The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #142461   Message #3285621
Posted By: MGM·Lion
06-Jan-12 - 12:11 AM
Thread Name: Treasure Island
Subject: RE: Treasure Island
No, sorry ~ can't. I think "D/A concertina" would probably be best description. I said "D-major," I think, because IIRc that was how Peter Bellamy described it when he told me to die quickly so he could get his hands on it and the conversation had stuck in my memory: that's all. But best way to specify pitch of an Anglo is surely to give key of its middle row, followed by that of bottom row which will always be the middle row's dominant?

The fact that a novel is fiction does not mean that the author has not striven for reality; and I repeat that RLS was emphatic about Dr Livesey's wig-wearing. My remarks about the ubiquity of these among the gentry obviously applied, I should have thought, to the british gentry. It is perfectly possible that in US the mores were to an extent different ~ I don't know, & I bet you don't either; tho I accept your attempt to provide an exception to my rule is a good one, but, for reasons given above, not I think incontrovertible. Interesting IMO that SRS has not come back when she was so "sure" that lots of "exceptions" would be easy to find. So where are they, SRS, eh?

Anyhow, without wishing to be a bore, I reiterate my point, WHICH NOBODY YET HAS SUCCEEDED IN REFUTING, that the omission of the wigs which were an invariable part of English gentry costume of the period, and which were several times mentioned as such by Stevenson in his narrative, was a serious error in the production, detracting greatly from its conviction as a narrative supposedly occurring in a specific period.