| The Mysteries of Harris Burdick | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Chris Van Allsburg |
| Illustrator | Chris Van Allsburg |
| Country | United States |
| Genre(s) | Children's, Fantasy novel |
| Publication date | 1984 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Preceded by | The Wreck of the Zephyr |
| Followed by | The Polar Express |
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick is a 1984 picture book by the American author Chris Van Allsburg consisting of a series of unrelated, highly detailed images in the author's distinctive style. Each image is accompanied by a title and a single line of text, which compel readers to create their own stories.[1]
A fictional editor's note tells of an encounter with an author and illustrator named Harris Burdick, who provided the images and captions as samples, each from a different picture book he had written. He left with a promise to deliver the complete manuscripts if the editor chose to buy the books. Burdick was never seen again, and the samples are all that remain of his supposed books. Readers are challenged to imagine their own stories based on the images in the book.
The image/title/caption pairings all suggest stories that are magical or fantastical and range from sinister to intriguing to whimsical. The book is sometimes used in schools as a springboard for creative writing exercises.
The book is available in a Portfolio Edition which includes another image/caption pair from the story "Missing in Venice". Which was found in a mirror that a man bought in the bookstore. The mirror shattered, and the picture fell out, with the title of, "Missing in Venice".
Contents |
The story starts in 1954, where a children's book editor named Peter Wenders is at his office, when a man wearing glasses and a fedora comes in. The man introduces himself as Harris Burdick, and tells Wenders that he has 14 stories that he'd written and had brought one picture from each story with a caption. Wenders told him that he was fascinated by these drawings and he told him to bring the stories tomorrow. Burdick was glad to bring them, and he was delighted at the thought of them published.
The next day, Burdick didn't show up. Burdick never returned to Wenders' office. Over the years, Wenders tried to find out who Harris Burdick was, but he never found out.
In 1984, Chris Van Allsburg visited Wenders' office, and Wenders showed him Burdick's drawings. Van Allsburg decided that maybe if he publishes the drawings, they may find out who Harris Burdick was.
Both Wenders and Van Allsburg were sure that someone would come with information about Burdick. Then, finally, in 1993, at last a breakthrough. A man named Daniel Hirsch explained he was a dealer in antique books, and that back in 1963, when Hirsch was in Bangor, Maine, he found an entire library, which had previously belonged to an elderly woman that had recently died. Hirsch purchased the entire collection, including an antique mirror with portraits of characters from Through the Looking-Glass. In 1994, the mirror fell from the wall and cracked open. Upon removing shards of glass, Hirsch made a remarkable discovery. Neatly concealed between the wooden frame was an image identical to Burdick's work.
The caption on the bottom identified it being from the Burdick story "Missing in Venice". Why the picture was in the mirror is unknown. But Hirsch still had one book from the library that he purchased the mirror. It was an old Italian copy of Pinocchio. It had a bookplate with the inscription "Hazel Bartlett: Her Book". Though the names Burdick and Bartlett are very similar to each other, all information to find a Hazel Bartlett of Bangor have remained fruitless.
As said on the Burdick website, Peter Wenders died in 2000 at the age of 91.
The short story "The House On Maple Street" which appears in Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes is inspired by the last image/caption in The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.
The cover illustration of The Mysteries of Harris Burdick—featured inside the book with the caption "Another Place, Another Time"—appears to have been inspired by, and based on an Erich Lessing photograph from the June, 1959 issue of National Geographic magazine. The photograph, which accompanies a feature article about post-war Germany, shows a group of children riding a sail-powered rail car on tracks linking the mainland with the Halligen, a group of islands in the North Sea.[2]
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