Wormwoodiana

For several years now the Tales of the Weird series published by the British Library has been reprinting classic novels and story collections as well as a constantly growing number of anthologies based around an improbably wide and ingenious – but only if the imagination is limited, for they are really out there – range of themes. Intriguing selections with apposite titles are the rule. One of the latest is All the Fear of the Fair, the second anthology in the series to be edited by Edward Parnell, author of the rightly well-regarded Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country (2020).

Subtitled ‘Uncanny Tales of Circus and Sideshow’ All the Fear of the Fair prepares us from the outset for more than just a few roundabouts and coconut shies (the settings for which youthful memory inevitably recalls summer cold and damp). Luckily we are not to be treated only to stories of traditional British fairs, but to much more. As Parnell writes in his introduction: ‘Circuses, carnivals and fairgrounds are fleeting spaces. They arrive seemingly out of nowhere, occupying a strip of waste ground at the edge of a town for a few summer nights, before departing as quickly as they appeared. There’s danger and a hint of violence in these garishly lit corners too – the thrill of attractions that can send you spinning to the heavens, or plunge you into darkness…’

The earliest of the sixteen stories chosen is “Hop-Frog” by Edgar Allan Poe (1849), a delightful piece of grue now probably best known for its adaptation in Roger Corman’s film The Masque of the Red Death. The owner of the travelling circus in “Satan’s Circus” by Eleanor Smith (1931) might not be the Devil, but there must – surely – be some explanation for its bad reputation. “Circus Child” by Margery Lawrence forms one of the cases taken up by Dr Miles Pennoyer, her occult detective; it first appeared in Master of Shadows (1959). L.P. Hartley’s “A High Dive” (1961) is a wry glimpse into the mind of the performer – and what its motivation could be. “Spurs” by Tod Robbins (1923) formed the basis for Tod Browning’s film Freaks.

“Waxworks” by W.L. George (1922) does not surprise – yet certainly not disappoint, with its evocation of London grime and crime, with an innocence out of its depth. In “The Harlem Horror” by Charles Birkin (1932) innocence is perhaps swallowed in the depths of another great city. “Freak Show” by Robert Silverberg (1957) dates from his days as a machine writer, one of a group who would be contracted to provide the entire contents of a magazine, often using several pseudonyms. His story of a small boy’s desire coming true packs a poignant kick. So does Richard Middleton’s “The Conjurer” (1912), told with similar economy. Stage magic also forms the basis for “The Vanishing Trick” by Charles Davy (1931) – where timing is all.

“The Little Town” by J.D. Beresford (1918) is a memorably nightmarish vignette, described by the author as a story which ‘reveals the apparently commonplace as a vision of wonder’. “The Extraordinarily Horrible Dummy” by Gerald Kersh (1939) is true to its title; it also formed the basis for the concluding section of the film Dead of Night. The death of a showman in Frederick Cowles’ “Punch and Judy” (1975) reveals what is not ‘the way to do it’. Although “The Haunted Roundabout” by ‘Simplex’ (1929) has little of the mystery of its unknown author, it sets briskly about its business and whirls us through a few thrills before allowing us to get off. Ray Bradbury, surely a master of the dark carnival, takes us into an October of childhood – and beyond, during a ride on “The Black Ferris” (1948). And our trip ends fittingly with “The Swords” by Robert Aickman (1969) – one of his strangest stories, with settings and imagery that will never quite go away, just as every attempt at rational explanation must also fail (and miss the point).

Each story is prefaced by a short essay giving some context along with biographical details of its author and information on first publication. All the Fear of the Fair admits us for a while to a ‘world that transgresses societal norms, drawing on our willingness to be lured towards the novel and the sleazy, the desire to step outside our regular bounds and experience a glimpse of the other…’

That is the way to do it.

(John Howard) 

The novels that H.G. Wells published after the end of the Belle Époque seem to get something of a bad rap. The early scientific romances and the comic and social novels of the Edwardian years have largely stayed in print since their original appearance, but Wells’ later novels tend to be overshadowed, dismissed for verging on the polemical and not keeping up with literary trends. It is true that Wells seemed to concentrate on non-fiction, especially his three great attempts to systematise and make accessible whole fields of human knowledge: The Outline of History (1920), The Science of Life (1930), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1931). And there were the numerous other books in which he addressed current affairs and fired-off solutions to the world’s problems, charting the way forward to a socialist future of peace and prosperity for all – if only his sane and reasonable suggestions were adopted. Wells wrote his books and a tremendous amount of journalism while maintaining a headlong schedule – travelling widely, speaking at meetings and conferences, visiting and talking at length with influential people including world leaders.

Yet in most years Wells still published at least one novel – often a very substantial one. Although they sometimes did serve (at least in part) as fictional vehicles for Wells’ ongoing concerns and ideas, that was nothing new. Many of the novels of the inter-war period are full of interesting and characteristically Wellsian things: vivid incident and character, with sharp observation and not a little humour along the way.

In addition to everything else, the turbulence of Wells’ private life – actually not always particularly private – was legendary. This was particularly so during 1923, when his relationship of ten years with Rebecca West conclusively ended. It was during this fraught period for Wells that he wrote what Adam Roberts, in H.G. Wells: A Literary Life (2019), refers to as ‘one of his oddest, most striking and most unjustly overlooked novels’ (321). This is Christina Alberta’s Father, first published one hundred years ago in September 1925.

Christina Alberta’s father is Albert Preemby. Wells opens by proclaiming ‘This is the story of a certain Mr Preemby… Some remarkable experiences came to him. […] it is a story of London in the age of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, broadcasting, and the first Labour peers.’ Preemby starts out as another of Wells’ ‘little men’: of humble origin, put-upon and dominated by other people and their circumstances. While still a very young man Preemby meets Christine Hossett and quickly finds himself married: ‘He was carried over his marriage as a man might be carried over a weir’ (16). Christina Alberta, their only child, is born soon after the wedding, and her father settles down to family life and the laundry owned by his wife’s family. Denied any real involvement in the business, Preemby spends his time reading, particularly ‘ancient history, astronomy, astrology, and mystical works. He became deeply interested in the problem of the pyramids and in the probable history of the lost continent of Atlantis’ (17).

Twenty years go by, and Preemby finds himself a widower and single parent. Father and daughter emerge from the shadow of Christine Preemby. Christina Alberta soon realises that ‘Mother had kept him dried up for nearly twenty years, but now he was germinating and nobody could tell what sort of thing he might become’ (31). Selling the business, they embark on a life in boarding houses and meet people who live on the borders of bohemianism. A dispute over spiritualism between two fellow boarders leads to Preemby taking part in a séance – and it is then revealed to him that he is Sargon the King of Kings, ‘Lord of Akkadia and Sumeria […] come back as Lord of the World’ (87).

Sargon disappears. Christina Alberta and her friend, the author Paul Lambone, walk the streets looking for him. They miss him at Buckingham Palace, where they find that he might have been planning to offer an audience to George V. To Sargon Trafalgar Square was ‘Just a little patch this was in one of his cities. For, you see, by the lapse of time and the development of his ancient empire, he was the rightful owner and ruler of this city and of every other city in the world. And he had come back to heal the swarming world’s disorders and reinstate the deep peace of old Sumeria once again’ (106). After looking out over London from the dome of St Paul’s, Sargon decides to reveal himself. He attracts his first ‘disciples’ and swiftly loses them – except for the young journalist Bobby Roothing, who turns out to be Sargon’s saviour in the troubled days and weeks that follow.

At this time an ambiguity in the novel’s title is also revealed – or rather confirmed, as hints were sown in the first two chapters. Christina Alberta accepts the reality of the situation. Dr Devizes is her biological father, and they agree to regard themselves as cousins; Sargon remains her ‘little Daddy’.

As Sargon undergoes what will be his final illness he explains: ‘I am Sargon, but in a rather different sense from what I had imagined. […] I am not exclusively Sargon. You – you perhaps are still unawakened – but you are Sargon too. We are all descended from Sargon […] We all inherit. […] Of course, everybody is really Sargon King of Kings, and everybody ought to take hold of all the world and save it and rule it just as I have got to do. (227-9). Wells has moved away from his Edwardian dreams of a modern utopian world ruled by an order of ‘Samurai’ to something very different – and much more approachable, although just as problematic. This was not to last. For example, in Wells’ film Things to Come (1936) the remnants of civilisation are saved by a small elite: the ‘freemasonry of science’ operating as ‘Wings Over the World’.

In Christina Alberta’s Father, as Adam Roberts notes: ‘Wells is asserting the fundamental and essentially spiritual dignity of even the most overlooked and neglected of human beings. The point of this novel, in other words, is that Preemby is a king not despite being (in Jung’s cruel but accurate phrase) a ‘midget personality’, but because of it: that we are all great-souled and royal no matter how unprepossessing our exteriors’ (321-24).

Perhaps there is some hope after all.

(John Howard)

E.F. Benson (1867-1940) is probably best known today for his tales of supernatural horror and the six novels, dripping with campery and back-biting, portraying the rivalry between Elizabeth Mapp and Emmeline Lucas (‘Lucia’). Benson was a prolific and efficient writer, producing books of all kinds and qualities, including history, biography, memoir, and current affairs – as well as many other novels of social comedy and satire. A number of these blurred genre labels and could perhaps be described as explorations into dark psychology, terrible secrets, and obsession, with touches of the gothic and sensational, sometimes crossing further borders and venturing into the supernatural. Many also contained strong homosexual or homoerotic elements. Several of Benson’s novels in this vein were reprinted in paperback during the 1990s by publishers specialising in gay literature. Among them were The Inheritors (1930) and Raven’s Brood (1934); others were Colin (1923) and its continuation or sequel, Colin II – which was first published one hundred years ago in August 1925.

Although Colin II might seem a somewhat uninspired choice of title, it is certainly an accurate one. As Benson stated in his spoiler-friendly Preface to Colin: ‘“Colin” comprises the first part only of this romance: it will be completed in a second volume which will tell of the final fading of the Legend with which the story opens.’ Colin Stanier was not the first member of his family to bear the name; there was the ‘old Colin’ whose pact with Satan made in the late sixteenth century took him from life as a shepherd boy to becoming a close confidante of Queen Elizabeth, ennoblement as Lord Yardley, and given the riches and continuing prosperity for him and his descendants that flowed from the bargain.

This part of the story so far is summarised in the Introduction to Colin II, which makes clear that not only evil, but its redemption, will be the theme of the story. This provides an ongoing tension between good and evil, love and hate, obligation and liberty, that may only be resolved at the end: ‘Often Violet [Colin’s wife] wished he could have killed her love for him, for then would have died withal that eternal struggle within her between love and her horror of him, whose soul, whether in fulfilment of the legend, or from his inherent wickedness, was as surely Satan’s as if with his own blood he had signed the fabled bond. Yet as often as she wished that she cried out on herself at so blasphemous a desire, for she knew that by love alone, though in some manner inscrutable, could redemption come to him’ (11).

Colin divides his time between Stanier, the great house near Rye in Sussex built by his ancestor, and his villa in Capri. At Stanier he lives with his wife and young son Dennis, playing the role of an influential local grandee who is also a loving family man. His grandmother, aunt, and wife’s parents also live at Stanier, and within its walls provide opportunistic outlets – relief – for Colin’s endless store of barbed wit, sarcasm, and scarcely concealed mixture of contempt and hatred. Benson knew Capri well, sharing the lease on a villa for many years; the island was a haven for writers and artists whose lifestyles would be deprecated – if not illegal – in their own northern European countries. The ancient shadow of another regular visitor, the Emperor Tiberius, cast as a background contrast to the heat, glaring light and glowing colour of Capri, is inescapable – and necessary – as a symbol to depict Colin’s two aspects and double life. Colin is looked after by his valet Nino, who ‘had the morals of a sleek black panther’ (39). Nino is Colin’s willing accomplice – although always still a servant who can be put in his place when required.

Colin learns that Mr Cecil, the British Consul in Naples, possesses a missal of the Black Mass which once belonged to his ancestor. Now determined to build a chapel to Satan at Stanier, Colin quickly forces Cecil to give it him: ‘Never had he felt himself so truly in harmony with the spirit that inspired his life. Here, under the symbolism of the rite, was his own spirit revealed to him, his hatred of love, his love of hate. Here was the strengthening and refreshing of his soul; the renewal, mystically, of the bargain made in Elizabethan days…’ (91f).

Traditionally fathers told their sons the truth when they came of age: ‘They had, so he pointed out to them, the free choice of disassociating themselves from that bargain, and of taking the chance of material prosperity here and of salvation hereafter…’ (Colin 20). Colin begins to consider how he can influence Dennis, now in his teens, towards choosing the same allegiance that all previous generations of Staniers had, so he could initiate his heir into the ‘evil sacrament’. Disregarding all opposition from Violet, Colin decides to do so through hate and cruelty; however, no matter how hard he tries he cannot get Dennis to hate him. The novel ends dramatically with Colin, apparently a victim at last, confronted and in mental agony, asking his tormentor whether he is ‘the Lord whom I have served so well’ (254).

Benson’s novels from the years of Colin and Colin II seem to have provoked very different reactions from his biographers. For example, Geoffrey Palmer and Noel Lloyd wrote in E.F. Benson – As He Was (1988): ‘They may be a tribute to Fred’s industry, but not to his talent. He seems to have been marking time, waiting in a literary limbo, content to drift along. The seven books are either exceedingly silly or exceedingly sentimental or just dull’ (190). In The Life of E.F. Benson (1991) Brian Masters discussed Colin and other novels in very different terms, stating that ‘Fred was periodically obsessed with the notion of people who are the epitome of evil while bearing the appearance of consummate good’ (267). He went on to describe The Inheritor as combining ‘mystery, terror and a goodly chunk of healthy male beauty to make a tantalising cocktail. Beneath it all lies Fred’s serious, reiterated purpose, to demonstrate that inherent evil can only be destroyed, and the victim whose lot it is to carry evil within him be saved, by the intercession of human goodness’ (273). The same could be said of Colin II.

(John Howard)