Victorian Secrets

Independent press dedicated to publishing books from and about the nineteenth century

After the Victorians by A N Wilson

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After the Victorians is the type of book that demands to be immediately re-read on completion.  Alas, there are so many books and so little time, I shall simply have to content myself with the nuggets of information that percolated through to my less than capacious memory.  A N Wilson’s tome follows on from his masterly The Victorians, and many of the characters survive through to the sequel.  It’s tempting to think that all the Victorians were conveniently erased in 1901, but many of them continued undiminished, yet slightly bewildered,  into the new century.

Wilson has received much criticism for his eclectic style, but this is actually one of the strengths of the book.  There have been many conventional, linear histories of the first half of the twentieth century, so his more opinionated approach is welcome.  His style is engaging and thought-provoking.  As a prodigious writer of non-fiction as well, his interest is piqued as much by the literary figures as by their historical contemporaries.  He is something of a magpie, swooping on shiny facts, sometimes chosen for their interest rather than their relevance.  If anything, this inspires the reader to delve further into the wider context, thus leading to a richer experience.

Critics have also derided Wilson’s decision to champion “minor” voices such as Hillaire Belloc.  Again, this is part of the book’s appeal, as the reader is presented with a perspective other than that of the traditional historical protagonists.  Indeed, Wilson is highly iconoclastic, singling out Churchill for particular consideration, and reinforcing our notions of the uselessness of some of his parliamentary predecessors.  We are also reminded, lest we forget,  that the reasons for war are often economic and based on a very shaky understanding of the issues at stake.

Incisive analysis of some of the major events of the last century are peppered with interesting facts such as that Rupert Brooke was killed by a gnat bite, the Titanic was described as “unsinkable” only after it had sunk, and Louis Mountbatten was known as “Mountbottom”.  The reasons for the latter do not require further elucidation. I suspect the wide-ranging nature of the work means that some of the “facts” are questionable, and Wilson is not attempting a particularly objective study.  His voice is always in evidence, giving a chatty rather than scholarly air.  Particularly pleasing to me was his tendency to rewind to the nineteenth century in order to illuminate a particular concept or event.  That might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I salute him for it.

After the Victorians by A N Wilson

The Fate of Fenella

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Cover of The Fate of FenellaOne can’t help but be excited at the prospect of a fin de siecle novel featuring chapters written by 24 different authors.  The Fate of Fenella was first serialised in the illustrated weekly The Gentlewoman in 1890 and then published in three volume format two years later.  Contemporary reviewers described it as a “curious mosaic”, as it was a collaborative work written with no consultation between the myriad writers.  They included Helen Mathers, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Florence Marryat and Adeline Sergeant.  The plot involves the adulterous Fenella Ffrench, her husband’s affair with an evil temptress, a brutal murder, a sensational trial, bigamy, altered states of consciousness, false imprisonment in a lunatic asylum, and a shipwreck.  Phew.  It’s a plot in which you could stand a spoon.

Each chapter, unsurprisingly, ends with a cliffhanger, and the subsequent author is tasked with resolving the twist and then coming up with their own.  Although obviously a thoroughly sensational tale, the themes with which it encompasses makes it a particularly interesting and important work.  Fenella’s trajectory deals with the sexual double standard and the deeply-contested notion of femininity.  The authors are all writing from different perspectives and Fenella’s behaviour is handled differently according to their opinions, thereby providing the reader with a panoramic view of the attitudes within the literary marketplace of the 1890s.

The Spectator thought the plot “ridiculous” and concluded that too many cooks did, indeed, spoil the broth.  However, this is an experimental piece of fiction that is more than a sum of its parts.  The text itself is enhanced by explanatory notes, biographies of all the authors, and a scholarly and illuminating introduction from Andrew Maunder.  Thank you to Valancourt Books for such a welcome release.

Harry Price – The Psychic Detective

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Photo of Harry Price

Image via Wikipedia

Richard Morris’ biography is an investigation into an investigator.  There must be a clever Latin phrase for that sort of caper, but I know not what it is.  I saw an excellent exhibition of Price’s ghost investigations at The Photographers’ Gallery a few years ago and came away with the impression that he was a serious scientist, although something of a show-off.  Morris’ research, however, unearths evidence to prove that he was often responsible for the phenomena he was trying to debunk.  Indeed, in an early piece of writing, he admitted that many people prefer the “bunk” to the “debunk”.  He was essentially an accomplished showman who was desperate for recognition.  Although greatly admired in some quarters, he was never sufficiently successful to give up his day job as, of all things, a paper bag salesman.

I can’t help thinking he undermined his authority by his unwise selection of cases.  Only the terminally credulous could believe in Margery the Ecotplasmic Vesuvius, from whose vagina “teleplasmic hands, like misshapen Danish pastries” emerged.  Surely they’d be muffins?  Price also travelled to the Isle of Man to visit Gef, a mongoose with a penchant for gossip and cream buns.  Surprisingly, Gef had nipped out when Price arrived, but thoughtfully sent him a hoof print afterwards.  To be fair to Price, he wasn’t the only one to be duped – an American film director was desperate to buy the film rights for $50,000, but Gef refused to appear for the screen test.  He hated make-up, apparently.
Price is never less than interesting and entertaining, but he also had a thoroughly unpleasant side.  He seems to have largely ignored his wife Connie, and instead focused all his energies on paranormal hoaxes and a succession of mistresses.  Until the end of the book, I kept reminding myself that he’d at least made a valid contribution to posterity by bequeathing his considerable library to Senate House.  However, one is not so impressed after discovering that he’d originally tried to sell his collection to the Nazis.  As if being a love rat and charlatan weren’t sufficient, he was also a great admirer of Herr Hitler, even after the horrors of Kristallnacht left nobody in any doubt as to the regime’s real agenda.

I wonder whether he’ll read my blog in impotent rage from the Other Side?

Harry Price – The Psychic Detective by Richard Morris

 

Hillaire Belloc by A N Wilson

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Hilaire Belloc

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I had expected to like Hillaire Belloc.  It was a profound disappointment, therefore, to learn from A N Wilson’s biography that he was a frightful anti-semite who neglected his wife and thought the world owed him a living.  Mind you, one cannot fail to be impressed that he managed to walk the 58 miles from Oxford to London in just eleven and a half hours.  His literary output was also impressive, although mainly in terms of quantity rather than quality.  His mother lost the family fortune, partly through converting to Roman Catholicism and partly due to entrusting a stockbroker lodger with £12K.  Undeterred, Belloc still imagined he was going to inherit great wealth and become an idle gentleman.  Paradoxically, he styled himself as a Radical and was elected to Parliament as such by the good people of Salford.  However, his stance seemed to be motivated more by envy of the rich, rather than a genuine commitment to social change.  He soon resigned his seat, proclaiming that Parliament was boring and undemocratic, and shocked that the country appeared to be run by an oligarchy who were concerned only to protect the interests of bankers.  Not much has changed there, then.

Although much about the man himself is distasteful, even taking into account the prevailing attitudes of the day, the biography is a superb examination of a particularly fertile period of history (1870-1953), and Wilson’s treatment of the religious, social and political issues is masterly.  This is not surprising, given he also covered this era brilliantly in The Victorians and After the Victorians.  His attention to historical detail helps illuminate the often confusing thoughts of Belloc, for whom ignorance of a subject was no barrier to writing about it.  An extraordinary man and an extraordinary age.

Miss Cayley’s Adventures by Grant Allen

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Cover of Miss Cayley's Adventures by Grant AllenAfter vowing to never read another Victorian novel, I find myself teetering on the brink of the 20th century with Grant Allen’s Miss Cayley’s Adventures.  Published in 1899, it features the redoubtable Lois Cayley, a Girton graduate who refuses to enter the teaching profession, instead becoming a self-styled adventuress.  With only twopence in her pocket, she manages to travel around the world, solving mysteries and trying her hand at a number of professions.  A particularly enjoyable chapter sees her taking part in a mountain biking competition and landing herself a job selling bicycles in Switzerland.  Other escapades include setting up a typing agency in Florence with her conservative and downtrodden friend, Elsie.  It’s hard to imagine that Alexander McCall Smith hasn’t read this book, as Lois is very much a nineteenth-century Mma Ramotswe.  Despite a rather conventional conclusion, the book is fairly progressive for the time, in terms of Allen’s treatment of both gender and race.  He also created one of the earliest literary female detectives.  Well done to Valancourt Books for reissuing it.