Pt. IV
Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle
by
R.E. Prindle
The Past Is Always Present
While we are
concentrating on the early mid-nineteenth century it may be worthwhile to
travel back to a few earlier periods of interest. In addition to Time, Place is equally
important. As there are limitations to
the human mind to be all inclusive I limit my travels to Greater Europe and the
US. If one had the great universal mind
of the god Zeus one might be able to include all times and places but the
information could hardly be presented in a coherent, comprehensive manner to a
reading public and that public could not ingest and digest such massive amounts
of information. Forgetting begins the
moment the impression begins.
Even an
author like Reynolds with only forty some really long books has probably never
been read in his entirety nor is it likely he should for a well rounded
education. I will attempt it but at my
age completion is unlikely.
Speaking of
Zeus, perhaps the most important book ever written is Homer’s Iliad which
recounted the great struggle between East and West, the Patriarchy and the
Matriarchy during the years circa 1200 BC that finally was reduced to written
form c. 800-600 BC. Proto-scientific it
catalogued all the personality types and their characteristics. In the sense of as above, so below it fused seamlessly
the celestial and terrestrial worlds.
The supernatural and natural in a comprehensive rationalistic
manner. Homer, to whom the work is
accredited while not having the universal mind of Zeus came as close as any
human will. As a single work it will
never be topped.
Moving back
toward mid-nineteenth century, the end of the eighteenth, a marvelous piece of time travel by the great,
the immortal Edward Gibbon is the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that
runs through fifteen hundred years of the spectacular and unbelievable crimes
and follies of humanity, but true.
Together with the Iliad of Homer the two works present an incomparable
view of the human situation. Indeed,
Zeus threw Folly our of heaven for making a fool of his Great Universal Mind.
These two
works are the greatest of the Time Travelers but sometimes one, a reader, finds
he has landed in a period with a guide who forms a complete personal
rapport. Such was the case with me when
I entered the world of the Frenchman, the Duc de Roquelaure. The Duc lived during the time of Louis XIV in
the seventeenth century. His memoirs
were unknown in the English speaking world until 1895. The secret memoirs were kept secret from England
and America to that date.
The Duc
speaks to me though person to person. He
transports me back to that amazing time.
Going even
further back there is an amazing time capsule called Huon of Bordeaux. What an adventure this is. Huon is trapped in a world conflict between
the terrestrial Charlemagne, the Christian God and Oberon of the Faerie
Kingdom. Part of the Chansons de Geste
of Charlemagne it captures the feel of the struggle between the worldly kingdom
of Charlemagne, the Faerie Kingdom of Arthur and the Pope in Rome. The author lives in a multiplicity of
supernatural and natural worlds. He
posits a contest between the Catholic God and Oberon, King of the Faeries. One can almost believe God and Oberon are
real, of course, Charlemagne was.
The Chansons
de Geste were written at the same time the fantastic fairy stories of Arthur
were. Between the two they create a
whole new universe that is provides an intimate connection to the world of
Homer and through both and woven through both worlds that of Christianity. And that of course leads us up to the
nineteenth century universe of George W.M. Reynolds.
Reynolds
does not have the universal mind of Zeus but then who does? Reynolds at his peak from 1844 to 1856 or 58
was Herculean.
Reynolds
began his career floundering around trying to find his method and style. He always considered himself an educator. He called one of his magazines The Political
Instructor. In the epilogue to the
Mysteries of London in his own signed voice he rather peevishly responds to the
criticism of his writing ‘sensational literature’ rather than moral or
instructive. I quote:
‘Tis done:
VIRTUE is rewarded—VICE has received its punishment.
Said we not,
in the very opening of this work, that from London branched off two roads,
leading to two points totally distinct the one from the other?
Have we not
shown how one winds its torturous way through all the noisome dens of crime,
chicanery, dissipation and voluptuousness; and how the other meanders through
treacherous rocks, and wearisome acclivities, but having on the way-side the
resting places of rectitude and virtue?
Unquote.
The triumph
of virtue over vice is very important to Reynolds. While in France he had read the novels of the
Marquis de Sade in which de Sade posits the superiority of vice over
virtue. The notion mortally offended
Reynolds and so he seeks to refute de Sade in novels at least as long as
Justine or Juliette.
He goes on
in self-justification:
Quote:
Have we not
taught in fine how the example and the philanthropy of one good man can “save
more souls and redeem more sinners than all the Bishops that ever wore lawn
sleeves?”
Unquote.
Quite
obviously Reynolds considers himself one of those good men, indeed, a very
priest among them. And further more:
Quote:
And if, in
addition to considerations of this nature, we may presume that so long as we
are able to afford entertainment, our labors will be rewarded by the approval
of the immense audience to whom we address ourselves, --we may with confidence
invite attention to a “SECOND SERIES of “THE MYSTERIES OF LONDON.”
Unquote.
So, in other
words, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet and if you are not part of ‘the immense
audience’ you don’t count. And justly so
as the second series would be The Mysteries of the Court of London that doubled
down on the original. In the second
series he would continue his explanations, the odd fact, criminal argot. His researches that appear fairly extensive
are always informative and enlightening.
For instance his history of the catacombs of Paris was entirely new to
me. It turns out that there is an extensive
necropolis under Paris containing the bones of six million or more souls. At one time the cemeteries of Paris became so overcrowded that the
bodies, buried in stacks, one on top of the other were dug up and the bones
removed in organized piles in these catacombs.
In fact,
cemeteries seem to be a major interest of Reynolds as he conducts a tour of
London’s burial grounds led by his character The Resurrection Man. But that doesn’t concern us here.
Before
Reynolds found his way beginning in 1844 he wrote a total of eight books that
by 1842 when he took a hiatus of two years were leading nowhere. Apart from sparks of genius flying from these
volumes they are not seminal works although exhibiting many high points of
interest.
His
continuation of Dickens’ Pickwick Papers, Pickwick Abroad, has already been
discussed while it is perhaps the most worthy of his early oeuvre followed
closely by Master Timothy’s Bookcase.
His novel The Steam Packet of 1840 is not readily available nor the
Modern Literature of France, 1839.
Robert Macaire, of 1839, has already been discussed while Alfred de
Rosann or The Adventures of a French Gentleman, 1838, and Grace Darling or The
Heroine of the Ferne Islands, 1839 remain.
Reynold
seems unable to generate a novel without a model on which to base his work. Thus, as we know, he used Charles Dickens and
in Alfred de Rosann he piggybacked on Bulwer Lytton’s first novel Pelham or The
Adventures of a Gentleman. Bulwer Lytton
as a novelist does not move me. Pelham
apparently launched him but I find it a very amateurish first effort. Difficult reading.
With his
Grace Darling Reynolds is piggy backing on the fame of one Grace Darling or The
Heroine of the Fern Islands as the novel barely uses the story of her fame as a
prop. Now spelled Farne Islands and
perhaps pronounced that way in Reynolds’ day, the story alerted me to the
identity of such an island group. The
Farnes are a group of small islands off the coast of East Anglia. I had never noticed them on my maps or heard
of them before.
At any rate
a big storm arose in the days of the paddle wheel steamships or ‘packets’ as
they were known then and one of them became disabled and thrown on the rocks
guarding one of the islands. Grace and
her father braved the waves rowing out to rescue the passengers. On an apparent slow news day this event was made
big news and Grace became a temporary celebrity. Reynolds takes advantage of it in an attempt
to sell his book.
I shouldn’t
say temporary because in the early twenty-first century there were half a dozen
or more books available to the reading public that celebrated this celebrated
rescue by Grace and her aged father. But
Grace’s story appears to be a mere bid for a few sales as it contributes
nothing to the novel. Reynolds should
have been ashamed of himself. Maybe he
was.
Otherwise in
a disjointed novel I found several charms that made for an enjoyable read
before the disappointing ending. The
novels protagonist, the humorous Slapwell Twill, might possibly be based on
Reynolds himself.
The novel
was written after a stay on the Queen’s Bench prison by Reynolds in 1837-38. As Dick Collins mentions that Reynolds may
have been committed for trying to steal jewelery to pay his bill at Long’s
Hotel that may have been the reason he was in prison. While it is true that he was involved in a
bankruptcy at this time bankruptcies didn’t involve imprisonment. In fact, Reynolds who may have used
bankruptcies as a tool to avoid paying debts without injury speaks rapturously
about it or has a character do so in The Mysteries of London. His imprisonment may therefore have been the
result of a failed theft and a complaint from Long’s.
At any rate
Slapwell Twill suffered the same fate while he seems to have had plenty of
money in prison as he was an aristocrat while serving. It is clear that he was familiar with the
inside of prisons both in France and England.
In addition he toured all these establishments so his descriptions are
very accurate. He often seems to be
reporting with additional fictional fillups.
The main
story involves the seduction and abandonment of Eliza Richards. She was impregnated by her seducer and
abandoned. Not unreasonably she has a
deep hatred of him that can only be satisfied by his death. Unable as a woman to encompass this she
marries a man on condition that he find and kill her seducer, Henry Hunter.
Reynolds of
course as a sociologist portrays as many types of women as he can. While he is very sympathetic to the plight of
women he is no ideologist and portrays both good and bad women. But woman as woman is indispensable to
him. In Mysteries of London he says:
Quote:
…he learnt
that woman possesses attractions far—far more witching, more permanent, and
more endearing than all the boons that nature ever bestowed on their
countenances or their forms.
Unquote.
Such an
attitude may explain why he and Susanna had such a satisfying marriage. Still Reynolds is no slave to feminism or its
more ridiculous attitudes. Women had
positive and negative attributes the same as men.
Eliza
becomes bad even evil in her hatred and distress. Thus, she meets her future husband
Sommerville who she marries on condition that he avenge her by murdering her
seducer, known as Mr. Stanley. He is
difficult to find because Stanley had been an alias while his real name was
Henry Hunter.
So incident
rolls along until Sommerville and Eliza find Stanley/Hunter and Sommerville
challenges him to a duel which he wins, wounds Stanley but doesn’t kill
him. Eliza is unsatisfied she wants
Stanley/Hunter dead.
As the novel
is titled Grace Darling Reynolds has to work her in somewhere. That somewhere was in the Fern Islands where
the whole outfit is improbably aboard the Forfarshire as it lands on the
rocks. While on the island Hunter arrives
and Eliza demands that Sommerville fight another duel with him and this time
Sommerville kills Stanley/Hunter. There
was only one hitch; Sommerville also
receives his death wound. So Eliza drove
her husband, who had inherited a fortune making them rich to his death,
negating the revenge on her seducer. One
is reminded of Paris and Helen.
Thus
Reynolds shows another side of woman:
too weak to revenge themselves they induce a man to sacrifice himself
for them. I think it is the absence of
the doctrinaire that makes Reynolds interesting. He has strong and consistent opinions that
are based on reason and sociologically sound.
The last of
the early group of novels and the last of the group I will consider here is
Master Timothy’s Bookcase. I think it
fair to say that the early novels did little to establish Reynold’s
reputation. The most successful of the
early batch, Pickwick Abroad, probably hurt his reputation as much as it helped
as it was considered a plagiarism rather than a continuation. Adapting Bulwer-Lytton’s Pelham in Alfred
Rosann led nowhere. However, let me say,
that except for some obvious faults his early books have merit. The description of the prison at Brest was
worth the read. Sociologically valuable.
Grace
Darling apart from touches was laughable but fun. So, by
1842 Reynolds was obviously at his wits end and the only role model he could
come up with was another stab at Dickens.
Dickens himself appears to have had few novel ideas so he began a
magazine called Master Humphrey’s Clock which was a collection of short stories
held together by a very loose narrative something after the manner of ETA
Hoffman and his Serapion Brethren.
I’m no
Dickens fan so I have a fairly low opinion of his early output although those
novels were rapturously received. His
reputation far exceeded his talent but he was riding a wave. His magazine faltered after a couple issues,
most likely because of its ridiculous three pence price, until The Old
Curiosity Shop emerged from its pages.
My first reading was recent at eighty years of age and I didn’t find it
very impressive. At the time it was another
great success for him and is still highly regarded.
So, seeking
a model, Reynolds plagiarized Dicken’s
idea once again composing Master Timothy’s Bookcase. Two thirds is French based while the last
third takes place in England as Reynolds had returned to England himself while
he also ended the Bookcase with another continuation of Pickwick apparently
having run out of inspiration. As
Reynolds was also familiar with German literature as well as French and English
one wonders whether he too was influenced by ETA Hoffman’s masterful Serapion
Brotherhood collection of stories.
The French
part of Bookcase is superb. A collection
of short stories with a tight narrative continuation. I highly recommend it. The book definitely presages Reynolds’ finest
work.
It probably
disappeared with but moderate success at best.
Reynold’s ran out of inspiration so for two years from 1842 to 1844 he
was infertile. Amazingly after following
up The Old Curiosity Shop with Barnaby Rudge Dickens ran out of novelistic
ideas putting out only a series of long short stort stories or novellas until
Dombey and Son.
The question
is then what was Reynolds doing during those two years that he wasn’t writing. There are hints in the earlier novels that
the idea central to the Mysteries Of
London of the two brothers and the two trees representing them was
gestating in his mind but he had no framework to base his story on. He had during his time in France read the
Marquis de Sade’s novels Justine and Juliette in which de Sade contrasts
whether a life of virtue or vice leads to greater happiness coming down in
favor or vice. Reynolds was offended by
this conclusion and Mysteries of London is written in refutation of de Sade’s
notion.
The
important question here is what was Reynolds doing during his writing hiatus
between 1842-44? As of 1842 at the age
of twenty eight, a very important age, he may very well have been considered a
failed novelist and one who plagiarized freely.
Two years later in 1844 at the age of thirty his situation was
precarious. It was a do or die point in
his life.
On one level
one must believe that he was reading furiously.
He, at that time, was familiar with English, German and French
literature. He had a concept of British
and European history. Certainly he must
have been surveying the scene, analyzing the periodic literature situation to
come up with a sure fire or hit story to make his fortune. In looking at the previous few years it was
quite clear that the penny serialization story could be made profitable if a
good story line could be continued for several years.
The problem
with that was getting a good deal with the publisher who had the whip hand. Even Dickens’ Pickwick Papers was not a solo
effort. Publisher, illustrator with Dickens
as writer worked out the novel in concert so Dickens probably received a slim
return from serialization profits; the publisher undoubtedly getting the lion’s
share. This literary scene can be
compared with the music record scene of the mid twentieth century.
Certainly
Reynolds had connections in the business.
I imagine Reynolds was working for a way to realize his concept of the
two brothers, good and evil. He was trying to work out a method of presenting
it. Then, when the Frenchman Eugene Sue
began the serialization of the Mysteries of Paris, that monumental long work,
in 1843 the entire plot line of his own Mysteries of London was laid out before
him. Of a sudden the means of telling
the story of two brothers became clear in his mind. Using Sue’s solution for the story he was
able to write with incredible coherence for forty eight straight months, four
years. Two hundred four instalments.
Within a year the story was selling thirty thousand copies a week,
edging up toward fifty thousand. You
should let those figures sink in.
They’re phenomenal. At the time
the population of England was something over twenty million with more than eleven
million illiterates. Fifty thousand
weekly copies was market penetration. It
blew Reynolds’ mind. In the postscript
to Mysteries of London, speaking in his own voice Reynolds says this about
that:
Quote:
…we may
presume that so long a we are able to afford entertainment, our labours will be
rewarded by the approval of the immense audience to whom we address
ourselves—we may with confidence invite attention to a SECOND SERIES OF THE
MYSTERIES OF LONDON.
Unquote.
In other
words it worked so well the first time we’re going to do it again and make it
twice as long. Further his confidence
was justified by the results.
I have to
make a correction here. I reported
erroneously (I’ve left the original text below.) In fact there were 240 pence to the pound and
twenty shillings. Twelve pence to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound. I
couldn’t make the values jibe so I belatedly researched English coinage terms. It’s good to know the value of the coins
being thrown around.
Beginning
with the Guinea then. A Guinea is valued
at one pound and a shilling, 21 shillings to the Guinea. The slang term was Yellow Boy.
A pound consists
of 20 shillings or 240 pence. Larger
amounts are expressed by Reynolds as notes, as in a five pound, ten pound notes
and larger. Slang for notes are
flimsies. Flimsies were held less in
estimation than the gold pound coin called a Sovereign. Thus the characters press Sovereigns or
Guineas into a servitors palm for a valuable service.
A Sovereign
was relatively small, light weight being 22 millimeters in diameter and just
short of 8 grams or less than a third of an ounce. Thus the thousand sovereign bags Reynolds has
his characters throwing around didn’t weight that much.
And then
there is the half-sovereign, weighing half of its big brother with a 19mm
diameter.
Below that was
the shilling or twelve pence or 1/20 of a pound. Then there are numerous shilling pieces.
A half
shilling was called a tanner
A Crown was
worth five shillings. Crowns are
frequently referred to by Reynolds. A
Tanner or a Crown would be semi-respectable coins.
Next came a
Groat worth four pence.
Then a
Thruppence or three pence
After that
the Tuppence or two pence
And then we
come to the workhorse of the coinage, the penny of which as aforesaid 240 make
a pound. The pence had good value such
that it was divided into the half-pence, or ha’ penny, the quarter pence or farthing and even the
one-eight pence called the mite.
As you can
see the opportunity to cheat the unwary was immense. While the values of merchandise the penny
could buy must also have been extensive.
Perhaps an item might be one and a half pence or one and a quarter pence
so all that coinage was necessary.
One must
assume that large numbers of poor people had never seen a sovereign or guinea. In their neighborhoods getting change for a Guinea
must have been difficult. It also should
be noted that flimsies were difficult to negotiate due to extensive
counterfeiting.
The values
for Reynolds’ earning as below must then be adjusted downward. He was still doing very well and according to
the author Guy Dicks he left 20,000 pounds in his will.
Addendum,
containing the erroneous first valuation I made.
Now, fifty
thousands of pennies a week at twenty pennies to the pound equates to two
thousand five hundred pounds a week. We
are now talking big money. Profits might
amount to somewhere between a thousand to perhaps fifteen hundred pounds a
week. I haven’t read anywhere what deal
he had cut with his publisher on the first series. It isn’t clear what he was paid or on what
schedule. As in the record business of
the twentieth century the publishers or manufacturers were very reluctant to
pay royalties at all and if they did pay it was only after a very long delay
and sometimes you had to sue to get paid.
Thus Reynolds may have believed he was cheated, and I can almost
guarantee that he was, so he was reluctant to repeat the process with the
second series.
At any rate
with the vision of satisfying the entertainment needs of an immense public
before him Reynolds elected to strike out on his own being his own publisher
while employing the printer John Dicks to manufacture the parts. On the title page of the books it says
explicitly: Printed for the Publisher by
John Dicks. Dicks therefore contracted
to print the books for a fee. He had no
rights. In the early sixties when
Reynolds gave up novel writing he sold the copyrights to Dicks, thus rewarding
him for loyal service. One wonders what
Dicks paid: thirty of fifty thousand pounds?
Stephen
Knight in his G.W.M. Reynolds And His Fiction posits that he had a falling out
with George Stiff his first publisher because of an abrasive personality. I have nothing to say on that score but
Reynolds would have been foolish not to have struck out on his own unless he
could cut his own deal with Stiff which he could not do. Manufacturers tend to consider writers and
performers their personal property, something like owning a gold mine.
A comparable
twentieth century situation is afforded by the relationship between the Beatles
and their company EMI/Capitol Records, EMI being the English publisher and
Capitol being the American. As
non-entities the Beatles had been signed to miniscule royalties as was the
custom with record companies. Like
Reynolds the Beatles then became a massive seller representing perhaps fifty
percent or more of EMI/Capitol’s sales.
A tremendous battle ensued in which the contract was voided. In the new contract the Beatles acquired a
much larger royalty and the establishment of their own record label distributed
by EMI/Capitol.
The two
companies could not afford to lose the revenue the Beatles provided. I’m certain that Stiff refused to cut
Reynolds a new deal and Reynolds went out on his own. Thus while he must have been very prosperous
during the twelve Mysteries of London and other novels years, when the second
series, The Mysteries of the Court of London, began he must have been earning
at minimum two thousand pounds a month, probably more or say twenty to thirty
thousand pounds a year. The gap between
the rich and the poor, with which he was so concerned, remained the same but it was more rewarding
for George William McArthur Reynolds.
So, as if
1844 Reynolds had mastered the format.
As the record people used to say in the age of vinyl, he was in the
groove, groovy.