WHAT HAS WILD TOM DONE NOW?!!!: A Story of Thomas Alva Edison

by Robert Quackenbush ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 17, 1981

Just what the title gives away: a hokey, jokey treatment of Edison as a disasterprone inventor (and sloppy dresser). Roughly, of course, Quackenbush follows the outline of the life; but what he picks up are the eccentricities--not the newsboy business coups or the half-deaf young telegrapher stratagems. So Edison's shrewdness and brazen effrontery (which did figure in his success) never come across, to say nothing of the peculiar nature of his genius. The pictures--three-fourths of the book--are crude, empty burlesques which literally illustrate, without amplifying, the text. As a first meeting with Edison, no better than the worshipful little bios of years past.

Pub Date: April 17, 1981

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Prentice-Hall

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1981

Categories: NONFICTION