Academiejaar 2008-2009

From Buchan to Johns: Thematic Variety in Imperial Adventure Fiction

Promotor: Dr. Kate Macdonald Masterproef voorgelegd aan de Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte voor het verkrijgen van de graad van Master in de taal- en letterkunde: Engels door

Kevin Denoyette Denoyette 1

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I should like to thank Dr. Kate Macdonald for her unwavering support, guidance, and – above all – patience throughout this project. She has been graceful in assisting me as I clumsily encroached on her area of expertise, provided erudite commentary whenever it was needed, and I could not have asked for a better mentor. Secondly, I feel obliged to briefly mention my elephant man, Mark Lillas, for his persistent motivation through the summer months and his enthusiastic – albeit limited – proofreading.

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Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... 2 INTRODUCTION ...... 3 1. THE ADVENTURE NOVEL: RISE AND RECEPTION ...... 4

1.1 AN EMERGING READERSHIP ...... 5

1.2 AUTHORS AND OPPORTUNITIES ...... 6

1.3 A NEW GENERATION OF READERS AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF EMPIRE ...... 13

1.4 CONCLUSION ...... 29 2. BUCHAN AND JOHNS: MEN OF EMPIRE...... 31

2.1 JOHN BUCHAN ...... 31

2.2 WILLIAM EARL JOHNS ...... 37 3. LITERARY ANALYSIS: RACE AND GENDER ...... 41

3.1 RACE ...... 42

3.2 CONCLUSION ...... 68

3.3 GENDER AND MASCULINITY ...... 70

3.4 CONCLUSION ...... 86

3.5 FINAL CONCLUSION ...... 89 4. BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 94

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Introduction

The main objective of this thesis is to examine the ways in which the imperial idea manifests itself in the fictional writings of John Buchan and William Earl Johns, in an attempt to demonstrate that these writers‘ relation to the idea of Empire is more than mere jingo politics and that their interpretation of the imperial idea is central to their artistic vision and the conception of their works. I also analyse the extent to which their stories adhere to or diverge from an overarching imperial framework in terms of racial prejudice and female subordination.

I commence by presenting an analysis of the rise in production of the adventure story between approximately 1880 and 1920, in which I examine the various socio-economic leading up to the expansion of the literary market, while also looking at the shift in morality which accompanied moving from more religious writing to secular adventure. In order to fully understand the functionality and impact of Buchan and Johns‘ writings on society, I also examine the audience these books were written for: the young schoolboys who were to, as

Bristow puts it in Empire Boys: Adventures in a Man‘s World, ―turn into the respectable individuals who could absorb the imperialist ethos enshrined in popular culture‖ (183). In the second chapter, I offer short biographies on the lives of both authors, in which I situate both writers as men inextricably embedded in the context of Empire. The final chapter – the largest one in the thesis - is devoted to a contrastive comparison between the works of Buchan and

Johns, in which I focus on the issue of race and gender in order to highlight the variety of ways in which these authors experienced and expressed the imperial idea. Following my analysis, I will assess – by contrast – whether their writings can be considered empire or imperialist fiction.

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The Adventure Novel: Rise and Reception 1

HE following chapter aims to shed light on the relationship between popular fiction T and imperial society in the late nineteenth century, focusing in particular on the causes surrounding the rise in popularity of juvenile adventure fiction, the audience consuming this fiction, and the way in which government structures and periodicals aimed to combat the morally detrimental effects of cheap adventure fiction by displacing it with imperial values which were taken to be commendable. The ultimate aim is to come to a better understanding of the impact, in terms of their socio-cultural, educational and political function that adventure stories had on a juvenile audience, to understand how the Empire was understood by its contemporaries and how its writings made manifest the popular imperial idea, which – in the words of John MacKenzie – supported ―a world view embracing unique imperial status, cultural and racial superiority, and a common ground of national conceit upon which all could agree‖ (MacDonald 3).

The massive increase in both the production and consumption of pot-boiler1 fiction and a variety of middle-class periodical publishing during the last two decades of the nineteenth century resulted from the combined effect of social, cultural, economic and political stimuli active on a macroscopic level (Keating 3; Green 220-221). This chapter identifies and characterises these influences and explains how their combined effect may affect this radical change in readership and consumption of popular fiction. Subsequently, I discuss the nature of the juvenile audience for whom these types of works were published, and look at the cultural and educational messages to be found in adventure stories. In doing so, I make use of three

1 By which I mean an artistic, literary, or other creative work produced solely to make the originator a living by catering to popular taste, without regard to artistic quality - as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary. Denoyette 5 important secondary texts: Joseph Bristow‘s Empire Boys (1991), Peter Keating‘s The

Haunted Study (1991), and Martin Green‘s Dreams of Adventure, Deeds of Empire (1980).

I An emerging readership

A major influence in the increased consumption of popular fiction from 1880 onwards lies, firstly, in the creation of an audience for such a market, which was brought about largely by

―the marked rise in literacy in the 1860s and 1870s‖ (Bristow 10). Barry Reay‘s study of popular illiteracy in rural Victorian England contains statistics that validate this claim, as his results are similar to data at a macro-level for nineteenth-century England (Reay 93):

Fig. 1. Average literacy rates in three Kentish parishes from 1800-1890, analogous with macroscopic findings during the same period. The used metric is signature literacy.

As the graph shows, male literacy was relatively stable for the period 1750-1850, Denoyette 6

hovering either just above or below the 50 per cent mark. It was the second half of the

nineteenth century which saw a marked improvement in adult male literature, with the

rates roughly doubling over a fifty-year period. Female literacy followed a similar

course, lagging just below that of men until the middle of the nineteenth century, then

improving dramatically [. . .] (Reay 93)

As illustrated by the graph, there is a steep rise in literacy rates from the 1840s onwards; as a result, near the end of the century, a large majority of craftsmen and labourers had become functionally literate. Together with the fully literate gentry and city professionals and an increasingly literate working class, the foundation for a consumer market was firmly established.

Determining specific causes for this surge in literacy is difficult, as the ability to read or write is often a personal and local concept that is hard to link to macroscopic phenomena.

Nevertheless, common consensus dictates the existence of a direct correlation between increased literacy and higher rates of urbanization and industrialisation (Houston 199), which were brought about largely by the socio-economic effects of the Second Industrial Revolution that took place in the second half of the nineteenth century.

II Authors and opportunities

This gradual rise to prominence of a newly literate readership came with an intrinsic demand for affordable, sensationalist fiction; and in this new market, a number of changes proved critical in allowing authors of lowbrow fiction to reach consumers effectively. Peter

Keating cites the behavioural evolution in reading for pleasure and self-improvement brought Denoyette 7 about by the circulating libraries – as a catalyst in making reading material to meet the needs of an expanding audience. John Sutherland emphasises four major breakthroughs in publishing: publication in parts, the circulating library, reissue and reprints, and magazine serialisation. Sutherland‘s focus is mainly placed on technological progress in printing, and a gravitation towards a cheaper form of literary production. Keating focuses more on a social- literary evolution, outlining the development of catering to a target audience. His focus on human behaviour is also more relevant to an investigation of the social and educational impact of this type of literature on a juvenile audience.

According to Keating, these conditions of the mid-Victorian fiction market were ―created by the artificially high price of novels and the dominance of the circulating libraries‖ (22).

The largest library by far was Mudie‘s, whose predominance persisted until the turn of the century and whose monopoly had a majority of smaller libraries‘ backs against the wall.

Mudie prided himself on offering a selection of ‗the best new works‘, which he – being devoutly religious – often censored himself to protect the moral health of a morally feeble public, and although the enormous scale of his book purchases provided some form of financial stability for authors and publishers, he was strongly criticised for his sharp practice when it came to dealing with publishers, his artistically stifling censorship, and his monopoly on the market. As Keating puts it:

There were attempts throughout the period to market one-volume novels, to bypass the

libraries and encourage the development of a book-buying rather than a book-

borrowing attitude in the reading public, but with little success apart from adventure,

religious, and juvenile fiction – which was anyway traditionally published in one-

volume form‖ (25) Denoyette 8

As pointed out by Francis O‘Gorman in The Victorian Novel, lower-class fiction was often cheaply produced in ‗slum presses‘ during and after the first half of the nineteenth century (267) and sold at one penny – later, improved circumstances for authors of adult fiction also led to an increase in authorship, and a subsequent increase in juvenile fiction, despite the complexities of a market that varied from a ‗high‘ to a ‗low‘ literary quality and was marked by a dichotomy in publishing.

By 1880, many aspiring young novelists recoiled at the gridlock the publishing and writing industry found itself in; they ―were increasingly resentful at the attempts by librarians and publishers to impose a mechanical and largely arbitrary form onto fiction‖ (Keating 27).

Publishers were faced with the dilemma of siding with the long-standing firms who had built their prosperity on the three-decker format, or the younger generation of novelists and publishers who were eager to try new formats and new conditions.

While moments of crisis – such as the proliferation of American literary piracy and the growing censorship exercised by both circulating and public libraries – helped boost membership numbers of the Society of Authors significantly2, Keating points out that the main impetus for the recognition for a consolidation of authors‘ interests was the increasingly complex and rapidly expanding literary market. With the decline of three-decker novels, the rise of one-volume pot-boilers and the rapid development of periodicals and newspapers ―the possibilities of earning money from writing had never been so varied, and an increasing number of people were keen to take advantage of them‖ (31). In an increasingly egalitarian market, and with the right tools at his disposal, most educated individuals could pursuit their literary ambitions, and make a decent living doing so provided they knew their audience well enough. In a way, the successful literary artist had now become the successful tradesman, as observed by Jasper Milvain in Gissing‘s novel New Grub Street (1891):

2 Further information regarding the Society of Authors can be found in Keating 25-31. Denoyette 9

I am learning my business. Literature nowadays is a trade. Putting aside men of genius,

who may succeed by mere cosmic force, your successful man of letters is your skilful

tradesman. (38)

In a market dominated by limited money supply for fiction, an evolution towards a cheapest form of publishing is not only inescapable, but also entirely logical. With increased democratisation and literacy rates came an economic demand for affordable reading material.

O‘Gorman points out in reference to the system of circulating libraries that ―in America this economic logic led to books of incredible cheapness, designed to be thrown away after use. In

Britain, it was not the book which was cheapened, but the reading of it‖ (272), The same principle held for The Society of Authors: the Society‘s success was not pre-eminently decided by the desire to move from a three-decker model to a cheaper one-volume fiction novel, but by their pursuit of means to simplify production and increase revenue in an expansive market – a feat in part accomplished by making the American government abide by the laws of an international Copyright Act in 1891 (Keating 30).

The success of measures such as these can be seen in the soaring numbers of newly published works of fiction, both for an adult as well as a juvenile audience. In 1875, the

Publisher‘s Circular – whose numbers cannot possibly be entirely accurate, but still represent an easily discernible trend - announced a healthy increase in novels: 644, compared with 516 in the previous year. In the next ten years, the average number of adult novels published dropped to 429, while the numbers of juvenile fiction skyrocketed to 470 – overtaking production of adult novels, compared with a mere 188 in 1875. While the sales figures indicated that juvenile literature was decent business, the increase in revenue was partly a result of the Society‘s pursuit of law reform, which helped expand the market and allowed it to become more lucrative. By 1894, the year in which circulating libraries abandoned the Denoyette 10 three-decker format as they could no longer keep up with the amount of novels being published, 1,135 new adult novels appeared (32 note). In the same year, Publisher‘s Circular decided there was little point in separating adult from juvenile fiction in their yearly tables, as

―from the mere title it is frequently impossible to tell whether a work of fiction is for the young or not‖, but as Keating reminds us, mostly because ―so-called juvenile works are nowadays so well written, that often they suit older readers quite as well as those for whom they are primarily intended‖ (32).

Novels only represented a small fragment of the total amount of fiction being written and published: the true figure can only be approximated by looking into the expansive development of newspapers and periodicals in the second half of the nineteenth century, in which the lion‘s share of published fiction can be discovered (Keating 33-34). Their rapid development was mainly due to technical innovation in printing during the middle of the century, and legislative reform which repealed the Advertisement Duty in 1853, Stamp Duty in 1855, and Paper Duty in 1860 (Keating 33). A rise in periodical publication numbers can be tracked in the Newspaper Press Directory, which lists the total number of newspapers at

1,609 in 1875, which grew to 2,504 in 1914. The number of weekly, monthly and quarterly magazines saw a more spectacular rise, going from 643 in 1875 to 2,531 in 1903, when the

Directory changed its method of classification which made it impossible to follow through.

The Directory is subject to the same limitations as the Publisher‘s Circular when it comes to exact numbers, yet their indication of a rising trend in production remains undeniable

(Keating 32-34).

There is clear evidence of a change in the publication of periodicals that were characterised as ―religious‖ by the Directory: the figures show an increase of 294 from 1875 to 1903, which

– in relation to the growth of magazines as a whole – is a quite substantial decline. In 1875, the Directory listed 37% of all periodicals as religiously themed. In 1903, this number had Denoyette 11 shrunk to 21%, which indicates the increased rate of secularisation in British literature (34).

This is a point I will return to later, when I discuss the influence of the domestic novel and

Puritan3 values on education for schoolboys.

The majority of these periodicals, as Keating points out, ―relied for their success on the combination of a relatively cheap price and high-quality production to attract a large number of readers‖. Various styles of periodical quickly emerged, ranging from high-brow middle- class magazines to periodicals that discarded any attempt at quality in format or content, and were solely concerned with reaching the largest possible audience. Periodicals such as The

Saturday Review of politics, literature, science, and art (1856), Cornhill Magazine (1860),

Fortnightly Review (1863), Academy (1869), and National (1883) catered to a middle-class or university educated audience (35). They tolerated fiction only of obvious superiority. The other end of the spectrum featured periodicals such as George Newne‘s Tit-Bits (1881), which

―offered its readers innocuous paragraphs, snippets or ‗tit-bits‘ of entertaining information, together with ingenious competitions, on cheap paper and closely packed into tight columns that made it look, ironically, like a miniature version of the times‖ (36). The proliferation of these cheap magazines – that often sold for 2d, 1d, or even a halfpenny, was anticipated by the emergence of what Simon Eliot in The Business of Victorian Publishing calls ―a new working-class form of fiction in the 1830s and 1840s [. . .] a lengthy prose fiction serialized in one-penny or two-penny weekly parts‖ (O‘Gorman 287). A vast contrast such as this illustrates the immensity of the Victorian and literary market, and the wealth of variety concerning the different forms of fiction.

In this diversified market, each periodical had its idiosyncrasies, yet despite all their differences in target audience, price, format, substance or quality – there is one recurring, omnipresent theme: the use of fiction to appeal to a mass audience. Without it, a periodical

3 Cf. Section III for an explanation on the use of the term ‘Puritan’. Denoyette 12 would find itself at an immense disadvantage in the market-place. Apart from the cheapest halfpenny late Victorian weeklies, few periodicals were without their own aims and their own social or political agenda, which they expressed to the public through means of their featured fiction - which served as a vessel with which to intensify or make clear values extolled in the periodical itself. As Keating points out:

Socialist periodicals such as Commonweal and Justice serialised, respectively, William

Morris‘s News from Nowhere (1890) and H. J. Bramsbury‘s A Working-Class Tragedy

(1884), thus maintaining a tradition estabished [sic] Chartist papers of the 1840s. A

radical, free-thinking periodical like The New Life (1902) serialised a radical, free-

thinking Utopian novel; cycling periodicals published stories about cycling [. . .] Even

the Author, with plenty of real-life stories of authors‘ sufferings to hand, used fiction to

demonstrate more forcibly the woeful experiences of authors in the clutches of devious

publishers (37).

This example illustrates how periodicals served to shape the socio-cultural context of the epoch, and brings me to my next section, in which I will examine the impact popular literature in periodicals and the penny-dreadfuls had on its target juvenile audience, and how it helped shape the educational policies of the time. Understanding the way in which popular literature captured the minds and hearts of a young generation and how it served to instil Imperial values in children will ultimately elucidate the themes presented in Buchan and Johns‘ novels and provide us with an imaginative framework suitable for interpreting their works.

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III A new generation of readers and the foundations of Empire

This chapter expands on the dichotomy between two central literary models in the

Victorian era, in order to point out how increased secularisation, a shift in morality and the subsequent drop in religious writings led to Puritan4 values being displaced by Imperial ones - found in the adventure stories read by a juvenile audience. Following this, I will briefly expand on the rudimentary imperial values, and examine how these stories were used as an educational means to transform a young working- and middle-class generation into virtuous citizens of Empire during the last decades of the nineteenth century.

As Martin Green points out in Dreams of Adventure, Deeds of Empire, a variety of models of fiction rose to prominence in the nineteenth century: among the subgenres, ―serious literary interest came to focus on what can be called the courtship novel, or the domestic novel. The adventure novel was assigned less significance and matched with more superficial responses‖ (54). This does not necessarily mean that writers of adventure fiction were not serious individuals, or that the thematic substance of their works was trivial: these stories were mainly considered peripheral because they did not ratify beliefs held by the traditional ruling class. By contrast, the domestic novel reached a higher literary and social status due to the close alliance that was forged in the early eighteenth century between literature and the religious-moral-sexual interests of Puritanism, and the immense popularity boost the genre witnessed due to Defoe‘s literary success (62).

The subject matter of the domestic novel is marriage. Its essential plot revolves around finding the right choice of partner for the heroine, and the story is in essence an exaltation of

Puritan values such as loyalty, chastity, modesty and honesty. The fact that this type of

4 Green defines Puritanism as “the merchant caste’s form of Christianity” (62) and uses this term throughout the book, into periods long after the Great Ejection (1662). I use the term as presented by him, although it later appears to be used as a blanket term to denote the moral virtues and piety extolled by not only Puritanism originally, but various Christian beliefs, such as Protestantism or Presbyterianism. Denoyette 14 literature managed to occupy the upper layers of the literary spectrum is indicative of the pervasive influence of ―religious-moral-sexual interests of Puritanism‖ (61-62) and its central position in the modern world system as an ideological element; seeing as how ―during this period of 1700 to 1900, the adventure material bore much more directly upon the serious history of England‖ (58). The chasm between these two types of literature never truly closed, but the technical, social and economic reforms discussed in the previous section caused demand for ‗low-status‘ affordable fiction to expand so rapidly as to equal domestic novel production. These reforms are what Green calls ―merchant caste reforms, in education and morality‖, and he discusses the rise of popular adventure fiction in terms of a shift in morality.

He points out how the genre of children‘s literature ―had been invented, we may roughly say, by the Puritans; in verse quite explicitly by Bunyan and Watts, in prose, more accidentally, by

Bunyan and Defoe‖ (220). The dominant values in those stories were prudence and piety, whereas in this new nineteenth-century development we witness the rise of adventure stories that operate on almost opposite values (220). The infusion of the concept of morality in his argument highlights the problems the ruling classes faced when they came into contact with a largely literate audience reading material that they deemed as morally unsound.

Of the adventure stories, the so-called ‗penny dreadfuls‘, or ‗bloods‘ (thus named due to the violence often featured within these stories) was considered the most base and offensive; and the middle-class denunciation of these novels can best be illustrated by means of a quote at the hand of B. G. Johns, when he wrote the following about them in the 1887 volume of the

Edinburgh Review:

The fountain head of the poisonous stream is in great towns and cities, especially in

London itself; and it is with that we now have to deal. Here the readers are to be

numbered by hundreds of thousands, and the supply exceeds the wildest demand. There Denoyette 15

is now before us such a veritable mountain of pernicious trash, mostly in paper covers,

and all ‗Price One Penny‘: so-called novelettes, tales, stories of adventure, mystery and

crime; pictures of school life hideously unlike reality; exploits of robbers, cut-throats,

prostitutes, and rogues, that, but for its actual presence, it would seem incredible . . . in

point of general style, colour, incident, and character of the dramatis personae, all these

volumes of trash are as like each other as peas in a single pod. (Bristow 13)

Paradoxically, this ‗violation of culture‘ (Bristow 12), which was perceived by the ruling class as a potential incitement of the masses is established through the reading of material that is inherently aristomilitary in nature (Green 115). It comes as no surprise then, that these stories embody the spirit of Empire itself, which is inherently adventure; albeit in a format that is technically unaccomplished, yet imaginatively stimulating to a juvenile or working- class audience.

As can be judged from Johns‘ sneer, this development was seen as a loss of moral values and a standing threat to the hierarchical dominance of the Victorian middle and upper-classes.

Not only were the well-educated middle classes aghast at the unforeseen consequences of teaching working people how to read (Bristow 11), they were afraid of the consequences brought on by introducing children to such morally unsound and culturally vile literature.

Johns, in particular, was ―alarmed about the corruption of working-class children who would be led into a world spoiled by the repeated acts of violence committed by the undesirable types glorified by the dreadfuls‖ (Bristow 15).

But, as Green puts it, by this point in time children‘s literature was captured by the aristomilitary caste. ―Adventure took the place of fable; and the adventure took on the Denoyette 16 characteristics of romance. Children‘s literature became boys‘ literature; it focused its attention on the Empire and the Frontier, and the virtues it taught were dash, pluch, and lion- heartedness, not obedience, duty, and piety‖ (Green 220).

To the upper class, it was clear that the current situation had to be overturned: the young working-class man ―had to be trained not only to read the right things, to turn his mind away from the debasing effects of penny fiction, but he had also to meet the demands of becoming a responsible citizen‖ (Bristow 19). The solution was three-fold. Firstly, schools had to firmly establish the role of culture in the face of ignorance, vulgarity, and the drudgery of learning by rote. Secondly, there was a need for a new type of juvenile fiction appropriate for young men. A type of fiction that imitated the attractive excitement of penny fiction, but also inspired a sense of morality, and instructed elements of a respectable and dutiful life. Thirdly, after the turn of the century, the nation‘s children had to be taught to ‗Be Prepared!‘ for anything that might threaten the existence of the Empire, while playfully developing a love of nature, moral fiber, and a patriotic love of country (Bristow 180).

A host of educational reforms were suggested, the majority of which were heavily influenced by Matthew Arnold‘s Culture and Anarchy, a series of essays first published in

Cornhill Magazine in 1867. Arnold emphasised the study of ‗Culture‘, which he defined as

―the best which has been thought and said‖ and ―the study of perfection‖. He advocated physical activity as it was considered morally uplifting, and suggested moving away from the staunchly mechanical search for knowledge – referring to the uninspired method of learning by rote in schools - towards a more natural approach, phrasing his proposition (he very often discussed things using words such as ―sweetness‖, ―light‖, a ―fresh stream of thought‖) in terms of nature, in contrast to the prison of the city – which is to be liberated by the pleasures of the country (Arnold 40). Denoyette 17

Arnold‘s influential thesis also sought to present an alternative to the staunch religious fanaticism of the time, which – as pointed out earlier – faced a decline in literary influence in favour of secular and morally objectionable Imperial adventure fiction:

His highly selective version of culture aimed, in part, to supersede the supposed

lowering and narrowing of moral and spiritual standards among the Christian churches

[. . .] Arnoldian culture presented itself as an alternative to the dry religious fanaticism

of the Baptists, Methodists, and other sects which were an alternative to the church of

England‖ (Bristow 6-7)

In a literary market where the Domestic novel – despite its higher literary standing – failed to instil in Britain‘s youth a sense of decency and morality in the face of the inescapable popularity of adventure fiction, Arnold‘s solution presented an intermediate way to present children with a moral standard, by circumventing strict religiousness in favour of Imperial values that were considered commendable. The principles he outlined in Culture and Anarchy played a vital part in shaping the British educational and social landscape for decades, and were implemented by followers at various levels.

It seems sensible now, having mentioned Arnold‘s imperial values, to lay out a framework concerning the basic general tenets of the imperial idea, before examining the ways in which

Imperialism was given imaginative form in the various imperial middle-class periodicals, acted out in the Baden-Powell scouts movement, and ultimately – featured in the works of

Buchan and Johns. I will offer a brief exposition, based largely on Robert H. MacDonald‘s lucid introductory chapter to The Language of Empire: Myths and Metaphors of Popular

Imperialism: 1880-1918, from which I hope to extract the most essential information. Denoyette 18

As a political ideology, Imperialism is a rather straightforward concept that can be easily delineated. Gauging the impact and contemporary perception of Imperial policies among citizens at home and abroad however, is infinitely more complex. With the latter question in mind, it may be best to start from a rudimentary definition of the Imperial impulse, from which we can later move forward. In the words of MacDonald:

―Imperialism can be defined as the sovereignty of one country over another,

accompanied by the establishment of a military and naval system to support the

government of subject peoples. The creation of colonies, peopled by the inhabitants of

the Imperial power, is, in theory, a secondary stage of development‖ (4).

Modern interpretations of nineteenth-century Imperialism vary widely, ranging from examining commercial and military motives for expansion to conceiving of it as an atavistic reaction to European rivalry5 - but, like MacDonald, I am more concerned with contemporary perceptions. To the general public of the Victorian and Edwardian age, Imperialism was essentially a political idea tied to expansion; associated with the idea that British government was good government, and that the rest of the world would be better under its rule. The

‗survival of the fittest‘ dogma of Social Darwinism provided ideological justification for expansion and the conquest of ‗primitive‘ countries – England needed room to grow, she would people the world: the English, a hardy northern people, were deemed the most likely to succeed in a struggle for world dominion6 as - to put it in contemporary terms - the

―Dominant Race‖ (4). As a result, on the world stage, the Imperial enterprise‘s ‗master‘ drama was to be the continuing struggle between civilisation and savagery; a theme which will be

5 Cf. Baumgart, Winfried. Imperialism. Oxford: n.p, 1982. 1-90. Cited in MacDonald, Robert H. The Language of Empire: Myths and Metaphors of Popular Imperialism: 1880-1918. 4 6 Cf. Kidd, Benjamin. Social Evolution. Chicago: n.p, 1895. 133. Cited in MacDonald, Robert H. The Language of Empire: Myths and Metaphors of Popular Imperialism: 1880-1918. 4 Denoyette 19 dealt with extensively when comparing the works of Buchan and Johns further on in the thesis. This dichotomy was reinforced by various myths of legitimation seeking to justify conquest and colonisation. When Sir Charles Lucas held a lecture at a working men‘s college in 1915 claiming that ―the Empire had its roots in Drayton, Shakespeare and Milton‖, and that

―the English sucked in the instinct of maritime enterprise with their mother‘s milk‖ (5), he made use of the most powerful myth of all: one that united the class-divided British populace under the banner of racial unity, and turned the imperial impulse into a racial imperative.

Particularly interesting is the observations made by J. A. Hobson in his seminal study

Imperialism (1902), in which he observed the different effects of myths of imperialism according to their target audience. He concluded that the ―‗cultured‘ or ‗semi-cultured‘ classes‖ were indoctrinated with the ―intellectual and moral grandeur of Imperialism‖, while for the masses there was a ―cruder appeal to hero-worship and sensational glory, adventure and the sporting spirit: current history falsified in coarse glaring colours, for the direct stimulation of the combative instincts‖ (Hobson part 2, ch. 3, paragraph 37). Though the class-distinction possibly presents a false dichotomy – were ‗cultured‘ classes impervious to hero-worship? – Hobson‘s point is interesting, and I believe it to ring true regarding the distinction between Buchan and Johns‘ works.

These aforementioned ‗cultured classes‘ largely functioned as British imperialism‘s champions (although there were degrees of commitment and dissent7), and the movement was nurtured by such upper middle-class institutions as the public schools, wardrooms and officers‘ messes, and the conservative press. As a world-view it was stoutly Anglocentric, defining itself against, and asserting its own superiority to, all other systems. It was

7 MacDonald points out that many imperialists supported the larger ideals of the movement, yet objected to some of the cruder practices of Empire. He goes on to mention that Imperialism was opposed by coalitions of Liberls and radicals, the Church – the Low Church especially – and certain groups such as Quaker millionaires, or missionary societies. On a macroscopic level, the public seemed to come together in times of military excitements, the critics in turn in times of scandals of colonial excess, brutalities and forced labour. Denoyette 20 masculinist, and the politics of the home, in which women were often subordinated, worked to create the expectation that domesticity was soft and feminising, while the ‗proper‘ male sphere, the outside world, was seen as active and invigorating (6). The same class hierarchy that made ‗natural‘ ideas of dominance was the imperialism‘s ally, the values they espoused and saw as a testament to their authority – superiority of civilisation, morality, knowledge, technology – themselves found in imperialism.

Documentation of the imperialist world-view and dissemination of its values can be found in a wide variety of sources. MacDonald points out that material written for children offers reasonably straightforward evidence, as children were primary targets of imperial propaganda and indoctrination (7). Considering children were indeed the primary audience for Buchan‘s

‗shockers‘ and Johns‘ ‗Biggles‘ series, it seems appropriate to examine a few examples from the nursery so as to ascertain the recurring basic values presented in this type of didactic material, as they are comparable with imperial themes featured in the children‘s adventure fiction I examine further on.

A direct source of indoctrination can be find in the various ABCs published as didactic material for children, a fine example of which is the ABC for Baby Patriots (1899) published during the years of the Second Boer War (1899-1902). It‘s a simple text that shows imperial themes in their most basic state, and indicates how imperial ideology worked to ‗interpellate‘ or ‗subordinate‘ its youngest ‗subjects‘8 (8). Each letter of the alphabet stands for a concept, whose imperial connotation is briefly explained in a four line verse, and reinforced by a drawing on the previous page. A glance at the booklet quickly reveals the rudimentary themes and values toddlers ought to remember: the verse

8 The terms used are Louis Althusser’s. Cf. Lenin and Philosophy, 170-183. Denoyette 21

C is for Colonies. Rightly we boast.

That of all the great nations,

Great Britain has most. (An ABC for Baby Patriots 8)

drives home the point that by 1890, Great Britain occupied over a fifth of the world‘s land mass - a feat that came about largely thanks to: D is the Daring we show on the Field

Which makes every enemy

Vanish or yield. (10)

The letter ‗D‘ is accompanied by a humorous sketch of an English officer, sword and revolver drawn, advancing on six French soldiers in retreat. The pluck and military superiority demonstrated here eventually lead to Great Britain‘s acquisition of new territories, which is reaffirmed in the letter ‗K‘: K is for Kings; Once warlike and haughty,

Great Britain subdued them

Because they‘d been naughty. (24)

To the left of this page is a drawing of several shackled kings: to the front a pair of crowned

Europeans, at the rear a file of Africans - all chained together. Great Britain‘s military Denoyette 22 superiority is expanded upon further in the letters ‗N‘ (‗the Navy / we keep at Spithead / it‘s a sight that makes foreigners / wish they were dead‘) and ‗O‘ (Where none but a fool / Would ever dare question / Our title to rule‘); and it is only near the end of the alphabet that the reader is presented with another moral character trait of the Englishman: W is the Word Of an Englishman true;

When given, it means

What he says he will do. (41)

The stanza is accompanied by a smiling African king, holding a treaty presented to him by a British gentleman. The third and final moral aspect of the English citizen is found in the very last letter of the alphabet: Z is the Zeal Which is everywhere seen

When a family practices

―God save the Queen‖! (45)

Many of the verses deal with trivial matters, such as hunting or bathing, but nevertheless, as MacDonald points out: ―the child learning his or her letters here might repeat the essential meanings of empire‖ (8), those being the exaltation of superiority, size, ‗otherness‘, navy and army, pluck, loyalty to one‘s country and the word of an Englishman.

This ABC and others like it present a miniaturised and simplified world view in which adults are reduced to the status of children – kings had been ‗naughty‘ – and Great Britain‘s Denoyette 23 superiority goes unquestioned by ‗others‘, providing the child with a safe and simple means of what it is like to be an Englishman. But as MacDonald points out, the indoctrination of children could also be indirect. Imperial attitudes, or the set of ideas that made imperialism possible, are part of the general cultural context, and can be found even in those ‗non- political‘ authors that are now associated with the ‗Golden Age‘ of children‘s literature, such as Robert Louis Stevenson (9). This indirect influence would prove to be of considerable importance in disseminating the imperial idea, as the system of state education – with indoctrination starting at the nursery - seemed to have failed working classes abysmally. The narrow scope offered by reading, writing and arithmetic proved a continual source of dissatisfaction to members of both political sides, and the debate about an urgent need for greater culture among young working-class people grew more and more intense. Benjamin

Disraeli‘s victory in the election for Prime Minister in 1874 consolidated the Tory branch of

Imperialism, and inspired them to ―promote the cause of Empire through the publication of juvenile literature and the presentation of lantern lectures‖ (Bristow 24). By 1900, ―Tory ideology finally held sway over conceptions of Empire, both on the school curriculum and in leisure-time reading‖ (Bristow 25). Various suggestions regarding literature suitable for a school curriculum followed, as educators tried to find a serious yet pleasurable form of fiction that could be used as a vehicle for patriotism and self-improvement. A survey of the market quickly revealed the overwhelming popularity of adventure fiction, and – since the incentive of reading brought on by adventure fiction took precedence over its lack of morality – reading deemed unsuitable for children would ultimately find its way into the school curriculum, albeit in a modified form (Bristow 30).

As Bristow puts it: ―the texts one generation had denounced as ‗blood and thunder‘ came, in slightly altered form, to be regarded by the next generation as wholesome and patriotic‖

(30). Two of such altered texts were Stevenson‘s hugely popular Treasure Island (1883), and Denoyette 24

Kingsley‘s Westward Ho! (1855): two works of adventure fiction that were, thematically, not wholly dissimilar from penny dreadful publication. The educational legitimisation of these adventure stories went hand in hand with an editing process designed to make the stories suitable in the classroom: the books were often abridged and adapted to present a suitable ordering of language, and unnecessary literary idioms were edited out in favour of natural language – applicable to concrete experience – in order to facilitate the development of reading skills in younger pupils. Secondary pupils were offered a more literary approach to language where, ―implicitly, ideals of Arnoldian culture stand paramount‖ (Bristow 31).

While this approach had a remarkable effect on literacy rates, it did little to stop children from devouring penny fiction. If anything, stripping away what little literary devices were present in adventure fiction during classroom sessions and presenting a narrative aimed at concrete experience only served to exacerbate the problem, as children still turned to penny fiction to experience a narrative that was decidedly far-fetched, non-practical, and with high cultural aspirations to sate their desire for escapism (Bristow 32).

With respect to periodicals, Arnold‘s principles of self-improvement in educational reform were pre-empted by a more respectable variety of fiction for boys, modelled after the liberal principles of Samuel Smiles‘ Self-Help: Illustrations of Conduct and Perserverance (1859).

The book was an overnight best-seller; and over a quarter million copies of it were sold by the turn of the century. According to Green, ―it promised in effect to explain the secret of the superior energy and success of the Anglo-Saxons, their superior adaption to the modern system‖ (204). The book taught, by exemplifying the actions of traditionally heroic Britons, how to acquire the standard virtues of Victorian England: pluck, thrift, character, hard work, duty and perseverance in the face of adversity. One early periodical modelled after Stiles‘

Self-Help was the magazine Boys of England; A Young Gentleman‘s Journal of Sport,

Travel, Fun and Instruction, the first issue of which appeared in 1866. The magazine took Denoyette 25

Stiles‘ Victorian virtues and praised them as a means of upward mobility to a lower middle- class audience, again making use of famous individuals to inspire a younger generation:

―Readers are reminded that Bunyan, Telford, Ferguson, Burns, Stephenson, Captain Cook,

Milton, and Columbus were all of humble birth – with these bright examples before you, brave boys, let your motto ever be ‗Excelsior! Onwards and upwards!‘‖ (Boys of England

Vol. 1, 16). Upward mobility was deemed only attainable through constant activity, and the magazine focused heavily on physical and mental activity (Bristow 33).

Arguably the most influential of all periodicals was the Boy‘s Own Paper, founded by the

Religious Tract Society in 1879 with the intention of drawing boys away from the penny dreadfuls, towards more ‗healthy‘ literature (Keating 37). The Boy‘s Own Paper was the first journal to be welcomed by critics of penny fiction, and easily the most enduring of its kind. It aspired to unite different classes under a single unifying theme: imperialism. Although it was a far cry from the ‗blood and thunder‘ of the penny dreadfuls, it was not exactly milk-and- water either (Bristow 37). Where the schools had failed to captivate children with the concepts of ‗sweetness‘ and ‗light‘, the Boy‘s Own Paper succeeded in instilling these

Arnoldian values into Victorian youths by presenting them with a form of Imperialism that

―took on all the attributes of moral and educational improvement‖ (Bristow 37). Nothing was presented as overtly political, although much of the paper was devoted to information directly connected with the expanding Empire: stories of far-off places and adventurous exploits taught the boys about history and geography, but also about the contemporary Imperial context, and their cultural role in governing the world. In doing so, the paper not only celebrated the Empire but also the boy himself. As Bristow points out:

One of its many rollicking songs, ‗Boys of England‘, makes this point in its title.

Singing the praises of his country, the boy was idealising a quality he himself Denoyette 26

enshrined. Empire and boyhood, then, were mutually supportive. Everywhere the young

nation‘s hero encountered texts and illustrations that made him the subject of his

reading. Here the boy was both the reader and the focus of what he read. (Bristow 41)

Ultimately, the Boy‘s Own Paper succeeded in doing what the school system never managed to accomplish – connecting adventure to a morally sound context. The focus on reading development in elementary schools severely diminished the excitement and joy that could be got out of adventure fiction, and did little to stop children from consuming morally reprehensible penny fiction. The Boy‘s Own Paper, however, acquired a ‗migration of cultural values‘, which they transposed onto the framework of imperialism. By focusing on the exotic, the exciting, moral development, and the playful acquisition of knowledge, they managed to captivate a juvenile audience in the same way penny fiction did – while still maintaining to some extent the cultural values extolled in Arnold‘s Culture and Anarchy.

It is striking how a considerable portion of the writing in the aforementioned periodicals was developed to physical fitness. In Arnoldian terms it was considered morally uplifting, and thought to inspire a feeling of team-spirit and belonging to a larger whole, but – considering the state of the British Empire at the end of the century – it is also indicative of a nation that reverses its position from an expansive model to one where its existence is threatened.

Physical fitness was not only culturally stimulating, it was an imperial necessity in a nation preparing for war. The link between physical activity and war was made explicit in the Boy‘s

Own Paper, when Talbot Baines Reed wrote in the first of his Parkhurst sketches (1899):

An officer of the Crimean War once described his sensation in some of the battles there

as precisely similar to those he had experienced when a boy on the football field at

Rugby. I can appreciate the comparison, for one. Certainly never soldier went into Denoyette 27

action with a more solemn do-or-die feeling than that with which I took my place on the

field that afternoon [. . .] (Bristow 57)

There is an interesting similarity between the periodicals‘ role in transforming the nation‘s youths into fit men able to ward off foreign invaders and W. E. Johns‘ creation of Gimlet, a commando and Worrals, the female counterpart of Biggles. These spin-off works were made at the request of the Air Ministry and the War Office, and had an inflationary effect on recruitment numbers in the military during the Second World War. There is also a connection with the Baden-Powell scout movement; the final element in a tripartite effort to turn the nation‘s boys into cultured men of Empire, and the soldiers of tomorrow.

The concept of scouting was first envisioned in 1839, when Henry Lawrence proposed the founding of a corps, trained to work in forest and jungle – where ordinary troops could not operate. The Queen‘s Corps of Guides was established in 1845, and the institution sparked the imagination of the general public. After the Second Boer War (1899-1902), Colonel Baden-

Powell set out to create a similar institution for boys in order to, as Green puts it: ―save

England from the softness and degeneracy threatening it‖ (211). He designed the Boy Scouts to foster specific English-boy qualities, and to nurse a sense of practical discipline – as pointed out by John Ellis in The Social History of the Machine Gun (1975):

Your Englishman [. . .] is endowed by nature with a spirit of practical discipline. [. . .]

Whether it has been instilled into him by his public school training, by his football and

his fagging, or whether it is inbred from previous generations of stern though kindly

parents, one cannot say (Ellis 105) Denoyette 28

In a time when international relations were tense, this type of practical discipline was precisely what was required of British youths, and the public schools supplied it. What

Baden-Powell set out to do was cultivate that English quality by means of simulated and controlled adventures. Together with the public schools, the Scout movement is an ―example of those institutions of large cultural effectiveness which did not operate through books, and which were hardly at all expressed or reflected in serious literature‖ (Bristow 212). Powell‘s scouting movement relied on turning the imperial values featured in the adventure stories and periodicals into practically applicable experience; with the purpose of preparing children to be able to defend the nation should the need arise. In doing so, these imperial virtues gained a militaristic quality that had little do with the original concepts of ‗sweetness‘ and ‗light‘, and everything with self-preservation in times of impending crisis.

Although Powell always denied the military character that was implicitly attributed to the

Scouts movement, Bristow points out that ―even if war is not the avowed aim of the preparatory exercises that constitute Scouting, it is the potential scenario against which the movement is set‖ (180). Powell‘s scouts were led forward with all the character-building exercises that should prepare them for service in the forces, and in the face of the amount of volunteers who were rejected from enlisting in the army, many trained Boy Scouts were meant to function as a much more desirable young man than the majority of working-class volunteers (182).

The Scouting Movement was a tremendous success, largely because of its attraction to lower middle-class boys who did not have to make a living on the streets, and had time to partake in the activities. Although at its most Utopian, scouting was designed to break down class barriers by placing each boy in the same uniform, making them learn the same skills, and rehearsing the same camp-fire yarns. The plight of working-class children prevented them from partaking in the movement, as there was simply less time available for them to do so. Denoyette 29

This principle can be extrapolated to the reforms I mentioned earlier: adventure stories featured in school largely failed to captivate children‘s imagination, and working-class children preferred the cheap sensation of penny fiction; periodicals such as the Boy‘s Own

Paper were priced at 1d for a weekly issue, but mostly catered to a middle-class audience. As

Bristow rightly points out, the plight of working-class boys, particularly those involved in street trading, partly prevented them from enshrining the Imperial values the way others did; which presented a persistent problem right up to the First World War (183).

IV Conclusion

Before bringing this first chapter to an end and moving on to the biographies of John

Buchan and Captain W. E. Johns, I should like to revisit some key points I made earlier. In the first section I described how increased secularisation and a steep rise in literacy rates in the second half of the nineteenth century led to the emergence of a broad market with a thirst for affordable, adventurous fiction. Further on, in the following section, I mentioned how this increasingly expanding market - aided by technological progress in printing techniques, the development of a royalty system and trademark legislation, and the consolidation of writers‘ interests - resulted in an opportunity for authors to make a living out of their writing as craftsmen.

In the third section I discussed briefly the dichotomy between the domestic novel and adventure fiction, and went on to describe how increased secularisation, coupled with a decrease in religious writing production, a shift in moral values and the existence of a broad Denoyette 30 literary market led to the displacement of Puritan values in children‘s literature in favour of imperial ones. This development was met with considerable resistance from the ruling classes, and intermediate solutions had to be sought in order to instil morality into children‘s minds whilst still retaining their attention. I described how educational reforms, largely inspired by

Matthew Arnold resulted in efforts to modify adventure stories so as to teach children imperial values such as pluck, zeal, courage and a self-congratulatory sense of superiority with respect to others. However, as the literary transformation often robbed the adventure stories of their escapist lustre, the endeavour proved largely unsuccessful. Far more inspirational were periodicals such as the Boys‘ Own Paper, and the Baden-Powell Scouts movement: two key components in an effort to turn Great Britain‘s youths into the patriots of tomorrow.

This concludes the chapter in which my main objective has been to elucidate the relation between popular adventure fiction and those who read it, in hopes of providing, firstly, useful context surrounding the rise of adventure fiction and its audience, and secondly, an interpretational framework suitable for interpreting the works of Buchan and Johns.

Denoyette 31

Buchan and Johns: Men of Empire 2

HE following chapter consists of two brief biographies of both John Buchan and T William Earl Johns. Although this thesis is based on a literary comparison between the two authors and their works, I am compelled to supply at the very least some background information about their lives, as I find it impossible to fully sever the men from their writing.

Particularly in the case of Buchan, whose ―cultural origins powered his writing9‖, an examination of these authors‘ backgrounds, education, careers and functions as cogs in the imperial mechanism of post-Edwardian Britain will be helpful when trying to assess their fiction.

The main source for these biographies has been each author‘s entry in the Oxford

Dictionary of National Biography, from which I have taken most information. A lengthier and more exhaustive account of the authors‘ lives can be found at the ODNB website, in Buchan‘s autobiography Memory Hold-the-Door (1940), or in By Jove, Biggles! The Life of Captain

W. E. Johns (1981, Peter Berresford Ellis and Piers Williams), a comprehensive biography of

Johns.

I John Buchan

John Buchan, first Baron Tweedsmuir (1875-1940) was born in Perth, Scotland on 26

August 1875 to Free Church of Scotland minister John Buchan, and Helen Jane Buchan, the daughter of a Broughton Green farmer. He grew up in a deeply religious home, and while his

9 Macdonald, Kate. Introduction to Reassessing John Buchan: Beyond The Thirty-Nine Steps. Ed. Kate Macdonald. London: Pickering & Chatto. Denoyette 32 father was lively and less strict than one might expect a minister to be, that character trait was compensated for by Helen, who held deep-seated and strict Presbyterian values.

In 1976, the family moved to Fife, where Buchan relished his holidays on his family‘s farm at Broughton in the Scottish Borders. These escapades along rivers, meadows, glens and hills would later on become a basis for the setting in much of his writing.

When Buchan was 13, his father was given the parish of the John Knox Church in

Glasgow, where John attended Hutcheson‘s Boys‘ Grammar School. Of his early schooldays

Buchan said: ―Except in the last year of my Glasgow grammar school, I do not think that I ever consciously did any work. I sat far down in my classes, absorbing automatically the rudiments of grammar and mathematics, without conviction and with no shadow of a desire to excel10‖. While Buchan is said to have found the social life at the manse somewhat stifling, he found his studies of the classics at Hutcheson‘s a liberation.

He left school in 1892 and won a scholarship to Glasgow University, where he published essays and short stories in the Glasgow University Magazine (1889) and developed his capacity for poetry. He acquired a scholarship and set off for Oxford in 1895, where he took a

First in Greats in 1899 and met with his future employer and publishing partner, Thomas

Nelson.

Buchan‘s Oxford connections thrust him into London society, and Buchan chose to remain there rather than move back to Scotland. He was admitted to the Bar in 1901, having paid for his studies by means of freelance journalism and fiction writing for The Spectator (1828) and

Blackwood‘s Edinburgh Magazine (1818). He dabbled somewhat in politics, describing himself as a ‗Gladstonian Liberal‘, but felt exasperated by the Liberal Party‘s overly radical platform.

10 See the note on the author in Buchan, John. Huntingtower. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd, 1956. Denoyette 33

Buchan proved both an able writer and barrister, but chose not to pursue either occupation to its full extent. He did not enlist for active service at the start of the South African War, but had mixed feelings about the decision afterwards. Alfred Milner‘s offer of a job in his cabinet to assist in the reconstruction of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in South Africa was an outstanding opportunity to assuage the guilt Buchan had felt earlier, and to serve his country. He held a position as a legal adviser and imperial civil servant, and experienced first- hand what the concept of duty encompassed. Buchan was also confronted with a country that would feature prominently in his writing11, where he claimed he ―ceased to be an individualist and became a citizen‖ (Memory Hold-the-Door 92). He was given the task of reducing the mortality rate in the concentration camps where the Afrikaner women and children were confined, and had a stake in the land settlement department, which he ran until March 1903.

Six months later he returned to London to find a Liberal government that was likely to be voted out of office. The South Edinburgh Unionist Association approached him about becoming an MP, but he declined.

In 1907, Buchan married Susan Charlotte Grosvenor, a well-connected but not rich woman, in a great society wedding. A year later, they had their first child, Alice, followed by their first son, John Norman Stuart in 1911. Buchan changed profession again, to become a literary advisor for the Scottish publishers Thomas Nelson & Sons. He brought flair and commercial success to cheap, quality reprint publishing, yet his efforts to transform The Scottish Review and Christian Leader into a Scottish magazine modelled after The Spectator failed, ending in its cancellation in 1908.

11 Prester John (1910) is set entirely in South Africa; Buchan’s main protagonist in his ‘shockers’ is Richard Hannay, a Scot who joined his father in South Africa at the age of six; Peter Pienaar, best friend and father figure to Hannay is a Boer scout who is described by Hannay as follows in Greenmantle: He was the man that taught me all I ever knew of veld-craft, and a good deal about human nature besides. [. . .] Peter was an independent devil and would call no man master. He took to big-game hunting, which was what God intended him for, for he could track a tsessebe in thick bush, and was far the finest shot I have seen in my life. (36) Denoyette 34

Buchan continued to write fiction as well as reviews and essays, and maintained his interest in politics. In 1910 he published his first real money-making ‗shocker‘, Prester John, as well as historical biographies and memoirs. At the same time he sought a parliamentary seat, an endeavour in which he succeeded in March 1911 when he was adopted by the Unionists for the seat of Peeblesshire and Selkirk, the area of his youthful holidays. He stood for election, but lost. Buchan used his political experience with public meetings to provide him with a memorable scene in his most well-known work, The Thirty-Nine Steps, published in 1915.

When the First World War broke out in 1914, Buchan found himself too ill for active service, which was psychologically crushing for him. Instead of physically serving his country, his response was to write Nelson‘s History of the War (1914-1919), a 24-volume enterprise that had by far the largest circulation of any war commentary at the time (Grieves

30). In addition to this massive chronicle, he also published a series of books on the battles of the Somme and Picardy, as well as Greenmantle (1916), a war sequel to The Thirty-Nine

Steps. The scale of his war commentary and prominence as a writer eventually propelled him to the propaganda department at Wellington House, where he spearheaded new propaganda policy and ended up as head of his own department. The department later became the

Ministry of Information, which Buchan himself closed down on the last day of 1918.

After the war, Buchan turned most of his attention to writing, revising his history of the war for republication in four volumes, as well as writing military history and becoming a deputy director of Reuters.

From the 1920s onwards, Buchan began publishing at least one popular novel per year. He produced historical novels, Scottish novels, and imperial novels, but is chiefly remembered for his pre- and inter-war stream of ‗shockers‘ like The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915),

Huntingtower (1922), The Dancing Floor (1926), Castle Gay (1930), The Gap in the Curtain Denoyette 35

(1932), and The Island of Sheep (1936). Many of these were works of political fiction in which themes such as the vulnerability of nations to evil conspiracies, great affairs of state, the dislocation between the city and the country, and the excitement and detail of the chase played a prominent role. His works caught the tone of Edwardian and inter-war English public life and are ―a pastiche of that culture and of the fiction it encouraged; their force in part derived from the fact that they are written against the grain of Buchan‘s inherent liberalism‖

(Buchan, John, first Baron Tweedsmuir (1875–1940)‖). However, the general public often failed to recognise his intention of pastiche or parody, and he has become a byword for anti-

Semitism and élitism.

His productive period in writing seemed to positively affect his politics, as Buchan handily won the safe Unionist seat in Parliament in 1927 representing the Scottish Universities (now no longer a constituency), a seat he held until 1935. He campaigned for a school leaving age of fifteen and was chairman of the pro-Palestine committee; and although he was known to cooperate with the political opposition, he did not support radical devolution or independence like some of his colleagues. When the Tories returned to office in 1931, he expected political office, which he did not receive. This should hardly come as a shock, since Buchan‘s dualistic personality caused people to think of him as a novelist in politics, and a man of affairs in literary circles. Only in the publishing industry was he a professional, and even there he was not wholly committed.

In 1935, Buchan‘s appointment as governor-general of Canada ushered in a diplomatic career that would form the basis of his legacy. The appointment came at an opportune time for

Buchan, now Lord Tweedsmuir, as he was disillusioned with British politics and its leaders – being appointed the governor-general of Canada provided him with a political blank slate. Denoyette 36

Although the governor-general was responsible solely to Canada, Buchan maintained a provincial loyalty. His capacity as diplomat proved outstanding, and his success surpassed that of any of his successors. He travelled extensively to and within Canada, and his experience governing Canada inspired Sick Heart River (1941), a novel in which he handles contemporary Québecois themes with a subtlety and vigour that was both absent from his

‗shockers‘, as well as unmatched by more recent English language authors.

In addition to governing Canada, Buchan took an active role in encouraging partnership between the United States and England. He came into contact with President Roosevelt, and convinced him to make the first ever presidential voyage to Canada in 1936. Tweedsmuir presided over the royal tour of Canada in 1939, which meant an important consolidation of the Commonwealth on the precipice of war, and – following a decision by the Canadian

Parliament – declared war on Germany in September of that year, one week subsequent to the

British declaration.

Buchan had frequently suffered from health problems during his life - never fully recovering from a duodenal ulcer - and the successful yet demanding royal tour of Canada left him physically exhausted. He suffered a cerebral thrombosis on 6 February 1940 and died five days later in the Neurological Institute, Montreal.

Buchan‘s works have remained successful over the course of the twentieth century, owing to their subtle universalism which underlay the local scenery and the period charm of the plot and characters. His works also reached a broader audience through the medium of film, starting with the film version of Huntingtower in 1925, and culminating in Hitchcock‘s striking 1935 version of The Thirty-Nine Steps, which introduced cinematic audiences to the twentieth-century spy movie. This popularity was not reflected in literary criticism, as

Buchan‘s writing was too diverse, too miscellaneous and patchy for him to be established in Denoyette 37

English literature courses, and he was met with the same anti-imperial reaction as Rudyard

Kipling before him. Janet Adam Smith‘s biography of him in 1965 managed to rekindle interest in his work, and much of his Scottish writing was rediscovered and met with new appreciation at the end of the century. Finally, literary criticism began to show an interest. His work was too voluminous and diverse to achieve consistent excellence, but drew its strength from his wide range of cultural and public experience, and from his sense of individual evil in large-scale society. In his shockers, Buchan managed to anticipate much of the popular fiction seen in the latter part of the century.

II William Earl Johns

William Earl Johns (1893-1968), children‘s writer and journalist, was born on 5 February

1893 at Bengeo, Hertfordshire, to tailor Richard William Eastman Johns and his wife,

Elizabeth Earl. He attended Bengeo School as well as Hertford Grammar School, and took evening classes at a local art school as a child. Johns was never an outstanding student but it is said he was a crack shot with a rifle, even as a child. After completing his education he was hired by a firm of surveyors. He took a job in Norfolk, and fulfilled a longstanding ambition to become a soldier by enlisting as a part-time private with the Norfolk Yeomanry, the cavalry force that was incorporated into the Territorial Army in 1907.

On 6 October 1914, a few months after being enlisting for the Great War, Johns married

Maude Penelope, daughter of a Norfolk clergyman, 11 years his senior. Their only son,

William Earl Carmichael, was born in March 1916. Johns served at Gallipoli and subsequently with the Machine Gun Corps in the Salonika campaign before transferring to the

Royal Flying Corps in 1917. He was commissioned as second lieutenant in September of that Denoyette 38 year, training as a pilot. After having been assigned to several posts as a flying instructor, he joined the fifty-fifth squadron at Azelot, France in August 1918, whose main task consisted of flying DH4 bombers on long-range raids into the Rhineland.

On 16 September Johns‘ squadron raided Mannheim, the largest Rhineland city after

Stuttgart. During the mission, his aircraft was damaged by anti-aircraft fire and, whilst returning to base, Johns found himself caught in a battle with several Fokker DVII aeroplanes of Ernst Udet‘s12 notorious specialised fighter squadron. John‘s air observer was killed, and

Johns was wounded, shot down, and captured. He was tried and condemned to death in

Strasbourg for war crimes, being accused of indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets. The possibility of an armistice saved him. Johns spent the remainder of the war in various prisoner-of-war camps, from which he attempted two escapes.

Johns remained active in the Royal Air Force until 1927, being promoted to flying officer in 1920. By 1923 Johns had left his wife and met Doris May, daughter of Alfred Broughton

Leigh, with whom he set up home in Newcastle in 1924. Despite Johns never officially divorcing Maude Hunt, Doris Leigh was known as Mrs Johns until her death. Upon leaving the RAF, Johns became an aviation illustrator before trying his hand at journalism. In 1932 he became founding editor of the monthly Popular Flying (1932). It was here that he first introduced his audience to Biggles, archetypal pilot protagonist and Johns‘ most famous literary creation. By the end of his life, Johns had written 102 Biggles books, in which his airman had been a Great War ace, a freelance adventurer, a Second World War squadron leader, as well as an ‗air-detective‘ at Scotland Yard.

12 Colonel General Ernst Udet was the second-highest scoring German flying ace in World War 1. Denoyette 39

Johns‘ output was enormous. In addition to editing Popular Flying in the 1930s, he regularly wrote for the Modern Boy13, Pearson‘s Magazine (1896) and My Garden. In 1938, he also edited a weekly, Flying (1927). He was dismissed from his editorship in 1939 owing to outspoken criticism of government air defence policy. At the outbreak of war he lectured to the Air Training Corps, wrote for the ATC Gazette, and wrote various specialized aviation books for the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Information. The popularity of his Biggles stories had an immense impact on recruitment to the Royal Air Force, and he was soon after asked to give life to further fictional heroes so as to inflate dwindling recruitment numbers in other military branches. He created Worrals, the female counterpart of Biggles, at the special request of the Air Ministry to promote the Women‘s Auxiliary Air Force, and gave in to similar demands from the War Office by creating Gimlet, a commando.

After spending ten years in Scotland, where Johns delighted in shooting and fishing, he and Doris Johns moved to Park House, Hampton Court, in 1953. By the end of his life, he had written a grand total of 169 books: of the total, 102 were about Biggles, and only 11 were intended for an adult audience. His works were translated into fourteen languages, issued in

Braille, serialized in newspapers and magazines across Europe, turned into strip cartoons, and even issued as cassette recordings. After Enid Blyton, Johns was the most prolific and popular children‘s writer of the time.

In his later years, and after his death, Johns – much like Buchan in his own time – came under fire from children‘s librarians and others who accused him of racism, outmoded concepts, and stereotyped characters. Although the prejudices of the times are reflected in some of his books, a reading of his works reveals his tremendous sense of humour, and his ability to make fun of his own supposed assumptions and prejudices.

13 Not all first published dates are mentioned, as tracing back the date of the first issue sometimes proved difficult due to the name being very similar to hundreds of other magazines, or a general lack of publication information being available. Denoyette 40

Popular in service circles and the book world, Johns, famous for his short, bulky figure, well-groomed grey hair and ready smile, was greeted enthusiastically by his friends. He was a craftsman, always delivering his work on time and to the exact length required. He died in his

Park House Manor on 21 June 1968, and was buried at Hampton Court.

Denoyette 41

Literary Analysis: Race and Gender 3

HIS final chapter is dedicated to the literary analysis of six works of John Buchan and T eight of W. E. Johns. The ultimate goal is to present a coherent examination of the ways in which imperialism was given imaginative form in the authors‘ works, through means of a contrastive analysis of the metaphorical and thematic construction of Empire in their writing. I will be analysing the works in function of two main themes; the issue of race - white supremacy and the dichotomy between civilisation and savagery - and gender – which deals with male dominance and the role of the female. I will examine the various ways in which non-English characters – be they native tribesmen or half-castes – were stereotyped and how their portrayal contributed to the ‗us versus them‘ dichotomy present in imperialist fiction. I will also look at the roles fulfilled by female characters in the stories, assess how rigorously female subordination was adhered to in the writings of both authors, and determine the effect this had on the male protagonists‘ portrayal. Examining the way in which character roles and functions achieve prominence most frequently can reveal valuable information regarding the nature and function of the story itself.

I will be comparing various texts with each other, according to the most salient imperial theme or specific issue presented within. As with every literary analysis, the selection of extracts and citations and their interpretation is partly a matter of personal choice and opinion.

As such, this analysis is not wholly free from subjectivism, although I will be making use of a variety of articles to support my claims.

Denoyette 42

I Race

The following section compares the differences in the portrayal of racial stereotypes, the presence of white supremacy, and the chasm between native civilisation and foreign savagery in the novels of Buchan and Johns. Together with gender issues it is one of the main themes I will be examining, as racial stereotyping and the prevalence of male dominance are inherently imperial values that prove to be some of the most salient features in these types of adventure stories. I will be discussing a variety of ‗Biggles‘ novels and comparing their manifestation of racial issues with a smaller amount of Buchan novels, focusing mainly on Buchan‘s 1910

South-African adventure novel, Prester John.

In order to gauge which portrayal deviates most from a pre-supposed imperial norm – and to ease the process of interpretation as a whole – I begin by providing some context surrounding imperial preconceptions about the role of different cultures and races in the world, and how the concept of race was seen as a scientific term for indexing not only social progress, but also moral character. In doing so, I make use of Brian Street‘s ―Reading the novels of empire: race and ideology in the classic ‗tale of adventure‘‖ in David Dabydeen‘s

The Black Presence in English Literature (1985).

The various notions about race in these types of literature are, as Street points out, constructed out of nineteenth-century imperialist and scientific thinking (95), in which scientists and anthropologists alike endeavoured to construct a hierarchy indicative of social progress, and - with it - moral values. The central ordering device for a long time prior to

Darwinian evolutionary theory was the concept of a ‗chain of being‘, whereby nature was taken to be a unified whole, ranked in a hierarchy from the angels, to the lesser insects.14 Over

14 Cf. Lovejoy, A. C. The Great Chain of Being. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1936. Cited in Street, Brian. “Reading the novels of empire: race and ideology in the classic ‘tale of adventure ’”. Denoyette 43 the course of the nineteenth century, this - originally theological - notion was reworked to fit scientific descriptions of nature, and refined by Darwinian theories of evolution.15 As Street mentions:

The various stages on the ‗ladder‘ were now seen to have emerged out of each other

and the superiority of one over the other was, in theory, based on their greater

complexity rather than on moral preconceptions. However, the metaphor of the ‗chain

of being‘ continued to inform the descriptions of natural processes, so that the ‗higher‘

species were popularly felt to be morally and culturally ‗superior‘. (97)

The conflation of these two principles, one theological and the other scientific, resulted in the creation of a pseudo-theoretical framework which made it possible - through use of the

‗comparative method‘ - for travellers and scientists to examine fellow humans for evidence of their own past, and for criteria by which to rank them on the scale of being (97), in which the native English were inevitably to occupy the highest place.

The notion that living peoples in non-Western parts of the world represent a stage in the history of mankind which Europeans have passed through underlies much of the popular fiction of the nineteenth century, and helped Europeans distance themselves from and in a way de-humanize other cultures by stressing their supposed animal-like qualities, lack of human characteristics, and by placing them in a historical and evolutionary sequence as examples of an earlier period (98). In doing so, contemporary scientists were oblivious to modern arguments such as the fact that social evolution is not the same thing as evolution in nature; that contemporary peoples everywhere have their own history and development and

15 Cf. Greene, J. C. Some early speculations on the origins of the human species. American Anthropologist. LVI, 1954. Cited in Street, Brian. “Reading the novels of empire: race and ideology in the classic ‘tale of adventure ’”. Denoyette 44 that it is subsequently meaningless to place them in ‗stages‘. Moreover, they also ignored the fact that while apes were indeed the ancestors of men, no one group of living men today is

‗nearer‘ to the apes than any others (99). For the scientists and novelists living in the nineteenth century, the concepts previously outlined presented a beginning in putting some order into the description of the vast amounts of new cultures being encountered as a result of imperialist expansion. In this context, then, the term ‗race‘ was seen as a scientific concept for classifying and make sense of such complexity; and while the word now has emotive connotations relating to exploitation and prejudice, it then denoted what Street calls ―a supposed ‗scientific‘ category by means of which the variety of human beings could be fitted into a scheme of classification‖ (99).

The singular advantage of this classification is that it provided some form of formal justification for judging the characteristics of a range of peoples based on their racial identity or background:

. . . it denoted physical, tangible and hence measurable characteristics and was thus

amenable to empirical ‗scientific‘ enquiry. Furthermore, it provided an external

measure of those less concrete ‗internal‘ characteristics such as morality, faith and

character which could not otherwise be easily included within scientific observation.

Internal characteristics could be assessed by observation of external ones. (Street 100)

In the context of nineteenth-century science, this classic device was used by novelists to identify their characters‘ internal qualities quickly and memorably for the reader. It took on a particular colouring, as the writer would use racial characteristics to stereotype entire peoples in ways for which they could claim some justification, considering scientists were doing the same thing. The writer could refer in passing to primitive peoples‘ inherent laziness, Denoyette 45 gullibility, simple-mindedness, childishness or cruelty as though these were natural characteristics, given by racial background and inheritance to all members of a particular race

(100). This device is omnipresent in the adventure fiction throughout the nineteenth century, and as we shall see in the work of Johns, it carried over past the turn of the century - at times merely the mentioning of the race of a character in the novel sufficed to draw immediate conclusions about the entire nature of that person‘s personality and moral values.

As far as hierarchical ranking goes, the use of the unit of race to place social groups on the evolutionary ladder meant that races too, were ranked. Following from the evolutionary nature of the framework, the ‗lower‘ races of mankind were considered to be nearer to man‘s common ancestor, the ape. To many, it was the black or ‗negroid‘ race which occupied the bottom rungs of the racial hierarchy and so it was primarily Africans who came to be seen as the least complex, and the nearest to the apes16, although Street points out that the judgement as to which races filled this position was ―more provisional than we might now expect‖. L. P.

Curtis, for instance, shows how many nineteenth-century writers saw the Irish as nearest to the apes, and cartoons of the time depicted Irish people as having low foreheads, prognathous features and an ape-like gait which directly associated them with man‘s immediate ancestors

(101).

The criteria for this ordering system were generally defined in specific European cultural terms. Entire groups of people were judged on their social evolution, intelligence or morality based on a euro-centric interpretation of concepts such as the ‗quality‘ of their cultural art, or the manner in which they practiced some form of religion. The Bushmen, for instance, were deemed to be ‗primitive‘ because, amongst other things, their cave paintings appeared

―repulsive, grotesque, obscene, the handiwork of bygone ages of the most primitive race in

16 Cf. Lyons, A. The genesis of scientific racism. Journal of the Anthropological Society in Oxford. I, no. 2, 1970; Irvine, W. Apes, Angels and Victorians. London: Readers Union, 1955. Cited in Street, Brian. “Reading the novels of empire: race and ideology in the classic ‘tale of adventure ’”. Denoyette 46 the world17‖. Similarly, when the artistic skill of the Zu-Vendi tribe was deemed too variable for simple judgment by Henry Rider Haggard, their practice of sun-worship was indicted as being ―not indicative of a civilised people, however magnificent and imposing its ritual18‖.

Value judgments like these, then, are taken beyond the scope of ‗normal‘ ethnocentrism by their location in a supposedly scientific framework of race, evolution and hierarchy that lends them respectability and authority. Because of the scientific connection and the manner in which these presupposed ideas are so ingrained within the populace, Street argues that these processes should be considered in terms of a ‗conceptual framework‘ rather than mere ‗race relations‘ (103). In analysing racial presence in adventure stories, we too must acknowledge that the ideas and images belonging to this framework are derived from assumptions shared by a whole range of people, scientists and novelists alike, including those who consider themselves capable of identifying and condemning the cruder manifestations of its divisive properties. At its heart, this belief system is not so much about racial supremacy or distancing as it is about the erroneous transposition of scientific beliefs onto a social ladder; a faulty mechanism for indexing the world‘s vastly different cultures.

Having expanded on the nineteenth-century conceptual framework that gave rise to the racial hierarchy present in imperial culture and adventure fiction, we now possess a yardstick against which to compare the portrayal of race in the works of Buchan and Johns. I start by analysing the theme of race in a variety of ‗Biggles‘ novels, before moving on to Buchan‘s

Prester John (1910). At the end of the subsection I shall discuss the thematic convergence and differences between the two types. Starting with the ‗Biggles‘ series has as a result that I am

17 Cf. Mitford, B. The Weird of Deadly Hollow. London: n.p., 1891. 204. Cited in Street, Brian. “Reading the novels of empire: race and ideology in the classic ‘tale of adventure ’”. 18 Cf. Haggard, H. R. Allan Quartermain. s.l.: Kessinger Publishing, LCC, 2004. 169. Denoyette 47 not examining the authors‘ works according to chronology19, which is due to a number of reasons. Firstly, analysing Johns‘ racial stereotyping is more straightforward than analysing

Buchan‘s characterisation, and an analysis of his works provides me with a backdrop against which to place Buchan‘s writing later on. Secondly, having just discussed the imperial cognitive framework, I feel slightly compelled to start with the author whose writings adhere most stringently to that framework, from which we can then later move away. To try and avoid chronological confusion, all novels will be dated in parentheses.

When reading the ‗Biggles‘ series, one immediately notices the pervasiveness of racial stereotyping that occurs throughout the stories. On virtually every quest that James

Bigglesworth and his crew undertake in a foreign land, they encounter some sort of hostile tribe, a group of indigenous rogue profiteers, or another variety of native antagonists, and – after one or several confrontations – the major and his crew escape mostly unharmed. As a story-telling device, this technique is elegantly pragmatic, and highly efficient; as a literary presence, it is inherently imperial. It is a highly practical device because these adventure stories take a large amount of their escapist value from the location in which the majority of the action takes place, which is almost always an exotic location and very rarely the British homeland. Linking this location to a native antagonist is simple, and results in a story framework that presents readers with an imaginative tale about a far-off place, featuring an often barbaric and almost always morally and culturally inferior set of local villains. There are exceptions to this general rule, but it is true for most of the ‗Biggles‘ stories. As a result of this, the stories often contain little surprises as to whom the villain is; and the juxtaposition of an inevitably victorious Biggles with a foreign, ‗lower‘ class of enemy makes our British hero seem that much more culturally dominant. While this device might seem like a repetitive formula, its innate strength lies in the fact that it presents children with a story that is easy to

19 Buchan wrote the majority of his fiction before the first ‘Biggles’ story was ever published. Denoyette 48 follow, contains clearly defined moral and cultural values and boundaries, and is kept interesting through the occurrence of spectacular events. With a far-off location and an exotic villain as its core elements, these stories entertain a juvenile audience with an exploration into the unknown.

I start my examination by looking at racial stereotyping in Biggles Flies South (1938) before considering the rest of the novels. I choose this particular work to start with as it presents arguably the most salient and diverse racial stereotyping in any of the ‗Biggles‘ series, while at the same time diverging slightly from the conceptual framework discussed earlier, which sets it apart from a body of work that generally adheres very strictly to its principles.

The novel almost immediately starts off with a confrontation between Ginger20 and a native villain caught assaulting a victim. Before the attack even takes place, Ginger notices the furtive movements of the assailant – despite his sense of ―instinctive suspicion [. . .] in a land where the native population is ‗coloured‘‖ (15) being dulled by frequent travelling. The attacker wounds his target with a blade, before dashing off upon Ginger‘s arrival at the scene.

When Biggles and his crew examine the victim, we are presented with a rare divergence from the usual imperial cognitive framework, as the victim turns out not to be white:

He was, as he had already observed, a native. But obviously one of the better class, and

his skin was not much darker than that of a sunburned white man. He was young, no

older than himself, with finely cut features and soft, intelligent eyes. His clothes were of

good quality, and might have been made in London; indeed, but for his distinguishing

20 Ginger Hebblethwaite is one of Biggles’ crew members and part of the small team of heroes in the ‘Biggles’ stories, along with Algy and Bertie. Denoyette 49

tarboosh21, he might have passed for a European. (17)

The victim soon turns out to be Biggles‘ quest-giver, which is a rare occurrence concerning his native status. There are several elements that appear to raise this man above the status usually bestowed upon natives: the first is his heritage: the man turns out to be

Kadar Alloui Bey, the son of one of Cairo‘s most powerful businessmen. The second is his complexion and European appearance, as the man is only scarcely darker than a ‗sunburned white man‘ and has a pair of ‗intelligent‘ eyes that would not look out of place on the face of an Englishman. The third is discovered when Biggles compliments the man:

‗You speak English very well,‘ said Biggles, changing the subject. ‗That is not

surprising, considering that I was at school in England for seven years,‘ was the

unexpected reply. ‗The dickens you were!‘ (20)

The experience of having lived in England is an essential part of the reason why this native man can occupy the same position on the social ladder as Biggles and the rest of his crew; as it provides him with a semblance of civilisation and cultural superiority his other traits could not provide. Ultimately, when comparing this extract to Street‘s cognitive framework, we may note a slight divergence from the institutionalised standard, as this native becomes Biggles‘ equal - or even his superior - when he commissions his crew in search of the ‗Lost Oasis‘. On the other hand, adherence to the model is still very much present, as the only reason the man could overcome his racial position was through an almost aristocratic heritage, a European appearance, and in particular, a British upbringing.

Further reading in the novel reveals that this unusually positive characterisation of a native was a privilege not granted to the villains of the story, Zarwan and his band of Touareg Arabs,

21 A tarboosh, or tarbush, is a tasselled cap of cloth or felt, usually red, that is worn by Muslim men either by itself or as the inner part of the turban. Denoyette 50 and the descendents of Cambyses‘ army. As a ‗primitive race‘ occupying the lower rungs on the ladder of social evolution, the Tuareg are portrayed as ignorant peasants, and immoral sadists:

Algy‘s spirits soared with the flame, for it told him that, incredible though it

appeared, the ignorant savages were actually drinking petrol. [. . .] if the silly fools

drank themselves into inconsciousness [sic], so much the better. (96)

[. . .] he [Algy] took aim at the nearest Tuareg, for he knew that the only arguments

the desert nomads understood were bullets and cold steel, and any other method of

approach would be mere foolishness. So he prepared forthwith to reduce the number of

his opponents to two. (103)

In an instant the Tuareg had whipped out a long, curved knife, and with his evil,

pock-marked face grinning with savage delight, he leapt forward [. . .] (104)

Kadar knew only too well what was happening, for the torture of the ants is as old

as the very hills in Egypt and the Sudan. ‗It is wild honey,‘ he muttered hoarsely. ‗They

lay a trail of it to an ants‘ nest. It-----‘ [. . .] Their work complete, the Tuareg, with

Zarwan slightly in front, formed a rough circle round their victims and prepared to

watch their death agonies. (88)

Below even the Tuareg on the ladder of social evolution are the descendents of Cambyses‘ army, an ancient Caucasian warrior tribe that has been isolated inside the desert for thousands of years – and are thus entirely oblivious to technological advances. These warriors are not Denoyette 51 described in such hateful terms as the Tuareg, partly because they share the desert nomads as a common enemy with Biggles, and partly because their raw primitive state seems to insulate them from moral judgment. Unlike the Tuareg, Cambyses‘ descendents are not morally corrupt, just ignorant to a fault – which becomes obvious when Biggles manages to set a crowd of warriors on fire using only canisters of petrol and his gun, proving that Imperial knowledge bests primitive manpower:

[. . .] The very air seemed to be on fire – as indeed it was, for it was saturated with

petrol vapour. All those warriors who had been in the front rank rushed about

screaming while they tried to extinguish their blazing legs, but they only flung the

burning spirit on their companions who were behind. (127)

Interestingly, the harshest words are reserved for the novel‘s most civilised villain: Fuad

Zarwan, the half-caste leader of the Tuareg. At the beginning of the novel, he presents himself as a social climber seeking to employ Biggles‘ services. But his ostentatious display of wealth, his bows and salutations followed by vague threats when the major refuses to yield to his request instantly reveal to Biggles that the man is a knife-thrower whose inability to "look any of us straight in the face" (34) is a testament to far deeper levels of vice:

The man bowed, and his right hand touched his heart with an obsequious gesture.

‗Have I the honour of addressing the celebrated Major Bigglesworth?‘ he inquired

suavely. (34)

‗Visitors in Egypt are well advices not to become inquisitive in matters that do not

concern them,‘ he said softly. Again Biggles hesitated, controlling an urge to kick the Denoyette 52

man off the terrace. (34)

Eventually, Biggles gets his revenge on the man, and subjects him to a savage caning when a cowardly Zarwan implores him to help him make his escape:

Zarwan, green with terror under his brown skin, came bursting through the trees,

imploring the airmen in broken English to protect him, although how he imagined that

this could be done he did not say. ‗Yes, I‘ll protect you, you murdering swine,‘ snarled

Biggles, and before the others realized what he was going to do he had seized the abject

half-caste by the back of the collar and began laying on the cane with all the power of

his arm. [. . .] At last the camel-wand broke into halves. (112-113)

Zarwan is of Turkish-Greek descent, which places him somewhere in between the

Englishman and the native savage. He is also socially well-connected and wealthy. As a result, it would be expected that he were treated in a more positive light. What seems to place

Zarwan even below the Tuareg on a moral level22 is the fact that – unlike the natives - he does not belong to a single racial identity that is clearly on a more primitive level. Essentially, he cannot be indexed inside the cognitive framework, and does not know, or is not willing to accept, his place in the world. He is both a soft-speaking, pseudo-sophisticated backstabber; and a wealthy, greedy coward. This mixed heritage presents a systematic problem to the imperial mind, as it implies his behaviour or personality traits cannot be efficiently gauged – which is what the cognitive framework revolves around: ascribing moral and behavioural characteristics to people based on racial identity and appearance. The reason why Zarwan

22 As far as morality goes, there is nothing in Zarwan’s actions - apart from an obvious two-facedness - that makes him seem more evil than any of his Tuareg compatriots, yet he is described in more hateful terms, and humiliated in a personal beating by Biggles himself. Denoyette 53 proves such a threat to Biggles then, is because he is unpredictable, and therefore unreliable.

As the major puts it himself towards the end of the novel:

‗I don‘t care two hoots about the colour of their skins,‘ muttered Biggles. ‗It is the way

they are likely to behave that matters. They can be Persians, Chinese, Eskimos, Red

Indians, or anything else, as far as I am concerned, so long as they don‘t try any funny

tricks.‘ (114)

All things taken into consideration, it seems that the closer one gets to the top of the racial hierarchy, the more stringent moral judgment becomes. Cambyses‘ army attempted to sacrifice Biggles and his crew to a crocodile, yet they are merely described as foolish primitives whose solitary existence prevented them from evolving at all. The Tuareg, too, try to thwart Biggles‘ plans several times, and they are described as a sadistic and despicable lot of savage fools. Worst of all is the fate that befalls Zarwan; whose mixture of savage morals with a near-European heritage and bearing makes him entirely revolting. He suffers the humiliation of being caned by Biggles in person, and is subsequently devoured by a crocodile.

As I mentioned earlier, the racial stereotyping featured in this story is uncommonly diverse for a ‗Biggles‘ story: the existence of a helping native only occurs once more in the eight stories examined, and most of the villains featured in the stories are homogenous in their evil- doing and are treated much like the Tuareg in this tale. In Biggles in the Orient (1945), for example, the Asian spy sabotaging the British aircraft is ―as cunning as only an Oriental can be‖ (112), just as the Tuareg are naturally vigilant and scheming. When Biggles first hears Denoyette 54 about the situation at the airfield23, his immediate response is to find a list of all coloured personnel, as they would be the prime suspects of sabotage:

―Algy24, I‘d like you to get a list of all persons outside Air Force personnel who work

on the station, or have permits to visit the airfield for any purpose whatsoever. There

are certain to be a lot of men of the country, coloured men. . . Raymond probably has

such a list already made. That would be the first thing he‘d do, I imagine, in checking

up for possible saboteurs.‖(29-30)

This comment need not be an indictment of the natives working there, as it arguably says more about the English personnel‘s unwavering loyalty to their country than it does about the natives‘ innate tendency towards treachery. When the poisoned food the pilots kept consuming is discovered, the same conclusion is made:

―We‘ve got to find out how the dope is getting into the confectionery. We can‘t be quite

sure that it doesn‘t come out from England like that. Charney‘s, the manufacturers, are

a big, old-established British firm, quite above suspicion.‖ (113)

While not racially charged per se, these comments do reveal the us-versus-them way of thinking that permeates the Biggles novels, which results from the racial dichotomy between

English and foreigners. The suspicion proved to be correct, as the saboteur turns out to be Lal

Din, a stooge working for Tahil and Larapindi, two shippers‘ and merchants‘ agents25. Lal

23 In Biggles in the Orient, Bigglesworth and his crew are to unravel the mystery behind scores of British airplanes crashing down mid-flight, without any logical explanation. The use of a mysterious ‘death ray’ weapon is contemplated, but eventually the cause turns out to be poisoning of the pilots’ chocolate. 24 Algy, like Ginger, is one of Biggles’ partners. 25 It must be said that Tahil was “a good fellow” (159), who was killed by Larapindi. Denoyette 55

Din himself is not as reviled as the Tuareg were, and is just considered a foolish spy, with the harshest words directed at him being ―That moon-faced steward!‖ (111).

Even the story‘s main villain, Larapindi, goes largely unmentioned, despite him being ultimately responsible for the deaths of dozens of pilots. The only real description of the man reads as follows:

―Was Larapindi a Jap?‖ asked Biggles. ―‖I haven‘t been able to get to the bottom of that

yet,‖ answered the Air Commodore. ―He was a fascist, anyway. He was a wealthy man,

but that wasn‘t enough. He wanted power, which is an obsession with a certain type.‖

(159)

The harshest words in the novel are reserved for the Japanese enemy troops, whose sadistic temperament and lack of morals closely resembles that of the Tuareg. Whereas in other

Biggles stories there can be some form of mutual respect among enemy combatants26, the

Japanese here are depicted as immoral swine:

When one of them [two Japanese enemies] pointed at the dead pilot [a fallen British

comrade] and burst out laughing, after a momentary look of wonder Biggles frowned:

friend or foe, to European eyes the sight was anything but funny. When one of them

kicked the body every vestige of colour drained from his face. [. . .] when one of the

men, with what was evidently a remark intended to be jocular, bent down and inserted

his cigarette between the dead pilot‘s lips, and then, shouting with laughter, stepped

26 Cf. The German spy officer, Erich von Stalheim, whom Biggles helps to escape from the island of Sakhalin in Biggles buries a Hatchet, 1958. After Von Stalhein settles in London, he and Biggles remain in touch. Denoyette 56

back to observe the effect, Biggles‘ pent-up anger could no longer be restrained. ―You

scum,‖ he grated. [. . .] Biggles spoke again. ―You utter swine,‖ he breathed. [. . .]

Biggles walked forward and with calculated precision fired two more shots at point-

blank range. [. . .] ―You unspeakable thug,‖ he rasped. (53-54)

While the Japanese are of another ethnicity, they cannot be considered primitive the way the desert nomads were, and they are portrayed here as a socially evolved people, but with despicably savage morals and an unreliable inherent shrewdness. The fact that they are close to the Europeans on the evolutionary ladder and yet display deplorable morals stirs up immense hatred in Biggles, and he takes particular gratification in disposing of them. One might wonder why the Japanese are portrayed in such bad light, as Owen Dudley Edwards notes in British children's fiction in the Second World War that ―Orwell noted British public opinion seemingly caring very little about the war against Japan; Tolkien was critical of it,

Ransome practically opened Missee Lee (1941) on a Friends-of-Japan recruitment.‖ However, he Edwards claims ―Johns was savagely anti-Japanese, varying villains between open brutality, veneer of courtesy and absolute treachery‖ (267). Whether the portrayal of the

Japanese was a personal vendetta on Johns‘ part or whether their position in World War II proved an opportune moment to indoctrinate a youthful audience against the values of

Japanese imperialism remains uncertain.

Most of the other stories follow the same principles discussed above, and there is practically no divergence from the cognitive framework. Every native or half-breed is to some degree vilified, unless they turn out to have lived in England for quite some time, or prove particularly useful in helping Biggles and his men out; and racial background or appearance serves as an indicator for moral integrity throughout. Often the mention of a person‘s race serves as an indictment of their entire character, and the racial background of a group of Denoyette 57 people can serve to describe their primal tendencies, as in Biggles Flies West (1937) and

Biggles Flies Again (1934):

[Inquiring about their adversaries] ‗And the other fellow – Martinez?‘ ‗Pedro

Martinez! He‘s a nigger, besides which I guess he‘s just about the slimiest thug who

walks on two legs.‘ (Biggles Flies West 78)

[on the practice of gold-sieving in the river] ―The plates are treated with a solution

of mercury to make the gold stick to them. Well, this poor ignorant fool didn‘t know

what it was all about. He thought the machinery was a sort of god, and kept scrubbing

the gold off the plates to keep them clean. Sort of thing a native would do.‖ (Biggles

Flies Again 103)

Our papers are all in order, so I don‘t see that we have anything to worry about‘, put

in Ginger carelessly. ‗You might, if you knew as much about these people as I do‘,

Biggles told him shortly. ‗The predatory instincts of their forefathers, the Brethren of

the Coast, still breaks out at the slightest excuse. But there, we shall see.‘ (Biggles

Flies West 66)

As was the case with Zarwan, half-caste people in the novels continue to be portrayed as unreliable, two-faced schemers, and inevitably conjure up feelings of intense disgust with

Biggles:

[On encountering obstruction from a half-caste government official] ‗You‘ve got a

Company stamp. Get busy and date the deed the day before the Company filed its Denoyette 58

petition; your clerk can witness it. If you don‘t,‖ went on the pilot, clenching his fists,

―I‘m going to give myself the satisfaction of tearing your dirty little gizzard out of your

neck and throwing it outside to the dogs.‖ (Biggles Flies Again 12)

Even non-native people can be considered to fall under this category, as long-term presence in a native country seems to morally corrupt every Caucasian government official stationed abroad. It seems that racial identity alone is not impervious to a transposition of native – and morally corrupt - values:

The smaller the place the bigger idea the officials have of their importance, at least,

that‘s my experience. And the more native blood white people get into their systems the

more they delight in letting people like ourselves see that they are as good as we are.

(Biggles Flies West 65)

Essentially, all the Biggles novels set in an exotic country are rife with racial stereotyping and various forms of ‗othering‘, and adherence to a cognitive framework in which the

Englishman occupies the top rank, the half-breeds the middle, and primitive native tribes the very lowest position is strict. However, Johns‘ hierarchy does not correlate directly with the moral judgment of these people, or their own moral values. Whereas one might assume that the most socially primitive peoples would also be the most corrupt, that position is held by the pseudo-civilised half-castes. The reason for this seems to be that half-breeds are, as a rule, more resourceful in their wrongdoing than the ignorant primitives. They are harder to predict, harder to elude, and as a result, make a more formidable enemy. Simultaneously, their increased capacity for knowledge has not resulted in them abandoning the set of morals held by native villains; which makes them seem all the more tenacious in their villainous intent - as Denoyette 59 opposed to the primitives, who are often deemed entirely bereft of rationality. As a result, this miscegenation of both Imperial and primitive values turns them into social degenerates, and a standing threat to the imperial civilising mission.

As part of the transition to a discussion of John Buchan‘s Prester John (1910), I discuss the descriptions of Sarda, a half-breed villain, and a group of native tribal warriors, both from

Biggles in Africa (1936). These two extracts illustrate clearly the adherence to a cognitive framework in which inner qualities can be gauged from outward appearance; whilst presenting a solid cultural division between the English and the native and reiterating some key imperial values such as an appreciation for physical fitness, and the word of an

Englishman.

If appearances were anything to go by, the man looked capable of any vice or crime.

In the first place he was clearly a half-breed, with the black predominant, although his

hair was long and straight. His mouth was large, with loose lips, from a corner of which

a ghastly scar ran transversely across his face to the opposite side of the forehead,

straight across the right eye-or rather, the socket where it should have been [. . .] His

one saving grace was his physique, for he was well over six feet in height, although this

did nothing to make his appearance less forbidding. (emphasis added; 36)

‗You go and tell your master that we‘re taking this aeroplane to Insula, where he can

have it just as soon as he brings my aeroplane back,‘ he answered in a firm voice. ‗If

you no give aeroplane, then we take it,‘ declared the other impudently. Biggles‘s eyes

glinted and his lips came together in a tight line. ‗You insolent rascal; you talk to me Denoyette 60

like that and I‘ll thrash the skin off your back. Be off, and sharp‘s the word.‘ The

savage did not move a muscle. ‗Did you hear me? [. . .] ‗Now!‘ snapped Biggles.

‗Perhaps you’ve heard it said that Englishmen always keep their word. Think hard on

that, because in one minute by my watch I‘m going to shoot at any one I see within

spear-throw.‘ (emphasis added; 129-131)

We now focus our attention on a novel that presents a profoundly less stark divide between civilisation and savagery: John Buchan‘s Prester John (1910). Whereas Johns stuck rigorously to the imperial cognitive framework discussed earlier; in this South-African adventure novel

Buchan undermines and reaffirms the imperial cognitive framework constantly. As David

Daniell points out in The Interpreter‘s House (1975):

―he made the threshold between the civilised and the savage a point of complication

rather than simplification. . . . evil was not contained in one person or group whose

destruction meant salvation—it was a part of every soul . . . The black and white of

romance became blurred, the separated chemicals interacted, until romance took on the

qualities of realism.‖ (xix)

The novel begins by describing how a young Scottish boy, David Crawfurd, witnesses a mysterious man performing secret rituals on the Kirkcaple shore where he and his friends were playing as children. As Crawfurd rises to manhood, he sets out to immerse himself in the trade and commerce business in the South-African Transvaal region, where he shares the workplace with a boorish alcoholic shopkeeper, Mr. Japp. His stay there is threatened by constant surveillance of his every move, and Crawfurd eventually learns about a black native Denoyette 61 uprising, led by the very man he witnessed on those Kirkcaple shores so many years ago, the grandiose Reverend John Laputa27, who believes himself to be the reincarnation of the mythical priest-king, Prester John. Laputa is aided by the treacherous Portuguese Henriques, and ultimately falls prey to his betrayal. With the leader of the uprising defeated, the uprising fails, and order is restored. I will briefly discuss the characterisation of both Japp and

Henriques, before moving on to the novel‘s main ‗villain‘, Laputa.

Only a few pages are given to the description of Peter Japp‘s appearance and conduct, but they are vivid and memorable. He is portrayed as an abusive, self-aggrandizing alcoholic lout who deals in illicit diamond-trafficking; and is almost immediately reviled by the novel‘s young hero. Worst of all is his jealous, two-faced behaviour regarding David‘s energetic demeanour; and the obsequious manner in which he – as one of the few white men in the region - deals with natives visiting the shops, whilst physically abusing Zeeta, a young native servant girl who helps around the shop. At Crawfurd‘s arrival, Japp is lying in a drunken slumber, and no comments about his appearance are made. Rather, his character is later revealed to us in terms of his behaviour:

The truth is he was a disgusting old ruffian. His character was shown by his treatment

of Zeeta. The poor child slaved all day and did two men‘s work in keeping the

household going. [. . .] he never spoke to her except with a curse, and used to cuff her

thin shoulders till my blood boiled. (34)

27 Daniell points out that “ ‘Laputa’, for all its African sound, is of course also the name of the Flying Island in Gulliver’s Travels, Part III. With its luminous cave and precious stone and elevation, and its curious twisted beliefs, not to mention the voyage and the Dutch pirates, it would be a not inappropriate association.” (117) Denoyette 62

While his abuse of a poor native child is morally repulsive in itself, its atrocity is enhanced when Crawfurd notices the way in which Japp deals with other natives who are far less deserving of kind treatment:

He might brag about his knowledge of how to deal with natives, but to my mind his

methods were a disgrace to a white man. Zeeta came in for oaths and blows, but there

were other Kaffirs whom he treated with a sort of cringing friendliness. A big black

fellow would swagger into the shop, and be received by Japp as if he were his long-lost

brother. [. . .] I could see that it was the white man who fawned and the black man who

bullied. (35)

The fact that Japp was in league with native diamond-smugglers is an indictment of his character; but what Buchan depicts as even worse is that they have leverage over him: the fact that this white man is dominated by local natives turns him from an immoral thief into a disgrace to white men everywhere, and a threat to the imperial idea of restoring order to South

Africa. The portrayal of a Caucasian man as being evil could be considered a slight deviation from the cognitive framework, but both Buchan and Johns feature white European villains in their novels28, and Japp is only a minor character. In order to find a schism between Johns and

Buchan‘s racial stereotyping, we have to look further than this minor character.

As opposed to Japp, Henriques, the most reviled villain in the story, and henchman to

Laputa, is described in unflattering terms upon Crawfurd‘s first sight of him in a manner that is reminiscent of Johns‘ descriptions of villains:

He, too, was a little man, by name Henriques, and in looks the most atrocious villain

28 It has to be said, however, that Johns used foreign villains much more frequently than Buchan. In the eight Johns stories I have examined, Caucasian villains are only presented in one tale, in Biggles Takes a Hand. Denoyette 63

I have ever clapped eyes on. He had a face the colour of French mustard – a sort of

dirty green – and bloodshot, beady eyes with the whites all yellowed with fever. He had

waxed moustaches, and a curious, furtive way of walking and looking about him. (21)

The description of Henriques matches fairly well that of another half-caste villain in Johns‘ work: Zarwan. Both men have yellow eyes – Zarwan‘s were yellow ―as a wolf‘s‖, but

Henrique‘s are yellow due to fever, and not an indication of his conniving character, as they were for Zarwan. None the less, his off-colour complexion and furtive ways still reveal his villainy; and the personality of the henchman is laid bare without any interaction, simply through observance. Although his character and personality is described much more thoroughly than Zarwan‘s, Henriques shares the same type of description and the same treacherous characteristics as the Tuareg leader – his betrayal of Laputa being the prime example. From a racial point of view, the two half-castes are very nearly identical, as both are utter villains due to their mixed origin, resulting in a part-civilised appearance that fails to conceal underlying savagery. As such, here too we cannot speak of a clear difference in the portrayal of half-caste villains between Johns and Buchan. We do, however, find that gap between Johns and Buchan in the description of the novel‘s main antagonist, John Laputa. In describing this particular character I rely on David Daniell‘s ―Buchan and ‗The Black

General‘‖ (1985).

The Reverend John Laputa is a villain unlike any Johns would conceive in his works, and carries with him a sense of depth and moral ambivalence that makes Johns‘ native villains seem acutely superficial. As Daniell points out, ―Laputa is noble, ambivalent, learned and aristocratic: flawed, of course, but greatly flawed‖ (137). The first real description of Laputa mentions his idiosyncratically native appearance, setting him apart from other, more common

Africans, and foregoing any negative undertones: Denoyette 64

I was intensely curious, and not a little impressed. The man‘s face was as

commanding as his figure, and his voice was the most wonderful thing that ever came

out of human mouth. It was full and rich, and gentle, with the tones of a great organ. He

had none of the squat and preposterous negro lineaments, but a hawk nose like an Arab,

dark flashing eyes, and a cruel and resolute mouth. He was black as my hat, but for the

rest he might have sat for a figure of a crusader. (23)

Laputa‘s silver-tongued oratory already establishes him as a great character and villain, as this is indicative of his leadership, which makes him a force to be reckoned with in the native uprising29.

This initially positive impression of Laputa is expanded upon throughout the novel with constant alternations bearing witness to his inferiority as well as his greatness, which results in him coming across as a tragically doomed figure. Contrast, for instance, these two descriptions of Laputa that are less than half a page apart:

‗I said he was an educated man, but he is also a Kaffir. He can see the first stage of a

thing, and maybe the second, but no more. That is the native mind. If it was not like that

our chance would be the worse.‘ (76)

This extract presents Laputa as someone who is stuck in his social position as a native – a depiction we could perhaps imagine in the portrayal of one of Johns‘ great villains - but then departs from the cognitive framework in having the novel‘s protagonist ascribing to this particular villain internal values which are nothing but grandiose:

29 He shares this grandiose appearance and gift of oratory with several other [Buchan] villains. […] From Prester John on, a golden and misinterpreting tongue becomes the mark of a deceiver at an absolute level: Moxon Ivery can hold a Biggleswick audience spell-bound. (The Interpreter‘s House 131) Denoyette 65

‗in my [Crawfurd‘s] opinion he is a great genius. If he had been white he might have

been a second Napoleon. He is a born leader of men, and as brave as a lion. There is no

villainy he would not do if necessary, and yet I should hesitate to call him a blackguard.

[. . .] there‘s fineness and nobility in him. He would be a terrible enemy, but a just one.‘

(77)

These ambivalent descriptions seem perhaps contradictory, until one examines the novel in its religious context. Prester John belongs to that class of empire literature which sees the frontier as a place of physical, moral and spiritual renewal for a young British male (Daniell

138), and the work is imbued with a religious context. From various oaths and invocations of

God in moments of weakness, to Biblical references30, up to Laputa‘s use of the password

―Immanuel‖ and the passing of Sheba‘s necklace which reminded Crawfurd of ―a picture of

Samuel ordaining Saul king of Israel‖ (100), in Prester John a mind steeped in the Bible is presenting a hero, a noble enemy and an action all themselves steeped in the Bible (Daniell

139). What we are presented with here, then, is an almost Miltonian anti-hero; a fallen Lucifer and a villain who represents much more than national or racial type. The book suggests not merely a self-aggrandizing upstart native leader who is doomed to succumb due to his racial background, but a ―priest-king whose significance rises to great heights, lifted by a breadth of view and reference‖ (Daniell 147). The same religious depth bestowed upon Laputa is present in the characterisation of David Crawfurd, who regards stopping Laputa and the native uprising as a Divine mission, and not a matter of racial imperative. The conflict between

30 E.g. “Perfect love casteth out perfect fear, the Bible says; but, to speak it reverently, so does perfect hate” (89); “I prayed for one thing only, that God in His mercy would give me the chance of settling things with Henriques” (89); “Last night I had looked into the heart of darkness, and the sight had terrified me. What part should I play in the great purification? Most likely that of the Biblical scapegoat” (110). Denoyette 66 protagonist and anti-hero here is theological, not native, as Laputa is lifted out of his social status as a native, and presented as an equal to Crawfurd, with an opposing goal:

God had preserved me from deadly perils, but not that I might cower in some

shelter. I had a mission as clear as Laputa‘s. For the first time I became conscious to

what a little thing I owed my salvation. That matter of the broken halter was like the

finger of Divine Providence. I had been saved for a purpose, and unless I fulfilled that

purpose I should again be lost. (160)

Laputa ultimately fails because Like Milton‘s Satan, he is an archangel fatally and dangerously flawed: his flaw is not his blackness but his pride, a theological, not a racial concept (Daniell 148). He fails because, as Daniell points out, ―his origin is mixed31‖. Laputa is not the origin if a settled tradition, which means that they are unable to identify the

Calvinist well-trodden path presented in the Pilgrim‘s Progress (1678) – a book that became increasingly important after Buchan‘s African experience, and was considered a Bible to Peter

Pienaar in the Hannay trilogy. This well-trodden path happens to be British because Bunyan wrote in English, because Buchan was British, and because he could appeal to centuries of

Anglo-Saxon agreement about cultural, and specifically spiritual background (Daniell 129).

And so, Laputa – who is throughout the story presented as an energetic Devil – is not vanquished by Crawfurd, who is more frequently weak, defeated, collapsed, cowardly, in pain and need, desperate for relief from thirst or bonds than is permitted to other ‗macho‘ heroes featured in popular imperialist literature of the time (Daniell 140). Instead, he is mortally wounded by his own henchman, Henriques, and eventually leaps off the precipice of a

31 Unlike Johns’ characters, this ‘origin’ doesn’t necessarily regard nationality. Hannay is a South-African Scot, but is not mixed as the Scottish and Boer Calvinism share a common root and the Boers read Pilgrim’s Progress. (Daniell 130). Denoyette 67 waterfall. Laputa, too, cannot kill Crawfurd, who is emboldened by having felt the presence of God through suffering:

‗I [Laputa] am going to kill you, Crawfurd,‘ and his fingers closed in to my shoulder

blades. Still I was unperturbed. 'No, you are not. You cannot. You have tried to and

failed. So did Henriques, and he is lying dead outside. I am in God's keeping, and

cannot die before my time.' (178)

The final confrontation between the two men remains eerily peaceful, and the mutual respect between hero and anti-hero, the Latin epigraph uttered by Laputa and the invocations of God throughout the scene add to Laputa‘s grandeur and the sense that this is conflict transcends man altogether, and is decided by Providence:

I found myself giving my arm to the man who had tried to destroy me. (179)

We are going to die together, Crawfurd,' he said. 'God has twined our threads, and

there will be only one cutting. (179)

I stood silent, the half-remorseful spectator of a fall like the fall of Lucifer. (179)

Sub hoc conditorio,' he crooned, 'situm est corpus Joannis, magni et orthodoxi

Imperatoris, qui imperium Africanum nobiliter ampliavit, et multos per annos mundum

feliciter rexit32. He must have chosen this epitaph long ago. (179-180)

Very striking, and perhaps the best illustration of the grandeur of the novel‘s antagonist and the forceful impression he made on the hero is Crawfurd‘s breakdown upon Laputa‘s

32 'Under this stone is laid the body of John, the great and orthodox Emperor, who nobly enlarged the African realm, and for many years happily ruled the world.' Denoyette 68 death. The emotions felt here are not the familiar sensations of victory, revenge, or the satisfactory relief we find in Johns‘ works. When Laputa meets his demise, Crawfurd is reduced to an almost comatose state, and he mourns the loss of his foe as if he were a father figure. Further still, Crawfurd speaks to the native chiefs and bears witness to Laputa‘s greatness, which serves as another indication of Laputa sharing Crawfurd‘s rank on the social ladder, and an affirmation of his splendour as a villain:

I remember that I looked over the brink into the yeasty abyss with a mind hovering

between perplexity and tears. I wanted to sit down and cry—why, I did not know,

except that some great thing had happened. (182)

[When addressing native chiefs at the indaba and informing them about Laputa‘s

death] ‗Your king is dead. He was a great king, as I who stand here bear witness, and

you will never more see his like‘. (197)

II Conclusion

A superficial reading of both authors‘ works may lead one to believe racial stereotyping is similar throughout, as native peoples are stereotyped and condemned to a lower social status in both Johns‘ and Buchan‘s works. However, an examination of the social status and the moral qualities of native villains reveals an unmistakable discrepancy in the treatment of their villains. Johns‘ adherence to the imperial cognitive framework is strict: natives invariably occupy a lower position on the social status hierarchy, and this position correlates with their moral values, which are also to be considered inferior. The higher the position of a group of people or an individual on the social ladder, the more stringent moral judgment becomes. As a Denoyette 69 result, we notice a difference in the portrayal of primitive tribesmen, and socially intermediate half-breeds. Primitive native tribes at the bottom of the very bottom of the ladder are dismissed as ignorant savages, too dense to realise the error of their ways. Native tribes such as the Touareg are described in harsher terms, as they are fully aware of their villainy, yet they may be conquered or subdued in the colonisation process. Far more severe is the treatment of socially intermediate half-breeds, who bridge the gap between the Englishman and the native. These half-breeds present a mixture of socially evolved appearance and knowledge with an underlying savage morality; resulting in a villain who is more elusive, treacherous and dangerous than a common native. Their heritage, wealth and social status make them an ingrained source of evil which cannot be rooted out, and a threat to the imperial mission.

Conversely, Buchan‘s adherence to the imperial cognitive framework is far less strict, and he frequently undermines its assumptions. His stories adhere to the framework in that they present natives as individuals who occupy a lower rung on the social ladder; yet they also diverge from it as their social status does not correlate with their moral values. Unlike Johns‘ villains, Buchan grants his a depth that unshackles them from overarching stereotyping, and while a group of primitive natives may be stereotyped as ignorant or barbaric, this need not have any implications on their morality: Laputa was - as a Kaffir - a second-rate citizen. Yet he was also a ‗great genius‘ and ‗noble‘. The tension between hero and villain in the works

Buchan does not stem from racial division, as it does for Johns, but rather theological division. Whereas Johns considers morality linked to racial heritage, Buchan‘s Calvinist upbringing led him to consider evil as an omnipresent internal struggle, capable of affecting people of every nationality. As a result, his villains are not racial stereotypes, but clearly defined individuals with their own set of morals, thoughts and beliefs. The fault in their character lies not in their racial background, but in their theological fall into depravity, as they Denoyette 70 are unable to identify with the Calvinist beliefs held by Buchan and cannot conform to a spiritual Anglo-Saxon background (Daniell 129).

III Gender and Masculinity

The following section focuses on the portrayal of female characters in the works of Buchan and Johns, and examines to what extent the imperial concept of ‗manliness‘ is adhered to in their works. Before moving on to Johns‘ works, I offer a brief discussion of the role of gender and masculinity in the imperial project, using John Tosh‘s Manliness and Masculinities in

Nineteenth-Century Britain (2005). When analysing Buchan‘s portrayal of female characters,

I make use of A. J. Greimas‘s actantial model33 to identify role functions fulfilled by female characters and to gauge how narrow or broad the spectrum of roles is in the fiction of both authors. I also use Kate Macdonald‘s ―Aphrodite Rejected: Archetypal Women in Buchan‘s

Fiction‖ as a commentary on Buchan‘s portrayal of women.

Whereas in the previous section the abundance of racially stereotyped native villains was indicative of imperial adventure fiction‘s inclination to frame the action in an ‗us-versus- them‘ setting, the converse is true for women characters in these texts: their absence from adventure fiction is more indicative than their presence. This does not come as a surprise, as the literary manifestation of a patriarchal system such as imperialism will undoubtedly reflect

33 During the nineteen-sixties, A. J. Greimas proposed the actantial model, which is based on Vladimir Propp's theories (1970). The actantial model is a device that can theoretically be used to analyse any real or thematized action, but particularly those depicted in literary texts or images. The actantial model allows us to break an action down into six facets, or actants: (1) The subject (in fairytales, the Prince for example) is what wants or does not want to be joined to (2) an object (the rescued Princess, for example). (3) The sender (for example, the King) is what instigates the action, while the (4) receiver (for example, The King, the Princess, the Princess) is what benefits from it. Lastly, (5) is a helper (for example, the horse, or the magic sword, or the Prince’s courage)who helps to accomplish the action, while (6) is an opponent (the witch, the dragon) who opposes it. Denoyette 71 its values, and, as Clare Midgley has pointed out: British imperialism was an essentially masculine project34. As Tosh puts it:

Empire was a man‘s business in two senses: its acquisition and control depended

disproportionately on the energy and ruthlessness of men; and its place in the popular

imagination was mediated through literary and visual images which consistently

emphasized positive male attributes. Running through the history of the British Empire

was the commonplace that overseas expansion depended on manpower, and on the

supply of men of a certain type – practical, resourceful and self-reliant. (193)

The need for the British Empire to produce men of this calibre was exemplified by General

Gordon‘s death at Khartoum in 1885 (194), and the rise of European and Continental rivalry as other nations came to the anxious realisation that few areas of the globe now remained for colonial expansion: this was the last chance to secure boundaries, to protect commercial interests and to stake out spheres of future exploitation. This presented the British Empire with a rise in the competence of their enemies, which in turn had to be matched with a more competent Englishman. British manhood now had to prevail not only over the ‗low‘ races, but over competitors whose inferiority could not be taken for granted (195). As Lord Rosebery put it in 1900, ―An empire such as ours requires as its first condition an Imperial Race – a race vigorous and industrious and intrepid‖, exhibiting ‗health of mind and body‘. The defence of the empire required more men and better men. The manliness required for the task was in part acquired through a process of physical hardening imposed by the often harsh living conditions at school. The process of becoming an imperial man was about renouncing the ministrations of women, and it was about learning to stand up for oneself in the company of men, both in

34 Cf. Midgley, Clare. Gender and Imperialism. Manchester: Manchester university press, 1998. 14. Denoyette 72 the physical sense of showing courage, and in the social sense of finding one‘s place in a deeply hierarchical society (197). In keeping with the imperial agenda, by the 1890s the public schools were directly focused on their imperial rationale. To the traditional training in survival skills had been added an explicit attention to physical fitness35, military skills and team dynamics, and the public schools became more adept at producing men for imperial service (198).

What we encounter then in the adventure stories published around the turn of the century – the direct precursors to the adventure fiction of Buchan and Johns - is a reflection of the characteristics that were idealised in young British men, and a setting which is equated with

‗the complete antithesis of feminine domesticity‘ (206). Stories such as those written by

Robert Louis Stevenson or Henry Rider Haggard were exciting, full of action, bracingly masculine, and staged in a colonial setting which presented a need for masculine heroism

(206). Their heroes hunted, plundered or conquered, shored up by the silent bonds of men‘s friendship; and they were – above all – unencumbered by the presence of females (206). As

Allan Quatermain reassures his audience in King Solomon‘s Mines, ―there is not a petticoat in the whole history36‖. This is the cultural background against which I intend to compare the works of Johns and Buchan, when examining their portrayal of female characters and the behaviour of their male protagonists: a setting where male dominance is omnipresent, physical fitness, endurance and courage are exalted, and where female characters are either absent, or, when present, serve as little more than objects of desire, caricaturised ‗damsels in distress‘ in need of rescuing, or mere distractions. I begin my examination by looking at the works of W. E. Johns first, as his adherence to the overarching patriarchal imperial standards is more rigorous than Buchan‘s earlier writing, and his straightforward portrayal of woman

35 Tosh mentions that this came as a defensive response to the realisation that, during the South African War, two out of five recruits were rejected as unfit (195). The Baden-Powell boy scouts movement also aimed to correct this issue. 36 Haggard, Rider H. King Solomon’s Mines. London: Cassell & Company, 1885. 9. Denoyette 73 and heroes can be used as a stepping stone for analysing Buchan‘s more nuanced and intricate handling of female characters and male dominance.

The occurrence of female characters in Johns‘ ‗Biggles‘ series is rare37. When present, the types of women portrayed in Johns‘ works can be classified in two categories. They either serve as passive objects in need of rescuing – for example, Anna in Biggles Takes a Hand38, or Juanita in Biggles Flies Again39; or function as a caring love interest, ministering to the wounded or sick – like Henri Ducoste‘s sister Jeanette in Biggles Fails to Return40. Applying

Greimas‘s model of actantial roles to these characters assigns them the roles of object (Anna,

Juanita) and helper (Jeanette), and considering the rigidly subordinate treatment of his female characters, it seems unlikely that Johns would expand upon these actantial roles in his other

‗Biggles‘ novels. In terms of behaviour and personality, these women are the antithesis of

Biggles‘ heroism, and present female subservience to his male dominance. In this setting of adventure, men of action are at the heart of the story, women solely function as catalysts to further the storyline and are generally entirely impassive. This does not mean that female characters are explicitly presented as second-rate citizens, as Victorian concepts of chivalry are still very much present, and the men of the story often risk their lives in service of a woman:

But as things had fallen out, he pondered, he could not have acted otherwise than he

had. To play knight errant to a damsel in distress was a task he would not have gone out

37 Out of the eight novels I have read, only three contained female characters. This ratio is likely to be lower over the entire ‘Biggles’ canon, as I specifically sought out texts containing female characters. 38 In Biggles Takes a Hand, Biggles is told by his friend, Erich von Stalhein, that three professional hit men from behind the Iron Curtain are in London – with intentions to kill the family of Hans Roth, an East German official who has been shot for treason and whose wife and children are expected to arrive in England. Anna Lowenhardt is engaged to Roth’s eldest son, whom she wants to find. 39 Juanita plays a very minor role in Biggles Flies Again, as she asks Biggles and his crew to smuggle her across the border. She is not heard of again later. 40 In this story, Ginger is wounded in combat and is nursed back to health by Jeanette, the sister of British pilot Henri Dupont. Ginger has a short-lived relationship with her, and she is not mentioned again. Denoyette 74

of his way to undertake. But there it was. The girl was obviously in greater danger than

she realised and he would have to give her a helping hand. (Biggles Takes a Hand 53)

The door bell rang. ‗There‘s your cab,‘ said Ginger. ‗Come along, Anna,‘ said

Biggles. ‗I‘ll take your case.‘ ‗You are being very kind.‘ ‗It‘s always a pleasure to help

a lady,‘ returned Biggles gallantly, as they went out. (Biggles Takes a Hand 63)

Gallantry such as this might seem to soften the effect of male dominance present in these stories, but it also reaffirms the patriarchal system in place. As Kate Millet points out in

Sexual Politics: ―One must acknowledge that the chivalrous stance is a game the master group plays in elevating its subject to pedestal level‖, and though it may be a ―palliative to the injustice of woman‘s social position, chivalry is also a technique for disguising it, it is a sporting kind of reparation to allow the subordinate female certain means of saving face‖

(Millet 36). The gentlemanly behaviour bestowed upon the female characters in these stories elevates the women to a social level equal to the heroes, despite their functional inactivity within the tale; and simultaneously reinforces the imperial standards of manly behaviour in glorifying a subordinate female by presenting her as something vulnerable and precious, in need of male protection and advice, rather than a character with volition and the potential for action.

As far as the actual merits of the female characters are concerned, the only invariable virtues they seem to hold are beauty and innocence, which counteract their lack of involvement in the actual story:

‗And we can‘t do less,‘ asserted Bertie. ‗This hounding decent people, like

Goldilocks, from one country to another, makes my back hairs bristle.‘ Biggles looked Denoyette 75

up. ‗Goldilocks! Who are you talking about?‘ ‗Anna, of course.‘ ‗Don‘t get the idea this

is a fairy tale.‘ ‗You must admit she‘s a honey.‘ (Biggles Takes a Hand 67)

―Good heavens, man, don‘t tell me that you haven‘t heard that Estaban Martinez has

kidnapped the President‘s daughter?‖ ―What‘s she like?‖ asked Algy, sitting up and

taking interest in the conversation. ―Consuelo Guardia has the reputation of being the

most beautiful girl in Spanish America,‖ replied Wilkinson respectfully, ―in fact, she‘s

a wizard,‖ he added fervently, with a disregard for niceties. (Biggles Flies Again 28)

In catering to a school-boy audience and in keeping with the imperial dichotomy between male dominance and female domesticity, Johns‘ female characters are excluded from any empowering action that would involve the use of imperial abilities such as strategic planning, or physical combat – which is left to the male hero. In fact, the world that Biggles inhabits is constructed as being so completely irreconcilable with the participation of women that even the arrival of a female character onto a scene dominated by male values causes all action to break down:

[Upon having an argument with an adversary which was about to turn violent] His

[Biggles‘] voice died in his throat as, glancing to one side, his eyes fell on a vision of

blonde loveliness standing beside an elderly man in white ducks. ―I bet your pardon,

madam,‖ he went on when he had recovered from his surprise, ―for this unseemly

bickering; I had no idea---―. (Biggles Flies Again 22)

The extract also shows the function of women as upholders of civilised behaviour and values within the imperial project, roles that deny them action and responsibility and place Denoyette 76 them within their sphere of female domesticity. Not only are women excluded from any form of meaningful, imperial action, they are presented as ‗dead weight‘, as any woman in need of rescue in a story only serves to aggravate the male heroes‘ problem or complicate the mission.

In order for the women not to be a hindrance, their conduct is dictated by the male protagonists of the story and the female characters are left without any personal choice in the matter. When the female characters do act on their own instincts, they are duly berated by the male hero as their independent thought presents an immediate threat to the patriarchal system which is to be maintained:

Ginger was reaching for the phone when the door opened and Anna, carrying her case,

walked in. ‗Good morning,‘ she greeted with a bright smile. Biggles did not return it.

Looking as if he had received a mortal wound he let out a sigh that was almost a groan.

‗We just needed this,‘ he breathed. With a grim expression he regarded the cheerful

face of their visitor. ‗Didn‘t I tell you not on any account to leave the hotel?‘ he

inquired sternly.

‗Yes . . . but . . .‘

‗Don‘t make excuses. You‘re a very naughty girl. [. . .] You must learn to obey orders.‘

‗I can only say I am very sorry,‘ she said contritely.

‗I‘m sure you are, but that doesn‘t mend the mischief.‘ (Biggles Takes a Hand 107-

108)

What we are left with, then, are a set of characters who are excluded from the world of violent conflict and heroic action and serve solely as background characters or objects in need Denoyette 77 of rescuing or protection. In accordance with the imperial dichotomy that presents the colonies as regions infused with adventure and male dominance to be contrasted with the female domesticity of the homeland (Tosh 205-206), Johns presents his female characters as subordinates in the scope of imperial action. They are barred from any conflict, strategising or otherwise adventurous deeds, and – since they lack the capacity to function in a patriarchal setting such as this – let the male heroes guide them through the process:

―you run along now, señorita. Look, there is our aeroplane, over there,‖ he went on,

pointing to the amphibian. ―You hide yourself in the cabin and then we shall know

nothing about it, sabe? By the way, I didn‘t catch your name.‖ ―Juanita.‖

―All right, Juanita; you trot along and do as you‘re told.‖ The girl nodded, her lips

parted with eagerness and gratitude. ―Gracias, señor, gracias; I will do anything---―

(Biggles Flies Again 60)

Anna was looking really worried. She thought for a moment or two, all eyes on her,

‗I am in your hands,‘ she said at last. ‗I will do whatever you advise.‘ (Biggles Takes a

Hand 95)

The reason for the lack of any female participation in the imperial frame presented in these stories is, to my mind, two-fold. Johns is writing these stories with a juvenile male audience in mind, and caters to their expectations in terms of what constitutes imperial adventure, and male heroism. His portrayal of female characters reinforces and builds on the impression that the imperial world is, as Tosh points out, ‗pre-eminently a man‘s world‘ (206). In doing so, his works disseminate the values that were considered vital to a British boy – pluck, gallantry, loyalty; and repudiate female domesticity by moving to a colonial setting where such values Denoyette 78 are expendable. These stories are written for boys with the intention of reinforcing and glorifying their imperial capabilities as defenders of Empire, by taking them to a setting where heroes‘ deeds are primary and female actions are at best irrelevant, if not directly damaging.

Secondly, the exclusion of women as meaningful characters in the novels allows Johns to minimise complexity and focus solely on the boys‘ interests; which concerns values they themselves enshrine and actions they can identify with. In the storytelling framework, only the exaltation of the British male hero is at the centre, which is why all other characters can be treated subordinately. The presence of women characters is merely a catalyst to the male action, not an integral part of the action. When producing a simple, fast-paced action story such as those featured in any of the 102 ‗Biggles‘ novels, the author has to adhere to an effective formula. The fact that women‘s actions are relegated ties in with the caricaturing of every native villain or the inevitable victory of the male hero – the ultimate goal is to present a simple story that conforms to the reality of the imperial movement as it was perceived by young boys, which holds little room for ambivalence.

Having examined the portrayal of female characters in the works of Johns, I now turn to

Buchan‘s depiction of women. As the occurrence of female characters in Buchan‘s novels is far more frequent than in Johns‘ works - and a discussion of all the various types of all the female characters present in Buchan‘s fiction would be overly complex and detrimental to the objective of comparing them to Johns‘ types - I shall focus solely on two female characters:

Princess Saskia in Huntingtower (1922), and the female antagonist in Greenmantle (1916),

Hilda von Einem.

In her chapter, Macdonald identifies ninety-two significant female roles spread across forty-six novels. In the six works I have examined here, each novel contained one or more female characters. As such, the amount of women represented in Buchan‘s fiction is Denoyette 79 significantly higher than the number of female characters in Johns‘ works, and it is only natural to expect Buchan‘s characterisation to contain a broader spectrum of actantial roles than the two witnessed in Johns‘ fiction. However, Macdonald points out that ―women characters are not principal protagonists in the fiction of John Buchan, but are cast in supporting roles that limit their possibilities‖, and that ―in treating women characters as secondary in almost all respects Buchan was simply reflecting his own society, but was also participating in the Victorian literary tradition of the male romance, by, for example, H. Rider

Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle and even Joseph Conrad, which had little room for women protagonists‖ (153). As Buchan and Johns share the same literary tradition, they share these qualities. However, an examination of Buchan‘s female characters uncovers a characterisation containing a level of depth and independence that is unseen in Johns‘ works.

I start my examination by investigating the character portrayal of Princess Saskia in

Huntingtower (1922). Like Anna in Biggles Takes a Hand (1963), she too is hounded by mercenaries from a foreign country, and fulfils the actantial role of object. On a functional level in the story, however, that is where the similarities end. From the moment McCunn and his partners41 lay eyes upon Saskia, they perceive a beautiful woman with a rich historical background, and centuries of command underlying her feminine presence:

The eyes rested on Dickson‘s face, and he realized that he was in the presence of

something the like of which he had never met in his life before. It was a loveliness

greater than he had imagined was permitted by the Almighty to His creatures. [. . .]

there was youth there, eternal and triumphant! Not youth such as he had known it, but

41 Dickson McCunn, a retired Glasgow grocer of romantic heart, is the hero of the story. Together with John Heritage – a young English Poet - and the Gorbals Die-Hards street urchins, they aim to rescue Princess Saskia who is held prisoner in the rambling mansion, Huntingtower. Denoyette 80

youth with all history behind it, youth with centuries of command in its blood and the

world‘s treasures of beauty and pride in its ancestry. [. . .] He felt abashed in every inch

of him. (66)

The men are so impressed that they immediately offer their services to save her from her pursuers. Saskia is thus granted the actantial role of the sender as well as the object, which lifts her out of a subordinate role. The chivalric behaviour of the men offering their service to

Saskia stands in stark contrast to the way Anna behaved towards Biggles; and the situation here seems to be reversed – although Buchan laughs at their chivalry and presents it as a pastiche of Victorian values. The following lines clearly illustrate the difference between

Anna‘s subordinate role and Saskia‘s assertive demeanour:

Anna was looking really worried. She thought for a moment or two, all eyes on her,

‗I am in your hands,‘ she said at last. ‗I will do whatever you advise.‘ (emphasis added;

Biggles Takes a Hand 95)

‗We [Saskia and her cousin Eugénie] are in very great trouble. But why should I tell

you? I do not know you. You cannot help me.‘ ‗We can try,‘ said Heritage. ‗Part of

your trouble we know already through that boy. You are imprisoned in this place by

scoundrels. We are here to help you to get out. We want to ask no questions—only to

do what you bid us.‘ (emphasis added; Huntingtower 67)

Macdonald points out that in her survey, the roles of the sender and the receiver are under- represented in Buchan‘s work, but they are present nonetheless (155). In the works of Johns these are categorically absent. Buchan may have preferred casting the majority of his women Denoyette 81 characters in subordinate roles, but the fact that roles with ‗power of action and power of responsibility‘ (155) such as those of the helper or the sender are at all present in the writings of Buchan sets him apart from Johns - who omits them entirely. In this extract, Saskia is presented as a woman who displays a level of assertiveness unseen in the writings of Johns.

Her straightforward, calm demeanour and ownership of a social status higher than that of the men is met with an inadequacy in the display of male dominance on the heroes‘ part. Whereas

Biggles sees rescuing Anna as a necessary evil to be carried out with little enthusiasm,

Dickson McCunn and his companions not only offer Saskia their services, but await her instructions.

In the presentation of her predicament, Saskia‘s character is depicted as that of an intrepid, independent woman who would not seem entirely out of place in the imperial frame:

They have tried to kidnap me many times, and once they have tried to kill me, but I,

too, have become clever—oh, so clever. And I have learned not to fear. (69)

But I do not think he will kill me. I think I will kill him first, but after that I shall

surely die. [. . .] Her level matter-of-fact tone seemed to Dickson most shocking, for

he could not treat it as mere melodrama. It carried a horrid conviction. (71)

Although Saskia fulfils the role of the object in need of protection in the story, she refuses to be excluded from action, including violent conflict – the pre-eminent domain of the male hero. When Dougal, leader of the Gorbals Die-Hards42 formulates a battle plan for the inevitable conflict together with McCunn, Saskia refuses to be denied access to this sphere of

42 The Gorbals Die-Hards - an amiable pack of young, poor ruffians who have formed a gang that has internalised the tenets of the Baden-Powell Scouts movement - play an integral part in the story as helpers to Dickson McCunn. Denoyette 82 male dominance. Later in the novel, in the heat of battle, the Princess still refuses to take orders from the male heroes:

‗That‘s all right,‘ said Dougal, ‗but we‘d put up a better fight if we had the women

off our mind.‘ [. . .] ‗Sensible to the last, Dougal,‘ said Dickson approvingly. ‗That‘s

just what I‘m saying. I‘m strong for a fight, but put the ladies in a safe bit first, for

they‘re our weak point.‘ ‗Do you think that if you were fighting my enemies I would

consent to be absent?‘ came Saskia‘s reproachful question. (130-131)

‗Mem, I‘m askin‘ ye for the last time. Will ye keep out of this business? [. .

.] Ye can do no good, and ye‘re puttin‘ yourself terrible in the enemy‘s power. I tell ye

straight—ye‘re an encumbrance.‘ She laughed mischievously. ‗I can shoot better than

you,‘ she said. [. . .] ‗Will ye listen to sense and fall to the rear?‘ ‗I will not,‘ she said.

‗Then gang your own gait. I‘m ower wise to argy-bargy wi‘ women.‘

(173)

On the other hand, Dougal is merely an orphan child and Saskia is a grown Princess – her age and social status command a certain degree of respect and this imbues her with confidence. Moreover, while the men allow the Princess into the sphere of male dominance, focalisation of Heritage and Roylance show that the men have secret plans to subdue Saskia for her own safety if the worst happens – which it ultimately does not. Furthermore, while

Saskia will not necessarily obey her allies in the heat of battle, she will do as her future husband says, which further indicates the ambivalence when it comes to her characterisation as part dominant and part obedient. Denoyette 83

The inclusion of a female character into this otherwise exclusive area of male dominance is perhaps the most striking difference between Johns‘ and Buchan‘s depiction; and is fairly exceptional in Buchan‘s fiction. The only other female characters who come close to the fervour seen in Saskia are Mary Lamington of Mr Standfast (1919) and Janet Raden of John

Macnab (1925). Mary‘s deeds and successes in that novel are negated, as Buchan focuses on the (failed) actions of Richard Hannay entirely. Janet too is given a subordinate role - an advisor and a victim in need of rescuing - whereas like Mary, her strength in the fiction is the deference paid to them by their men: chivalry again. Whereas Johns completely insulates his male sphere of action from any female involvement, Buchan grants Saskia participation in the final conflict, and presents her as a brave, independent woman. It is interesting to note how the novel‘s main protagonist, McCunn, experiences feelings of doubt when the conflict is about to erupt, in contrast to the steady demeanour of Saskia and Mrs Morran, the doughty landlady.

Whereas Johns‘ domain of male dominance is kept rigid through use of infallible heroes,

Buchan presents his action in a far more ambivalent framework, where the realm of male dominance extends beyond adult men to include young boys and women, and the story‘s main hero experiences doubts and nerves before the final conflict. Essentially, Buchan‘s portrayal of Saskia in this story sets her apart from Johns‘ Anna in three ways: Firstly, Saskia establishes herself as an authority figure commanding the respect of the male protagonists, whereas Anna merely displayed bashful obedience. Secondly, Saskia actively participates in strategising her own rescue, whereas Anna merely pleaded for the male hero‘s advice, and followed it when it was given. Lastly, the Princess physically engages in the violent conflict preceding her rescue, as opposed to Anna, whose exclusion from the sphere of male dominance barred her from partaking in any physical conflict whatsoever. The Princess‘ penetration into this realm is met with disapproval from the men, but she remains unwavering Denoyette 84 in her conviction and ultimately plays an active part in securing her own freedom, which makes her stand out completely from the female characters featured in Johns‘ works, who remain almost entirely impassive throughout the story and are never actively involved in their own rescue.

Another female character in Buchan‘s fiction who stands in stark contrast to Johns‘ stereotyped women is the antagonist in Greenmantle (1916), Hilda von Einem, whose portrayal merits a brief mention considering the lack of any comparable female character in the works of Johns. Unlike the women who fulfil the subordinate actantial roles of helper and object in Johns‘ fiction, von Einem plays the role of the opponent, which makes her stand on equal footing with – and in direct antithesis to – the male hero. From the moment of her introduction Hilda von Einem is presented as a Machiavellian villain capable of any vice or crime, and a worthy adversary:

But Blenkiron did not laugh. At the mention of Hilda von Einem he had suddenly

become very solemn, and the sight of his face pulled me up short. ‗I don‘t like it,

gentlemen‘ he said. ‗I would rather you had mentioned any other name on God‘s earth.

I haven‘t been long in this city, but I have been long enough to size up the various

political bosses. They haven‘t much to them. [. . .] But I have met the Frau von Einem,

and that lady‘s a very different proposition. The man that will understand her has got to

take a biggish size in hats. [. . .] It isn‘t what she has been, but what she is, and that‘s a

mighty clever woman. (92)

Macdonald points out that the actantial roles of the object, the helper and the opponent

―may also be recognized as traditional patterns of female roles‖, and that ―Buchan‘s Denoyette 85 compliance with the traditional mode extends to assigning his ‗object‘ roles to the younger women characters, while the older women were mainly in the ‗helper‘ category‖ (155). While these roles may be seen as traditional, the fact that Buchan is willing to sketch a female villain of von Einem‘s calibre or portray characters with multiple functions and more complex roles sets him apart from Johns‘ depictions of women, which did not extend beyond the subordinate

‗helper‘ and ‗object‘ roles.

In describing the role played by Hilda von Einem it is useful to incorporate classically- derived archetypes, in order to obtain a better understanding of her function in the story.

Macdonald points out that Buchan used two key archetypes in portraying his female characters: Aphrodite and Artemis, who are – rudimentarily speaking – linked to seduction and chastity, respectively (Macdonald 160). Although Buchan made use of women who he aligned with Aphrodite, they were ultimately portrayed as dangerous. As Macdonald puts it,

―Buchan neutralizes them by privileging the rival feminine values of Artemis, preferring purity over sensuality, and giving chastity primacy as a feminine virtue‖ (160). The use of the

Aphrodite archetype in portraying a select number of female characters, a phenomenon entirely absent in Johns‘ writing, threatens the male protagonist with seduction, which in turns presents a threat to the irreproachable male hero‘s mission. Although Buchan only rarely made use of these types of women, their presence is a clear indication of his willingness to endanger the male hero‘s sphere of dominance in order to present ambivalent, fallible, and ultimately – more realistic character types. An extract such as the following, where Richard

Hannay feels threatened in his male dominance by von Einem‘s seduction43, is unthinkable in

Johns‘ setting:

Suddenly I began to realise that this woman was trying to cast some spell over me. The

43 Another male hero and best friend to Hannay, Sandy Arbuthnot, succumbed to von Einem’s seduction, and torments himself for weeks over it. Only when she is killed can he admit to having had feelings for her (Macdonald 162). Denoyette 86

eyes grew large and luminous, and I was conscious for just an instant of some will

battling to subject mine. [. . .] I had seen the mysterious Hilda von Einem, I had spoken

to her, I had held her hand. She had insulted me with the subtlest of insults and yet I

was not angry. Suddenly the game I was playing became invested with a tremendous

solemnity. (172-173).

This ‗sexualized moment‘ is a rare occurrence in Buchan‘s fiction (Macdonald 162), but reveals an aspect of the male hero which is altogether lacking in the writings of Johns: fallibility. We have seen this fallibility before, in Crawfurd‘s continuous struggle for survival in Prester John. Here however, the cause of these moments of self-doubt and despair is not overwhelming hardship and lack of religious confidence, but seduction at the hands of the

‗sexualised heroine‘ Hilda von Einem; which suggests that Buchan favoured a ‗sex opposition as well as a moral one in structuring his battles for good against evil‘ (Macdonald 168).

IV Conclusion

As the stories of both Buchan and Johns are set in the Victorian literary tradition of the male romance and both authors reflected the mindset of their contemporary society, they share a number of overarching values and principles such as the subordination of female characters and lack of female protagonists. What I attempted to illustrate in my analysis of their portrayal of women, was not the subversion of these principles, but rather the varying degrees of adherence to this overarching imperial framework.

When looking at the various roles assigned to female characters in the works of Buchan and Johns, it has become apparent that Johns‘ characterisation – as with racial stereotyping – Denoyette 87 adhered much more stringently to the literary tradition of the male romance and the contemporary imperial framework than Buchan‘s. His female characters occur rarely throughout the canon, and when they do they are assigned subordinate actantial roles such as the object or the helper and are entirely excluded from the realm of male dominance. One might say a possible exception to this rule occurs when Biggles falls in love with a woman who later turns out to be a German spy in the short story Affaire De Cœur, set in 1918 (The

Camels Are Coming (1932)), but the female protagonist remains almost entirely inactive, is in no way dominant, and Biggles‘ ‗love affair‘ with her only lasts a grand total of twelve pages.

In a later novel, she is assigned the role of object as Biggles rescues her from Czechoslovakia.

When the two meet again, Biggles does not recognise her, as so much time has passed since they last met44. This short story was published in The Camels Are Coming, Johns‘ first ever collection of Biggles stories. Little time was spent expanding on Marie‘s character, and the way in which she failed to make a lasting impression on Biggles, who rejected her categorically as she turned out to be an enemy spy removes most of her functional impact on the story. It seems like Marie was created not to function as a pivotal female character in the works of Johns‘, but rather a useful plot device to explain Biggles‘ unnatural aversion to women – and the glaring lack of female participants – in all the stories that were to follow45.

In Johns‘ stories I have examined, female characters were subordinated without exception, fulfilling either the role of object in need of rescuing, or the helper tending to the wounds of

44 Whatever brief relationship the two had at the time, Marie did not make a lasting impression on Biggles, and is not mentioned again until she has to be rescued from Czechoslovakia in 1965. Biggles seemed to have no problems dealing with the loss, as in the following story, The Cruise of the Condor (1933) he is as jovial as ever, and his character seems very much unlike that of a man who has just lost a beloved. 45 Even if we were to consider Marie to be Johns’ version of Hilda von Einem (which I do not believe to be the case, as she is only briefly mentioned in a short story, and lacks all of the grandeur and impact Hilda had on male protagonists), the fact that she sets the tone for the following 97 books where there is a complete aversion to women indicates that she is not desired within the scope of the stories. Buchan had multiple female opponents operating on the same level as the male hero; Johns has Marie, as an illustration of what type of women is undesirable within the imperial context. I believe her appearance was conceived largely in order to validate the subordinate character of all following females, who presented no threat to the sphere of male dominance, or the imperial project. Denoyette 88 the fallen. Encroachment upon the sphere of male dominance – by which I denote any imperial activity that is categorically male, such as violent conflict or strategising – is entirely absent, and the women fulfil their designated roles without resentment or resistance.

The reason for this strict division between areas of male dominance and female domesticity stem from two sources. The first is pragmatic: Johns‘ intention was to construct fast-paced, simple adventure stories for a young male audience who did not have an interest in love stories or female protagonists as a whole. The second, to my mind, stems from his personal disposition towards gender issues resulting from his upbringing and his military career as a RFC and RAF pilot, as well as his intention to construct a fictional world that accurately depicts the homosocial climate of a military environment.

Buchan‘s characterisation of women is – though still to some degree coherent to the imperial framework – noticeably more ambivalent. The two female characters I have discussed, Princess Saskia and Hilda von Einem, fulfil actantial roles that are not subordinate.

Saskia is depicted as an initial object, but rapidly rises above her subordinate role and becomes a ‗sender‘. Her presentation as an authority figure and participation in actions that are generally exclusive to male heroes makes her stand out from any of Johns‘ female characters and poses a threat to the sphere of male dominance, which is far less stable than

Johns‘. The encroachment of this female character on territory that is usually accessible only to male heroes causes a breakdown of imperial barriers; and results in the portrayal of male heroes that are decidedly flawed and fallible, children who fulfil the role of male hero with surprising competence, and women who function on the imperial battleground in the same way a conventional male hero would. The net result is an adventure story where the border between female domesticity and male dominance is blurred, and the protagonists are ambivalent rather than conforming solely to their gender roles. Denoyette 89

Hilda von Einem functions as another type of character unseen in Johns‘ fiction, the

‗sexualized heroine‘ (Macdonald 162). Although Buchan appeared to be more comfortable with female archetypes from the traditional folk tale than those of classical mythology

(Macdonald 168), he reveals some of his classicist education in the depiction of von Einem, who is linked to the archetype of Aphrodite. The values assigned to her – seductiveness and sensuality – were relegated in favour of those of Artemis, who functions as a paragon of virtue and chastity. The result is a sex opposition between male hero and female antagonist; von Einem is a grandiose adversary who is on the same literary footing as the male hero, yet she is also condemned by standing diametrically opposed to the male protagonist‘s mission.

Later in his career, Buchan used the archetype of Artemis as a favourable alternative to

Aphrodite, and he displayed criticism and rejection towards certain types of female characters, while nurturing those who enshrined values he held in high regard. His balancing of female character types that conformed to and diverted from the archetype preferential in an imperial society, however, shows that for Buchan, female characters had to learn their place in the imperial world. For Johns‘ ‗Biggles‘ series, it seems they held no place at all.

V Final Conclusion

I have tried to point out in this chapter the variety of ways in which both Buchan and Johns gave life to the imperial world they inhabited, and how they either adhered to or diverted from overarching imperial values in their popular fiction. Examination of the themes of race and gender in the authors‘ writing indicates the different imperial faculties that rose to prominence in each author‘s writing; with Johns focusing on male physicality, pluck, unwavering loyalty to one‘s country, rigorous stereotyping and ‗othering‘ of other ethnicities, and the exclusion of female participants within the sphere of male dominance. Buchan was found to be much more Denoyette 90 ambivalent, and his dichotomy between good and evil was based on theological concepts instead of racial ones. His male protagonists were fallible and often doubtful or completely exhausted, and his female roles were far more expanded than Johns‘. Moreover, while natives were socially stereotyped, their ‗inferior‘ position on the social ladder was not accompanied by moral corruption, which was instead linked to their theology. In this final section of my thesis, I find it helpful in understanding the writings of both authors to introduce another categorical distinction between the works of Buchan and Johns, for which I use David

Daniell‘s division between literature of empire and imperialist literature, which he presents in

―Buchan and ‗The Black General‘‖.

Daniell makes a distinction between empire and imperialist literature, with the empire strain being ‗more benign‘, whereas the imperialist fiction is ‗hard-nosed‘ (140), and links the two varieties to a change in the perception of empire towards the end of the nineteenth century. He points out that ―Empire could, even in the mid-nineteenth century, mean exploration, map-making, engineering [. . .] Much of the writing about all this was inspired by, and often a part of, the growth of literature for children, without distinction of sex, from the middle of the century‖ (141). In this literary tradition, writing was heavily influenced by

Protestant influences, and the Empire could be seen as something as attractive as simply the extension of the family overseas. The distinction between the colonies as an extension of the homeland and the dangerous zone of conflict it was later construed as is a key part of the division between empire and imperialist fiction. Daniell goes on to say that:

Then, late in the century, a change quite clearly comes over the popular literature of all

kinds: it becomes aggressively, and defensively, imperialist. It leaves the Christian

family ambience and becomes all-male and public school; military values invade and

take over the stories; religion is subordinated to fighting; weakness is at best discounted Denoyette 91

and at worst punished. White dominates black with cool superiority and a god – now in

the name of something called civilisation. [. . .] The major issue has shifted over several

decades from the spiritual one of what is ‗holy‘ to the physical one of what is ‗manly‘.

(141)

Although Buchan wrote most of his ‗adventure‘ fiction in the twentieth century, his religious upbringing and classical education contributed to his internalising of the values witnessed in empire literature rather than imperialist fiction. Buchan distanced himself from the jingoism seen in imperialist literature and openly mocked and dismantled it in A Lodge in the Wilderness (1906) and elsewhere (Daniell 142). His male protagonists are virtuous heroes, but have weaknesses and are far less ‗manly‘ than the heroes seen in Johns‘ works, partly owing to Buchan‘s – albeit limited - inclusion of female characters into the sphere of male dominance, an area from which they were entirely excluded in Johns‘ fiction. As Daniell puts it, his heroes ‗are no epitome of the ―manly‖, which is to say they are ‗more recognisably human than the very ―macho‖ heroes of boys‘ fiction would ever allow‘ (140). Johns works display a variety of ambivalent heroes and villains, who are opposed in morality and sex, and far less so in racial division. Furthermore, where imperialist fiction often contrasted civilisation with foreign savagery, Buchan chose to expose the thin crust of civilisation everywhere, and dismantled the solid division between the two set up in imperialist fiction:

―You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn‖ (The Power-House (1916); ch. 3). This statement sums up what makes up much of the core dynamics for Buchan‘s work. Instead of presenting a group of English heroes in conflict with other ethnicities as Johns often did, Buchan portrays the role of the individual hero caught up in great affairs, out of his depth and at times desperate, fighting to save Denoyette 92 civilisation from the evil of a few individuals. The context here is not racial, but individual morality. In refusing to adhere to imperialist fiction‘s false dichotomies between good and evil, or civilisation and barbarism, Buchan manages to sketch characters with flaws and weaknesses whose sensibilities extend across a very wide spectrum of feelings; he creates characters who transcend their usual boundaries and seem far more true-to-life than the stereotypical hero and villain featured in imperialist literature. This quality, together with his ability to evoke vividly memorable landscapes, made his work feel immersive – even after almost a century had gone by – whereas Johns‘ often felt outmoded and distant. Buchan‘s ambivalence in characterisation, morality and thought courses through every novel, and it results in much more vivid, memorable action fiction than what is seen any of Johns‘ tales.

While Johns‘ novels undoubtedly adhere to the tradition of imperialist fiction, I do not wish to diminish their redeeming qualities as an excellent source of light reading for a young male audience. While characterisation is handled stereotypically through use of an infallible

‗manly‘ hero, various subordinate female archetypes and stereotyped native villains, the stories are elegant in their simplicity, and clearly cater to the interests of a young English boy who seeks to slake his thirst for adventure. Moral ambivalence is not present, as it is not required – young male readers want an infallible male protagonist they can identify with, and a villain who is clearly wicked. The shift from the ‗holy‘ to the ‗manly‘ – and therefore the physical - is very clear when contrasting the works of Buchan to Johns‘ writing. Buchan‘s novels feature an immense amount of subterfuge and psychological conflict rather than explicit physical violence. John‘s stories however, in keeping with the imperial knee-jerk defensive reaction to the threat of other nations, present a courageous hero who does not shun any violent confrontation with adversaries, and does not try to avoid them. Whereas Buchan‘s heroes make more use of the imperial faculties of knowledge and cunning to evade and entrap Denoyette 93 their enemies, Johns‘ protagonists seem to favour physical prowess. Richard Hannay prefers the double-bluff, Biggles prefers a stiff right hook, and if that fails – his gun.

What I have tried to illustrate over the course of the previous three chapters is how works situated in the same literary tradition need not share the same explicit values. The backgrounds of both men‘s lives had a powerful influence of their writings, which in turn influenced the choice of values they internalised. Both authors‘ works adhere to a number of imperial concepts; yet the unmistakeable evolution from a more benign literature of empire to imperialist fiction is reflected in their writings. Ultimately, the themes I investigated are developed by authors‘ individual experiences within the overarching framework of Empire; and are not invariable or stemming directly from the ruling values in the imperialist framework. Rather, they emerge from views that have evolved within an imperial context, which is perceived differently by each individual author – and expressed differently in turn.

Denoyette 94

Bibliography 4

Primary Reading

Buchan, John. The Thirty-Nine Steps. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993

---. Greenmantle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993

---. Mr. Standfast. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)

---. Huntingtower. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996

---. The Island of Sheep. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

---. Prester John. Ed. David Daniell. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Johns, William Earl. Biggles Flies South. London: May Fair Books Ltd., 1969.

---. Biggles in the Orient. London: May Fair Books Ltd., 1963.

---. Biggles in the Cruise of the Condor. London: Thames Publishing Co., 1961.

---. Biggles Flies West. Leicester: Knight Books, 1974.

---. Biggles Takes a Hand. Leicester: Knight Books, 1975.

---. Biggles Flies Again. London: Thames Publishing Co., 1961.

---. Biggles in Africa. London: Oxford University Press, 1941.

---. Biggles Fails to Return. London: Random House Children‘s Books, 1993.

Denoyette 95

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