G.P.R. James' 'Philip Augustus' 1831

Colburn and Bentley first edition - 1831

Another three-decker under my belt; and another G.P.R. James tale, this time one of his earliest, being the fifth (and only two years after his first novel, Adra or the Peruvians.) Philip Augustus was written in less than seven weeks; James received £600 from the publishers Colburn and Bentley (he was given the same amount for his De L'Orme, published  a year earlier). Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832-1914), the poet, novelist and critic, regarded the novel as the author's best work. It is of note that James was living at Maxpoffle House, near Melrose at the time of the novel's publication. J.G. Lockhart later wrote: Mr James and his lady...were welcome additions [to the visitors of the dying Sir Walter Scott] - and frequently so - to his accustomed circle...Sir Walter...seemed when in the midst of his family and friends, always tranquil - sometimes cheerful. On one or two occasions he was even gay; particularly, I think, when the weather was so fine as to tempt us to dine in the marble-hall at Abbotsford, or at an early hour under the trees at Chiefswood. Apparently, on one occasion, James rode over the hills to Abbotsford with eleven dogs of every size and description gambolling and yelping at his heels. Scott would have loved that! It was earlier the the same year that Scott had written to James Skene: I beg to introduce a literary man of great merit who might be called James of that ilk, since he is James of James. Scott died in September 1832 and, partly in memory of the friendship, James named his first child, born two months later, George Walter James.

As usual in his novels, James weaves facts and fiction, real-life persons with creatures of his imagination, skilfully together. He sets his tale in the period from 1199 (just after Richard I of England's death) to around two years' later. Philip Augustus, King of France, has to deal with enemies within and without his realm, particularly in the period when his whole kingdom is placed under a papal Interdict. James peoples the historical events with a goodly array of villains  and heroes. 

Villains?  

Above all, King John of England, who is depicted as personally murdering the rightful King of England, his nephew Arthur. John Lackland, the meanest and most pitiful villain that ever wore a crown... in whose dark recesses lurked a cruel heart.

Innocent III, of an imperious and jealous nature...as keen and clear-sighted as he was ambitious, he was clearly disliked by Philip and the author (and me!). The king's anger when Innocent tells him to forsake his new wife is profound: if in the meanwhile this proud Prelate yields me my wife - my own beloved wife - why well; but if he dares then refuse his sanction, his seat is but a frail one; for I will march on Rome, and hurl him from his chair... Innocent was one of the most powerful of the medieval popes, exerting a wide influence over the Christian states of Europe, claiming supremacy over all of Europe's kings. The Catholic Church ruled over all through the strength of superstition - called out by Scott, James and me.

Jodelle, a fictional mountebank and member of the roaming outlaw bands of the Cotereaux, a subgroup of the infamous Routiers, who deceived nearly all he came across - English and French. He meets a deserved dastardly death at the end of De Coucy's spear, but not before he had mortally wounded the latter's Fool.

Guillaume, the Count de la Roche Guyon - a slight, fair youth, of a handsome but somewhat feminine aspect. He turns out to be a bad oeuf and also dies in battle against Philip's forces..

Heroes? 

Philip Augustus, tall, well-formed, handsome...with the manly florid hue of robust health, exposure, and exercise [whose] eyes seemed to speak that keen and quick sagacity, which sees and determines at once, in the midst of thick dangers and perplexity....(well might he need this prowess for, as the author remarks - the existence of a monarch, without his lot be cast amidst very halcyon days indeed, is much like the life of a seaman, borne up upon uncertain and turbulent waves) there was grace, and repose, and dignity, in his whole figure. The king seemed to have two spirits. There was the one that, bright and keen and active, mingled in the busy scenes of politics and warfare...and there was another, still, silent, deep, in the inmost chambers of his heart...here he had a world apart from aught else on earth, wherein the Spirit of deep feeling swayed supreme; and thence issued that strong control that his heart ever exercised over the bright Spirit of genius and talent, with which he was so eminently endowed. It was his love for Agnes de Meranie.

Count Thibalt D'Auvergne, who also loved Agnes but who suffered in silence, even going mad for awhile and, finally, giving his life for his monarch. "I admire the King though I love not the man".

And the other main hero, the fictitious Guy De Coucy, a brave young warrior, back from the Crusades with D'Auvergne, who falls quickly in love with Isadore but whose father forbids the relationship. Guy (often literally) battles through the story, steadfast in his love  and loyalty to King Philip, imprisoned by King John at one stage but eventually helping his monarch overcome the odds in a major battle. 

William Longsword, the Earl of Salisbury, the illegitimate brother of King John, is one of the few Englishmen to come out well in the story. He saves De Coucy's life and is repaid, in turn, at the end of the tale.

Perhaps, the most tragic figure is Prince Arthur Plantagenet - a slight, graceful boy, of about fifteen, sprang into the room. He was gaily dressed in a light tunic of sky-blue silk, and a jewelled bonnet of the same colour, which showed well on his bright, fair skin, and the falling curls of his sunny hair... endowed with a thousand graces of person and of mind, Arthur still had that youthful indecision of character, that facility of yielding, which leads the lad so often to do what the man afterwards bitterly repents of.

The most annoying character was Gallon the Fool.  Originally one of the jugglers who had accompanied the second Crusade to the Holy Land, he had been made prisoner by the Infidel; and, after several years' bondage, had been redeemed by De Coucy. Never did a more curious physiognomy come from the cunning and various hand of Nature. His nose was long, and was seemingly boneless; for, ever and anon, whether from some natural convulsive motion, or from a voluntary and laudable desire to improve upon the singular hideousness of his countenance, this long, sausage-like contrivance in the midst of his face would wriggle from side to side, with a very portentous and uneasy movement. As if that's wasn't enough to put any observer off, his eyes...had in themselves a manifest tendency to separate, never having any fixed and determined direction, but wandering about apparently independent of each other, - sometimes far asunder, - sometimes, like Pyramus and Thisbe, wooing each other across the wall of his nose with a most portentous squint. The reader gets the picture. Unfortunately, James also gave to his character the (extremely irritating, to me at least) additional expletive Haw, haw, haw! or, more than once, Haw, haw, haw! Haw, haw, haw! every time the Fool spoke. 

Entangled in the account of the machinations of monarchs, popes and nobles is the story of two loves - one destined for happiness after travail; the other destined for tragedy after happiness. Philip, after the death of his first wife, married Ingerburge, sister of Canute, King of Denmark; but on her arrival in France, he was seized with so strong a personal dislike of her (shades of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves), that he instantly convoked a synod of the clergy of France, who, on pretence of kindred in the prohibited degrees, annulled the marriage. Philip then married Agnes de Meranie, daughter of the Duke of Istria and Meranie. James uses his novelist's skills to portray a genuine love affair - between the manly monarch and the 19 year-old fair girl, with her light hair floating upon her shoulders in large masses of shining curls...with her full, soft, blue eyes. Alas, thanks to the megalomania of the pope, the union will end in tragedy. On the other hand, De Coucy finally gets his girl, the gorgeous Isadore of the Mount, slight in figure, but yet with every limb rounded in the full and swelling contour of woman's most lovely age. Her features were small, delicate, and nowhere sharp, yet cut with that square exactness of outline so beautiful in the efforts of the Grecian chisel. Her eyes were long, and full, and dark...the hair, that fell in a profusion of thick curls round her face, was as black as jet...her skin as smooth as alabaster... I hope Mrs James approved of this outpouring.

Rather like Scott, James plays fast and loose with chronology. Philip and Agnes married in 1196 and separated after the papal Interdict (1199-September 1200). Agnes died - possibly in childbirth - in July 1201. Arthur does not 'disappear' until 1203. The Battle of Bouvines, between Philip and Otho's forces does not occur until 1214. The author has 'telescoped' all these events into just two years. The novelist's licence? 

There is the usual padding - required for a three-decker - mainly of descriptions of the environment and weather, and witticisms which fail to raise a smile: "Art thou sure thou knowest the way, urchin?" cried the man, in a wearied and panting tone, which argue plainly enough, that his corpulency loved not deeply the species of stumbling locomotion, to which his legs subjected his paunch... But I forgive these minor failings, as James spins a good yarn.

Joseph O'Connor's 'The Ghosts of Rome' 2025

 

Harvill Secker first paperback edition - 2025

This is the second novel in Joseph O'Connor's trilogy about Rome during the Nazi Occupation (I0th September 1943 to 4th June 1944). I read the first book - My Father's House - only five months' ago (see my Blog of 14th January 2026) and found it gripping and atmospheric in its intensity. The follow-up is in a very similar vein - after all it describes comparable situations involving the same cast of characters, Hence, I suppose inevitably, it doesn't pack quite the same 'punch'. This time the central figure is the fictitious Contessa Giovanna  ('Jo') Landini, rather than the Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty. Widowed, Jo volunteered as a Red Cross motorcycle courier on the outbreak of war. Although she has inherited the splendid Palazzo Landini on her husband's death, she - like the rest of the 'Choir' - has based herself in the Vatican City.

I found I had to get used to the author's grammatical style again, which tended to jar, particularly in the first chapters. Short, verbless sentences occurring rather too often and which gave a staccato effect to the narrative. It works with dialogue, but not so well with prose paragraphs. O'Connor also retained the device, used in his first book, of interspersing 1960s radio transcripts and written memoires with the wartime events. It meant the reader had a more rounded view of what took place, from the several viewpoints of the members of the 'Choir'. Notwithstanding the (personal) irritant I felt from the grammar, I found the story had more of a structure running through it this time.

A Polish airman, Bruno, is shot down over the city. He bales out: soon, he knows, the dizziness will put him to merciful sleep, for he is falling too fast, the chute opened late, and his heart starts to sputter, and the words of the Act of Contrition will not be squeezed from his tongue as he turns in the air, feet up, head down, wrestling with the ropes that try to tighten around his torso. Falling past the terrified seabirds. In fact, he survives, but, badly wounded, he has to flee from two German soldiers. Bullets pit at his back...he jinks, ducks, like a dribbling footballer, past the wall-high mural of a scowling, arms-folded Mussolini spattered with slops of red paint. A magenta-haired, high-cheekbone woman smoking at the door-way of a bridal shop sees him coming and mashes her cigarette out with her shoe. Large-eyed. Purple-lipped. She might be thirty. She beckons. He is saved - for the time being. His injured left thumb turns septic and worsens. There is also a serious infection developing from another wound to his neck

Thus, the major story in the novel is - once the Choir hear about Bruno - how to get him treatment and, if necessary a safe transit to the Vatican. O'Connor clearly knows his Rome, its byways, conduits, catacombs, deserted buildings. The other overall surveyor is Commander Paul Hauptmann, the Nazi Gestapo Chief, charged with tracking down the hundreds of Allied servicemen, escaped PoWs and others, and who is constantly being upbraided by Himmler for his failures.  He moves into Jo Landini's Palazzo and develops a sort of perverse 'crush' on her. The author has more than one chapter which portrays a fine and believably psychology relating to the Nazi chief. O'Connor is also good at charting the increasing tension within the 'Choir'; in some instances, almost character disintegrations. There are fall-outs between the acknowledged leader, Major Sam Derry, who borders on martinet behaviour, and the volatile Jo Landini and the teenage daughter of Delia Murphy-Kiernan, Blon. Hugh O'Flaherty is also showing signs of exhaustion; Sir Francis (Frank) D'Arcy Osborne, urbane as ever is often at the end of his tether.

Two other, well-drawn characters are both American - Robert Weldrick, one of a tank crew captured in North Africa and who has escaped from the prisoner-of-war camp at Passo Corese; and 'Moon' Moody, who must have been a problem to his parents and anyone who met him from then on. Both successfully  hide from the German patrols and, eventually, look after the increasingly, and dangerously, ill Bruno. How the latter is successfully brought to the Vatican City and to proper medical care, finishes off the main story.

The final Coda, when Jo Landini, Delia Kiernan and Bruno Wiśniewski (and his wife) meet up in County Kerry for a commemoration Mass for the late Monsignor O'Flaherty, is especially poignant. Taking a golf ball from his pocket, [Bruno] places it on the grave...on the street, he notices in the distance an older man. Dark-suited, homburg-hatted, now leaning through the passenger window. I can't be, Bruno thinks. Not after all this time. Weldrick comes towards him, arms outstretched in silent embrace. For a long time, nothing is said.

In 1962, Marianna De Vries, one of the Choir, writes a statement in lieu of an interview. The story of our Roman Escape Line has been characterised as a tale of courage. But it was always a story of friendship, first and last. The friends we knew and those we did not, some fleetingly encountered, others never at all. I am no sentimentalist, but I call it a love story... And the way O'Connor tells it, that affection - even during the moments of angry and exhausting arguments - shines through. 

J.G. Lockhart's 'Valerius. A Roman Story' 1821

William Blackwood first edition - 1821

I have now read all four J.G. Lockhart's novels, Valerius (1821) being the first to be written. The others I read five years ago and produced a Blog on each - Adam Blair (1822) (Blog 8 May 2021), Reginald Dalton (1823) (Blog 25 July 2021), The History of Matthew Wald (1824) (Blog  26 September 2021). Much has been made of Lockhart's precocious learning. Born in 1794, he attended Glasgow High School and then the University of Glasgow. He fared so well, particularly in Greek studies, that he was offered a Snell Exhibition (available to those with a degree from Glasgow University) to study at Balliol College, Oxford. He was not yet 14! He read not only the Classics, but German, French, Italian and Spanish. Inevitably, he took a First Class Honours degree in Classics. In these days of hyper-inflation of degree success, this would probably be a Triple First class. His four novels, all produced in the early 1820s were dutifully received, but his 'name' was made by his brilliant (and often coruscating) journalism in Blackwood's Magazine; his editorship from 1826 to 1853 of the Quarterly Review; and, in particular, the seminal seven-volume biography of his father-in-law, Sir Walter Scott.

The novel tells the story of a young Roman-British noble, Caius Valerius, who, after the death of his father, sets out from Britain to Rome to claim his inheritance. Accompanied by his loyal slave, Boto,  they journey across the Bay of Biscay and through the Mediterranean, to arrive in the Empire's capital by barge up the Tiber. Another voyager, Sabinus, a Captain of the Praetorian Bands, who had served in all the wars of Agricola, is to prove a solid friend and an integral part of the tale. Valerius is awe-struck by Rome's grandeur - its forums, baths, marble temples - but quickly settles in with his elderly kinsman, a successful orator/lawyer Licinius. Guided by the latter, Valerius learns how to navigate political intrigues and alliances, and listens to philosophical debates between Stoics and Epicureans. He also falls in love with Athanasia, an orphan residing with her cousin Sempronia's wealthy family, the Sempronii. Valerius mixes with the elite of these suburban villas, observing the decadent entertainments there. A major scene is set in the Colosseum, where he witnesses not only gladiatorial combats but the execution of an old Christian man. Gradually, it becomes clear to him that Athanasia is also a member of the clandestine Christian community and he is caught up, by chance, in a meeting where - through treachery - they are all caught by the authorities. He manages to extricate himself, through his friend Sabinus' aid, and, in turn, effects the delivery of Anthanasia, which includes an atmospheric description of time spent hiding in the catacombs. Finally, Valerius, Athanasia and Boto escape to the coast and thence to Britain. The whole story is, in fact, a reminiscence of Valerius, now in his mid-sixties and living in that remote province of an empire, happy, for the most part, in the protection of enlightened, just and benevolent princes.

It is clear that Lockhart had conducted extensive research into the times and mores of the Emperor Trajan's Rome. The novel is set c.100 AD, following the deaths of Domitian and Nerva and charts the recovery from tyranny but also evoking the era's blend of order and underlying friction.  Behind the seemingly rigid hierarchies, class tensions simmer; the lower strata are still exploited; marriages are based on wealth; litigation reigns at the capitol; bloody combats take place in the Colosseum. And, in the novel at least, a major cause of tension is the developing, yet mainly clandestine, spread of that new Jewish faith, Christianity.  Christians are not actively sought out (unlike during the time of Domitian) but are severely punished if accused and unyielding. Lockhart is very much of his own time, and the philosophical debates - featuring Stoicism and its self-reliance contrasting with the Christian call to communal faith and forgiveness - are somewhat heavy-going for this 21st century reader.  The influence of Epictetus' teaching on inner freedom (I do concur with, perhaps, his most famous saying: We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak) amid external tyranny; Stoic resignation to fate; and Christian hope in divine intervention; are all thrown into the mix.  Athanasia's and Valerius' conversions are through intimate enlightenments - the latter convinced that darkness has passed from before his eyes. The author is introducing such categories as the meaning of life and death, time and place, and the role of man in the narrative through the form of philosophical dialogue. As one Reviewer has written: The novel's themes highlight the clash between simplicity and sophistication, loyalty and ambition, and the allure and dangers of empire, making it a notable contribution to the historical fiction genre popular in the early 1800s. Valerius can be viewed as a pioneering example in the classical-historical genre such as the later Bulwer-Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), as well as Victorian historical fiction in general. Sir Walter Scott himself endorsed the novel in private correspondence.

Scott Mariani's 'Die for a King' 2026

 

Hodder & Stoughton first paperback edition - 2026

This, the third, in the Will Bowman series looks like it will be the penultimate one. The Black Eagle, due out on 3rd December is apparently to be the final tale. What is even less surprising is the fact that Ben Hope will be back, in his 31st outing on 6th May 2027 - in The Jericho Road. In the early publicity blurb, it states that Ex-SAS soldier Ben Hope has tried to leave his past behind him - both in the forces and the dangerous choices he has made since. But for some people, a quiet life is no life at all. We left Hope and Roberta Ryder strolling barefoot on the sands of Jamaica's north coast, with the latter exclaiming,  "'What's happening with us, Ben? Where do things go from here? Will it work out between us?" The reader will have to wait nearly a year to find out exactly what happened to lure Hope and Mariani back to another adventure. My guess is that the author may have found the historical constraints of the Third Crusade period too tight, whereas Hope can go and do wherever and whatever he likes. Equally, if not more, important is the likelihood that Hope's adventures sell better than Bowman's. I only hope Roberta's okay.

What of Die for a King?  Although the author, in his Historical Note at the end says it is a novel of two distinct halves, in some ways it can be split into three. The first twelve chapters (pp.1-138) charts Bowman's continued service to King Richard I. Once more, it is a tale of fights against the Saracen, or building/rebuilding forts, castles and walled towns. It sees Richard relying more and more on Bowman, who is given command of the household guard, to act as my right hand man in this campaign and from now on answer only to me personally. Thus, Bowman finds himself yet again in the midst of hand-to-hand conflict. One of Mariani's strengths is his ability to take the reader with any protagonist (be it Bowman or Hope) into such a terrifying maelstrom: ...then the opposing charges slammed into one another with a stunningly violent crash and clash of iron and steel, bodies ramming into bodies, metal pierced flesh and organs, shields splintered and lances shattered, saddles twisted round unseating their riders, swords rang off helmets and struck sparks against other blades, blood flew in the sunlight. Broken horses lay pitifully thrashing on the ground with men crushed under them...

Meanwhile, news comes from England that brother John  - Jean sans Terre - is running amok, whilst    the perfidious Philip of France is threatening Richard's French lands of Aquitaine, Normandy and Gascony. It was to be the beginning of the end for Richard and his 'pilgrim' armies' hope of conquering Outremer. Bowman is with the King when they finally sight the Holy City of Jerusalem, still far away, a miraculous apparition bathed in gold by the rising sun. The king weeps, covering his face with his tabard and, bowing his head, his broad, powerful shoulders quaked with emotion. "Fair Lord God, " he wept, "I pray thee to shield the Holy City from my sight. For if I cannot deliver it out of the hand of thy enemies, I do not wish to see it". Richard has decided to return to England to sort out his brother.

So, Bowman feels he has had enough of the endless campaigning and (in my second of the three parts) joins the Knights Hospitallers, thanks to his friendship with one of their Brother Knights, Matthew of Hereford. Chapters 13 to 17 (pp. 139-196) chart a relatively brief period describing Bowman's admission to the Hospitallers (it includes an atmospheric account of his interview with its Grand Master), and his time at the famous Krak des Chevaliers - a breathtaking spectacle... dominating the landscape all around and visible from miles away. Bathed in the fiery colours of the sunset its lofty ramparts appeared to shine like burnished bronze...  It is while managing a Hospitaller estate, that no less than Richard's mother, the famous Eleanor of Aquitaine (radiating dignified authority from every pore of her being), and wife, Berengaria (the black-haired young beauty) turn up and persuade Bowman to undertake a rescue mission.

It is here that Mariani commences his second 'half'; as he says in his endnote, this is where we largely break away from the documented historical record and go off on a journey...of alternative history, pure conjecture, even fantasy. Too true. Bowman's task is to rescue King Richard from a prison in the lands of Henry VI of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, viz. the Holy Roman Emperor and more specifically an area run by Duke Leopold of Austria, no friend to the English monarch. The rest of the novel (Chapter 18 to 32, pp. 197-349) details the slow and dangerous journey taken by Bowman and his little band (the same who have been with him from nearly the first - Gabriel the Irishman, Samson, Roderick and old Joe - but now augmented with five other mercenaries) across the Mediterranean to Genoa. Once again, it gives Mariani the opportunity of using his skills to describe a horrific, near fatal storm and an attack by pirates. From Genoa, it is off to Milan, the Brenner Pass and into Austria. Of course, the rescue attempt fails, but not before (for really the first time) the reader has to suspend their disbelief in yet one more fight-to-the-death with Austrian soldiers. There are shades of Ben Hope's 'Mission Impossible' exploits here and it is the only jarring section in the tale.`

Bowman and his colleagues reach Marseille, not only to find the two Queens are there but that Richard is to be ransomed anyway. The whole rescue mission had not only failed but had been pointless. Notwithstanding this, Eleanor grants Bowman a little castle in the border region of Northumberland, some miles from Berwick-upon-Tweed. It is but a plane and simple domain, but it will be a home for Bowman and his mates. It also means he will be back for one more time, before Ben Hope takes over.                                                                                                                                                                     

R.D. Blackmore's 'Cradock Nowell. A Tale of the New Forest' 1866

 

Chapman and Hall first edition - 1866

This is an early Blackmore effort - and it shows. It is often said, particularly with non-fiction books, that a first is not always the best edition to read. A bookish friend of mine, on hearing I was struggling, informed me that his Cradock Nowell is the new and cheaper edition, 'diligently revised and reshapen'. R.D.B. says in the preface, dated 1873, that the reviews of the original edition were so unanimously bad that he set to work to improve it: "a new book might have been written whilst this old one was a-mending". What had gone wrong? One reason, perhaps, was the appearance of Macmillan's Magazine (and, soon after The Cornhill and other popular magazines). Cradock Nowell was accepted for serialisation in Macmillan's between  May 1865 and August 1866. It did not inspire, mainly because the author could not and would not supply the kind of sensationalism wanted by the majority of readers.

More relevantly, the plot is clumsy (I regard it as 'wayward'). It hinges upon the fact that  the twin sons of the owner of the great New Forest estate of Nowellhurst, Sir Cradock Nowell, were confused by their nurse shortly after their birth. The younger Cradock had expected to be heir, but the doctor who delivered the twins (now returned from abroad after many years) discovers the error - by marks on their shoulders. When his brother Clayton is shot dead close by where young Cradock is hunting, suspicion naturally falls on the latter.

Although Cradock escapes conviction for the murder, his father blames him for it, and he leaves in disgrace for London, beginning a new life in the slums as Charles Newman. His health disintegrates during a long nightmare with thoughts of suicide brought on by feelings of guilt. Taking a ship for the tropics appears the only way to recover his physical and mental stability. Then he gets inadvertently stranded off the south-west African coast (the ship he was on is subsequently destroyed in a hurricane, leading his family back home to think he had been lost at sea with the rest of those on board). Finally, he returns home, health restored to find his honour has also been recovered. The actual murderer had confessed; it was his 'unacknowledged' uncle Bull Garnet, who had shot Clayton for trying to seduce his daughter, Pearl. 

The novel was cruelly 'whiplashed' by the critics. They found the author guilty of obscurity, want of proportion, crudeness, imperfect development, pedantry, involution of diction, and prolixity. Kenneth Budd, in his slim biography of Blackmore - The Last Victorian (1960) - commiserates with the reader who persevered through the novel, stating that the long sentences, the many digressions, the scores of classical allusions and quotations, must render the book unreadable today by any except those who can endure such things for the sake of the occasional felicities of description of field and forest. Ironically, it was the repetition of yet another digression on stately oaks and all sorts of fauna and flora that got me skim-reading sections. But, I do agree that the classical allusions were, after a time, irritating - they were never translated for the ignorant reader such as myself. But, I did read all three volumes, even if I did occasionally struggle to keep going. 

There are, however, some strong positives to take away from the reading. Two of the most powerfully written chapters in the novel are V and VI in volume II, dealing with the real-life, devastating storm of October 1859. Officially known as the Royal Charter Storm (named after the steam clipper which went down off the coast of Anglesey where 459 lives were lost, with only 40 survivors), it struck the English Channel on 25th October, producing ferocious winds. The Solent took a direct hit, wreaking havoc on shipping, coastal defences and seaside properties across Hampshire and Dorset. Over 800 lives were lost in total, with more than 200 ships sunk or severely damaged.  Blackmore's long description is brilliant: beginning with the blobs of cloud which threw feelers out, and strung themselves together, until a broad serried and serrate bar went boldly across the heavens, he paints a vivid picture of the violence of nature which smashed and wrecked and killed. Crusted with hunks of froth and foam-drift, drenched by pelting sheets of spray, deafened by the thundering surf...they battled for that scoop of the bay where the ship must be flung by the indraught.

The description of Cradock junior's first day as a shipping clerk in the railway yard of the Grand Junction Wasting and Screwing Line is compelling: the maelstrom of steam engines and lurching wagons, where danger ran in converging lines, where a man must stand sideways, like a duellist, and with his arms like a drill-sergeant's, and not shrink an inch from the driving wheels evokes the hellish life endured by so many engaged by rail companies in the 1860s.

There are some fine, compellingly drawn characters, such as the Rev. John Rosedew, Rector of the New Forest parish of Nowellhurst, and Bull Garnet. In the first, the beloved friend of old Sir Cradock and respected pastor of the small New Forest community, the author has created a country parson of the finest type - a man with a good taste in wines, a man who can fish and swim and shoot. In all the parish of Nowellhurst there was scarcely a man or a woman who did not rejoice to see the rector pacing his leisurely rounds, carrying his elbows a little out...and smiling gently upon the children who tugged his coat-tails for an orange or a halfpenny. It is a pity that Rosedew, who always thought in Greek, except when Latin hindered him, is made the mouthpiece for the author's interminable classical allusions. In the second, the proud man of power is one of near tragic stature - stubborn, violent and repressed. His almost permanent anger comes from knowledge of his base birth (his mother was wronged by Sir Cradock's father) and his crime is due to his love and protection of his daughter's purity. But he is not a villain in the author's eyes (he dies in bed surrounded by his two children, with young Cradock's forgiveness echoing in his ears).    

++++++++++++++++++++++

Some extracts from the text:

The varieties of canine are as manifold and distinct as those of human nature. But the dog, be he saturnine or facetious, sociable or contemplative, mercurial or melancholic, is quite sure to be one thing - true and loyal ever.

Of a larger-than-life wife: she turned round suddenly on little Rufus (her husband), and standing head and shoulders above him, she opened her great eyes down upon him, like the port-holes of a frigate.

Of Bull Garnet: whoever saw him once was sure to know him again. If you met him in a rush to save the train, your eyes would turn and follow him. "There goes a man remarkable, whether for good or evil."

Do what we will, and think as we may, enlarging the mind in each generation, growing contemptuous of contempt, casting caste to the winds of heaven, and antiquating prejudice, nevertheless we shall never outrun, or even overtake Christianity.

Mark Stote, the head-gamekeeper on the Nowellhurst estate, was a true and honest specimen of the West Saxon peasant - slow, tenacious, and dogged, faithful and affectionate, with too much deference, perhaps, to all who seemed "his betters."

Mr Jupp's face was a villainous one; as even the softest philanthropist would have been forced to acknowledge. The enormous jaws, the narrow forehead, the grisly, porkish eyebrows, the high cheek-bones, and the cunning skance gleam from the black, deep-ambushed squinters...

So, a rambling tale (Blackmore himself says at one point, But, lo! here again we are wandering), with so many asides and byways and inconsequentialities (I need a rest from yet another paeon to trees); BUT, I enjoyed the character drawing and touches of humour and will remember with some affection the following personalities that helped to overcome the weaknesses of the tale - Sir Cradock and young Cradock; Amy, her father Rev. John Rosedew and Aunt Eudoxia; Bull Garnet and his two children, Robert and Pearl; the Rev. Octavius Pell; the scheming Mrs. Georgie Corklemore and slippery lawyer Simon Chope; the flamboyant Eoa Nowell. A grand array of characters.

The Guardian Readers' 100 Greatest Novels!

The Hundred Greatest Novels

(according to The Guardian readers)

Inevitably, this caught my eye on my MSM page. Intrigued, I actually printed out the List to see if I agreed with it. To start with, I'd never heard of 30 of the 100 books detailed. That is not a criticism, just an observation that the typical Guardian reader's tastes do not usually align with mine.

What were the top ten novels?

1. Middlemarch  2. Beloved  3. Ulysses  4. To the Lighthouse  5. In Search of Lost Time  6. Anna Karenina  7.  War and Peace  8.  Jane Eyre  9. Pride and Prejudice  10. Madame Bovary

Call me an old cynic, but I wonder how many readers had actually read the two Tolstoy books - Anna Karenina and War and Peace? Was it, more likely, a response to the silver screen version or to appear 'well-read'? Would that be true about Pride and Prejudice? As for Ulysses, well good luck to them! I'd never heard of Beloved, so I looked it up. Apparently, this 1987 novel by the American Toni Morrison  is famously challenging because the fragmented, non-linear narrative forces you to experience the disorienting, paralysing nature of trauma. It isn't a traditional novel... Unsurprisingly, it is also about slavery.  Well, just up guardianistas' street, then; but not for me.

Secondly, my dear old bête noire, Virginia Woolf is number 4, with that dreadful To the Lighthouse. Moreover, her Mrs. Dalloway (No.14); Orlando (No.54); The Waves (No.55); and Jacob's Room (No.92) are also in the List. It is worth repeating Philip Hensher's strictures: the idiotic The Waves, for instance, in which six incredibly uninteresting people engage in interminable and ludicrously over-written monologues, interrupted from time to time by fey prose-poems about the sun rising over the sea, or something. Orlando, an unstoppably arch fantasy about someone living for ever...is one of very few works of literature than can actually make the reader want to vomit. (see my 17 March Blog) Not to the typical Guardian reader, apparently. Five by Woolf and only two by Hardy; and just one each by William Thackeray, Josef Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, Albert Camus and Daphne Du Maurier.

Of course, Sir Walter Scott is not there; neither is Anthony Trollope or L.P. Hartley. On a more positive note, it was comforting to see Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (No.31), di Lampedusa's The Leopard (No.46), Jean Rys's Wide Sargasso Sea (No.50), and Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas (No.80). Such lists are really only useful for provoking arguments. We are not told how many readers actually responded to the request for their choices. These lists are always highly subjective; what makes a 'great' novel anyway? What about detective and spy fiction (both of which I enjoy reading) or Science fiction (which I can't abide!). I suppose I should say "Well done, Virginia"; but it would be with gritted teeth.                                               

G.P.R. James' 'The Last of the Fairies' [1848]

 

Parry & Co. first edition - [1848]

Another G.P.R.? Yes, and a delightful short one, too! There is no date on the title page - it is registered elsewhere as 1848, but it probably came out in December 1847, as it is clearly marketed in a 'Christmas Book' format - as Wolff maintains and the bookseller Jarndyce states in its catalogue.

The title, admittedly, rather put me off, as I have little time for the supernatural. However, the tale turned out to be a straightforward one about the aftermath of the Battle of Worcester in 1651, with a time-jump to 1660 and the Restoration. The father of Michael Foot (one-time Leader of the Labour Party 1980-1983) was Isaac Foot, a prominent Liberal M.P. and a Founder of the Cromwell Association. He used the 1644 Battle of Marston Moor to define a person's ideological alignment: "I judge a man by one thing, which side would he have liked his ancestors to fight on at Marston Moor?" Well, Isaac and I would have been on opposing sides and I think G.P.R. James would have joined Prince Rupert and me, going by the political slant of this novel.

The first two chapters, entitled Epoch the First, are really a Prologue to the rest of the novel. It commences on 3rd September 1651, with a description of the Battle of Worcester. The Royalist Lord Charles Eustace gallops up to a moderate sized brick building on the outskirts of the city. James' famous horseman therefore takes centre stage in a first chapter yet again! He joins his wife Lilla and his little daughter Kate, whom he urges to flee to Pershore if the battle goes against the Royalists. Soon after, Denzil, a lad some seventeen or eighteen years of age, richly dressed and accoutred, with his long dark hair flowing down over his laced collar to his shoulders, comes speedily up to tell his master that Cromwell is in sight. The battle is fought and lost; but Kate cleverly, on hunting for her father on the battlefield, manages to assist him in escaping from the Parliamentarians. A shrill scream is heard after they send a volley of musket shot against the fleeing figure (only towards the end of the novel do we find out that it is his wife who is killed).

Epoch the Second transports the reader to scenes nine years' later, i.e. 1660. We are in an unnamed village, which has a ruined medieval castle on its higher slopes.  In its midst there is a well, which was in fact a spring of very beautiful water - here villagers would come to fill up their pitchers. The old clergyman of the place, good Doctor Aldover, a very meek, peaceful, and timid man had been dispossessed by a Presbyterian minister, Rev. Gideon Samson, though somewhat starch and caustic in his manner, was a good man and a kind, at heart, and both clergymen got on tolerably well with each other. Onto the castle sward comes a very handsome young man, of some seven or eight and twenty years; ... the bright glossy curls of his long abundant hair suited his face much better than the short crop of the Parliamentary soldier, or the sleek straight-cut hair of the puritanical preacher. It doesn't take much guesswork by the reader to realize it is dear Denzil again. He has ridden long and far and sensibly falls asleep in the castle's archway. Awakening, he beheld, with a strange peculiar feeling which he could not account for, a female form of exquisite beauty and grace standing on the opposite side of the little well... Oh, no, this reader thought - not another Walter Scott type supernatural being? It appears so as, when he tries to follow her, she seemed to become thinner, less substantial, more shadowy...and finally disappears.

The perplexed Denzil makes his way down to the village and it is confirmed that he has seen the Fairy of the Castle! He first meets Doctor Aldover and Rev. Samson, the former suggesting it was merely an astral spirit and the latter arguing the sprite is the spirit of a returning dead. Aldover has a vague recollection of Denzil's face, but is counselled to be cautious due to the rank and suspicious persons in the village. Denzil again has a sleep and is this time awakened by a woman's voice, saying Come to the church at midnight! Aldover takes him down to another cottage, that of a good lad, John Brownlow, and his curmudgeonly father. Also there, Denzil meets a young girl of seventeen or eighteen years of age, who had all the lightness of youth with a perfect symmetry of every limb - it is Alice Brownlow, the old man's niece. She agrees to take Denzil to the church - at midnight. Romance is already in the air!

She leaves him at the porch, but, in the ensuing darkness, within the sepulchral surroundings once again the ethereal voice, already heard at the castle, beckons him on. This means descending into a crypt and groping along a quarter of a mile tunnel. Finally, the beautiful figure, clothed in white and already seen at the castle, tells him to pray at a tomb (in fact, it is that of Lilla Eustace). Denzil is also told to pick up a parchment scroll, read it back at Doctor Aldover's cottage and obey its instructions. Alice Brownlow turns up again and Denzil realises his heart is lost to her. The scroll has told him to go swiftly North and hand it over to an unnamed gentleman. Before he goes, he and Alice more or less plight their troth! He leaves just in time, as Parliamentary soldiers are coming to bivouac in the village.

Although there are still 90 pages to go, the rest of the tale can be quickly described. It is General Monk who Denzil has to hand over the scroll. It clearly relates to the General supporting the Restoration of Charles II. In Epoch the Third, Denzil returns to the village and finds a nasty Parliamentary soldier, Colonel Okey terrorizing the inhabitants. It is in the description of Okey that the author's prejudices are clearly shown. He harangued his men with the common-place cant of the wilder and more enthusiastic sectaries, who then struggled to retain that power and predominance which they had for many years enjoyed and misused in the land... Notwithstanding a near-fatal fall from the castle battlements, brought on by the ethereal beauty leading Okey to be shoved by a black arm to the court below, the Colonel leads a court of so-called justice against John Brownlow and others. It is at this juncture that Denzil returns, to be named by his true title, Denzil, Lord Blount, who Okey accuses of slaying his nephew at Worcester. However, all is luckily lost for Colonel O - Denzil has surrounded the court with Royalist troops; moreover, it is the very end of May 1660 - King Charles II is on the throne!

The 'Fairy' has one last message for Denzil - forswear the Court and the cities and live amongst your own people on your own lands. Then, it's time to meet Lord Eustace, who had survived Worcester, but for the loss of an arm - now replaced by a contrivance (yes, it was the Lord's black arm that pushed Okey off the castle battlements). He had been hiding in the ruins for nearly a decade, safe against villagers' snooping by the supernatural terrors and Alice Brownlow's taking him sustenance. Eustace teases Denzil that years ago he had planned for his daughter Kate to become the latter's wife. Denzil, however, refuses to budge from wanting Alice. Well, guess what?! (I had, in fact, guessed some while back) - Alice proves to be the disguise Catherine (Kate) has assumed since Worcester. Of course, they marry and, of course, Catherine/Kate had played the Fairy to keep simple villagers away from her father's hideout. Gideon Samson flees to Scotland, Doctor Aldover proves to be Lord Eustace's chaplain.

A much tighter story from James for once and quite enjoyable.