A HOUSE DIVIDED

by Robert C. Harvey

Five years before the outbreak of World War I -- and nearly 10 years before the Russian Revolution -- Rudyard Kipling wrote a short story about the corruption and overthrow of a society. Like many political allegories, the tale was an animal story. "The Mother Hive" tells how a community of bees was infiltrated by a wax moth who managed to get inside and lay her eggs. Kipling's tale turned out to be a prophetic one. In 1909 the world had had little intimation of the Marxist rule to come and relatively little of its souring philosophy. Yet the author could look through all of history for betrayal of the common weal. A hundred years ago the Anglican Church had a quality they have since lost, though they have striven greatly to recover it. In A House Divided, The Rt. Rev. Harvey, through a collection of searing vignettes, appeals to any reader who is concerned with what has happened in the Episcopal Church. It is " a frank look at our recent past, a clear assessment of our present, and a courageous warning about our future".

Paperback

Published January 1, 1978

About the author

Robert C. Harvey (born 1937), popularly known as R. C. Harvey, is an author, critic and cartoonist. He has written a number of books on the history of the medium, with special focus on the history of the comic strip, and he has also worked as a freelance cartoonist.
Harvey describes himself as having created cartoons since the age of seven. He was educated at the University of Colorado, where he submitted cartoons to the campus magazine, The Flatiron. Upon graduation, Harvey attempted to earn a living as a freelance cartoonist in New York, but eventually he changed his career path and enlisted in the US Navy. After a three-year tour, Harvey was discharged and found employ as an English teacher.
Dissatisfied with his pay and disillusioned with the work, Harvey left teaching and returned to freelance cartooning, specializing in cartoons of "sexy girls". Unable to make a living solely through cartooning, Harvey took a position with an educational conference company. In 1973, Harvey began writing on the medium, initially for The Menomonee Falls Gazette.

"Comics ... are sometimes four-legged and sometimes two-legged and sometimes fly and sometimes don't ... to employ a metaphor as mixed as the medium itself, defining comics entails cutting a Gordian-knotted enigma wrapped in a mystery ..."

- R. C. Harvey, 2001