Poyntz Tyler

Original Title: A Garden of Cucumbers. This pb edition uses the title from the atrocious movie with Dick Van Dyke, and the cover also shows him, but very fortunately the text is the original book which the movie hopelessly botched by combining the two major characters, the suave criminal mastermind-butler Buckmaster and the naïve young footman/accomplice Fitzwilliam into one character-- rather as if Falstaff and Prince Hal were combined in Henry IV. Buckmaster really deserves comparison with Falstaff --a butler who has supported his penniless (but ignorant) employer since 1934 by arranging wholesale theft from Macy's and other major stores and climaxes his career by taking over the NYC subway system with the aid of a French anarchist chef, among others. It is full of wild upper-class Republican Episcopalian humor..… (mais)