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In Profile A Winston Graham Reader Compiled, edited and written by Jim Dring In fond remembrance of a fine writer and proper chap1 part one contents preface 5 chronology 7 (1) the novels 15 WG's discarded dozen 54 WG 1945-9 : the making of a writer 84 WG's revising habit 118 the face behind the character … 227 part one notes and sources 239 part one photo credits 248 (2) short fiction 250 in his own words (i) 262 (3) other books 264 WG's dedications 281 (4) other published original writing 282 in his own words (ii) 292 (5) cinema and television 309 (6) the plays of WG 344 (7) Dear Swinny … 371 (8) the Poldark phenomenon 397 (9) profiles 444 WG the gardener 455 (10) a life in pictures 462 afterword 482 part two notes and sources 284 part two photo credits 496 acknowledgements A number of librarians and archivists around the world – Arthur M in Salisbury, Claire M in Redruth, Angela B in Truro, Matthew C in Caversham, Christian B in Århus, Elisabeth T in Frankfurt, Nurit H in Jerusalem, Stefanie H in Bowling Green, Deanne W at UNH, Ms A in Fort Knox, Paul H in Fort Campbell, Linda B in Ithaca, Susan M in Sydney, Rachel G at the British Library and others in Bournemouth, Dublin, Ljubljana and Melbourne have provided invaluable assist- ance: thanks to all. Booksellers Ann W in Fowey, James P in Leicester and Jonathan S in Shimshon, Israel have patiently answered my questions; others in Madrid, North Dakota and Tokyo have also gone out of their way to be helpful. I need to thank Matt M in Japan, Yoni in Israel, Peter Lewerenz, Thomas H of VB Thalia, Wolfgang N at VVB and Barbara O of QBWA; also Ellen Moody and Michael Williams. Special thanks to Brenda Francis. I have harvested images off internet pages over a period of several years, most often with no record or memory of provenance and am grateful to all who took the trouble to post them. Thanks, last of all, for their support, to my wife and family and, for his books, to the late, lamented, magnificent Winston Graham. abbreviations used in the text WG Winston Graham Memoirs WG's Memoirs of a Private Man, Macmillan, 2003 WL Ward, Lock & Co., Ltd., London and Melbourne H&S Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., London BH The Bodley Head Ltd., London RCM The Winston Graham archive of the Courtney Library, the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro preface I don't know if The Tumbled House was the first Winston Graham novel I read, but it is the first I remember reading. Unlike so many books – read, enjoyed, but quickly forgotten – this one stuck in my mind. Though I didn't know the author, I recognised in him an exceptional storytelling gift wedded to a way with words that communicated his tale with deceptively facile grace. A year or so later I came upon Angell, Pearl & Little God and the deal was closed. Thereafter, I devoured every Graham title that crossed my path until, by the mid-nineties, I thought I'd read them all. But then, in the front of an old copy of The Merciless Ladies, I discovered a list of eleven Graham titles I'd never seen in any library or bookshop – indeed, had never heard of. So I wrote to Mr. Graham and asked him about them. By this time, he was 90 and receiving letters like mine from all around the world on a regular basis. But, patiently and courteously, he answered, as he seemed to answer everyone who took the trouble to write, and I received his standard response to the early novels question: that the books were long out of print and would remain so, because he believed that to sell them under his name would be "a con" on readers who would buy them in expectation of a certain standard of writing which, he believed, his first dozen books fell below. It might have ended there but for another stroke of luck. Browsing through my local second-hand bookshop I found a tidy copy of Without Motive – one of the novels on the list – and bought it for a fiver. Though I read it with pleasure, I also came to better appreciate Mr. Graham's point of view, for the book was derivative of Agatha Christie (never a favourite of mine) and less convincing than his later work. But the more important revelation for me was that it had been for sale and I realised that, with a little effort, I'd probably be able to find copies of all those disowned early novels, just as I'd found that one. So I set about searching and, within three years, had unearthed copies of every Graham novel except one. I'd been advised that some were very rare. Mr. Graham told me that he himself did not have copies of them all – he was missing four – and that a friend of his had searched in vain for years for Into the Fog. In the years since, the rise of the internet has made searches of this kind much quicker and easier (though less fun) and it is possible nowadays, provided your pockets are deep enough, to assemble a near-complete Graham library quite swiftly. But why would anyone want to? According to Julie Burchill, after all, he has a "wooden ear" (though she also notes in the same review that Graham "is one of those writers, like the late Irwin Shaw, who is rarely in fashion but even more rarely out of favour.")2 The best thing a Canberra Times reviewer could find to say of the "rather thick" Angell, Pearl & Little God was that not one of its 414 pages "will make any intellectual demands"3 on the reader. The Walking Stick, wrote another critic, "is, at best, only lightly diverting."4 In 1999, Mr. Graham himself reflected: "If I had my time again, I would wish for little different, except to be a better writer."5 Yet he has been compared to Dumas,6 De Maupassant,7 Graham Greene.8 But why? What makes him special? Many will answer with the single word Poldark. And yet, while an undoubt- edly fine achievement – a saga in twelve novels published over 57 years and a world to get happily lost in – there is more to Winston Graham than that. For me it's the little things – his uncanny knack of finding the most apposite word or phrase – the whip of rain on a window, the tread of rain on a garden, the tramp of the sea, the tlot tlot of horses' hooves on stone, a freckle of powder on a dressing table, an octopus of lovers' limbs, a hatch of lies, a gust of gnats, a Cuh! of disdain, the whom of a Ferrari, bickering cicadas, a stab victim's breathing like sawing wood, a fat man's waistcoat like an oven door, waves running into the beach like brides to their wedding. He writes dialogue that accurately catches the way people speak. (Yes, Burchill has a point concerning Stephanie, but that novel, published when he was 84, is not representative of his canon.) He has a gimlet eye for tics and foibles and a deep understanding of human natures whether true or perverse, whether immaculate or malign. As previously noted, he tells stories worth hearing – and, as confirmed by Alfred Hitchcock and others – filming. He writes characters – Ross and Demelza, of course, but also Oliver Branwell, Marnie Elmer, David Abden, Deborah Dainton, Paul Stafford, Little God, Emma Spry – that leap to life off the page then, book closed, remain, nuanced, idiosyncratic, flawed as may be, but irrepressible, immortal, destined to endure for as long as people read. And why this book? Because Mr. Graham lived a long life well and left a legacy for all of us who follow that should be recognised, should be celebrated, should be read. * * * * * chronology YEAR DATE EVENT 1867 2nd quarter Albert Henry Grime (Winston's father) born in Blackburn, Lanca- shire. 1868 4th quarter Anne Mawdsley (Winston's mother) born in Manchester. 1897 1 Sept. Marriage of Albert Henry Grime and Annie Mawdsley1 at St. Agnes Church, Birch, Manchester. 1898 25 Sept. Cecil (Winston's brother) born in Manchester. 1908 30 June, at WINSTON GRIME born at 66, Langdale Road, Victoria Park, 8 a.m. Manchester to parents Albert (41) and Annie (39). 1910 Family moves to 18, Curzon Avenue, Victoria Park. 1912 19 August Jean Mary Williamson born in Devonport, Devon. 1916 Starts school, aged eight. Poor health affects attendance. "An only child in all but name", he develops a "passionate preoccu- pation with books". 1918 Spring Cecil serves in France, is wounded in action, but returns. 1921 November WG suffers lobar pneumonia: "unlikely to live the night". Father suffers an incapacitating stroke. The school report from 1923 (above) and principal's certificate from 1924 (below) confirm that WG was an outstanding pupil. Original documents held in the Graham Archive, RCM, Truro. 1925 October WG and parents move to Perranporth on the north Cornish coast. Cecil and his bride Elsie follow in April 1926. 1926 Summer First meeting, in church, with his future wife Jean. 1927 November Father Albert Henry Grime dies, aged 60. 1929 Writes The House with the Stained Glass Windows in the space of ten weeks. Three publishers read and reject it. 1931 17 July Second novel, Black Beard, rejected by Hodder & Stoughton. 1933 17 March Ward, Lock & Co. Ltd.