Aside from the somewhat tragic literary mistreatment of Sir Edgar Speyer and his wife, Overstrand has a couple of other interesting associations with early 20th-century novels.

I talked about The Pleasaunce in a Purple Tern post. Well, the ever-informative Lady Battersea made me aware that the extensive gardens at The Pleasaunce had been described "by the picturesque pen" of the Hon. Mrs. Felkin (writing under her maiden name, Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler), in the novel Ten Degrees Backward.

Thorneycroft Fowler's narrator, the hapless Reggie, is holidaying with his wife at "Bythesea", billed as a little village on the east coast with "bracing" qualities. He describes not only the "Garden of Sleep", known to us already from Clement Scott's Sidestrand musings, but also the "Garden of Dreams":

"It was ... more like a garden out of the Arabian Nights, which had been called into being in one night by some beneficent Djin, than a garden in matter-of-fact England. It was a garden of infinite variety and of constant surprises, where nothing grew but the unexpected; but where the unexpected flourished in great profusion and luxuriance. It was a most inconsequent garden; and to wander through its changing scenes was like wandering through the exquisite inconsistencies of a delightful dream."

The gardens of The Pleasaunce are much reduced now, but they must have been really amazing in their day.


The gate to the water garden

Lady Battersea also offers some fascinating little cameos of the Overstrand social and literary scene. Here's one:

"Miss Matty was a subject of interest to all visitors, as she walked with a little mincing gait, holding up a parasol, bowing right and left from under her white lace veil. On King Edward's death she wore a white serge dress with a black veil -- 'Court mourning,' as she called it. She was fond of telling all her numerous visitors that her home was like herself, very quaint; it was crowded with old and odd pieces of porcelain and some antique furniture, including a spinet. Amongst her callers were Mrs. Florence Barclay and Mrs. Felkin (Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler). The latter she once greeted as follows 'Oh, Mrs. Felkin, the novelist, and I do love a little friction!'..."

Given these local associations (and its free availability on Gutenberg), it felt nothing short of rude not to read the rest of Ten Degrees Backward...

It was published in 1915, but the action begins just before the First World War. This conflict is swiftly dealt with: "Germany ruthlessly broke the laws of God and of Man, and England upheld them and defended them even to the death." So there.

As a novel, it's a bit of a curiosity, which would give a contemporary psychologist plenty to discuss.

To start with, the narrator, Reginald Kingsnorth, labours under an inferiority complex the size of an elephant, apparently brought on by an overbearing father:

"I was exactly the sort of son that my father ought not to have had: in modern parlance he had no use for me. His son should have resembled himself, and should have been able to go on where he left off. As for me, I was of no good at the business, and of still less in politics: I could neither turn his thousands into tens of thousands, nor his baronetcy into a peerage; for I was endowed with a fatal capacity for sitting still."

These qualities of passivity and self-deprecation are heightened by his habit of constantly comparing himself with his bossy and energetic older sister: "Like her father, Annabel was dowered with the gift of Success, whilst I had the gift of Failure."

Luckily, Reggie does not have to expose his inadequacies to the fiery trials of the job market, as his father's death leaves him with a title, a house (Restham Manor), an estate, and a congenial role as a country squire.

But into the quiet existence of Reginald, Annabel, and their parson friend, Arthur, burst the orphaned Wildacre twins, Fay and Frank, whose guardianship Arthur has taken on at the request of their late father. Fay and Frank are vivacious, fun-loving, witty, and bound to shake things up a bit.

Frank, who is the first to arrive, possesses "the charm of fairies and of elves". Reginald instantly becomes much less dull and stodgy in his presence, firing Frank's agile imagination with his account of "things being so much more than they actually are": "When you realise how much is involved in even the smallest happenings -- how much romance and excitement and general thrilliness -- it turns everything into the most glorious adventure." That's actually a pretty good way of approaching life.

When Fay arrives, she heralds for Reginald a summer that was "a trip into fairyland".

Another focus of interest for the psychologically inclined is the twins' androgynous quality. Frank is slight, with a "husky, girlish voice". Fay, in contrast, has a "deep, almost boyish, voice". When Fay later quarrels with Reggie, she looks "more like a daring and defiant boy", and eludes him "with a boyish gesture".

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. In the course of that first summer, Reggie swiftly falls in love with Fay. He is very aware that he is 42, and she 18. He knows that "we may look young and feel young and all that sort of thing, but we are only really young once, and when once our youth is gone, it is gone for ever". But he consults Arthur, who counsels him to go ahead and ask Fay to marry him, and he consults Annabel, who considers the age disparity a real impediment, but eventually gives the planned proposal her blessing.

So he proposes, and Fay accepts, commenting that love has proved able, contrary to Reggie's doubts, to turn the sun dial ten degrees backward. But it is undeniably disconcerting, for modern readers, to hear Reggie address Fay as "little girl", and refer to her as "my child-wife"...

Fairly predictably, things fall apart at a brisk pace, as Reggie commits a series of mistakes: inviting his sister to stay on at Restham Manor; encouraging her to continue as housekeeper-in-chief, thus usurping any role Fay might have wanted to play; making a series of ham-handed, ultimately patronizing, efforts to persuade Fay to becomemmore fond of the interfering Annabel (all of which backfire); and finally inviting Frank to come and live with them as well.

Inevitably, a curtain falls between the young 'uns and the fogeys. Annabel advises Reggie to put his foot down on the burgeoning theatrical entertainments with which Frank and Fay are amusing themselves. He doesn't (which is good), but he doesn't for the wrong reasons: "Things being as they were -- that is to say, I being the quiet and uninteresting person that I was -- I did not see that I was justified in taking away from Fay any legitimate source of pleasure and interest in her life which might in some way make up for my limitations and deficiencies." Nevertheless, he is jealous of Frank's influence over Fay, and increasingly feels that their passion for stage performances is coming between him and his wife.

He continues to resist Annabel's exhortations to be firmer with Fay, remembering that their father's firmness had ultimately choked the spirit out of their mother. Unfortunately, the one he should have been firmer with, Annabel, also continues to have a free rein.

The cleavage persists, and Fay runs away, leaving Reggie totally bereft, and entirely unable to forgive Frank, whom he regards as responsible.

The denouement is most melodramatic, with the death of one twin, the appearance (in disguise) of the other, and the setting straight of the record: "Fay went away because she loved you too much... And she was so wild with jealousy, because she thought you loved your sister more than you loved her, that she hardly knew what she was doing... You see all the time that you were inventing trouble by thinking that you were too old and dull for her, she was inventing trouble by thinking that she was too young and silly for you, and that you were comparing her with your sister, and finding her inferior."

It reminds me very much of a Korean drama, but with more Christianity and less alcohol... There's the same sense of moral purpose; there's the same collection of larger-than-life characters who regularly make you long to say: "No, no, don't DO that!"; there's a lot of fortuitous coincidence; and there's that impersonation thing... Seriously, your eyesight would have to be REALLY bad for you not to notice...

As a period piece, though, not uninteresting.



Then we have The Rosary, by Florence L. Barclay, which you can also find on Gutenberg. This was published in 1909, so it's not, strictly speaking, a nineteen-teen book, but Martin Hipsky tells us it was the top-selling novel in both the UK and the US in 1910, so that's my justification. (The book was such an earner in the US that Putnam, the publisher, apparently renamed their building "The Rosary", while Barclay "donated her huge earnings to charity"...)

I'll leave it to Lady Battersea again to explain the connection:

"That which was once a small but picturesque cottage, standing in an apology for a garden in a by-way between the high road and the cliff, was owned in former days by a distinguished member of the medical profession from Norwich, Dr. Beverley. In time this cottage, with the grounds, was offered for sale, and finally became the property of the late Mr. Richardson and his wife, Victoria, Countess of Yarborough. A transformation scene under my husband's auspices soon took place. The cottage, now renamed 'The Corner House,' assumed a villa appearance, and the rough ground was turned into a little garden, an offshoot of The Pleasaunce...


Here and at the top of the post, The Corner House (now Danum House)

"After Mr. Richardson's death his widow sold 'The Corner House' to a lady who became widely known as a writer of fiction -- Mrs. Florence Barclay. Niece of a much-read authoress of Victorian days, Miss Charlesworth, whose book Ministering Children had become a household word in thousands of English-speaking homes --"

Ah, really? Maria Louisa Charlesworth of Ministering Children fame... I know that book... In one of my many bouts of childhood illness (our family doctor, who had a psychological bent, swore they were psychosomatic...), I remember telling an "aunt" (actually a cousin of my father's generation) that I was reading Little Women for the hundredth time (scarcely an exaggeration, as I truly loved that book...). "We have some books you can read," she said, and returned a while later with a collection of Victoriana. I gamely set off into Ministering Children, and found its quaintness interesting but its piety cloying. I don't think I got beyond the first chapter or so...

Anyway, I interrupted Lady Battersea:

"Mrs. Barclay by her novel The Rosary leapt into sudden fame. The demand for the book was extraordinary. It satisfied the tastes of the many who read little besides fiction but who shrink from literature that may bear a touch of unseemliness or irreverence."

This might sound a little like damnation with faint praise... Hipsky certainly sees a bit more going on beneath the surface, and even superficially there's a lot to like, providing you can cope with the heavy helping of sentimentality.

What made it enjoyable for me was the personality of the Honourable Jane Champion, the leading character. Jane is absolutely not the fluttering heroine of a conventional romance. She's big, smart, funny, athletic, and adventurous; we learn that she showed courage under fire as a nurse in the Boer war; and she's a talented singer and musician. Her big mistake is to turn down, very early on in the story, an offer of marriage from the man who adores her. Of course, she has her reasons. And she thinks those reasons are unselfish. Nevertheless, she comes to see things differently, and spends the rest of the story trying to walk that fateful decision back.



Lady Battersea tells us that Florence Barclay had "an arresting personality, and a fine mellow voice in speaking and singing". So maybe she modelled Jane on herself to some degree.

There are Korean qualities about this one too, I think. Someone goes blind, and again we have an impersonation that leads to the final happy ending (really, I'm not sure I'd ever trust anyone who had lengthily deceived me like that -- but whatever).

The book's title is taken from the eponymous song, with music by Ethelbert Nevin and words by Robert Cameron Rogers. It's a key driver of the action, in that it is Jane's very beautiful rendition of that song that makes Garth Dalmain realize that she is the one he loves.

It's actually really beautiful. Here is a version by Mario Lanza.

And it turns out that this was the melody, played on the cornet by Sergeant Edward McMahon, a bandmaster from the West Australian goldfields, that briefly stopped the fighting at Gallipoli in August 1915...

Overstrand -- really, so many endlessly fascinating associations.