A Book Containing the Phrase "said I" as opposed to "I said"

Cafe Society
1

I recall when I was in high school I read a book and it would contain phrases like

“I’m going to the store,” said she.

Or

“No, let me live,” cried I.

Or

“I want to be the one,” demanded she

Now normally one would say “No let me live,” I cried, instead of the opposite “cried I.”

So my question is does anyone recall a book made in that tone. Now I read this in high school which was in the mid to late 70s. And since it was for high school it was a book that was probably typical high school required reading material.

I know it’s kind of shooting in the dark but any guesses?

Also as an aside, is there any real grammatical difference between using “I said” versus “said I”?

2

It makes me think of Alice in Wonderland. I’ve no idea if it uses that phrase.

3

It’s fairly common usage by A.A. Milne, though “When We Were Very Young” and “Now We Are Six” wouldn’t be high school texts.

Lewis Carrol was writing in the 1850’s, Milne in the 1920s. We you reading any English classics from that period?

4

There’s this poem from “Our Gang:”

5

Edgar Allan Poe employs this device in The Raven, but poetry must be rife with examples of “said I”.

There are a couple of "said he"s early on in Poe’s short story The Cask of Amontillado, but he got bored with it after a while and stopped doing it.

6

Christopher Moore did it in Fool which is a fairly recent book. But it was set in Shakespeare’s King Lear.

7

It was sophmore high school English class, it wasn’t anything specific just a general English class.

8

Does it have to be the past tense? In chapter 2 of Treasure Island, Billy Bones tells Black Dog, “If it comes to swinging, swing all, say I.”