in 1656

 

The Tribulations of a Chinaman by Jules Verne, 1879

 

 

The Castle of the Carpathians by Jules Verne, 1892

 

 

Le Courrier Veritable, 1632 pamphlet - 19th Century Engraving

             

How among the frozen words Pantagruel found some odd ones, by Francois Rabelais, 1653

 

 

Round the Fire: VIII The Story of the Japanned Box, by A. Conan Doyle, 1899

 

 

With the Eyes Shut by Edward Bellamy, October 1889

 

That Voice

A Phonograph related romance as it appeared in The Red Cloud Chief newspaper on June 20, 1878

 

             

Mr. Openeer's Christmas, The Phonoscope, November 1899

 

Love and the Phonograph

Cynthia's romance and the Phonograph as it appeared in The Phonoscope, March 1899

 

The Phonogram, June 1900

 

How We Gave a Phonograph Party

The Phonoscope,1899

             

The Phonograph in Country Towns

The Phonogram, October 1891

 

 

The Fateful Phonograph: Or, The Younger Brother's Revenge

From the Chicago Tribune as seen in The Red Cloud Chief p. 2, January 29, 1880

 

Newspaper image provided by University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE

 

 

The Valentines' Victrola by Harriet Lummis Smith, 1919

 

The Magic of Melody by Edgar March - Maclean's Magazine, August 15, 1933

             

The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster, 1909

 

Pleasures of Music by Jacques Barzun, 1951.

 

The Image by Daniel J. Boorstin, 1962

 

Black Hole Blues by Janna Levin, 2016

             

The Revenge of Analog by David Sax, 2016

 

Keeping Time by Tim Dooley, 2008

 

The Phonograph Girls

The Phonograph Girls and Columbia's Twentieth Century Phonograph, The Talking Machine World, 1906

 

No Escape from Black Holes? by Dennis Overbye - The New York Times June 6, 2016

             

The Hurdy Gurdy Girl, a musical comedy by Richard Carle, 1907

 

The Girl He Left Behind Him

The Girl He Left Behind Him by Howard Taylor, The Talking Machine World, 1906

 

Needledee and Needledum

A Funnigraph Record by Peter Newell, The Ladies’ World, April-May 1914.

 

The Boys' Own Phonograph

by John Lewees, St. Nicholas magazine, January 1880

             

 

Kitchen Disco by Foges and Murphy, 2017 A Faber Picture Book

 

"Columbia and Victor" - A Vaudeville Act, 1918

 

The Big Book of Time by William Edmonds, 1994

 

 

Hey Kid, Want to Buy a Bridge? by Jon Scieszka, 2002 (Time Travel to 1877)

             

Lost in the Grooves - Love letters to Albums by Cooper & Smay, 2005

 

Hauntiques by Thomas Kingsley Troupe, 2016

 

The Phonograph in Le Trocaderoscope, Paris, 1878

 

Looking Backward 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy, 1888

             

Just Imagine by Nick Sharrat and Pippa Goodhart, 2014

 

The Record by Ray Bradbury, 1939

 

The Miraculous Phonograph Record by William Saroyan, The Saturday Evening Post, September 1983

 

Phantoms & Phonographs by Ami Diane, 2019

 

             

Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley, 1928

 

Art & Max by David Wiesner, 2010

 

Ma Pettengill and the Song of Songs by Harry Leon Wilson, The Saturday Evening Post, August 1915

 

Hail to Grandmas by Dana Moseley, San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle, 1985

             

My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber, 1933

 

The Phonograph on the Side of Justice and Truth - A French Play, c. 1891, The Talking Machine World, 1907

 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, 2014

 

McBroom's Ghost by Sid Fleischman, 1971

 

 

 

 

"Fair Fiction" PhonoLiterature (2)

Samantha at the World's Fair by Josiah Allen's Wife,1893

 

 

The City of Wonders Souvenir of the World's Fair by Mary Catherine Crowley, 1894

 

The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair, by Charles McCellan Stevens, 1893

 

The Century World's Fair Book for Boys and Girls by Tudor Jenks, 1893

 

             

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, 2003

     

Love and Other Consolation Prizes - Seattle World's Fairs 1909 and 1962

 

Welcome to Samantha's World 1904

 

 

 

 

 

The Phonograph in 1614 - The Phonogram, February 1892




The Tables Turned - Harper's Young People December 5, 1893



The Talking Machine World, March 1923

The Talking Machine World, October 1923

The Talking Machine World, April 1923





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