fin de siecle Archives - Victorian Secrets

New edition of Weeds by Jerome K. Jerome

October 31, 2012 By Catherine Pope

We’re very pleased to announce a new critical edition of Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters by Jerome K. Jerome.

First published anonymously in 1892, Weeds marked a significant departure from the humour that made Jerome K. Jerome famous. This disturbing story of sexual corruption shows marital fidelity as a perpetual struggle, with Dick Selwyn falling for the attractions of his wife’s young cousin, Jessie. The link between mental and physical corruption is sustained through a central metaphor of a weed-infested garden, which perishes through neglect.

With its radical ending, this story of the dark side of passion casts an important light on late-nineteenth-century sexual politics and gender ideology. Jerome engages with contemporary debates on degeneration and the emergence of the New Woman, offering a powerful evocation of fin-de-siècle society.

This edition, edited by Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton includes an introduction, explanatory footnotes, author biography, and a wealth of contextual material. Available in print and Kindle editions.

Find out more about Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters by Jerome K. Jerome

Weeds by Jerome K. Jerome

October 31, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Weeds by Jerome K. Jerome Jerome K. Jerome is famous, of course, for writing one of the funniest books in the English language: Three Men in a Boat. What is less well known is that he desperately tried to reinvent himself as a serious author. Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters was published anonymously in 1892, Jerome hoping that the novella would be judged on its own merits, rather than compared unfavourably with his comic tales of irascible terriers and tinned pineapple. Unfortunately for him, his publisher Arrowsmith was nervous about the story’s frank portrayal of adultery and it was never made available for general sale during the author’s lifetime.

While the Victorians’ moral squeamishness can be difficult to fathom for the modern reader, it’s not difficult to see why the edition was pulled. This disturbing narrative of sexual corruption shows marital fidelity as a perpetual struggle, with anti-hero Dick Selwyn falling for the attractions of his wife’s nubile young cousin. The link between his mental and physical corruption is sustained through a central metaphor of a weed-infested garden, which perishes through neglect (as predicted by the lugubrious narrator). Although there is the occasional comedic flash, this is a powerful evocation of fin-de-siecle society and its fears of degeneration.

Now, Jerome K. Jerome was no friend of the New Woman, but what really attracted me to Weeds was its radical ending (I shan’t spoil it), which embodies a clear challenge to the prevailing sexual double standard and casts an important light on late-Victorian gender ideology. I discovered when publishing Jerome’s biography that he was a complex and often contradictory man, and this story epitomises it more than any other.

Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters is available in print and Kindle editions. It includes Mona Caird’s brilliant essay ‘Does Marriage Hinder a Woman’s Self-Development’.

Demos by George Gissing

March 22, 2011 By Catherine Pope

Bigamy, bisexuality, and betrayal form the sensational plot of Demos (1886), the third published novel from super-grump George Gissing. Although the novel’s sub-title – ‘A Story of English Socialism’ – doesn’t make it sound terribly exciting, politics and social unrest form the backdrop, and the foreground narrative is both tight and compelling.

George Orwell, perhaps anticipating Twitter, pithily described Demos as “a story of the moral and intellectual corruption of a working-class Socialist who inherits a fortune.” The Socialist in question is Dick Mutimer, a serious-minded mechanic who leaves behind his old life and in a slum district of London without the least compunction. Meanwhile, the presumed heir to the fortune, aesthete Hubert Eldon, returns from the Continent with a mysterious bullet wound and discovers that his comfortable position has been usurped by a rough young parvenu. Mutimer uses his new-found wealth to establish an ironworks and model village in the fictional Midlands town of Wanley, and is able to realise his long-held dream of improving the lot of Demos – the working man.

Mutimer’s project turns the “land of meadows and orchard” into an “igneous realm” with its “hundred and fifty fire-vomiting blast furnaces.” Everything, including the landscape, must be subordinate to the needs of Demos.
Not content with assuming Eldon’s wealth, Mutimer also covets his intended wife, the ingenue Adela Waltham. Adela is a “martyr to her mother’s miserable calculations”: once Mrs Waltham realises Eldon has no prospects, she coerces her daughter into accepting Mutimer’s proposal, even though they are ill-suited. Adela endures an unhappy marriage to a brutal and solipsistic man, and is thoroughly miserable until she is awoken, both sexually and spiritually, by the bewitching Stella Westlake.

Stella is one of the novel’s most intriguing characters: a pre-Raphaelite beauty, exuding charm, pheromones and quiet intelligence. She is based on William Morris’s wife, Jane, although I haven’t as yet established whether it’s an authentic portrait. The rest of the cast are all largely unlikeable, but also gruesomely compelling. Although he denies the reader a central hero, Gissing does at least have the decency to ensure that the good ultimately triumph and the wicked meet with a sticky end. It’s a shame the good have to suffer so much along the way, but it wouldn’t be Gissing without a liberal dose of misery. His description of the “chill desolation” of Manor Park Cemetery has been described as one of the most beautiful passages in English literature; it is also one of the most poignant.

Demos is Gissing’s fictional response to rapid social change. Hubert Eldon fears the 20th century, believing it to be the era of Demos, a ravening beast that will devour everything in its path. He is partly a mouthpiece for the author. Gissing was an inveterate snob who was fiercely critical of anyone getting ideas above their station. However, he also ardently believed that the workers should be treated much better, fiercely denouncing those who exploited the poor and the vulnerable.

Demos is exquisite, dramatic, and at times painful. Those familiar with Gissing’s first novel, Workers in the Dawn, will see in it his development as an author, as he gradually hones his craft. The success of the plot is perhaps demonstrated by the fact that Demos is the only Gissing novel to have been adapted into a Hollywood film. I’m quietly hopeful that the BBC will spot the dramatic potential of New Grub Street and The Nether World as an antidote to the tweeness of some recent adaptations. No doubt Cranford could be livened up considerably by an outbreak of biting and Miss Matty succumbing to drug addiction.

Gissing’s own verdict on Demos was: “In my private opinion, Demos is distinctly ahead of anything since George Eliot ceased to write.” There’s a tiny nugget of humility, if you really look for it. The author’s trumpet-blowing aside, Demos is certainly one of the finest literary achievements of the early Fin de Siècle.

Victorian Secrets publishes George Gissing’s Demos, Thyrza, and Workers in the Dawn.

The Light that Failed by Rudyard Kipling

February 1, 2011 By Catherine Pope

Cover of The Light that Failed by Rudyard Kipling I must confess to never having been a big fan of Kipling – tales of empire and derring-do aren’t quite my cup of tea. However, his first novel, The Light that Failed (1891), has proved to be a revelation, and quite unlike any of Kipling’s subsequent work.

The novel is partly autobiographical and tells the story of war artist Dick Heldar, his doomed relationship with childhood sweetheart Maisie, and his descent into blindness. Through Dick, Kipling considers the relationship between art and life, espousing his belief that the artist has a duty to paint only what he knows to be true. In this respect, the author offers a counterpoint to the conspicuous aestheticism of Oscar Wilde’s contemporaneous The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dick’s trouble begins when he refuses to accept reality, pursuing instead a romantic ideal.
Reality is vividly portrayed by Kipling, from the battlefields of Sudan and fleshpits of Port Said, through to the drab streets of London. These near-Naturalistic depictions led to comparisons with Zola, and unfavourable reviews from critics who were revolted by Kipling’s sometimes gruesome detail. Others recognised the novel’s extraordinary power, Murray’s Magazine commenting: “Mr Kipling’s novel is a very remarkable tour de force. His genius makes him write at fever-heat, and we long for some passages of repose in his rapid, breathless narrative. The genius, however, is incontestable.”

The Light that Failed is dominated by Dick’s hopeless longing for fellow artist Maisie and his refusal to relinquish her, even though she is in a lesbian relationship with a woman only ever referred to dismissively as the “red-haired girl”. This plot strand is based on Kipling’s own doomed love for Florence Garrard, who repeatedly rejected him and lived with another female artist. Kipling exacts his revenge on this love rival in a spiteful episode towards the end of the novel, and his disappointment permeates the narrative, manifesting itself in an undertow of misogyny. As such, The Light that Failed could be seen as an anti-New Woman novel, criticising as it does the new breed of independent career-minded women who eschew the restrictions of marriage.

Blindness is a common metaphor for impotence, and the loss of his eyesight reflects the emasculation felt by Dick when confronted with the consequences of the emancipated woman. He is determined to finish his masterpiece ‘Melancholia’ before he goes completely blind, inspired by Dürer’s famous engraving, Melencolia I. Dick’s painting shows a woman laughing in the face of life’s difficulties, embodying his pursuit of stoic dignity against all odds. This is contrasted with frequent references to James Thomson’s poem, The City of Dreadful Night (1874), in which depression and pessimism triumph. Although often bleak, the narrative is regularly leavened by Kipling’s wit and eye for comic detail.

Much of the criticism levelled at The Light that Failed was due to its unhappy ending. Mindful of readers’ expectations, Lippincott’s Magazine, who originally serialised the novel, demanded from Kipling an alternative ‘happy’ ending, which is included as an appendix to this edition. Although undeniably more optimistic, it is inferior to the original, and Kipling makes clear in a short preface to the novel that he favoured the gloomy and more powerful conclusion. In his introduction, Paul Fox places the novel within the context of fin-de-siècle literature, and considers its key themes of masculinity, aestheticism, and the relationship between art and life.

The Light that Failed is an enthralling and thought-provoking novel, and shows a very different Kipling from the one so famous for his Anglo-Indian stories.

For more details on the autobiographical elements of the novel, see an article by Jad Adams, Kipling’s most recent biographer.