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CUBS WIN! Literary Goings-On in 1908: The Last Time They Were World Champs

What was happening in the world of literature the last time the Cubs won the series.

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Tracy Shapley Towley

Staff Writer

Tracy is a freelance copywriter, all-around ne’er do well, very-adult graduate of the University of Iowa, and occasional waterer of plants. Her hobbies include writing fiction, reading fiction, mixing together various flavors of soup, and typing letters to her friends on an old red typewriter that doesn't have a working period so all sentences must end in questions marks or exclamation points? She has read every Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and has a lot of thoughts on them. Her old Iowa farmhouse is shared by her husband Sean, a pair of cats, a pair of dogs, and the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut.

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Like ‘em or love ‘em, the Cubs have FINALLY won the World Series! As a lifelong Cubs fan who lived within spitting distance of Wrigley for half a decade, I’ve had a lot swirling through my head since the dramatic win in Game 7. Things like, “Bill Murray really needs to be crowned America’s Sweetheart already,” and “Would it be legal to force the players to live in a house together under constant surveillance so we can keep up with their zany antics all winter?”

the pin

I’ve never known joy like Bill-Murray-the-moment-the-Cubs-won-joy.

And also, of course, I’ve been thinking about this historic win through the lens of literary history. So just what was going on the last time the Cubs won the World Series, all the way back in 1908? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

 

New lit published in 1908

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It should also be noted that the bestseller in 1908 was a book called Mr. Crewe’s Career by Winston Churchill. No, not the Winston Churchill you’re thinking of. A different Winston Churchill that no one thinks of anymore. Poor guy.

Non-fiction published in 1908

There were also some, er, interesting non-fiction titles on the bestseller list. I assume Scouting for Boys is about Boy Scouting – or at least I hope it is, just like I hope that Occult Chemistry is exactly what it sounds like. Then there’s The Intermediate Sex: A Study of Some Transition Types of Men and Women which has some shocking-for-its-time insight into gender fluidity. Then of course there’s The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp by W.H. Davies, and War of the Classes by my second all-time-favorite Socialist, Mr. Jack London.

Literary moving and shaking in 1908

In addition to writing stuff, literary people were doing stuff too – imagine that!

  • Ezra Pound got the hell out of dodge (America) and headed for the world’s unknown (Europe). After settling in Venice, he self-published his first collection of poem.
  • As I’ve seen numerous publications point out, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) was indeed still alive. In fact, he bought himself some new digs in Redding, Connecticut.
  • Katherine Mansfield left New Zealand for London, never to return to her native land.
  • The English Review, a literary magazine, was first published in London. It contained work by long-forgotten folks like Henry James, H.G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, and Thomas Hardy.
  • Rudolf Christoph Eucken won the Nobel Prize in Literature, which is great because he looked like this:

Rudolf Christop Eucken

Literary births in 1908

And finally, there were some folks born that would go on to change the world with their words. We’ve got your Simone de Beauvoir, your Louis L’Amour, your Ian Fleming, your Richard Wright, and your Claude Levi-Strauss. Thanks, 1908! Those are some decent gifts.