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The Reverberator

October 7, 2012 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Reverberator is a short novel (especially short by Henry James’s standards) which was first serialised in Macmillan’s Magazine between February and July in 1888. Later the same year it was published as a two volume then a one volume novel. It deals with issues which are amazingly contemporary – the power of the press, the individual’s right to privacy, and the journalism of celebrity gossip.

first edition 1888

The Reverberator – critical commentary

Most of Henry James’s earlier works first appeared serialized in newspapers and magazines. He was well acquainted with the practicalities and the economics of publishing, but more importantly he was aware of the essential nature of journalism, which in the nineteenth century as now in the twenty-first was a force for potential mischief as well as for spreading enlightened intelligence.

The novel deals with three elements which still affect the public’s ambivalent relationship with the popular press: the promotion of celebrity gossip for commercial gain; the public’s ‘right to know’ (about the behaviour of the upper classes); and an individual’s right to privacy.

George Flack is an early example of a type we have seen over and again at the recent (UK) Leveson Inquiry into the behaviour of the press – the muck-raking journalist who is quite frank about his unscrupulous methods of obtaining information, and whose defense rests on the argument that he is merely supplying a public demand.

Flack tells Francie what information he wants from her, and reveals what use he will make of it. On his part, there is no concealment or pretence. The Probert family wish to preserve their right to privacy, including details such as adultery and petty theft by members of the family. There is even an argument made (without any supporting evidence) that the members of the family secretly enjoy the notoriety that Flack’s article affords them. All of these issues have emerged at the Leveson Enquiry: Henry James was writing about them 124 years earlier.

As a further illustration of fundamental journalistic practices, it is worth noting that Flack has a general brief to gather information and fashionable subjects, but the smaller details of his creations are supplied by what we would now call local ‘runners’. It is Miss Topping who digs out the embarrassing facts of the Probert family behaviour and passes them to Flack as the scandalous meat of his article..

James was to explain these issues again in his 1903 story The Papers which deals with the deliberate creation of celebrity culture via publicity fuelled corrupt journalism. James was personally very sensitive to the question of privacy, and protected his own by eventually burning a lot of his private papers

It is worth noting that whilst the Probert family wishes to protect its privacy and takes pride in social connections that go back ‘a thousand years’, Gaston pére and his children are in fact Americans who have married into French society. They are emigrants from Carolina.

The Reverberator – study resources

The Reverberator – Melville House paperback – Amazon UK

The Reverberator – Melville House paperback – Amazon US

The Reverberator – Kindle edition [FREE]

The Reverberator – Digireads paperback – Amazon UK

The Reverberator – Digireads paperback – Amazon US

The Reverberator – Library of America – Amazon UK

The Reverberator – Library of America – Amazon US

The Reverberator – eBook versions at Gutenberg

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Reverberator – plot summary

Newspaper society journalist George Flack visits Fidelia and Francina Dosson at their Paris hotel, having met them the previous year on a transatlantic crossing. He introduces them to Parisian life and persuades Francie to have her portrait painted by a ‘rising Impressionist’, George Waterlowe, through whom they meet his friend Gaston Probert, an American who was born in Paris.

Delia has ambitions for her younger sister – an engagement, but not yet marriage. Gaston is taken by Francie and he wants to know what it would be like to be a ‘real’ American. George Flack and Gaston are rivals for Francie.

Falk has ambitions for his newspaper the Reverberator, and he proposes marriage to Francie, who turns him down. Some months later, whilst Falk has returned to the USA, Gaston is torn between his love for Francie and a social reserve on behalf of his sisters, who have married into rather snobbish upper-class French society. He arranges for his sister Suzanne to meet Francie, but she refuses to endorse his plan to marry her. Gaston ask Mr Dosson’s permission to marry his daughter, and gets his approval.

Members of Gaston’s family eventually consent to meet the Dossons in order to approve them socially, and all appears to be going well. But Mr Probert pére still has reservations based on grounds of class distinctions and family traditions. American-based business connections require Mr Dosson to leave, but since this would leave his two unmarried daughters unchaperoned, Gaston is asked to go in his place.

Flack returns from America and asks Francie to take him to see the portrait, because he wants to write about it for the Reverberator. On visiting, he is snubbed by Gaston’s sister Mme de Cliché, but Francie talks to him freely about the family into which she is about to be married.

When Flack writes a gossip article about the portrait and the family in the Reverberator, they are all incandescent with rage and summon Francie to a family summit meeting, which is inconclusive. Mr Dosson takes a nonchalant attitude to the affair and wonders why anyone should get upset about an article in a newspaper. When Gaston returns from the USA, Francie admits that she has supplied Flack with the information for his article.

Mr Dosson writes to Flack in Nice, who then visits Francie, justifies his article, castigates the Proberts, and declares his love for her. She rejects him, but says that she will not marry Gaston.

Gaston visits the Dossons and vainly tries to make them compromise for the sake of the Proberts’ family pride. Francine and her father refuse. Gaston seeks advice from Waterlowe, who says he must reject his family in order to create a sense of freedom and independence for himself. Even though his father cuts him off with no money, that’s what Gaston does, and Francie accepts him.

Principal characters

George Flack	the European correspondent for the American newspaper, The Reverberator
Whitney Desson	a rich American financier
Miss Fidelia Desson	his plain but sensible elder daughter
Miss Francina Desson	his pretty but naive younger daughter
Charles Waterlowe	an American ‘rising Impressionist’ painter in Paris
Gaston Probert	an American who was born in Paris and has never been to America
Countess Suzanne de Brécourt	Gaston’s sister
Mme Marguerite de Cliché	Gaston’s sister
Mme Jeanne de Douves	Gaston’s sister
Mr Probert	Gaston’s distinguished father (originally from Carolina)
Miss Topping	Flack’s assistant journalist in Paris (who never appears)

Setting

The setting throughout the novel is Paris, but it is worth noting that all the characters in the story are American – either visiting on a long term basis (the Dossons) resident (Flack) or born there (Probert). Two characters (Flack and Probert) visit America during the course of events, but this is merely a plot device to get them temporarily off stage.

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
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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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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.
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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 on Henry James
More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

The Sacred Fount

September 23, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Sacred Fount was first published simultaneously as a single volume by Charles Scribners and Sons in New York and Methuen in London in February 1901. It comes from the ‘late period’ in James’s development as a novelist, and has puzzled readers and critics ever since, because of the obscurity of its subject matter and the extremely complex manner in which the events are related.

On the surface, it is the simple story of a number of people who travel to a weekend party at a country estate (Newmarch). But the narrator of events perceives hidden relations going on between some of the visitors – and he tries to work out the truth of these liaisons by psychological means alone, eschewing what he calls the ignoble methods of “the detective and the keyhole”.

the first English edition 1901

The Sacred Fount – critical commentary

The original idea

When he first began writing The Sacred Fount Henry James thought the narrative would take the form of a short tale – as he did with many of his other novels – most of which became anything other than short. This is how James described what he called the donnée of his tale.

The notion of the young man who marries an older woman and who has the effect on her of making her younger and still younger, while he himself becomes her age. When he reaches the age that she was (on their marriage) she has gone back to the age that he was.

Mightn’t this be altered (perhaps) to the idea of cleverness and stupidity? A clever woman marries a deadly dull man, and loses and loses her wit as he shows more and more.

Both of these ideas are incorporated into the novel. The Narrator thinks Guy Brissenden’s vital juices are being drained by May Server or Lady John, leaving him looking much older than his twenty-nine years. They on the other hand appear much younger and more vivacious than their middle-age would suggest.

Gilbert Long on the other hand has always been something of a nonentity and dolt, but has suddenly developed intelligence and wit – as a result (it is supposed) of his secret sexual relationship with a clever woman. The Narrator spends the next three hundred pages trying to uncover the identity of this women.

‘The Sacred Fount’ as a concept is the source of youth at which older people are refreshing themselves – draining vital fluids from their younger partners. It is easy enough to spot here the notion of vampyrism which has influenced a lot of critical comment on the novel – the older person feeding off the life forces of someone younger, or the same thing in intellectual terms.

Problems of interpretation

The main problem with this as the plot for the novel is the reader is at no point presented with any impartial evidence or dramatised interchanges between the characters on which to form an independent judgement about such matters.

If fact one of the major weaknesses associated with the novel is the lack of characterisation. People are named perhaps given an age – and that’s it. There is no way a reader can form a picture or make any distinction between Grace Brissenden or May Server. They are both either ‘very beautiful’ or look younger than they did previously. Similarly, the men are merely names – Gilbert Long, Guy Brissenden, and Ford Obert. Who might be relating to whom is left unrecorded – except in the Narrator’s overheated imagination.

Not only are the characters not developed as fictional constructs, but everything in the narrative is mediated by the un-named, first-person Narrator. He tells us about the appearance and the interchanges between the other characters – so at a very simple, technical level, we only have his opinion or his interpretation of events.

But more than this, it rapidly becomes apparent that he is one of James’s unreliable narrators – not unlike the Governess in The Turn of the Screw (1898) written three years earlier.

The other characters do not see or do not agree with his observations. He actually imagines, invents, and ‘constructs’ other people’s conversations – thinking what the might or could be saying to each other. But then he draws his analytic conclusions from this evidence that he has constructed himself.

When the Narrator challenges and quizzes people about his suppositions, they give their own account or opinions of events – which turn out to be the exact opposite of what he suspects.

The Narrator is entirely self-congratulatory and vain: he describes himself as having ‘transcendent intelligence’ and ‘superior vision’ – yet the fact is that nobody else agrees with claims he is making, and of course at the end of the novel he turns out to be wrong.

The Narrator puts all his arguments in the form of elaborate metaphors, obscure allusions, and extravagant figures of speech. His interlocutors repeatedly ask him what he is talking about, and Mrs Brissenden finally tells him she thinks him crazy.

He even tells lies – for instance, claiming to Mrs Brissenden that he has not discussed with other people the issues of the secret liaisons he suspects – when in fact he has discussed them with just about everyone else he meets.

Rebecca West issued one of her wittiest sneers when she wrote that the narrator “spends more intellectual force than Kant can have used on The Critique of Pure Reason in an unsuccessful attempt to discover whether there exists between certain of his fellow-guests a relationship not more interesting among these vacuous people than it is among sparrows.”

Leon Edel described the novel as “a detective story without a crime—and without a detective. The detective, indeed, is the reader.”

The Sacred Fount – study resources

The Sacred Fount – Library of America – Amazon UK

The Sacred Fount – Library of America – Amazon US

The Sacred Fount – Kindle edition

The Sacred Fount – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

The Sacred Fount – audiobook at Librivox

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Henry James – biographical notes

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

The Sacred Fount – plot summary

Chapter 1. The Narrator travels by train to a country weekend party at Newmarch with Gilbert Long, and Mrs Grace Brissenden, commenting on the changes in their appearance. Mrs Brissenden thinks that the changes to Gilbert Long are the result of his relationship with Lady Jane.

Chapter 2. The Narrator sees Lady Jane with Gilbert Long at Newmarch. He also meets Guy Brissenden, Grace’s much younger husband, and is astonished at how much older he appears – whereas his wife looks much younger. However, when he discusses these changes with Gilbert Long, his friend does not see them at all. The Narrator theorises that the older person in a couple can become younger – but only at the expense of the younger partner becoming older.

Chapter 3. The Narrator discusses his theory with Mrs Brissenden and the case of Gilbert Long and Lady John, where he thinks there he thinks there has been a transfer of intelligence, making him the cleverest guest but one [the cleverest by implication being the Narrator himself]. He suggests that they should search out the biggest fool at the party to discover the source of Long’s improvement – but there must be evidence of relations between them. They make further observations which prove fruitless, and the Narrator entertains the notion that his suppositions might be in bad taste.

Chapter 4. Mrs Server thinks that Lady John is only interested in Ford Obert. The Narrator and May Server discuss a painting of a man holding a mask, guessing of whom it reminds them. The Narrator talks with Ford Obert about his theory, who has similar suspicions of Mrs Server. They agree to limit their observations to psychology alone, yet they recognise that theoretically it’s none of their business which other parties in these presumably illicit relations are creating the effects they claim to be observing.

Chapter 5. The Narrator discusses with Mrs Brissenden their observations regarding Mrs Server. They disagree, and still have no evidence for their claims and no known lover. They go out into the garden and find Mrs Server with Guy Brissenden. His wife claims that he is being used as a red herring by Mrs Server to deflect attention from her real lover.

Chapter 6. The Narrator reflects that whilst Mrs Server keeps appearing with different men, he himself is not one of them. He wonders briefly if he might be in love with her, and if the rest of the company are wondering about her as he is. Next he comes across Lady John and Guy Brissingham in a remote part of the gardens. He imagines their thoughts and intentions regarding each other, and concludes that Lady John is using Guy Brissenden as a red-herring too.

Chapter 7. The Narrator quizzes young Guy Brissenden on Lady John and Mrs Server, but Brissenden contradicts every one of his suppositions. They agree that Mrs Server is very happy, but don’t know why. Guy Brissenden wants to ‘help’ Mrs Server, and thinks she might be hiding something. He asks the Narrator to help him find out what it is, but the Narrator refuses without giving any explanation.

Chapter 8. The Narrator congratulates himself on the accuracy and the success of his observations. He then meets Mrs Severn in a garden. They barely speak to each other about the ideas that concern him – which he interprets as a sign that she wants a respite from the strain of acting a part of gaiety. When they do speak it seems to be at cross purposes, about different people – which he interprets as a cover for the truth he thinks she is hiding. He tells Mrs Server directly that he believes Guy Brissenden is in love with her. , by whom they are shortly joined. The Narrator makes his excuses and leaves them together.

Chapter 9. After dinner that night the Narrator talks with Gilbert Long, congratulating himself that he knows Long’s secret (and that Long knows that he knows) but they cannot discuss it openly. A visiting pianist gives a recital, during which the Narrator assumes that all the guests are reflecting privately on the relationships he thinks he has uncovered. He then challenges Lady John, but she answers him in an oblique manner. When she asks him who he is so concerned about, he refuses to answer her. Moreover, he believes that Lady John does not and can not know all the subtle connections between the guests which he perceives.

Chapter 10. As a return to London is in prospect for the next day, the Narrator wonders if all the changes and effects he has observed in the guests might disappear and everything return to normal. By midnight he resolves to escape the problems of analysis by leaving on an early train next morning. But then seeing Gilbert Long alone on the terrace all his curiosity is re-awakened. He then meets Ford Obert and goes in search of Mrs Brissenden who has promised to have a word with him.

Chapter 11. He follows Obert into the library, where he challenges him directly about his interest in Mrs Server. They agree that she has changed, but Obert claims she has reverted to an earlier state of being. Obert claims he has been watching the Brissendens and has reached to same conclusions as the Narrator. However, the Narrator will not accept this admission because he believes that Obert cannot have all the relevant ‘information’. They agree that Mrs Server’s lover may not actually be there at the house. Suddenly Guy Brissenden arrives to say that his wife want to speak to the Narrator, who thinks that maybe Gilbert Long and Mrs Brissenden have been or still are lovers.

Chapter 12. When he meets Mrs Brissenden she looks very young, and he hopes that all will be revealed. But she has nothing of any consequence to tell him. In fact she expects him to make all the revelations. But she does believe that May Server is not involved in the puzzle they have been trying to solve. The Narrator is suddenly quite sure that Gilbert Long is Mrs Brissenden’s lover and that she is protecting him. He challenges her to say who has brought about the remarkable change in Long. In response, she accuses him of being too fanciful and over-analytical.

Chapter 13. When she singularly gives him no concrete information, he interprets this as proof that he is correct in his suppositions. He then invites her to advise him how to get rid of his over-active imagination (which he believes has led him to the truth) – but this is a trick designed to get her to reveal her ‘secret’. But she suddenly declares that she thinks him crazy. He then interrogates her relentlessly about exactly which point in the day she changed her mind about him. Finally she reveals that Gilbert Long has been the centre of her attention – but only as a negative example of the Narrator’s idea of a stupid person being elevated intellectually by a romantic liaison. She declares that Gilbert Long was not transformed at all: he was always stupid and remains so now.

Chapter 14. The Narrator is forced to admit that his theory was all wrong. However, Mrs Brissenden admits that she has been lying and covering up – and that Lady John is the woman in question. Her husband has revealed to her the liaison between Long and Lady John. The Narrator concludes their lengthy nocturnal debate and goes to bed chastened.

Henry James – caricature by Max Beerbohm

The Sacred Fount – principal characters

I	the un-named narrator
Newmarch	the country estate where the weekend party takes place
Gilbert Long	a visitor at the party
Mrs Grace Brissenden	a woman of 42
Guy Brissenden	her husband of 29
Lady John	a visitor at the party
Ford Obert	a painter
Mrs May Server	an attractive weekend visitor
Lord Luttley	a weekend visitor
Compte de Dreuil	French visitor
Comptess de Dreuil	his American wife

Henry James’s study

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

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

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.

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

The Secret Agent

February 12, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Secret Agent (1907) is a short novel and a masterpiece of sustained irony. It is based on the real incident of a bomb attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1888 and features a cast of wonderfully grotesque characters: Verloc the lazy double agent, Inspector Heat of Scotland Yard, and the Professor – an anarchist who wanders through the novel with bombs strapped round his waist and the detonator in his hand.

Joseph Conrad

The English government and police are subject to sustained criticism, and the novel bristles with some wonderfully orchestrated effects of dramatic irony – all set in the murky atmosphere of late Victorian London. Here Conrad prefigures all the ambiguities which surround two-faced international relations, duplicitous State realpolitik, and terrorist outrage which still beset us a hundred years later. The sub-title of the novel is ‘A Simple Tale’ – which itself is deeply ironic, because the story is anything but simple.

The Secret Agent – critical commentary

Conrad is celebrated for his use of irony, and he lays it on very thick indeed inThe Secret Agent. In fact he employs several types of irony throughout the novel, much of it for grim effect.

comic irony
narrative irony
situational irony
dramatic irony
tragic irony

Comic irony

This occurs where there an obviously funny disparity between something intended and the result. For instance the ‘terrorists’ who group themselves around Verloc are all hopelessly inadequate beings who have very little political effect. But Conrad depicts them as comic grotesques. Michaelis is almost obscenely overweight, and he has lost the power of consecutive thought whilst in prison. The Professor is a small shabby figure who lives in abject poverty and does nothing except walk round London with an explosive device strapped to his body. Ossipon is a failed medical student who pathetically sponges off shop girls, and by the end of the novel is ‘ready to receive the leather yoke of the sandwich board’. Karl Yundt is a pathetic old man with a whispy beard who appears to do nothing of any consequence.

These are comic caricatures – and all of them are light years away from their declared aim of overthrowing society. They are all well known to government authorities and under regular supervision by the police force they profess to scorn. Moreover, they are being led by a man who betrays them – Verloc, a double agent.

Admittedly, it is a grim form of comedy – but that is very much Joseph Conrad, and many critics have observed that this is one of his more pessimistic novels.

Narrative irony

This occurs when the narrator says something about the narrative or a character which the reader knows is not true. Conrad’s characterization of Verloc uses this device all the way through the novel. We the readers know that Verloc is an overweight, lazy, incompetent, self-indulgent failure. But Conrad in his third person omniscient narrative mode gives an account of Verloc which is couched in positive terms. Conrad achieves this effect by slipping into Verloc’s own point of view – an indirect form of narrative.

He was tired. The last particle of nervous force had been expended in the wonders and agonies of this day full of surprising failures coming at the end of a harrassing month of scheming and insomnia. He was tired. A man isn’t made of stone. Hang everything! Mr Verloc reposed characteristically, clad in his outdoor garments. One side of his open overcoat was lying partly on the ground. Mr Verloc wallowed on his back. But he longed for a more perfect rest – for sleep – for a few hours of delicious forgetfulness. That would come later. Provisionally he rested. And he thought: “I wish she would give over this damned nonsense. It’s exasperating.”

Here are two (maybe three) forms of irony active at the same time. The narrative gives us Verloc’s point of view: “A man isn’t made of stone”. We know however that he is lazy, self-indulgent, and vulgar. (He spends most of his time indoor dressed for the street.) He wishes for a ‘more perfect rest’ – and he is shortly going to get it when Winnie murders him with the carving knife. And what he calls “damned nonsense” is the fact that he has just killed her beloved brother with the bomb.

Situational irony

This occurs where there is a disparity between intention and result. It could be argued that the scenes in the home of the lady protector of Michaelis offer examples of these. The guests include Michaelis, who the police regard as a dangerous terrorist; the police themselves, in the form of the Assistant Commissioner, who is supposed to be tracking down the anarchists; and Mr Vladimir from the Russian embassy, who has instigated the bomb plot in the first place.

So – the characters who are supposed to be at the opposite ends of society are in fact mingling socially. The intention is to preserve the power of the ruling class and its appearance of solidity. The result is that it deals with its own enemies. Our own society has provided plenty of similar examples – from Lord Profumo mixing with Russian spies and prostitutes at Cliveden in 1963, to Tony Blair cozying up to Muammar Gaddafi and Rupert Murdoch.

Some people might argue that these are examples of dramatic irony: but in fact all the characters in the un-named lady’s house know what is going on in these scenes. They keep up a polite diplomatic front of being sociable, even though some of them are sworn enemies.

Dramatic irony

This occurs when the reader knows something that a character does not. There is a superb example of this at the end of the novel when Winnie is fleeing the scene of her crime and she bumps into Ossipon. Her state of distress leads him to believe that it is caused by the bomb explosion at Greenwich, which he believes has resulted in Verloc’s death. He is only too keen to take advantage of an attractive woman in her bereaved state.

What he does not realise is that her distress is caused by the death of Verloc – but because she has just murdered him. We as readers know that, but Ossipon does not – and when he discovers Verloc’s body with the meat cleaver sticking out of it, he vomits all over the floor. This is another example of what might be called double irony (see below).

Tragic irony

This is a form of dramatic irony which occurs when a character’s actions lead to tragic consequences, contrary to the characters desire or intentions. For instance in the dramatic finale to the novel Winnie wishes to escape from the scene of her crime. She entrusts herself and all the money she has got into the hands of Ossipon. But unknown to her he is a persistent user of women, and even worse, he has categorised her as a ‘degenerate … of a murdering type’ likely to cause him trouble. So he steals her money and abandons her – which leads to her suicide.

In fact it could be argued that there is a sort of double irony operating here – because although Ossipon’s belief in Lombroso’s crackpot theories of phrenology are obviously not shared by Conrad, it is in fact true that Winnie has been a dangerous woman with a knife, and she has committed a murder.

The Secret Agent – study resources

The Secret Agent – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon UK

The Secret Agent – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon US

The Secret Agent – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Secret Agent – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

The Secret Agent – Modern Library – Amazon UK

The Secret Agent – Modern Library – Amazon US

The Secret Agent – Master Guide (Palgrave) – Amazon UK

The Secret Agent – 1996 film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK

Sabotage – Hitchcok’s 1936 film adaptation – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

The Secret Agent – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

The Secret Agent – audioBook at LibriVox

The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

The Joseph Conrad Society

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex – tutorials, web links, study resources

The Secret Agent – plot summary

The novel is set in London in 1886. Adolf Verloc runs a shop which sells pornographic material, stationery, and contraceptives. This is a cover for his activity as a secret agent. He lives there with his young wife Winnie, his ailing mother-in-law, and his young brother-in-law, Stevie. The boy has a mental disability which causes him to be very excitable. Verloc’s wife looks after Stevie, treating him more as a son than as a brother. Verloc’s contacts are a group of anarchists of which Comrade Ossipon, Michaelis, Carl Yundt, and ‘The Professor’ are the most prominent. Although largely ineffectual as terrorists, their actions are known to the police. The group produce anarchist literature in the form of pamphlets entitled FP, an abbreviation for The Future of the Proletariat.

Verloc is summoned to a foreign embassy in Knightsbridge (strongly implied to be Russian) where he is employed as a secret agent. Mr. Vladimir, the First Secretary in the embassy reproaches him for filing reports which they regard as useless. He instructs him to carry out some bomb outrage as an agent provocateur to provoke the English establishment into authoritarian repression of what they regard as wishy-washy liberals. He suggests the destruction of Greenwich Observatory as an attack on rationality and science.

Verloc later meets his friends, who discuss politics and law, and the theories of various forms of resistance to the State. Stevie, Verloc’s young brother-in-law, overhears the conversation, which greatly disturbs him.

Comrade Ossipon later meets The Professor, who describes the nature of the bomb which he carries in his coat at all times: it allows him to press a button which will blow him up in twenty seconds, and those nearest to him. After The Professor leaves the meeting, he stumbles into Chief Inspector Heat. He is a policeman working on the case regarding a recent explosion at Greenwich, where one man was killed. Heat informs The Professor that he is not a suspect in the case, but that he is being monitored because of his terrorist inclinations and anarchist background.

Knowing that Michaelis has recently moved to the countryside to write his memoirs, the Chief Inspector informs the Assistant Commissioner that he has a contact, Verloc, who may be able to assist in the case. The Assistant Commissioner later speaks to his superior, Sir Ethelred, about his intentions to solve the case alone, rather than relying on the effort of Chief Inspector Heat.

On Verloc’s return from a business trip to the continent, his wife tells him of the high regard that Stevie has for him and she implores her husband to spend more time with Stevie. Verloc eventually agrees to go for a walk with Stevie. After this walk, Mrs. Verloc notes that her husband’s relationship with her brother has improved. Verloc then tells his wife that he has taken Stevie to go and visit Michaelis, and that Stevie would stay with him in the countryside for a few days.

As Verloc is talking to his wife about the possibility of emigrating to the continent, he is paid a visit by the Assistant Commissioner. Shortly thereafter, Chief Inspector Heat arrives in order to speak with Verloc, without knowing that the Assistant Commissioner had left with Verloc earlier that evening. The Chief Inspector tells Mrs. Verloc that he had recovered an overcoat at the scene of the bombing which had the shop’s address written on a label. Mrs. Verloc confirms that it was Stevie’s overcoat, and that she had written the address. On Verloc’s return, he realises that his wife knows her brother has been killed by Verloc’s bomb, and confesses what truly happened. A stunned Mrs. Verloc gradually goes mad, ultimately attacking her husband with a knife, stabbing him to death.

After the murder, Mrs. Verloc flees her home, where she chances upon Comrade Ossipon, and begs him to help her. Ossipon assists her, but also confesses his romantic feelings for her. Planning on running away with her, he aids her in taking a boat to the continent. However, her instability and the revelation of her murder increasingly worries him, and he abandons her. He later discovers she disappeared, leaving behind her wedding ring, presumably drowned.

The Secret Agent – film version

Sylvia Sydney and Oscar Homulka star in Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation, which he re-named Sabotage. This was possibly to distinguish it from his other film Secret Agent which was released in the same year – 1936.

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1936 adaptation Sabotage

See reviews of the film at the Internet Movie Database

Principal characters

Adolf Verloc	Anglo-French shopkeeper, anarchist, and double agent (40+)
Winnie Verloc	his young wife
–	Winnie’s mother – an old woman who wears a black wig
Stevie	Winnie’s mentally-retarded young brother
Chief Inspector Heat	detective working on the Greenwich bombing attack
The Assistant Comissioner	in charge of the Special Crime Department
Annie	the assistant Commissioner’s wife, who is a friend of Michaelis’s patroness
A distinguished lady	upper-class patroness of Michaelis
Sir Ethelred	Secretary for State (Home Secretary) to whom the Commissioner reports
‘Toodles’	Sir Ethelred’s (unpaid) private secretary
Privy Councillor Wurmt	attache at a foreign embassy (Russia)
Mr Vladimir	First Secretary at a foreign embassy (Russia)
Baron Scott-Wartheim	Verloc’s former employer at the embassy
Alexander Ossipon aka ‘Tom’ and ‘The Doctor’	anarchist, former medical student (no degree) who writes propoaganda leaflets
Karl Yundt	old anarchist
The Professor	former teach of chemistry who carries a live bomb at all times
Michaelis	fat, ex-prisoner, vulgar-Marxist
Mrs Neale	Winnie’s cleaner

Joseph Conrad – biography

The Complete Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad is a good introduction to Conrad criticism. It includes a potted biography, an outline of the stories and novels, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from the early comments by his contemporaries to critics of the present day. Also includes a thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Conrad journals. These guides are very popular. Recommended.

Other novels by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness (1902) is a tightly controlled novella which has assumed classic status as an account of the process of Imperialism. It documents the search for a mysterious Kurtz, who has ‘gone too far’ in his exploitation of Africans in the ivory trade. The reader is plunged deeper and deeper into the ‘horrors’ of what happened when Europeans invaded the continent. This might well go down in literary history as Conrad’s finest and most insightful achievement, and it is based on his own experiences as a sea captain. This volume also contains ‘An Outpost of Progress’ – the magnificent study in shabby cowardice which prefigures ‘Heart of Darkness’.
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Oxford World Classics offers the best editions of Conrad’s work. They are largely based on the most accurate versions of the texts; and they feature introductory essays, a biography, explanatory notes, textual variants, a bibliography of further reading, and in some cases missing or deleted chapters. They are also terrifically good value.

Nostromo (1904) is Conrad’s ‘big’ political novel – into which he packs all of his major subjects and themes. It is set in the imaginary Latin-American country of Costaguana – and features a stolen hoard of silver, desperate acts of courage, characters trembling on the brink of moral panic. The political background encompasses nationalist revolution and the Imperialism of foreign intervention. Silver is the pivot of the whole story – revealing the courage of some and the corruption and destruction of others. Conrad’s narration is as usual complex and oblique. He begins half way through the events of the revolution, and proceeds by way of flashbacks and glimpses into the future.
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Joseph Conrad web links

Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.

More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales

The Spoils of Poynton

May 2, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Spoils of Poynton (1896) is a short novel which James wrote in his late period, following the catastrophe of his excursion into the theatre, just before the composition of What Masie Knew, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl. It was first serialised in the Atlantic Monthly under the title of The Old Things then extensively revised by James for publication as a single volume in 1897.

Wakehurst Place Mansion

Even though the novel ostensibly concerns a battle of wills over the possession of a beautiful contry house and its collection of antiques and furnishings, there is very little description of these objects themselves. They are merely presented (and accepted) as ‘wonderful’. Nevertheless, James includes a delicate sprinkling of very witty observations about good taste (and lack of it) in the decoration of houses. This was an interest he shared with his friend and fellow-novelist Edith Wharton, whose seminal work on the subject, The Decoration of Houses (1897) was published at exactly the same time as The Spoils of Poynton.

The Spoils of Poynton – critical commentary

One of the most striking features of The Spoils of Poynton is its similarity to Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (1814). Both are about the forces competing for moral dominance focussed on the possession of a country house. Both feature heroines who are young, relatively poor, and who uphold scrupulous, even fastidious standards of rectitude which cause them to put themselves under a great deal of emotional stress.

Fleda Vetch is separated from her family, and lives under the bounty of Mrs Gereth, just as Fanny Price lives with her richer uncle and aunt Bertram at Mansfield Park. Fleda is much of the time secretly in love with her protectress’s son Owen, as is Fanny with Edmund Bertram.

Both Owen Gereth and Edmund Bertram are unaware that they are selflessly loved and protected by the heroine of the narrative, and meanwhile make relationships with other women who are morally suspect (Mona Brigstock and Mary Crawford respectively).

Both heroines choose to keep their feelings hidden from others, and endure enormous amounts of self-sacriifice and denial in order to protect the object of their affections. Both of them maintain incredibly high standards of moral scruple in the face of other characters tempting them to do otherwise.

In both cases an inheritance and rise in social position is at stake. The stories are variations of the Cinderella theme. But the difference is that Fanny Price eventually gets her man, whereas Fleda Vetch waits too long and loses both her man, Owen Gereth, and the treasures of Poynton Park, which goes up in flames.

The Spoils of Poynton – study resources

The Spoils of Poynton – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

The Spoils of Poynton – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

The Spoils of Poynton – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Spoils of Poynton – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

The Spoils of Poynton – Kindle eBook edition

The Spoils of Poynton – (unabridged) Audio book

The Spoils of Poynton – eBook editions at Gutenberg

The Spoils of Poynton – Video film (5 disk boxed set)

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

The Spoils of Poynton – plot summary

Mrs Adela Gereth has lovingly nurtured a collection of art objects and furnishings in a grand old house at Poynton Park, but when her husband dies the property is inherited by her naive son Owen. She fears he will marry someone with no taste and the spirit of the house will become neglected or even violated. She befriends the sensitive and intelligent Fleda Vetch to share her concerns. But Owen becomes engaged to Mona Brigstock, who has no feeling for aethetic beauty at all, and who merely sees Poynton as a material acquisition. Fleda is in love with Owen, but conceals the fact.

When Mona demands that Mrs Gereth vacate Poynton as a condition of her marrying Owen, Fleda feels divided loyalties between helping Owen or his mother. Mrs Gereth goes to live at Ricks, a much smaller house which has been allocated to her, but she also takes all the best items from the collection at Poynton. Mona threatens to call off the marriage to Owen unless the goods are returned. Owen asks Fleda to negotiate with his mother for the return of the goods. She perversely dissimulates her love of Owen to Mrs Gereth in order to preserve what she perceives to be his ‘honour’. However, Mrs Gereth devines the truth of the matter and offers to hand over Poynton and its contents if Fleda will marry Owen.

Mona meanwhile delays the marriage and her mother Mrs Brigstock discovers that Owen has fallen in love with Fleda. Owen and Fleda eventually declare their love for each other, but she insists that Mona must first give him up voluntarily, so that he does not break his promise to marry her.

Knowing that her son and Fleda are in love and likely to marry, Mrs Gereth returns the ‘spoils’ to their spiritual home at Poynton. But Mona takes that as a signal for action, and holds Owen to his promise. They marry quickly, secretly, in a registry office.

Mrs Gereth and Fleda go to live at a much-improved Ricks, whilst Mona and Owen leave Poynton to go on a long vacation in India. Fleda eventually receives a letter from Owen offering to let her select a small momento from the objects at Poynton – but when she arrives there to do so, she finds that the house and its contents have been destroyed in a fire.

Principal characters

Mrs Adela Gereth	a strong-minded widow in her 50s who collects beautiful objects
Owen Gereth	her well-intentioned but naive son
Fleda Vetch	a plain but intelligent young woman
Mrs Brigstock	owner of Waterbath
Mona Brigstock	her vulgar and greedy eldest daughter
Maggie	Fleda’s married sister
Colonel Gereth	Mrs Gereth’s brother-in-law
Waterbath	a country house full of vulgar objects
Poynton Park	a Jacobean house with a collection of beautiful objects
Cadogan Place	temporary London home for Mrs Gereth
Ricks	permanent alternative home for Mrs Gereth

Henry James’s study

Other works by Henry James

The Ambassadors (1903) Lambert Strether is sent from America to Paris to recall Chadwick Newsome, a young man who is reported to be compromising himself by an entanglement with a wicked woman. However, Strether’s mission fails when he is seduced by the social pleasures of the European capital, and he takes Newsome’s side. So a second ambassador is dispatched in the form of the more determined Sarah Pocock. She delivers an ultimatum which is resisted by the two young men, but then an accident reveals unpleasant truths to Strether, who is faced by a test of loyalty between old Europe and the new USA. This edition presents the latest scholarship on James and includes an introduction, notes, selected criticism, a text summary and a chronology of James’s life and times.
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Henry James – web links

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

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.

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

The Talented Mr Ripley

October 30, 2017 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, study guide, commentary, further reading, web links

The Talented Mr Ripley (1955) is the first of a series of crime thrillers by Patricia Highsmith featuring the character Tom Ripley. He is an ambitious young American who has come from an undistinguished background, but who has a taste for the good quality things in life, which are not within his means. The talents mentioned in the title turn out to include forgery, deception, mimicry, lying, and murder – from which he miraculously escapes detection.

There are five novels in the series, which have become known collectively as The Ripliad. They are self-contained and can be enjoyed separately – but a knowledge of their chronological development adds a great deal of depth to their meaning – particularly the ironic contrasts between Ripley’s refined social tastes and his shocking exploits.

The Talented Mr Ripley – commentary

Genre and morality

Patricia Highsmith’s novels are often categorised as mystery thrillers or detective stories. Yet the Ripley series in particular contain very little mystery and virtually no detection. That’s because we know who commits the crimes – Ripley himself. The only element of suspense in the narrative is the question ‘will he be found out?’ – to which the answer is ‘Amazingly – no’.

Highsmith is exploring a rather bleak, pessimistic, sometimes misanthropic view of the world in which virtue is not necessarily rewarded and mischief is not always punished. It also has to be said that this view is shot through with elements of black humour – another sign of the times in which she wrote.

The plot

Before she became a full time novelist, Patricia Highsmith wrote the stories for comic books (1942-1948). These have the virtue of being fast-moving tales with clearly defined characters and lots of dramatic twists. This background undoubtedly had an influence on her work as a novelist.

She is also a product of the age of existentialism. – ideas she had already explored in her dramatic and very successful first novel Strangers on a Train (1950) – the text of which is even more complex and psychologically searching than the famous film adaptation made by Alfred Hitchcock.

It is her fascination with aberrant and psychologically disturbed characters that give her stories such impact. In this there is clearly the influence of Dostoyevski – a founding father to the existentialists.

Tom Ripley is a vivid character not just because he commits murders and evades detection, but because he is ruthlessly honest about himself, and scathingly critical of everybody else as well. He knows that Dickie Greenleaf is a mediocre person, a talentless painter, and a spoiled playboy. Yet he is attracted to Greenleaf; indeed he wants to become him. He wears his clothes and jewellery, imitates his voice and his writing, and is happiest when living as him.

The homo-erotic element in this relationship is unmistakable – especially in Tom’s glorification of Dickie’s physical beauty and his disparagement of Marge, who he likens to the leader of a Girl Guide group. What is even more complex and interesting in thiis psychological farrago is that this study of male desire was created by not only a female author, but one who was avowedly homosexual in her own tastes and practices.

Tom’s character

Tom originally thought he might become an actor. His deprived background left him feeling he had no central identity to define a real self, so he thought that imitating someone else might provide him with an acceptable substitute. The events of The Talented Mr Ripley present a study of Tom’s identifying with someone else, to the extent that he wishes to become that person – Dickie Greenleaf.

He does not set out with malicious intentions. Fortune puts the opportunity in his way via Dickie’s father’s request that he try to persuade Dickie to come back from Europe. There is a clear echo of Henry James’ The Ambassadors here, which Patricia Highsmith signals quite clearly in the narrative.

In one sense Tom Ripley does become Dickie Greenleaf. He forges Dickie’s will and inherits his wealth, then he retires to live in a grand French house, with a playboy existence – pottering amongst his plants and painting when the mood takes him. So he replicates the lifestyle of Dickie’s which he so coveted. He also has a glamorous wife (with a rich father) to whom he is rather unconvincingly devoted.

The Talented Mr Ripley – film adaptations

There have been two major film adaptations of the novel. The first was made in 1960 by French director Rene Clement and is called Pleine Soleil, also known as Purple Noon. It stars Alain Delon as Ripley in what was his first major film.

The second was made by British director Anthony Minghella in 1999, starring Mat Damon as Ripley and Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf. This version is beautifully photographed (by John Seale) and received several nominations and film awards

Minghella’s version takes some minor liberties with the story line and introduces new characters and plot complications. Minghella rather unnecessarily creates a second lead female (Meredith Logue, played by Cate Blanchett) and adds a third murder when Ripley kills Peter Smith-Kingsley (Jack Davenport) during the boat trip to Greece. But on the whole his film is amazingly faithful to the original text in terms of rhythm, tone, locations, and atmosphere.

The Talented Mr Ripley – study resources

The Talented Mr Ripley – Penguin – Amazon UK

The Talented Mr Ripley – Penguin – Amazon US

The Talented Mr Ripley – Kindle – Amazon UK

The Talented Mr Ripley – Kindle – Amazon US

The Talented Mr Ripley – DVD film – Amazon UK

The Talented Mr Ripley – DVD film – Amazon US

Pleine Soleil – DVD film – Amazon UK

Pleine Soleil – DVD film – Amazon US

The complete Ripliad

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)

Ripley Under Ground (1970)

Ripley’s Game (1974)

The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980)

Ripley Under Water (1991)

Patricia Highsmith

The Talented Mr Ripley – plot summary

Tom Ripley is a young man living on the edge of legality in New York City. He is collecting cheques from people by issuing false income tax demands. He meets shipbuilder Herbert Greenleaf who asks for help in recovering his son Richard, who has gone to live in Italy. Tom has dinner at the Greenleaf house, where he lies about his academic record.

Crossing to Europe on board ship Tom reflects on his unhappy childhood and blames his Aunt Dottie for not making his life easier. In the (ficticious) town of Mongibello in Italy Tom locates Dickie and Marge Sherwood on the beach. They invite him back for lunch, after which he is sick.

When they meet again Tom explains his mission on behalf of Mr Greenleaf. Dickie invites Tom to live temporarily in his house. Tom finds Dickie commonplace but attractive. They go for lunch in Naples, then on to Rome for the night.

There is talk of travelling together, but Marge disapproves of their irresponsible behaviour. Dickie claims Marge is just a friend, but Tom spies and sees him kissing her. This puts Tom into a jealous rage. He dresses in Dickie’s clothes and imagines strangling Marge. Dickie suddenly appears in the room and there is an embarrassing scene.

Tom and Dickie argue about a proposed trip to Paris. Tom feels he is being squeezed out, and will be left alone at Christmas. They go to Cannes and San Remo, where Tom begins to hate Dickie because of his cold remoteness. When they go out on a boat Tom kills Dickie, steals his wallet, and scuttles the boat.

Tom returns to Mongibello and tells Marge that Dickie is stayIng in Rome for the winter. He steals Dickie’s clothes and makes arrangements to sell Dickie’s house and boat. He goes to Rome, where he writes a goodbye letter to Marge in Dickie’s name.

He goes to Paris at Christmas and enjoys living in someone else’s persona – shedding his own.. He spends the rest of winter in Rome, avoiding giving anyone his address. . However, a fleeting mistake brings Dickie’s friend Freddy Miles to the apartment. Knowing his deception will be exposed, Tom murders Freddy.

He dumps Freddy’s body on the Appian Way then prepares to leave for Majorca. But the body is found and the police arrive to question him. The scuttled boat is also found. Tom feels threatened by people trying to contact him.

The police return to say they think Tom Ripley is dead because of blood in the boat. Then Marge arrives, but he lies to her, gives her the slip, and goes instead to Palermo, Sicily.

In Palermo a letter arrives from Marge for Dickie. She is giving up on the relationship and going back to America. Tom receives notice from the bank that they suspect the signatures on Dickie’s cheques might be forgeries.

When he receives a letter from the police demanding his presence in Rome, he decides reluctantly to revert to being Tom Ripley. The police are also searching for Ripley, but when he presents himself to them he is easily able to convince them of his innocence.

He establishes himself in grand style in Venice, and is visited by Marge. She questions him closely about his time apparently spent with Dickie. Speculation continues about Dickie’s whereabouts. Herbert Greenleaf arrives to check on the latest news. Tom gives him an edited version.

Suddenly, Marge finds Dickie’s rings. Tom lies his way out of the tight corner, and fantasises about killing her. Private detective McCarron arrives to question Tom and Marge closely. Some days later Tom posts Mr Greenleaf a copy of Dickie’s will that he has forged.

Tom is preparing to go to Greece when Dickie’s luggage is found in the American Express office in Venice. Tom sails to Greece, all the time thinking he is about to be arrested. But on arrival in Athens a letter from Mr Greenleaf confirms that he accepts the terms of the will: Dickie’s entire inheritance is left to Tom.

The Talented Mr Ripley – characters

Herbert Greenleaf	a rich and successful shipbuilder
Masie Greenleaf	his wife, who is dying from lukemia
Richard (‘Dickie’) Greenleaf	his son, a self-indulgent playboy and amateur painter
Marge Sherwood	Dickie’s American girlfriend, a would-be writer
Tom Ripley	a confidence man
Freddie Miles	an American playboy friend of Dickie

More Patricia Highsmith
Twentieth century literature
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The Time Machine

July 25, 2016 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Time Machine (1888-1895) is the first of H.G. Wells’ works which made him instantly famous as a writer of science fiction novels at the end of the nineteenth century. He had studied biology and zoology at the National School of Science in South Kensington (later to become Imperial College London) under the tutelage of Charles Darwin’s friend and supporter, Thomas Huxley. Wells’ first novels featured a number of issues in theoretical science on which he also speculated in his journalism – time travel, genetic engineering, inter-planetary warfare, ecology, eugenics, and space travel – all of which he crafted into short, very readable fictions that appealed to a very wide public.

The Time Machine – a note on the text

The Time Machine first saw light of day as a short story called ‘The Chronic Argonauts’ Wells published it as a student in three editions of the Science Schools Journal (April-June 1888). It then appeared, after several re-writes, in 1894 as The Time Machine in National Observer. but the serial version was halted whilst still incomplete because the editor of the magazine changed.

However, his original supporter W.E. Henley became the editor of the New Review and encouraged Wells to revise and expand the work. It then appeared as a monthly serial between January and May 1895, attracting considerable attention even before it appeared in single-volume book form published by William Heinemann in May 1895.

For full details of the history and development of the text, plus revisions to subsequent editions, see the note by Patrick Parrinder in the Penguin Classics edition of the novel.

The Time Machine – critical commentary

The conceits which underpin the credibility of the novel are developed in two parts. The first concerns the concept of what constitutes a ‘dimension’. The scientist (and time traveller) argues at the beginning of the story that if we can move in any one of three dimensions (length, breadth, thickness), and if time is considered the forth dimension, then why should we not be able to move in time as well? The idea is very seductive. Wells simply equates these ‘four’ dimensions as equal – and the rest follows naturally:

“There is no difference between time and any of the three dimensions of space except that our consciousness moves along it”, and “any real body must have extension in four directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and Duration”.

This rather simplistic notion of time being a ‘dimension’ of the same order as length, breadth, and thickness is taken at face value by Wells, his outer-narrator, and the scientist himself. That having been argued (and ‘established’) Wells makes no effort at all to create a convincing method of explaining how these transitions in time will be made. Instead, the scientist constructs his time travel machine – a Heath-Robinson type of contraption, with ‘ivory bars’, ‘a brass rail’, ‘a saddle’, and a ‘starting lever’ which propels him eight hundred thousand years into the future. In a later essay (1933) commenting on his own work, Wells admitted that this was a form of literary-scientific sleight-of-hand:

For the writer of fantastic stories to help the reader play the game properly, he must help him in every possible unobtrusive way to domesticate the impossible hypothesis He must trick him into an unwary concession to get some plausible assumption and get on with the story whilst the illusion holds. … Hitherto, … the fantastic element was brought in by magic … It occurred to me that … an ingenious use of scientific patter might with advantage be substituted.

The second part of his conceit is the social conditions of the world his scientist visits. This world of the future (located in the Thames valley) of 802, 701 AD is comprised of a rag bag of elements that reflect interests Wells himself espoused – vegetarianism, socialist utopias, class conflict, and genetic mutation.

The creatures who live above ground – the Eloi – are etiolated and enfeebled because they have reached a stage of development in which all conflict and struggle has been removed from their lives. They exist in a state of idiotic collective bliss, surviving on a diet of fruit in communal halls. Even the differentiation between the sexes has almost disappeared. However, they are ‘supported’ by the Morlocks, who live underground and take their revenge for this injustice by eating the Eloi when they get the chance.

It is not entirely clear why the Morlocks, having mastered machinery, have not also retained the skills of husbandry, and why they are still afraid of light – including struck matches. Wells’ vision of a future world is not an altogether coherent set of circumstances, just a set of alarmist warnings.

Form

It has to be said that for such an early work, the novel is very neatly constructed – in three parts. The first two chapters of the novel outline the scientist’s ‘theory’ of travelling in the fourth dimension and his presentation of the model version of his time machine to his dinner guests. The second and main part of the work is his account of the temporal journey and his adventures in the future – which he gives as a first person narrative. Then the third part returns to the scene of the somewhat incredulous dinner guests where the outer narrator takes over to report that the scientist has embarked on another journey and has not been seen for three years.

This conclusion suggests that either something has gone wrong and the scientist is ‘stuck’ in some future (or past) date, or that he has somehow become a permanent time-traveller with no reason to return to his earthly ‘present’. Both of these possibilities reinforce the illusion that the time machine actually ‘works’.

In her introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of the book, Marina Warner describes The Time Machine as ‘a long short story’ , and there are good arguments to support this view. The work is only 25,000 words long, and it is composed essentially of one anecdote.

But on the other hand the book is built on a large and powerful idea with universal implications – even if the theory is flawed. And the scientist’s exploits amongst the Morlocks and Eloi are more complex and substantial than constitute the material of a short story. So it could be argued that the work is a short novel or even a novella.

Footnote

Regarding Wells’ quasi-scientific notions of ‘dimensions’ , there is an interesting but little-known novella which explores imaginary worlds of one, two, and three dimensions published only ten years earlier. It was written by Cambridge scholar and clergyman Edwin A. Abbott in 1884. . Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions explores (in a witty and fantastical manner) the idea that people living in a world of only x-dimensions cannot conceptualise anyone living in a world of x+1 dimensions. His examples range from people living in lines, squares, cubes, and spheres, and In one sense his satirical thesis supports Wells’ notion that time is merely another ‘dimension’. Abbott’s conclusion is that we, who live in a world of three dimensions, merely have difficulty conceptualising life in a world of four dimensions – or even more.

The Time Machine – study resources

The Time Machine – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Time Machine – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

H.G. Wells Classic Collection – five novels – Amazon UK

H.G. Wells Biography – Amazon UK

The Time Machine – first edition – 1895

The Time Machine – chapter summaries

1 A scientist (the Time Traveller) is explaining the geometry of four dimensions – length, breadth, thickness, and time. He produces a model of a time machine and sets it off into the future or maybe the past. He has a full scale model in his laboratory

2 A week later a group of observers assemble for dinner at the scientist’s house in Richmond. He appears in a ragged and dishevelled state. After dressing for dinner he then tells them that he has been time travelling for eight days.

3 He tells how got into the machine, pulled its levers, and shot forward in time at a vertiginous pace, traversing years in minutes. When he stops he encounters a huge Sphinx figure on a bronze pedestal, then is approached by small long-haired people.

4 It is the year 802, 701 AD. The elfin-like folk take the scientist into a large dilapidated hall where they eat fruit around low stone tables. Many common animals have become extinct. He tries to learn their language, but they have very little patience or concentration. There is little differentiation between the sexes. He perceives this society as a form of cvommunism, a social paradise in which there is no disease, no traffic, and no conflict. He also sees it as a society which is ‘resting’ in its historical development, having eliminated the need to struggle.

5 After exploring the area overlooking the Thames he finds that his time machine has disappeared. He searches desperately, concluding that it has been hidden inside the bronze pedestal. There are no shops, no machinery, and no old or infirm people in evidence. He rescues a woman-child Weena, who becomes attached to him. He sees ghosts, waterless wells, and a strange white animal resembling an ape. He reasons that another species lives underground – the Morlocks – who are like slaves to the Eloi, who live above ground.

6 After fearful hesitation he climbs down a well and discovers a system of underground tunnels and a hall of machinery. The Morlocks attack him, so he escapes back to the surface again.

7 In fear of the Morlocks he takes Weena to the Palace of Green Porcelain (in Wimbledon) and spends a night under then stars He plans to take her back with him in the time machine

8 When they reach the Palace it turns out to be a derelict museum which he plunders, retrieving a crowbar, some camphor, and a box of matches [which are 800,000 years old].

9 In returning he sets up camp in a wood and lights a fire. But he falls asleep and is set upon by the Morlocks. His camp fire sets the woods alight, and this drives away the Morlocks, who are afraid of light.

10 He returns to the pedestal, to find its doors open and the time machine inside. But as he enters, the doors close and the Morlocks attack him again. He fights them off with matches and the crowbar, and then escapes in the time machine.

11 However, he presses the accelerator and flies even further into the future, bringing the machine to a halt on a desolate stony beach where he is attacked by giant crabs. He goes even further into the future to discover that all animal life has disappeared, and he witnesses an eclipse.

`12 He gradually returns to the laboratory and his dinner guests. They are incredulous, but he has some flowers of an unknown species in his pocket that were put there by Weena. Next day the narrator goes to see him again, but the scientist takes off in the time machine again. Three years later he has still not returned.

Epilogue The outer narrator reflects that the scientist might have gone back into prehistoric times, or he might be in the near future, when all society’s current problems have been solved.

More science fiction by H.G. Wells

The Invisible Man (1897) – Penguin Classics- Amazon UK

The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Wheels of Chance (1896) – Penguin Classics- Amazon UK

The War of the Worlds (1898) – Penguin Classics- Amazon UK

The First Men in the Moon (1901) – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Shape of Things to Come (1933) – Penguin Classics- Amazon UK

More on H.G. Wells
More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

The Tragic Muse

September 22, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Tragic Muse first appeared as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly from January 1889 through to 1890. The novel was then presented in three volumes published in America by the Boston publishers Houghton, Mifflin and Company in 1890, and in England by Macmillan at virtually the same time. It is one of the longest of Henry James’ novels, and deals with a subject dear to his heart – the relationships between life and art.

first English edition in three volumes 1890

The Tragic Muse – critical commentary

The main theme

It is no surprise that this novel attracted very little attention when it was first published, and has generated so little citical commentary in the years since. The novel contains none of the careful organisation and tight structure of James’s more successful works, and its main theme of the artistic life versus social integration is not well realised.

Nick Dormer has a career as a member of parliament virtually handed to him on a silver dinner plate, but he turns it down in favour of his enthusiasm for painting. But his skill and his application as a painter are never convincingly presented. It is also difficult to believe that somebody would give up a parliamentary career on the strength of one painting which was deemed successful. He remains a weak and dilettantish figure throughout.

His sister Biddy’s activity as a sculptor is simply not realised at all. She merely hovers in her brother’s background as a fellow enthusiast.

Only Miriam’s transformation from pushy and ambitious would-be actress with few skills has any credibility attached to it. She develops via application and practice, through to a successful professional career. This part of the novel is altogether more convincing.

The length of the novel

This is possibly one of the slowest-moving of all James’s novels. It’s not only inordinately long (almost 200,000 words) but inordinately long-winded in terms of narrative technique and the recounting of events. The pace is so glacially slow at times that paragraph upon paragraph is devoted to issues as trivial as who might or might not turn up to a restaurant for lunch.

The result is a form of authorial ‘thinking out loud’ which includes multiple possibilities for almost every scene – all of which merely represent James’s point of view – not that of any of his characters. Thus the tale is essentially told, not shown.

James and the theatre

It is interesting to note that the overt subject matter of the novel (reflected in its title) of the stage and acting are topics which fascinated James and were to lead to his own ultimately disastrous excursions into playwrighting and the theatre. He converted his own early novel The American (1876) into a play which had modest success in the 1890s. On the strength of this he wrote a dozen plays, but all of them proved unsuccessful, and most famously his costume drama Guy Domville was booed off stage on its first night in England in 1895.

Nevertheless, although he was deeply wounded by the experience, he retained his interest in dramatic structures, and some of the works he conceived as dramas were later converted to novels which consist largely of conversations between the characters – such as The Other House (1896) and The Outcry.

It is also worth noting that almost all of his most carefully crafted works were later successfully adapted for the cinema – from Washington Square (1880) The Bostonians (1886) and The Portrait of a Lady (1881) to The Golden Bowl (1904). And a number of his shorter works have been turned into operas and plays, such as Owen Wingrave (1892) The Aspern Papers (1888) and The Turn of the Screw (1898).

However, despite the presence of drama in many of his novels and stories, the choice of theatre and acting as a serious topic for The Tragic Muse presents special difficulties for even so skilled a writer as James. It simply isn’t possible to give a convincing account of an evanescent art form such as the theatre in prose form.

He creates a persuasive sense that Miriam Rooth improves her acting skills as a result of learning from Madame Carré, and he evokes both the backstage and front of house atmosphere of the theatre very well, but the essence of what drama means eludes him.

The same is true in his choice of painting as Nick’s vocation. No matter how many brush strokes across canvass and paint-soaked rags are mentioned, it is virtually impossible to convey with words the visual quality of any work Nick produces. We are simply told that his portraits of Miriam (and he only paints two during the entire novel) are successful.

The actress

Contemporary readers might find it difficult to understand why Peter is confronted with a dilemma in his passion for Miriam. He is in love with her, but in order to make a relationship with her he must persuade her to give up the very thing in which she is passionately interested – the theatre.

During the nineteenth century (and into the middle of the twentieth) the profession of actress was regarded as not far short of prostitution. Peter is a diplomat – and could not possibly combine a relationship with an actress and his career.

There was a long-standing tradition of upper-class males who had casual and semi-official liaisons with actresses. One thinks of the Prince of Wales and Lillie Langtry (real name Emile Charlotte Le Breton). But these relationships could not normally be incorporated into polite society. In Peter’s own words of warning to Miriam “e;an actress would never be invited into the drawing room of a lady”e;.

So Peter realises that there is a total incompatibility between his duties and protocols as a diplomat and his passion for such a bohemian figure as an actress – a problem which he solves by his sudden decision to marry Biddy at the end of the novel.

Those who wish to take a psycho-analytic approach to the interpretation of the story will not fail to recognise that it is one (of many in James’s oeuvre) in which two men (very close friends, and cousins) are in love with the same woman – the magnetic figure of Miriam.

Loose ends

Given the enormous length of the novel, it is reasonable to complain that it contains far too many loose ends – lines of the plot which are unexamined, unfinished, or unexplained (to use the three part amplification figure which James employs throughout the narrative).

Nick’s elder brother, Percival Dormer, is suddenly mentioned towards the end of the novel, and for a moment it looks as if he will add to the significance of the family’s social fortunes – but he just as suddenly disappears and is never mentioned again. This is bad on two counts.

As the elder son, it is more likely that the family’s hopes would rest on him, not Nick. It is the elder son who would be expected to follow his father’s role in parliament, but all those hopes (and Mr Carteret’s money) are placed on Nick. These apparently minor details undermine a significant building block of the realist novel – social accuracy, plausibility, and consistency.

Biddy is an interesting character in embryo. She is spirited, independent, and like her brother inclined to practice art. But her activity as a sculptress is never persuasive and simply evaporates in the hurried and unsatisfying conclusion when she marries Peter and disappears to his next diplomatic posting.

Julia Dallow too is a potentially interesting character – a rich and attractive woman who wishes to engage in (Liberal) politics at a national and local level. She is the financial power behind the selection of a candidate for the constituency of Harsh – though it should be noted that this is a ‘rotten’ (more euphemistically a ‘pocket’) borough.

Gabriel Nash is like a Satan figure, coming in to plead the case for aestheticism and lure people (Nick in particular) away from their civic duty. Nash appears from nowhere, plants his ideas, then disappears again. Nobody knows where he lives, and when Nick tries to paint his portrait, he escapes, claiming to be ‘indestructible’.

The Tragic Muse – study resources

The Tragic Muse – Library of America – Amazon UK

The Tragic Muse – Library of America – Amazon US

The Tragic Muse – Kindle edition

The Tragic Muse – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK

Henry James – biographical notes

Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, web links, study resources

The Tragic Muse – plot summary

Chapter I. Nicholas (Nick) Dormer is on a cultural visit to Paris with his widowed mother and sisters. Lady Dormer has severe doubts about the moral effects of the modern art they are viewing. Nick however believes that all art contributes to a general good.

Chapter II. Nick is the second eldest son of a politician and a would-be painter who is aware of his limitations. His sister Bridget (Biddy) wants to be a sculptor. They meet Gabriel Nash, who is an aphoristic conversationalist and an aesthete. Biddy is intrigued by him.

Chapter III. Grace Dormer and her mother go to lunch and discuss people’s marriage and money prospects. They are joined by their relative Peter Sherringham who reveals that Nick is being tipped for his father’s old seat as a member of parliament.

Chapter IV. Everyone thinks that Nick should ‘apply’ for the seat – but he needs money to do so (because it is a rotten borough). Nash is against the plan: he offers to introduce the family to his friend Miriam Rooth, an actress, and her mother. The theatre is considered as an artistic medium. Nick thinks it is a feeble art form; Sherringham is an enthusiastic supporter; and Lady Dormer disapproves of it completely.

Chapter V. His mother wishes that Nick were more active and enthusiastic about the chance of the parliamentary seat, and feels disappointed not to find Julia Dallow available as a potential financial supporter. Meanwhile Peter defends his enthusiasm for the theatre to Nick.

Chapter VI. The family have a restaurant dinner with Julia Dallow who is the power behind the appointment of a candidate at Harsh, her estate and parliamentary rotten borough. Julia and Nick then discuss his prospects. He is sceptical about standing: she is willing to put up the money in order to keep out the Tories.

Chapter VII. Nick and Peter meet Miriam Rooth and her mother at the home of Madame Carré. Miriam delivers recitations, but Madame Carré does not think she has any real talent. Peter however is keen to support and promote her.

Chapter VIII. Miriam and her mother are living in reduced circumstances. She gives another recital next day at an event organised by Peter. He is embarrassed by her performance and thinks her vulgar – but is nevertheless attracted to her.

Chapter IX. Gabriel Nash talks to Nick about his personal theories of the aesthetic life – turning his own feelings into a form of art. Nick is going to stand for parliament, but wishes to be a painter. He feels the force of the family’s political tradition as a burden.

Paris Street – Caillebot

Chapter X. Peter feels oppressed by the promise he has made to help Miriam, and he also fears he might be falling in love with her. She gives another pushy and bad recital chez Madame Carré. Peter also feels that critics treat actresses badly.

Chapter XI. Peter and Miriam discuss her life of poverty-in-exile and speaking styles in the theatre. He argues that she is without a genuine personality, but makes herself into a work of art, and is acting all the time.

Chapter XII. Peter is conscious that the protocols of his career in the diplomatic service mean that he should keep his theatrical enthusiasm under firmer control. He disregards Mrs Rooth’s superficiality, and the summer passes with MIriam still taking lessons from Madame Carré. Peter tries to educate her and pays for better lodgings. He thinks he might rise above personal issues, but when he goes back to London at the end of the summer he realises that he is completely in love with Miriam.

Chapter XIII. Nick is elected as Liberal Party member of parliament for Harsh. His mother wants him to marry Julia, who has financed his campaign. But Nick is reluctant, not really interested in politics, and wishes to retain his freedom. However, Lady Agnes argues that it would help her and his two unmarried sisters to establish themselves socially, and this touches his sense of family duty.

Chapter XIV. When Nick stays at Harsh with Julia and starts engaging with his political duties, he realises how they are enhanced by her presence.

Chapter XV. Nick rows out to an island on the lake at Julia’s estate at Harsh and proposes to Julia in a little Roman temple. They tease each other and he puts on a front of frivolity. Julia says his mother and sisters can live in one of her spare houses – Broadwood.

Chapter XVI. Nick visits his benefactor Mr Carteret at Beauclere and appreciate centuries of tradition that the house, grounds, and an old Abbey represents. Carteret is a liberal traditionalist with a well-informed but limited range of interests.

Chapter XVII. Next morning Carteret dispenses advice to Nick on his parliamentary responsibilities – which depresses Nick. But he approves of Nick’s marriage plans and promises to bestow money on him to give him financial independence. Nick however reveals that Julia wishes to wait for a year to be married.

Chapter XVIII. Peter feels that his ambition to succeed in his career is seriously compromised by his feelings for Miriam – who would be entirely unsuitable and unacceptable as a diplomat’s wife. He returns to Paris and encourages Mrs Rooth to take Miriam to London. She has meanwhile been taken up by admirer Basil Dashwood, who Peter claims to be keen to meet.

XIX. Peter follows Miriam and Dashwood to Madame Carré’s where she demonstrates that she has improved her skills. He befriends Dashwood and claims he has a potential engagement for Miriam arranged on the English stage.

Chapter XX. Peter takes Miriam and her mother to the Theatre Francais where he gives them a tour of its professional inner mechanisms and architecture – the theatre as seen from an actor’s point of view.

Le Théatre Francais

XXI Peter flirts with Miriam and offers to take her away from the theatre. They meet the star actress Mademoiselle Voisin, who takes them to her dressing room. Miriam is very impressed by her urbane style and the tradition of theatre that she represents. Peter repeats his offer to marry her – arguing that if she remains as an actress she will be excluded from polite society.

XXII Nick is frustrated by Julia’s making him wait to be married. She wishes to mingle with political society, whereas he wants to get away from it. They come close to arguing, but she finally agrees to marry him in five week’s time.

XXIII Nick retreats to his artist’s studio for the Easter holidays, where he is visited by Gabriel Nash, who expounds his theories of aestheticism once more. On seeing Nick’s paintings and drawings he insists that Nick has a talent it would be immoral to neglect.

XXIV Nash thinks Nick ought to give up parliament and devote himself to painting. Nick is flattered but sceptical. Nash suggests that Nick should paint Miriam’s portrait.

XXV Nick has begun to paint Miriam’s portrait. She has become successful on the stage and patronises Peter. Nick is determined not to fall in love with her.

XXVI Miriam recounts the events of her theatrical success to Nick. It has been made possible by Peter’s buying the rights to a play, then giving them to her as a source of income. He continues with the portrait – only to be suddenly be confronted by Julia, who is shocked by the intimate scene she stumbles upon.

XXVII That evening Julia explains in a jealous fit that she thinks Nick prefers art to the political life she has created for him. She feels he has betrayed her, breaks off their relationship, calls on her old friend Mrs Gresham, and goes off to Paris.

XXVIII Julia meets her brother Peter in Paris and encourages him to pay attention to Biddy Dormer. Peter goes to London and tries to locate Miriam without success, but when he goes to Nick’s studio, he finds Biddy there.

Sarah Bernhardt

XXIX Peter and Biddy discuss Nick and Julia’s problems, the fact that Lady Agnes is upset because none of her children are married. They also consider the value of art, for which Nick is going to give up his parliamentary seat. Biddy is sculpting and thinks she will never marry. They look at Nick’s portrait of Marian, which is very good.

XXX Peter takes Biddy and her friend to the theatre to see Miriam. He finds her transcendentally accomplished and develops grandiose visions of a publicly subsidised theatre. He discusses Miriam’s rise to fame with Dashwood, and feels patronised by him.

XXXI Peter spends the afternoon with Miriam and her arty hangers-on. She expands upon her ambitions. He becomes her regular coach and dramaturg. He regards Dashwood as a lightweight, but remains ambiguous in his feelings towards Gabriel Nash.

XXXII Mr Carteret becomes ill, and Nick is summoned to Beauclere. He feels ill at ease, partly because of his non-marriage to Julia, and partly because of his intention to quit parliament. Carteret summons him to tell him something important.

XXXIII Carteret want to know about Nick’s marriage to Julia, on which his promised financial settlement depends. Nick gives him an embarrassed explanation of that particular truth, which upsets the old man. Later the same day he demands the full story, and Nick is forced to reveal his plan to quit politics – as a result of which he will forfeit sixty thousand pounds.

XXXIV Nick is forced to reveal the whole story to his mother, who is mortified with disappointment. She feels that they might have to give up living at Broadwood following the rift with Julia and that Nick’s loss of Carteret’s legacy, plus giving up parliament is a shame the whole family must bear.

XXXV Nick is tempted to go abroad, but realises that he must stay and face the consequences of his actions. He is visited by Gabriel Nash, who reveals that Peter is in love with Miriam Rooth, who in her turn is in love with Nick – ever since the meeting and silent clash with Julia in the studio.

XXXVI Peter and Nash discuss Miriam’s prospects for success, and the fact that she is in love with Nick. Nash opines that she would give up the theatre for Nick – but that there would probably be a heavy price to pay.

XXXVII In Miriam’s bohemian late afternoon salon she bandies with Peter, flatters Nick, and treats Dashwood like a skivvy. Peter feels mildly jealous of her praise for his friend and cousin Nick.

XXXVIII Peter wonders why he feels any rivalry with his friend Nick when (theoretically) he has nothing at stake with Miriam. He applies for a new diplomatic posting and is given a position as ambassador to a state in Central America.

XXXIX Peter goes to see Lady Agnes, who is still eaten up with Nick’s giving up parliament and his loss of prospects. She takes an exaggerated interest in Peter’s career development and salary, which he realises is a poorly disguised wish that he should marry her daughter Biddy.

Sarah Benhardt as Cleopatra

XL Whilst Peter is preparing himself for a move to the tropics, he is summoned by Miriam to a dress rehearsal next morning. He goes, and is obviously under her spell.

XLI She summons him again the following day for a private assignation – but then forgets what she wished to discuss with him. He ends up confessing that he is leaving because he is desperately in love with her, and because he realises that a relationship with her is not possible.

XLII Nick has begun to regret giving up parliament, and doesn’t think he has any genuine artistic talent either. He is visited by Peter, who has conflicting social engagements with Miriam and Lady Agnes.

XLIII Biddy arrives at the studio and there is banter with Peter and Nick – then Miriam arrives with her mother. Peter and Biddy go shopping and discuss Miriam, on which topic Biddy full of practical good sense.

XLIV Arriving at the studio, Miriam and her mother flatter Nick – and themselves. Nick continues a second portrait of Miriam promised to Peter whilst Mrs Rooth evaluates his belongings. The two women have invited Biddy to visit them, and they discuss Miriam’s strategy for dealing with Peter.

XLV In the evening the first night of Miriam’s new play is a resounding success. Peter refuses to go back stage with Nick in the intervals, but at the final curtain he sends a request to Miriam on a visiting card – which she accepts.

XLVI Peter goes back to Miriam’s house, where she joins him. He offers to marry her if she will give up the theatre. She refuses. They argue about the social and moral merits of the theatre. In desperation he asks for re-consideration in a year’s time. Mrs Rooth then arrives and promises to help him.

XLVII Nick continues to drift morally, but when Julia returns from her travels abroad he feels that the family should give back the house they have borrowed from her. Julia accepts their offer, but then invites Biddy to live with her at Harsh. She then moves back into Broadwood and asks Lady Agnes and Grace to join her there again.

XLVIII Miriam continues to be more and more celebrated, but Nick’s second portrait of her is unfinished. She visits for a sitting, flirts and philosophises with him, then leaves for a theatrical tour of the provinces.

XLIX Gabriel Nash visits Nick’s studio and predicts that Nick will reach a compromise with Julia and will end up a painter of society portraits. Nick begins to paint Nash’s portrait, but Nash feels uncomfortable, argues that he is ‘indestructible’ and then suddenly disappears – never to return.

L Some months later Nick spends Xmas at Broadwood with his mother and sisters, then goes to Paris for six weeks. Biddy visits Nick’s studio to tell him that Julia wants him to paint her portrait. Miriam suddenly appears with Dashwood, ready for the first night of her new role as Juliet. She arranges a box for Nick and Biddy.

LI At the theatre that night Peter suddenly appears, back from his posting in the Americas. Nick reveals to him that Miriam has just married Dashwood. Peter immediately switches his attention to Biddy, then marries her and takes her on to his next posting abroad.

Henry James’s study

The Tragic Muse – principal characters

I	an un-named narrator who makes occasional appearances
Lady Agnes Dormer	a haughty and traditionalist widow
Percival Dormer	her eldest son, who never appears
Nicholas Dormer	her younger son, a reluctant politician and would-be painter
Grace Dormer	her eldest daughter
Bridget (Biddy) Dormer	her youngest daughter, and would-be sculptor
Peter Sherringham	a family cousin and diplomat, with an enthusiasm for the theatre
Mrs Julia Dallow	Peter’s sister, a rich widow
Gabriel Nash	an aesthete friend of Nick’s from Oxford
Miriam Rooth	a half-Jewish actress
Mrs Rooth	her mother, a widow
Rudolph Roth	Miriam’s father, an artistic stockbroker
Madame Carré	an old French actress
Mr Carteret	a family friend and financial supporter of Nick
Mts Gresham	a general factotum to Julia at Harsh
Basil Dashwood	actor and admirer of Miriam

Other works by Henry James

Henry James – web links

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

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.

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

The Trial

January 27, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, characters, video, resource materials

The Trial is Kafka’s one indisputably successful novel – a haunting and original study in existential anxiety, paranoia, and persecution. Joseph K is accused one day of being guilty – but not told what crime he has committed. He wrestles hopelessly with legal officials and a nightmare-like court which acts on arbitrary rules, striving to find justice. In the end he fails, only to be killed ‘like a dog’. Kafka gave expression to modern anxiety three decades before most people even started feeling it. This is a novel which stands outside literary norms – a superb achievement of literary modernism. Be prepared for black humour as well as mind-bending contradictions and deeply etched literary expressionism.

Franz Kafka

The Trial – plot summary

Joseph K is a senior bank clerk who lives in lodgings. On his thirtieth birthday he is unexpectedly arrested by two unidentified agents for an unspecified crime. The agents do not name the authority for which they are acting. He is not taken away, however, but left at home to await instructions from the Committee of Affairs.

K goes to visit the magistrate, but instead is forced to have a meeting with an attendant’s wife. Looking at the Magistrate’s books, he discovers a cache of pornography.

He returns home to find Fräulein Montag, a lodger from another room, moving in with Fräulein Bürstner. He suspects that this is to prevent him from pursuing his affair with the latter woman. Yet another lodger, Captain Lanz, appears to be in league with Montag.

Later, in a store room at his own bank, K discovers the two agents who arrested him being whipped by a flogger for asking K. for bribes, as a result of complaints K. previously made about them to the Magistrate. K. tries to argue with the flogger, saying that the men need not be whipped, but the flogger cannot be swayed. The next day he returns to the store room and is shocked to find everything as he had found it the day before, including the Whipper and the two agents.

K is visited by his uncle, who is a friend of a lawyer. The uncle seems distressed by K’s predicament. At first sympathetic, he becomes concerned K is underestimating the seriousness of the case. The uncle introduces K to an advocate, who is attended by Leni, a nurse, who K’s uncle suspects is the advocate’s mistress. K. has a sexual encounter with Leni, whilst his uncle is talking with the Advocate and the Chief Clerk of the Court, much to his uncle’s anger, and to the detriment of his case.

K visits the advocate and finds him to be a capricious and unhelpful character. He returns to his bank but finds that his colleagues are trying to undermine him.

K is advised by one of his bank clients to visit Titorelli, a court painter, for advice. Titorelli has no official connections, yet seems to have a deep understanding of the process. K learns that, to Titorelli’s knowledge, not a single defendant has ever been acquitted. He sets out what K’s options are, but they all consist merely of delaying tactics to stretch out his case as long as possible before the inevitable ‘Guilty’ verdict.

K decides to take control of his own life and visits his advocate with the intention of dismissing him. At the advocate’s office he meets a downtrodden individual, Block, a client who offers K some insight from a client’s perspective. Block’s case has continued for five years and he appears to have been virtually enslaved by his dependence on the advocate’s meaningless and circular advice. The advocate mocks Block in front of K for his dog-like subservience.

K is asked to tour an Italian client around local places of cultural interest, but the Italian client short of time asks K. to tour him around only the cathedral, setting a time to meet there. When the client doesn’t show up, K explores the cathedral which is empty except for an old woman and a church official. K decides to leave as a priest K notices seems to be preparing to give a sermon from a small second pulpit, lest it begin and K be compelled to stay for its entirety. Instead of giving a sermon, the priest calls out K’s name, although K has never known the priest. The priest works for the court, and tells K a fable, (which has been published separately as ‘Before the Law’) that is meant to explain his situation, but instead causes confusion, and implies that K’s fate is hopeless.

Over the course of the year, the stress of the case weighs on K He begins a gradual decline from confident to a nervous state similar to that of the client Block, and those of other broken defendants he meets in the explosively hot law offices. At the bank, he is humiliated by his inability to handle an important client as he is constantly exhausted from worry.

On the last day of K’s thirtieth year, two men arrive to execute him. He offers little resistance, suggesting that he has realised this as being inevitable for some time. They lead him to a quarry where he is expected to kill himself, but he cannot. The two men then execute him by plunging a knife into his heart.

Study resources

The Trial – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

The Trial – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

The Trial – Penguin Modern Classics – Amazon UK

The Trial – Penguin Modern Classics – Amazon US

The Trial – Dover Thrift – Amazon UK

The Trial – Dover Thrift – Amazon US

The Trial – Everyman’s Library Classics – Amazon UK

The Trial – Everyman’s Library Classics – Amazon US

The Trial – eBook formats at Project Gutenburg

The Trial – Orson Welles’ 1967 film version – Amazon UK

The Trial – Cliffs Notes – Amazon UK

The Trial – audioBook at Project Gutenberg

The Trial – book review

The Trial – as a graphic novel

Kafka: A Short Introduction – book review

The Trial – 1992 film version by Harold Pinter

The Cambridge Companion to Kafka – Amazon UK

Principal characters

Joseph K	a senior bank clerk
Fraulein Burstner	a boarder in the same house as K
Fraulein Montag	a friend of Fraulein Burstner
Frau Grubach	proprietress of the house where K lives
Uncle Karl	K’s uncle and former guardian
Herr Huld	a pompous and pretentious lawyer
Leni	Herr Huld’s seductive nurse
Vice-President	K’s rival at the bank
President	the manager of the bank
Rudi Block	an accused man, former grain-dealer
Titorelli	a court painter

Kafka’s writing

a page of Kafka’s manuscript

Franz Kafka: Illustrated Life This is a photographic biography that offers an intimate portrait in an attractive format. A lively text is accompanied by over 100 evocative images, many in colour and some previously unpublished. They depict the author’s world – family, friends, and artistic circle in old Prague – together with original book jackets, letters, and other ephemera. This is an excellent starting point for beginners which captures fin de siecle Europe beautifully.

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The Trial – film version

Orson Welles wrote and directed (and acted in) a magnificent film version of The Trial in 1962. It’s a faithful dramatisation of the novel which captures perfectly the brooding, nightmarish world of the original. Much of it was filmed in the old French government buildings of the Quai d’Orsay before it was transformed into the present museum.

A young Anthony Perkins gives a superb, haunting performance as the angst-ridden protagonist, Joseph K. The rest of the cast features female icons from the 1960s including Jeanne Moreau, Elsa Martinelli, and Romy Schneider. Welles’ favourite actor Akim Tamiroff is also on hand, and Welles himself plays the Advocate. This is a film which is very faithful to the original novel. It begins with Orson Wells providing voice-over to a comic-book version of the parable ‘Before the Law’.

Film version cast list

Anthony Perkins	Joseph K
Jeanne Moreau	Fraulein Burstner
Romy Schneider	Leni
Elsa Martinelli	Hilda
Orson Welles	The Advocate
Akim Tamiroff	Bloch
Madeleine Robinson	Frau Grubach

See reviews of the film at the Internet Movie Database

Photomontage

Kafka, family photos, and old Prague

Other works by Franz Kafka

Metamorphosis (1915) is truly one of Kafka’s masterpieces – a stunning parable which lends itself to psychological, sociological, or existential interpretations. It’s the tale of a man who wakes up one morning and finds himself transformed into a giant insect. His family are horrified, gradually disown him, and he dies of neglect, with a rotting apple lodged in his side. Franz Kafka is one of the most important and influential fiction writers of the early twentieth century. He was a novelist and writer of short stories whose works came to be regarded as one of the major achievements of twentieth century literature.

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Amerika (also known as The Man who Disappeared) is Kafka’s first attempt at a novel. He is renowned for documenting the horrors of modern life, but Kafka also had a lighter and amusing side. This is incomplete, like so much else he wrote. It’s the story of Karl Rossmann who after an embarrassing sexual misadventure is expelled from his European home and goes to live in an imaginary United States (which of course Kafka had never visited). In fact it’s a reverse ‘Rags to Riches’ story, because Karl starts his engagement with the American Dream quite successfully – but by the end of the novel he is destitute. The story is deeply symbolic – as usual – and an interesting supplement to the central texts. The first chapter is frequently anthologised as ‘The Stoker’.
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Franz Kafka – web links

Franz Kafka at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews and study guides on the major works, video presentations and documentaries, adaptations for cinema and television, and links to Kafka archives.

Franz Kafka at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats – in both English and German.

Franz Kafka at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, survey of the stories and novels, publishing history, translations, critical interpretation, and extensive bibliographies.

Franz Kafka at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors, actors, production features, box office, film reviews, and even quizzes.

Kafka in Love
Video photomontage featuring portraits of Kafka, his friends and family, and locations in Prague – with a rather schmaltzy soundtrack in Yiddish and English.

Kafka-Metamorphosis
A public Wiki dedicated to Kafka and his work, featuring the short stories, interpretations, and further web links.

Kafka Society of America
Academic group with annual meetings and publications. Also features links to other Kafka-related sites

Oxford Kafka Research Centre
Academic group based at Oxford University that tracks current research and meetings. [Doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2012.]

The Kafka Project
Critical editions and translations of Kafka’s work in several languages, plus articles, literary criticism, bibliographies.

Tribute to Franz Kafka
Individual fan site (created by ‘Herzogbr’) featuring a collection of texts, reviews, and enthusiast essays. Badly in need of updating, but contains some interesting gems.

Finding Kafka in Prague
Quirky compilation of photos locating Kafka in his home town – with surrealist additions and weird sound track.

Who Owns Kafka?
Essay by Judith Butler from the London Review of Books on the contentious issues of ownership of Kafka’s manuscripts where they are currently held in Israel – complete with podcast.

The Kafka Archive – latest news
Guardian newspaper report on the suitcase full of Kafka and Max Brod’s papers released by Israeli library.

Franz Kafka: an illustrated life
Book review of a charming short biography with some unusual period photos of Kafka and Prague.

More on Franz Kafka
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories

The Voyage Out

May 30, 2015 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The Voyage Out was Virginia Woolf’s first full length novel. It was written and re-written many times between (probably) 1907 and its eventual publication by Duckworth in 1915 (the publishing house run by her step-brother Gerald Duckworth). It was originally called Melymbrosia, and an earlier version was completed in 1912. This alternative version was published with that title in 1962. But when her own publishing house the Hogarth Press produced a Uniform Edition of Woolf’s works in 1929, it was the later 1915 version that was used as the definitive text.

first edition 1915

The Voyage Out – critical comment

The principal theme

Virginia Woolf was to devote a great deal of her career as a novelist and essayist to issues of women’s education and their position in society – from her earliest story Phyllis and Rosamond (1906) to her epoch-making attack on patriarchy Three Guineas (1938). Her first novel is no exception – as an exploration of a young woman who has received no formal education and who has been brought up at home in a manner which does not prepare her for any sort of independent adult life.

there was no subject in the world which she knew accurately. Her mind was in the state of an intelligent man’s in the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; she would believe practically anything she was told. invent reasons for anything she said. The shape of the earth, the history of the world, how trains worked, or money was invested, what laws were in force, which people wanted what, and why they wanted it, the most elementary idea of a system in modern life—none of this had been imparted to her by any of her professors or mistresses

Rachel is intensely conscious of her lack of formal education, her powerlessness in society, and her exclusion from the male-dominated world of governance and decision-making. Her one consolation is that she has been left undisturbed to develop her artistic flair for piano-playing.

The experimental novel

Virginia Woolf is rightly celebrated as one of the most talented innovators of the modernist period for the work she produced between Jacob’s Room in 1922 and The Waves in 1932. For that reason her earlier first novel The Voyage Out (1915) is often classified as ‘traditional’ or ‘conventional’. That is partly because its main subject is a young woman’s ‘coming of age’, partly because the narrative follows a linear chronology, and partly because the book contains a substantial proportion of well-observed middle-class social life which could have come from any number of nineteenth century novels – from Jane Austen to George Meredith.

But the novel is far from conventional – for a number of reasons. First, it does not have a ‘plot’ as such. A group of people go on a cruise from London to Latin America. Whilst there, they organise an expedition into the interior, and when they get back one of them dies of fever. There is no mystery to be solved; there are no surprising coincidences or revelations; the one serious romance between the characters is abruptly terminated by Rachel’s death; and the narrative is even denied any structural closure. There is no return journey to the starting point:.

Instead we are presented with what Rachel Vinrace calls for during the events of the novel – “Why don’t people write about the things they do feel?” . Despite all the symbolism of a first journey away from home, a first love affair, and the dawning of mature consciousness which Rachel experiences, the bulk of the novel is taken up with what people say and think about each other. This was a bold alternative to the plot-driven novels of the late Victorian era.

[In fact Woolf’s next novel, Night and Day (1919) is far more conventional. Another young middle-class woman, Katharine Hilbery, is facing the limited social choices offered to her in life – but the novel is grounded in a family saga and a rather complex love quadrangle.]

Point of view

The other major innovation Woolf developed in this novel is what might be called the floating or roaming point of view. Novelists very often choose to relay their narratives from the point of view of a single character or a narrator who might be a character or a surrogate for the author. Woolf uses a combination of a reasonably objective third person narrative mode with passages in which the point of view switches from one character to another. She does this in order to explore three separate issues which she developed even further in her later novels.

The first of these issues is what might be called the relativity of human perception – how one person perceives another, and how this perception might change from one moment to the next. The second is to explore the distance which separates human beings, even when they feel that they closely understand each other. The third is to explore the differences between what a person does and what is said – or to point directly at internal contradictions in the human psyche. Very often people say things they do not mean, or they make statements about themselves which are contradicted by their behaviour.

Setting

The novel begins in London, then moves via a very convincing storm at sea to Portugal, where the Dalloways join the ship. This part of the narrative is quite credible, and is possibly based on a journey at sea Virginia Woolf made to Portugal with her younger brother Adrian in 1905. But after the Dalloways are dropped off (almost parenthetically) in North Africa the location switches with virtually no transition to the fictitious Santa Marina.

The implication is that this is located somewhere near the mouth of a ‘great river’ – presumably the Amazon. But despite adding historical background details of European colonialism in the region, and a sprinkling of exotic vegetation which Woolf adds to the narrative, the topography of the story never becomes really convincing.

It is significant that one feature of the indigenous vegetation that she mentions repeatedly is cypress trees – ‘at intervals cypresses striped the hill with black bars’ – which are characteristic of the Mediterranean but certainly not of tropical Latin-American vegetation. This might be ignored were it not for the fact that she was to do something very similar in later novels.

The background events of Jacob’s Room (1922) concerning Betty Flanders are supposed to be set in Scarborough, on the East coast of Yorkshire, but these scenes are never as convincing as the others set in Cambridge and London. And nobody in their right mind can read To the Lighthouse (1927) without visualising its setting as St Ives and the Godrevy Lighthouse where Woolf spent many summer holidays in her childhood. Yet the novel is supposed to be set in the Hebrides. This remains completely unconvincing throughout the whole of the novel.

Weaknesses

There are a number of minor characters who are written into the story line of The Voyage Out, but who then disappear from the text as if they have been forgotten. Mrs Chairley the Cockney housekeeper; Mr Grice the self-educated steward; the briefly identified Hughling Elliot; and even a major figure such as Willoughby Vinrace, captain of the Euphrosyne, owner of the shipping line, and Rachel’s own father who disappears half way through the narrative, never to reappear.

It is not clear from the structure or the logic of the novel why Rachel has to die. There are no practical or thematic links to what has gone on before in the events of the narrative; nobody else is affected by the ‘fever’; and the conclusion of the novel (‘woman dies suddenly’) is not related to any of the previous events.

It is true that Woolf was surrounded by many unexpected deaths amongst her own friends and relatives (her mother, her brother, her friend Lytton Strachey) but this biographical connection does not provide a justification for the lack of a satisfactory resolution to the narrative.

The Voyage Out – study resources

The Voyage Out – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

The Voyage Out – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

The Voyage Out – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

The Voyage Out – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

The Complete Works of Virginia Woolf – Kindle edition

The Voyage Out – Collins Classics – Amazon UK

The Voyage Out – Collins Classics – Amazon US

The Voyage Out – Vintage Classics – Amazon UK

The Voyage Out – Vintage Classics – Amazon US

The Voyage Out – eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

The Voyage Out – Kindle edition

Virginia Woolf – biographical notes

The Cambridge Introduction to Virginia Woolf – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf – Amazon UK

Virginia Woolf – Authors in Context – Amazon UK

Virginia Woolf at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Virginia Woolf at Mantex – tutorials, web links, study resources

Mont Blanc pen – the Virginia Woolf special edition

The Voyage Out – plot summary

Chapter I. Ridley Ambrose and his wife Helen are leaving London to join their ship, the Euphrosyne which is due to take them on a cruise to South America. They join their niece, Rachel Vinrace, whose father owns the ship. A fellow traveller, Mr Pepper reminisces critically with Ambrose about their contemporaries at Cambridge. They are then joined by the captain Willoughby Vinrace.

Chapter II. The story switches between Helen’s reflections on Rachel, Mr Pepper’s bachelor interests and habits, and Mrs Chairley’s rage against the ship’s linens. It then covers Rachel’s lack of formal education, her talent for music, and her upbringing by aunts. She searches for coherence and meaning whilst she is critical of the adults who surround her.

Chapter III. In Portugal, Richard and Clarissa Dalloway are taken on board as extra passengers. At dinner there is conversation on the arts and politics, after which Clarissa writes a satirical letter criticising the other guests. Her husband joins her, and they both feel superior but sympathetic towards their fellow travellers.

Chapter IV. Clarissa meets Mr Grice, the self-educated steward, and then shares confidences with Rachel after breakfast. They read Jane Austen on deck, and Rachel discusses political philosophy with Richard Dalloway, who reveals his traditional and deep-seated male chauvinism.

Chapter V. The ship encounters a stormy passage at sea, which lays everybody low for two days. Helen comforts Mrs Dalloway with champagne. Meanwhile Richard Dalloway follows Rachel into her cabin and kisses her impulsively. That night Rachel has disturbing dreams.

Chapter VI. The Dalloways leave the ship. Rachel confides her mixed feelings about the incident to Helen, who advises her about Men and The Facts of Life. The two women agree to be friends, and Helen invites Rachel to stay at their villa whilst the captain sails up the Amazon, to which her father agrees for slightly selfish reasons.

Chapter VII. The ship reaches Santa Marina. Its colonial history is described. The Ambrose villa San Gervasio is dilapidated. After a week Mr Pepper decamps to a local hotel because he thinks the vegetables are not properly cooked at dinner.

Chapter VIII. Three months pass. Helen reflects on the inadequate education of young women. Helen and Rachel post letters then walk through the town to the hotel where they encounter guests playing cards. They are observed by Hirst and Hewet.

Chapter IX. In the hotel, people are preparing for the night. Hirst and Hewet discuss the possibility of organising a party excursion. Next day there is desultory chat over tea until Ridley Ambrose joins with Hirst and Hewet.

Chapter X. Rachel is reading modern literature and reflecting philosophically about the nature of life. She and Helen receive an invitation to Hewet’s expedition. The outing presents the radical young figure of Evelyn Murgatroyd, and Helen meets Terence Hewet,

Chapter XI. The party splits up at the top of the climb. Arthur declares his love to Susan. Their embraces are observed by Hewet and Rachel: she recoils ambivalently from the spectacle. They are joined by Hirst and Helen, whereupon they all agree to tell each other about themselves. The party then returns to town amidst a display of fireworks.

Chapter XII. A dance is held to celebrate Susan’s engagement to Arthur. Rachel is patronised then insulted by Hirst, whereupon Hewet makes excuses for him. Hirst then goes on to unburden himself to a sympathetic Helen. At dawn Hirst and Hewet walk back to the villa with Helen and Rachel.

Chapter XIII. Next day Rachel takes books by Balzac and Gibbon into the countryside to read, her mind full of impressions from the dance. She feels strangely moved by reading Gibbon, as if on the verge of some exciting discovery, and she thinks a lot about Hirst and Hewet.

Chapter XIV. Guests at the hotel read letters from friends and relatives back home. Susan is obsessed with the subject of marriage. Hewet can’t stop thinking about Rachel, and he goes up to the villa where he overhears her talking to Helen about her dead mother. He goes back to the hotel in a state of excitement, and is then quizzed by Evelyn about her flirtatious entanglements. Last thing at night he sees a woman coming out of someone’s bedroom.

Chapter XV. Some days later Helen and Ridley are visited by Mrs Flushing who is on a ‘collecting’ trip with her nouveau riche husband. They are joined by Hirst, Hewet, and Rachel who has tired of reading Gibbon. When Rachel and Hewet go for a walk, it leaves Hirst free to engage Helen in an intimate conversation, during which he reveals his fears and weaknesses, as well as expressing his admiration for her.

Chapter XVI. On their excursion Rachel and Hewet discuss the life of the typical unmarried middle-class girl (and its limitations) plus the issues raised by women’s suffrage. As he tells her about his literary ambitions she feels romantically attracted to him. He is excited yet dissatisfied by their intimacy and the tension between them.

Chapter XVII. Rachel is powerfully disturbed by her feelings for Hewet, and a distance grows between her and Helen. One Sunday there is a service in the hotel chapel. Rachel is distressed by the absence of any genuine religious belief, and she objects to the spirit in which the service is held. When Mrs Flushing invites her to lunch, she erupts into a criticism of the sermon. Mrs Flushing proposes a river trip to visit a traditional native village. Hirst and Hewet argue over religion, literature, and Rachel.

Chapter XVIII. Hewet realises that he is in love with Rachel, but he is in doubt about the idea of marriage. He wonders what her feelings are and cannot make up his mind about what to do.

Chapter XIX. Evelyn complains to Rachel about two men with whom she is romantically involved. Then she becomes enthusiastic about social reform – including the rescue of prostitutes. Rachel feels oppressed by her appeal to intimacy. She then meets Mrs Allan who invites her to her room and asks her to help her get dressed for tea. Rachel feels oppressed by this appeal too, and escapes into the garden, but she is irritated by the chatter and the discussion of plans for the excursion, and she then quarrells with Helen.

Chapter XX. The Flushings, along with Hewet and Hirst plus Rachel and Helen go on the expedition. They sail upstream in a small ship. Hewet is very conscious of Rachel’s presence. They go on a walk together in to the forest – to declare their love for each other. When they return to the ship they feel detached from their companions.

Chapter XXI. The expedition continues. Hewet and Rachel try to discuss the consequences of their love – which seem to lead inevitably towards marriage, about which neither of them is sure. The expedition reaches the native village. Hewet and Rachel are completely absorbed in each other. At night, back on the ship, they ask Helen for advice. She reassures them that they will be happy.

Chapter XXII. Hewet and Rachel become engaged. Whilst she plays the piano, he writes notes for his novel – on women, which reveal his traditional chauvinism. They plan their future and get to know about each other’s past lives. They become very nostalgic for England – both the countryside and London.

Chapter XXIII. Rachel is annoyed by people’s inquisitiveness now that she is engaged. A message from home brings news of the suicide of a housemaid. A ‘prostitute’ is expelled from the hotel. Hirst admits to himself that he is unhappy, but he brings himself to congratulate Hewet and Rachel.

Chapter XXIV. Sitting in the hotel, Rachel comes to an appreciation of her independent identity, even though she is joining herself to Hewet for the rest of her life. Miss Allan finishes her book on the English poets. Evelyn envies Susan and Rachel for being engaged, but she herself dreams of becoming a revolutionary.

Chapter XXV. Rachel develops a headache and is confined to her room. The headache gets worse and she becomes delirious. ‘Dr’ Rodriguez reassures them it is nothing serious, but Rachel gets steadily worse. Hirst is despatched in search of another doctor and returns with Dr Lesage. He confirms that Rachel is seriously ill – probably with fever. Hewet, Helen, and Hirst wait anxiously for days. Rachel starts to hallucinate, then eventually she dies.

Chapter XXVI. News of Rachel’s death quickly reaches the hotel. It is thought she was unwise to go on the expedition where she has caught the fever. Mr Perrot makes a final appeal to Evelyn, but she turns him down,, as she is leaving for Moscow.

Chapter XXVII. Life returns to normal at the hotel. There is a tropical thunderstorm, and people prepare to return home.

OUP World Classics edition

The Voyage Out – characters

Mr Ridley Ambrose	a classics scholar, translating Pindar
Helen Ambrose	his wife (40)
Rachel Vinrace	their niece (24)
Willoughby Vinrace	a shipping line owner – Rachel’s father
Mr William Pepper	a dogmatic Cambridge friend of Ambrose
Mrs Emma Chairley	the Vinrace housekeeper (50)
Richard Dalloway	a former member of parliament (42)
Clarissa Dalloway	the daughter of a peer – his wife
Mr Grice	the self-educated steward
St John Hirst	a clever but boorish Cambridge don (24)
Terence Hewet	former student at Winchester and Cambridge
Evelyn Murgatroyd	a strong-willed feminist
Arthur Venning	a romantic young man
Susan Warrington	a romantic young woman
Wilfred Flushing	a nouveau riche art collector
Alice Flushing	his wife, an artist
Miss Allan	an elderly teacher of English
Mrs Thornbury	a wise old woman (72)
Dr Rodriguez	the (dubious) town doctor
Dr Lesage	the replacement doctor

Virginia Woolf’s writing

“I feel certain that I am going mad again.”

Other works by Virginia Woolf

To the Lighthouse (1927) is the second of the twin jewels in the crown of her late experimental phase. It is concerned with the passage of time, the nature of human consciousness, and the process of artistic creativity. Woolf substitutes symbolism and poetic prose for any notion of plot, and the novel is composed as a tryptich of three almost static scenes – during the second of which the principal character Mrs Ramsay dies – literally within a parenthesis. The writing is lyrical and philosophical at the same time. Many critics see this as her greatest achievement, and Woolf herself realised that with this book she was taking the novel form into hitherto unknown territory.
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Orlando (1928) is one of her lesser-known novels, although it’s critical reputation has risen in recent years. It’s a delightful fantasy which features a character who changes sex part-way through the book – and lives from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Using this device (which turns out to be strangely credible) Woolf explores issues of gender and identity as her hero-heroine moves through a variety of lives and personal adventures. Orlando starts out as an emissary to the Court of St James, lives through friendships with Swift and Alexander Pope, and ends up motoring through the west end of London on a shopping expedition in the 1920s. The character is loosely based on Vita Sackville-West, who at one time was Woolf’s lover. The novel itself was described by Nigel Nicolson (Sackville-West’s son) as ‘the longest and most charming love-letter in literature’.
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Kew Gardens is a collection of experimental short stories in which Woolf tested out ideas and techniques which she then later incorporated into her novels. After Chekhov, they represent the most important development in the modern short story as a literary form. Incident and narrative are replaced by evocations of mood, poetic imagery, philosophic reflection, and subtleties of composition and structure. The shortest piece, ‘Monday or Tuesday’, is a one-page wonder of compression. This collection is a cornerstone of literary modernism. No other writer – with the possible exception of Nadine Gordimer, has taken the short story as a literary genre as far as this.
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Virginia Woolf is a readable and well illustrated biography by John Lehmann, who at one point worked as her assistant and business partner at the Hogarth Press. It is described by the blurb as ‘A critical biography of Virginia Woolf containing illustrations that are a record of the Bloomsbury Group and the literary and artistic world that surrounded a writer who is immensely popular today’. This is an attractive and very accessible introduction to the subject which has been very popular with readers ever since it was first published..
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Virginia Woolf – web links

Virginia Woolf at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major works, book reviews, studies of the short stories, bibliographies, web links, study resources.

Blogging Woolf
Book reviews, Bloomsbury related issues, links, study resources, news of conferences, exhibitions, and events, regularly updated.

Virginia Woolf at Wikipedia
Full biography, social background, interpretation of her work, fiction and non-fiction publications, photograph albumns, list of biographies, and external web links

Virginia Woolf at Gutenberg
Selected eTexts of the novels The Voyage Out, Night and Day, Jacob’s Room, and the collection of stories Monday or Tuesday in a variety of digital formats.

Woolf Online
An electronic edition and commentary on To the Lighthouse with notes on its composition, revisions, and printing – plus relevant extracts from the diaries, essays, and letters.

Hyper-Concordance to Virginia Woolf
Search texts of all the major novels and essays, word by word – locate quotations, references, and individual terms

Virginia Woolf – a timeline in phtographs
A collection of well and lesser-known photographs documenting Woolf’s life from early childhood, through youth, marriage, and fame – plus some first edition book jackets – to a soundtrack by Philip Glass. They capture her elegant appearance, the big hats, and her obsessive smoking. No captions or dates, but well worth watching.

Women’s History Walk in Bloomsbury
Tour of literary and political homes in Bloomsbury – including Gordon Square, Gower Street, Bedford Square, Tavistock Square, plus links to women’s history web sites.

Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain
Bulletins of events, annual lectures, society publications, and extensive links to Woolf and Bloomsbury related web sites

BBC Audio Essay – A Eulogy to Words
Charming sound recording of radio talk given by Virginia Woolf in 1937 – a podcast accompanied by a slideshow of photographs.

A Family Photograph Albumn
Leslie Stephen compiled a photograph album and wrote an epistolary memoir, known as the “Mausoleum Book,” to mourn the death of his wife, Julia, in 1895 – an archive at Smith College – Massachusetts

Virginia Woolf first editions
Hogarth Press book jacket covers of the first editions of Woolf’s novels, essays, and stories – largely designed by her sister, Vanessa Bell.

Virginia Woolf – on video
Biographical studies and documentary videos with comments on Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group and the social background of their times.

Virginia Woolf Miscellany
An archive of academic journal essays 2003—2014, featuring news items, book reviews, and full length studies.

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

The War of the Worlds

August 10, 2016 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

The War of the Worlds (1897) was the fourth of the novels which catapulted H.G. Wells to fame as a writer of science fiction during the last decade of the nineteenth century. The idea for the story was given to him by his brother Frank, and it was one of the first stories to feature conflict between mankind on earth and extraterrestrial beings. Like his other science fiction novels The Time Machine (1888), The Island of Dr Moreau (1896), and The Invisible Man (1897) it explores a single, original idea in a simple narrative that is backed up with a pseudo-scientific rationale. The book has remained in print ever since its first publication over one hundred years ago.

The War of the Worlds – a note on the text

The novel first appeared as an illustrated monthly serial in Pearson’s Magazine and simultaneously in New York Cosmopolitan magazine between April and December 1897. Early in the following year two pirated versions began to appear in New York and Boston newspapers with the locations of the action changed so that the Martian invasion was directed at the American city concerned. The story first appeared in single volume novel format published by William Heinemann in London and Harpers in New York in 1898. For a full account of its publishing history and revisions to subsequent editions, see the note by Patrick Parrinder in the Penguin Classics edition (2005)

The War of the Worlds – critical commentary

H.G. Wells was certainly not short of memorable ideas at the start of his writing career – The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The First Men in the Moon (1901) have retained their popularity ever since they first appeared. These works have passed into general cultural consciousness, aided by their adaptations for other forms of media such as film, television, and comic books.

The War of the Worlds is no exception to this cross-media adaptation. Most famously, it was produced as a documentary-style radio play by Orson Welles in 1938, and such was the authenticity of the production (and the credulity of the American listening public) that it caused wholesale panic. People actually believed Martians had invaded the eastern seaboard of the USA, to which area the locations had been changed.

After these early successes with novels he himself called ‘scientific romances’, Wells became quite famous, and his opinions on science, technology, and politics were taken quite seriously. Following the influence of modernist writers such as James Joyce, D.H. Larence, and Virginia Woolf, his reputation declined and since the end of the twentieth century it has never risen again above that of a popular minor writer.

The prophetic element

Despite all the Boys Own Adventure elements of the novel and the creepy monsters from outer space that have become the stock-in-trade of science fiction, there is one element of the novel in which Wells excels himself. That is the amazingly prophetic way in which he writes about mechanised warfare and and creates scenes which were to become commonplace less than two decades after the publication of the novel.

The descriptions of devastation following the Martians’ initial attacks are amazingly prescient. of the images of carnage and obliteration which resulted from trench warfare in Flanders from 1914 to 1918.

In one night the valley had become a valley of ashes. The fires had dwindled now. Where flames had been there were now streamers of smoke; but the countless ruins of shattered and gutted houses and blasted and blackened trees that the night had hidden stood out now gaunt and terrible in the pitiless light of dawn. .. Never before in the history of warfare had destruction been so indiscriminate and universal.

Moreover the Martians fight with the very weapon that seems to sumarize the barbarity and unthinking inhumanity of the first world war – poison gas. Their use of the Heat-Ray also features very prophetically as what we now call laser beams. And just to give Wells a further accolade for predicting the future, the evacuation of refugees on the eastern coast could be a description of the spirit and the physical conditions of the Dunkirk evacuations of 1940:

For after the sailors could no longer come up the Thames, they came up onto the Essex coast, to Harwich and Walton and Clacton, and afterwards to Foulness and and Shoebury, to bring off the people. They lay in a great sickle-shaped curve that vanished into mist somewhere towards the Naze. Close inshore was a multitude of fishing smacks – English, Scotch, French, Dutch and Swedish; steam launches from the Thames, yachts, electric boats, , and beyond were ships of large burden, a multitude of filthy colliers, trim merchantmen, cattle-ships passenger boats, petroleum tanks, ocean tramps an old white transport even, neat white and grey liners from Southampton … A dense swarm of boats chaffering with the people on the beach, a swarm which extended up the Blackwater almost to Maldon.

The novel also touches on issues of evolutionary biology raised in Wells’ notion that the Martians are overcome not by mechanical force but by their vulnerability to disease from which the human beings have become immune as part of their history in the evolutionary process. This is a positive and realistic piece of social philosophy which Wells summarises in an almost Biblically succinct expression.

By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.

The War of the Worlds – study resources

The War of the Worlds – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The War of the Worlds – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

H.G. Wells Classic Collection – five novels – Amazon UK

H.G. Wells Biography – Amazon UK

The War of the Worlds – DVD movie adaptation- Amazon UK

The War of the Worlds – chapter summaries

Book I – The Coming of the Martians

1. An un-named narrator speculates that the cosmological development of the planet Mars makes it probable that its inhabitants would have justifiable grounds for invading a nearby planet. With his colleague the astronomer Ogilvy he observes astronomical activity and watches gaseous projections heading towards earth.

2. Some time later what seems to be a large meteorite lands near Woking. Ogilvy inspects it and finds a huge metal cylinder with sounds of activity inside. He alerts journalist Henderson, but on returning to the pit the object has made they find nothing new.

3. The narrator then visits the site. He believes that there are men on Mars but thinks the cylinder (the Thing) will contain objects. Following newspaper reports of ‘A Message from Mars’ Ogilvy and the Astronomer Royal inspect the site.

4. An inquisitive crowd gathers. The cylinder opens and the first Martian emerges – a leathery bear-like creature with tentacles. The narrator recoils in horror and disgust.

5. The narrator feels a fascinated horror for the pit in which the cylinder lies. A deputation arrives waving a white flag. A ‘heat-ray’ emerges from the cylinder and exterminates everything before it.

6. The heat-ray attack causes panic amongst the spectators. Some people are trampled to death in the confusion.

7. The narrator escapes and goes home, convincing himself that everything is normal again. He thinks that increased gravity and the presence of more oxygen on Earth will slow down the Martians.

8. Life beyond a small radius round these events goes on as normal, but back at the cylinder the Martians are busy preparing for the next phase of their attack, and they kill anyone who comes near. A second cylinder arrives in the region.

9. Next day the cylinder has been surrounded by troops from a nearby barracks.. Heavy shelling breaks out in the evening.. The narrator evacuates his home and leaves with his wife and servant to stay with relatives.

10. The narrator returns home alone at night. A third cylinder lands during a storm, and he sees a giant tripod emerge from it. He arrives back home during a thunderstorm.

11. From his study window he observes the whole countryside on fire. A soldier arrives and relates details of the fight against the mechanised tripods and heat rays, which have defeated the soldiers completely.

12. The-narrator and the artilleryman decide to move towards London. They encounter people being evacuated by the military. The army attacks, and one mechanised tripod is hit, collapsing into the river. Other Martian machines arrive to rescue it.

13. The. Martians retrench, and the narrator drifts in a boat downstream. He meets a clergyman whose whose religious convictions have been shattered by the sudden attacks and devastation.

14. In central London there are incomplete and misleadingly tepid reports of events in the newspapers. Over-optimistic proclamations are issued. South-Western train services are disrupted. Heavy deployments of troops are organised. By the following morning there is mass panic.

15. The Martians attack again. One is damaged, but repairs itself. The narrator sees the Martian firing poisoned gas out of black tubes. A further cylinder lands.

16. In central London there is a mass exodus heading north and east. The narrator’s brother steals a bicycle and heads towards Chelmsford. He rescues two women in a pony and trap, and they decide to head for Harwich . People all round them are desperate and are trampled under foot.

17. The following day the Martians reach central London. Further cylinders arrive from space. The narrator’s brother reaches the coast and secures passage on a boat going to Ostend. There is a sea battle in which three Martian tripods are beaten off by an ironclad torpedo ram

Book Two – The Earth Under the Martians

1. The narrator is hiding from the black gas in a house with the clergyman They are making their way towardds London amidst destruction, dead horses, and human corpses. They encounter a Martian which is ‘collecting’ live human beings. They hide in a house in Mortlake which is struck and destroyed by the arrival of another cylinder

2. From his place of hiding the narrator observes the Martians. They compose largely a huge head, with tentacles acting as hands. They do not eat, but ingest blood directly from other creatures. They do not sleep, and reproduce sexlessly. They do not wear clothes, and have no knowledge of the wheel.

3. The clergyman is selfish, greedy, and morally spineless. The Martian machines begin making aluminium tubes.. They then bring human beings into the pit and kill them for their blood.

4. The curate loses control and is in conflict with the narrator, who knocks him unconscious. When a Martian invades the house he takes away the curate. The narrator lives in fear, hiding in the house .

5. He stays in the house for several days without food, then realises that the Martians are no longer outside. The pit is littered with the bodies of their victims. All around are scenes of devastation.

6. The whole of south-west London is covered by the Red Weed, but this gradually succumbs to a disease. and leaves behind nothing but rotting debris. The narrator moves on amongst total desolation.

7. On Putney Heath he meets the artillery man again, who reports that the Martians have been making flying machines. The soldier takes the view that humanity is currently beaten, and proposes to establish a desperate band of resisters to keep the human race and its knowledge alive – living in underground sewers and railway tunnels. They retire to his hide-out, where he is digging a secret escape route. But the grandiose plans for disciplined resistance suddenly evaporate, and he organises a grand dinner with Champagne and cigars. The narrator is disillusioned, and decides to push on into London.

8. The narrator finds the streets of London empty except for the occasional dead body. But he comes across Martian tripods and handling machines that are out of action. He realises that the Martians are dead and have been killed by the diseases and bacteria they have ingested from the blood of their victims to which humans have become immune during their evolution.

9. Realising that London has been saved, the narrator has a mental breakdown for a few days, then returns to his own house in Woking – where he is reunited with his wife.

The Epilogue. The narrator speculates on the lessons that have been learned from the invasion. It is possible that another attack could take place, and lessons in terrestrial humility should be learned. It is also possible that at some future date people from the Earth will need to travel to other planets in order to survive.

The War of the Worlds – further reading

Bernard Bergonzi, The Early H.G. Wells, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1961.

Michael Draper, H.G. Wells, London: Macmillan, 1987.

John Hammond, An H.G. Wells Companion, London: Macmillan, 1979.

Roslynn D. Haynes, H.G. Wells: Discoverer of the Future, London: Macmillan, 1980.

John Huntington, The Logic of Fantasy: H.G. Wells and Science Fiction, New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.

Brian Murray, H. G. Wells, New York: Continuum, 1990.

Patrick Parrinder, H.G. Wells: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge, 1972.

Patrick Parrinder, Shadows of the Future: H. G. Wells, Science Fiction and Prophecy, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995.

More science fiction by H.G. Wells

The Time Machine (1895) – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Invisible Man (1897) – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Wheels of Chance (1896) – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The First Men in the Moon (1901) – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

The Shape of Things to Come (1933) – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

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