The clumsiest people in Europe, or, Mrs. Mortimer's bad tempered guide to the Victorian world
Sweden is full of robbers, Germans are unclean and Spaniards are cruel. Those nasty generalizations are culled from a series of 19th century children's guides to the world by Favell Lee Mortimer. Todd Pruzan, the author of The Clumsiest People in Europe, a new book that compiles Mrs. Mortimer's works, says he couldn't believe his eyes when he first read them. "It was almost like a snapshot of Victorian prejudice made available for anyone to come find," he tells Melissa Block. Friends often ask Pruzan what his book is about. "Usually I tell them that it's a collection of very nasty Victorian children's writing about geography, written by somebody who didn't get out very much," he says. Indeed