Database

The Database of Spenser

Last Updated 07 May 2006

Note: I originally put this together as a research tool for my own use, especially the "where has he said that before" type of question. It's the Annotated Gumshoe portion of each book page all together in one place minus the pictures. To search for a specific entry use Edit/Find and when you get a hit scroll up to the book title.

The Godwulf Manuscript

Chapter 1:
1. "Win this one for the Gipper" - Knute Rockne. A similar form was used in the screenplay for Knute Rockne--All American [1940]: "win just one for the Gipper!" (spoken by Pat O'Brian about George Gipp, played by Ronald Reagan).
2. "The Newman club" - Yeah, Tower may not watch this group too closely. According to one site I visited:
  
  "Newman Club is the extension of the Roman Catholic Church to the university campus. It offers to all the unity of faith, worship and life of the Roman Catholic Church ordered to the kingdom of God. Offerings include weekly holy sacrifice of the mass, instructions in the truths of the Catholic faith, Bible studies, service projects, retreats, and social activities. Open to all."
3. "a Borsalino hat" - According to VillageHatShop.com "Many consider Italy's Borsalino Hat Company the finest hat maker in the world. In business since 1857, the name Borsalino is synonymous with a fedora style hat that is associated with an elegence and style that is purely southern European."
  - Dennis Tallett further notes that:
    "The Borsalino classic felt hat was designed by Guiseppe Borsalino (1834-1900) in the family business in Alessandria, northern Italy."

"Borsalino Como
$210.00
The hat that made Borsalino famous. The Italian made 'Como' is 100% rain
resistant fur felt. It has a 2 5/8" stitched brim and 4 1/2" crown. This
is THE classic fedora. Available in Black only."

Chapter 2:
1. "I'll break both your thumbs and you'll never play pool again." - Dennis Tallett brought this nugget to light:
  
  "The pool hall movie The Hustler (1961) with Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason based on the novel by Walter Tevis where thumbs actually get broken in chapter 14."
2. "the nature of the beast" - The closest I could find was in William Snodgrass's Orpheus [1959]: "It was the nature of the thing: / No moon outlives its leaving night, / No sun its day."
  Ronald van Raaij wrote in to point out the classic story of the scorpion and the fox.
  
  A fox who agrees to carry a scorpion on its back across a river, upon the condition that the scorpion does not sting him. But the scorpion does indeed sting the fox when they are in midstream. As the fox begins to drown, taking the scorpion with him, he pleadingly asks why the scorpion has jeopardized both of them by stinging. 'Because it's my nature.'"
  
  BTW I found that version on a page that used it to explain a bit of zen philosophy. Check it out at http://www.rider.edu/users/suler/zenstory/onesnature.html
  Additional info: Adele Connelly wrote in with something closer to Parker's usual sources:
  
  I think that this phrase, "the nature of the beast" should be attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. The full quotation and attribution are below and I believe is the source of Parker's quote. Just a thought.
  
  QUOTATION: A mob is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason, and traversing its work. The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast.
  
  ATTRIBUTION: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. "Compensation," Essays, First Series (1841, repr. 1847).
3. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" - See Oft Quoted
Chapter 3:
1. "I was living that year on Marlborough Street, two blocks up from the Public Garden." - Contributor Peter Higgins notes the following:
  
  "I believe that recalls the first sentence in the second section of Chapter 1 of Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye: "I was living that year in a house on Yucca Avenue, in the Laurel Canyon district." I once read an interview with RBP wherein he stated that in his early books, before he found his own "voice," he consciously imitated the styles of the "masters"--Chandler and Hammett--and I think the early Spensers are indeed full of tantalizing echoes like the one mentioned above."
  
  A point well taken. Parker wrote this novel just three years after earning his PhD in English literature, based in part on his dissertation "The Violent Hero, Wilderness Heritage and Urban Reality: a Study of the Private Eye in the Novels of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald." It's rather dry and academic (not an insult in my opinion) and it does show where he came from. If you are interested I've included information on how to order a copy here
2. "bronze statue of an Indian on horseback that stands in front of the Museum of Fine Arts." - That would be "The Appeal to the Great Spirit," cast by Cyrus Edward Dallin in 1908 and donated to the museum in 1913.

The original

Spenser's carving

Chapter 6: "Hawkshaw" - Iain Campbell notes that you don't hear this name much anymore. It comes from Tom Taylor's play The Ticket of Leave Man (1863), which focuses on an ex-con (convicts were given a "ticket of leave" when they left prison in Victorian England) who is trying to go straight, but who is blackmailed by a gang of crooks into helping them out with a robbery. The play was immensely popular in its day, and its basic situation has been much reused ever since, being sure to turn up on TV at least once a month. There is a detective, Hawkshaw, whose name passed down into gumshoe history. It's a splashy role in which a macho actor can still make a showing.
Chapter 7:
1. "House Beautiful" - Iain Campbell helps me to remember that these books have an international audience who may be unfamiliar with American culture, and writes:
  
  "I have discovered that House Beautiful is the name of a well known decorator style glossy coffee-table magazine. Other outsiders may not know this."
  
  He also found it mentioned at the end of chapter 22.
2. "Herbert Marcuse" - A Freudian neo-marxist philosopher who would often speak at revolutionary campus gatherings in the 1960s. Because of his willingness to speak at student protests, Herbert soon became known as "the father of the new left."
3. "Sacco and Vanzetti"- In 1920 a paymaster and his guard were murdered during a robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts. A month later two Italians, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested and charged with the crime. They were immigrants and anarchists, and the common opinion nowadays is that the trial was the product of anti-radical hysteria and political persecution, but they were executed in 1927. I can't do the subject justice here, visit http://dept.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/sacvan.html for the full story.
4. "All the news that's fit to print" - Seen on the masthead of The New York Times. First appeared on February 10th, 1897.
5. "Freedom of the press is a flaming sword. Use it wisely, hold it high, guard it well." - Steve Wilson, of The Illustrated Press
  I believe the original quote is "use it justly," but Parker was no doubt working from memory. It refers to the radio show "Big Town" which aired from 1937 to 1951. Edward G. Robinson (one of my favorite movie wise-guys) voiced the part of Steve Wilson, crusading editor of the Illustrated Press. Parker also used this line in A Savage Place.
Chapter 8:
1. "No mash notes from Helen Gurley Brown." - Jenn Montes de Oca sent in a wonderful entry for this one:
  
  Mash notes are letters of attraction or desire from a stranger or acquaintance and will mostly likely not be welcome, there is a long sordid history to this that I won't bore you with unless you ask. Helen Gurley Brown, however, became editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine in 1965 and re-established the failing magazine. She wrote a lot of columns and correspondence in her time. She is a self proclaimed feminist with a "passive interest in the relationship of men and women". Ironically, in 2004, Brown came out with a book called "Dear Pussycat: Mash Notes and Missives from the desk of Cosmopolitans Legendary Editor."
  
  Ms. Brown first came to fame for her 1962 book "Sex and the Single Girl." By the time this novel was written her name was a household word but apparently she was not sending notes to a a small-time Boston gumshoe. Her loss, obviously.
2. "Visions of the day's first bloody mary dancing in their heads." - A reference to A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Moore, although the tykes were thinking of sugarplums - hold the celery stalk. See Poetry
3. "He closed his eyes in holy dread." - Bill Tobin notes that this is from Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
  
  "And close your eyes with holy dread,
  For he on honey-dew hath fed,
  And drunk the milk of Paradise. - -"
  
  are the last lines Sammy managed to copy down before a "person on business from Porlock" knocked the drug dream out of his head. See Poetry
4. "An ankle-length o.d. military overcoat." - Obviously bought second-hand. O.d. stands for Olive Drab (and interesting turn of phrase) which is a somewhat darkish green favored by military types. My guess is was designed to blend in with yer average European background flora.
5. "Somewhere nearby I could hear the rhythm of a mimeograph." - Gather 'round kids, while your Uncle Bob remembers ye oldern days. Long before copying machines were cheap and plentiful, if you wanted to make a bunch of copies you would type out the original on special paper and attach it to the cylinder of this device and crank the handle. The ink had a most interesting smell, which I have been told came from an alcohol base.
6. "My collection of Ann Sheridan pinups" - Known as the "Oomph girl" she was a very popular pinup indeed in the 1940's. Here's my collection.
7. "whether he said solid or sullied" - A reference to a debate concerning the soliloquy spoken in William Shakespeare's Hamlet [1600-1601], Act I, Scene 2, line 129: "O! that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew;" Other spellings include "sallied" and "sullied." I've always gone with the "solid" spelling, myself...
Chapter11:
1. "Sleigh bells ring, are ya listening" - from the Christmas Carol "Winter Wonderland." Written by Dick Smith and Felix Bernard. See Lyrics
2. "We never sleep" - Original motto of the Pinkerton detective agency. See Oft Quoted.
3. "Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson" - Paul Simon, Mrs. Robinson. See Lyrics
4. Mourning Becomes Electra - title of a dramatic trilogy written by Eugene O'Neill [1931]
Chapter 12: "You can run, but you can't hide" - See Oft Quoted
Chapter 13:
1. "There was a Frost poem, but it was about birches" - That would be Robert Frost, and the title of the poem is Birches [1916].
2. "Where are the white bucks of yesteryear." - Iain Campbell wrote to clue me in on this one and we spent most of a week discussing it. It divides itself into two parts:
  1. "Where are the snows of yesteryear." To this Iain says:
    "The quote is clearly the extremely well-known (among francophones anyway!): 'Ou sont les neiges d'antan?' a haunting, regretful last line in each stanza of Des dames du temps jadis by Francois Villon (1431-1485). It has been used in many popular songs and ballads since then."
    
    In a following letter he pointed out that it was written in medieval French and the versions he pointed me to as translations into modern French differed quite a bit, and translating it into English was a bit of a problem.
    
    "Frankly, I think that few other then French scholars will appreciate (or even understand) the original. Rather like Chaucer... This poem is familiar to anyone who has studied the poetry of the Middle Ages, as has RBP."
    
    I did the best I could and included it in Poetry
  2. "White bucks" - Jeff Spense pointed out that the picture I previously had here was wrong:
    
    White bucks are _solid_ white in color, and suede ("buckskin") in texture -- although classic white bucks do have a brick-red colored rubber sole. I'm attaching a small image file of the current model made by G.H.Bass, who would be your shoemaker-of-choice for several generations now when buying bucks. (Although the sole on this new model is not quite as red as it should be, in my opinion -- kids today!)
    
    An interesting note; since they're suede, bucks aren't polished, they're powdered, with a special "chalk bag" or "buck bag", which is a small cheesecloth bag full of powdered talc (kind of like a rosin bag in baseball, if that conjures up any image for you), which is dusted over the shoes when they become scuffed.
    
    The only other respectable color for traditional bucks was tan; these are always referred to as "dirty bucks", even unworn/fresh out of the box!
    
    The two-tone shoes you've referred to are properly called "spectator shoes". And traditionally, they're not suede at all, but hard leather which is very highly polished. For more information about these shoes, see <http://www.atomicmag.com/articles/2001/two_tones.shtml>. (And dig the bit about the "co-respondent" label.)
3. "It was the widely acclaimed Adolf Eichmann who popularized that 'I obey orders' routine, wasn't it?" - Refers to the Nuremberg Trials that took place after World War II, where the German officers were called to stand trial for their crimes against the Jewish people. Eichmann was one of many officers who, to answer why he did what he did, claimed that he was only following orders. It wasn't considered an acceptable answer: "You are responsible for what you do," was the main argument of the prosecution. (Thanks to my memories of 6th grade history class for most of this). Actually Mike remembered wrong. It was decided before the Nuremberg trials that the "following orders" defense would not be allowed. But Eichman wasn't there. He escaped to Argentina shortly after the war and hid there until 1960, when the Israeli army caught up with him. He was kidnapped and flown to Israel for a trial. There he was allowed to use that defense, which was rejected.
Chapter 14:
1. "Of all the outer offices in all the towns in all the world, you had to walk into mine." - Hisao Tomihari wrote in to note another one that belongs here. Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in Casablanca: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." See Oft Quoted
2. "If you want anything, just whistle" - Hisao also supplied the correct dialogue spoken by Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not:
  
  "You know you don't have to act with me Steve. You don't have to say anything and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? Just put your lips together and blow."

Chapter 15:
1. "Even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course / Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot." - I have no idea, and apparently, neither does Spenser.
  - However, Glenn Everett writes:
  W.H. Auden, Musee des Beaux Arts
  
  About suffering they were never wrong,
  The Old Masters: how well they understood
  Its human position; how it takes place
  While someone is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
  How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
  For the miraculous birth, there must always be
  Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
  On a pond at the edge of the wood;
  They never forgot
  That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
  Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
  Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
  Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. . . .
2. "Right on her head she fell, Marty." - Why are we all being so very cynical here? Because it's straight out of The Postman always rings Twice by James M. Cain. It's Frank and Cora's first attempt to kill the Greek.
Chapter 16:
1. "A bottle of Cope." - Cathy Connelly seems to have suffered from tension headaches, because that is what this over-the-counter medication was designed to treat. Manufactured by the Mentholatum Co., it's 421 mg Aspirin plus 23 mg Caffeine and a host of inert ingredients. It's hard to come by nowadays: none of the local stores carry it and I found only one online source. To me it looks like an expensive substitute for a generic pill and a cup of coffee but what do I know about pharmacology?
2. "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy [c. 1310-1321], Inferno, Canto III, line 9: "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate." : "All hope abandon, ye who enter here!"
Chapter 17: "Thinking long thoughts." - See Oft Quoted
Chapter 19:
1. The Play of the Weather - Dennis Tallett writes:
  
  "The Play of the Weather" was by John Heywood (1497?-1550?), the first writer of English comedy. He wrote this in the early 1500s and it tells how Jupiter becoming worried about human complaints regarding the weather. He sends down an investigator to provide him with a report. The results are so varied he decides to leave well alone.
2. Gammer Gurton's Needle:
  - Susan Demers writes:
    
    "I don't know whether any one has solved the reference to Gammer Gurton's Needle for you. It is one of two (the other being Ralph Roiser Doister) collegiate dramas which bridge the gap between Roman comedy with its stock characters drawn from everyday life and medieval plays which were primarily religious (even the comedies.....Noah's wife was a nag, poor dear.). GGN was ascribed to Mr. S and performed at Cambridge between 1552 and 1563. (Brockett, History of the Theatre) (This kind of title is what drama majors use to win at charades.)"
  - Dennis Tallett writes:
    
    This is the earliest of English comedies in verse and songs. It portrays 16th century village life and tells the story of a lost needle as the gammer (old wife) is sewing a servant's trousers which he finds later when he puts them on. Listed as a farce by a Mr. S. - probably William Stevenson. First performance 1553 or 1554.
3. "He had not had a visit from...the Ghost of Christmas Future" - A reference to one of the three Ghosts of Christmas from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol [1843], stave 4. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come showed Scrooge his future...in a graveyard, causing Scrooge to repent his miserliness and general humbuggery. In many plays/movies, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is represented by a skeleton in a black robe, perhaps the personification of Death. Cheerful thought, isn't it?
4. "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi" - The history of this song is too long to put here so read about it at the source: http://www.sigmachi.org/article.phtml?iItemID=592 See Lyrics
5. "I half expected Beowulf to jump out of the bog and rip the arm off of something." - In the legends, Beowulf bested the monster Grendel by tearing one of his arms off. Gee, the legends are so pleasant, aren't they?
6. "'My God, Holmes, these are the footprints of a gigantic hound.'" - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles [1902], Chapter 2: "They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"
7. "...in the fresh of morning..."-I found this one in The Sea and the Jungle by H. M. Tomlinson, Chapter 5. Then again it's also in A Child's Book of Saints by William Canton (it doesn't work well in context for this citing, but it's there) so the phrase may be more common than I am aware of. Has anyone else come across this?
Chapter 21: "...I've got stuff to do and promises to keep." - Robert Frost, Stopping in the Woods on a Snowy Evening. Likewise, Spenser has miles to go before he sleeps. See Oft Quoted and Poetry.
Chapter 23:
1. "Ronald Colman, Major Andre, Nathan Hale, the Christian martyrs." - All willing to face death for their beliefs. Let's take them in order
  - Ronald Colman: A British actor who starred in a large number of films as the square-jawed, stiff-upper-lip, ever so proper hero. If he shot down your biplane in WWI he would salute you out of respect as you spiraled down.
  - Major Andre: Most Americans remember Benedict Arnold, the famous traitor of the Revolutionary War who tried to betray our side by selling the plans of the base at West Point. Major Andre was the British officer who was caught with a pass from Arnold in his pocket and the plans for West Point hidden in his boot. He was hanged in 1780, but his body was exhumed in 1821 and reburied in the Hero's Corner of Westminster Abbey.
  - Nathan Hale: A First Lieutenant in the Seventh Connecticut regiment, he is remembered as a hero of the above mentioned American revolution, and was hanged as a spy by the British on September 22, 1775. His last words constitute one of the best known phrases of patriotism ever uttered: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
  - The Christian martyrs: There were quite a lot of them, and further research is beyond the scope of this page.
    I originally wrote the above, and a reasonable interpretation might be "I don't know and I'm too lazy to look into it further." Dennis Tallett was up to the task and writes:
    
    "The Christian Martyrs (aka the Marian Martyrs) were 300 protestants burned at the stake in 1555 when Catholic Mary, daughter of Protestant Henry VIII, became queen."
  Addendum: Bobby Stiklus wrote in to expand on the above entry, and it's this kind of letter that makes keeping up this site so much fun:
  
  What really puts Ronald Colman in the list is his portrayal of an alcoholic, insufferable attorney named Sydney Carton in the 1935 film version of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. An abridged synopsis to address the points needed here follows:
        1. Sydney loves Lucie
        2. Lucie loves Charles
        3. Charles loves Lucie
        4. Heavy-handed plot device: Sydney and Charles resemble each other enough to be mistaken for one another.
        5. Charles is about to be beheaded during the Reign of Terror.
        6. Taking advantage of point 4, Sydney swaps places with Charles, actively enabling Charles and Lucie to live happily every after. Or at least to live, considering the times and such.
        7. Sydney utters those famous lines: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."
  Ronald Colman is THE MAN when it comes to saying that line, and pale imitations of his reading ("It is a fah fah bettah thing...") have sullied far too many lips over the years, just as
  "I'll be back" and "Hasta la vista, baby." have spawned innumerable bad Arnold impersonations. The quote's popularity was on a par with the proverbial "Play it again, Sam."
        8. Sydney gets his head chopped off.
  
  It is Sydney's seemingly unselfish actions in saving Lucie's loved one's life at the expense of his own that earns Coleman his place on the list of people. It is the fact that he may not be as noble and unselfish as he seems that makes him so very human.
2. "I am the movement" - see Chapter 25 below.
3. "listening to the sound of a different drummer" - See Oft Quoted
Chapter 24:
1. Alice in Wonderland - A common way of referring to Lewis Carroll's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland [1865].
2. semper fidelis - Latin for "always faithful" - the motto of the United States Marine Corps.
Chapter 25:
1. "truth, justice, and the American way" - Wasn't that what Superman was fighting for? Dennis Tallett couldn't resist supplying the following:
  
  "Superman was on the Mutual Network starting in the 1940s. '...and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American Way.'"
2. "It only hurts when I laugh" - Dennis Tallett writes:
  
  The title of Stan Freeberg's autobio. Satirist, humorist performing on records, radio, TV in the 1960s. Now his company produces humorous commercials.
  
  For his title Mr. Freeberg picked the punch line of a very old joke. The most common variation I found online was this one at http://www.hudsonleickfan.com/shaddy/jokes/JOKES16.html
  
  A wagon train of settlers was heading west. When they came over a hill they saw a ranch that had just been attacked by Indians. The rancher was propped up against the cabin wall with an arrow sticking out of his chest. He was still alive and told a terrible tale of woe. His son had been castrated and left to bleed to death. His wife and daughter had been raped repeatedly and taken with the tribe to serve as sex slaves. All of his horses had been stolen and his herd of cattle slaughtered. While giving him a drink of water, one of the settlers expressed concern that the arrow must be causing him lots of pain. "Not really," the rancher said, "it only hurts when I laugh."
3. Le mouvement, c'est moi - French, "The movement, that is me" (oh GAWD).
  Originated with Louis XIV who, commenting on the extent of his power, said "L'etat, c'est moi" (In colloquial English, "I am the State").
4. "[I had] a lover's quarrel with the world" - Robert Frost, The Lesson for Today [1942]." In the poem Frost is having a thought conversation with John Donne (1572-1631) who was the leader of the Metaphysical School of poetry in the Renaissance. Donne wore a ring with a skull and crossbones on it to remind him of his mortality, a "Memento Mori" or "remembrance of death" as it was referred to. Frost notes in contrast that he would have the above on his tombstone.
  Interestingly, it wasn't just the punchline to a poem, he actually did have it carved there.
5. "Excelsior" - Ex*cel"si*or, a. [L., compar. of excelsus elevated, lofty, p. p. of excellere.] More lofty; still higher; ever upward. Besides being the motto of New York state it is the title of a famous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. See Poetry

God Save The Child

Significance of the title: A slight rewording of the song God Bless the Child by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr. Blessing is not Spenser's job but saving sure is. See Lyrics

Chapter 1:
1. "somewhere the corn was probably as high as an elephant's eye" - Iain Campbell points out:
  - "(and probably looks like it's reaching right up to the sky.) The song is 'Oh what a beautiful morning' from Rogers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!" 1943. See Lyrics.
2. "Gaminelike" - Gamine is French for "street kid" or "urchin." In the 1950's a very short hairstyle started to be adopted by petite, boyish-looking women. Cutting edge chic at the time, actresses Jean Seberg and Audrey Hepburn favored it, as well as Frank Sinatra's wife (see next entry.)
3. "Mia Farrow" -

Chapter 1: "Or maybe I'd buy some orchids with it." Michael Simpson noticed this one:

"Possible reference to the Rex Stout super-sleuth Nero Wolfe, as well-known for his expertise with orchids as for his investigative genius."

And to think it took only thirty years for someone to make so obvious a connection. Thanks Michael.

Chapter 2:
1. "Maybe Squonto had made a mistake." - His name was really Tisquantum, and you can think fondly of him as you carve up the Butterball turkey next Thanksgiving. He learned English by being twice captured and sold into slavery, finally returning to his native village to find it wiped out by "white man's disease." When the Pilgrims arrived at that area in what we now call Plymouth they probably would not have survived without his knowledge of fishing, hunting, and agriculture specific to the area. Route 1 seems a pretty poor way to pay him back.
2. "Spontaneous Me" - Walt Whitman. It's one of the poems in Leaves of Grass and has to do with sex and procreation. Marge Bartlett seems to have noted the title but not bothered to look much further.
Chapter 4:
1. "I don't care about money, I just want my baby back" - Ransom [1956], spoken by Donna Reed.
2. "We'll get him back for you. You got my word on it" - The Searchers [1956], spoken by John Wayne.
Chapter 5: "Nick Charles" - A former detective married to a rich socialite, he was the lead in the Daschiell Hammet novel The Thin Man(1934) . William Powell and Myrna Loy starred in a very popular series of movies based on the characters.
Chapter 9:
1. "Isn't that the statue of the Indian in front of the museum?" - Spenser has finished the carving he was working on in The Godwulf Manuscript. See the pictures of "The Appeal to the Great Spirit" there.
2. "Leopold-Loeb" - Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two teenagers with very rich fathers, decided to kidnap and kill a 14 year old boy then collect a ransom. They were confident it was the perfect crime, because who would suspect two
  wealthy young men of such a thing? Unfortunately Leopold dropped his eyeglasses while dumping the body and police were able to trace them through his optician. The only reason they didn't get the death penalty was that their lawyer was the legendary Clarence Darrow. As he explained:
  
  "From the beginning we never tried to do anything but save the lives of two defendants; we did not even claim or try to prove that they were insane. We did believe and sought to show that their minds were not normal and never had been normal."
3. "Ruth Judd" - In the fall of 1931, Winnie Ruth Judd got off a train from Phoenix at the Southern Pacific Railroad station in Los Angeles, accompanied by two trunks. A baggage agent noticed a foul odor issuing from the trunks and liquid leaking from one of them. The bodies of two Phoenix women were found inside: those of Agnes LeRoi, an X-ray technician; and of Hedvig Samuelson, a teacher.
  
  Judd was convicted of killing LeRoi. She was sentenced to death but later was declared insane and was sent to spend her life at the Arizona State Hospital. Her name stayed before the public for decades as news stories detailed her seven escapes. She finally was freed in 1971. She died in Phoenix in 1998 at the age of 93.
4. "Or maybe I grow old." - Iain Campbell points out that this looks like yet another tip of the hat to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. See Poetry.
5. "Neither rain nor snow nor dark of night." - Is not the official motto of the United States Postal Service. They don't have one. This was a description of the Persian postal service circa 500 BC which was inscribed on the General Post Office in New York City.
6. "Hot dog" - See Oft Quoted
Chapter 10:
1. "1937 Hudson Terraplane" - Just the scavenged shell rusting away, but what a stylish car it was in its time.
2. "Let us reason together." - Isaiah 1:18: "Come now, and let us reason together." Lyndon Johnson popularized it in the sixties when he was president.
3. "If at first you don't succeed, the hell with it." - See Oft Quoted
Chapter 11:
1. "No invitation to play tennis with Bobby Riggs in the Astrodome" - A 55 year old former tennis star and male chauvinist, Bobby loudly proclaimed that women could never be as good at tennis as men. With much hype he challenged then women's champion Billie Jean King to a "Battle of the Sexes." On 20 September 1973 they met in the Houston Astrodome before 30,000 spectators and a primetime TV audience of over 50 million. Ms. King won in three straight sets; 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.
2. "Boston Athenæum" - One of the oldest and most distinguished independent libraries in the United States, it was founded in 1807 by members of the Anthology Society whose purpose was to form "an establishment similar
  to that of the Athenæum and Lyceum of Liverpool in Great Britain; combining the advantages of a public library [and] containing the great works of learning and science in all languages."
3. "Faith Baldwin" - One of the most successful writers of light fiction in the 20th century. Between 1921 and 1977 she wrote over 60 novels. One source has this to say about them:
  
  "Typically, a Faith Baldwin book presented a highly simplified version of life among the wealthy. No matter what the difficulties, honor and goodness triumph, and hero and heroine are united. Evil, depravity, poverty, and sex found no place in her work, which she explicitly intended for the housewife and the working girl."
4. "Make love not war" - 1960's Peace slogan.
Chapter 12:
1. "The Summer Game" - Title of a book by Roger Angell published in 1973. He wrote articles about baseball in the New Yorker and put together several other books on the sport.
2. "Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse." - The research file is too long to include here. I moved the entry to Oft Quoted.

Chapter 13:
1. "All it needed to be September Morn was a nude bathing in the pool. I looked, just to be sure, but there wasn't any."
  - Glenn Everett writes:
    
    "September Morn was an often-reprinted painting of a nude girl standing demurely in a pool of water. Shocking in its day which was (I think) about the turn of the century."
  - Also, Ray Radlein writes:
    
    "...a reference to a pool only needing nudes to be 'September Morning.' While I'm not very certain at all, I was wondering if that might have been the title of that infamous Maxfield Parish painting..."
    
    Not a bad guess, by the way. Parrish did a lot of paintings of girls on rocks, often near water. Ray was probably thinking of Parrish's Daybreak, 1922 or Stars, 1925.
  - Dennis Tallett writes:
    
    'September Morn' was painted by Paul Chabas (1869-1937) a French painter. The critics called it mediocre. The nude painting adorned innocent boxes but it was the target of Anthony Comstock (1844-1915) to rid America of Lewd and lascivious art and literature. The reproductions were not selling too well until it was displayed in a New York window and Comstock invited to view it. The repros became an instant financial success.
    
    A more complete version of the above story can be found here. I put a copy of the picture here.
  - One of the authors whose works Parker based his Doctoral thesis on was Raymond Chandler. Iain Campbell noted the following:
    
    I was just looking at my notes on Chandler's similes etc. in The Long Goodbye, and it leaped off the page at me. On p.248 of my version he writes "as naked as September Morn."
    
    Matines de Septembre was painted in 1912 and the incident with Comstock leading to massive publicity happened in 1913. The Long Goodbye was published in 1939 so it was very likely known to contemporary readers.
2. "Beauty is its own excuse for being." - Bill Tobin enters the hall of fame by tracked this one down. He pointed out that it's from Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem The Rhodora. See Poetry

Chapter 15:

"Jackie Susann...Jackie O...Jackie Coogan" - Which one did Susan win a look-alike contest of?


Jackie Susann	Jackie O	Jackie Coogan

"His tailor looked to be Robert of Hall" - The Robert Hall chain of clothing stores died out some decades ago. High fashion they were not; yer average country bumpkin might stare in wonder at the fancy suits but they were pretty low end.
"Whither she goest you and I goest as well. Or at least I do." - Ruth 1:16: "Whither thou goest, I will go"
"[The] catcher in the rye" - Probably a reference to the J. D. Salinger book of the same name [published 1951].

Chapter 16: "...Papa may have, but God bless the child that's got his own..." - Lady 'Day (Billie Holiday), Bless the Child. See Significance of the title above and I'll add another link to the Lyrics.
Chapter 17:
1. "Downstairs looked like the rape of Nanking" - I don't know anything about Nanking myself, however:
  Ray Radlein writes:
  "It was a War Atrocity. In World War II, the Japanese conquered much of China, including the city of Nanking. I'm not entirely sure what they did to Nanking that was remarkably worse than what they did to the rest of China, but 'The Rape of Nanking' is something which many people - including many Japanese - still feel the Japanese need make amends for."
  
  I've seen reliable estimates of as many as 300,000 Chinese civilians slaughtered in the invasion of Nanking. Controversy has again broken out with the publication of new textbooks in Japan that downplay or fail to mention the numerous atrocities committed by the Japanese Army during this time.
2. "Kit Carson" - Enshrined in popular mythology even in his own lifetime, Kit Carson (1809-1868) was a trapper, scout, Indian agent, soldier and authentic legend of the West. The picture below is Billy Williams from the TV series Adventures of Kit Carson which ran from 1951 to 1955.
3. "I looked at my watch. Twelve minutes past ten in the morning." A tip of the hat to Nicholas Frail for pointing out this timing error. See Adventures in Time and Space in the Notes section.
4. "Out here on nature's bosom." - From Ode to Joy by Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805). An die Freude in the original German. "All creatures drink the joy from nature's bosom." Beethoven wrote a catchy little number to sing it to.
5. "We never sleep." - Iain caught this one too. See Oft Quoted.
Chapter 18:
1. "Jack and Jill magazine" - Since 1938 this children's magazine has been around to amuse and entertain kids. As far as I know they have had very few centerfolds of private detectives.
  
  "Jack and Jill stimulates young minds and imaginations with stories,
  articles, crafts, games, poetry, and humor. Creative, inventive, and
  fun this magazine will delight and amuse 7 to 10-year-olds for hours
  on end."
2. "Class will out" - Probably a play on "murder will out," a popular saying in detective fiction, meaning the murderer will be revealed. It's originally from The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. It's in The Nun's Priest's Tale, and the main thrust there is that murder is so repellent to God that he will not allow the criminal to go unpunished.
3. "Nuttings on the Charles" - A dance hall in Waltham on the shore of the river. Built in 1914, it burned to the ground in 1961.
4. "Phil Brito albums" - A singer of the big band era. Info is scarce.
Chapter 19:
1. "Man of a thousand faces" - Lon Chaney carried this sobriquet many long years ago.
2. "Bulldog Turner." - Clyde "Bulldog" Turner (1919-1998) played Center for the Chicago Bears for thirteen years and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1966.
3. "But oh so gentle." - Dennis Tallett noticed this one. See Oft Quoted.
4. "My Prayer" - Written by Jimmy Kennedy and Georges Boulanger, the Platters took this to number 1 on the Billboard charts in 1956. See Lyrics
Chapter 20:
1. "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B" - Music by Don Raye, Lyrics by Hughie Prince, the Andrews Sisters first sang it in the Abbot and Costello movie Buck Privates (1941) and it became one of the signatures tunes of the sisters and the war era. See Lyrics
2. "The grateful statue of the freed slave." - The statue Spenser found so offensive was Emancipation Group by Thomas Ball. The original was dedicated 1876 in Washington DC, facing the capital, and several Massachusetts congressmen persuaded the artist to make another copy for Park Square in Boston. It does seem a bit patronizing now.

Chapter 21:

"High necked white blouse and a small black bow tie. Dorothy Collins." - She is known primarily as the lead singer on the long-running 1950s NBC television show "Your Hit Parade."

"Snooky Lanson" - Another lead singer on the same show.


Dorothy	Snooky

"The Mann Act" - Introduced by James Robert Mann in 1910, it forbids, under heavy penalties, the transportation of women from one state to another for
immoral purposes. Because it sets the age of consent on the federal level at 18 years it also overrides state laws in prosecuting those responsible for child prostitution.
"That picture about the ball player with one leg" - That would be The Stratton Story (1949) with James Stewart starring in the true (as true as Hollywood ever gets it) account of Chicago White Sox pitcher Monty Stratton. After losing his leg in a hunting accident in 1938 he stayed on as a coach for some years. He later signed a minor league contract and in 1946 had an 18-8 record in the East Texas League.

Chapter 22:
1. "Annie Greenspring" - I doubt if they make this cheap wine anymore; it seems more like a 70's thing. Think screwcaps, think Boone's Farm, think Ripple.
2. "A big print of Guernica" - On April 26th 1937, a massive air raid by the German Luftwaffe on the Basque town of Guernica in Northern Spain shocked the world. Hundreds of civilians were killed in the raid which became a major incident of the Spanish Civil War. Pablo Picasso's painting of the event has been the subject of more books than any other work of modern art and it is often described as..."the most important work of art of the twentieth century." Take a look at it here
3. "Hot-diggity" - See Oft Quoted
4. "Baudelaire" - Charles-Pierre (1821-1867), a leading 19th century French poet. Since no titles are mentioned I hesitate to put one on the Poetry page so I invite you to look them up on your own.
5. "Darling je vous aime beaucoup, je ne sais pas what to do." - A French/English song written by Anna Sosenko in 1936, an artist who specialized in such "frainglish" songs. It was first performed in the movie "Love and Hisses" in 1937. Nat King Cole had a hit with it in 1955 and that is what Spenser no doubt remembers.
6. "Enough with the love talk, off with the clothes" - ? It took until nearly the end of 2005 before someone answered this. See Oft Quoted
Chapter 23:
1. "Rex Morgan" - This popular comic strip has been around around since 1948 and was created by Dr. Nicholas P. Dallis, a psychiatrist. To quote from the King Features Syndicate:
  
  "Dr. Dallis created Rex Morgan not only as an exciting and entertaining comic strip, but also as an educational tool: a comic strip that would heighten the awareness of readers about the importance of modern medicine."
2. "Kay Kaiser" - Band leader in the 30's and 40's, he is best remembered for his light hearted radio show "Kay Kaiser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge" which ran from 1941 to 1947.
3. "Red nineteen-sixty-eight Chevy convertible. Mass. plates seven-one-two-dash-two-three-four." - The Spensermobile at that time. Any chance of tracing a plate from the early seventies? The Registry of Motor Vehicles won't take my calls.
Chapter 24: "Marlin Perkins" - Iain Campbell asked about this reference

"Why would Marlin Perkins want to sell insurance to Spenser beside reeds that are as tall as a man?"

He had looked up the history of the TV show Wild Kingdom, but this is another one of those things that you have to be an American of advanced years to remember. Here's what I wrote back in answer:

"Wild Kingdom didn't sell commercial time, it was a wholly owned production of Mutual of Omaha, a not unusual occurrence in those days. The series featured taped segments of a strapping jungle explorer type named Jim who actually went out in the wilds and wrestled lions, or got staked out as bait for the pumas, or some such daring feat. After that they would cut back to Marlin standing in an office with a cuddly and harmless animal, and he would praise the ways of the wild while leading us into a commercial for the above mentioned insurance company."
Chapter 25:
1. "We who are about to die salute you." - Morituri te Salutamus in the original Latin. Supposedly what the gladiators would say to the Emperor before they fought in the Coliseum for the amusement of the crowds, although historians say that's just an urban legend.. BTW, most of the research I've seen indicates that a "thumbs down" meant "put down your sword and spare the life of your opponent." The signal for death was the thumb thrust outward in a stabbing motion.
2. "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." - Iain caught another one I missed. See Oft Quoted.

Mortal Stakes

Chapter 1:
1. "It was summertime, and the living was easy" - A reference to the song Summertime from the 1935 George and Ira Gershwin musical Porgy and Bess, in collaboration with DuBose Heywood and based on his 1925 novel Porgy. See Lyrics
2. "Ah, wilderness." - Hisao Tomihari noted the first appearance of this phrase. See Oft Quoted
3. "The Boys of Summer, The Summer Game" - Two books about, obviously, baseball. The first was written by Roger Kahn who worked for the New York Herald Tribune and deals with the Brooklyn Dodgers. The second is by Roger Angell who wrote for the New Yorker and is a collection of ten years worth of columns. Spenser mentioned The Summer Game one book back in God Save the Child.
Chapter 3:
1. "Whatever happened to Johnny Lindell?" - Johnny (1916-1985) played for the Yankees from 1941 to 1950. People tended to be a bit more clean cut in those days.
2. "Chesterfield Kings" - Jack Little was chain-smoking one of the classic cigarette brands. I ran across a couple of ads from 1941:
  "Chesterfields are made for smokers like yourself, with the three important things you want in a cigarette... MILDNESS, BETTER TASTE, and COOLER SMOKING. Chesterfield's right combination of the world's best cigarette tobacco has so many things a smoker likes... that Chesterfield is just naturally called the smoker's cigarette. THEY SATISFY."
  
  "A responsible consulting organization reports a study by a competent medical specialist and staff on the effects of smoking Chesterfields...
  
  'It is my opinion that the ears, nose, throat and accessory organs of all participating subjects examined by me were not adversely affected in the six-months period by smoking the cigarettes provided.'"
  
  Steve Martin used to do a bit where he said "My doctor ordered me to start smoking; he said I wasn't getting enough tar."
  
  For those of you keeping score at home, it's 12 mg Tar and 0.9 mg Nicotine. Bon appetite.
3. "...Gotham on all the corners." - A poetic way of saying that the Yankees had the bases loaded. Dennis Tallett writes:
"Colloquial term and nickname for New York City, it first appeared in the humorous work Salmagundi by Washington Irving."

And as Simone Hochreiter points out, Batman fought the bad guys in Gotham City, a thinly disguised reference to the same place.
Chapter 4:
1. "The wall in left seemed arm's length away and 300 cubits high." - Ah, the green monster in Fenway Park. Iain Campbell wrote in to say:
  
  "Maybe just coincidence, but the number 300 cubits does have resonance, because it is the length (not the height) of Noah's Ark (Genesis 6:15, KJV.)"
2. "Striking out Tommy Henrich" - Known as "Old Reliable" he played for the Yankees 1937-42 and 46-50 (the gap is his service in WWII.) Mostly played outfield, but his clutch hitting was what won him fame. Take him down, Spenser.
Chapter 5:
1. "Across the river MIT loomed like a concrete temple to the Great God Brown" - This was on my Unknown page for quite a while before I got an E-mail from contributor Amy Sneed:
  "'The Great God Brown' was a 1926 Eugene O'Neill play. I found this on Yahoo by searching for 'great god brown.' Wasn't able to find anything out about the play but really didn't have time to look."
  
  Bullseye! A trip to the library confirmed the reference. The character
  referred to in the title was an unimaginative architect who could only
  design clunky lumps of buildings. It was his artist friend who hung the
  nickname on him. From what little I could gather online it is one of
  O'Neill's lesser-known works. I found it an enjoyable read.
2. "...the fearful symmetry of the hall." - William Blake, The Tyger.
  Tyger, tyger, burning bright,
  In the forests of the night;
  what immortal hand or eye,
  could shape they fearful symmetry?
  
  To learn more about the metaphysics of Blake's writing you might want to visit http://www.pathguy.com/tyger.htm and read about this poem.
3. "Some old-timey ball player said something about you have to have a lot of little boy in you to play this game, but you gotta be a man too." - Spenser says it was Roy Campanella. I don't have any hard evidence to say otherwise, so I'll take his word for it...
  You want some hard evidence? Let's listen to veteran contributor Dennis Tallett:
  
  "Roy Campanella said, 'You gotta be a man to play baseball for a living but you gotta have a lot of little boy in you, too.' Ref. Sports Quotes by Bob Abel and Michael Valenti who link it to The New York Times, 12 April, 1957."
Chapter 6: "I'd have to stop buying the house brand at Vito's Superette." - A back handed complement to Vinny's Superette in Somerville, a long established convenience store and deli that gets great write-ups in the local papers. See Vinny's
Chapter 9: "Cleanliness is [, indeed,] next to godliness" - John Wesley, Sermon 93, On Dress.
Chapter 10:
1. "Beauty and the Beast" - A children's fairy tale (not to mention an excellent Disney animated movie).
2. Spenser muses on the Mississippi river:
  1. "Cartier and La Salle" - Dennis Tallett writes:
    
    "Jacques Cartier (?1491-1557) French explorer discovered the St. Lawrence River in 1534 and claimed it for France
    
    Robert La Salle (1643-1687) French explorer discovered the upper Mississippi and reached its mouth in 1632"
  2. "Grant at Vicksburg" - Dennis further explains:
    
    "Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) Commander of the Union Army pursued the Confederate Army alongside the Mississippi to Vicksburg, laid siege and won. Later became President."
  3. "...it's lovely to live on a raft." Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 19.
  4. "A mile wide and 'just keeps rolling.'" - Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi [1883], Chapter 4: "the Magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun."
    In addition, Lisa Hicks writes:
    
    I think the part about "just keeps rolling" is in the song "Ol' Man River" from the musical "Showboat". See Lyrics
3. "Aw come on, Hondo" - Referring to the 1953 movie starring John Wayne. Army dispatch rider Hondo Lane discovers a woman and her son living in the midst of warring Apaches, and he becomes their protector.
4. "Come to where the flavor is" - Marlboro cigarettes. In the television ads a chorus would sing that line in the background as a tall, good-looking cowboy rode along some scenic part of the American West, which they referred to as "Marlboro Country," while the theme music from The Magnificent Seven played in the background. The cowboy would then light up one of their cigarettes.
  That actor, David McLean, was known as the "Marlboro Man." Sadly he died of cancer caused by smoking up to five packs a day while the cameras tried to get exactly the right shots and his widow filed suit against Philip Morris Inc. in 1996. As far as I know it is still tied up in the court system.
5. "The ghost of Christmas past. Maybe of a Christmas future for the Burlingtons" - A reference to the three Ghosts of Christmas from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. For more information, see the stuff I wrote about it in the guide page for The Godwulf Manuscript
Chapter 11:
1. "We never sleep" - See Oft Quoted.
2. "Trouble is my business" - Raymond Chandler. Dennis Tallett adds:
  
  1950. A short story by Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) but NOT a Philip Marlowe story. It appears in "The Simple Art of Murder" (1950) - Essays and Short Stories, but was omitted from the Vintage edition in 1988.
Chapter 12:
1. "All he lacked was a sign saying "THE PIMP IS IN." - Iain Campbell caught this one:
  "A reference to the Charlie Brown cartoons, where Lucy has her booth, with the sign that the shrink is in. (She charges 5 cents!)"
  Does Lucy have to turn the nickels over to Violet afterwards?
2. "I didn't come down here to write a sonnet about your Easter Bonnet" - Iain also noted that this is from the 1948 movie Easter Parade, words and music by Irving Berlin, performed by Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. See Lyrics
Chapter 13:
1. "I bought you violets for your furs."
  Larry Wiener writes:
  
  That's the title and first line of a song by Matt Dennis, a singer and song-writer of the 40s, 50s, and possible beyond. He also wrote, "Let's Get Away From It All," and many other songs. Spenser is here indicating a familiarity with big-band music.
  
  In the A&E movie version of Small Vices Spenser notes him as "Best Songwriter," and RBP mentioned in a recent interview that he knows the man, and that he is still performing in the L.A. area. Matt wrote the music and performed it, but the words were written by his longtime partner Tom Adair. See Lyrics
2. "The Wings of the Dove...a golden bowl" - "Henry James. It's a book joke." The Wings of the Dove and A Golden Bowl are the titles of two of his books.
3. "Is Nedicks still open?" - A diner (or "big hot dog stand") that was a fixture in the New York theater district for years.
4. "The truth...will set us free." - John 8:32: "The truth shall make you free."
5. "You and Rex Harrison." - I love getting E-mails like the following. Once again Iain Campbell noticed one I missed:
  
  "A reference to the show 'My Fair Lady' in which Rex Harrison plays Professor Higgins, the linguistics prof who transforms Eliza Doolittle into a lady, for a wager. The original of the show is George Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion' which is referenced in the following chapter (which reference goes back to the Greek play, but enough is enough!)"
  
  No, enough is never enough! Just for the fun of it Jay R. Ashworth points to another branch of the same tree:
  
  "It may be worth noting, also, that the 'My Fair Lady' reference might also have some connection - in our context - to the fact that Damon Runyon also did this one, as 'Madame La Gimp,' which was turned into the '30s movie 'Lady for a Day.'"
  
  Frank Capra made that movie in 1933. He later remade it as 'Pocketful of Miracles' in 1961 with Bette Davis as Apple Annie, Glenn Ford as Dave the Dude, and Peter Falk as Joy Boy.
  And to take it back to the origin Iain mentioned above, read about the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea that started it all:
  http://www.loggia.com/myth/galatea.html
Chapter 15:
1. Bas cuisine - "Low cuisine," as opposed to "haute cuisine," like the stuff you get in posh restaurants cooked up by the guys with the big white hats. Parker is making up a phrase that doesn't exist, and screwing up the language. See the article Slightly Off 'Bas'
2. "'Tis better to know than not to know" - ?
Chapter 16:
1. ""Words...what a magic web you weave with them." - This stumped me, but not Linda Hickman:
  
  "That could be from 'The Lady of Shalott' by Alfred Lord Tennyson:
  
  'There she weaves by night and day
  A magic web with colours gay.
  She has heard a whisper say,
  A curse is on her if she stay
  To look down to Camelot'"
  
  Looks right to me. Thanks Linda.
2. "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." - Hisao Tomihari wrote in to note that it is a quote from Green Bay Packer's coach Vince Lombardi.
3. "When we stop learning, we stop growing." - Anyone know the origin of this one? It's in such common use now that my web searches couldn't narrow it down.
Chapter 17: "Buttons and Bows" - Song title
- Larry Wiener writes:
  
  The song is actually an Oscar winner, from the year 1948. The movie was The Paleface, with Bob Hope and Jane Russell.
- Shawn Hassell adds:
  
  This song is from "The Paleface", starring Bob Hope, who sang the song. It was written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.
The Oscar was for Best Music, Original Song. See Lyrics
Chapter 18: "Sound mind in a healthy body" - See Oft Quoted.
Chapter 19:
1. "You already have, ma'am" - Jack Webb, Dragnet
2. "There'll always be an England." - From Iain Campbell once again:
  
  "We find Spenser giving a thumbs up as in the old RAF war movies, and he ends with 'There'll always be an England,' a well know song from the Blitz, popular in sing-songs in English pubs and on the 'Last Night at the Proms' in England, written by Ross Parker (any relation?) and Hughie Charles."
  
  It's from the 1941 film Nice Girl? starring Deanna Durbin. See Lyrics
3. "'Only where love and need are one...And the work is play for goddamned mortal stakes / Is the deed ever really done.'" - See Oft Quoted and Poetry (Two Tramps in Mud Time)
4. "one of the Vermeer prints, the one of the Dutch girl with a milk pitcher." - The title is either "Maid with Milk Pitcher" or "The Milk Maid" depending on the translator.
Chapter 20:
1. "I had breakfast in a diner, nothing could be finer." - takeoff on Chattanooga Choo Choo, written by Johnny Mercer. It appeared in "Sun Valley Serenade," a 1941 Sonja Henie vehicle, and was nominated for a "Best Song" Oscar. "Dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer/ than to eat your ham and eggs in Carolina." See Lyrics
  Contributor Simone Hochreiter notes that part of that line matches an earlier song, Carolina in the Morning by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn, 1922. "Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning." Was Mr. Mercer (who BTW lived in Savannah, Georgia) influenced by Mr. Kahn? Nothing I have come across points that way but... See Lyrics
2. "Elementary, my dear Holmes." - Actually, Holmes was usually the one saying "Elementary," but you get the idea.
3. "Nature never betrayed the heart that loved her." - William Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey [July 15, 1798], lines 122-3: "Nature never did betray/the heart that loved her.
Chapter 21:
1. "Ah sweet bird of youth." - See Oft Quoted.
2. "Because it's there." - Hisao Tomihari found this one. See Oft Quoted
3. "Ah when you and I were young, Sarah." - The song When You and I Were Young, Maggie was written by Geo. W. Johnson and J.A. Butterfield in 1910. Spenser had just noted the music playing on Lester's radio. "The top forty. Music with the enchantment and soul of a penny gum machine." Knowing his taste in music, I think the Sarah he is referring to is Sarah Vaughan. Play one of her records and then talk about enchantment and soul. See Lyrics
4. "Early to bed, early to rise" - (makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise). Proverb. Benjamin Franklin included it in the first edition of Poor Richard's Almanac (1732), a collection of homespun wisdom and folk sayings. An annual sale of 10,000 or so copies in the colonies was a phenomenal success, something not unlike a new Harry Potter book.
Chapter 22: "Do-or-die for old Siwash." - From Good Old Siwash, the fight song of the Latin School in Boston.
Chapter 23:
1. "Win this one for the Gipper" - see The Godwulf Manuscript
2. "It counts not if you win or lose but how you play the game." -
  - Glenn Everett writes:
    
    "From the great sports writer Grantland Rice:
    
    'When the Great Scorekeeper comes to write against your name,
    He asks not whether you won or lost, but how you played the game.'
    
    This is from memory, so consider it a paraphrase, not a quotation."
  - Dennis Tallet confirms:
    
    "The poem: Aluminus Football.
    
    'For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name
    He writes- not that you won or lost- but how you played the game.'"
Chapter 25:
1. "Oh, to be torn 'tween love and duty": It's from the title song to the 1952 Gary Cooper movie High Noon, one of the classic westerns. Music by Dmitri Tiomkin, lyrics by Ned Washington, it was sung by Tex Ritter.
  High Noon won the 1953 Academy and Golden Globe Awards for best musical score. The song “High Noon” also earned the 1953 Academy Award for best song. See Lyrics.
2. "I walked up the road toward the dell. High-ho a dairy-o." - The Farmer in the Dell (nursery rhyme)
3. "Say it ain't so, Frankie." - Hisao Tomihari pointed out that this is obviously a rewording of the famous "say it ain't so, Joe." See Oft Quoted
Chapter 26:
1. "Out, out, damned spot." - Simone Hochreiter reminded me that I forgot to include this one. Shakespeare, MacBeth, Act V, scene 1.
2. "There is a knife blade in the grass, and a tiger lies just outside the fire." - I'd love to know where this comes from, but many hours toiling over a search engine have turned up nothing. Susan notes that it is "bathetic" and "bad verse."
Chapter 27:
1. "I'll be back" - OK, our first thought would be to say "Oh yeah, that's Ahhnold in The Terminator". However, since this book came out loooooong before that movie did, we'll have to find another movie to pick. Unfortunately, I can't think of a single one. Any takers?
  Actually the line in the book is "...as they say in all the movies, Bucky, I'll be back". Generally meaning "I'm leaving now, but our business is not finished," it's the kind of thing a tough cop or private eye would say on his way out the door in a movie from the classic era.
2. "I am not in sorrow's clutch" - Iain pointed out the quoted look of this one so I went out searching. The closest I found was in Beowulf
  
  "but sorrow holds him tightly grasped in gripe
  of anguish, in baleful bonds, where bide he must"
  
  and so on through several million words. It's a little surprising to hear it come from Quirk, but he does show a flash of erudition once in a while.
Chapter 30:
1. "I've seen the big red S on your chest" - A reference to Superman, no doubt, something Spenser's been compared to before...
2. "Who has it...he that died a Wednesday?" - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1. Falstaff is mocking the concept of honor.
3. "Enough with the love talk, off with the clothes" - He seems to like that phrase, doesn't he? And I'll be damned if I can find a reference to it anywhere... It took until nearly the end of 2005 before someone answered this. See Oft Quoted

Promised Land

Chapter 1:
1. "Madame Sosostris." - This one slipped right by me but Dennis Tallett sent the following:
  
  "Spenser has just moved into his new office that was once used by a fortune teller and he mentions the name of Madame Sosostris.
  
  'Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante
  Had a bad cold, nevertheless
  Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
  With a wicked pack of cards.'
  
  She can be found in The Waste Land - Burial of the Dead by T.S. Eliot, stanza 3, line 43." See Poetry
2. "You're gonna run for president..." - Being as I am middle-aged and a local of this area it seemed obvious to me, but Gabrielle Devenish wrote in to note the following:
  
  "I didn't get what he was alluding to, so I did a little searching. Turns out Hyannis is where JFK spent many of his boyhood summers."
  
  That's former president John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and while the family still gathers at their compound in Hyannisport I can't understand why anyone still cares.
Chapter 2:
1. "...loosing the surly bonds of earth." - A play on High Flight by John G. Magee Jr. a quite stirring poem about the joys of flying. I put a copy on the Poetry page.
2. "The way to a man's remorse is through his stomach" - A play on Fanny Fern's Fern Leaves [1853]: "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."
3. "Better late than never" - Livy [Titus Livus] History, Book IV, Section 23: "Potius sero quam numquam."
4. "Susan's smile was Technicolor, Cinemascope, and stereophonic sound." - I missed this one but Merricat pointed out it was from the song "Stereophonic Sound" from the musical Silk Stocking, a 1955 musical comedy starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, although this song was performed by Fred and Janis Paige. Words and music by the immortal Cole Porter. See Lyrics
5. "Where in hell were you twenty years ago?" "Marrying the wrong guy." - Hisao Tomihari noted that this is a reference to the conversation between Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca:
  
  "Where were you, say, ten years ago?"
  "Ten years ago? Let's see, yes, I was having a brace put on my teeth. Where were you?"
  "Looking for a job."
Chapter 3: "If Bartholemew Gosnold had approached the cape from this direction he would have kept on going." - The famed navigator discovered and named Cape Cod in 1602.
Chapter 4:
1. "Ah, the fertility of my imagination. Maybe she was the captive of a dark mysterious count in a castle on the English Moors." - Could this just be Spenser's fertile imagination, or is this a reference to a story?
  Simone Hochreiter wrote in to note:
  
  "It is an allusion to the 'Gothic Novel', a popular kind of novel at the England of the 18th/19th century. The Bronte sisters were the most famous writers of that particular novel, most famous Wuthering Heights."
2. "A man's gotta believe in something." - It sounds like a line from an old movie, John Wayne or Humphrey Bogart, that kind of thing. The closest I got was a sign I saw in a bar once: "A man's gotta believe in something...I believe I'll have another drink."
Chapter 6:
1. "Kemo Sabe." Eddie Taylor thinks he is very funny talking to the American Indian bartender in old-time stereotyped dialogue. It's from the radio and later TV show The Lone Ranger. While the phrase was often translated as "faithful friend" or "trusty scout," researchers variously pegged it as "one who is white" or even "soggy shrub." The best guess is that one of the original writers saw a sign for a boys summer camp, Ke Mo Sah Bee. The best rendition of the story I've found is at http://www.old-time.com/misc/kemo.html Thanks to Kerry Shannon for pointing out that I had not mentioned this one.
2. "It's because my heart is pure." - And as such his strength is as the strength of ten. Hisao Tomihari points out that this is the first mention of the line from Sir Galahad by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. See Oft Quoted and Poetry
Chapter 7: "...woke up in the morning feeling like Bartleby the Scrivener." - A story by Herman Melville, about a clerk slowly going mad with these sort of duties.
Chapter 8: "If you'll get your Amazon to unguard the door" - The Amazons were a legendary tribe of Women warriors. Kerry Shanley caught this one and pointed out a great link to the ninth labor of Hercules and his dealings with them at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hercules/amazon.html
Chapter 9: "Protests, excursion and alarums." - Stage directions from Shakespeare, especially the plays about the various Henrys (4,5,and 6). I imagine much protesting was done, "excursion" refers to the moving around of the characters and "Alarums" is the equivalent of the modern "noises off" or offstage noises meant to imply that something is happening (soldiers fighting as an example.) Dealing with Pam Shepard's new friends was a little less intense than the Battle of Agincourt but apparently not by much.
Chapter 10: "...you're sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod." - An unforgettable song by Patti Page, it hit #3 on the top 40 in 1957. I visited her web site and found that she's still going strong. See Lyrics
Chapter 11:
1. "Home's where you can go and they have to take you in" - Robert Frost, The Death of the Hired Man.
2. "Of course, you also can't do a great deal about famine, war, pestilence, and death." - A reference to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, as described in Revelation 6:1-8 (King James Version, of course):
  One wonders if the Biblical reference was intentional, given the name Promised Land, and its own biblical reference.
Chapter 13:
1. "You mean love and marriage, they go together like a horse and carriage?" - Aside from being the theme of the TV show Married With Children (sung by Frank Sinatra), it's the title of a song written by Sammy Cahn (lyrics) and Jimmy van Heusen (music) for the TV musical Our Town [1955]. See Lyrics
2. "I was beginning to see black spots dancing like visions of sugar plums before my eyes" - Most likely a reference to Clement Clarke Moore's A Visit from St. Nicholas [December 1823]: "The children were nestled all snug in their beds, / while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads." See Poetry
Chapter 14: "Sweets for the sweet, my love." - Dennis Tallett notes:

"'Sweet to the sweet; farewell!' said Gertrude in Hamlet, Act V, scene 1, line 237, as she scatters petals over the dead Ophilia."
Chapter 15: "I [am] not a crook" - Richard Milhous Nixon, Press Conference [11 November, 1973]
- Dennis Tallett supplied the following:
  
  "'Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.' President Richard Nixon to newspaper editors in Orlando, FL, 17 Nov. 1973, when he was questioned about his taxes."
Chapter 18:
1. "The Children of the Dream." - Susan is sitting in a chaise by the pool reading Bruno Bettelheim's book, subtitled "Communal Child-Rearing and American Education", published in 1969. Good to see the guidance counselor keeping her professional nose to the grindstone.
2. "A little Scott Joplin music in the background, maybe." - Once again Iain Campbell reminded me to include what I had passed over as too obvious to mention (at least to an old timer like myself):
  
  "I'm guessing that since Spenser is rejoicing at the thought of flimflamming King Powers, this is a reference to Joplin's hit music in The Sting, the 1973 movie with (Robert) Redford and (Paul) Newman in which 'Two clever con artists arrange an elaborate sting against a powerful crime lord.'"
  
  Scott Joplin (1867-1917) was one of the masters of the "ragtime" style of music. His Maple Leaf Rag has never gone out of date but just about the time of his death a new form called "Jazz" took over and people forgot the earlier works. In The Sting the distinctive theme is from his 1902 composition The Entertainer. Ask your parents what I mean when I say that the "45 rpm" is turning on my "record player" as I write this.
3. "Cogito ergo sum" - René Descartes, Le Discours de la Méthode [1637], IV: "I think, therefore I am" (Je pense, donc je suis). Originally stated by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, Book IX, Chapter 9: "To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence."
4. "...sicklied over with the pale cast of thought." - From Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Act 3 scene 1.
Chapter 20: "Put a lot of change in your purse." - "Put money in thy purse" is what Iago says. Shakespeare, Othello [1604-5], Act I, Scene 3, line 345.
Chapter 21:
1. "Into each life some shit must fall" - a somewhat more modern version of a line from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Rainy Day [1842], stanza 3: "Into each life some rain must fall/Some days must be dark and dreary"
2. "The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know." - Dennis Tallett has identified this as a 19th century proverb.
3. "On the walls of the observatory...were graffiti...some remarks about the sister of somebody named Mangan." - Most likely a reference to the character of the same name in the short story Araby , from James Joyce's Dubliners. A fairly depressing story, but not a bad one. I read it when I was a freshman at Northeastern.
4. The observatory and view at the Blue Hills reservation. Graffiti is in abundance, but Mangan is not mentioned :) See my pictures at The Tower

Chapter 22: "Tough but oh so gentle" - See Oft Quoted
Chapter 24:
1. "Death before dishonor" - Hmm. The closest I can find is Horace's Odes, Book IV [23 B.C.], part 1, line 45: "It is not the rich man you should properly call happy, but him who...fears dishonor worse than death." Jacob Sconyers points out a more likely source:
  
  "I think a less rarified reference would be more appropriate. In the paramilitary context of the book, and keeping Spenser's own service in mind, it may be that he is simply referring to the long-time unofficial credo of the Marine Corps."
  
  Indeed, there was a 1987 movie about the US Marines with the title "Death Before Dishonor." I also traced it to Lucius Annaeus Seneca (circa 5bc-65ad) but Spenser was probably not mentally translating "Potius mori quam foedari." (Thank you Iain, as always, for helping me get the Latin right.)
2. "He will not go behind his father's saying" - Robert Frost, Mending Wall [1914], (confirmed by Mikael Holmberg). See Poetry
Chapter 25:
1. "The Suffolk County Court House in Pemberton Square" - I did a little study of the history of Pemberton here
2. "Good hunting, Clyde." - Referring to Clyde Beatty (1902-1965), a circus owner and wild animal trainer, mostly remembered for his daring stunts involving lions. He appeared in several serials and feature films as a dashing a