The Edwardian Literary Afternoon Part Two: Now Came Still Evening On

Whittington-Egan, Richard, Contemporary Review

IT has in bitter truth to be admitted that a disconcertingly sizeable majority of Edwardian library readers rested content with the romantic scrivenings of Victorian lady writers of the calibre of Mrs. Henry Wood, n[acute{e}], in 1814, Ellen Price -- 'Dead! and [ldots] never called me mother.' (East Lynne, dramatised version), and M.E. Braddon, otherwise Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Maxwell (1837-1915), and the books published by the celebrated authors of the day sold better in post-Edwardian times.

For example: those of Conrad's novels which appeared in the Edwardian era sold notoriously badly. While those of the late-Victorian romantic Anthony Hope sold well. Galsworthy did not, until the First World War imported a mood of nostalgia for the good old days. E.M. Forster's sales were woefully slow, and, surprisingly, Conan Doyle did not begin to sell really well until Neo-Georgian times. Equally surprising, Morley's, from every standpoint ponderous, three-volume life of Gladstone (1903) had huge numbers of Edwardian readers delving deep into their purses.

The Edwardian lady novelists did well enough. Rita, nomme de plume of Mrs. W. Desmond Humphrey (1860-1938), was popular. Her 1903 contribution was The Jester, a story which had started off as a serial written for a magazine. Planning to re-publish it as a book, the author found that it fell some 20,000 words short of the necessary length; so, like a good sempster, she set to make up the deficit with tackings-on and embroideries of incident and description. These lenghtenings were effected so seamlessly that even when the author offered a substantial reward to anyone who could spot the importations, there were no takers. It went unclaimed.

Rita and Marie Corelli (1854-1924) made it their business to castigate the Smart Set, who 'boasted openly of having read the books their fathers had read by stealth.' As Shane Leslie adroitly put it: 'Up to 1900 everybody pretended that he had not read George Moore, while under King Edward all pretended they had.'

Elinor Glyn's Three Weeks (1907), following upon the scarlet-ish heels of her The Visits of Elizabeth, described by Gertrude Atherton as 'very naughty and very clever [ldots] and giving startling side-lights on country-house life in England', simply delighted the naive majority, the more sophisticated, however, dismissing it as mere Ouida r[acute{e}]eachauf[acute{e}]e.

The Farm Street Jesuits -- notably Father Bernard Vaughan and Father Martindale -- preached coruscant sermons denouncing the sins of society and their literary celebrants. Both the targeted -- sinners and celebrants -- basked in the titillatory publicity.

A strong lay critic of the prevailing, as he saw it, …

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Publication information: Article title: The Edwardian Literary Afternoon Part Two: Now Came Still Evening On. Contributors: Whittington-Egan, Richard - Author. Magazine title: Contemporary Review. Volume: 276. Issue: 1612 Publication date: May 2000. Page number: 244. © 1999 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group.

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