Pt. III Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle

Pt. III

Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle

George William McArthur Reynolds

 

When it comes to time traveling the Gothic and Romantic periods are my favorites.  The study of origins is my favorite.  One is astonished in Reading Reynolds and Dickens how little things have changed, the same personality types with all the same dodges, the same terms, the same ideas just dressed differently from the twenty-first century.  Of course in this early stage of current developments, manners and methods were really crude, now they’ve become merely rude.  Much of the change experienced in the present is only because of introduction of technological innovations.  All of the innovations seem to be regressive in social effects.  Superficial perhaps.  By the time of the Industrial Revolution, blindsided  by the coming of the railroads and their attendant infra-structure, society was totally mentally and also physically disorganized and had to adjust as rapidly as possible even as further developments crowded time swiftly along.  It took decades to realize the nature of electricity which made its appearance at this time.  Photography which captured the images of the time.

George Stephens knew not what he had done when he put steam engines on the rails.  The joint stock company essentially arose from the railroads, giving birth to vast new streams of financial criminality.  Steamships and the Marconi telegraph drew North America closer together and expanded opportunity.

Reynolds and Dickens certainly seized the new financial crimes as important elements of their stories.  Dicken laments the displacement of the stage coach and its social structure as a whole major part of English civilization melted away as the snows of yesteryear.

The period of the Regency Bucks of the Romantic period and the new Men of the World or Man About Town captured Reynolds imagination.  His Mysteries of the Court of London captures the spirt of the Regency Buck while the Mysteries of London chronicles the adventures of the Man of the World or the Man About Town.  Although written in reverse order he apparently considered his two masterpieces as one unit.  And what a magnificent achievement.

When he began Mysteries of London in 1844, he was only a young thirty, ending the story when thirty-four.  During that period mind and skill developed exponentially, so as he began Mysteries of the Court of London, which would take eight years to write he moved into the years of his peak powers.  Well were they exhibited.  Court of London is amazing.  Those eight years were astonishing years.

Thus, in these twelve volumes (of my editions) Reynolds seems to have captured the dark side of England.  While apparently a true representation there were many others who wrote from a different viewpoint.  One of the finest was R.S. Surtees (Richard Smith) who wrote great sporting novels centered on his hero Jorrocks and fox hunting.  Surtee’s novels too are accurate portrayals of the Regency Buck but of rural England and not London.  George Borrow’s curious  novels, especially The Bible In Spain, are interesting although mostly concerned with the gypsies in England.  The great Romanticists Byron and Shelley and their interpreter Thomas Love Peacock.  Who can possibly ignore the great recorder of Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackery.  The amazing career of the inventor of the historical novel, Walter Scott.  Scott in his magnificent effusion literary skill influenced a couple of generation at least to 1850 both in England and the Continent.  Both Sue and Dumas acknowledged their debt to the great Walter Scott.  There were other Penny Dreadful writers, perhaps more narrow in scope, such as James Malcolm Rymer and his two great works Varney The Vampire and Sweeney Todd, William Harrison Ainsworth, Bulyer Lytton, a major influence of Reynolds and others.  There is literary wealth to equal the gold mines of the Witwatersrand, too precious to be forgotten.

While famous in his time Reynolds’ fame was of a disreputable kind.  He himself was disreputable and he wrote Penny Dreadfuls.

Victorian scholar Lee Jackson writes of general opinion of Penny Dreadfuls.  He quotes a James Greenwood from his 1869 complaint against the literature, The Seven Curses of London.

Quote:

Is it because it stands to reason that all such coarse and vulgar trash finds its level amongst the coarse and vulgar, and could gain no footing above its own elevation?  It may stand to reason, but unfortunately it is the unreasonable fact that this same pen poison finds customers at heights above its natural low and foul waterline almost inconceivable.  How otherwise is it accountable that at least a quarter of million of these penny numbers are sold weekly?  How is it that in quiet suburban neighbourhoods far removed from the stews of London, and the pernicious atmosphere they engender; in serene and peaceful semi-country towns where genteel boarding schools flourish, there may almost invariably be found some small shopkeeper who accommodatingly receives consignments of “Blue-skin,” and the “Mysteries of London,”  and unobtrusively supplies his well-dressed little customer with these full-flavoured articles?  Granted, my dear sir, that your young jack, or my twelve years old Robert… and so on.

Unquote.

Undoubtedly young Bob and Jack received an eyeful and a magnificent addition to their education.

So these Penny Dreadfuls, like the Dime novels of slightly later US, the comic books beginning in the 1930s, sci-fi movies and stories in the fifties and horror of all horrors, the Rock and Roll explosion that was seen as soul destroying missiles to be suppressed.  Along the scale of decades the nineteen fifties are overlooked for the exciting years they were.

Were Penny Dreadfuls soul destroying?  Well, a little over a hundred years later society degenerated from Mysteries of London to the totally soul destroying Tales From The Crypt comic books.  A definite downward spiral there.  But, how is it that the soul destroying Mysteries of London passed from vulgar filth to valuable literary virtue?

In point of fact, even as fiction, the Mysteries is accurate reportage of conditions in London of the time.  Reynolds might have been of questionable morality himself, Mysteries reads as though he had personally experienced the incidents (literary skill perhaps,).   His portrayals are of what he considered ‘men of the world.’  Indeed, he desperately wanted to be known as ‘a man of the world.’  And that ‘man of the world’ seems to be a ‘gentlemanly’, or at least an aspirant to gentlelimaness, criminal.  George Montague Greenwood schemes to separate rich men from their money by devious financial schemes.  And he and his kind are successful.  Was Reynolds one of these schemers?  Certainly his knowledge of their ways would indicate that he associated with them.  Amongst the Chartists, a political group, with which he was involved, he earned a reputation for promoting financial schemes for which he was rejected.  Was his mind not then conditioned to such schemes?  It would seem that he used false bankruptcies to advance his own financial affairs.

Reynolds very likely paraded the ‘Man of the World’ notion in his life or because it was so prominent in his novels that Dickens, who certainly bore Reynolds no goodwill, with justice, may very likely have been referring to him in this passage from The Old Curiosity Shop:

Quote:

‘He, he!’ simpered Brass, who in his deep debasement really seemed to have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her any spark of manliness he might have possessed.  ‘You think so, Sarah, you think so perhaps; but you would have acted quite differently, my good fellow.  You will not have forgotten that it was a maxim of Foxey—our revered father, gentlemen—Always suspect everyone.  That’s the maxim to go through life with.’--…

With deference to the latter opinion of Mr. Brass, and more particularly to the authority of his Great Ancestor, it may be doubted with humility whether the leveling principle laid down to the latter gentleman, and acted on by his descendant, is always a prudent one, or attended by practice with the desired results.  This beyond question a bold and presumptuous doubt, in as much as many distinguished characters called men of the world, longheaded customers, knowing dogs, shrewd fellows, and their like have made, and do daily make, this axiom their star and compass.  Still the doubt may be greatly insinuated.  And in illustration it may be observed that if Mr. Brass, not being over-suspicious, had without prying and listening, had not been in such a might hurry to anticipate her (which he would not have been, but for his distrust and jealously.) he would probably have found himself much better off in the end.  That it will always happen that these men of the world, who go through it in armor, defend themselves from quite as much good as evil, to say nothing of the inconvenience  and absurdity of mounting guard with a microscope at all times, and of wearing a coat of mail on the most innocent occasions.

Unquote.

I would not consider the lawyer Brass of Dickens’ story a man of the world nor as I perceive Reynolds using the term.  So long as one retires from the world to some extent that rescues oneself from many of the hazards of the world, but as nearly everyone must move about in the world I would prefer a very close attention, and if that attention slopped over into paranoia so be it, to who is doing what.

Reynolds very brilliantly portrays the hazards of fixtures and forces that may be operating to one’s detriment in the background.  Indeed, if Richard Markham had been more of a man of the world and less naïve he would have avoided the snares that landed him in prison.  Thus Reynolds’ trusting characters are always being blindsided.

Sometimes one’s projected villainies that are foiled save one from a greater danger.  Reynolds very cleverly does this in the case of George Montague and Eliza Sydney.  Eliza has been unwittingly mired into a scheme by her mentor, Mr. Stephens.  Stephens has employed George Montague, alias of Eugene Markham, to bear false witness in the situation.  A day or so before its realization Montague and Eliza who have become close, Eliza in love with him, during a horrid storm later at night, offers Montague a room to save him walking home as cabs are no longer available. Gorgeous woman of the swelling ivory orbs, Montague works himself into a fever entering her room with evil intent.  Eliza awakens, is horrified at the thought of what Montague was contemplating and breaks relations off completely then and there.  She is not a woman of the world.

This means he can no longer serve as Stephens accomplice.  Stephens replaces him with the shifty lawyer, Mac Chizzle.  Meanwhile, the police who had a spy system reviewing the mail working from a Black Room in which they open letters have opened and read a letter by Stephens detailing the scheme and the date of execution.  The authorities are alerted.  Stephens, Mac Chizzle and Sydney are arrested as Stephens would have been if he had maintained strict morality and not thought to rape Eliza.  Thus his evil intents saved him from being caught in the police snare.

An excellent detail that shows off Reynolds’ brilliance and is something that the more basic Dickens could never have conceived and executed. 

Ramifications from this incident in the first hundred pages will be continued throughout twenty-four hundred additional pages.

So, we have a huge record of virtue and vice as outlined in Part II of Time Travel.  Add the concern with virtue and vice to that of the concept of man of the world and you have the core of Reynolds’ concerns.  Now, how did Reynolds learn all the details that make his work interesting.  After all he was now only thirty years old and seems to have the experience and knowledge of a much more mature man.  He gives us at least a partial answer in this passage from his Mysteries.

Eugene Markham alias George Montague now becomes Greenwood, the moniker, George Montague having been worn out and no longer useful.  Greenwood wishes to employ the criminal Tom the Cracksman, or burglar, for a crime.  They are negotiating:

Quote:

“What the natur’ of the service?” demanded the Cracksman, darting a keen and penetrating glance at Greenwood.

“A highway robbery,” cooly answered this individual.

“Well, that’s plain enow,” said the Cracksman.  “But first tell me how you came to know of me, and where I was to be seen because how can I tell but what this is all a plant of yours to get me in trouble?”

“I will answer you candidly and fairly.  A few years ago, when I first entered into London life, I determined to make myself acquainted with all the ways of the metropolis, high or low, virtuous or vicious.  I disguised myself on several occasions in very mean clothes, and visited all the flash houses and patter cribs- amongst others, the boozing ken in Great Saffron Hill.  There you were pointed out to me; and your skill, your audacity, and your extraordinary luck in eluding the police, were vouched by the landlord of the place in no measured terms…”

“…the landlord’s a fool to talk so free; how did he know you wasn’t a trap in disguise?”

“Because I told him that my object was merely to see life in all its shapes and I was then so very young I could scarcely have been considered dangerous.  However, I have occasionally indulged in such rambles, even today…”

Unquote.

Now, looking freely at what is known of Reynolds’ history, his father being a naval Captain, he was stationed on the British island of Guernsey next to France until Reynolds was eight, then was moved to Canterbury in Kent where he attended a school in its proximity.  Then at fourteen in 1828 he was placed at the military academy at Sandhurst, which according to his scenario he left to flee to France at the age of sixteen in 1830.  Perhaps this has something to do with so many of his heroines being sixteen.  You have to pay attention to his very precise dates in his stories.  Most of the biographical details I’m using come from the two Dick Collins’ articles noted under the title of the this essay.

Collins disputes the 12,000 pound inheritance of 1830 but I find it difficult to believe that a sixteen year old kid would have attempted to be an ex-pat in France without a sixpence in his pocket. Perhaps from his early experience in Guernsey he could handle the French language.  I doubt if French was on the curriculum of Sandhurst.  Collins points out that during the Napoleonic wars Reynold’s father captained a frigate and took several prizes.  The proceeds from the prizes were parceled out in shares to officers and crew.  It is not unlikely that the captain’s share might have added up to twenty thousand pounds, or more, to Capt. Reynolds’ estate, which have escaped Collins’ attention.  Certainly the Reynolds family was not living hand to mouth.  Reynold’s says specifically that he received the inheritance from his father.  I have no difficulty believing that his father left his son twelve thousand pounds. His mother died in March of 1830 when he was fifteen thus he would have come under the jurisdiction of his active guardian Duncan McArthur.  So McArthur would have been in charge of the family finances.  He would have had to pay Reynolds way from those funds.  It appears probable that Reynolds got into some kind of trouble at Sandhurst, possibly inducted into a gambling crowd, so that he left Sandhurst, removed by his friends, so the phrase has it.  That happened in July of 1830 just as the revolution in France occurred.  Now adrift with no direction it seems likely that he would have petitioned McArthur for his inheritance and with it leave for France where he stayed for six or seven years until his money was gone.  He was probably a prey to the sharpers he depicts so well while learning their ways.  Of course, the above may be just one solution to the  Mysteries of G.W.M Reynolds.

At any rate as Reynolds returned to England in 1837 at the young age of twenty-three he had no familiarity with the metropolis having formerly lived in Kent at Canterbury which is why the area figures so prominently in his stories.  Twenty-three is one of ages, along with sixteen, that recur frequently in his writings.  So, beginning in 1837 at the age of twenty-three Reynolds began familiarizing himself with London high and low, East End and West End.  A great and daunting adventure.

Now, Reynolds had met and married his wife Susannah Pierson in Paris.  She was English but Collins can find few details about her except that Reynolds met her in prison, whatever that means, either as a visitor or an inmate.  She may also have been married before at fourteen making her Reynolds her second husband at the age of either late sixteen or early seventeen.  That occurred in in 1835 when Reynolds was twenty-one.  The marriage was one of those made in heaven as they were happily married until she died.

A sixteen year old showing up in France with twelve thousand pounds must have attracted every sharper, or man of the world, in Paris, thus Reynolds’ education began.  He knows whereof he speaks.

This learning curve must have been painful and arduous requiring a strong mind to survive and overcome.  If he had twelve thousand pounds when he arrived in France he left without any.   Twelve thousand pounds was a lot of money to go through in six years.  He, therefore, arrived in England without any of the ready.  He had to find his way out of the hole, what with a wife and offspring arriving frequently.

How autobiographical is the Mysteries?  I think highly but it requires a lot of imagination and interpretation, and then you can’t be certain.  It would appear that the two brothers Eugene and Richard Markham represent the two halves of a split personality.  Richard is the naïve young sport who left England for France and came back as a variation of Eugene, this also plays into the de Sadian dichotomy of Justine and Juliette, virtue and vice.  Thus viewing each half separately one arrives at the whole.

In the story Richard survives while Eugene/GeorgeMontague/Greenwood is killed off by an aggrieved victim.  Thus virtue triumphs over vice reversing de Sade’s reverse understanding of life.  That was in 1848.  Does that mean that Reynolds lived the rest of his life in Richard’s shoes?  Not as late as 1850 it doesn’t.  According to his Chartist friends he was still full of questionable financial schemes.

Those schemes may very well have resembled the schemes of his characters and possible his alter ego Montague/Greenwood.  If so, his alter ego was a much more successful schemer than he was.  According to Dick Collins, who seems knowledgeable, but never gives the sources of his information, Reynolds was arrested in France and imprisoned in France for playing with  loaded dice in Calais.  The man certainly outlined the tricks of doctoring dice in the Mysteries, even with illustrations.  Collins says that he met Susannah Pierson in prison in France.  Whether that means that a very young Susannah was a visitor or a prisoner Collins doesn’t make clear.  If she had been convicted of some malfeasance, then both she and Reynolds were partners in skirting the law.

Collins even makes a not implausible accusation that Reynolds was arrested for stealing jewels  in order to pay his bill at Long’s Hotel in Bond Street.  Reynolds’ has long passages that take place in Long’s Hotel in his novel Grace Darling or The Heroine of Fern Islands.  His character Slapman Twill may have been his alter ego in this incident.  At any rate Mr. Twill is arrested at Long’s restaurant for non-payment of bills and goes to King’s Bench prison much as Collins says Reynolds did.

And then Reynolds files for bankruptcy three times apparently having learned to take advantage of bankruptcy laws.  He has the proprietor of the Dark House public house gloat that the bankruptcy laws were great as he had filed and was doing very nicely.

Thus as Reynolds roamed the lower and higher reaches of society he definitely lived in the lower until later in life.  Even then he was probably not accepted in society because of his prison time as Richard Markham has a very difficult time living down his prison stay even though he was a dupe and innocent of the charges.  Collins has him living in the lowest area of London, the Borough, at one time as well as other terrible locations.

One imagines Reynolds prowling the streets of these poverty stricken areas examining each and every side street until he became thoroughly familiar with the streets.  This is especially evident in the Courts of London which can be very terrifying.  Streets, buildings and inhabitants, Reynolds knew them all.  He provides an accurate portrait of all aspects of London as it then existed. 

I would like to close part III with an aside, that of the great plan of Reynolds’ novels, because all the novels seem to have a resemblance to  Balzac’s Human Comedy.  I am just sketchy here as I familiarize myself with Reynolds’ vast corpus.  Reynold’s himself said the Mysteries of London and Court of London were one vast story.  If so, then it appears that rather than two parts of the continuum there are three written out of order.  Mysteries of London is actually Part three and it was written first.  Mysteries of the Court of London is the second part written after both the first and last parts.  Reynolds undertook to write The Mysteries of Old London or Days of Hogarth which portrays mid-eighteenth century London previous to the birth of George IV in the last two years of Mysteries of London.

The Court of London chronicles the doings of George IV during the Regency when Reynolds appears to have hated him for whatever reason.  George IV died in 1830 just as Mysteries of London begins.  Reynolds who was sixteen with George IV died then had actual memories of him as king.

So, between the three novels, Old London while not as long as the other two is not that short either, we have one long semi-historical novel of a hundred some years.  Mysteries of London and Court of London are said to contain four and a half million words with perhaps a hundred-fifty to two hundred thousand for Old London so unraveling the mind of Reynolds which I believe is a worthy pursuit is a mighty project especially with all the side novels of further explication thrown in.

I doubt if I will be equal to the task but I hope my analysis is not an unworthy effort.

 

Part IV of Time Traveling with R.E. Prindle follows in which I will examine primarily the early novels Alfred de Rosann and Grace Darling and perhaps Master Timothy’s Bookcase.