DOCSLIB.ORG

Download (13Mb)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Download (13Mb) University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/52260 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. FRA1IK SYIBIlERTOIT: THE LIFE AHD WORKSOF A BOOKMA A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by IRSSB CAMPBELL N. A., dip. lib., ALA UNIVERSITY OF VARVICK September 1992 ., 2, VII44 SUMARY Frank Swinnerton worked as a clerk for JA Dent & Co. between 1901 and 1907 and as a publisher's reader for Chatto & Windus from 1907 until 1926, during which time he began his career as a writer of fiction, became influential as a reviewer and commentator on literary fashions, and began close friendships with Arnold Bennett, HG Wells and Hugh Walpole. In 1926 he left London to live in Cranleigh, Surrey, as a full-time writer of novels, short stories, critical works, book and theatre reviews, and miscellaneous articles for newspapers and periodicals. He died at the age of ninety-eight in 1982. This is the first biography of Frank Swinnerton to be undertaken in Great Britain. An analysis has been made of each of his works, both novels and non-fiction. His influence in literary circles has been assessed, and his contribution to the book world is placed within the background of literary output and trends in the twentieth century. Swinnerton was not a great writer, but his temperament, circumstances and talent combined to produce a respected literary figure whose strength was his perception and understanding of the progress of the British literary world through the centuries. Swinnerton's numerous friendships are dealt with as they occurred, although major relationships are examined more fully at the point where the friend died. For example, details on HG Wells can be found with his death in 1946 and on Compton Mackenzie with his death in 1972. Greater space has been given to his involvements with Arnold Bennett and Hugh Walpole, in separate chapters placed close to the time of their deaths in 1931 and 1941. One other chapter stands out of sequence. This examines Swinnerton's relationship with his two wives: his complex courtship of Helen Dircks and his second marriage to Mary Bennett. This period, between 1917 and 1924, which also includes a description of his first lecture tour of the USA in 1923, has been placed immediately after chapters 7 and 8, which examine Swinnerton's general life and work during the same period. Apart from published works and newspaper and periodical articles, the main material used has been Swinnerton's personal diaries, which date from 1910 to 1978, and the correspondence and miscellaneous papers in his personal possession. Also consulted has been a doctoral thesis by Jesse Franklin McCartney presented to the University of Arkansas in 1965, which annotates the large collection of correspondence by Frank Swinnerton to writers, publishers, boakmen and other literary figures, as well as their replies, which are housed in the University library. Full texts of these letters have been obtained where appropriate and used in this work. Professor Blair Rouse of the University of Arkansas wrote a critical appreciation of Swinnerton's work in the 1960s and his widow has allowed use of the unpublished manuscript and letters exchanged between Rouse and Swinnerton, and has sent correspondence between Swinnerton and the Pinker family. Finally, Swinnerton's friends and family have provided facts, opinions and reminiscences. CONTENTS Page Chapter 1 Ancestry 1 Chapter 2 Youth 5 Chapter 3 The Dent Years 1901-190? 12 Chapter 4 The Chatto Years 1907-1910 20 Chapter 5 The Chatto Years 1910-1913 28 Chapter 6 The Chatto Years 1914-1917 41 Chapter 7 The Chatto Years 1918-1919 54 Chapter 8 The Chatto Years 1920-1923 65 Chapter 9 The Two Wives 76 Chapter 10 The Chatto Years 1924-1925 93 Chapter 11 Freelance Years 1926-1932 102 Chapter 12 Arnold Bennett 132 Chapter 13 Freelance Years 1933-1939 142 Chapter 14 Hugh Walpole: A Difficult Friendship 166 Chapter 15 The War Years 1940-1945 175 Chapter 16 Years of Peaceful Domestic Retirement 195 1946-1950 Chapter 17 Years of Peaceful Domestic Retirement 217 1951-1960 Chapter 18 Grand Old Man of Letters 1961-1969 244 Chapter 19 Grand Old Man of Letters 1970-1982 268 Notes 288 Appendix I Family Tree, 316 Appendix II Miscellaneous Published Pieces in 1920 317 Appendix III Bibliography of Published Works 321 Bibliography 324 ACKNOVLEDGE1ENTS In the course of writing this thesis many of Frank Swinnerton's friends, family and acquaintances have shown kindness and patience in giving their time and memories so that as full and accurate a picture as'possible of the author can be presented. Without their assistance this this work would not have been as comprehensive. My thanks go to Harold A Albert, Angela Chinnery, Virginia Eldin, Vernon Elkin, Kathleen M Frost, Michael Geare, Claude Gibson, Winston Graham, Sir Rupert Hart-Davis, James Hepburn, Michael Legat, Sylvia Lewin, Susan Moyes, Fanchon Rouse, Sylvia Secker, Carolyn Sloan, lain Swinnerton, Roger Till and Helen Villans. Without the constant courtesy, support, assistance and trust which has been shown by Frank Swinnerton's daughter, Olivia Swinnerton, the scope of this work would have been impossible. Chapter 1 ANCESTRY A talent for craftsmanship and an independence of spirit were characteristics of Frank Swinnerton's ancestors. He inherited both. His formative years added realism, industry, an ability to look at life with equanimity and without envy, and a sense of contentment, born of a knowledge of and confidence in himself. The Staffordshire-based family history society, The Swinnerton Society, considers Frank Swinnerton, their first Vice-President, one bf the most distinguished men the Family has ever produced. The name can be traced back to the thirteenth century and includes Swinnerton Pottery, makers of popular, cheap earthenware crockery, sold at Woolworths early in this century. Frank's own story begins in about 1800 with the birth of Samuel Swinnerton in Stone, Staffordshire, a few miles from Swynnerton, the spiritual family home. In 1825 he had a son, George, born in Hanley, who was Frank's paternal grandfather. Known as 'Old Chap', he brought this branch of the family to North London and denied his ancestors by declaring he had been self-created. His profession as a glass cutter kept his wife, Harriet Bunce, and eight children in comfort in City Road, Islington, which the young Frank remembered visiting on Sundays, until a love of betting helped him squander his wealth. His third son, Charles, wanted to become a Baptist minister, but was apprenticed instead to his future father-in-law and became a commercial copper plate engraver, an unfortunate choice of craft' in a Victorian England where imitation copper plate types had been invented, thus ensuring that Charles's skill would become unwanted. His frustration at his inability to achieve L a regular income broke his spirit. His intellectually poor boyhood drove him to the working men's college, to the Penny Poets and The Literary World in an effort to improve his mind. His politics were Gladstonian, his nature was kind but lacking in a sense of humour. At last he found regular employment at twenty-seven shillings per week but the change in family fortunes arrived too late and he died of cancer of the liver, aged fifty, on 11 August 1900. This was Frank's father. Swinnerton kept in touch with many of his uncles and aunts and their offspring, and despite not being close to them, retained an active interest in their movements and the events in their lives. Appendix I shows their names and professions. It was Charles's younger brother, Tom, a furrier, who helped Swinnerton's family during Charles's last illness. On the distaff side the family hailed from Scotland. Frank's grandfather, Richard Pell Cottam, or 'Grumps', was a steel engraver who married a map-colourist. Of his three daughters and one son, Frank's mother, Rose (1855-1930) was the eldest, and all the children had an artistic or musical talent. Swinnerton remembered this grandfather well. He was musically gifted and once sang principal tenor in a cathedral choir. A delicate and scrupulous craftsman he had the ability to earn well, but despite his shrewdness he underwrote a friend's debts and was left penniless when he was let down. His stzong personality was often tactless, and age brought great physical pain and habits which annoyed young Frank who, though he tried, could find no instinctive love for the old man. His Aunt Kate, the second sister, played the most active part in Swinnerton's life. A water colourist by profession, her charm, eagerness and intelligence 3 attracted several suitors. Whilst engaged to one, she suddenly married another at the British Embassy in Paris on the day of Victor Hugo's funeral in May 1885. Still a baby, Swinnertan witnessed the procession in someone's arms whilst waiting for the marriage cortege to be allowed to proceed. Kate moved to North America and, being childless, made a fuss of Frank when she visited England. On one visit in Spring 1914 she learnt that her husband had filed for divorce. Swinnerton promptly gave her the MO royalties he had just received for On the Staircase so she could return to Canada. When she turned up again in England, penniless, he saw his mother cry for the first time because of the waste of Frank's hard-earned money.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Folk Song in Cumbria: a Distinctive Regional
    FOLK SONG IN CUMBRIA: A DISTINCTIVE REGIONAL REPERTOIRE? A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Susan Margaret Allan, MA (Lancaster), BEd (London) University of Lancaster, November 2016 ABSTRACT One of the lacunae of traditional music scholarship in England has been the lack of systematic study of folk song and its performance in discrete geographical areas. This thesis endeavours to address this gap in knowledge for one region through a study of Cumbrian folk song and its performance over the past two hundred years. Although primarily a social history of popular culture, with some elements of ethnography and a little musicology, it is also a participant-observer study from the personal perspective of one who has performed and collected Cumbrian folk songs for some forty years. The principal task has been to research and present the folk songs known to have been published or performed in Cumbria since circa 1900, designated as the Cumbrian Folk Song Corpus: a body of 515 songs from 1010 different sources, including manuscripts, print, recordings and broadcasts. The thesis begins with the history of the best-known Cumbrian folk song, ‘D’Ye Ken John Peel’ from its date of composition around 1830 through to the late twentieth century. From this narrative the main themes of the thesis are drawn out: the problem of defining ‘folk song’, given its eclectic nature; the role of the various collectors, mediators and performers of folk songs over the years, including myself; the range of different contexts in which the songs have been performed, and by whom; the vexed questions of ‘authenticity’ and ‘invented tradition’, and the extent to which this repertoire is a distinctive regional one.
    [Show full text]
  • Summer 2007 Large, Amiable Englishman Who Amused the World by DAVID MCDONOUGH
    The quarterly journal of The Wodehouse Society Volume 28 Number 2 Summer 2007 Large, Amiable Englishman Who Amused the World BY DAVID MCDONOUGH ecently I read that doing crossword puzzles helps to was “sires,” and the answer was “begets.” In Right Ho, R ward off dementia. It’s probably too late for me (I Jeeves (aka Brinkley Manor, 1934), Gussie Fink-Nottle started writing this on my calculator), but I’ve been giving interrogates G. G. Simmons, the prizewinner for Scripture it a shot. Armed with several good erasers, a thesaurus, knowledge at the Market Snodsbury Grammar School and my wife no more than a phone call away, I’ve been presentations. Gussie, fortified by a liberal dose of liquor- doing okay. laced orange juice, is suspicious of Master Simmons’s bona I’ve discovered that some of Wodehouse’s observations fides. on the genre are still in vogue. Although the Egyptian sun god (Ra) rarely rears its sunny head, the flightless “. and how are we to know that this has Australian bird (emu) is still a staple of the old downs and all been open and above board? Let me test you, acrosses. In fact, if you know a few internet terms and G. G. Simmons. Who was What’s-His-Name—the the names of one hockey player (Orr) and one baseball chap who begat Thingummy? Can you answer me player (Ott), you are in pretty good shape to get started. that, Simmons?” I still haven’t come across George Mulliner’s favorite clue, “Sir, no, sir.” though: “a hyphenated word of nine letters, ending in k Gussie turned to the bearded bloke.
    [Show full text]
  • Xerox University Microfilms
    INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original subm itted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into die film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation.
    [Show full text]
  • Arnold Bennett, Marie Corelli and the Interior Lives of Single Middle-Class Women, England, 1880-1914
    University of Wollongong Research Online Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities 11-2003 A Novel Approach to History: Arnold Bennett, Marie Corelli and the Interior Lives of Single Middle-Class Women, England, 1880-1914 Sharon Crozier-De Rosa University of Wollongong, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/lhapapers Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, and the Law Commons Recommended Citation Crozier-De Rosa, Sharon, "A Novel Approach to History: Arnold Bennett, Marie Corelli and the Interior Lives of Single Middle-Class Women, England, 1880-1914" (2003). Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers. 1593. https://ro.uow.edu.au/lhapapers/1593 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] A Novel Approach to History: Arnold Bennett, Marie Corelli and the Interior Lives of Single Middle-Class Women, England, 1880-1914 Abstract There are many ‘gaps’ or ‘silences’1 in women’s history – especially in relation to their interior lives. Historians seeking to penetrate the thoughts and emotions of ‘ordinary’ single middle-class women living during the Late Victorian and Edwardian years have a challenging task. These women rarely left personal documents for historians to analyse. Novels, particularly popular or bestselling novels, represent one pathway into this realm. Popular novels are numbered among the few written sources that are available to help historians to fill in some of the absences in the conventional historical record.
    [Show full text]
  • In Commemoration of Hector Munro, 'Saki' Transcript
    The grinning shadow that sat at the feast: In commemoration of Hector Munro, 'Saki' Transcript Date: Tuesday, 14 November 2006 - 12:00AM The Grinning Shadow that sat at the Feast: an appreciation of the life and work of Hector Munro 'Saki' Professor Tim Connell Hector Munro was a man of many parts, and although he died relatively young, he lived through a time of considerable change, had a number of quite separate careers and a very broad range of interests. He was also a competent linguist who spoke Russian, German and French. Today is the 90th anniversary of his death in action on the Somme, and I would like to review his importance not only as a writer but also as a figure in his own time. Early years to c.1902 Like so many Victorians, he was born into a family with a long record of colonial service, and it is quite confusing to see how many Hector Munros there are with a military or colonial background. Our Hector’s most famous ancestor is commemorated in a well-known piece at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Tippoo's Tiger shows a man being eaten by a mechanical tiger and the machine emits both roaring and groaning sounds. 1 Hector's grandfather was an Admiral, and his father was in the Burma Police. The family was hit by tragedy when Hector's mother was killed in a bizarre accident involving a runaway cow. It is curious that strange events involving animals should form such a common feature of Hector's writing 2 but this may also derive from his upbringing in the Devonshire countryside and a home that was dominated by the two strangest creatures of all - Aunt Augusta and Aunt Tom.
    [Show full text]
  • Arnold Bennett, Transport and Urban Development
    This may be the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source: Hudson, Brian (2016) Arnold Bennett, transport and urban development. Geography, 101(2), pp. 85-92. This file was downloaded from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/98529/ c Copyright 2016 Geographical Association This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the docu- ment is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recog- nise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please provide details by email to [email protected] Notice: Please note that this document may not be the Version of Record (i.e. published version) of the work. Author manuscript versions (as Sub- mitted for peer review or as Accepted for publication after peer review) can be identified by an absence of publisher branding and/or typeset appear- ance. If there is any doubt, please refer to the published source. http:// www.geography.org.uk/ Journals/ Journals.asp?articleID=1418 ARNOLD BENNETT, TRANSPORT AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT Brian J Hudson ABSTRACT: Literary geography, pioneered in the first half of the twentieth century, is now a well-established field of research.
    [Show full text]
  • Sylvia Lynd's Collaborative Reading and Reviewing - the Collaborative Work of an Interwar Middlewoman
    ‘So now tell me what you think!’: Sylvia Lynd's collaborative reading and reviewing - the collaborative work of an interwar middlewoman Article Accepted Version Wilson, N. (2019) ‘So now tell me what you think!’: Sylvia Lynd's collaborative reading and reviewing - the collaborative work of an interwar middlewoman. Literature & History, 28 (1). pp. 49-65. ISSN 0306-1973 doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0306197319829362 Available at http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/73208/ It is advisable to refer to the publisher’s version if you intend to cite from the work. See Guidance on citing . To link to this article DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0306197319829362 Publisher: SAGE All outputs in CentAUR are protected by Intellectual Property Rights law, including copyright law. Copyright and IPR is retained by the creators or other copyright holders. Terms and conditions for use of this material are defined in the End User Agreement . www.reading.ac.uk/centaur CentAUR Central Archive at the University of Reading Reading’s research outputs online Dr Nicola Wilson, English Literature, University of Reading. [email protected] This is the Green Open Access version of this article, the author final version after peer review corrections, in my own formatting (i.e. before editing and typesetting by the publisher). Required for REF. It has been accepted for publication as part of a special issue co-edited by Alex Peat and Claire Battershill on ‘Modernism and Collaboration’ for the journal Literature and History. 1 Nicola Wilson ‘So now tell me what you think!’: Sylvia Lynd's collaborative reading and reviewing and the work of an interwar middlewoman In a chapter on ‘Rose Macaulay: And Others’ in his Reminiscences of Affection (1968), publisher Victor Gollancz recalls Friday night gatherings at Robert and Sylvia Lynds’.
    [Show full text]
  • Studies in the Sources of Arnold Bennett's Novels
    STUDIES IN THE SOURCES OF ARNOLD BENNETT'S NOVELS Louis TILLIER Agrégé de l'Université Docteur ès Lettres STUDIES IN THE SOURCES OF ARNOLD BENNETT'S NOVELS Published with the assistance of the Centre national de la Recherche scientifique DIDIER 4 et 6, rue de la Sorbonne PARIS 14, rue 'des Comédiens 1442, av. McGill College BRUXELLES MONTR13AL CONTENTS Introduction 7 I. The sources of A Man from the North I. Autobiographical elements 13 II. The influence of Bel-Ami 20 II. Literary influences and personal memories in Anna of the Five Towns 25 III. The sources of Sacred and Profane Love 32 IV. The growth of The Old Wives' Tale I. The original idea and its transformation ... 39 II. The Old Wives' Tale and previous works by Arnold Bennett 42 III. French literary influences 44 IV. Local history 48 V. Rivain's execution 52 VI. The Siege of Paris 57 VII. The federation of the Five Towns 66 VIII. Prototypes of characters 70 V. The Card in life and fiction 74 VI. The theosophical and other sources of The Glimpse .. 84 VII. The sources of Clayhanger I. Sociological research 109 II. Personal impressions and memories 124 VIII. From Coquette to Lilian 138 IX. The genesis of Riceyman Steps I. From environment through character to action 143 II. Pinks and Wood's History of Clerkenwell .. 147 X. Is Lord Raingo a roman-a-clef ? I. The Bennett-Birkenhead controversy 155 II. Lord Raingo and Lord Rhondda 158 III. The War Cabinet 164 XI. Imperial Palace and French naturalism 168 XII.
    [Show full text]
  • Virginia Woolf, Arnold Bennett, and Turn of the Century Consciousness
    Colby Quarterly Volume 13 Issue 1 March Article 5 March 1977 The Moment, 1910: Virginia Woolf, Arnold Bennett, and Turn of the Century Consciousness Edwin J. Kenney, Jr. Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cq Recommended Citation Colby Library Quarterly, Volume 13, no.1, March 1977, p.42-66 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Colby Quarterly by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Colby. Kenney, Jr.: The Moment, 1910: Virginia Woolf, Arnold Bennett, and Turn of the The Moment, 1910: Virginia Woolf, Arnold Bennett, and Turn ofthe Century Consciousness by EDWIN J. KENNEY, JR. N THE YEARS 1923-24 Virginia Woolf was embroiled in an argument I with Arnold Bennett about the responsibility of the novelist and the future ofthe novel. In her famous essay "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown," she observed that "on or about December, 1910, human character changed";1 and she proceeded to argue, without specifying the causes or nature of that change, that because human character had changed the novel must change if it were to be a true representation of human life. Since that time the at once assertive and vague remark about 1910, isolated, has served as a convenient point of departure for historians now writing about the social and cultural changes occurring during the Edwardian period.2 Literary critics have taken the ideas about fiction from "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" and Woolfs other much-antholo­ gized essay "Modern Fiction" as a free-standing "aesthetic manifesto" of the new novel of sensibility;3 and those who have recorded and discussed the "whole contention" between Virginia Woolf and Arnold Bennett have regarded the relation between Woolfs historical observation and her ideas about the novel either as just a rhetorical strategy or a generational disguise for the expression of class bias against Bennett.4 Yet few readers have asked what Virginia Woolf might have nleant by her remark about 1910 and the novel, or what it might have meant to her.
    [Show full text]
  • To Twenty Letters to Joseph Conrad London: First Edition Club, 1926
    G. Jean-Aubry “Introduction” to Twenty Letters to Joseph Conrad London: First Edition Club, 1926 THIS PAMPHLET is one of seven pamphlets in a boxed set simply titled Letters to Conrad on the spine of the box. The print run was 220. The other pamphlets consist of one or more letters to Conrad from Arnold Bennett, Stephen Crane, John Galsworthy, Constance Garnett, Edward Garnett, George Gissing, James Gibbons Huneker, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, E. V. Lucas, and H. G. Wells. ALL THOSE WHO LIVED, however little, in intimacy with Joseph Conrad, know that he showed not the slightest desire for possessions. Even after he had finally dropped anchor in Kent, the wish to possess houses or lands remained remote from him; naturally and willingly he avowed this lack of desire, without trying to gain self-glorification from it; and so complete was it that he did not collect books (the least cumbersome and most desirable of possessions), and trusted entirely to his prodigious memory to preserve for us the vestiges of his strange past. Though he had read virtually everything that a well-read man of our time could or should read, he made no notes of his reading or of the events of his life. In such matters he was so entirely without thought that his original manuscripts owe their present existence to the care of his wife. To this indifference to material possessions there was one exception: he did keep some documents, though so few that they might with ease have been contained in his coat pockets. Yet, when his temperament and habit of life are remembered, it is not the small number of these papers which is surprising, but the fact that even these were preserved; for though disdain for possessions was an original part of Conrad‘s nature, the conditions of his existence would have imposed it upon him, had it not been autogenous.
    [Show full text]
  • The Art of Fiction and the Art of War: Henry James, H. G. Wells, and Ford Madox Ford
    <http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:21-opus-49437> | <https://doi.org/10.25623/conn001.1-wiesenfarth-1> Connotations Vol. l.1 (1991) The Art of Fiction and the Art of War: Henry James, H. G. Wells, and Ford Madox Ford JOSEPH WIESENFARTI-1 The house of fiction has . a number of possible windaws. At each of them stands a figure ... with a field-glass, which [insures] to the person making use of it an impression distinct from every other. -Henry James Almost a year after the war broke out between the Allied Forces and the Central Powers in August 1914, a battle was fought between Henry James and H. G. Wells on the literary front. These two instances of hostility, although vastly different in their significance, are nevertheless not unrelated. France, for instance, was the object of attack in both the military and literary campaigns. For Kaiser Wilhelm II, France was the cultural capital of Europe which, in its pride, looked down upon Germany; for H. G. Wells, France threatened England because Henry James-American scion of Balzac, Flaubert, and de Maupas- sant-sought to disseminate a foreign aesthetic in preference to the indigenous one espoused by Wells himself. So just as the German emperor sought to conquer and humiliate France, the British novelist sought to conquer and humiliate Henry James, who, along with Joseph Conrad, a Pole; Stephen Crane, an American; and Ford Madox Ford, an Anglo-German, formed for Wells "a ring of foreign conspirators" (Seymour 14) who were plotting to overthrow the English novel.
    [Show full text]
  • John Buchan's Amicable Anti-Modernism
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Repository@Nottingham 1 John Buchan’s Amicable Anti-Modernism [published in The Journal of Modern Literature , 35.2 (Winter, 2012): 64-82] Nathan Waddell University of Birmingham, UK This article considers the novelist John Buchan’s changing responses to literary modernism in the inter- war period. It argues that although Buchan has generally been taken as a straightforward opponent of modernist writing, careful study of his oeuvre discloses a more complex scenario in which an antagonism to certain modernist “excesses” is mixed with a qualified attraction to particular modernist innovations. The article’s central assumption is that a key part of Buchan’s worth to the New Modernist Studies lies in his querying—in novelistic as well as in essayistic forms—of the vocabularies now used to elaborate such literary-historical oppositions as high vs. low, for instance, or old vs. new. The article breaks new ground by moving beyond familiar Buchan texts—e.g. The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)—into the less appreciated territory of his novel Huntingtower (1922), his literary criticism and his cultural commentaries. Keywords: John Buchan / modernism / middlebrow / inter-war / Huntingtower The study of inter-war writing has in recent years produced a number of reinterpretations of previously marginalized figures. Margery Allingham, Elizabeth Bowen, Warwick Deeping, Stella Gibbons, Walter Greenwood, Rosamund Lehmann, Rose Macaulay, Somerset Maugham, Nancy Mitford, J. B. Priestley, Dodie Smith, Gordon Stowell, Elizabeth Taylor, Angela Thirkell, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Dornford Yates—all these and more have been given attention by critics (e.g., Ardis, Grover, Humble) looking to salvage the historical and cultural validity of such writers in the face of the predominance bestowed upon high and late modernism by the mid-twentieth-century New Criticism.
    [Show full text]