the beginning of James Joyce's 1939 novel Finnegans Wake. Parr has been used as an example of the supposed health benefits of some natural medicines, including herbal colon cleansing. Edith Sitwell mentions Parr in 1958's English Eccentrics: A Gallery Of Weird And Wonderful Men And Women. Parr is named in the 1973 novel Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein. In the 1979 film The Champ, a small statue of Parr instigates a conversation between a boy and his stepfather. Parr is mentioned in Robert Graves's poem A Country Mansion. In Patrick O'Brian's 1980 book The Surgeon's Mate, lead character Stephen Maturin uses Parr as an example to encourage an aged friend contemplating marriage. Margaret George's novel Elizabeth I imagines a meeting between Parr and the Queen. Notes References External links 1635 deaths Burials at Westminster Abbey English centenarians Longevity myths Men centenarians People from Shropshire 15th-century English people 16th-century English people 17th-century English people