Robert Hale first edition - 1956
I have had Kenneth Budd's brief biography of R. D. Blackmore for some years and quoted from it in my Blog (20 June 2024) on Cripps the Carrier. Recently, I found out that a more substantial biography had been written by the American author, Waldo Hilary Dunn, well-known in the first half of the 20th century for his history of biography in the UK and his own biographies of Froude, Carlyle and George Washington. An admirer of Blackmore for over fifty years, his work is very much a 'labour of love'. Dunn collected over 600 of the author's letters, covering all phrases of his life, as well as valuable reminiscences from friends and relatives. I was particularly drawn to a comment Dunn made in the first Chapter, entitled A Personal World. When I first read Lorna Doone I knew nothing whatever of the author's life. Always, however, when reading a book that appeals to me powerfully and intimately, I begin wondering what manner of man wrote it. What is the inner nature of the man from whom the work came? Is there any relation between the mind of the author and the manner of his expression? The next step is clear. I simply must know, for my own satisfaction, all that can be known about the author... A man after my own inclination. As a teacher of History, I used to say to my students, Know the Historian before his History. With fiction, so much of the best of it is based on the personal experiences of the author - they live through their work. R. D. Blackmore's intimate acquaintance with Nature, and his regular descriptions of natural scenery were not there just to adorn his pages, but revelations of the texture of his mind. He was the very incarnation of England and may well be regarded as John Bull, with all of John's virtues, idiosyncrasies, stubbornness, kindliness, gentleness, touchiness, aloofness, provincialism, patriotism, with a gentle tolerance which enabled him pretty well to understand his fellow creatures of whatever clime or race.
The next eleven chapters give a detailed account of Blackmore's life, from his birth on 7 June 1825 until his purchase of land in late 1857/early 1858 at Teddington, twenty-one miles to the south west of the heart of London, to set up a market gardening business. Born at Longworth, Berkshire, Blackmore lost his mother before he was four months old; for the next six years he was looked after at Newton Nottage in Glamorganshire by his maternal grandmother, and Elsfield Rectory, just a dozen miles from his birthplace, where his aunt Mary Gordon and her husband the Rev. Richard Gordon lived. His father had accepted the curacy of Culmstock in East Devon and remarried - Charlotte Platt - in 1831. Blackmore and his brother Richard now moved to be with their father again. So strong a hold did the region take a hold upon Blackmore that he always regarded himself as a West Countryman. In everything, except the accident of birth, I am a Devonian. In 1835, Rev John Blackmore became curate at Ashford. For several years, Blackmore moved between family connections in Devon, and these memories were later put to good use in Lorna Doone, Perlycross and other tales. Holidays took him to the Glamorgan coast, which also took a strong hold on him, as evidenced by The Maid of Sker (which I will be reading next).
Aged twelve, Blackmore was sent to Peter Blundell's School (founded in 1604) at Tiverton. Although occasionally bullied, he was popular with his peers and remembered his school with affection. He acquired, and maintained, a particularly high standing in Greek and Latin whilst he enjoyed exploring the countryside along the boundary between Somerset and Devon. He matriculated as a member of Exeter College, Oxford in November 1843 and proceeded to the B.A. degree in December 1847. He applied himself pretty closely to his studies. His feelings for the city and its colleges can be gleaned from Cripps the Carrier and Cradock Nowell. After Oxford, Blackmore turned to the Law, being admitted to the Middle Temple, London as a student in January 1849. Aspects of his life there can be found in Alice Lorraine. Called to the Bar in June 1852, for the next five years he practised as a conveyancer. Apparently, he abandoned the profession due to ill-health, which included epileptic seizures (again one can experience this in his novel Clara Vaughan). He wedded Lucy Maguire in November 1853, and they remained happily married until her death on 3 February 1888. They were exactly suited to each other, loving quiet and seclusion, but for the last twenty years of her life she was a half-invalid - my wife, who never knows a moment free from pain (except in sleep)...
Blackmore's favourite uncle, Rev Henry Hey Knight, Rector of Neath in Glamorganshire, died on 30 September 1857. His nephew was left a considerable bequest; so much so that he was able to purchase a sixteen-acre plot and, by 1860, complete the construction of a plain but substantial home, Gomer House (Gomer was the name of a favourite dog). For the next forty years, Blackmore divided his time and industry between his writing and his market gardening. One acquaintance wrote: he seems wedded to his garden in the summer and his book-writing in winter. An image has persisted of him being anti-social and the majority of people in the neighbourhood knew almost nothing of him. However, as Waldo Dunn is at pains to show, he had very positive and long-term relationships with a small group of friends and acquaintances (both in person and by correspondence). Two chapters of the biography are entitled Gomer House Circle and American Friendships.
As a market gardener, times of disaster alternated with times of plenty. For many years Blackmore attended the marketing of his fruit in London and the activities at the Covent Garden Market is well described in Alice Lorraine. He became widely known among fruit-growers and horticulturists and surviving correspondence shows how seriously he took his work. Equally obvious was his industry as regards his writing. Between 1854 and 1897, he published fourteen novels, seven volumes of verse, and one volume of short stories. That meant an average of one long work of fiction about every two and a half years. By 1869, Blackmore had written Clara Vaughan (1864) and Cradock Nowell (1866); both had been received with some success, but it was his next novel, (1869) which was - eventually, after a poor start - to catapult him into the literary pantheon. However, it became a little bit like an albatross around his neck, and the ensuing eleven works of fiction were always compared with Lorna Doone and came up wanting. Blackmore became fed up with the critics. In 1890, he wrote to a friend: From first to last - with a few exceptions - the English critics - if they deserve the name - have pegged away at me, like a rook at a rotten apple. Sometimes I used to be annoyed, though I never let them know it; but now it never disturbs me. And: It is hard to tell a tale, but easy to find fault with it. (In The Maid of Sker)
Waldo Dunn summarises Blackmore's character thus: It will become apparent that his strong and abiding faith, his sterling common sense, and his abounding sense of humour always enabled him to meet [the ills of life] with equanimity and resolution. His wholesome philosophy of life sustained him through trials and difficulties and physical handicaps that would have overcome lesser men, and he continued to the end not only unembittered but resolute and content... in brief, it is perhaps only necessary to say that his temper was the logical result of his inheritance, his education, his political beliefs, and his religious faith. Blackmore died on 20 January 1900, unable to resist a prevailing influenza. On 26 April 1904, there were dedicated to his memory in Exeter cathedral a window and a portrait in marble.
No comments:
Post a Comment