Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Ten of the best misers in literature

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best misers in literature.

Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge made the list, as did:
Ebenezer Balfour

Another Ebenezer! In Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, David Balfour's grasping uncle Ebenezer lives in stately dirt and damp, dining on porridge and small beer. "A mean, stooping, narrowshouldered, clay-faced creature", like all true misers he is physically distorted by his love of money. Fear of losing the loot he has embezzled drives him first to try to have David killed, and then to arrange to have him kidnapped. But comeuppance awaits.
Read about another miser on Mullan's list.

Kidnapped was one of President Kennedy's favorite books as a child.

--Marshal Zeringue