Live Forever

Some strange stories can capture the imaginations of a massive audience, as these two stops on our tour of the Cabinet will show you.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

(00:36):
In October of nineteen thirty two, a twelve year old
boy walked into a traveling circus near Chicago, Illinois. Little
did he know how shocking the knights would be now.
As he made his way around the circus, he passed
all the usual sideshow acts, clowns with fake red noses,
a man swallowing a shiny metal sword, a woman doing
flips on a trapeze, and then something unique caught his eye,

(00:59):
a booth with a big painted sign that read mister Electrico.
The boy couldn't help it, he was curious. He scampered
into the booth and took a seat near the front.
A few minutes later, the lights dimmed and a man
wearing a three piece suit waltzed out, taking a seat
in a metal chair at the center stage. He then
pulled out a sword from where the boy wasn't quite

(01:20):
sure and held it in one hand, and suddenly a loud,
buzzing sound cut through the air. The boy watched as
sparks seemed to dance along the surface of the man's skin.
His teeth chattered, his hair stuck straight out. He was
sitting in an electric chair being bombarded with tens of
thousands of volts of electricity, and then with a current

(01:42):
still flowing through him. The man stood up and held
his sword out about the audience. The boy later wrote,
and I quote, mister Electrico brushed an ex caliber sword
over the heads of the children, nighting them with fire.
When he came to me, he tapped me on both
shoulders and and the tip of my nose. The lightning
jumped into me. Mister Electrico cried, live forever, but well,

(02:07):
immortality is kind of a lot to ask of a
twelve year old kid. Nonetheless, the boy left that night
feeling electrified, so much so that the following day he
went back to the circus. The boy tracked down mister Electrico,
who seemed almost weirdly happy to see him. He led
the boy all around the circus, introducing him to the
other performers, and at the end of the night, just

(02:29):
as they were about to part ways, mister Electrico told
the boy and I quote, we have met before. You
were my best friend in France in nineteen eighteen, and
you died in my arms in the Battle of Arden
Forest that year. And here you are born again in
a new body with a new name. Welcome back. Which
is the kind of claim that really needs some further explanation,

(02:51):
I know, but these were apparently mister Electrico's final words.
The boy went home feeling a bit dazed, a bit special,
and more than a little inspired. Mister Electrico and the
other circus performers were such vibrant, strange characters too. They
were stories unto themselves, and meeting them inspired the boy
to start writing his own stories. He started with shorter

(03:12):
pieces and eventually moved up to writing novels. There was
The Illustrated Man, inspired by a heavily tattooed circus performer.
There was Something Wicked This Way Comes, which features a
character named mister Electrico, and maybe most famous of all,
Fahrenheit four fifty one. That little boy was Ray Bradbury,
and he would go on to become one of the

(03:34):
most important names in American literature. Bradbury later called mister
Electrico his catalyst the reason he became a writer, which
is a really nice story. But here's the other thing
about Ray Bradbury. He wasn't above embellishing some details or
making things up altogether. For example, he claimed that he
could remember his own birth. If it's true, it would

(03:57):
make him the most brilliant newborn who had ever lived. Honestly,
though it's probably just a story. Experts generally believe that
this isn't possible, and just like it, the circus story
in Chicago might be a tall tale too. Historians and
scholars have dug through the records, and while electric chair
circus performances definitely existed, there isn't anything to suggest that

(04:18):
mister Electrico did much less that united Ray Bradbury with
an electrified sword and told him to live forever. Chances
are it's a sort of origin story that Bradbury created
for himself, a way to mythologize his own past and
make it seem more magical than it actually was, But
the jury is still out. At least two Bradbury scholars

(04:39):
have gone on the record to say that despite the
lack of evidence, they believe Bradbury's circus tale, and who
am I to say different? After all, more curious things
have happened. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is one of the

(05:06):
most iconic children books ever written. The characters are unforgettable.
We all recognize Alice in her blue dress, the Mad
Hatter in his suit and top hat, and the striped
cheshire Cats crawling through the trees. Since its publication in
eighteen sixty five, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has never been
out of print. It's been translated into one hundred and

(05:27):
seventy four languages and sold over one hundred million copies worldwide.
But when the book was originally published, no one knew
it would become such a massive success. In fact, the
story of its first edition printing is stranger than you
might imagine. You see, way back in eighteen sixty five,
Lewis Carroll signed a contract with McMillan and Company. They
agreed to print two thousand copies of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which,

(05:51):
knowing how huge the story would get, seems like nothing right,
But at the time Lewis Carroll was super happy to
have the contract and the money that came along with it.
A few weeks before the book's official release, though Carol
received fifty author copies to give to family, friends and
whoever else he wanted, he gave one to the man
who illustrated the book, John Teniell. Teniell flipped open the

(06:13):
advanced copy, and right away he told Carroll there was
a problem. He was and I quote entirely dissatisfied with
the printing of the pictures. Apparently the illustrations just didn't
look quite right. Teniell was so upset about it that
he convinced Carol to halt the production of that version
of the book. The first edition print run was literally
stopped in its tracks, and Carol asked everyone who had

(06:35):
received an advanced copy to give it back. He later
wrote in his diary that the original versions of Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland should and I quote be sold as
waste paper. Over the next month, Carol and Teniel worked
with the publisher to create a new first edition that
they were happy with. Carol ended up losing a pretty
significant amount of money on the deal, but he hoped

(06:56):
that if the book sold well enough, he'd be able
to recuperate those losses, and of course he did just
that many many times over. In fact, Alice and her
Journey down the Rabbit Hole became a universally beloved story.
But here's the kicker. When Lewis Carroll asked for his
author copies back from those people, well, he didn't get
a single one back. Exactly twenty two copies of the

(07:18):
first first edition remained, and as the years passed, those
books became incredibly valuable. Of the twenty two, sixteen of
them now reside in museums around the world. They're bound
in red cloth and feature a golden emblem of Alice
on the front. The paper, now over one hundred and
fifty years old, is too delicate to touch, although the

(07:39):
books are often open to pages with illustrations so that
curious onlookers can see the printing that John Teniel believed
was disgraceful. As for the other six copies, they belong
to private owners. One of them was once owned by
a man named George William Kitchen. He went to church
with Lewis Carroll and received an advanced copy in eighteen
sixty five. When Carol asked for the book back, Kitchen

(08:02):
didn't comply. Instead, he passed it down to his daughter,
who eventually sold it at auction in nineteen twenty five.
It briefly belonged to a library, then to a few
more private owners, before being purchased by John Lindzyth, a
scholar and bibliographer. In twenty sixteen, Lindzyth decided it was
time to part with his beloved book. He put it
up for auction through Christie's, one of those big name

(08:24):
auction houses that specifically caters to people with a lot
of money to blow. As you'd expect, the listing of
this ultra rare book made headlines and it was expected
to fetch anywhere from two to three million dollars, not
bad for something that Carol himself called waste paper. Part
of the reason it was worth so much was because
of these six privately owned copies, this one had a

(08:45):
particularly well documented provedance, meaning the chain of ownership was
clearly recorded, and it was also in pristine condition. For
wealthy bibliophiles, this was an amazing opportunity. Only, on the
day the book went up for six nobody bought it.
The auction house said that there was spirited interest in
the bidding, but clearly it wasn't spirited enough. Perhaps this

(09:09):
would be a good time to quote Alice herself when
she said, curiouser and curiouser. I hope you've enjoyed today's
guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by

(09:31):
me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
book series, and television show, and you can learn all
about it over at the Worldolore dot com. And until
next time, stay curious.