This is a relatively obscure one, but I found out after reading Carter Beats the Devil (which is an excellent book) that Charles Carter was a real person.
Chang from *The Adventures of Tintin * was based on Chang Ch’ong-Jen, a Chinese student and friend of Hergé’s who taught him about China and inspired Hergé to adopt his meticulous and realistic style.
Would that be the line (to the effect) “If I did not every now and then kill one of [my crew], they would forget who I am”?
Can’t help imagining Alan Rickman saying that line. Or maybe Gary Oldman.
Davy Crockett served in Congress… so for that period of his life, at least, there is ample documention in the public record of his existance.
Ebenezer Cooke, the protagonist in John Barth’s superb novel, The Sot-Weed Factor, did indeed exist and actually wrote the poem “The Sot-Weed Factor,” which is the basis for the novel. Even more surprising to those who’ve read the book*, the secret of the sacred eggplant is an actual recipe.
*Do so. Now. It is one of the best American novels ever written.
WRONG
Crockett was the first Senator from the State of Tennessee.
Documents signed by him are on display in the State Museum, open during business hours, weekdays. Nashville, Tennessee, one block from the State Capitol Building.
Rifles & shotguns formerly owned by him are displayed, as are portraits painted from life.
Yes, he was real.
Not according to Richard Shenkman, who says that he did exist in his book Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History. He gives cites, at least one of which challenges the naysayefrs (Shenkman’s book is about 17 years old, though).
He also notes in the same chapter that ** John Henry** realy existed, and gives cites for him, too, noting that Eugene O’Neill even wrote a play to resurrect his image and set the record straight. Obviously he didn’t succeed, since most peoople still believe him to be fictional. He didn’t die trying to beat a steam-powered rail driver, though, so I’m not sure what he did to make himself memorable.
Casey Jones existed. Shenkman, again, lists him, but there are several websites about him that you can easily unearth. He apparently really did sacrifice his own life for his passengers, and there’s nothing to substantiate the charge in the famous song abnout him that his wife was unfaithful.
Johnny Appleseed really existed, but he was a practical individual who planted orchards in advance of settlers so that they’d be ready for use by the time the frontier reached him. He wasn’t an altruistic apostle of horticulture, as the Disney cartoon makes him. Shenmkman even says he was a boyhood schoolmate of Uncle Sam (and gives cites).
Mrs. O’Leary owned a cow in Chicago, and it was in her barn that the famous fire started, although all the legends about how it did so are unsubstantiated.
I think there really was a Betsey Ross, although I don’t think anyone credits her with making the first flag anymore.
Vlad Tepes certainly did exist, and had lots of unsavory features, but he wasn’t really the inspiration from Dracula. Stoker already had his Count in mind, and in his manuscript notes originally called his “Count Vampire” or something like thaty. He changed the name to “Dracula”, Tepes’ nickname, l;ater on when he learned about the real-life character’s bloody history. But Stoker already had the character before associating it with the real-life nobleman.
Daniel Webster (of “The Devil and Daniel Webster”) was a real U.S. senator and candidate for president of the United States.
Yeah, but the character in the Tintin comics was still a fictional character, though he might have been based on Herge’s friend.
I was suprised to learn that the whale **Moby Dick ** was based on a rogue sperm whale that rammed The Essex, a whaleship out of Nantucket. This story is told in Nathan Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea.
Much of what is written about Jim Bowie is fictional; likewise the 1950’s TV series and the movie The Iron Mistress starring Alan Ladd. He was the subject of much rumor and exaggeration in his own day. Nonetheless, he was a real person and did die at The Alamo.
Case Sensitive uses this:
“Such a day, Rum all out - Our Company somewhat sober - A damn’d confusion amongst us! - Rogues a-plotting - great Talk of Separation. So I look’d sharp for a Prize - such a Day took one, with a great deal of Liquor on board, so kept the Company hot, damn’d hot, then all Things went well again.”
{from the journal of Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, as quoted by Daniel Defoe}
I wonder if she was a relative of Cardinal Richelieu (whose family name was du Plessis).
How about the ‘Hanging Judge’ Jeffries.
Not some Wild West frontier judge, with frontier standards of justice,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Jeffreys
History has not treated him all that well, his reputation is largely built upon stories spread by Jacobite propagandists, he was not really any better or much worse than others in the legal profession at the time, and is actually more a reflection of the state of British law.
Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, the Clantons and all the folks at the O.K. Corral.
Although, in real life, it’s not entirely certain what happened there.
And all of them were pretty much criminals.
King Arthur and Robin Hood had some reality somewhere down the line- but both have been heavily Mythologized.
The possibly had some reality somewhere down the line. Knowledge in these two cases is so attenuated that they essentially are wholly mythological.
The closest anyone can get is – yeah, there were British Celts who fought against the Anglo-Saxon-Jutish invasion. They must have had warlords; a particularly successful one might have been the model for Arthur, although they wouldn’t have used the word “king” and we have no idea whether “Arthur” would have been a name used by or known to such Britons and we really have no idea about any of the details of such a figure – when he might have lived, which tribe he might have ruled, what battles he might have fought in – and whether it would even be one tribal leader or more than one. Oh, and he might have been a cavalryman. Oh, and he might have been Roman. Or a Romanised Briton. Something like that. Maybe.
It’s a pretty futile exercise.
All we know about Arthur is what he wasn’t – he wasn’t a mediaeval king and he didn’t wear chain mail or have a turretted castle with battlements and he didn’t have knights who dressed in plate and participated in jousts.
Things are similarly murky regarding Robin Hood.
So we might as well call them fictional.
I have four books (there are others, I know) that each argue for one particular historical character being the real King Arthur. (Each book excoriates its predecessors for their choice of King Arthur Candidate). The issue definitely isn’t settled. It could be that none of the prospective candidates are the real thing. I’m personally amazed that we even know that many lives in that much detail from so long ago in what’s not normally considered a well-chronicled time.
I thought the general feeling was that Robin Hood did not exist, and that the usual story had been exposed as mythology.