[Ads-l] cliffhanger (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Joel Berson]

Yes, a significant discovery.  When I was researching "cliffhanger" for a possible story, I did not find any scenes where there was a hero/heroine literally left hanging on a cliff.  There are plenty of earlier instances of leaving the reader in figurative suspense, but I found none of leaving the character in literal suspense.

Did I mention at the time the peril -- but not cliffhanging -- in a news story in the 1736 New-York Gazette, published in two parts?  The first installment ends “The Capt.Dying------ [The Remainder of this Melancholy Relation willbe continued, in our Next]” (brackets inoriginal). 
Joel
      From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 2:21 PM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] cliffhanger (UNCLASSIFIED)
   
Other than the misleadingly ambiguous "is attributed to...Hardy's...novel,"
this is a significant discovery.

The scene (oops! I must mean "meme"!) presumably impressed the story's
readers, and may frequently have been alluded to.

The actual word "cliffhanger," however, still looks and sounds like a 20th
C. journalistic creation - by someone who may never have heard of _A Pair
of Blue Eyes_.

JL

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 2:00 PM, Mullins, Bill CIV (US) <
william.d.mullins18.civ at mail.mil> wrote:

> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
>
> In 2014 there was some discussion of cliffhangers on the list.
>
> This:
>
> https://michaelzmuda.com/2015/11/
>
> Suggests that the original cliffhanger was Thomas Hardy's creation:
>
> "The term cliffhanger is attributed to Thomas Hardy’s serial novel A Pair
> of Blue Eyes (1873), in which, at the end of chapter 21, Hardy chose to
> leave his protagonist Henry Knight hanging off a cliff, while waiting for
> Elfride Swancourt to help. As his grip weakens Swancourt returns in chapter
> 22, taking off her clothes and making a rope of her petticoats, pulling
> Knight to safety with them. Unable to conceal each others’ feelings any
> longer, they embrace."
> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org