“The Bottle Imp” is a short story written in 1889 by Robert Louis Stevenson. I read the original story in high school and was impressed. The imp in a bottle can grant wishes, but if the owner of the bottle dies with it in his possession he will end up in hell for eternity. Or so it is said. From Stevenson’s original story, the man selling the Bottle Imp to the main character tells him, “. . . the glass of it was tempered in the flames of hell. The imp lives in it, and that is his shadow we behold there moving . . .” The way the buyer goes for it reminds me of stories of naïve country bumpkins, in the big city for the first time, buying the Golden Gate Bridge or lead bars painted gold. The difference is in this case the Bottle Imp is real.
The adaptation is from
Classics Illustrated #116, published in 1954. Artwork is done by Lou Cameron, whose distinctive artwork is seen a lot in comics of the era.
A more interesting story, and more nicely illustrated, than those that I encountered in Classics Illustrated as a child. I didn't get copies of any of the issues from Gilberton or from Frawley. (I did pick up copies of some issues from Marvel's use of the brand.)
ReplyDeleteEven setting aside my own risk of going to Hell, I'd be concerned about participating in any stage of the process at the heart of this story. Somebody was gonna get stuck with the bottle, and my sense of ethics would see no guarantee that he or she would deserve to go to Hell; I wouldn't want to be the person who sold the bottom to him or to her, nor the person who sold the bottle to the person who sold the bottle to him or to her, and so forth.
But some people seem to reject anything resembling what I see as a genuine ethics, yet believe in rules that they take for ethics, according to which rules some people go on to Hell and others to Paradise; for some of these people, those who go to Hell are ipso facto wicked and those who win the favor of a most powerful divine person are ipso facto good.
In an era of many fiat currencies and various inflationary episodes, it may be possible to find bills and coins that are still legally money yet worth only a tiny fraction of a cent, thus delaying the inevitable longer than in the era of commodity-backed money. And, if modern crypto-currencies are acceptable payment, these too can be quite finely divided.
"As for the greedy sailor...well I leave his fate to your imagination"
ReplyDeleteWell it's not too hard to imagine he wound up damned for eternity.
What I'd like to know is what happened to the bottle? Did it simply disappear once it could no longer be sold for less or did it begin the cycle all over again? We'll never know.
Daniel, I must've been of foggy brain when writing my piece for not including what you must think of these half-priced sales of the Bottle Imp. So now I know.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the Imp would accept a penny cut into smaller and smaller pieces? Probably not, but worth a try when one is facing hell.
Oh, and about that hell business. How do they know for sure hell is the destination for the Bottle owner? Maybe the Bottle owners are suckers, easily duped. As I recall from long ago Sunday School classes, the devil is a liar. A title for the devil, "the prince of liars" comes to mind. Hell could be only a bluff to see if people would fall for the big lie. So wish away for any material thing you want, just in case!
Rick, sure the Bottle would show up again. If you believe what the Bottle owner/sellers believe and all it takes is a bit of greed plus being the owner of the Bottle at the time of death, then if it is a way to fill hell then it's a slow process. As we know from observations of fellow humans hell is probably no problem to get into, just from doing what things regular people do to "earn" being damned.
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