Optician more important and dignified. Far-sighted or aging colonial Americans imported spectacles from Europe. Spectacles were primarily for the affluent and literate colonists, who required a valuable and precious appliance. Benjamin Franklin in the 1780s developed the bifocal. Bifocal lenses advanced little in the first half of the 19th century. The terms bifocal and trifocal were introduced in London by John Isaac Hawkins, whose trifocals were patented in 1827. In 1884 B. M. Hanna was granted patents on two forms of bifocals which become commercially standardized as the "cemented" and "perfection" bifocals. Both had the serious faults of ugly appearance, fragility,
The Spectacles (short story) wearing spectacles. Madame Lalande admits that she was teaching him a lesson. The name of "Napoleon Bonoparte" makes obvious reference to the Corsican general Napoleon. The story also has very strong Oedipal tones. Scholar Carmen Trammell Skaggs noted that the story, though intended to be humorous, nevertheless showed Poe's awareness of the opera. He references the soprano singer Maria Malibran and the San Carlo, and he also describes vocal technique in a way that implies a close knowledge of the subject. Skaggs also emphasizes Poe's role as a music critic for the "New York Evening Mirror" and, later, the "Broadway