From the Lotos Club News & Notes

News & Notes from The Lotos Club OCTOBER 2 0 1 2 The Lotos Club presents Literary Dinner Planned for Novelist Nelson DeMille Best-selling novelist Nelson DeMille 330,000 copies. His new novel, The will receive the Lotos Award of Panther, set for publication this Distinction at a Literary Evening in month, will be sold at the dinner. his honor on Tuesday, October 23 Mr. DeMille’s earlier books were (cocktails, 6:30 p.m.; $80). NYPD detective novels. His first major novel was By the Rivers of Babylon, published in 1978 and still in print, as are all his succeeding novels. He is a member of The JUDITH IVEY (continued on page 6) Monday, October 22, 2012 Cocktails (6 p.m.), Have Lunch with program and dinner $125 Dan Rather “Women Worth Knowing” Possibly the best-known journalist in ~ Excerpts from her acclaimed There are more than thirty million the world, Dan Rather will be the one-woman shows and her role copies of Mr. DeMille’s books in guest at a Lotos Luncheon on in The Glass Menagerie* ~ print worldwide., and more than 15 Monday, November 5 (cocktails, 12 noon; $50). He will receive the Lotos *…lightning-lit from within by her million copies in print in the U.S. His tough, compelling and first-rate most recent novel, The Lion, a New Award of Distinction. performance…achingly real and York Times bestseller, sold more than Mr. Rather has covered virtually often hilarious.” (Christopher every major event in the world in the Isherwood of The New York Times) Date Set for past sixty years. His resume includes reporting on Hurricane Carla in 1961, Ms. Ivey, a two-time Tony winner, Twain Dinner one of the most powerful storms to is now appearing in The Heiress on Broadway. The annual Mark Twain Dinner (for (continued on page 6) members only) will take place this year on Tuesday, November 13 Award-Winning Pianist to Perform (cocktails, 6:30 p.m.; $80). Both new and longtime members enjoy this Acclaimed pianist Elisso Bolkvadze opportunity to share a gourmet dinner will give a recital at the Club on and lively conversation with their Wednesday, October 24 (cocktails, 6 fellow Lotosians at this festive p.m.; $40). Ms. Bolkvadze’s gathering. program will include works by Beethoven, Chopin and Prokofiev. Mark Twain, who called Lotos “The Ace of Clubs,” was one of the Club’s Ms. Bolkvadze, who has performed earliest and most celebrated members. as a soloist with many orchestras He was admitted in 1873 under his throughout the U.S., Europe and birth name, Samuel Clemens; twenty Russia, has been praised for her years later the Club held the first of (continued on page 6) several dinners in his honor. N E W S A N D N O T E S A Note to Members by Anne Russell, President Auditors’ Report Heed the clarion call! Don’t miss As I recall, most people of “a The Club’s independent auditors out on the chance to introduce a certain generation” were married in have issued their annual year-end young member of your family, a their twenties and had a rather report. Members may find it on friend, or a young business truncated youth. Today, the Lotos website. After logging associate to Lotos! particularly in New York, this in, select “The Club.” Then select period of “youth” has been “Auditors’ Report.” As we begin the fall season, it is incrementally extended, and the comforting to look back on the last opportunities to meet appropriate Members may request a paper few years and applaud our friends outside of a business copy from the Club office. accomplishments, while at the environment have become even same time continuing to focus on more important and sometimes our goals for the future. Please join quite difficult. Enter Lotos – our with me in making one of my goals “Oasis of Civility.” Where better your own – the continued for our children and grandchildren recruitment and involvement of to savor the elegance and charm of young Lotos members. past generations so that they can extend that elegance within their It is a wonderful thing to meet the own generation? And they can th children and grandchildren of our have some fun while they’re at it! 5 East 66 Street New York, NY 10065 members at various gatherings, and to hear stories about how they have I invite you all to come and join (212) 737-7100 been coming to Lotos for years and me in attending the Young (212) 737-9188 (fax) love the Club. After conversing for Leadership Cocktail Party at Lotos www.lotosclub.org a while and becoming aware of the on October 18th. Meet John J. background and depth of talent Dunne IV, our new Young News & Notes represented by these “children,” it Leadership Committee Chair. John is natural to ask if they have is thirty-three years old and works Executive Editor considered membership themselves at Meredith Whitney Advisory Stephenie Ralston – either through Legacy, or through Group in New York. He is anxious the benefits of our Associate to meet our eleven brand new Design Editor Member program. There are young members and have the Sharon Situ several advantages that youth has chance to introduce them to many over more advanced years, and one of us, in the hopes that they, too, Contributing Editors of those advantages is definitely the will become actively involved at Alison Baxter reduced (or even waived!) initiation Lotos. Nancy Johnson fees at Lotos. Remember – “Youth” does not For Legacy Members, aged 21-35, simply signify a particular age the initiation fee is currently range. As the poet Samuel Ullman waived, and the annual dues are wrote, “Youth is not a time of life; Club Holiday substantially reduced. For Legacy it is a state of mind.” So bring your aged 36-45, 50% of the initiation enthusiastic and curious minds and The Lotos Club will be th fee is waived. For non-Legacy bodies to Lotos on October 18 so closed on Monday, October 8 applicants, there is also significant that we can all warmly welcome in observance of Columbus reduction of both fees and dues our youngest members. And don’t Day. depending upon age. Sometimes it forget to look around at your next Bedrooms will be open just isn’t worth putting off making family gathering, where more every day in October. a good decision! future members may be found! Page Two The Lotos Club N E W S A N D N O T E S From the Archives A Long History of Mystery by Nancy Johnson, Archivist When the Club’s new Mystery Talk for a short-lived Andrew Lloyd as a standard by which other Table convenes next month, its Weber musical. detective novels are judged. members can toast an early Lotos member and State Dinner honoree. The Moonstone (1868), which T. S. Many character types created by Wilkie Collins was one of the most Eliot called “the first and greatest of Wilkie Collins have become well-known, well-loved and well- English detective novels,” was the standards of the mystery genre: the paid Victorian fiction writers. He is first telling of a now-familiar unscrupulous and beautiful Lydia also recognized as the father of the storyline: in a breathless drama of Gwilt in Armadale (1866), who modern detective novel. theft and murder in the British marries, deceives and murders with countryside, a jilted suitor confronts abandon; the savvy female detective Collins came to the Lotos Club for a a slow-witted police sergeant as he in The Lady and the Law (1875); and dinner in his honor on September 27, tries to determine how the cursed Count Fosco in Woman in White, the 1873, at the start of his first gem he gave to his beloved prototype of the suave, sophisticated, American tour. The Club’s small disappeared. evil genius. house at 2 Irving Place was packed with well-wishers. Many years later, When the club published Lotos theater critic William Winter recalled Leaves, an elaborate collection of the Club’s earliest honorees, “some pieces by members for its fifth of the foremost men…who have anniversary in 1875, Wilkie Collins arisen to guide and illumine the age,” was among the contributors. He including “Wilkie Collins, with his added a romantic flourish to the magic wand of mystery.” volume with “A Fatal Fortune,” the story of a young man who is William Wilkie Collins was born in committed to an insane asylum, first London in 1824. He wrote his by his father who disapproved of his earliest stories for the journal engagement and then by relatives Household Words, published by his seeking his inheritance. Finally he friend and collaborator, Charles escapes to America to live happily Dickens. One of these stories, “A after without his fortune, but with his Terribly Strange Bed” (1852), is still devoted wife who narrates the story. anthologized in collections of horror and suspense stories. Although Collins’ reputation did not endure like that of his friend Charles The Woman in White was published Dickens, generations of mystery and in 1860 and made Collins famous. suspense readers have recognized his Called the “greatest mystery thriller enduring power to entertain and in the English language,” the book enthrall. Both The Woman in White was so popular that cloaks, bonnets and The Moonstone have never been Wilkie Collins, 1874 and perfumes were named after it out of print. Perhaps the Mystery and a stage version was produced. Crowds of anxious readers camped Talk Table will add the work of their The story was first serialized in out at the All the Year Round office fellow member to their reading list.

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