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| The Biggest Treasure | ||||||||
| The forword of the danish publication | ||||||||
| of "The Lost Library" (AA93B42) | ||||||||
| [Note: the quote is by Don Rosa, the first two paragraphs are written by a wise editor of some sort] | ||||||||
| The Norwegians made 1993 the "year of the book". In this connection Anders And & Co. [the danish weekly, - and every other weekly too] should have a price of honnor, for there is hardly a more pleasant way to learn to read than to spell one's way through a Donl Duck-magazine all by yourself. And which literary experiences do you remember better as a grown-up than the Donald Duck-stories you read as a kid? That would only be the fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen or the Grimm Brothers, with which the Donald Duck-stories have also got a lot in common.Everyone remembers them, and they formed over sence of what is a good story. many grown-ups remember panels or lines, that if they see them again after some decades can make them exclaim: "That was the story where Donald etc. etc...." | ||||||||
| When Don Rosa, as the man of the book that he is said that he was willing to do a special story in occasion of the "year of the book" it was natural for him to begin with the Junior Woodchuck's Guidebook, this enigmatic handbook, which contains an incredible quantity of knowledge, which only the Junior Woodchucks can access. We know, what one can read in it (everything (between earth and sky)), but we have, untill now, not had any idea where all that knowledge came from. But Don Rosa has found the answer to that, and here he tells what inspired him: | ||||||||
| "When the Donald duck-editor asked me to do a story on occasion of the "year of the book" in Norway, I did what I always do when I have to do a story - began to browse books. The idea was ready: I wanted to do a story about the history of books and the meaning of the written word through time. That's why I started to plough my way through volume after volume to find facts I could build a story on. And the history books about fantastic events that were just waiting to be combined in a finished story. | ||||||||
| It ended up being about a treasurehunt with starting point in the Library of Alexandria, the most fabled collection of knowledge and entertainment in Antiquity. Imagine if this Libary hadn't been destroyed, but had been preserved through the centuries of a secret society, which had been founded to protect the written word! The history of the book, from payrus and parchment to Gutenberg's Bible and the books of our time, walks hand in hand with the story about the lost Library. Did you know that rich people once calculated their status from how many books they owned? Guess what Uncle $crooge would have collected back then! In this story it is a very special book that becomes the solution of the riddle - the most famous of all legendary books, the unfailing and inexhaustible source of knowledge of the Junior Woodchucks. | ||||||||
| The funny thing about making this kind of Donald Duck-stories is that every little detail in my story is autentic. Every place, name, date and event is taken from reality. The only thing I made up myself is to combine it all to the Library in Alexandria and what could have happened with it. It is possible that I made up the San Slanti-monastery (?)... and I'm not sure there is a place called Duckburg. But one thing is for sure: If the Universe has a hub , it is situated there." |
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