Rudolf Tesnohlidek's 'The Cunning Little Vixen' 1985

First English edition - 1985

Vixen Sharp-Ears was a real fox who had real adventures with a real forester in the 19th century. Rudolf Tesnohlidek's novel is no fairy tale. It presents a world of not-so-innocent animals living out their short lives in brutal harmony alongside a world of longer-lived humans who are no less brutal, scarcely more intelligent, and a good deal less happy. The author, born in 1882, grew up with a father who was a 'knacker', who earned his living by dispatching ailing and unwanted animals, then skinning them and tanning their hides. Rudolph suffered from an eye problem that gave him a strange, almost manic appearance: his eyes would spin around, darting uncontrollably this way and that. He grew up introverted and oversensitive... As a young man, he headed for Prague, studying philosophy and languages at the university. His first publication in print was a collection of resoundingly gloomy verses! In fact, this was very much the style of the time - Prague was drenched in melancholy. In 1902 he met Jindra Kopecka (Kaja) and married her in 1905. Visiting Norway just two months after the wedding, tragedy struck. Kaja accidently shot herself. From then on, Rudolph, always sad, became even more gloomy. His books, poems and plays began to reek with melancholy. In 1910, he married an 18 year-old, but the relationship failed, Married for a third time, he began to rebuild his life, helped along by the popular success of The Cunning Little Vixen, which was serialised in Lidove Noviny in 1920.

The editor of Lidove Noviny, Jaromir John, recalled Rudolph as a man who manufactured sadness on purpose...he was physically and emotionally created for self-flagellation. No wonder his co-workers began avoiding him. On 12 January, 1928, the latter wrote a farewell, phrased in his funniest manner, shaped it to the length of his weekly column, put it on his desk and then shot himself in the office. When his third wife,  Olga, was told, she locked the doors, turned on the gas, and also committed suicide. Rudolph left behind a number of books, poems and plays - many still read in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) - and his children's books are still read with pleasure; none, though, fired the popular imagination as did The Cunning Little Vixen.  First known as Vixen Sharp-Ears, the story appeared roughly twice a week between 7 April and 23 June 1920. People just went crazy over the story...it was published in book form a year later. It has been in print ever since.

There are three translators - Tatiana Firkusnu and Maritza Morgan are both Czech and they prepared a separate literal translation of the novel. Robert T. Jones, an American, based the final English text on their work. The novel was written in the Moravian dialect of Brno, a patois of immense charm but great difficulty even for Czechs! The translators opted for colloquial English throughout.

As for the story itself - it concerns forester Bartos, a hot tempered man who is a regular at the local pub, where he plays bowls and other games mainly with a Reverend Father and the local schoolmaster. After a typical drinking session, the forester falls asleep on his way home. He needs to find an excuse for his tardiness for his wife and creeps up on a young fox family - close enough to grab spoiled little Sharp-Ears. Home they go. Sharp-Ears meets a human cub: how ugly it was! It had only a handful of hairs on its head...the most hideous part of it was its legs: there was not a single good claw on its hind paws. With the human cub came another small animal - and thus Sharp-Ears meets Catcher, a little dachshund, who becomes the vixen's friend. It wasn't long before Sharp-Ears felt like the mistress of the house. She had realised that Catcher was useless and totally green, afraid of humans and a complete coward. Not surprising, as the forester regularly whipped him.

Inevitably, Sharp-Ears tries to escape back to the wild. Her first effort fails and she is tied to the dog kennel. Interspersed with all this are roosters and hens 'talking', a mosquito soliloquising - which doesn't really 'work' for this reader. Sharp-Ears' second attempt at freedom succeeds. She soon evicts Mr. Badger, an elderly bachelor, officious bureaucrat of the forest realm, now in retirement, from his sett. To describe the rest of the story in any detail is not for this short Blog. Suffice it to say, there are touches of morbid humour - as when the forester mistakenly shoots his only pig, much to the chagrin of his curmudgeonly wife; when the priest staggers home drunk; and the description of the poacher Martinek. There is a strong element of anti-clericalism and the author is clearly on the side of the animals rather than the humans. Sharp-Ears escapes on one occasion by losing her tail in a gin trap. She finds fulfilment when she meets a roguish male fox, Golden-Stripe and, presumably lives happily ever after.

Golden-Stripe probably sums up the author's own views here:

You think that humans aren't just like us when they're in love? They're worse. They do everything for the sake of appearances, to put on a show, but reality they fight and quarrel like starlings when they've had their fill of love.

People are nothing but pride, lies, and deceit. Not one single vixen can be as deceitful as a young girl tossing up her short skirts. No fox is as immoral as a handsome man-about-town. Man...likes to keep running into his victim so he can degrade her, grind her into the mud, and then walk over her.

The lay-out and general production of the book is excellent - by the Bodley Head - with a particularly striking dust wrapper, but I must confess I wasn't keen on some of Maurice Sendak's illustrations. They were bright and often amusing, however they were the original designs and watercolours that the artist created for the New York City Opera production of Janacek's opera, which had its first performance on 9th April 1981. 

The schoolmaster and the little priest

It meant that, amongst some lovely watercolours of woodlands and village life, of genuine animals and people, there were too many of humans 'inhabiting' animal costumes. 

Golden-Stripe

Frances Pitt's 'Toby, My Fox-cub' 1929

 

Arrowsmith first edition - 1929

Another Fox story; in fact, a third one from Frances Pitt, who wrote Tommy White-Tag (see my Blog for 21st February this year) and Scotty. The Adventures of a Highland Fox (my Blog of 24 December 2024). It is Volume Nine in The Library of Animal Friends, which, so far, were stories by Pitt and Cherry Kearton. The book was clearly written for children, above all to encourage them to learn about and respect wild life.

Pitt saved two cubs - the mother and four other cubs had gone where all creatures must go sooner or later. The surviving cubs were but two days old, very small, blind and perfectly helpless. With their snub noses, blunt muzzles, their short, woolly, dark coats, little rat tails, no longer than my little finger, and small ears flat to their heads, they could only be compared to very very young kittens. One of the attractions of the book is the black and white photographs taken by the author; the one opposite the text just quoted shows she had described them accurately.

The author does not really explain why a female cub is called Toby (it looked like the drawing of Toby-dog on the cover of Punch), but does say she was the most mischievous little imp that ever ran on four legs. Unfortunately, her brother Jack did not survive - he refused to suck, and seemed listless. His little nose was dry, instead of soft and damp... Pitt goes into some detail as to how she fed the cubs - at regular three-hours intervals with the warmest, richest cow's milk - and kept them warm next to a hot water bottle. Toby was not interested in eating rabbit, until Pitt gave her a piece with fur attached! Then, there was no stopping her!

The next few chapters follow the cub growing up, in size but not in goodness. She devoured Pitt's father's bootlaces and was a self-contained  little creature, independent, and as disobedient as any spoilt child that ever walked. She had no notion of coming because she was called. She was more like a cat in her ways than a dog. The two pet dogs endured Toby rather than enjoyed her company. She took greatest delight in teasing and annoying them. She loved to be petted, especially by the author's mother. Once her timidity of venturing outside left her, she was everywhere. There was a standoff with the large black-and-white tom cat, Spitfire, who had to be chained to a dog-kennel due to long time misbehaviours! Like all bullies, the latter soon found a mistress who proceeded to tease her remorselessly.

Of course, the inevitable (rightly) happens. In two chapters - The Call of the Wild and Toby in the Wild Woods - the young vixen leaves the comforts of her artificial home for the natural environment of her species. Frances Pitt cleverly uses odd scraps of evidence - half eaten rabbits, foot/paw prints, fox fur on barbed wire fencing, to surmise what and where Toby was up to.  Yes, Toby was handicapped, badly handicapped, by her upbringing, but every moment more and wild impulses welled up within her. The final chapter - Were they Toby's Cubs? - describes the author catching sight of a fox cub: his sandy jacket showed against the greenery, as did his keen, alert little face, delicate muzzle and pricked ears; so like, so exactly like Toby at the same age! Was he indeed Toby's cub? The author certainly wanted to think so; and, we the reader, probably do too.

Nancy Goldstone's 'The Rebel Empresses' 2025

Weidenfeld & Nicolson first edition - 2025

I was delighted when I read about this dual-biography in the 15th March issue of The Spectator, as it concerned two of my favourite 19th century women! Readers - I immediately ordered it. Nancy Goldstone has produced a free-flowing, though detailed, 'popular' account of Eugénie of France and Elisabeth of Austria - although the former was Spanish and the latter Bavarian.

Goldstone's book is more than a dual biography - it is a wonderful gallop through the second half of the 19th century, focussing obviously on the French and Austrian Empires, but also bringing in the whirlwind of ever-changing relationships between the old-established and newly-emerging political entities. We read of how the wily Count Cavour draws Napoleon III into the enticing web of inter-state rivalry in what was to become Italy (ironically the same year that the Emperor lost his throne); of the doomed attempt of the last King of the Two Sicilies, Francis II, and his wife Maria Sophie of Bavaria (younger sister of Elisabeth) to hang on to their throne; the rampaging meteor that was Garibaldi, upsetting everyone's applecart; the so-called mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria (nicknamed the Swan King or Fairy Tale King), Elisabeth's cousin, who apparently took his own life; Count Gyula Andrassy of Hungary, a firm supporter of Elisabeth and both fervent believers in Hungary; Prosper Mérimée, the French dramatist and short story writer and confidant of Eugénie, who died in 1870, the same year the Third Empire collapsed; the wily and ruthless Bismarck and his near-puppet King of Prussia, soon to become Emperor of Germany (proclaimed at Versailles!). All these important figures are brought to life by the author, who shows a sure grasp of her source material. Queen Victoria hovers on the sidelines, ready finally to give refuge to Napoleon III and his family. All three are buried in England. Tragedy looms large throughout: the mad escapade of the Archduke Maximilian, sent to Mexico as Emperor, only to be executed, whilst his wife Charlotte returned to Europe to end her days in an asylum. The tragic episode of Mayerling, where Crown Prince Rudolph first shot his teenage lover, Mary Vetsera, and then himself. It marked the Empress Elisabeth for the rest of her life. The equal devastation for the Empress Eugénie, whose son, the Prince Imperial, was killed in a Zulu ambush in 1879. 

Other biographies of Elisabeth, such as Brigitte Harman's The Reluctant Empress (1982) and Andrew Sinclair's Death by Fame (1998) are more measured in their approach, certainly on occasions more critical. Sinclair argued that the Empress never counted the costs of her caprice...she took for granted the subsidy of everything she wanted to do, even though it flouted the traditions of her paymaster. His forbearance was her good fortune and the condition of her rebellion.  Elisabeth is portrayed as a narcissist, her 'beauty' condemning her to a lifetime of trying to stem the tide of aging. Her self-confidence increased in the 1860s due mainly from the circumstance of her increasingly more striking beauty. It turned her into a worldwide celebrity. At 5' 71/2", she was taller than the Emperor; her weight rarely varied throughout her life - 110 lbs; her waist was an incredibly tiny 191/2". In 1864, the American envoy to Vienna wrote home: The Empress is a wonder of beauty - tall, beautifully formed, with a profusion of bright brown hair, a low Greek forehead, gentle eyes, very red lips, a sweet smile, a low musical voice, a manner partly timid, partly gracious. Of course, this reputation became more burdensome the more it grew and, especially, as she aged.

Elisabeth simply refused to conform (hence Goldstone's title). She did not play the devoted wife; accept the  need for the constant presence of a mother (she must share a portion of blame for her son Rudolph's suicide); nor the role of a principal figurehead in the Austrian Empire. She insisted on her rights as an individual - and she prevailed. That her self-realisation did not make her happy is the tragedy of her life. She was obsessed with her hair and the expense of caring for it huge. It took nearly three hours each day to achieve what she wanted. The older Elisabeth grew, the more strenuous became her struggle to keep her looks. Hours of daily exercise, constant diets; nightly face masks (raw veal, strawberries!) and warm olive-oil baths; damp cloths over her hips to maintain her slenderness; and drinking a mixture of five or six egg whites with salt;  all were used to retain her beauty. She had an exercise room installed wherever she lived. She knew her beauty was her power and she used it to fulfil her wishes. It could not last - she was human!

By the late 1890s, Elisabeth was nearing sixty. Prince Alfons Clary-Aldrington, as a small boy, saw Elisabeth in 1896-7: ...this time the Empress did not open her fan! My sister curtseyed, and I made my best bow; she smiled at us in a friendly way - but I was stunned, for I saw a face full of wrinkles, looking as old as the hills.

A major flaw was her bad teeth. Archduchess Sophie had noted and criticised this defect even before Elisabeth's engagement to her son. Thus, from her first day in Vienna, Elisabeth parted her lips as little as possible and her enunciation was soft and indistinct. The actress Rosa Albach-Retty saw Elisabeth in 1898 in a small country inn in Bad Ischl. She was alone at a table. For seconds Elisabeth stared downward, then with her left hand she took out her dentures, held them sideways over the edge of the table, and rinsed them off by pouring a glass of water over them. Then she put them back in her mouth. All this was done with such graceful nonchalance, but most particularly at such lightning speed, that at first I could not believe my eyes.

On finishing Goldstone's account, I found myself having greater sympathy for the Empress Eugénie - reviled by so many of the French simply because she was Spanish but, by and large, doing her very best for her adopted country and would probably have made a better ruler than her husband. As for the Empress Elisabeth, more of a mixed feeling. She hadn't asked to be caught up in the stultifying atmosphere of the backward-looking Viennese court. Her mother-in-law was an absolute dragoon, controlling her daughter-in-law's children from the first; her rigid husband totally under the influence of that mother. In fact, Elisabeth seemingly would have preferred a Republic to an autocratic Empire.

Sic gloria transit mundi.

Other relevant books in my Library include:

Maurice Paléologue - The Tragic Empress (1928) : Harold Kurz - The Empress Eugénie (1964) : David Duff - Eugénie & Napoleon III (1978) : Desmond Seward - Eugénie. The Empress and her Empire (2004)

Brigitte Harman - The Reluctant Empress (1982) and Andrew Sinclair's Death by Fame (1998)                

ed. David Holmes 'A History of Market Harborough' Volume 2 2024

A History of Market Harborough Vol. 2 - 2024

After the excellent standard set by Volume I (see my review in The Local Historian Vol.52 No.4 October 2022), it was with mild trepidation that I awaited the publication of Volume 2, which brings the history of Market Harborough up to the Present. One need not have worried, as it is a worthy successor. Again, it is salutary to note the involvement of so many contributors: there are fourteen individuals responsible for writing the chapters; others loaned photographs or instigated maps, plans, tables and graphs; the proof reading was first-class as was the typesetter and designer. When one adds the knowledgeable support of the County Records Office staff and members of the Museum Service, it is no surprise that this second volume is such an informative and (also thanks to Biddles, the printer and binder) quality production. The Market Harborough and the Bowdens Charity and the Howard Watson Symington Memorial Charity are again to be saluted for funding the entire project. In fact, along with the Grand Union Canal (1809) – “Canals did not increase the pace of life, rather they broadened the scope of opportunity” – and the LNWR and Midland Railway (1850), the factories of W. Symington and R & W.H. Symington (starting humbly with a grocer’s shop in 1827) were mainstays in the steady growth of the market town.

The sequence of Maps, showing the expansion of the town – from that of Samuel Turner in 1776 which highlighted the recently enclosed fields, through the OS maps of 1885, 1920, 1961 and 1968, to the Google Earth views of 2004 and 2021 – are a clear way of understanding the type of growth as well as its extent. Ribbon development, council houses, infilling and the large housing estates all around the town, highlight where the population of c.2,800 in 1800 had expanded to over 25,000 in the present day.

Chapter I, ‘The Development of Market Harborough since 1800’, is a splendid overview. It describes how a small, compact market town developed, due to the emergence not only of canal and railway linked buildings, but also other industrial units, residential developments and public buildings. It highlights the 1990s, when the whole canal basin was redeveloped and the area of water was doubled in size for leisure purposes, with residential apartments surrounding it. It charts the importance of Samuel Symington, who erected a large four-storey, red-brick factory, now converted to apartments. “Few of the many 19th and 20th century purpose-built industrial buildings remain, but none is still in industrial use, all having been adapted for other uses or demolished.” A salient point is made that, although in 220 years Harborough’s and the Bowdens’ population increased almost tenfold, its area increased a hundredfold. “Its growth reflects that of many small market towns.”

Further chapters concentrate on the growth of retail – most retailers became primarily sellers of goods made by others – and town improvement schemes: the overcrowded residential yards of the early 19th century, which housed many of the working class, were gradually demolished or converted for storage or into workshops; local government and public services; health and educational provision; the religious make-up and buildings of the town (the Congregationalists were the largest non-conformist group); more on the canal and railway effects are added to by addressing the development of the road system – such as the 1992 bypass diverting the busy A6 and the 1994 opening of the A14, which removed much of the east-west traffic. Recreational pursuits are well covered, showing how, from the mid-1840s onwards, cricket, football, tennis, golf, hockey and rugby clubs were established. In 1893 the Market Harborough Choral Society was founded, followed five years later by the Operatic Society.

There are other interesting chapters on ‘Town Life in War Time’, looking at the effect of the Napoleonic, Crimean, Boer and the two World Wars on the town’s life; on ‘Changes in Farming Practice’; and a long account of ‘Industrial Harborough’. The latter goes into some detail on the importance of W. Symington & Co. William Symington opened a business in 1827 from a small warehouse in Adam and Eve Street, selling mainly tea. As the business prospered, he added coffee and groceries; then, in 1850, he purchased land and buildings in Springfield Street in 1850. Here he patented a method of ddrying peas and barley, which was then turned into flour so it could form the basis of a soup. Patents were taken out on ‘Roasting and Treating Coffee’ Buildings were built or extended. In 1882, the company won a Gold Medal at the New Zealand Exhibition. In 1901, the company was commissioned to supply Pea Soup and Pea Flour for Captain Robert Scott’s first expedition to the Antarctic. Around 1919, the company branched out into an important catering business. The 1930s saw the introduction of canned soups and ready meals in a can. However, the company was taken over in 1969 by J. Lyons & Co. and, then in 1980, by Golden Wonder and its sister company HP Foods. The factories in Market Harborough were closed in 1996. There is an equally interesting section on the R. & W.H. Symington & Co business, where the first mechanised corset factory was born. The more casual fashion after the Second World War led to the demise of the corset and by the mid-1960s Symington’s factories were closing. The company finally shut down in 1990. Sic transit gloria mundi. The chapter has some fine colour illustrations.

The final chapter deals with ‘Some Notable People Associated with Harborough’. Living in Melbourne, Derbyshire myself, I was particularly pleased to read the account of Thomas Cook, who was born here in 1808. I hadn’t realised he lived in Harborough between 1832 and 1841. He had a shop in Adam and Eve Street, signing ‘The Pledge’ to forsake alcoholic drink, preaching the benefits of temperance locally. The many tavern owners were not impressed and his shop window was smashed on more than one occasion. He moved to Leicester in September 1841. Another ‘Notable’ is Martin Johnson, who lived in the town from the age of seven and was educated there. Captain of the English Rugby team from 1999, he led them to victory at the World Cup in 2003.

Once again, there is the most useful Time Line – which has a few additions from that of Volume 1 – and detailed Bibliography. This time, there is a separate ‘Sources’ section, which links the list of material such as Primary Sources, Reports, Journals, Directories, Newspapers and Web sites, directly to the relevant chapters. I ended my previous Review, “I look forward to the second volume”. It was well worth the wait. It is noteworthy, but not surprising, that Volume 1 has been reprinted this year.

ed. Len Holden 'A History of Market Harborough' Volume 1 2022

A History of Market Harborough Vol. 1 - 2022

Up until the seventeenth century, Harborough ceded first place to Great Bowden. The latter had grown up as a natural rural community, on the main route from Northampton to Leicester. Unlike Bowden, Harborough is not mentioned in Domesday Book, but was a small part of the Royal Manor of Great Bowden and was established as a ‘new town’ in the 12th century. It did not simply evolve but was the result of a concerted and deliberate action to increase trade. The first reference to Harborough occurs in 1153, where it is recorded as Hauerberg (meaning Oat Hill). Evidence of a market is found in the Pipe Rolls of 1203, whilst information from the 1381 tax returns suggests a population of at least 270 with a poll tax of £7 14s, compared with Great Bowden’s over 330 and £10 7s. By now it was apparent that Great Bowden remained a farming community whilst Harborough was developing trade and commercial occupations.

Some seventy pages and ten chapters deal with Harborough in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It only overtook Great Bowden as the main settlement in the Tudor period. Reference is made to the effect of John Wycliffe and the later Reformation; to the muted continuance of Roman Catholicism in the area; to the emergence of Harborough parish and the local administrators, such as churchwardens, constables and overseers of the highways and the poor; to the effects of enclosure – such as rioting in protest – and other agricultural changes. Meanwhile trade steadily increased, encouraged by markets and fairs. Cutlers, fishmongers, ironmongers, grocers, haberdashers, flaxmen and shoe-makers are all recorded as having attended. The Civil War affected the town, particularly in the prelude to the Battle of Naseby, when a temporary Royalist H.Q. was established at the King’s Head Inn. After the battle, Cromwell stayed a night at The Bell Inn.

Chapter Fourteen rightly pinpoints the mid-18th century as a key turning point for the town. ‘The story of Harborough particularly from the middle of the 18th century is the story of a road…it was the improvements to this road (the old A6) by means of turnpikes that enabled Harborough to grow from a small provincial community into a thriving coaching town with its attendant trades’. Harborough became an important thoroughfare due to the string of market towns between it and Northampton. The following chapter details those vital improvements – the rebuilding of bridges, the lucrative mail service; the importance of the coaching inns in the town, such as the Angel, Three Swans, King’s Head and others. From an estimated population of 720 in 1670, the first national census in 1801 recorded a population of 1716. A further stimulus occurred in 1810, with the coming of the canal, even if it was merely an arm of the main Grand Union. Increasing affluence saw brick, stone and slate gradually replacing the old wooden edifices. A spate of fine Georgian buildings were erected, such as The Manor House, Welland House and Brooke House. The Old Town Hall, built by the Lord of the Manor, dates from 1788. The 18th century also saw the nonconformist churches joining the mainstream of the town’s life, particularly the Baptists and Wesleyan Methodists. John Wesley visited Harborough on several occasions.

A major key to the success of this publication can surely be seen in the List of Contributors. This contains individuals who are keen local historians and researchers who not only ‘know’ the immediate area but are able to place it in the context of the county of Leicestershire and beyond. This has led to a collection of fascinating and well-researched chapters on subjects such as the archaeology of the area, where field walking and excavation continues to inform understanding; there is plenty of evidence of both Iron Age and Roman settlement, but minimal Anglo-Saxon. There is little archaeological evidence from the centre of Harborough itself. The chapter on the later medieval period gives useful information on shires and their personnel and manors. There are some individualistic chapters – Agnes Bowker’s Cat and Witchcraft; Anthony Jenkinson, Tudor merchant Explorer; prominent people in the 18th century, such as the Moore and Allen families, Samuel and Rowland Rouse and Stephen Addington – which add to the narrative. A particularly interesting account is given of the Old Grammar School which, as Bob Hakewill writes, has come to symbolise Harborough’s heritage and history.

Each chapter is well supported by a list of books etc. for those wishing for further study. A very useful Time Line and detailed Bibliography are found at the end of the book. There are some excellent colour and black and white photographs, clear plans and maps which are all enhanced by a clean, very readable text (in 11pt Palatino font). The printing and binding by Biddles of King’s Lynn is first-rate. A considerable part of the research was carried out during the Covid 19 pandemic, which either denied, or severely restricted, access to archives held at the various Country Record Offices and even to Harborough’s own Museum. Thus, the Market Harborough Historical Society should be rightly proud of their achievement; the town should be equally proud of their Historical Society. It is important to note the funding support of the Howard Watson Symington Memorial Charity and the Market Harborough and the Bowdens Charity. Local publications depend on such largesse. I have only visited Market Harborough twice. Reading this book has made me want to go there again. I also look forward to the second volume.

Scott Mariani's 'The Pilgrim's Revenge' 2025

Hodder and Stoughton first paperback edition - 2025

Ricardians may have been some of the first to know about Scott Mariani’s change of direction. After thirty highly successful thrillers about the contemporary ex-SAS hero Ben Hope, the author told the Ricardian Bulletin’s editor, Alec Marsh that “thanks to The Tudor Deception I decided I wanted to become a historical author. And so that’s going to happen next: there’s going to be a new series set entirely in medieval times – a crusading series.” He has chosen a period three hundred years before Richard III’s time, which has fascinated novelists from Sir Walter Scott (The Talisman), through Graham Shelby (The Crusader Knights Cycle Series) to Richard Warren Field (The Swords of Faith) and Stewart Binns (Lionheart). 

Mariani bravely enters a crowded if uneven field, but quality will always succeed. Long ago, in 1845, G.H. Lewes, in an article for the Westminster Review, argued that ‘the conjunction of two such elements as history and fiction may be excellent, provided the history be good and the fiction be good’. Mariani has clearly researched the late 12^th century in some detail – from the power politics of the Age to the weaponry available; from the carnage of siege warfare to the treachery of court politics. He has understood and explained the often unpalatable and myriad of reasons for embarking on the quasi-military expeditions to reclaim the Holy Land. He is equally adept at describing the soldier’s equipment of the day – whether the archer’s or the crossbowman’s; the carnage of siege warfare; and the terrifying experience of travelling in 12^th century ships across the Bay of Biscay and through the often malign Mediterranean.

A skill finely honed with his Ben Hope books, enables Mariani to draw together believable and life-like characters, both good and ill, and envelope them in a variety of realistic landscapes. The hero, the young freeman Will Bowman, who pursues the killers of his young wife and unborn child from Oxfordshire to Southampton, to Sicily and Cyprus, is a born leader, adept at both archery and, increasingly, chess. Around him are gathered several other realistic fellow travellers – such as Gabriel O’Carolon and the huge bear-like Samson - whilst the villains of the tale range from the bulky, red-faced crossbowman Osric to Sir Ranulf of Gisland with his retinue of bloodthirsty knights, four of whom had been responsible for the death of Will’s wife and the destruction of his home and livelihood. There are also shrewd pen portraits of the irascible King Richard, his formidable mother Eleanor of Aquitaine and his young bride-to-be, the delicate but steely Berengaria. The untrustworthy Tancred, ‘Monkey King’ of Sicily, and vainglorious Isaac Comnenus of Cyprus, are both given short shrift by King Richard and the author - Mariani sticks closely to the chronicles of the time.

This is an excellent production by the esteemed publisher Hodder and Stoughton. The slightly larger- sized paperback, with decent margins and the striking Perpetua Std typeset, all make reading Mariani’s novel even more of the usual pleasure.

John Grisham's 'The Last Juror' 2004

 

Penguin paperback edition -2023

Before I started this Review, I did something I rarely do - I looked up the book on Amazon and read the 3* reviews there. I am afraid that they all made more or less the same points - and I find myself in agreement with them! Here are some extracts:

O.K., but not wonderful. Boring after Part 1...went downhill with just rubbish of town and school football matches...found it hard work...over long and rather laboured...got a bit tedious...a very good start but the centre of the story wallows in unnecessary  material...pedestrian story line told without conviction...lost its way...

Oh dear - but I concur. If I was being just negative, I would say this was a pot boiler by an author who was still writing interesting, free-flowing stories with plenty of realistic characters, but on this occasion hadn't plotted very well.  Part One certainly stands up to scrutiny, telling the tale of the gruesome rape and murder of a mother of two very young children by a young man, Danny Padgitt, from a notorious local family engaged in multiple criminal activities. They seemingly have the local law and other officials in their pockets (usually through hefty cash handouts and/or brutal intimidation).  This first part takes the story from page 3 to page 248 - half the book's length - and could even stand alone, with an 'unfinished business' ending. Grisham is on top form here and his cast of characters are thoroughly realistic and the tension is slowly built up in a professional way.

If the reader had then skipped to page 353 (Part Three), which deals with Danny Padgitt's release, after less than ten years served (of a 'life' sentence) - thanks to more behind-the-scenes corruption - then we could have puzzled over yet two more murders and reached the satisfying, if slightly unlikely, twist at the end. That would have cut the novel down to a more manageable and tighter story of just under 400 pages. As it is, the massive 504 pages have palled long before the end. For once, it is not the bread in the sandwich, but the 'meat' in the middle which is the problem.

Part Two simply meanders and one is never quite sure of the point of several of the byways. Does Grisham want to focus on the undoubted horror of the near apartheid behaviour of so many whites in the south of the USA in the 1970s? Does he want to analyse the different dogmas and churches that make up 'Protestantism'? Does he want to concentrate on the few characters surrounding the young newspaper proprietor, Joyner William Traynor (soon to be shorted to 'Willie'), and make it also a psychological appraisal of the latter? Frankly the various strands don't really mesh and one could even argue that much of these hundred pages are 'padding'. A pity, as there is the usual Grisham experienced take on the motives of jurors, corruption in high and middle places, and the power of increasing affection (this time between black and white).