Two Jarrolds' 'Jackdaw' Library paperbacks

 

Jarrolds' Publishers - both October 1936

Lat year, I took eight Jarrolds' 'Jackdaw' Crime paperbacks to Corfu and read them all. I had saved the earlier Jarrolds' 'Jackdaw' Library ones for our holiday in Greece again - this time returning for the third time to Halkidiki on the mainland. Such was the tiring experience of Birmingham Airport that for the first day and evening I just could not begin to read. I managed just four novels by the end of the week's trip. Two of them are above.

Rather strangely Jarrolds decided to publish the third book of a trilogy, Grey Granite, as the second book in their new 'Jackdaw' Library.  Not until No. 16, was Sunset Song produced, followed by the middle story Cloud Howe as No. 19. Having elected to read them in the order that Jarrolds printed them,  I not only began with the story of a now middle-aged Chris Guthrie but also, by leaving Sunset Song until later, missed what was voted Scotland's favourite book in a 2005 poll, to be repeated in 2016 in the BBC's Love to Read campaign. The fact that Nicola Sturgeon wrote a feature article about the novel in an issue of the New Statesman only slightly diminishes my desire to read it.

What of Grey Granite?

I must admit that, of the four 'Jackdaw' novels I read in Greece, Grey Granite was the one I least felt an affinity for. I think it was partly the unfamiliar syntax used and the strange (Scottish?) words that kept popping up. But I have managed Scott and Galt and other Scottish writers, so I don't think it was that unsettling.  I wasn't quite sure what to make of political aim of the book. Reading that Lewis Grassic Gibbon (actually James Leslie Mitchell) was a committed socialist/communist won't have endeared him to me. It didn't help that the focus of the novel seemed to move from Chris to her son, Ewan. I found him most unsympathetic. His early, rather withdrawn and non committal youth was preferable to his increasing involvement in left-wing politics. Inevitably, humour drained away - why are left wingers so humourless?! His behaviour to his teacher girlfriend, Ellen Johns, when she admits she has left the Party (for the perfectly understandable reason that she might otherwise lose her job) was shocking: Go to them then in your comfortable car - your Labour Party and your comfortable flat. But what are you doing out here with me? I can get a prostitute anywhere. Nauseating. Chris herself returns at the end of the trilogy to her roots, she had found the last road she wanted and taken it, concerning none and concerned with none. She was only in her late thirties, but appeared older. (Tragically Gibbon himself  was to die just short of his thirty-fourth birthday). As Chris comes full circle, she'd open her eyes and see only the land, enduring, encompassing.

The Reverend Edward MacShilluck was a lovely character, smug in his  sanctimonious hypocrisy, preaching of the Hand of Gawd and starting most of his sentences with ahhhhhhhhhhhh, slapping his housekeeper's bottom and tiptoeing regularly up to her room to peep in at her and shogged his mouth like a teething tiger... The characters who board at the lodging house which Chris runs in partnership with the admirable Ma Cleghorn, who states that there is nothing worse than some old runkle of a woman body living on with no man to tend and no bairns and then sensibly dies, are also skilfully drawn: the prim Miss Murgatroyd, dying for her tea the poor old wretch, quavering in her lace night-cap; Archie Clearmont, nice loon who went to the University and was awfully keen on music and jokes; the maniac cyclist Mr. George Piddle, the Runner reporter, thin and he he-ing, minus his hair so that he could go bald-headed for news, finally leaving head down, neck out, without a He-he!; Miss Ena Lyon, the typist, powdered and lipsticked, and awful up-to-date, baggy a bittie below the eyes and a voice like a harried peahen, poor lass. A marvellous microcosm of humanity. 

There are some other realistic cameos: Syne Feet the Policeman, who would say Ay, majestic-like, like a steer with the staggers and who had no time for picket lines and socialistic blethering; Big Jim Trease, leader of marches and, for a while, a mentor for Ewan; Lord Provost Speight, with his long, dreich, wrinkled face, frightened that a past demeanor would surface at any time.

As I type this, I realise that Gibbon's characters are so full of life, however awful it might be. What a pity he had to drown it in leftie politics, with a main character so full of bile.

*******************************************************************

George Goodchild I have mentioned before as I read the two books of his in the Jarrolds Crime 'Jackdaw series - No. 5 The Jury Disagree and No. 7 Dear Old Gentleman (see Blog for 31 May 2022). I have found out that Tiger's Cub was written in 1917, being novelized (!) from a play. It's a frontier yarn set in the Yukon of the Gold Rush, where Men were Men, and could well make a great silent movie with suitable sub titles. Tiger's Cub, so called because her father (but was he?!) Hank Bloss, was known as the Tiger. And a very unappealing man he was, quite prepared to give Cub a thrashing with a huge dog-whip, with a bestial growl of rage. He is not  quite as nasty as his big mate and partner in crime, Bill Slark. The names fit their characters.

On the side of the angels are Lone Wolf, of the Chilkat tribe - on the whole it was an intelligent face, pleasantly removed from the moon-like, expressionless visages of the Esquimaux (you wouldn't get away with writing that nowadays), whose dying master, Colonel Summers, gave him the ultimate praise: You've been a good pal - a good - pal; a white man through and through. Father Jerome, the Jesuit priest, who travels the country attending to patients and giving the last rites. Then there is Tiger's Cub herself, later to be proven as Mary Mackenzie  - with a self possession amazing in one so young. her eyes were wonderfully eloquent, alight with an expression of merriment and quick wit...yet an indiscreet word would transform them into rivers of flashing wrath; and David Summers, the young undergraduate from Oxford who comes looking for his father. His nightmarish journey through the white expanse of the wintry Yukon is superbly described. 

The actual Tale is straightforward enough. English Colonel comes to the Yukon and apparently strikes rich on the Golconda. Two baddies cheat at cards to swindle him out of the stake. He gets shot on his way home, leaving his Indian servant his signet ring. Plucky young attractive daughter falls in love with son of the dead man. Together they aim to wed. Bad dad and his mate come home; agree a deal where one gets the young girl, the other gets a stake. Wedding takes place but bad groom is also shot dead. Ends with Indian going off into the Yukon having proven dad was bad and both youngsters live happily ever after (eventually in England), even though the daughter's bad dad was strung up by the Sheriff and his team. It was a nice, easy holiday read; it reminded me a little of Hammond Innes.

DVD Thrillers - The Equalizer 1 & 2 2014 and 2018

Double DVD - 2014 and 2018

 Some time ago, I watched this 2014 action film, which was loosely based on the 1980s TV series of the same name and remembered being very struck with Denzel Washington's gripping character. A second showing was just as interesting. Playing a former US Marine turned DIA Intelligence Officer, we see this Robert McCall living a quiet, retired life in Boston. He works in a large hardware stall, remarkably like B & Q in the U.K. The first time I visited the latter after watching the movie, I quickly checked where all the power tools were stored! The film quickly established that McCall is a creature of habit, almost with OCD - his teabag must be carefully wrapped in a tissue/cloth, folded over the same way each time; his utensils at the café he regularly attends must be straightened... Methodical is an understatement.

He is helping an overweight colleague Ralphie train to become a security guard at the store, but his 'retirement', which includes trying to finish the 100 books his dead wife also had been attempting, ends when Teri, a teenage prostitute he has befriended in the café - whose real name is Alina and who dreams of becoming a singer - is hit by her pimp Slavi and forced into his car. Alina is subsequently admitted to hospital, badly beaten up. McCall had been handed a business card by Slavi, so he travels to the restaurant owned by pimp and his gang. He offers to buy Alina off them; Slavi refuses. Suddenly a rather tame story of a prostitute being beaten up explodes into mind-numbing violence. Robert checks his watch, shuts the door and launches into a ruthless attack on the gang - all lie dead within seconds. 

What McCall did not know was that Slavi was part of a much larger syndicate led by the Russian oligarch Vladimir Pushkin (near name of Putin!), who sends Teddy Rensen, his enforcer, to investigate the attack. Some superb and riveting scenes follow: two corrupt Boston PD detectives are hunted down; a money laundering warehouse is entered and the workers sent home, each with a dollop of the money whilst Pushkin's men are taken into custody by the police; two of Pushkin's oil tankers are destroyed. All in a day's work for MacCall. Helped by old friends and colleagues from the former Defence Intelligence Agency, Susan and Brian Plummer, Teddy is identified as Nikolai Itchenko, a Spetsnaz operative.

The tension builds to a thrilling but gruesome scene in the hardware store. Suffice it to say, I shall never look at another power drill or nail gun in the same way again. Teddy and his mates are drilled or nailed and Ralphie, as a bit support,  shows he had it in him as a security guard. Somehow, McCall gets to Moscow and deals with Pushkin in his exotic mansion - don't stand in water and switch on a defective light. Finally, Alina runs into Robert near the café - fully recovered, grateful for the money McCall has sent her, she has started a new life. A very satisfying ending.

The movie grossed $101.5 million in the USA and $90.8 million elsewhere. Its net production budget was c. $55-73 million. The Equalizer had an approval rating of 60% based on 203 reviews.

*********************************************************************************

Four years later, The Equalizer 2 came out. Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) is now working as a Lyft driver but also helping those less fortunate with the assistance of his former DIA colleague Susan Plummer. Susan and DIA officer Dave York, Robert's former partner (who thought McCall had been killed), are called to investigate the murder-suicide of an agency affiliate and his wife in Brussels. At their hotel, Susan is accosted in her room and killed. The expertly delivered fatal stab suggests to McCall that Susan was targeted and the murder-suicide staged. McCall informs York of his findings.

During one of his Lyft runs, McCall is attacked by an assassin posing as an ordinary passenger. He kills the man and retrieves his mobile phone; York's number is on the phone call list. He confronts York at his home; the latter confesses to having become a mercenary and killing Susan, knowing she had worked out the murder-suicide scenario. There are compelling scenes, involving Susan's widower, a young black teenager trapped while painting Robert's flat, and McCall's own escape. The movie climaxes at McCall's seaside hometown, which has been evacuated as a hurricane nears. He has, and York (who positions himself on the town's watchtower) and his three henchmen go looking for him. If it's not exactly nail gun time, the three sidekicks leave this world as a result of a spear gun, knives and a flour explosion trap. York is confronted on the tower top and leaves suddenly over the edge with his own knife in him for company. Having moved back into his old house, McCall is left staring out on a calm sea. Excellent acting again from Washington, although the film did not quite have the impact of its predecessor. The denouement on the coast was perhaps too drawn out and 'theatrical'. Apparently, a third movie is due out this Autumn. I will watch it.

Equalizer 2 grossed $102.1 million in the USA and $88.3 million elsewhere. The production budget was $62 million. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie had an approval rating of 52% based on 206 reviews. A rather caustic comment came from Dave Ehrlich of IndieWire, who gave the film a C-, saying, The good news is that fans of Antoine Fuqua's 'The Equalizer' - a bland and pulpy 2014 riff on the '80s TV series of the same name - are in for more of the same. The bad news is the rest of us are too.

G.P.R. James' 'The Gypsy' 1835

 

Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman

First edition - 1835

It has been three weeks since I finished reading G.P.R. James's The Gipsy - thanks to a holiday in Greece and other pressing duties - so I am relying more than ever on memory. Once I had got over the rather boring rebinding (pre Great War?), I set to on another mammoth three-volume read. The novel displayed all of the author's strong points and his weaknesses.

To get rid of the latter first. The very first lines can be used as an example of James's pursuit of unnecessary padding and ruminating: At that time in the world's history when watches, in their decline from the fat comeliness of the turnip to the scanty meagreness of the half-crown, had arrived at the intermediate form of a biffin - when the last remnant of a chivalrous spirit instigated men to wear swords every day, and to take purses on horseback - when quadrupeds were preferred to steam, and sails were necessary to a ship -[there follows a list of ten names of individuals of the period] ...at that period of the dark ages, the events which are about to be related undoubtedly took place, in a county which shall be nameless. Why not just say '1770s'?

James also lived up to the popular conception that  "two cavaliers" always appear in the first chapter as, on page 2,  we read that two persons on horseback were seen riding through a part of the country, the aspect of which was one whereon we delight to dwell and, of course, he does just that. However, and it is a big 'however', the author can spin a compelling yarn with clearly delineated and interesting characters.

There are several 'heroes' and 'heroines' in the book and even Pharold, the Gipsy, himself is no cardboard cut-out 'baddie' but a well-rounded character of some depth. His fellow gipsies, both male and female, have both good and bad amongst their midst and are respected in their own right. Of the horseman, the younger 26 year-old, Edward de Vaux, may well have been the more handsome of the two, but his character and journey through the pages is less clear-cut and admirable than his older companion, who is the real hero.  The latter was older, taller, stronger. In age he might be thirty-two or three, in height he was fully six feet, and seldom was there ever a form which excelled his in all those points where great strength is afforded without any appearance of clumsiness. He is also a thoroughly good egg but he suffers from a singular misfortune: when he approached so as to allow his features to be seen, all one's prepossessions were dispelled, and one perceived that, not withstanding this fine person, he was, in some respects, as ugly a man as it was possible to conceive. Pre-Jenner, he had been attacked by small-pox, that horrible malady...we except his eyes and eyelashes, which had been spared...but they were like the beauty of Tadmor in the wilderness, for all was ugliness around them.  An antique female cousin, a card-playing belle, blurted out "Good God, Charles, you are perfectly frightful". Strong stuff; but never 'judge a book by its cover'. Colonel Charles Manners provides the upright 'steel' throughout the tale and deservedly gets his heart's desire at the end.

The ladies are a well drawn and believable bunch, with their strengths, weakness and foibles. Isadore Falkland has the good sense to see through Colonel Manners's 'ugliness'; whilst her mother not only provides the necessary historical background to past family disasters, but is stalwart in support of her daughter and niece; the young cousin of Edward, Marian de Vaux, after a shaky start, comes up trumps for her cousin and also ensures a happy ending. Lena, the Gipsy's 'wife' (it is not clear if he uses a term which is not strictly true), is drawn with compassion.

 Lord Dewry, Edward de Vaux's father, full of wrath and bitterness,  a violent and proud man, plays his part as the not-quite pantomime villain. He shares a dreadful secret with the Gipsy, which finally, and fortuitously, proves not to be quite accurate. James spends some time in describing his character and enables the reader to understand, if not sympathise with, the mental disquietude behind his unpleasant nature. There is an amusing cameo/walk-on part for Lady Barbara Simpson, who rapidly digs a hole at the dinner table discussing the Colonel's 'ugliness. James here proves he has a lightness of touch, amongst the occasional meandering verbosity. There are excellent scenes - the interplay between Lord Dewry and an old reprobate in arms, the beggared and threadbare Sir Roger Millington (who reminded me slightly of Sir Andrew Aguecheek); the  gipsies' attempt at deer-stealing; the trial of Pharold; and the 'unmasking' of 'Sir William Ryder'.

All's well that ends well. Edward de Vaux and his cousin Marion plight their troth; Pharold probably escapes to the green wood - or the scrubland - the true Lord Dewry claims his rightful inheritance, and Isadore Falkland can turn on Lady Simpson's recurring comment about the Colonel's ugliness to retort: Ugly! He is the handsomest man in all the world!" and she continued to think so to her dying day.

I must now save up to purchase another G.P.R James, although I do have  the single-volume Gowrie still to read.

Marjorie Bowen's 'Peter Porcupine. A Study of William Cobbett' 1935

 

Longmans, Green and Co. first edition - 1935

I found this an interesting biography of Cobbett in that it appeared (to me, at least), that the author, Marjorie Bowen, started off with quite a flattering angle on the great man but became increasingly aware of his deficiencies as she went on! Her Preface (most Prefaces are written after a book has been written) sums up this slightly ambiguous approach to her subject:

William Cobbett was such a vital human being; he lived through the War of American Independence, the first French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England, and these events did not seem to him as they seem to us in text-books, but were part of the rich, bewildering, exasperating pattern woven as a background to his own robust and honest personality, in which he was, with such simple egotism, absorbed...it was a bold and vigorous life, full of adventure, of action, of wholesome fights, of generous friendships, of patient and skilful labours, of delight in nature and man's honest handiwork; it was a life illumined by a steadfast love given and taken and an unselfish purpose steadfastly followed.

Bowen takes the reader through a straightforward chronology of Cobbett's life: Farmer's Boy from Farnham; private soldier to Sergeant-Major based in Nova Scotia; the emergence of the pamphleteer and, after a brief interlude in France, a return to the 'New World'. Back in England in 1800, his outspoken views in print got him a two-year jail sentence in Newgate and an even more rebellious attitude; another retreat to America and more vituperative pamphleteering; a return to England to support the estranged Queen Caroline; more controversial pamphleteering and election to the House of Commons.

The early years seem to be a period when Cobbett knew nothing or very little of affairs beyond his own environment - unaware of the insidious and underground progress industry was making in England...unaware of the gradual rise of the trading class, those Indian adventurers and Nabobs...did not know that these same [self-interested] traders and their interests really ruled England...was not concerned with the French Revolution, nor indeed with politics at all, nor cognizant of, nor interested in, and possible scheme for reform...

What Cobbett was doing, from an early age, was building up a bank of hatreds: for the incompetent, rapacious, drunken and ignorant officer class; Dr. Joseph Priestley, Thomas Paine (for a while), Talleyrand, The French Revolution, Napoleon, Pitt the Younger, Castlereagh, Canning, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, Lord Ellenborough, the Lord Chief Justice, Rev. Thomas Malthus, Bingham Baring of the House of Baring, representatives of Mammon; foreigners in general, negroes, Jews (Jews, jobbers and usurers), stock-jobbers, place-men, bankers, London (which he named 'the Wen'), the Board of Agriculture. A fiery editor and pamphleteer, Cobbett managed to annoy and anger nearly everyone of importance - such as George IV - even his erstwhile allies, Sir Francis Burdett and Henry Hunt. Finally, achieving his long-held desire of becoming an M.P., the irony was that Cobbett was a perpetual irritant in the House but not very effective.

He had an ingrained dislike for Shakespeare (bawdy talk, bad grammar...condemned for his dubious moral teaching) and Milton - Paradise Lost ("barbarous trash") was as offensive to his common sense as was Methodism or the "enthusiasm" of the Wesleys. He even hated tea ("slops")!

Cobbett comes across as insensitive, self-satisfied - even his most famous book, Rural Rides, is less a picture of England than of William Cobbett. It is no surprise to read the sub-title - With Economical and Political Observations. He was fighting a losing battle against the (inevitable) forces of change: farm machinery, the development of steam on the railways and factories, the steady move from the countryside to the towns and cities. the rise of the political middle class... Interestingly, Bowen does not mention Cobbett's estrangement from his devoted wife near the end of his life.

Marjorie Bowen's Summary was probably not what she would have written whilst studying Cobbett's early life:

[it] can hardly be denied that few works shot with fierce prejudices, bitter hatreds, and furious invective, have much chance of survival; irony, the rapier of the gentleman, is always keen and elegant - the crude sarcasm of the peasant, as heavy as a quarter-stick wielded on the village green, soon becomes an obsolete weapon. Cobbett's self-satisfaction, so continually and so flatly expressed, also spoils his work - such noisy vanity can be as assailing to the subtle-minded as the cool, silent arrogance of Lord Castlereagh was to the simplicity of William Cobbett. Very well put.

Two Thrillers on DVD - 'The Jackal' and 'The Pelican Brief'

 

1997 Film - 2003 DVD

I watched these two films within days of each other - The Jackal for the second or third time but a first viewing for The Pelican Brief. Before my own few comments, I thought I would look up what Roger Ebert  (1942-2013) - the best-known film critic in America - thought of them. I occasionally read his reviews when I was engaged in that marathon run of watching The 50 Great War Films, and found much to agree with but also times when I disagreed with him. He was a committed Democrat, shown perhaps when he criticised The Jackal for having as the target a First Lady clearly intended to be Hillary Rodham Clinton (hints: She is blond, 50ish, the wife of the president...) I would never wish anyone dead (well, Putin?) but Clinton has always been an anathema to me. Ebert is not a fan of either film, and is particularly scathing of The Jackal.

Richard Gere, Sidney Poitier and Diane Venora

The Jackal is what is called a loose take on the 1973 movie The Day of the Jackal - it was a commercial success, grossing $159.3 million worldwide against a $50 million budget. However, the film earned mostly negative reviews and Ebert did not hold back on his criticisms. "The Jackal" is a glum, curiously flat thriller about a man who goes to a great deal of trouble in order to create a crime that anyone in the audience could commit more quickly and efficiently...[the film] impressed me with its absurdity. There was scarcely a second I could take seriously. Examples: In Washington, D.C., subway system, the Jackal jumps across the tracks in front of a train, to elude his pursuers. The train stops, exchanges passengers and pulls out of the station. Is it just possible, do you suppose, that in real life after a man jumps across the tracks, the train halts until the situation is sorted out?...Or, how about the scene early in the film where a fight breaks out on cue, and then stops immediately after a gunshot is fired?...these barflies are as choreographed as dancing Cossacks....a Russian-born agent named Valentina (Diane Venora), whose character trait (singular) is that she lights a cigarette every time she is not already smoking one... 

Bruce Willis as 'The Jackal'

The Jackal strikes me as the kind of overachiever who, assigned to kill a mosquito, would purchase contraband insecticides from Iraq and bring them into the United States by hot air balloon, distilling his drinking water from clouds and shooting birds for food. Ouch! Ebert won't be on the director's Christmas card list. However, he does have a point. I couldn't see why Valentina had to shout to Richard Gere when the Jackal already had him in his gun sights or why she and two Secret Service agents hung about at the lonely house well after the occupants had been whisked away by the FBI. Gere's Irish accent was interesting and his calm, thoughtful demeanor didn't really fit an IRA gunman persona. Enough said. Where I do agree with Ebert is on his comment about The Day of the Jackal - that was a film that impressed us with the depth of its expertise. We felt it knew exactly what it was talking about. That assassin seemed 'real', this one more manufactured. That is why the earlier film is in my top 20 films, whereas this one is very much an also-ran. De Gaulle was a real-life target of the O.A.S., subject to more than one attempt on his life for genuine 'political' reasons. The fictitious First Lady was simply the target of a crazed mafiosi-type Russian bleating for revenge for his brother's death. 

1993 Film - 2011 DVD

Denzel Washington & Julia Roberts

Roger Ebert has a very interesting comparison between the two films from John Grisham books - The Pelican Brief and The Firm. While the latter was a muscular thriller with action sequences, The Pelican Brief takes place more quietly, in corners, shadows, and secret hotel rooms. True, it has a few bomb explosions and chases, but by Grisham standards it's claustrophobic...by casting attractive stars in the leads, by finding the right visual look, by underlining the action with brooding, ominously sad music, a good director can create the illusion of meaning even when there's nothing there. Washington and Roberts do the rest, simply by embodying virtue and being likable. 

Perhaps that's why I found the movie bordered on being boring! Washington, in his early pictures at least, is the wholesome 'good guy' - I much preferred him in The Equalizer (2014); Roberts too often comes across as a wide row of teeth with not a lot of depth behind them. Unfair? Probably, but I didn't buy the Ebert summary of Roberts being a wonderful heroine - warm, courageous, very beautiful. Beauty is irrelevant to this story. In 2010, Roberts said she was Hindu, having converted for spiritual satisfaction - well, whatever floats your boat I suppose.

I briefly thought that the President in the movie - played by a rather bland, smiling Robert Culp but who was clearly guilty of nefarious practices - couldn't possibly have attained the highest office. Then I recalled George Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton and Donald John Trump, and realised Culp's portrayal was spot on.

G.P.R. James's 'The Robber' 1838

 

Longman, Orme...first edition - 1838

I am becoming increasingly partial to G.P.R. James; like Scott and other novelists of the early/mid 19th century, he wafts me away from this awful 21st century to a period I am so much more comfortable with. I am totally out of sympathy with all the activist 'protest' movements that are increasingly thrust in our faces by both the print and audio visual media. 

The Robber is not as enthralling a story as The Smuggler, but I still enjoyed it. Although there are no dates to hang a definite period on, it is either set in William and Mary's reign or Queen Anne's (the late 17th or early 18th century). The 'Robber' of the title is often 'off screen', but he certainly affects the storyline and makes a great end in the final pages. More central to the plot is his friend Harry Langford, who not only woos Alice, the comely daughter of Sir Walter Herbert, but carries with him a whiff of mysterious origins. Far be it from me to deliver spoiler alerts, but I guessed fairly early 

on in the tale who was likely to be. James draws his typical pen picture of the heroine: she was, certainly, very beautiful, and the beauty of a very peculiar cast. It was the bright and sunshiny, united with the deep and touching. Her skin was clear, and exquisitely fair; her lips full, but beautifully formed; the brow broad and white; and the eyes of that soft peculiar hazel, which, when fringed with long black lashes, perhaps is more expressive than any other colour. The hair, which was very  full and luxuriant, was of a brown - several shades lighter than Langford's own - soft and glossy as silk, and catching a golden gleam in all the prominent lights. She was not tall, but her form was perfectly well proportioned, and every full and rounded limb was replete with grace and symmetry. No wonder young Langford is smitten from the first. I copied the portrait James drew in full, as it is another example of him giving women their full share of the limelight, not just by commenting on their appearance but also usually ensuring that they play important roles in his tales.

James also pens a realistic picture of Langford himself, often spending several paragraphs explaining the hero's moods, strengths and weaknesses. He is particularly good at the relationship which develops, unevenly, between Langford and his real father and between Langford and his mercurial half-brother. The old Earl of Danemore is a fascinating character, whose present unpleasant behaviour gradually becomes understandable as his 'backstory' emerges. The minor characters all 'make sense' as well. Where the author grates is in his regular musings on the parallels between Nature - especially the weather or scenery - and human behaviour and endeavour. This is where the pruning shears could be most effective. However, as I believe I have remarked in earlier Blogs about Sir Walter Scott's extraneous conceits, it is part and parcel of the man - and it rarely bothers me!

I have just purchased another James three decker, thanks to a generous bookseller knocking £35 off the marked price. It is The Gipsy, published in 1835, three years before The Robber. It is of some note, that Robert Louis Stevenson, writing from Saranac in February 1888 to a Mr. E.L. Burlingame, asked: Will you send me (from the library) some of the works of my dear old G.P.R. James? With the following especially I desire to make or renew acquaintance: The Songster, The Gipsy, The Convict, The Stepmother, The Gentleman of the Old School, The Robber. Well, I soon will have read two works on R.L.S's list. Perhaps I should look out for The Convict!