(He wrote "Rogue Herries", don't you know!)
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In October 1935, Hugh Walpole wrote the following remarks in his diary: "Shall I have any lasting reputation? Like every author in history who has seriously tried to be an artist, I sometimes consider the question. Fifty years from now I think the Lake stories will still be read locally, other-wise I shall be mentioned in a small footnote to my period in literary history."
Perhaps Hugh Walpole was rather harsh and pessimistic in this prediction, but of all his works only the Lake stories or the Herries Chronicle have consistently remained in print.
The life of Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) is extremely interesting. He was a prolific writer who became one of the most popular authors on both sides of the Atlantic, admired by the public and the critics alike. The dust-wrappers of his books are littered with critical accolades that would be the envy of today's leading novelists. In addition, he was an excellent public speaker and his series of lecture tours in the States during the 1920s and 30s were the most popular since those of Dickens eighty years earlier At one point he was a resident scriptwriter in Hollywood, and he both wrote the scenario for and appeared in MGM's highly successful screen adaptation of "David Copperfield", which was released in 1935.
Yet this phenomenally successful author sank into critical obscurity after his death in 1941, and the very critics who praised him so highly during his lifetime were the first to condemn him as old fashioned in his writing, and as an opportunist in literary circles.
The seeds of his later demise were probably sown in the 1930s - but let us first take a look at his early life and career and the works that made him a household name.
Hugh Walpole was born into a clergyman's family in Auckland, New Zealand in 1884, where his parents had recently arrived from England. Nine years later the family was back in England and Hugh Walpole was sent to the first of a series of boarding schools at Truro, Canterbury and Durham, where his observations of the intrigues of cathedral life were to be reflected and put to good use in many of his later novels.
On the whole his schooling was not happy, and he suffered a great deal from bullying and the fagging system. There is no doubt that the strong elements of fear and cruelty to be found in some of his novels and short stories are a legacy of these schooldays. However, from these early days he was already finding solace in the works of such authors as Dickens, Scott, Thackeray and Trollope. In addition he was soon writing and sketching plots for his own stories and historical novels.
In 1905, on leaving Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he spent a few restless years in a variety of jobs, including a short spell as lay missioner at a seaman's mission in Liverpool, and a period as French tutor at Epsom College. At this time he also began his habit of corresponding with most of the leading novelists of the day, including Henry James and Arnold Bennett, praising their books and asking for advice and comments on his own work.
His first novel, "The Wooden Horse", was published in 1909 and received good reviews. The story was quite conventional, centring around a Cornish family called Trojan, hence the rather misleading title. Nevertheless, it already had traces of the atmospheric and descriptive writing that was, when fully developed, so unmistakably Walpolian. The second novel, "Maradick at Forty", was published a year later in 1910. However, it was with his third novel, "Mr Perrin and Mr Traill", a gripping and claustrophobic account of feuding schoolmasters, that Hugh Walpole received unanimous praise. This was the only book by Hugh Walpole to be issued later in the prestigious Everyman Library series. In a preface written in 1935 he noted: "The very young novelists of 1910 all felt that they must tell the truth about life or perish in the attempt... Mr Perrin remains as one of the early realistic novels at the beginning of the realistic period from 1910 to 1930."
Nevertheless, Hugh Walpole was a true romantic, with an occasional and strong penchant for the macabre. This was amply demonstrated in his next novel, "The Prelude to Adventure", the story of a Cambridge undergraduate who commits a murder. This can be described as one of his five psychological thrillers, and no less an authority than the famous Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, writing to Hugh Walpole in 1930, described the book as "a psychological masterpiece". The Times' critic, in a string of aptly chosen words, conveyed the very essence of the story and indeed the essence of the best of Hugh Walpole's writing when he wrote: "It is a fine theme, finely executed. Above the tremulous high strung note of the human leit-motif we hear the deep encompassing swell of a Divine overtone, inexorable, merciful."
Hugh Walpole's next series of books concentrated more on his preoccupations with the interactions in family life which were always surprisingly realistic - despite the fact that the author was not married.
During the First World War, Hugh Walpole served with the Red Cross on the Russian front, and also at the Anglo-Russian Bureau in Leningrad, where he was to witness the early days of the revolution in March 1917. His novels "The Dark Forest" (1916) and "The Secret City" (1919) were based on his Russian experiences, and both were highly praised, with the latter winning the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the best work of fiction published in 1919.
During his sojourn in Russia, Hugh Walpole began writing a number of children's stories based around a young boy, which were eventually published in 1919. The collection introduced the thoughts and adventures of eight-year-old Jeremy Cole, resident of the cathedral town of Polchester in Glebeshire. Polchester was an amalgam of Truro and Durham, and was to feature in many of his later books. (In fact, the dust-jacket of the 1935 novel "The Inquisitor' depicted a street map of this imaginary town.)
"Jeremy" was the first in a trilogy of children's books, completed by "Jeremy and Hamlet" (1923) and "Jeremy at Crale" (1927). In all these books, Hugh Walpole again demonstrated his versatility by perfectly describing and understanding the thoughts, hopes, fears and delights of a boy between the ages of eight (when we first meet him) and fifteen (in "Jeremy at Crale"). One admirer wrote to Hugh Walpole appreciatively:
"You do remember your childhood's feelings perfectly and you have got them into the right words."
"Jeremy" became so popular that over_the next few years many more English boys than before were christened with the name. In the second book of the trilogy, Jeremy's bosom companion Hamlet; the mongrel dog with a sad suspicion of a double chin, quiet dignity and snobbish tendencies, featured in a more prominent role, and Hugh Walpole even managed to give some idea of a dog's view of life with total originality. Finally, "Jeremy at Crale" recounted the turbulent career of the young hero at boarding school. This last book was hailed by one reviewer as the best school story of its kind since Kipling's "Stalky and Co.". The 'Jeremy' books were all published by Cassell, the first two in plain wrappers and "Jeremy at Crale" in a handsome pictorial dust-wrapper.
With the appearance of the novel The Green Mirror' in 1918, Macmillan became the publisher of the majority of Hugh Walpole's books. In 1921, when they issued "The Young Enchanted", they began the habit of publishing all his books in large format, signed and limited editions, as well as in the ordinary trade editions. These limited runs varied in number from approximately 250 to 350 per issue. They are still quite collectable today.
1922 saw the publication of "The Cathedral", a novel somewhat reminiscent of "Mr Perrin and Mr Traill" - although the protagonists were now feuding clergymen at the cathedral in Polchesten One can also see echoes here of Trollope's "Barchester", with its ecclesiastical intrigues. Hugh Walpole's writing may not have been as perfect as Trollope's, but his narrative powers were greater and he certainly had a more vivid imagination.
"Portrait of a Man with Red Hair" (1925) revealed Hugh Walpole's macabre imagination to perfection. From its deceptively quiet beginnings, Hugh Walpole built up the novel to a tremendous tour de force with sustained atmospheric writing, without once having to resort to any of the props and devices so essential to today's exponents of the horror novel. It is all the more surprising, then, with the current interest in the horror genre (this was written in 1989 - BB.), that some enterprising publisher has not yet reissued Hugh Walpole's macabre fantasies. Later books in a similar vein include the excellent 'Above the Dark Circus' (1931), with its striking pictorial dust-jacket, and 'The Killer and the Slain" (1941), which Hugh Walpole thought "technically the best of my macabre.....certainly a nasty book".
It is worth noting at this point that all of Hugh Walpole's books from the 1920s - with the exception of "Portrait of a Man with Red Hair" - appeared in plain dust-wrappers. It was only during the following decade that the majority of his books were visually enhanced by attractively designed pictorial dust-wrappers.
FLAT
Between 1909 and 1922,Hugh Walpole had led a rather unsettled life, with frequent spells of travelling. He normally preferred to work in a London flat or at his cottage in Cornwall. But he became increasingly restless and felt that he did not really belong anywhere. Then in 1923 he took a short holiday in the Lake District, and became enchanted with the area, feeling that at long last he had found a place where- he could settle. The following year, he moved into Brackenburn, a hillside house overlooking Lake Derwentwater, and it was there that he wrote the majority of his remaining output. Over the ensuing months, Hugh Walpole absorbed the atmosphere, scenery and history of the Lake District, and as early as 1925 he was mulling over the idea of a series of Lake novels.
These ideas crystallized over the coming years until Hugh Walpole had worked out a grand design for four large novels setting out 'the history of the Herries family over a period of two hundred years, from the 18th century to the depression of the 1930s.
There is no doubt that the Herries Chronicle was to be Hugh Walpole's 'magnum opus'. The first book in the series, "Rogue Herries", was published 'in 1930, and Hugh Walpole reckoned that "it was the most important book of my life so far". The critics concurred, with verdicts noting the "excellent descriptive writing" and "the pure stuff of romance", or greeting the book as "the best novel published in English since 'Jude The Obscure' ". J.B. Priestley wrote: "There is not one tired, listless page... It is fiction running on all six cylinders and of staggering horse-power."
The three sequels, "Judith Paris", "The Fortress" and "Vanessa", followed annually, and each one was duly showered with critical accolades. These four books are still in print (this was 1989 remember - BB.), and they make an excellent introduction for anyone wanting to investigate Hugh Walpole's writing. The first editions were issued in attractive gold-embossed green covers with similarly-designed white dustwrappers.
AFFECTED
Although Hugh Walpole was at the height of his fame in the 1 930s, his reputation was affected by the publication of Somerset Maugham's "Cakes and Ale" in 1930. This book portrayed Hugh Walpole - in the character of Alroy Kear - as a rather unpleasant and scheming literary opportunist. Despite Maugham's protestations' to the contrary, Hugh Walpole recognised the caricature. He was hurt by the incident, but eventually did manage to dismiss it from his mind. But the critics did not forget so easily. There was even a particularly venomous attack on Hugh Walpole in the 'Times' obituary column after his death in 1941, in which his literary achievements were belittled and no mention was made of his generosity and encouragement to other writers. Even as late as the 195Os,_occasional articles were still appearing in literary journals by writers who took perverse pleasure in trying to ridicule a once famous and greatly admired author. As a result, most of Hugh Walpole's books have been sadly neglected since his death.
Hugh Walpole's work continued apace after the "Cakes and Me" controversy, however, and following the completion of the Herries Chronicle he planned to enlarge it with the addition of four more novels. The plan was to begin with an Elizabethan Herries, and then continue the family saga up to the start of "Rogue Herries". In his diaries, Hugh Walpole even planned six later novels which would continue the history beyond the 1930s.
In reality, he wrote the first in the new series, which was published in 1940 under the title "The Bright Pavilions", but only managed to complete half of the next novel, "Katherine Christian", before his untimely death. Both these books were issued in bright red covers, with the same gold-embossed designs as the early Herries Chronicle. Together, they make a very attractive addition to any collection.
One might have thought that the preoccupation with such a large canvas as the Herries Chronicle would have absorbed most, if not all, of Hugh Walpole's literary and creative energies. But around the same period he produced some of his best single titles as we1[
ENTHUSIASTIC
"Wintersmoon", published in 1928, was a fine novel over 609 pages in length. This was followed in 1929 by "Hans Frost", which received his best reviews since "The Cathedral" seven years earlier. Virginia Woolf, the foremost novelist and literary critic of her day, was particularly enthusiastic, despite noting the difference in style from her own work.
The 1930s saw the publication of, among others, "Captain Nicholas" (1934), "A Prayer for My Son" (1936) and "John Cornelius" (1937). "Blind Man's House" (1941) is slightly more modem, in its exploration of the relationship between a blind man and his wife.
Hugh Walpole also wrote many short stories, and although he never attached much importance to them, his various collections were always well received. The best of his work in this genre was contained in the aptly titled "All Souls' Night" (1933), and two of these stories, "The Silver Mask" and "The Snow", have appeared in many ghost and horror anthologies over the years.
The middle-aged heroine or, more accurately, the victim of "The Silver Mask", is - in her apprehensiveness, fear and inability to deal with a crisis - a typical Hugh Walpole character. Perhaps in a way she betrayed some of Hugh Walpole's own subconscious characteristics. He himself stated that he had dreamt the whole story from first word to the last. But his own favourite story was the title piece from the posthumous collection "Mr Huffam and Other Stories", a latter-day Dickensian Christmas tale with a particularly fine ending.
Although it is true to say that Hugh Walpole never produced a 2Oth century classic, he was a remarkably consistent author, unable to compose a dull page whether he was dealing with fact or fiction.
VARIED
His life was as varied and interesting as his writing, and the excellent biography by Rupert Hart-Davis (1952) is a collectors item itself. It is highly recommended for anyone who wants to know more about Hugh Walpole's life and work.
"Above the Dark Circus" was published by MacIrdUan in 1931, shortly after Hugh Walpole was cruelly portrayed in Maughams': "Cakes and Ale".
SHORT STORIES
PLAYS
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Where can you get all those old, out of print books? Here!
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The article was adapted from the original from the August 1989 issue of Book Collector Magazine which was authored by one George Gorniak.
Philip K Dick Isaac Asimov Edith Wharton Angela Brazil John Fowles Robert Heinlein Raymond Chandler John D MacDonald Wilfred Thesiger Sylvia Townsend Warner Elizabeth Jane Howard Hugh Walpole Nevil Shute Vita Sackville-West Close-ended Questions