Reasons to get a good dictionary if you want to set the literary world on fire

Welcome to the world of homophone literature.  A homophone is a word which sounds the same as another word but which is spelled differently, like 'bear' and 'bare'. 


So, homophone literature is what could have happened had some famous authors (or their editors) had spelling problems.  We might have had ...

Grate Expectations … in which a young, orphaned boy visits an old lady still dressed in her wedding clothes who makes him clean out her fireplace and, because he doesn’t do it properly, forces him to re-do it many times until he gets it perfect.  The novel ends with him hand in hand with a young lady called Estella, although she is hesitant because of his blackened fingernails and grimy palms, forcing a somewhat ambiguous ending.

Around the World in Eighty Daze … in which an octogenarian, confused and reeling from the fact that he has reached such an advanced age, embarks on a world tour, spurred on by a wager from his gentleman’s club.  He does complete the journey, but being in such a vacant and puzzled state, notices hardly anything and comes back with his wrinkles tanned but little else of interest.

Mole Flanders … in which a flighty young nocturnal mammal packs into her small life twelve years as a whore, five husbands (one her own brother) and twelve years as a petty thief.  She draws attention to herself because of this, not least because she can’t see a thing and has therefore done well.  She is eventually sentenced to transportation to Virginia where she picks up an unusual accent for a mole and dies repentant, albeit confused, and with a reputation for sleeping in the daytime.

Scents and Sensibility – in which two young ladies, both wearing dresses hard to sit down in, are shown to be of opposite character, one being obsessed with different smells, and the other being a serious type, although capable of hidden passions.  Trouble begins when the aromaholic meets a man of dubious character who promises her a whole perfumery of her own if she runs away with him, even though there is a perfectly decent old codger willing to have her who knows that the perfumery thing is just a way to get her pregnant.  The old codger gets her eventually, although he does find the continual sniffing noises unbearable.

The Picture of Dorian: Grey – in which a handsome young Victorian gets his portrait painted – a colourful, vibrant picture of himself which he values highly and puts up on his wall.  He decides to hire a painter to decorate the room’s walls in White with a Hint of Gentle Dove so that the painting is shown off to best effect.  However, what he doesn’t realise is that the painter currently suffers from a weeping eye condition.  Thus, while painting the walls, he doesn’t notice the picture and paints straight over it.  Dorian is horrified, when he sees this, but it is all made much worse when he catches sight of himself in a mirror and notes that he now looks like John Major.