The Dentistry in Literature series: Don Quixote

For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered – from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth!

This final cover in this Dentistry in Literature series is a festive one featuring the classic novel, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes wrote ' A diamond is not as precious as a tooth' and also 'Every tooth in a man's head is more valuable than a diamond.'

Cervantes evidently valued his teeth, as demonstrated in Don Quixote with the memorable quote: 'Every tooth in a man's head is more valuable than a diamond.'

Credit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

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The Dentistry in Literature series:

The Wife of Bath

For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered — from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth! Chaucer's Wife of Bath, from The Canterbury Tales, appears on the front cover of this issue of the Journal. The Wife of Bath was famously gap-toothed, or ‘gat-tothed’ as per the 14th century English of these famous stories. In medieval times a diastema was apparently part of the stereotypical depiction of a lustful person and this is borne out in this character who was certainly rather popular with the opposite sex.

Cedit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

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The Dentistry in Literature series: Money

For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered — from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth!

This issue depicts the Martin Amis novel 'Money', featuring as the protagonist John Self purportedly representing the writer himself. Amis suffered with significant toothache before having implants placed. In Money Self equates his head and his pain with New York City.

'My head is a city, various pains have now taken up residence in various parts of my face. A gum-and-bone ache has launched a cooperative on my upper west side. Across the park, neuralgia has rented a duplex in my fashionable east seventies. Downtown, my chin throbs with lofts of jaw-loss. As for my brain, my hundreds, it's Harlem up there, expanding in the summer fires. It boils and swells.'

Credit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

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The Dentistry in Literature series: Vive Moi! An Autobiography

For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered – from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth!

This issue features Vive Moi which is an autobiography by Irish writer Sean O'Faolain. In the book O'Faolain's Aunt Maggie is described as a formidable lady: 'tall and strong-shouldered, with a round, bellowing voice that you could hear two fields away, and teeth that could plough the earth; a dark rough woman whom nobody would want to cross'.

Credit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

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The Dentistry in Literature series: Dracula

For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered — from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth! No prizes for guessing that this particular issue features Dracula by Bram Stoker. The 1897 Gothic horror features perhaps the most famous teeth in all English literature.

'The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums, the long, sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely.'

Credit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

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The Dentistry in Literature series: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered — from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth!

This cover of this issue features Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot mystery One, Two, Buckle My Shoe which concerns the untimely death of Poirot's own dentist, Henry Morley. The plot sees us find the dentist dead in his surgery with a blackened hole below his right temple. Later, one of the dentist’s patients is found dead from a lethal dose of local anaesthetic, and so everyone assumes a clear case of murder and suicide. But why would a dentist commit a crime in the middle of a busy day of appointments? The plot thickens... can Poirot find the key to the puzzle?

Credit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

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The Dentistry in Literature series: Doctor De Soto

For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered – from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth!

This issue depicts a scene from Doctor De Soto, a children's story by William Steig, published in 1982, which was a runner-up for the Newbery Medal the following year.

The story is about Dr De Soto, a mouse dentist who lives in a world of anthropomorphic animals. He and his wife work together to treat their patients with as little pain as possible but they refuse to treat any animal who likes to eat mice. However, one day, a fox with a toothache drops by and begs for treatment. The De Sotos feel pity for the fox so they admit him for treatment and come up with a plan to avoid being eaten themselves once the fox's tooth has been extracted. But does their plan work?

Credit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

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The Dentistry in Literature series: Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered — from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth!

This issue's cover illustrates an extract from Memoirs of an Infantry Officer a novel by Siegfried Sassoon, first published in 1930. It's a fictionalised account of the author's own life during and right after WWI. The extract describes a retired civil servant, Mr Farrell, in his late seventies who, talking about wartime food restrictions in England, says: 'Sugar is getting scarce [...] but that doesn't affect me; my doctor has knocked me off sugar several years ago.' However, the story's narrator looks 'at his noticeably brown teeth' and remembers 'how Aunt Evelyn used to scold me for calling him "sugar-teeth"; his untidy teeth did look like lumps of sugar soaked in tea.'

Credit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

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The Dentistry in Literature series: Auntie toothache

For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered — from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth!

This issue features a story from Hans Christian Andersen called 'Auntie toothache'. It is believed that Andersen himself suffered greatly with toothache and became obsessed with the agony of it. 'Auntie toothache' was his last story, written in 1872. It concerns a shadowy night-time visitor, Old Mother Toothache, who threatens the story's narrator when asleep, telling him that his mouth is 'a splendid organ on which [she] intend[s] to play'.

Credit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

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Website: www.mlaznicka.com

Providing retro contemporary illustration and design to your idea!

The Dentistry in Literature series: White Teeth

For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered — from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth!

The cover of this issue features Zadie Smith's White Teeth first published in 2000. This tale features the lives of two friends in North London, one Bangladeshi and the other English. It has characters from various cultures, but all the families — whatever their skin colour or religion — have white teeth. This is a unifying feature in a world of difference. So when one character becomes a dentist, ostensibly to look after the teeth of members of her community, she might be considered to be symbolically looking after the 'unifying element in society'.

Credit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

Email: bmentpass@yahoo.com

Website: http://www.mlaznicka.com

Providing retro contemporary illustration and design to your idea!

The Dentistry in Literature series: Richard III

For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered - from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth! This issue features Shakespeare's historical play Richard III, which refers to the appearance of Richard's teeth as a newborn as a portent for his future villainy. In the play, before he is killed by Richard, the saintly King Henry VI declares:

'Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born, To signify thou camest to bite the world.'

Credit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

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The Dentistry in Literature series: Les Misérables

For the cover series of this volume (223) of the BDJ, we have chosen to illustrate various instances where dentistry or teeth feature in literature. A wide range of sources have been considered — from well-known 'great works' to more obscure authors, older texts to modern novels and from mentions of dentists to descriptions of some very unusual teeth!

In this first cover of the series we highlight Babet the 'dental practitioner' from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. Babet is an unqualified dental practitioner who preys on the wretched poor of the city.

'...he... (Babet) was thin and learned — transparent but impenetrable: you could see the light through his bones but not through his eyes. He called himself a chemist, and had played in the Vaudeville at St Mihiel. His trade was to sell open air plaster busts and portraits of the "chief of state," and in addition, he pulled teeth.'

Credit: Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

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