'Charge It': Keeping Up with Harry

Harry Blaisdell lives by three words: "Charge it." In this fizzing early 20th-century comedy, our protagonist rushes through life with a credit mindset that would make modern spendthrifts weep with joy. At every turn, whether purchasing an absurd number of handkerchiefs, crashing social engagements, or narrowly avoiding catastrophe in his motorized car, Harry simply signs on the dotted line and keeps moving. His long-suffering companion, the Honorable Socrates Potter, trails behind offering weary commentary on the wreckage of their expenditures, serving as the book's conscience while the world burns. Bacheller, the man who brought America Conan Doyle and Kipling, writes with a brisk, comic energy that feels startlingly modern. The car accidents, the near-misses, the frantic pursuit of bridge parties, it's a snapshot of nouveau riche America discovering that money can buy everything except calm. A century before buy-now-pay-later, Bacheller saw exactly where this was all heading. The satire still pricks.