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literary studies, cultural history, and study skill techniques

Glory

April 8, 2016 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Glory was written in the later part of 1930 when Vladimir Nabokov was living in Berlin, exiled from his native Russia. The Novel originally had a working title ofRomanticheskiy vek (Romantic Times) but this was discarded in favour of Podvig (‘gallant feat’ or ‘high deed’) under which title it was first serialized in a Russian emigré journal in Paris 1932. Like his other early works, it was published under the pen name of “V. Sirin” which he had adopted earlier to distinguish himself from his father, who was also called Vladimir Nabokov and was a prominent writer and politician.

Nabokov later translated the novel into English in collaboration with his son Dmitri as part of the post-Lolita refurbishment of his earlier works that had been written in Russian and were largely unknown to readers in the English-speaking world. It appeared simultaneously in America and the UK in 1971.

Glory – critical commentary

The biographical element

Vladimir Nabokov was adept at transforming the events of his own life into the materials of his fiction and non-fiction works. His first novel Mary (1926) is a metaphoric reflection of separation from his native Russia (as it then was). He used the details of his own life in the semi-autobiographical novel The Real Life of Sebastian Knight in 1938 – his first novel written in English. His later non-fictional Speak Memory (1967) covers memoirs of individuals and events from his ‘Russian years’, and he continued to mine the same subject matter through the comic burlesque of Pale Fire (1962) to the almost self-parodic Look at the Harlequins (1974).

It is strange but true that having lost a personal fortune as a result of the Russian revolution, having been separated from his home and culture, endured exile, and been forced to live in countries where he did not feel comfortable (Germany) – despite all this, Nabokov’s work is full of positive, optimistic, and even ecstatic evocations of everyday life. He seems to find life-affirming responses and a persistent delight in the aesthetics of common events – the visual textures of busy streets, the atmospheric effects of weather systems, and the colour schemes of a sunset. Martin Edelweiss, the protagonist of Glory is the concentration of this pleasure in phenomena into one character. His exile from his native land is never seen in terms of regret or a peeved sense of injustice. He experiences epiphanies and ‘moments being’ wherever he happens to find himself:

An automobile advertisement, brightly beckoning in a wild, picturesque gorge from an absolutely inaccessible spot on an alpine cliff thrilled him to tears. The complaisant and affectionate nature of very complicated and very simple machines, like the tractor or the linotype, for example, induced him to reflect that the good in mankind was so contagious that it infected metal. When, at an amazing height in the blue sky above the city, a mosquito-sized airplane emitted fluffy, milk-white letters a hundred times as big as it, repeating in divine dimensions the flourish of a firm’s name, Martin was filled with a sense of marvel and awe.

His movements are a close approximation to Nabokov’s own – retreat from a privileged home in Russia, exile in Europe; material support from a rich uncle; education at Cambridge University; coaching tennis as a spare time job in Berlin, which is exactly what Nabokov was doing at the time he wrote the novel.

The conclusion

When Nabokov wrote the novel in 1930 his personal biography had reached no further than literary ambitions and spare time work as an exile in Berlin – so the parallels between Nabokov and his protagonist Martin Edelweiss are quite exact. But he decided not to make Martin into “an artist, a writer” – so how is Martin to find ‘fulfilment’ (which was another possible title for the novel)?

From the very early chapters of the narrative Martin has been fascinated by fairy tale-like scenes of woodlands into which he sees himself disappearing. He has such a framed picture in his bedroom; he sees a similar landscape in Provence; and ultimately he disappears figuratively into a woodland scene he imagines waiting at the Latvian border.

Similarly, throughout the novel, Martin has been touched emotionally by Russian connections – its people, its intellectual and literary culture, and even its cuisine. He has a deep-seated yearning for connections with his homeland of which he is only half conscious – seeing his escapade of re-crossing the border almost as a romantic dream. Nabokov himself on the other hand made no secret of his understandable yearning for his Russian heritage, and his clear understanding that it was impossible to ‘go back’ to it.

The ambiguity of Nabokov’s own personal feelings is perhaps reflected in the fact that he sends his protagonist Martin on an expedition back across the border – but we do not know if he gets there or not. We do not know if he is killed by the secret agents, the border guards, or the spies he knows will line his route – or if he simply ‘disappears’ into mother Russia.

This is a logically explicable ending to the trajectory of Martin’s life, but it does not make for a very satisfactory conclusion to a novel. We expect some sort of resolution or ‘closure’ to events. Having a protagonist simply ‘vanish’ from the proceedings of the narrative is not good creative practice. The absence of any conceptual structure reduces the narrative to what is not much more than a well decorated memoir, an autobiographical sketch, or a chronological record of life in exile. It is clever and well-articulated picture, but it is not constructed in a manner that produces a satisfying whole.

Glory – study resources

Glory – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

Glory – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

Podvig – Russian original – Amazon UK

Podvig – Russian original – Amazon US

The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov Amazon UK

Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years – Biography: Vol 1

Vladimir Nabokov: American Years – Biography: Vol 2

Zembla – the official Nabokov web site

The Paris Review – Interview with Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov’s first English editions – Bob Nelson’s collection

Vladimir Nabokov at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Vladimir Nabokov at Mantex – tutorials, web links, study materials

Glory – principal characters

Martin Edelweiss	a young Russian exile
Sonia Edelweiss	his mother
Henry Edelweiss	his rich uncle, later his stepfather
Alla Chernosvitove	a flirtatious poet
Darwin	Martin’s bosom friend at Cambridge
Archibald Moon	gay professor of Russian at Cambridge
Mihail Platonovich Zilanov	a liberal politician and activist
Mrs Zilanov	Martin’s Russian landlady in London
Sonia Zilanov	her flirtatious but fickle young daughter
Vadim	student at Cambridge – a practical joker
Alexandr Naumovich Igolevich	a Russian patriot
Bubnov	a Russian emigre writer
Guzinov	a Russian exile in Lausanne

Glory – chapter summaries

1 The background of Martin’s Swiss grandfather and his Anglophile mother Sofia.

2 Martin’s mother reads to him English fairy tales. He dreams imaginatively of entering the forests in paintings and stories.

3 Martin’s parents separate, and shortly afterwards his father dies.

4 Martin is full of stoical self control, but he has romantic dreams of courage and heroic deeds.

5 On summer holiday in the Crimea he is capable as a teenager of experiencing transcendental ‘moments of being’.

6 This experience evokes memories of childhood holidays via overnight train journey to Biarritz.

7 In 1919 Martin and his mother escape from the revolution, sailing from the Crimea to Constantinople.

8 On board ship he is forced into the company of businessman Chernosvitov and his flirtatious wife the poet Alla, with whom Martin falls in love.

9 In Greece Alla and Martin become lovers, and he has his first ‘peek into paradise’.

10 Martin and his mother sail on to Marseilles and then travel to Lausanne, where they stay with his rich uncle Henry.

11 Martin wonders romantically what form his future instances of happiness will take. Arriving in London, he spends a night with a prostitute, who robs him the next morning.

12 In London his knowledge of English culture suddenly seems out of date. He lodges with family friends, the Zilanovs.

13 At Cambridge University he is forced to learn the conventions and rituals of undergraduate life. He befriends Darwin, to whom he embellishes his life experiences.

14 Darwin is an individualist, a veteran of the first World war who has published a collection of short stories.

15 Martin is attracted to various subjects of study, but finally chooses Russian history and literature.

16 Archibald Moon, Martin’s tutor, is an eccentric English Russophile. They receive Mrs Zilanov and her prickly daughter Sonia for afternoon tea.

17 They are joined by Vadim, a raffish undergraduate who is given to practical jokes, slang, and obscenities.

18 At the Christmas vacation Martin visits his mother in Switzerland, where because of the snow he thinks of himself as back in Russia.

19 Martin calls on Mihail Zilanov in London, who talks to him about his father’s death.

20 Martin feels awkward in Sonia’s presence. She behaves in a cavalier way to his friend Darwin. Martin wants to travel, but his uncle Henry says he must wait.

21 Whilst climbing in Switzerland Martin has a fall and a terrifying experience on a narrow ledge. He calls on the Zilanovs, where there has been a death in the family.

22 They are joined by Igolevich, who imparts terrible news from Russia, which rouses strange feelings in Martin that he does not understand. He has a nocturnal meeting with Sonia, who gets into his bed but rejects his physical advances.

23 After the vacation Martin discovers that Moon is a homosexual. He feels jealous of Darwin’s relationship with Sonia, and still dreams of performing heroic deeds.

24 Martin’s mother marries his uncle Henry. Martin has an affair with Rose who works in a tea shop. She becomes pregnant.

25 The pregnancy is a lie, and Rose is bought off by Darwin. Martin continues to hanker after Sonia.

26 Martin feels that his. Imaginative reveries can be turned into reality, and he has one of making an ‘illegal, clandestine. expedition’. Martin plays football for Trinity College. Darwin proposes to Sonia, who refuses him.

27 The Zilanov family move to Berlin. Martin reproaches Sonia for her ill-treatment of Darwin. Punting on the Cam, Martin and Darwin have an argument ostensibly about Rose.

28 Martin and Darwin have a fisticuffs duel – which Martin realises is really about their rivalry over Sonia.

29 Having finished university, Martin is not sure what to do, but he hatches a dream to ‘explore a distant land’.

30 Martin is disappointed by the matter-of-fact letters he receives from Sonia. His uncle reproaches him for his lack of employment and ambition. He decides to go to Berlin.

31 Berlin has changed and there is a recession. Martin recalls his earlier visits. And meanwhile he works as a tennis coach.

32 Martin visits the Zilanov family and becomes acquainted with the expatriate. Russian community.

33 He mixes with the literary exile community who try to keep Russian culture alive.

34 Sonia continues her coquettish behaviour towards him, but she does join in his fantasy of Zoorlandia – an imaginary distant northern country.

35 He continues his thankless pursuit of Sonia, but she treats him disdainfully, so he decides to leave Berlin.

36 He travels south through France by train, ambiguously outlining his plans to a fellow passenger.

37 Seeing lights in some distant hills, he gets off the train in the middle of the night.

38 Leaving his luggage at an inn, he walks to the nearest town Molignac.

39 He works as an agricultural labourer and has reveries that combine English and Russian culture. Despite the idyllic experience, his planned ‘expedition’ nags at his mind. He returns to his uncle and mother in Lausanne.

40 He successfully retraces his climb of the perilous mountain ledge from which he almost fell. Then he meets the ‘adventurer’ Gruzinov.

41 He borrows money from his uncle and announces his departure for Berlin.

42 He asks Gruzinov for advice about making an illegal entry to Russia – but feels that Gruzinov makes fun of him.

43 Despite his mother’s entreaties to stay, Martin takes leave of his uncle’s house.

44 He arrives in Berlin and is caught between the daring of his enterprise and the attractions of staying.

45 He calls on the Zilanovs and takes a very awkward farewell of Sonia

46 He dines on borsch in a Russian restaurant.

47 He visits Bubnov who is ill but still writing, then he goes to wait for Darwin at his hotel.

48 He tells Darwin his plans, but his friend refuses to believe he is serious. Some time later Darwin checks with the Zilanovs and even visits various embassies in Riga, but Martin has disappeared. Darwin breaks the news to Martin’s mother.

Vladimir Nabokov – web links

Vladimir Nabokov at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews, tutorials, study guides, videos, web links, and essays on the Complete Short Stories.

Vladimir Nabokov at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, list of major works, bibliography, and web links

Lolita USA
A ‘geographical scrutiny’ of Humbert and Lolita’s journey across America. Essay and photographic study by Dieter E. Zimmer.

Vladimir Nabokov Writings – First Appearance
An illustrated collection of first editions in English. Photographs with bibliographical notes compiled by Bob Nelson

Vladimir Nabokov at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, plot, box office, trivia, continuity errors, and quiz.

Zembla
Biography, timeline, photographs, eTexts, sound clips, butterflies, literary criticism, online journal, scholarly essays, and an online annotated version of Ada – housed at Pennsylvania State University Library.

Nabokov Museum
A major collection housed in Nabokov’s old family home (now a museum) in St. Petersburg. – biography, photos, family home, videos in English and Russian.

The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov Vladimir Nabokov held the unique distinction of being one of the most important writers of the twentieth century in two separate languages, Russian and English. This volume offers a concise and informative introduction into the author’s fascinating creative world. Specially commissioned essays by distinguished scholars illuminate numerous facets of the writer’s legacy, from his early contributions as a poet and short-story writer to his dazzling achievements as one of the most original novelists of the twentieth century. Topics receiving fresh coverage include Nabokov’s narrative strategies, the evolution of his world-view, and his relationship to the literary and cultural currents of his day. The volume also contains valuable supplementary material such as a chronology of the writer’s life and a guide to further critical reading. Buy the book here

More on Vladimir Nabokov
More on literary studies
Nabokov’s Complete Short Stories

Gobseck

July 12, 2017 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, web links

Gobseck (1830) is a powerful novella that features a character who crops up in several novels of Balzac’s Comedie Humaine. Jean-Esther van Gobseck is an amazing Scrooge-like character who has reduced his entire life to the acquisition of wealth. He is also a miser who lives in a state of extreme frugality. The story also includes characters who appear later in the later novel Old Goriot (1834), including Anastasia de Resaud, a glamorous socialite who is prepared to rob her own husband to pay off her lover’s gambling debts.

Honore de Balzac

Gobseck – background

Gobseck is a short novella that first appeared as a newspaper serial in 1830 under the title L’Usurier. It was then published in the periodical Le Voleur later the same year, and after that as a single volume with the title Les Dangers de l’inconduite. It was given its definitive title of Gobseck when it appeared in the definitive Furne edition of La Comedie Humaine in 1842.

All of these separate publications illustrate Balzac’s commercial enterprise in exploiting the potential value of his work, recycling the same materials in so many different formats. He was a great novelist, but there was nothing precious or dilettante in his approach to literature He was a professional writer of immense energy and practical application. He wrote with high literary ideals, but he also wrote to make money. In fact he was usually paying off debts incurred through his extravagant lifestyle and business ventures that had gone wrong. As the French critic Hyppolyte Taine observed ‘the most complete description of Balzac is that he was a man of business – a man of business in debt’.

Gobseck – critical commentary

Gobseck is is essentially a a study in extreme avarice. The principal character is a money-lender who charges exorbitant interest rates. He is also a business speculator who who strikes crooked deals with collaborators and even rivals. The foundation of his wealth is in colonial exploitation of the Dutch East Indes. He is also a collector, and a hoarder of precious objects. Most importantly, he has reduced his personal morality to two principles – the relentless pursuit of self-interest, and the worship of gold.

Throughout the story he appears to be consistent in his methods and the successful application of his principles. But the conclusion of the story reveals the ultimate futility of his enterprise. The house he lives in is packed with foodstuffs that have gone rotten whilst he has been haggling over their selling price. As for his gold and other material assets, he has absolutely no one – no friends, neighbours, or relations – to whom he can bequeath them. He neither uses nor enjoys the artefacts he has collected. His obsession is ultimately reductive. He stands alongside Felix Grandet, the avaricious father in Eugene Grandet (1833) as one of the great and tragic misers of Balzac’s fiction.

And yet …

Gobseck is supposed to be an emotionless puritan with no interests except self-interest and the relentless acquisition of money. Yet his descriptions of his creditors and their domestic interiors are those of an aesthete. He knows the names of furnishings, fabrics, and the details of decorative wood inlays, It is difficult to escape the suspicion that these reflect the interests of Balzac himself, who was a great enthusiast for sumptuous interior décor.

He [Balzac] was a profound connoisseur in these matters; he had a passion for bric-à-brac, and his tables and chairs are always in character.

This observation by implication criticises Balzac of failing to make a distinction between his own interests and those of his fictional character. It is certainly true that Balzac intrudes his own political and religious beliefs, his opinions and manifestos on taste with prodigious vitality throughout his fictional work

There is also an argument that he puts a lot of himself into his fictional characters – as do many novelists in their work. In addition to this, it should also be kept in mind that there can be unacknowledged contradictions between an author’s conscious and unconscious intentions. In other words, Balzac is creating a character (Gobseck) whom he is offering as a negative example of greed and excessive puritanism – but he cannot resist giving this character a knowledge and appreciation of furniture, interior décor, and fine arts that Balzac posessed himself.

Is it a novella?

There is good reason for considering Gobseck as an extended character sketch sandwiched into a short story. The basic structure of the tale is the issue of Camille de Grandlieu and her infatuation with Ernest de Restaud. Her mother thinks Restaud is not a suitable marriage prospect because he lacks money. This issue is resolved by the family lawyer Derville, whose largely first-person account terminates with the information that Restaud has inherited generously, and will therefore be acceptable.

But his explanation involves the potted life history of Gobseck, plus his complex financial dealings with the Restaud family. This notably includes his relationship with Anastasia, who tries to pawn her family’s diamonds in order to raise money to pay off the gambling debts of her lover, the playboy Maxime de Trailles.

This episode not only has the substance of a literary form longer than the short story, but it also forms part of a larger literary work – Old Goriot. Anastasia is the elder daughter of Father Goriot, a man who has been brought to the point of ruin by his two spendthrift and morally bankrupt daughters.

The most convincing reason for considering Gobseck as a novella is that it has as its controlling symbol and metaphor that of avarice. This is Gobseck’s raison d’etre, and it dictates all his actions from the start of the narrative up to its quasi-tragic conclusion. But other characters are also tainted by their relationship to money. Madame de Grandlieu would not dream of letting her daughter marry a young man unless he was rich. Anastasia de Restaud is up to her ears in debt. She has fleeced her own father and still needs more money to pay off de Trailles’ gambling debts.

Money runs through all aspects of the story like the letters in a stick of rock. It is a theme, a metaphor, and a symbol all in one. And that is one of the constituents of a novella – that it has unifying elements holding all its parts together.

La Comedie Humaine

From 1834 onward Balzac conceived of his novels as free-standing but interlocking elements in a huge study of French society to which he gave the general title of La Comedie Humaine. He used the device of recurring characters and overlapping events to produce a sort of three-dimensional literary portrait of post-revolutionary France.

Gobseck is a very good example of how this method works. The rapacious and eponymous money-lender is the central figure in this novella, but he crops up in a number of the other works as a minor character – in Old Goriot (1834), Cesar Birotteau (1837), and The Unconscious Comedians (1846).

But more importantly, the dramatic incident of lending money to Anastasia de Restaud to pay off her lover’s gambling debts also forms part of the plot of Old Goriot. Anastasia is the elder daughter of Goriot, who is a doting father. She and her sister Delphine have brought about his financial ruin by the demands they have made on his good nature. We thus have a more fully-rounded portrait of her selfish and self-indulgent nature than from one novel alone.

We also know that even after being rescued from her financial problems by borrowing yet more money from Eugene de Rastignac (another recurring figure) she cannot be bothered to go to her own father’s funeral.

If you wish to track any of the characters and their appearances in Balzac’s whole oeuvre, there is a huge list on line with detailed biographies at – The Repertory of the Comedy Humaine

Gobseck – study resources

Gobseck – Paperback – Amazon UK

Gobseck – Paperback – Amazon US

Balzac – Complete Works – Kindle – Amazon UK

Balzac – Complete Works – Kindle – Amazon US

Cambridge Companion to Balzac – Cambridge UP – Amazon UK

Gobseck – plot summary

Young Camille de Grandlieu has an enthusiasm for Ernest de Restaud, but her mother thinks he has not enough money to get married. The family lawyer Derville recounts the history of a money-lender Jean-Esther van Gobseck – from his earliest days as a Dutch imperialist adventurer to his later years as a desiccated and miserly usurer.

Gobseck believes that the only worthwhile values are self-interest and the worship of gold. He describes a morning recovering debts from clients. The first is aristocratic Anastasia de Restaud and the second is a poor seamstress Fanny Malvaut. He considers his influence over those who have fallen into debt as a form of power. He is also part of a usurer’s cabal that meets weekly to share information.

Derville buys the practice where he works with a loan from Gobseck. He pays off the debt in five years and marries Fanny Malvaut. He attends a bachelors’ breakfast banquet where he meets the dandy Maxime de Trailles who is in need of money to pay off gambling debts. Anastasia de Restaud (his lover) offers her family diamonds as security on a loan. Gobseck strikes a murky deal that includes bills of credit in de Trailles’ name which he has bought cheaply from another money-lender. Restaud then calls, demanding the return of his family’s jewels. He is forced to enter a legal agreement drawn up by Derville.

Restaud visits Derville to arrange papers relating to his will and a false sale of his property. He leaves his younger children out of his will, since he believes they may not be his own offspring. Restaud then falls ill and dies in conflict with his wife. She burns a secret counter-document to his will. Gobseck arrives and immediately takes possession of the house, which now belongs to him. He lives in the house and becomes a government liquidator for Haiti and San Domingo.

He appoints Derville his executor, who on searching the house following Gobseck’s death finds it packed with trinkets, gifts, antiques, and foodstuffs that had turned rotten because he had been haggling so long over the price. Ernest de Restaud inherits enough money to enable him to marry Camille.

Gobseck – principal characters

Madame de Grandlieu	an aristocratic grande dame
Camille de Grandlieu	her young daughter, in love with Ernest de Restaud
Maitre Derville	lawyer to the Grandlieu family, neighbour of Gobseck
Jean-Esther van Gobseck	a Dutch Jewish miser and money leander
Anastasia de Restaud	an improvident and adulterous wife
Ernest de Restaud	her only legitimate son, who marries Camille

More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

Granite and Rainbow

January 14, 2016 by Roy Johnson

essays on literature, biography, and cultural history

Granite and Rainbow (1958) is the third and final volume of Virginia Woolf’s essays to be collected, edited, and published by her husband Leonard Woolf after her death in 1941. She published two collections of essays in her own lifetime – The Common Reader first series (1925) and The Common Reader second series (1932).

Leonard Woolf discusses the difficulties of locating and verifying these examples of her non-fiction writing in the editor’s notes which preface these collections. The problem of identification was exacerbated by the fact that many of them had been published anonymously. Until relatively recently for instance, essays and book reviews in The Times Literary Supplement were not attributed to any author. Another reason for essays remaining undetected was that some of the earlier examples had been published under her maiden name of Virginia Stephen.

Granite and Rainbow was first published by the Hogarth Press in 1958. Since that time, any further non-fiction prose writings by Virginia Woolf that have come to light have been published in the six-volume edition of her complete essays edited by the distinguished Woolf scholar Stuart N. Clarke.

Granite and Rainbow – critical commentary

The essays and reviews in this collection are arranged in two parts. The first is The Art of Fiction and the second The Art of Biography, and it has to be said that her richest and most profound observations come in the first half amongst her meditations on the nature and the future of fiction.

‘The Narrow Bridge of Art’ explores reasons for the death of poetic drama. She argues that the poet cannot fully cope with the contradictions of modern life and that poetic ideas might be taken over by the novel. Speculating about the nature of what such a novel might be, she is in effect talking about her own work, which combines prose narrative with a poetical sensibility. But she does so without actually mentioning it – which is commendably modest.

‘Hours in a Library’ is a meditation on the relationship between classic and modern literature. She is urging modern readers to look sympathetically upon contemporary writing, but she knows that it will be judged against the standards of the past. Her argument is however cast in characteristically dialectical manner in which she sees a reciprocity of influence:

But if we need all our knowledge of the old writers to follow what the new writers are attempting, it is certainly true that we come from adventuring among new books with a far keener eye for the old.

This is not unlike the apparently paradoxical argument made by the Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges – that a contemporary writer can ‘create’ his own precursors. In other words, the work of modern authors can alter the way in which we view the writing of the past

Woolf finds qualities in apparent failures — such as DeQuincy whose ‘impassioned prose’ she offers as a positive model to other writers, even though his own work (with the exception of the Opium Eater) is now largely forgotten.

It’s interesting to note that she even makes efforts to see positive merit in George Meredith, a writer who had been a major literary figure during her own lifetime, but whose reputation had gone into decline. She notes his poetic style, his lavish metaphors, and his lack of ‘realism’ – but she realises that his time has passed.

The most ambitious essay in the collection is a long article from The Bookseller in 1929 called ‘Phases of Fiction’ in which she looks at a collection of novelists and categorises them as Truth-Tellers (Defoe, Maupassant, Trollope) Romantics (Scott, Stevenson, Radcliffe) Character-Mongers (Dickens, Austen) Comedians (Peacock, Sterne) Psychologists (James, Proust, Dostoyevski) and Poets (Meredith, Hardy, Bronte).

These studies offer what we might now call a ‘reader response’ type of criticism. She does not analyse the subject matter of their texts that makes them so valuable, but concentrates instead on what effect they have on her – which she generalises as ‘us’. She describes Henry James’s concentration on psychological states for instance:

By cutting off the responses that are called out in actual life, the novelist frees us to take delight, as we do when ill or travelling, in things in themselves. We can see the strangeness of them only when habit has ceased to immerse us in them, and we stand outside watching what has no power over us one way or the other. Then we see the mind at work; we are amused by its power to make patterns; by its power to bring out relations in things … It is a pleasure somewhat akin, perhaps, to the pleasure of mathematics or the pleasure of music.

The second section of this collection dealing with biography is mainly book reviews of biographies, letters, and memoirs. The subjects range from Walter Raleigh, via Laurence Sterne and Horace Walpole, to Thomas Coutts (the banker) and the best-selling novelist Marie Corelli – which was not her real name.

Woolf wrote biographies herself, and she sees the art of biography as a difficult choice between the ‘granite’ of hard facts and the ‘rainbow’ of the subject’s personality. Too many facts, and the account of someone’s life becomes boring (or even unreadable): too much rainbow, and the account becomes fiction. This is possibly why her own fictional biography Orlando (1927) is so dazzlingly successful, and her fact-heavy Roger Fry (1940) very dull.

She argues, quite justly, that Harold Nicolson held these two elements of fact and invention in successful equilibrium in his hilarious collection of biographical vignettes, Some People (1927):

he has devised a method of writing about people and about himself as if they were at once real and imaginary. He has succeeded remarkably, if not entirely, in making the best of both worlds. Some People is not fiction because it has the substance, the reality of truth. It is not biography because it has the freedom, the artistry of fiction.

Granite and Rainbow – study resources

Granite and Rainbow – Amazon UK
Granite and Rainbow – Amazon US

Complete Works of Virginia Woolf – Kindle -Amazon UK
Complete Works of Virginia Woolf – Kindle – Amazon US

The six-volume Complete Essays – Amazon UK
The six-volume Complete Essays – Amazon US

Granite and Rainbow – free eBook format – Internet Archive

Grantite and Rainbow – complete contents

Part I : The Art of Fiction

The Narrow Bridge of Art
Hours in a Library
Impassioned Prose
Life and the Novelist
On Rereading Meredith
The Anatomy of Fiction
Gothic Romance
The Supernatural in Fiction
Henry James’s Ghost Stories
A Terribly Sensitive Mind
Women and Fiction
An Essay in Criticism
Phases of Fiction

Part II : The Art of Biography

The New Biography
A Talk About Memoirs
Sir Walter Raleigh
Sterne
Eliza and Sterne
Horace Walpole
A Friend of Johnson
Fanney Burney’s Half-Sister
Money and Love
The Dream
The Fleeting Portrait:
1. Waxworks at the Abbey
2. The Royal Academy
Poe’s Helen
Visits to Walt Whitman
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Virginia Woolf – the complete Essays

1925 — The Common Reader first series

1932 — The Common Reader second series

1942 — The Death of the Moth

1947 — The Moment and Other Essays

1950 — The Captain’s Death Bed and Other Essays

1958 — Granite and Rainbow

More on Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf – web links
Virginia Woolf – greatest works
Virginia Woolf – criticism
More on the Bloomsbury Group

Great Expectations

February 22, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, characters, study resources, further reading

Great Expectations (1860-61) traces the adventures and moral development of the young hero Pip as he rises from humble beginnings in a village blacksmith’s. Eventually, via good connections and a secret benefactor, he becomes a gentleman in fashionable London – but loses his way morally in the process and disowns his family. Fortunately he is surrounded by good and loyal friends who help him to redeem himself. Plenty of drama is provided by a spectacular fire, a strange quasi-sexual attack, and the chase of an escaped convict on the river Thames. There are a number of strange psycho-sexual features to the characters and events, and the novel has two subtly different endings – both adding ambiguity to the love interest between Pip and the beautiful Stella.

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is a novelist whose work appeals to both general readers and serious literary critics alike. This is because at its best it operates at two levels simultaneously. Entertaining incidents and characters abound at the surface level, and deep beneath them exist profoundly serious themes and psychological insights into human nature. His early novels are rich in enjoyable knockabout entertainment, and his later works explore the darker side of moral and social issues with which he was so concerned throughout the whole of his working life.

Turn to any work in his huge output, and you will find linguistic invention, tremendous imaginative flair, memorable characters, vivid scene-painting, dramatic incidents, high comedy and tragic pathos packed into alternate chapters, and an overwhelming sense of joie de vivre.

Great Expectations – plot summary

On Christmas Eve of 1812, Pip, an orphan aged 7, encounters an escaped convict in the village churchyard. The convict scares Pip into stealing food for him and a file to grind away his leg shackles. Pip returns home, where he lives with Mrs. Joe, his older sister, and her husband Joe Gargery. His sister beats him and Joe regularly, while Joe is much more kind to Pip. Early next morning, Pip steals food and drink from the pantry (including a pie for their Christmas feast) and sneaks out to the graveyard.

During Christmas dinner, whilst Pip is scared that someone will notice the missing pie. Police officers arrive and hunt through the marshes outside the village for escaped convicts. They accost the man helped by Pip, but when questioned about where he got the food and file, he claims he stole the items himself. The police take him off to the Hulk, a giant prison ship.

Pip goes to school and becomes friends with Biddy, an orphan who was adopted by the Wopsles. He still feels guilty for the theft. Pip’s Uncle Pumblechook gets Pip invited to the house of a rich old woman named Miss Havisham, who lives at Satis House. She is a spinster who wears an old wedding dress and hasn’t seen sunlight in years. She claims to have a broken heart and just wants to see Pip play cards with Estella, a young girl she has adopted.

Pip frequently visits Miss Havisham and Estella, for whom he harbours a feeling of obsessive attraction. He begins to learn everything he can from Biddy in school, in an effort to impress Estella who called him a common labouring boy. One day, when Pip goes to the town pub to pick up Joe, they are approached by a messenger sent by Pip’s convict, who gives Pip two pounds before leaving.

Pip visits Miss Havisham where he meets the Pockets, her relatives who only visit her to insure their inheritance. Pip fights a pale boy in the courtyard and easily beats him. Estella allows Pip to kiss her on the cheek and he leaves. Several months later, Miss Havisham crushes Pip’s dream of becoming a gentleman when she agrees to help with the papers that would make Pip’s apprenticeship to Joe official. Joe comes to the house and Pip is embarrassed by his common appearance and talk.

Pip works with Joe for a few years in the forge, doing work that he hates. He and Joe work with a journeyman named Dolge Orlick, who dislikes Pip. Wen Pip next visits Satis House, he discovers that Estella has been sent abroad for schooling. On his way home that night, Pip sees Orlick sneaking away in shadows, and discovers that Mrs. Joe had been attacked. She becomes a horribly brain-damaged invalid. Pip feels guilty again when the police believe escaped criminals attacked Mrs. Joe.

Biddy moves in with the Gargerys and Pip confides in her about his feelings for Estella. A London lawyer, Jaggers, approaches Pip, revealing very startling news: Pip has inherited a large sum of money from an anonymous benefactor. He is required to leave for London immediately, buy some clothes and become a gentleman. Pip, because he has always wanted to become a gentleman, graciously accepts these terms. He is confident that Miss Havisham is the secret benefactor.

In London, Pip meets Jagger’s clerk Wemmick and Herbert Pocket, a poor gentleman who wants to become a merchant. Herbert tells Pip the story of how Miss Havisham was engaged to a man below her social standing. The man convinced her to buy her half-brother’s share of the family brewery for him. Herbert believes that the half-brother and the fiance were co-conspirators who decided to split the profits. On the wedding day, she received a note from her fiance saying he won’t marry her and she never tried to marry again.

One stormy night, Pip learns the true identity of his benefactor – Magwitch, the convict Pip helped feed in the churchyard. The news of his benefactor crushes Pip – he’s ashamed of Magwitch. Pip very reluctantly lets Magwitch stay with him. There is a warrant out for Magwitch’s arrest in England and he’ll be hanged if he’s caught. Eventually, because Magwitch is on the run from the law, a plan is hatched by Herbert and Pip which involves fleeing the country by boat.

Meanwhile, Estella has married Bentley Drummle, a marriage that will be an unhappy one. Before Pip flees with Magwitch, he makes one last visit to Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham realizes that she created a monster out of Estella, who broke Pip’s heart, and asks him for forgiveness. Miss Havisham stands too close to the fire and lights her dress on fire. Pip heroically saves her but she later dies from her injuries.

Pip and Herbert make a gallant attempt to help Magwitch escape, but instead he’s captured and sent to jail. Pip is devoted to Magwitch by now and recognizes in him a good and noble man. Pip tries to have Magwitch released but Magwitch dies shortly before he’s slated to be executed. Under English law Magwitch’s wealth forfeits to the Crown, thus extinguishing Pip’s “Great Expectations”.

After an extended period of sickness during which he is looked after by Joe, he returns to good health and returns home to ask Biddy for forgiveness and for her love. However, when he arrives, he finds that it is Biddy and Joe’s wedding day. Thankful for not mentioning his interest in Biddy to Joe while he was sick, Pip congratulates the happy couple. Afterwards, Pip goes into business overseas with Herbert.

After eleven relatively successful years abroad, Pip goes back to visit Joe and the rest of his family out in the marshes. Finally, Pip makes one last visit to the ruins of Miss Havisham’s house, where he finds Estella wandering. Her marriage is over, and she seems to have children and wants Pip to accept her as a friend. Dickens gave the novel two different endings, but in both of them there is an ambiguous notion of what the future will hold for Pip and Estella.

Study resources

Great Expectations – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon UK

Great Expectations – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon US

Great Expectations – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

Great Expectations – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

Great Expectations – Everyman’s Library Classics – Amazon UK

Great Expectations – Everyman’s Library Classics – Amazon US

Great Expectations – York Notes (Advanced) – Amazon UK

Great Expectations – Cliffs Notes – Amazon UK

Charles Dickens – biographical notes

Great Expectations – eBook at Project Gutenberg

Great Expectations – audioBook at LibriVox

The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens – Amazon UK

Great Expectations – York Notes at Amazon UK

Great Expectations – David Lean’s 1946 film version – Amazon UK

Great Expectations – Naxos audio book (unabridged) – Amazon UK

Charles Dickens’ London – interactive map

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Charles Dickens – Amazon UK

Great Expectations – 1885 illustrations by Frederick William Pallthorpe

Mont Blanc – Charles Dickens special edition

Principal characters

Philip Pirrip	an orphan – the protangonist
Mrs Joe Gargery	Pip’s cantankerous elder sister
Joe Gargery	a loyal and mild-mannered blacksmith
Dolge Orlick	a sullen journeyman blacksmith at the forge
Mr Pumblechook	Joe Gargery’s uncle – a pompous fraud
Miss Havisham	a wealthy and embittered spinster
Estella Havisham	Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter (actually Magwitch’s daughter)
Arthur Havisham	Miss Havisham’s half-brother
Matthew Pocket	cousin of Miss Havisham – a tutor with large family
Herbert Pocket	his son, who befriends Pip in London
Abel Magwitch	an escaped convict – Pip’s benefactor
Biddy	orphan and teacher who loves Pip but marries Joe
Mr Jaggers	prominent London lawyer
Molly	Jaggers’ maidservant (and Estella’s mother)
Wemmick	clerk to Jaggers
Compeyson	professional swindler and ex-convict
Bently Drummle	wealthy young man who marries Estella

Great Expectations – film version

David Lean’s 1946 classic film adaptation

See reviews of the film at the Internet Movie Database

The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens contains fourteen essays which cover the whole range of Dickens’s writing, from Sketches by Boz through to The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Some address important thematic topics: childhood, the city, and domestic ideology. Others consider the serial publication and Dickens’s distinctive use of language. Three final chapters examine Dickens in relation to work in other media: illustration, theatre, and film. The volume as a whole offers a valuable introduction to Dickens for students and general readers, as well as fresh insights, informed by recent critical theory.

Other works by Charles Dickens

Pickwick Papers (1836-37) was Dickens’ first big success. It was issued in twenty monthly parts and is not so much a novel as a series of loosely linked sketches and changing characters featured in reports to the Pickwick Club. These recount comic excursions to Rochester, Dingley Dell, and Bath; duels and elopements; Christmas festivities; Mr Pickwick inadvertently entering the bedroom of a middle-aged lady at night; and in the end a happy marriage. Much light-hearted fun, and a host of memorable characters.

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Oliver Twist (1837-38) expresses Dickens’ sense of the vulnerability of children. Oliver is a foundling, raised in a workhouse, who escapes suffering by running off to London. There he falls into the hands of a gang of thieves controlled by the infamous Fagin. He is pursued by the sinister figure of Monks who has secret information about him. The plot centres on the twin issues of personal identity and a secret inheritance (which surface again in Great Expectations). Emigration, prison, and violent death punctuate a cascade of dramatic events. This is the early Victorian novel in fine melodramatic form. Recommended for beginners to Dickens.

Buy the book here

Charles Dickens – web links

Charles Dickens at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews, tutorials and study guides, free eTexts, videos, adaptations for cinema and television, further web links.

Charles Dickens at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary techniques, his influence and legacy, extensive bibliography, and further web links.

Charles Dickens at Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts of the major works in a variety of formats.

Dickens on the Web
Major jumpstation including plots and characters from the novels, illustrations, Dickens on film and in the theatre, maps, bibliographies, and links to other Dickens sites.

The Dickens Page
Chronology, eTexts available, maps, filmography, letters, speeches, biographies, criticism, and a hyper-concordance.

Charles Dickens at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations of the major novels and stories for the cinema and television – in various languages

A Charles Dickens Journal
An old HTML website with detailed year-by-year (and sometimes day-by-day) chronology of events, plus pictures.

Hyper-Concordance to Dickens
Locate any word or phrase in the major works – find that quotation or saying, in its original context.

Dickens at the Victorian Web
Biography, political and social history, themes, settings, book reviews, articles, essays, bibliographies, and related study resources.

Charles Dickens – Gad’s Hill Place
Something of an amateur fan site with ‘fun’ items such as quotes, greetings cards, quizzes, and even a crossword puzzle.

More on Charles Dickens
More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

Greville Fane

November 23, 2012 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Greville Fane first appeared in the Illustrated London News in two weekly parts during September 1892. At this period in his career Henry James had decided to limit himself the short stories (or ‘tales’ as he called them) whilst he was concentrating on what was to be his disastrous attempt to succeed in the theatre. His dramatisation of The American was touring England at the time, and he had other dramas circulating amongst theatre managers for their consideration.

In keeping with his habitual industry, he produced something like a tale per month over a period of two years. Literary productivity is one of the features of this light but touching story.

Greville Fane – critical comment

Greville Fane is a jeu d’esprit in a light mood – not unlike the other stories of literary life James produced during the 1890s – such as The Coxon Fund, The Figure in the Carpet, and The Abasement of the Northmores.

James strikes a delicate balance between comedy and pathos in his depiction of Mrs Stormer – just as his anonymous narrator is required to do for the obituary that is commissioned from him. Mrs Stormer (Greville Fane) is a literary hack completely without talent:

She could invent stories by the yard, but she couldn’t write a page of English. She went down to her grave without suspecting that though she had contributed volumes to the diversion of her contemporaries she had not contributed a sentence to the language.

Yet she is remarkably industrious, and as we gradually learn how badly she is treated by her own two children, we are invited to feel a sympathy for her comparable to that felt by the narrator. She keeps her son in complete idleness, and works for a year to produce the three novels that will pay for her daughter’s wedding – all the time being paid less and less for what she writes. James knew very well the values and the payments of the literary marketplace.

The story originated in an anecdote about the novelist Anthony Trollope who was famed for his prodigious industry as a novelist (whilst also holding down a full time position at the Post Office). Trollope trained his younger son Frederic to become a novelist, but the son chose instead to be a sheep farmer in Australia – and failed in business.

Greville Fane – study resources

The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon UK

The Complete Works of Henry James – Kindle edition – Amazon US

Complete Stories 1892—1898 – Library of America – Amazon UK

Complete Stories 1892—1898 – Library of America – Amazon US

The Complete Tales of Henry James – Volume 8 – Digireads reprint UK

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Greville Fane – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

Greville Fane – plot summary

An un-named writer is asked to produce a ‘tactful’ obituary of a lady writer, Mrs Stormer, who produced three books a year under the pen name Greville Fane. He reveals that she was commercially successful, but without any real talent. She also had ambitions to train her son Leolin to become a writer, and spoils him in the attempt. In fact both her children feel embarrassed by their mother’s lack of good taste.

She pours money and effort into Leolin on the basis that he must have full experience of life in order to convert it into the substance of fiction. He takes advantage of his mother’s indulgence, becomes extravagantly well dressed, and produces nothing.

When her daughter marries the bland nonentity Sir Basil Luard, Mrs Stormer works for a year to pay for the wedding, all the time accepting ever less in payment for her work. Her daughter then keeps her at arm’s length because she looks down on her lack of social connections.

Since Leolin Stormer fails to deliver, his mother starts to pay him for ideas and characters that she can transform into fiction herself. But eventually she dies, and Leolin marries an older woman for her money.

Principal characters

I	the anonymous narrator
Mrs Stormer	a mediocre but successful lady novelist (Greville Fane)
Leolin Stormer	her talentless and idle son
Lady Ethel Luard	her snobbish and selfish daughter
Sir Baldwin Luard	Ethel’s husband, a vacuous mediocrity

Henry James’s study

Other works by Henry James

Washington Square (1880) is a superb early short novel, It’s the tale of a young girl whose future happiness is being controlled by her strict authoritarian (but rather witty) father. She is rather reserved, but has a handsome young suitor. However, her father disapproves of him, seeing him as an opportunist and a fortune hunter. There is a battle of wills – all conducted within the confines of their elegant New York town house. Who wins out in the end? You will probably be surprised by the outcome. This is a masterpiece of social commentary, offering a sensitive picture of a young woman’s life.
Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

The Aspern Papers (1888) is a psychological drama set in Venice which centres on the tussle for control of a great writer’s correspondence. An elderly lady, ex-lover of the writer, seeks a husband for her daughter. But the potential purchaser of the papers is a dedicated bachelor. Money is also at stake – but of course not discussed overtly. There is a refined battle of wills between them. Who will win in the end? As usual, James keeps the reader guessing. The novella is a masterpiece of subtle narration, with an ironic twist in its outcome. This collection of stories also includes three of his accomplished long short stories – The Private Life, The Middle Years, and The Death of the Lion.
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Buy the book from Amazon US

The Spoils of Poynton (1896) is a short novel which centres on the contents of a country house, and the question of who is the most desirable person to inherit it via marriage. The owner Mrs Gereth is being forced to leave her home to make way for her son and his greedy and uncultured fiancee. Mrs Gereth develops a subtle plan to take as many of the house’s priceless furnishings with her as possible. But things do not go quite according to plan. There are some very witty social ironies, and a contest of wills which matches nouveau-riche greed against high principles. There’s also a spectacular finale in which nobody wins out.
Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

Henry James – web links

Henry James at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides, tutorials on the Complete Tales, book reviews. bibliographies, and web links.

The Complete Works
Sixty books in one 13.5 MB Kindle eBook download for £1.92 at Amazon.co.uk. The complete novels, stories, travel writing, and prefaces. Also includes his autobiographies, plays, and literary criticism – with illustrations.

The Ladder – a Henry James website
A collection of eTexts of the tales, novels, plays, and prefaces – with links to available free eTexts at Project Gutenberg and elsewhere.

A Hyper-Concordance to the Works
Japanese-based online research tool that locates the use of any word or phrase in context. Find that illusive quotable phrase.

The Henry James Resource Center
A web site with biography, bibliographies, adaptations, archival resources, suggested reading, and recent scholarship.

Online Books Page
A collection of online texts, including novels, stories, travel writing, literary criticism, and letters.

Henry James at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of eTexts, available in a variety of eBook formats.

The Complete Letters
Archive of the complete correspondence (1855-1878) work in progress – published by the University of Nebraska Press.

The Scholar’s Guide to Web Sites
An old-fashioned but major jumpstation – a website of websites and resouces.

Henry James – The Complete Tales
Tutorials on the complete collection of over one hundred tales, novellas, and short stories.

Henry James on the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations of James’s novels and stories for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production features, film reviews, box office, and even quizzes.

More tales by James
More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

Guest’s Confession

July 13, 2013 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, web links, and study resources

Guest’s Confession first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly for October—November 1872. It was reprinted years later as part of Travelling Companions published after James’s death in 1919.

Guest’s Confession – plot summary

Part I. The narrator David is waiting for his elder step-brother to arrive during the summer holidays in a small town. David’s account of his brother emphasises the differences and rivalry between them. Walking in the countryside, he enters a small church during a rainstorm to find that the organ is being played by a young woman. He sings along to her playing, and they exchange pleasantries.

When the rain stops he goes to meet Edgar, his step-brother, reflecting critically on his egoism. When he arrives, Edgar is full of neurotic self-concern, and he reveals that he has been swindled out of twenty thousand dollars by a man called John Guest.

Part II. Shortly afterwards they walk out in the village and encounter John Guest in the company of a coquettish woman Mrs Clara Beck. Edgar immediately wishes to challenge Guest, but David sees positive qualities in the handsome and debonair figure. Edgar has appointed solicitors. Guest pleads for ‘understanding’ and restraint.

The two men argue their cases. Guest accuses Edgar of being insane. David suggests that as a compromise, Guest should write out an apology. .Edgar demands that Guest kneel before him and beg for forgiveness. In addition to his demand for the money, he then dictates a confession which he forces Guest to sign. When Guest’s daughter Laura arrives to collect him, she turns out to be the same woman David met in the church.

Part III. David feels disconcerted by his divided loyalties and by his part in the scene of humiliation. He meets Laura again in the village, along with her chaperone Mrs Beck. He spends more and more time with them whilst Guest is back in New York, and he feels increasingly frustrated by Mrs Beck’s constant presence.

Mr Crawford arrives claiming cousinship with Mrs Beck, and David sees that he is paying court to her. The two men compare their respective ‘intentions’ and ‘claims’ regarding the two women.

Part IV. David wishes to pursue his interest in Laura but worries about what she will think if she learns of the part he played in her father’s shame. She however does not take him very seriously and thinks he is spoiled, idle, and too rich. She reveals that he reminds her of her father – because they are both honest and youthful-looking.

David teases Mrs Beck about her choice of Guest or Crawford as the object of her affections. Guest writes from New York to his daughter Laura, telling her he has had to sell their house. David suggests that this would be a good opportunity to go to live in Italy. He plays the organ in the church for her, then declares his love for her and offers her money to help her father. She refuses both offers.

Part V. Edgar is still ill in bed when he receives news that Guest has repaid his debt, but Edgar refuses to return the signed ‘confession’. Guest returns from New York, and Mrs Beck switches her attentions to him, away from Crawford. David makes an appeal to Laura before her father can reveal what he knows about him to her. But when Guest confronts them both he excoriates David completely, and will accept no apology or compromise. David asks Laura to be patient, and meanwhile attends Edgar, who is dying. Edgar leaves David nothing in his will, but puts aside twenty thousand dollars to found a hospice. However, David inherits the confession as part of Edgar’s effects. He tries to re-negotiate with Guest, but they quarrel again.

Part VI. Having heard of Guest’s money problems, Mrs Beck switches her attentions back to Crawford. David refuses to return the confession when Guest asks for it. When he next meets Guest he presents him with an ultimatum: remove the objection to his marrying Laura, or he will show her the confession. But following a bucolic epiphany, David returns to a completely distraught Guest and burns the confession in front of him. He then feels free to ‘claim’ Laura.

Guest’s Confession – principal characters

David	the rich, vain, and self-regarding narrator
Edgard Musgrave	his invalid, older, clever step-brother
John Guest	a handsome swindler who has been ill
Laura Guest	his daughter
Mrs Clara Beck	a childish and coquettish chaperone of thirty-six
Mr Crawford	the owner of a silver mine in Arizona