Rudyard Kipling's 'Stalky & Co. 1899

 

Macmillan and Co. first edition - 1899

At last, I have got around to reading Kipling's fictional tale of his life at the United Services College (USC) at Westward Ho! on Bideford Bay in North Devon. He arrived at the 'Coll' in January 1878, aged twelve. His ambitious mother had known the headmaster, Cormell Price, as a friend of her brother Harry in the early 1850s. The school, with its motto Fear God Honour the King was intended to have 200 pupils accommodated in four houses, but when it opened for the autumn term of 1874 there were fifty-eight boys. Price was not obsessed with Classical Studies and the teaching was geared to the needs of the Army and Civil Service examinations - practical 'modern' subjects, i.e. mathematics, science, English and languages. Other pastimes including acting and zoology. There were few restrictions on bounds, pupils being free to wander the country lanes and into the market towns of Bideford and Appledore.

The United Services College, Westward Ho!

Kipling was keen, in his Autobiography, to minimise any evidence of homosexuality (rife in most public schools) but did admit the extent of bullying, He hated life at the school at first, writing a succession of miserable, tear-stained letters to his mother. An outbreak of boils in the following year suggested all was still not well, but his fondness for (and keeping of) an assortment of birds and small, furry animals, as well as his first dabbling in 'journalism' undoubtedly helped him. He was the only boy wearing glasses, and the nickname Gigger was given to him after Giglamps. He made two firm friends - Lionel Dunsterville, the son and grandson of career officers who rose to become major-generals in the Indian army, who Kipling nicknamed Stalky (Dunsterville regularly outwitted the schoolmasters and, in school slang, it was known as 'Stalkyism'); and George Beresford, son of a military man, a wealthy cousin of the Marquess of Waterford. Aristocratic in bearing, with a quick Irish wit, he was called 'Turkey' or 'M'Turk'. It is not known why. In 1879 or early 1880, the three set up in Number Five study in Pugh's house. The difference between the riotous behaviour in Stalky & Co. and in reality was marked. Far from the crypto-anarchy of the book and Kipling's later autobiography, Something of Myself (1935), according to Beresford, the latter was as full of misstatement and absurdities as Stalky & Co which is undoubtedly farce. Beresford thought Kipling had become rather 'gaga', wanting to portray himself as hearty, hefty, athletic person to match his propaganda of imperialism and jingoism, instead of what he was - a podgy, spectacled highbrow. Beresford's reminiscences - Schooldays with Kipling (Gollancz 1936) - were full of embittered disparagement and Dunsterville regarded him as filled with hatred and contempt for his fellow men. Dunsterville was much more mellow and tolerant in his Stalky's Reminiscences (Cape 1928). Dunsterville did have a lot of Stalky in him. Never an intellectual, he had a certain high-spirited cunning - shown early in 1918, when he convinced the Turks not to advance into the Southern Caucasus. He had started at the school three years earlier than Kipling and had found appalling and unchecked bullying there - which had greatly declined by 1878

Kipling as a boy            Dunsterville  'Stalky'

 

Much of their time was spent out of doors; like their fictional alter egos, they had a bolt-hole, a hut in a thicket of furze bushes, where they went to read, smoke and relax. In the winter, they rented a room from a drunken yokel. Kipling enjoyed swimming, which he learned from Sergeant-Major George Schofield, the school gym master (known as 'Foxy' in the book). Kipling also liked and respected Rev. George Willes, a man of sound common sense, and who featured as the Padre, Rev. John Gillett in the novel. W.C. Crofts ('King' in the book) an eccentric English and Classics scholar from Brasenose College, was a fine rower and liked to show off his manly physique skiing cross-country in the nude. The most important influence was the Head - not the stern whacker portrayed in the novel but a leader often accused by his staff of not being firm enough. Cormell Price excused Kipling from Maths lessons and put him in the Library and also allowed him access to his own library. Kipling revived the school magazine, the Chronicle, took part in debating and dramatics whilst poetry poured from him. Kipling left in the summer of 1882, bound for a career in India.

Cormell Price - Headmaster

Kipling's fictional masters were just that. They were certainly not the same as their real-life counterparts. Both Dunsterville and, particularly, Beresford further muddied the waters. The latter sneered at Cormell Price and turned Pugh into a half-witted oaf. Dunsterville maintained that the book's events are actual events in most cases, but very much written up...we were only just a lot of potty little schoolboys with playful ingenuity...

Stalky & Co. received a fair amount of criticism. Robert Buchanan wrote: Only the spoiled child of an utterly brutalised public could possibly have written it. The vulgarity, the brutality, the savagery...reeks on every page. It is true that the beatings, the bullying are unpleasant but Kingsley Amis, in his short appraisal of Kipling, is surely right to say the element of cruelty is in fact mild. When an enemy is defeated, the stress is not so much on his humiliation as on the ingenuity that brought it about....the stories are best read as fictional demonstrations of cleverness defeating strength. Where one can cavil  is the rather distasteful story of the systematic torture of the bullies in one story made worse because it is done coolly without any loss of temper.  Here is the deliberate cruelty of the goodies to the baddies in order to teach them a lesson.

I read the book with interest rather than enjoyment. The product of a boarding public school myself - the 1950s and early 1960s still had long dormitories, a host of minor rules that simply had to be broken - I could empathise with several of Kipling's chapters. I treated it as faction - reminiscences drenched in fiction.

Angus Wilson: He was an anomaly in a school that was itself an anomaly and with a headmaster who was an anomaly.

In My Library

Kingsley Amis - Rudyard Kipling (Thames and Hudson, 1975)

Angus Wilson - The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling (Secker & Warburg, 1977)

Lord Birkenhead - Rudyard Kipling (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1978)

Andrew Lycett - Rudyard Kipling (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999)

David Gilmour - The Long Recessional. The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling (John Murray, 2002)

 

Frank Kryza's 'The Race for Timbuktu' 2006

 

HarperCollins first edition - 2006

In the first two decades of the 19th century, the 'lost' city of Timbuktu burned in the imagination of European geographers, explorers and fortune-hunters. Like El Dorado, the city was reputed to be a place of immense wealth and superior culture - fame and riches beckoned to anyone brave enough to get there. Founded around 1100 A.D. by Tuareg nomads, Timbuktu became an important trading post and crossroads. Arab traders from the Barbary states on the Mediterranean coast travelled across the inhospitable Sahara desert to link up with black Africa. It developed its markets, mosques, Islamic libraries and schools, often funded by the gold mines of West Africa, worked by black slaves for their black and Arab owners. By 1800, most of Africa still remained a blank space on maps. Crossing the Sahara and penetrating the Congo River basin were feats no one had lived  to tell about. A phrase now used to diminish the importance of a loss, say at tennis, is "nobody died" - well in this rather harrowing story of European exploration of the Sahara and West Africa, it appears as if nearly everybody died. Not for nothing was the West African Coast known as the White Man's grave. In addition to diseases, such as malaria, whose cause was still misunderstood, the Africans and Arabs regarded European travellers as "the devil's children" and "enemies of the Prophet" who were bent on ending the lucrative Slave Trade and supplanting Arab caravans with British shipping.

The impetus, some would say the beginning, occurred  on 9 June 1788, when nine titled Londoners met for dinner at St. Albans Tavern off Pall Mall. This Saturday's Club, led by Sir Joseph Banks (who had sailed with Captain Cook on his first expedition) set up what was to be later named the African  Association and identified the river Niger and the legendary cities it supported, notably Timbuktu, as their first priority. Within a month of the dinner, the first explorer was on his way.

An American, 37 year-old John Ledyard, who had served in the British army, left England on 30th June 1788, arriving in Cairo on 19th August. The series of letters back to England suddenly stopped - Ledyard had inadvertently poisoned himself with a fatal dose of sulphuric acid.  Simon Lucas was  next. He left England in August 1788, reaching Tripoli in mid-October. He let his hair grow and wore Turkish dress, but failed to carry out a longer journey. He was named consul for Tripoli, dying at his post eight years later. The failure of these first two missions acted as a spur not a deterrent! There was a change of direction however. An Irish major, Daniel Houghton, was sent to the mouth of the Gambia and pushed up to the furthest navigable point of the river. Lured into the Sahara, native traders then robbed and killed him. Perhaps the most well-known to subsequent history was Mungo Park, a young Scottish physician. In May 1795, he sailed  to the Gambia and struck inland. Tribesman constantly harassed him, demanding tolls, but his mission lasted more than two and a half years and his adventures and accomplishments rank among the greatest ever in the annals of African exploration. On 20th June 1796, Park became the first European on record to see the river Niger. The African Society, England and Europe were thrilled. In 1799, after the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt, Banks urged his government to seize control of the Niger and its trade before the French did.

Park had returned to Scotland in 1797, but by 1802 he had tired of sedentary family life in Peebles. In 1804, supported by Banks, he proposed a second larger-scale expedition to the Niger. Starting from the Gambia again in March 1805, he reached the Niger in mid-August. He sailed off down the river in November and was never heard of again! Years later, in 1810, stories circulated he had been ambushed and killed. Friedrich Hornemann and a fellow German, Joseph Frendenburgh set out in 1798 in a Saharan caravan - Frendenburgh died at Murzuk and Hornemann, on another journey, after reaching the Niger, apparently expired with dysentery. Further expeditions, and deaths, followed. Henry Nicholls of malaria in April 1805; Major John Peddie in 1815 of coastal fever in Senegal; Captain Thomas Campbell soon after; Captain James Kingston Tuckey in October 1816, expiring on the deck of his flagship, still at anchor in the Congo estuary. 

Government ministers in London were stunned that England's best and brightest had been wiped out in both of the expeditions (65% of the British contingent of 117 men died in Africa, while many of the rest were terminally ill when they landed in England).

The majority of Kryza's book now turns to the two men who became rivals in their pursuit of getting to Timbuktu first and mapping the full length of the river Niger. Major Alexander Gordon Laing, a 30 year-old Scot, sailed into Tripoli on 9th May 1825. He met the long-serving - in place since 1814 - and eccentric British Consul, Colonel Hanmer Warrington (b. 1778), a lovable John Bull of a man, whose family of seven sons and three daughters were not all present to greet Laing. However, the latter fell instantly in love with the second daughter, Emma. One of the tragedies of the story, is that the pair married but never consummated the tie and, Emma never saw her husband again once he had set off across the Sahara. The other important figure in Tripoli was the Bashaw - Yusuf Karamanli, "the Slave of Allah" and ruler of the city, who played a devious, almost treacherous, part in the following two years' events. Laing finally left Tripoli in July, heading south across the Sahara. A rather unsatisfactory map charts his meandering way, at least once going north rather than south, to Ghadomes, In-Salah, Timissoo and then Timbuktu. The author, having access to Laing's letters back to Warrington and London as well as others' accounts, gives a all-too realistic description of the awful terrain and frightful weather Laing and his party had to endure.

Alexander Laing and Hugh Clapperton

 

Three years earlier, another expedition had been sent out from London to explore the African interior. Led by Dr. Walter Oudney, a Lowland Scot and a physician like Mungo Park, and supported by his friend and neighbour, 33 year-old Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton - a gentleman of excellent, disposition, strong constitution, and temperate habits and Lieutenant Dixon Denham, a Sandhurst military instructor, it proved to be a disaster. Denham was a snob, domineering, insecure, jealous and burdened with a devious streak of real meanness. The expedition left Tripoli and headed south, aiming to discover Lake Chad.  Clapperton and Denham soon grew to loathe each other but they reached Lake Chad, a body of water the size of Switzerland never before seen by a white man. The three man were regularly ill, with Oudney dying of consumption on 12th January 1824. Clapperton, alone now, entered the great trading city of Kano that same month. He also reached Bornu and Sokoto where he met up with Denham; together, after another awful journey across the Sahara, they reached Tripoli in January 1825. The mission had been a costly failure - they had not got to Timbuktu or discovered the Niger's termination.  Denham published his Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in 1826. It read as if he had travelled alone. One 20thc historian wrote It remains difficult...to find a more odious man than Dixon Denham. Denham accumulated honours and was appointed governor of Sierra Leone in 1828. He died there of a fever the same year.

Dixon Denham

The rest of the book details the race for Timbuktu by Laing from Tripoli and Chatterton, returning to Africa, from the slave-trading station of Badagri on the West African coast. They were clearly jealous of each other and determined to be the winner. Accompanying Clapperton were Captain Robert Pearce, a naval officer, and Dr. Thomas Dickson, a Scottish surgeon (were they all Scottish?!) and Dr. Robert Morison, a naval surgeon and naturalist. Dickson died of fever, Morison died on the route back to Badagri, and Pearce fell into a stupor and died, aged 28, of jungle fever. Clapperton himself died of malaria in March 1827. His body, placed on the back of a camel and draped with the Union Jack, was taken out of Sokoto and buried in a little village five miles south east of the city. He had not found Timbuktu nor the Niger's mouth. Laing did achieve the former, entering the fabled city on 13th August 1826, over a year after he had left Tripoli and eight months after Clapperton's death. The city was a disappointment; moreover, he was soon (after 35 days) forced to leave as it was too dangerous for him. It was only in 1910 that his fate was discovered - murdered by an Arab, Sheikh Ahmadu El Abeyd.

--------------------------

The English Blockade Squadron of West Africa was tagged the 'Coffin Squadron': between 1822 and 1830, of 1,568 sailors and soldiers in one detachment in West Africa, 1,298 (82%) died there of 'climatic fevers', 125 died on the voyage home, and half of the survivors died of tropical diseases after returning to England. Only 57 men (less than 4%) were discharged as 'fit'.

John Brent's 'The Battle Cross' 1845

 

T.C. Newby first edition - 1845

John Brent (1808-1882) is one of those 19th century authors I had never heard of until I purchased this book about the late 14th century on the English-Scottish borders. He was born in Rotherhithe, the eldest son of a shipbuilder. Around 1821, the family moved to Canterbury, where the father became Mayor three times and Deputy Lieutenant of the county. Brent first practised as a miller, later being elected as an alderman in the City, resigning that position to become city treasurer. He became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and was also a member of the British Archaeological Association and of the Kent Archaeological Society. He contributed regularly to antiquarian literature. His work 'Canterbury in the Olden Times', from its research and originality, bears testimony to his unwearied industry and his ability as an antiquarian topographer. Brent wrote books of poetry as well as at least two other novels: The Sea Wolf, a Romance (1834) and Ellie Forestere, a novel (1850). The Battle Cross is probably his best known.

It's in the style of the G.P.R. James school, but doesn't really match up to the better standard of others of the genre. Brent dedicated his novel to Lord Albert D. Conyngham, K.C.H., F.S.A. - and my copy has the latter's bookplate in all three volumes. The author explains, in his Preface, the framework of the novel: In the year 1385, the celebrated Hotspur was governor of Berwick and warden of the East Marshes. Two years afterwards, James, Earl Douglas invaded Northumberland at the head of a considerable body of his countrymen, while the Earls of Strathern and Fife, sons of the Scottish kings, ravaged the western borders. Douglas penetrated as far as Newcastle and Percy's lance, with a pennon attached to it, was taken by Douglas in a personal encounter between the two. The Earl shook his trophy aloft, and swore he would bear it to Scotland, and plant it on the walls of Dalkeith. "That", answered Percy, "shalt thou never". The Scots retreated from Newcastle, and entrenched themselves at night on the Fawdoun hill at Otterbourne. Percy followed with what forces he could collect and a battle ensued by moonlight...Percy was taken prisoner. Douglas fell, mortally wounded - a memorial was erected on the spot - and the field retains to the present day [1845] the name of the "Battle Cross". 

Percy Cross at Otterbourne

The minor nobles, Sir Lovel Radcliffe - never sure (or brave?) enough to commit to Lollardy and fancying two women and the good life (he dies as the result of wounds received at Otterbourne); the arch typical 'baddie', Sir John of Agerstone (who meets a deservedly frightening death); and Rollo, the Master of Lauder, who finally succeeds in gaining his wished for bride; are all given enough 'flesh' to remain interesting enough to the reader. However, the strange character of the old seer, Evan Dhoul, doesn't quite ring true.

The story of the meetings and rivalry between Douglas and Percy makes up one of the two major themes of the novel. The other theme, the author refers to at the end of his Preface: This period of English history was also most interesting from the great moral and intellectual struggle which had commenced between the followers of John Wycliffe and the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the day. It feels as if the author gives more of his true feelings and commitment to this aspect of the Tale.

Brent is firmly on the side of the Lollards, even if he is critical of the extreme views of Francis Bernard (later unmasked as the famous early Lollard, William Thorp) - so long as Bernard spoke of the corruptions of the Romish church - pilgrimages, fastings, transubstantiation, and the usurpation by the clergy of the temporal authority of king and princes - Percy lent a willing ear. But when the Lollard talked of religious liberty, he lost Hotspur: the rights of kings, the privileges of nobles, must be respected - the people are too base, too much of serfs and churls, to choose a religion for themselves - dogs! so we throw them a bone or two at ale motes and merrymakings - so we keep the black monks and mitred priests from riding over them - let them be content! Well, at least he was honest!

The family unit in Carlisle of old Simon Mercer, the smith and armourer; Herman Mercer, his son - a stout fellow, full of life and spirit, and ever the leader at a frolic or a merry-making, and who is in love with his foster-sister, Rosamond Mercer. The latter, whom we first meet employed in transcribing some extracts from the writings of John Wycliffe, is the undoubted heroine of the story, and her incarceration in the castle's dungeon, trial for heresy with the others, and terrified journey towards the stake in the Market place elicits some of the best and deeply felt writing by the author.. 

His animus is directed chiefly at the Bishop of Carlisle, who typifies all that the Reformers are against: he had spoken of the power delegated to the church upon earth, the authority of her spiritual rulers, the permission to wield the arm of secular vengeance, to curse and to absolve, to punish here, and eternally hereafter. He had spoken of, had assumed a power, uncontrolled, unlimited - the attributes of a God; and surrounded with gorgeous pageantry, appealing to the hearts, the fears, the superstitions of men, they trembled and acknowledged it. Supporting him is the monk of St John's - strenuous were his exertions to induce Rosamond to recant her opinions...beneath the fanaticism of the priest lurked the passions of the man...he was one who could derive a certain joy from the degradation of a pure and gentle spirit... Lady Sybille, the Bishop's niece, attempts to save Rosamond from the stake: But the maiden knew not how deep, and treacherous, and cruel are the passions of party - of party inflamed by religious fanaticism spurred on by superstitious bigotry, and patronized by princes.

The author occasionally loses 'control' of the narrative, going down scarcely relevant by ways (padding for a three decker?), but there are some nice touches to the Tale. The roly-poly, gourmand Friar Arnold dismisses the ancient retainer Hathbrand's desire to fish: "Fishing!" said the friar with contempt, " 'tis a sport cold and comfortless; your anglers are a set of miserable solitaries, haunting the banks of rivers and lonely places - a sort of intermediate race between poets and suicides, without the enthusiasm of the one, or self-determination of the other..."

G.P.R. James' 'Gowrie' 1848

Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. first edition - 1848

The Gowrie Mystery or Plot is one of the great mysteries of Scottish history. What all are agreed on is that Alexander Ruthven, known as the Master of Gowrie, set out from Gowrie House in Perth on Tuesday, 4th August 1600 to ride to Falkland House, where James VI was staying. The king came out of the building to mount his horse to go buck hunting. He was approached by Ruthven, who had a private word with him. Nearby were the duke of Lennox, the earl of Mar, the brothers James and Thomas Erskine, John Ramsay and Sir Hugh Herries, with John Murray carrying the king's hawk. Apparently, Ruthven had found on the previous evening a man in the fields near Perth carrying under his cloak a pot filled with gold coins. He had arrested the man who was now in or near Gowrie House. During the proceeding hunt, Ruthven persuaded James to go to Gowrie House to 'discuss' the gold (It is of note that the earl of Gowrie, Ruthven's elder brother, owed the crown c.£80,000 from his father's time.) The king did so, with a relatively small escort.

Gowrie Place, Perth

At Gowrie House, the king was eventually given a dinner alone, while his gentlemen dined in the nearby great hall. Ruthven then said it was time for the private talk about the gold and that his brother should be sent to join the others. He took James up a great staircase, down a corridor to a large room, off of which was a small turret chamber. These 'facts' are as the king later described them. The courtiers, including the Earl of Gowrie, went out into the gardens. Suddenly, James was heard calling from the turret room, I am murdered. Treason. My Lord Mar, help, help.  John Ramsay was first to reach the room; he struck Ruthven with a dagger; the latter fell down the stairwell. He was despatched by Sir Hugh Herries. Gowrie ran up the staircase and was killed by Ramsay. An attempt had been made to murder the king; the two would-be murderers were themselves slain. The Ruthven properties were divided up. Sir Thomas Erskine gained lands around Dirleton; John Ramsay (c.1580-1626) received a knighthood. He was later created Viscount of Haddington (1606) and 1st earl of Holderness in 1621. James tried to track down and deal with the two youngest Ruthven brothers.  End of story. Or was it?

Not according to the two nineteenth-century novels I have read. Back in August 2021, I read the first of two works by Eliza Logan - St. Johnstoun; or, John, Earl of Gowrie (1823). The second, follow-up novel, Restalrig; or, the Forfeiture (1829) I read in February 2022 (see the two Blogs of those dates). I wrote then that there were at least three alternative scripts for the events of that day:

• that Ruthven and his brother concocted a plot to murder or, more probably, kidnap King James and that they lured him to Gowrie House for this purpose;
• that James paid a surprise visit to Gowrie House with the intention of killing the two Ruthvens;
• that the tragedy was the outcome of an unplanned brawl which followed an argument between the King and one of the Ruthvens.

Eliza Logan came down firmly on the Ruthvens' side and created a believable story of the perfidy and cowardice of King James, mashed with the jealousy and hatred of other Scottish courtiers and the scheming of a Jesuit spy. So, now we have G.P.R. James on his 66th work (out of 91, according to his biographer S.M. Ellis - The Solitary Horseman [1927]). James is firmly on the side of the Ruthvens and Logan's version of events. Not until page 170 out of 399 of the novel, do the Gowries set foot in Scotland. What James has done is to weave a love story between the earl and a (fictitious) young girl, called Julia Douglas, mainly set in Italy but then moving to Paris. He has also 'shown up' John Ramsay as an ignorant lout in the French capital.  Thus, by the time we accompany the earl to Scotland we are very much disposed to favour him. The author's Gowrie is one who seeks no trouble, merely wishes to reside quietly on his estates and work for Julia to regain her rights. Alexander Ruthven, the younger brother, is portrayed as flirting dangerously with Queen Anne of Denmark, but with the folly of youth rather than any malign political purpose. King James, on the other hand is cast as a vengeful, deceitful, untrustworthy man. As Beatrice Ruthven, Gowrie's unmarried sister attached to the Queen's court, says to her younger brother: the king never made atonement to any one. The king always thinks he is right, and has been ever right, and will be right to the end of his life...he may take the means to lull the objects of his dislike or his doubts till they are wholly in his power. James turns the official account on its head (like Logan). It is the king who plots the destruction of the Ruthvens from the moment they land back in Scotland. He is supported by a nasty Hugh Herries, an ambitious Ramsay, and other courtiers who wish to remain in the king's favour. Thanks to the treachery of the porter at Gowrie Place, the Gowries are surrounded by those who wish them ill.  Fortuitously, news of the murders of both Ruthvens reach their mother's home at Dirleton and the younger brothers, William and Patrick Ruthven have time to escape to England. The fictitious love of the earl, Julia, however loses her mind and dies ten weeks later.

James ended his penultimate chapter (the final one was a Postscript): ...all men thought him [Gowrie] innocent; the best and noblest of the clergy in his native land refused, even under pain of deprivation and banishment, to mock God as they were required, and far and wide, throughout Europe, the history of his asserted treason was treated with contempt, and the tale of his death received with sorrow and with pity.

James was more than peeved with The Examiner's review of Gowrie, which had accused the author of only superficially reading up one history of the affair. In reply, he issued a lengthy pamphlet entitled, An Investigation of the Circumstances attending the Murder of John Earl of Gowrie and Alexander Ruthven, By order of King James the Sixth of Scotland, With an examination of the forged Restalrig Letters brought forward to exculpate the King. However, the truth is that we just don't know what happened (as with the two Princes in the Tower). David Mathew, in his James I (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1967), says at the end of his chapter on the Plot, it seems very likely that we shall never know what happened in the turret room in Gowrie House.

Two unrelated points:

One source maintains that  James ordered a holiday in future Augusts as a thanksgiving for his escape. When he became king of England, it was extended to that country. This might be the origin of the August Bank Holiday. Well, no! The August Bank Holiday was first introduced by the Bank Holidays Act of 1871, which decreed four holidays in England, Wales and Northern Island and five in Scotland (was James' the fifth?!) The August holiday was originally intended to allow bank employees the opportunity to participate and attend cricket matches and enjoy the end of summer. 

Of lesser import, I entertained my own 'mystery', when I purchased the first edition of James' novel. As I neared the end of the volume, I thought that the murder would have to be speedily effected. However, on the last page (222) the reader was nowhere near the denouement. Fortuitously, I recalled that I had another copy of the novel. This time it was Vol. XVII of The Works of G.P.R. James, Esq., revised and corrected by the author. This was also dated 1848 and printed by Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. In fact, the layout and numbering of the pages was the same, but this time the novel finished on page 408! and it contained the complete story. I knew James had deliberately ensured it was encased in one volume, rather than the usual three. The Advertisement at the beginning of the book explained why this was so (it involved the attempt to stop American publishers breaking copyright). What was wrong with my first edition? It was only then that I saw at the bottom of the spine, a large number I, stamped in gilt! I don't blame the bookseller, but clearly the novel had been split into two at a later date. I wonder where the II now resides.

One final point. I liked this rumination by James on the art of novel writing:

There is always in tale-telling, unless the action be compressed within a very short space, a period during which the interest would flag, if the regular passing of each day was noticed, and the small particulars detailed. Were life filled with those striking events which move and interest the reader, with those passions to which the sympathetic heart thrills, with those grand scenes of action which excite the imagination, or with those lesser incidents which amuse and entertain, the human frame, like an over-sharpened knife, would be ground down upon the whetstone of the world, and existence be curtailed of half its date...still, the more peaceful periods in any man's history are those which the least interest his fellow-men, and during the time which elapsed between Gowrie's departure from Paris and his arrival in Scotland, no adventures or impediments occurred which can justify much detail. So, there you have it, from an experienced teller of tales.

Susan Glaspell's 'Fidelity' 1936

Jarrolds' Publishers - October 1936

One of the stimulating aspects of collecting series such as the Jarrolds' 'Jackdaws' is that one comes across  authors who one has never heard of, let alone read - such as Ethel Mannin, Paul Selver, Walter Masterman and, here, Susan Glaspell.

Glaspell (1876-1948) was not only a novelist but a playwright, actress and journalist.  Born in Iowa to Elmer Gaspell, a hay farmer, and his wife Alice Keating, a public school teacher, she grew up on the farm, being remembered as a 'precocious child', often rescuing stray animals. In 1891, her father sold the farm and the family moved to Davenport. By 18, Susan was earning a regular salary as a journalist for a local paper. After graduating from Drake University, she worked for the Des Moines paper as a reporter. She resigned, aged 24, and moved back to Davenport to focus on writing fiction. She was published in important periodicals, such as Ladies' Home Journal, Munsey's and Harper's. Moving to Chicago, she wrote her first novel, The Glory of the Conquered (also in Jarrolds' 'Jackdaws') The New York Times declared the book ...brings forward a new author of fine and notable gifts.

Susan Glaspell

Susan published her second novel, The Visioning in 1911 and this, her third novel in 1915. Fidelity tells the story of Ruth Holland, a twenty-year-old from Freeport, Iowa, who defies the society mores of the time and falls in love with a married man. Three years' later, they run away together to Colorado. She returns home after eleven years, as her father is dying (her mother died some while back). Her elder brother, Cyrus,  has never forgiven her but the younger brother, Ted, is much more sympathetic and supports her. Her sister is more ambivalent. Her best friend, Deane Franklin, now the respected local doctor, has kept in touch with her throughout, whereas her best female friend, Edith Lawrence, is too bound up in social niceties to renew the friendship.

Essentially, there are several 'fidelities': Ruth's to her lover, but also to her parents; Deane to Ruth; others in the small town to its social constructs. Glaspell deals with the problematical relationship (at the turn of the twentieth century) between women and society, especially with women's longing for freedom and the need to be part of a community or family. Should you be faithful to your desires/needs or society's expectations? The author exposes the moral issues in various characters' perspectives which, occasional felt a bit confusing to me; once or twice rather like sitting on the fence. However, it is probably better to look at it as the author's ability to have a genuine rounded view of the events as they unfolded. Glaspell deconstructs the romantic myths of love and marriage. Fidelity serves as a commentary on a middle-class society that prioritizes marriage as the ultimate goal, and shows that romantic love cannot be expected to fulfil everyone's existences.

It is interesting to read that when Glaspell fell in love with George Cook, he was already into his second troubled marriage. He divorced and they wed in 1913. They escaped the community gossip of Davenport (both were part of the town's group of local writers) and moved to New York City. It seems that her real-life experience played a mayor part in the development of the main themes in Fidelity, published only two years later. After her husband's death in 1924, she experienced a period of low productivity, struggling with depression, alcoholism and poor health. Regaining control of her drinking and creativity, she also reconnected with her siblings - which her fictional character Ruth Holland had also tried to do.

Two more Jarrolds' 'Jackdaw' Library paperbacks

 

Jarrolds' Publishers - both October 1936

These are the other two novels I read on holiday at Halkidiki. As usual, I looked up on the Internet what I could find out about the authors. As I read through a fairly detailed biography of Ethel Mannin (1900-1984), my heart sank rather. Her father Robert (d. 1948) was a member of the Socialist League who passed his left-wing beliefs on to his daughter. At school, Ethel - on being asked to write an essay on 'Patriotism' - produced an advocacy of anti-patriotic and anti-monarchist ideas. At first she supported the Labour Party, but became disillusioned in the 1930s. A supporter of the Soviet Union, she visited the country and then became disillusioned with Stalinism. She then turned to anarchism and was actively involved in anti-fascist movements (at last, I can agree with her!). She supported the Spanish Republic in their war, but opposed the Second World War. In her seventies, she still described herself as an anti-monarchist and a 'Tolstoyan anarchist'. So, I approached her her novel with some trepidation.

Ethel Mannin

I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed her novel, finding it full of richly-observed characters, all realistic. It is partly a story of farming life seen through the eyes of a young girl on the cusp of adolescence. Her third-generation farming father is a lazy, day-dreaming, half-Irish man whose lethargy and lack of ambition riles her mother, an ex-school teacher whose ambition to improve things are frustrated time and time again. She has become bitter and her moods infect the home atmosphere. Her brothers, Stephen and David are the proverbial chalk and cheese - the former impatient, even aggressive, the latter a day-dreamer like his father. Linda loved David and disliked Stephen. 

It follows Linda through her first 'love' for the young servant girl, Ruth, and then a passion for Garry Payne, a young fisherman. There is life and laughter and death and tragedy, but very little politics. It ends with Linda, lying down by a hedge in the orchard and ruminating on the meaning of it all.

...there pressed upon her increasingly this sense of her life flowing all one way like a river. Like a river flowing out to a limitless sea, life flowing, flowing, into a sea of eternity...a great orange moon stared across at the sinking defeated sun. And standing between them she knew herself from that time forth bound up with the cycle of the moon, and that henceforth it would draw her lkife as it drew the tides of rivers and seas, in regular relentless ebb and flow, and she was filled with awe at the mystery of this life-rhythm, and a nameless sorrow. 

She walked slowly out of the orchard, carefully closing the gate behind her, she who a few hours before had entered it as a child through a gap in the hedge.

Paul Selver

(Percy) Paul Selver (1888-1970) was the Son of Wolfe and Catherine Selver, A Jewish family. Studying at the University of London, he gained a B.A. in English and German. He served in the Brish Army in the Great War and then, becoming proficient in several Germanic and Slavonic language, he made a living as a translator. In the Second World War, he was a linguistic assistant to the exiled Czech government, but was dismissed when the Communists took over. In 1968, he gained a Civil Service pension for his services to literature.

Private Life started promisingly and ended with a startling twist. It detailed the life of Stephen Pollock, a Civil Servant in his mid-thirties, who tries to discover the murderer of his friend Edgar Bellamy, of similar age, who was brutally killed by a blunt instrument in his room. There are some interesting scenes and characters but I felt the story meandered somewhat with a less than fascinating main character. Pollock appeared cast in the mould of a rather dull, junior civil servant - not the most inspiring type to follow in pursuit of a killer. I won't read it again.