[PW] Postillion struck by lightning

[Fuller, Thomas (US - Washington D.C.)]

All right, you librarians.  It's time to find a book.

Nigel Rees of the BBC has been searching for years for the origin of the
phrase "our postillion has been struck by lightning", which was quoted
in a poem by M.H. Longson in PUNCH in 1935 and mentioned in a James
Thurber memoir in 1937.  (It was also the title of the first volume of
Dirk Bogarde's autobiography, published in 1977.)  Nigel tracked down a
book called LITTLE MISSIONS by "Septimus Despencer" (pen-name of Ralph
Butler) from 1932 in which he describes his travels through the
countries that arose when the Austria-Hungarian empire collapsed.  He
was at a village shop in South Hungary and found a shelf of second-hand
books that included a "Magyar-English Manual of Conversation" in which
the sought-after phrase appeared.  (He commented:  "This is the sort of
thing that only happens in Hungary;  and, when it happens, this is the
sort of remark that only Hungarians would make.") Nigel's recent book
BREWER'S FAMOUS QUOTATIONS has a whole column of references (dating back
well into the Nineteenth Century) and discussion.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find the elusive
Magyar-English Manual.  It does not appear to be in either the Library
of Congress or the British Library.  In the alternative, find any
bilingual phrase-book that has this line;  it has been variously
attributed to phrase-books in Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Portuguese, and
heaven knows what other languages.

Consider the gauntlet thrown down.

-- Tom 

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