archive.org lists William Stokes as (1839- ), but we suspect he's dead. If he weren't, he would be in the Guinness Book of Records. All we really know about him was that in the 1870s, he touted himself as an authority on mnemonics, the 'science' of memorising things. The book we stole the picture and 'poem' from is called Memory, appropriately enough, and was published in 1874. It's really awful. We think you should read it. You need a laugh.

From the book, we glean that Stokes lived in London, where the, er, 'experts' came from. Among other distinctions, he was a lecturer at the Crystal Palace School of Art, Science, and Literature (we can imagine), and Professor of Memory at the City of London College. But when we find that he was 'late of the Royal Colosseum', we are speechless. Our imaginations run riot. Wasn't that the building they constructed to hold Thomas Hornor's 'Panoramic View of London', the largest painting ever made? That was a cyclorama. Ah, that's why he was 'late'. They tore that down in 1874. Curiouser and curiouser…

Stokes' mnemonic technique might please some of you – I won't say who – because it seems to involve bad puns a lot. It also involves making exactly the same sort of associations as were natural to Mr Stokes. If you can manage to think like a uniquely-mentated 19th-century lecturer from a cyclorama, we don't want to know about it. Keep it to yourself.

Enjoy the 'poem'.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

19.03.18 Front Page

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