(The classic tale of leaving the city and building a house...)
The classic tale of leaving the city and building a house in the country, only to find country life isn't so simple. But it is hilarious.
Mr. Blandings, a successful New York advertising executive, and his wife want to escape the confines of their tiny midtown apartment. They design the perfect home in the idyllic country, but soon they are beset by construction troubles, temperamental workmen, skyrocketing bills, threatening lawyers, and difficult neighbors. Mr. Blandings' dream house soon threatens to be the nightmare that undoes him.
This internationally bestselling book by Eric Hodgins is illustrated by William Steig and was made into a film starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy -- and a later film starring Tom Hanks called The Money Pit.
(This book is critical to the success of your energy busin...)
This book is critical to the success of your energy business. This book is THE book on the history of energy and power. It includes who did it and why; what problems they faced and how they were solved. This is a story of the evolution and growth of energy that hardly anyone really understands. Every alternative energy project, every one of them has failed; died in flames, because those doing it did not understand the true evolution of energy which is so finely illustrated in this book.
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This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
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Eric Francis Hodgings was an American journalist, editor and writer. He is best known as an author of books Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, Blandings’ Way, Episode.
Background
Eric Francis Hodgins was born on March 2, 1899 in Detroit, Michigan. He was the son of the Reverend Frederic Brinkley Hodgins, an Episcopal clergyman and editor, and Edith Gertrude Bull. Because of his father's frequent shifting of church duties, the family moved often.
In his autobiography, Hodgins described his father as a frustrated journalist, his mother as suffering from what appeared to be nervous disorders, and himself as a bright but whiny, only child.
Education
Hodgins attended the Protestant Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia through 1915 and then the Trinity School in New York City, where he received his high school diploma in 1917. While at Trinity he discovered the New York Public Library and the world of writing. When Hodgins told his father he had decided to become an engineer, his father admitted that he had wished him to become a journalist.
Hodgins wanted to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but just missed meeting the entrance requirements. He was advised to attend Cornell for one year and then try to transfer, but lack of funds required him to work for a year.
In 1918, he enrolled at Cornell and signed up for the Student Army Training Corps.
In fall 1919, he transferred to MIT as a sophomore, receiving a partial scholarship. In his junior year some of his poetry was published in MIT's humor magazine, VooDoo, and in his senior year he became its editor-in-chief and wrote the winning libretto for the drama society's "Tech Show. " He graduated from MIT in 1922.
Career
In 1922, Hodgins became managing editor of the school's alumni journal, the Technology Review. In 1926, he began working evenings for the Youth's Companion and became its managing editor in 1927 and editor in chief in 1928. In 1929, Little, Brown published his first book, Sky High: The Story of Aviation, coauthored with F. Alexander Magoun. Hodgins remained at Youth's Companion through 1929, when it was bought by American Boy. He then moved to New York City, first selling advertising for Redbook and then becoming its associate editor. At the same time he was contributing to the New Yorker, and in 1932 he and Magoun published Behemoth: The Story of Power, a history of power and mechanical engineering.
Soon after Hodgins's wife's death in early 1933, Henry R. Luce of Time, Inc. , invited him to join his three-year-old business journal, Fortune, as associate editor under managing editor Ralph Ingersoll. His first major assignment, an exposé on the European munitions industry, "Arms and the Men, " drew wide attention. Hodgins wrote that his wife's death, alcohol, and depression hit him all at once, and in October 1934 he attempted suicide. He returned to work in short order, however.
When Luce named Ingersoll general manager of Time, Inc. , in 1935, Hodgins moved into his place at Fortune. As the journal's managing editor, he was known to be an able administrator and responsible for substantial notable editorial material, with writers such as James Agee, Russell Davenport, Edward Kennedy, Archibald MacLeish, and Charles Wertenbaker on staff.
In 1937, with a reorganization at Time, Inc. , Luce named Hodgins as publisher of Fortune. In the late 1930s, Luce became concerned that Fortune more openly disclose its bias toward capitalism, a stance that caused some consternation among several staff writers. Hodgins, who had warned Luce before being hired that he was by no means conservative, found himself in the middle, although he attempted to look for resolutions. While the magazine was not known to be unfriendly toward business, it wanted business to be accountable for its actions and more open about its activities. In another reorganization at Time, Inc. , in 1940, Hodgins was named editor in chief as well as publisher. He remained publisher until 1941, when he returned to writing full time. He also served as a vice-president until 1946.
The April 1946 issue of Fortune included an article by Hodgins titled "Mr. Blandings Builds His Castle. " The witty, fictional account of the trials and tribulations of an advertising executive (Hodgins in disguise) in building a house in New Milford, Connecticut, was reprinted in several other journals. Hodgins reshaped it into a book, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, which was published that same year. In reviews, Orville Prescott called it "savagely satiric, " and Brooks Atkinson described it as a "wry" book by an author who was both "light and expert. "
Hodgins confessed that the book was one of the easiest tasks of his life, and that he completed it in less than three months. The book resulted in an even more famous film, starring Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, and Melvyn Douglas.
In 1950, Hodgins published the successor novel, Blandings' Way, which recounts Blandings's experiences while living in the dream house, and how he is nearly undone by accusations of having Communist leanings. Hodgins felt this was a better novel than his first. In his New York Times review (October 8, 1950), Nathaniel Benchley called it "a cheerful portrayal of a man in anguish. " Both books were Book-of-the-Month Club selections. Hodgins remained a writer at Time, Inc. , until the late 1950s. He served as a member of the President's Materials Policy Commission (the Paley Commission) between 1950 and 1952. He was supervisory editor of its five-volume report, Resources for Freedom (1952).
In 1960, he suffered a severe stroke. His lengthy recovery, including a stay as a patient in a psychiatric clinic and further hospitalization for a hip fracture, were related in his book Episode: Report on the Accident Inside My Skull (1964). The book received the Howard W. Blakeslee Award from the American Heart Association.
Hodgins died in New York City. He left behind his uncompleted autobiography. In a foreword, John Kenneth Galbraith wrote of Hodgins's enormous respect in the publishing world as an editor and writer.
Hodgins credited his first political awakenings, which occurred in Philadelphia, to the presidential election of 1912 and the conspicuous role of the local Republican leader, Boies Penrose.
Before being hired as a writer for Fortune, Hodgins warned Luce he was by no means conservative. The magazine itself, although not unfriendly toward business, wanted business to be accountable for its actions and more open about its activities.
Views
Quotations:
"Looking back on 1918 through the murk of half a century, I often won der what in hell was biting the youth of my day, for it was our ambition to be selected for officer training school and thus be sent to France for slaughter. Thus, Nov. 11, 1918, was a day which cast us all into the deepest gloom: our ‘chance’ was gone. I now find this as in comprehensible as I find the attitudes of today's youth. "
Personality
Hodgins was called a "man of waspish wit, " both "light and expert. "
Connections
On July 5, 1930, Hodgins married Catherine Cornforth Carlson, who had been an editorial assistant at Youth's Companion. She died in childbirth in early 1933. Their son survived.
On October 31, 1936, Hodgins and Eleanor Treacy, the art editor at Fortune, were married. They had one child but eventually separated.