Hello and welcome to my channel. And welcome to a Sunday Morning Meet-Up in
which I discuss 10 British Novels from the decade of the 1900’s. This is the first
part of a ten-part series in which I discuss Ten British Novels from the ten decades of
the 20th Century. In this first part I have picked one novel
from each year of the decade to represent the variety of novels published in the 1900’s.
So, book number one, Love and Mr. Lewisham by H.G. Wells was published in the year 1900.
Love and Mr Lewisham (subtitled "The Story of a Very Young Couple") is set in the 1880s.
It was among Wells’s first fictional writings outside the science fiction genre. Wells took
considerable pains over the manuscript and said that "the writing was an altogether more
serious undertaking than I have ever done before." He later included it in a 1933 anthology,
Stories of Men and Women in Love. Which is the anthology that I own.
Events in the novel closely resemble events in Wells's own life. According to Geoffrey
H. Wells: "referring to the question of autobiography in fiction, H. G. Wells has somewhere made
a remark to the effect that it is not so much what one has done that counts, as where one
has been, and the truth of that statement is particularly evident in this novel. ... Both
Mr Lewisham and Mr Wells were at the age of eighteen, assistant masters at country schools,
and that three years later both were commencing their third year at The Normal School of Science,
South Kensington, as teachers in training under Thomas Henry Huxley. The account of
the school, of the students there and of their social life and interests, may be taken as
true descriptions of those things during the period 1883-1886.
Book number two, Kim, by Nobel Prize-winning author Rudyard Kipling was published in 1901.
The story unfolds against the backdrop of The Great Game, the political conflict between
Russia and Britain in Central Asia. The novel made the term "the Great Game" popular and
introduced the theme of great power rivalry and intrigue.
It is set after the Second Afghan War which ended in 1881, but before the Third, probably
in the period 1893 to 1898. The novel is notable for its detailed portrait of the people, culture,
and varied religions of India. "The book presents a vivid picture of India, its teeming populations,
religions, and superstitions, and the life of the bazaars and the road."
Book number three, Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett was published in 1902.
The plot centres on Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but miserly and dictatorial father,
living in the Potteries area of Staffordshire, England. Her activities are strictly controlled
by the Methodist church. The novel tells of Anna's struggle for freedom and independence
against her father's restraints.
Stoke-on-Trent has become known as "The Five Towns", because of the name given to it by
the local novelist Arnold Bennett. In his novels, Bennett used mostly recognisable aliases
for five of the six towns. However, Bennett said that he believed "Five Towns" was more
euphonious than "Six Towns", so he omitted Fenton (sometimes referred to as "the forgotten
town").
Book number four, The Way of all Flesh by Samuel Butler was published in 1903.
The Way of All Flesh (sometimes called Ernest Pontifex, or the Way of All Flesh) is a semi-autobiographical
novel by Samuel Butler that attacks Victorian-era hypocrisy. Written between 1873 and 1884,
it traces four generations of the Pontifex family. Butler dared not publish it during
his lifetime, but when it was published (in 1903) it was accepted as part of the general
reaction against Victorianism.
Book Number five, Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe was published in 1904.
Frederick Rolfe, wrote under the pseudonym "Baron Corvo".
Rolfe's best-known work, this novel of extreme wish-fulfilment developed out of an article
he wrote on the Papal Conclave to elect the successor to Pope Leo XIII. The prologue introduces
us to George Arthur Rose (a transparent double for Rolfe himself): a failed candidate for
the priesthood denied his vocation by the machinations and bungling of the Roman Catholic
ecclesiastical machinery, and now living alone with his yellow cat.
Rose is visited by two prominent churchmen, one a Cardinal Archbishop. The two propose
to right the wrongs done to him, ordain him a priest, and take him to Rome where the Conclave
to elect the new Pope has reached deadlock. When he arrives in Rome, he finds that the
Cardinals have been inspired, divinely or otherwise, to offer him the Papacy. He accepts,
and since the only previous English Pope was Adrian (or Hadrian) the fourth, he takes the
name Hadrian the seventh. I should have said Hadrian the sixth.
The novel develops with this unconventional, chain-smoking Englishman peremptorily reforming
the Church and the early 20th-century world, against inevitable opposition from the established
Roman Catholic hierarchy, rewarding his friends and trouncing his enemies. Generally, he gets
his way by charm or doggedness, and of course by being much cleverer than all those around
him; but his short reign is brought to an end when he is assassinated by a Pope-hating
Scotsman, or possibly Ulsterman, and the world breathes a sigh of relief. This a preposterous
novel.
Book number six, The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy was published in 1905.
The Scarlet Pimpernel is the first novel in a series of historical fiction by Baroness
Orczy, published in 1905. It was written after her stage play of the same title enjoyed a
long run in London, having opened in Nottingham in 1903.
The novel is set during the Reign of Terror following the start of the French Revolution.
The title is the nom de guerre of its hero and protagonist, a chivalrous Englishman who
rescues aristocrats before they are sent to the guillotine. Sir Percy Blakeney leads a
double life: apparently nothing more than a wealthy fop, but in reality, a formidable
swordsman and a quick-thinking escape artist. The band of gentlemen who assist him are the
only ones who know of his secret identity. He is known by his symbol, a simple flower,
the scarlet pimpernel. Marguerite Blakeney, his French wife, does not share his secret.
She is approached by the new French envoy to England, Chauvelin, with a threat to her
brother's life if she does not aid in the search for the Pimpernel. She aids him, and
then discovers that the Pimpernel is also very dear to her. She sails to France to stop
the envoy.
Book Number seven, Sir Nigel by Arthur Conan Doyle was published in 1906.
Sir Nigel is a historical novel set during the early phase of the Hundred Years' War,
spanning the years 1350 to 1356. It is the background story to Doyle's earlier novel
The White Company, and describes the early life of that book's hero Nigel Loring, a knight
in the service of King Edward III in the first phase of the Hundred Years' War. The character
is loosely based on the historical knight Neil Loring.
Book Number eight, The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster was published in 1907.
The Longest Journey is a bildungsroman by E. M. Forster, first published in 1907. It
is the second of Forster's six published novels, following Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)
and preceding A Room with A View (1908) and Howards End (1910). It has a reputation for
being the least known of Forster's novels, but was also the author's personal favourite
and one of his most autobiographical. It is the only one of Forster's novels not to have
received a film or television adaptation.
Book Number nine, The Old Wives Tale by Arnold Bennet was published in 1908.
The Old Wives' Tale is a novel by Arnold Bennett, first published in 1908. It deals with the
lives of two very different sisters, Constance and Sophia Baines, following their stories
from their youth, working in their mother's draper's shop, into old age. It covers a period
of about 70 years from roughly 1840 to 1905, and is set in Burslem and Paris. It is generally
regarded as one of Bennett's finest works.
Bennett was initially inspired to write the book by a chance encounter in a Parisian restaurant.
In the introduction to the book, he says
...an old woman came into the restaurant to dine. She was fat, shapeless, ugly, and grotesque.
She had a ridiculous voice, and ridiculous gestures. It was easy to see that she lived
alone, and that in the long lapse of years she had developed the kind of peculiarity
which induces guffaws among the thoughtless.
and
I reflected, concerning the grotesque diner: "This woman was once young, slim, perhaps
beautiful; certainly, free from these ridiculous mannerisms. Very probably she is unconscious
of her singularities. Her case is a tragedy. One ought to be able to make a heartrending
novel out of the history of a woman such as she." Every stout, ageing woman is not grotesque—far
from it!—but there is an extreme pathos in the mere fact that every stout ageing woman
was once a young girl with the unique charm of youth in her form and movements and in
her mind. And the fact that the change from the young girl to the stout ageing woman is
made up of an infinite number of infinitesimal changes, each unperceived by her, only intensifies
the pathos.
Bennett also found inspiration in Maupassant's novel Une Vie.
Book Number ten, Tono Bungay by H.G. Wells was published in 1909.
Tono-Bungay is a realist semi-autobiographical novel written by H. G. Wells and published
in 1909. It has been called "arguably his most artistic book".
Tono-Bungay is narrated by George Ponderevo, who is persuaded to help develop the business
of selling Tono-Bungay, a patent medicine created by his ambitious uncle Edward. George
devotes seven years to organising the production and manufacture of a product which he believes
to be "a damned swindle.”
In part two of this series I will discuss books by British authors published in the
decade from 1910 to 1919.
So, that’s all folks.
BUT I’ll be back soon with another BookTube video.