Shepherd Mead struck pay dirt when his humorous handbook, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (1952), was transformed into a smash hit musical, first on Broadway and then as a film starring Robert Morse. Loosely based on Mead’s own experiences in advertising, both book and play track the improbable rise of J. Pierrepont Finch from window washer to chairman of the board of a New York corporation — all in one week. After the wild success of “How to Succeed in Business,” Mead left advertising to become a full-time author, settling for a time in Britain. Recognizing a selling formula, he soon brought out “How to Get Rich in TV Without Really Trying” (1956), “How to Succeed With Women Without Really Trying” (1957) and then “How to Live like a Lord Without Really Trying” (1964). This last — now improbably reprinted by Oxford for the scholarly Bodleian Library — shows how an American businessman and his family learn to cope with British foibles and social customs.
No doubt the distinguished publishers figured that the popularity of “Downton Abbey” and films like “The King’s Speech” had created a natural audience for a comic portrait of a now vanished, or vanishing, way of life. For Mead, England is still a place of black-suited businessmen with rolled umbrellas, of insufficient home heating and inefficient health services, of complicated school options for children, of impoverished aristocrats and well-defined social castes. Some of this still survives, though much of it only in the green and pleasant land of our imaginations and of BBC television series.
(Bodleian Library) - ”How to Live like a Lord Without Really Trying” by Shepherd Mead remains charming in its old-fashionedness.
(Anton) - The delightful drawings by Anton will make older readers feel they are back in the heyday of Holiday magazine and the Saturday Evening Post.
“How to Live Like a Lord” is itself an example of a subgenre that has largely disappeared: the truly lighthearted, mildly diverting book, written by a professional humorist with no greater goal than to provide civilized amusement for an idle hour or two. By contrast, today’s comic writing tends to be far more edgy, vulgar and satirical. Those of a certain age may remember some of the once-famous practitioners of this sunny, innocent style: Will Cuppy (“The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody”); Richard Armour (“Twisted Tales From Shakespeare”); H. Allen Smith (“Low Man on a Totem Pole”); and, best of all, Max Shulman, whose books — “Barefoot Boy With Cheek,” “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” “Sleep Till Noon” — I revere to this day.
“How to Live Like a Lord” opens with an announcement that “this is not a U.S. Government Publication,” followed by a cautionary note for British readers. Mead sternly warns that his guide to social and financial success in England is meant solely for Americans. However, “some British readers, tossing caution to the winds, are sure to benefit extravagantly from it. Others, alas, will mistrust the easily won leisure, position and riches, and will want to return to their familiar ways of hardship, poverty, and suffering. It is a choice you will have to make.” Mead further emphasizes, in the solicitous deadpan tone he maintains throughout, that, as in his previous “text books,” the “bits of dialogue are intended not to amuse, but only to illustrate difficult points.”
This commenter is a Washington Post contributor. Post contributors aren’t staff, but may write articles or columns. In some cases, contributors are sources or experts quoted in a story.
Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments, as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.
To pause and restart automatic updates, click "Live" or "Paused". If paused, you'll be notified of the number of additional comments that have come in.
Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments, as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.
.JPG)
Loading...
Comments