Posted by Peter H on December 25, 2005 at 15:34:24 from 86.130.138.80 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Lofting and AR posted by andyb on December 25, 2005 at 10:24:29:
I'd say the difference is quite significant. Ben comes across as a braggard, PD as quietly competent
The difference is surely because AR decided his sailor was going to be a good bloke to have along, while Lofting decided his was a loud-mouth and would be dumped, but the basic concept is the same. We ought not to get too defensive about this - nearly all writers 'borrow', and for all we know Lofting may himself have borrowed his characters from somewhere. The idea of an experienced sailor hanging round a quay looking for a berth was hardly unique in the days of sail.
If I may take up here Jock's point made in the thread down below: there has been a paper published about the Ransome/Lofting comparisons - in the USA I think. Does anyone over there know of it? I first realised the connections as a result of talking to Ellen Tillinghast at the TARS Lit W/e in 1991. Ellen was the TARSUS Co-ordinator while she was alive, and a more ardent AR-lover I have yet to meet (she named her twin daughters 'Nancy' and 'Peggy'). Yet she too was fascinated by the similarity between some of the AR and Lofting characters. She had a whole list, which alas I never wrote down. (I can remember that 'Too-too' the wise owl was the 'model' for Dick).
The Dr Dolittle books are published in the UK by Red Fox as paperbacks. The ones that I have got have an 'Afterword' written by Christopher Lofting (a descendant, I presume) in which he rather apologetically explains that some changes have had to be made because 'certain incidents . . were considered by some to be disrespectful to ethnic minorities and therefore perhaps inappropriate for today's young reader'. I also read the Dolittle books when young, and I haven't noticed what they have now taken out. Christopher L says that Hugh would have been the first to make such changes if he thought that offence would otherwise be given. Personally, I think that that is a reasonable attitude to take, and the stories don't seem to have suffered in any way.