arnold bennett - frank swinnerton - 1920

8/22/2019 Arnold Bennett - Frank Swinnerton - 1920

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BennettFrank Swinnerton


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THE LIBRARYOFTHE UNIVERSITYOF CALIFORNIALOS ANGELES


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FRANK SWINNERTONPersonal Sketches


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BY FRANK SWINNERTONSeptemberShops and HousesNocturneThe Chaste WifeOn the StaircaseThe Happy Family

george h. doran company


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J.

Digitized by tine Internet Arcliivein 2007 witli funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.arcliive.org/details/frankswinnertonOObenniala


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"^tuj*. Qlux*iis-,o

RJ. SWAN, 1919.


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FRANK SWINNERTONPersonal Sketches

hARI^OLD BENNETT

H. G. WELLSGRANT M. OVERTON

Together with Notesand Comments on the Novels of

Frank Swinnerton

NEW Xajr YORKGEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

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Copyright, 1920George H. Doran Company


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FRANK SWINNERTON ccie^.LibraryA Personal Sketch P/?By ARNOLD BENNETT ^^ new and wondrous coffee-machine of which I^ was proud, and in which I made the coffeeV with my own hands. On that night I put the^V^round coffee in the wrong end of the machine, with the result that finally the precious^ liquid inundated the whole of the sideboard^ instead of reaching the cups; also the mediae-\^ val oil-lamps were left with the wicks tooS, high in the drawing-room, so that when we^ returned to the drawing-room after mopping

up the coffee, every object therein was evenlyqovered with a coat of greasy black soot, and

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FRANK SWINNERTONthe opaque atmosphere scorched the eyes andparched the throat.To return to The Casement. The bookwas accompanied by a short, rather curt notefrom the author, Frank Swinnerton, politelyindicating that if I cared to read it he wouldbe glad, and Implying that if I didn't care toread it, he should endeavor still to survive. Iwould quote the letter, but I cannot find itno doubt for the reason that all my corre-spondence is carefully filed on the most mod-ern filing system. I did not read The Case-ment for a long time. Why should I conse-crate three irrecoverable hours or so to thework of a man as to whom I had no creden-tials? Why should I thus introduce foreignmatter into the delicate cogwheels of myprogramme of reading? However, after adelay of weeks, heaven in its deep wisdominspired me with a caprice to pick up thevolume.

I had read, without fatigue but on theother hand without passionate eagerness,about a hundred pages before the thoughtsuddenly occurred to me: "I do not remem-ber having yet come across one single ready-made phrase in this story." Such was my

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FRANK SWINNERTONfirst definable thought concerning FrankSwinnerton. I hate ready-made phrases,which in my viewand in that of Schopen-hauerare the sure mark of a mediocrewriter. I began to be interested. I soon saidto myself: "This fellow has a distinguishedstyle." I then perceived that the character-drawing was both subtle and original, theatmosphere delicious, and the movement ofthe tale very original, too. The novel stirredmenot by its powerfulness, for it did notset out to be powerfulbut by its individual-ity and distinction. I thereupon wrote toFrank Swinnerton. I forget entirely what Isaid. But I know that I decided that I mustmeet him.When I came to London, considerablylater, I took measures to meet him, at theAuthors' Club. He proved to be young; Idaresay twenty-four or twenty-fivemediumheight, medium looks, medium clothes, some-what reddish hair, and lively eyes. If I hadseen him in a motorbus I should never havesaid: "A remarkable chap,"no more thanif I had seen myself in a motorbus. My im-pressions of the interview were rather likemy impressions of the book; at first some-

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FRANK SWINNERTONwhat negative, and only very slowly becomingpositive. He was reserved, as became ayoung author; I was reserved, as became anolder author; we were both reserved, as be-came Englishmen. Our views on the onlyimportant thing in the worldthat is to say,fictionagreed, not completely, but in themain; it would never have done for us toagree completely. I was as much pleased bywhat he didn't say as by what he said; quiteas much by the indications of the stock insidethe shop as by the display in the window.The interview came to a calm close. Myknowledge of him acquired from it amountedto this, that he held decided and righteousviews upon literature, that his heart was noton his sleeve, and that he worked in a pub-lisher's office during the day and wrote forhimself in the evenings.Then I saw no more of Swinnerton for a

relatively long period. I read other books ofhis. I read The Young Idea, and The HappyFamily, and, I think, his critical work onGeorge Gissing. The Happy Family markeda new stage in his development. It has somereally piquant scenes, and it revealed thatminute knowledge of middle-class life in the

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FRANK SWINNERTONnearer suburbs of London, and that disturb-ing insight into the hearts and brains of quiteunfashionable girls, which are two of his prin-cipal gifts. I read a sketch of his of a com-monplace crowd walking round a bandstandwhich brought me to a real decision as to hisqualities. The thing was like life, and it wasbathed in poetry.Our acquaintance proceeded slowly, and Imust be allowed to assert that the initiativewhich pushed it forward was mine. It madea jump when he spent a week-end in theThames Estuary on my yacht. If any readerhas a curiosity to know what my yacht is notlike, he should read the striking yacht chap-ter in Nocturne. I am convinced that Swin-nerton evolved the yacht in Nocturne frommy yacht; but he ennobled, magnified, deco-rated, enriched and bejewelled it till honestlyI could not recognize my wretched vessel.The yacht in Nocturne is the yacht I want,ought to have, and never shall have. I envyhim the yacht in Nocturne, and my envy takesa malicious pleasure in pointing out a mistakein the glowing scene. He anchors his yachtin the middle of the Thamesas If the ty-rannic authorities of the Port of London

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FRANK SWINNERTONwould ever allow a yacht, or any other craft,to anchor in midstream

After the brief cruise our friendship grewrapidly. I now know Swinnertonprobablyas well as any man Icnows him; I have pene-trated into the interior of the shop. He hasdone several things since I first knew himrounded the corner of thirty, grown a beard,under the orders of a doctor, and physicallymatured. Indeed he looks decidedly strongerthan in fact he ishe was never able topass the medical examination for the army.He is still in the business of publishing, beingone of the principal personages in the ancientand well-tried firm of Chatto and Windus,the English publishers of Swinburne andMark Twain. He reads manuscripts, includ-ing his ownand including mine. He re-fuses manuscripts, though he did accept oneof mine. He tells authors what they oughtto do and ought not to do. He is marvellouslyand terribly particular ajid fussy about theformat of the books issued by his firm. Ques-tions as to fonts of type, width of margins,disposition of title-pages, tint and texture ofbindings really do interest him. And mis-printsespecially when he has read theproofs himselfgive him neuralgia and even

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FRANK SWINNERTONworse afflictions. Indeed he is the ideal pub-lisher for an author.Nevertheless, publishing is only a side-lineof his. He still writes for himself in theevenings and at week-endsthe office neversees him on Saturdays. Among the chiefliterary events of nineteen seventeen wasNocturne, which he wrote in the eveningsand at week-ends. It is a short book, but thetime in which he wrote it was even shorter.He had scarcely begun it when it was finished.In regard to the result I am prepared to sayto the judicious reader unacquainted withSwinnerton's work, "Read Nocturne'\andto stand or fall, and to let him stand or fall,by the result. Nocturne moved H. G. Wellsto an extraordinary enthusiasm, so much sothat Wells had to write to the morningpapers about it. And I remember Wells say-ing to me : "You know, Arnold, he achievesa perfection in Nocturne that you and I neverget within streets of." A hard saying to passbetween two hardened pilgrims whose com-bined years total over a century; but justified.You can say what you like about Nocturne,but you cannot say that on its own scale it is

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FRANK SWINNERTONnot perfect, consummate. At least, I can-not.Besides being no mean publisher and anovelist who has produced several fine andone perfect novel, Frank Swinnerton hasother gifts. He is a surpassingly good racon-teur. By which I do not signify that the manwho meets Swinnerton for the first, second orthird time will infallibly ache with laughterat his remarks. Swinnerton only blossomsin the right atmosphere; he must know ex-actly where he is; he must be perfectly sureof his environment, before the flower un-closes. And he merely relates what he hasseen, what he has taken part in. The narra-tions would be naught if he were not the nar-rator. His effects are helped by the fact thathe is an excellent mimic and by his utter real-istic mercilessness. But like all first-classrealists he is also a romantic, and in his mer-cilessness there is a mysterious touch of fund-amental benevolenceas befits the attitudeof one who does not worry because humannature is not something different from whatit actually is. Lastly, in this connection, hehas superlatively the laugh known as the "in-fectious laugh." When he laughs everybody

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FRANK SWINNERTONlaughs, everybody has to laugh. There aremen who tell side-splitting tales with the faceof an undertakerfor example, Irvin Cobb.There are men who tell side-splitting talesand openly and candidly rollick in them fromthe first word; and of these latter is FrankSwinnerton. But Frank Swinnerton can bemore cruel than Irvin Cobb. Indeed, some-times, when he is telling a story, his face be-comes exactly like the face of Mephistoph-eles in excellent humour with the world's sin-fulness and idiocy.

Swinnerton's other gift is the critical. Ithas been said that an author cannot be at oncea first-class critic and a first-class creative art-ist. To which absurdity I reply: Whatabout William Dean Howells? And whatabout Henry James, to name no other names ?Anyhow, if Swinnerton excels in fiction healso excels in literary criticism. The fact thatthe literary editor of The Manchester Guard-ian wrote and asked him to write literarycriticism for The Manchester Guardian willperhaps convey nothing to the American citi-zen. But to the Englishman of literary tasteand experience it has enormous import. TheManchester Guardian publishes the most fas-

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FRANK SWINNERTONtidious and judicious literary criticism inBritain.

I recall that once when Swinnerton was inmy house I had there also a young militaryofficer with a mad passion for letters and aterrific ambition to be an author. The offi-cer gave me a manuscript to read. I handedit over to Swinnerton to read, and then calledupon Swinnerton to criticize it in the presenceof both of us. "Your friend is very kind,"said the officer to me afterwards, "but it wasa frightful ordeal."The book on George Gissing 1 have al-

ready mentioned. But it was Swinnerton'swork on R. L. Stevenson that made thetrouble in London. It is a destructive work.It is very bland and impartial, and not bereftof laudatory passages, but since its appear-ance Stevenson's reputation has never beenthe same. Those who wish to preserve theirillusions about the greatness of Stevensonshould refrain from reading it. Few recentbooks of criticism have aroused more hostilitythan Swinnerton's Stevenson. There is a pow-erful Stevenson cult in England, as there is inAmerica. And in London there are sundrypersons who cannot get far into any conver-

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FRANK SWINNERTONsatlon without using the phrase, "As dear oldR. L. S. used to say." Some of these personsare personages. They rage at the mentionof Swinnerton. One of them on a celebratedoccasion exclaimed in fury: "Never let mehear that man's name !" This detail aloneshows that Swinnerton is a real critic. Shamcriticism, however violent,and Swinnertonis incapable of violencedoes not and can-not arouse such passion.

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CONCERNING MR. SWINNERTONBy H. G. WELLS

"But do I see afore me, him as I ever sported within his time of happy infancy? And may I may I?"This May I, meant might he shake hands?Dickens, Great Expectations.I DO not know why I should be so overpower-ingly reminded of the immortal, if at times im-possible, Uncle Pumblechook, when I sit down towrite a short preface to Mr. Swinnerton's Nocturne.Jests come at times out of the backwoods of awriter's mind. It is part of the literary qualitythat behind the writer there is a sub-writer, makinga commentary. This is a comment against whichI may reasonably expostulate, but which, neverthe-less, I am indisposed to ignore.The task of introducing a dissimilar writer to a

new public has its own peculiar difficulties for theelder hand. I suppose logically a writer shouldhave good words only for his own imitators. Forsurely he has chosen what he considers to be thebest ways. What justification has he for praisingattitudes he never adopted and commending meth-ods of treatment from which he has abstained ? Thereader naturally receives his commendations withsuspicion. Is this man, he asks, stricken with peni-tence in the flower of his middle-age? Has he butjust discovered how good are the results that theother game, the game he has never played, can

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FRANK SWINNERTONgive? Or has he been disconcerted by the criticismof the Young? The fear of the Young is the be-ginning of his wisdom. Is he taking this alien-spir-ited work by the hand simply to say defensively andvainly, "I assure you, indeed, I am not an oldfogy; I quite understand it." (There it is, I fancy,that the Pumblechook quotation creeps in.) To allof which suspicions, enquiries and objections, I willquote, tritely but conclusively, "In my Father'shouse are many mansions," or in the words of Mr.Kipling:

There are five and forty waysOf composing tribal lays,And every blessed one of them is right.

Indeed, now that I come to think it over, I havenever in all my life read a writer of closely kindredmethod to my own that I have greatly admired;the confessed imitators give me all the discomfortwithout the relieving admission of caricature; theparallel instances I have always wanted to rewrite;while on the other hand for many totally dissimilarworkers I have had quite involuntary admirations.It is not merely that I do not so clearly see howthey are doing it, though that may certainly be ahelp; it is far more a matter of taste. As a writerI belong to one school and as a reader to anotheras a man may like to make optical instruments andcollect old china. Swift, Sterne, Jane Austen,

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FRANK SWINNERTONThackeray, and the Dickens of Bleak House werethe idols of my youthful imitation, but the con-temporaries of my early praises were Joseph Con-rad, W. H. Hudson, and Stephen Crane, all utterlyremote from that English tradition.This much may sound egotistical, and the impa-

tient reader may ask when I am coming to Mr.Swinnerton, to which the only possible answer isthat I am coming to Mr. Swinnerton as fast as Ican and that all this leads as straightly as possibleto a definition of Mr. Swinnerton's position. Thescience of criticism is still crude in its classification,there are a multitude of different things being donethat are all lumped together heavily as novels, theyare novels as distinguished from romances, so longas they are dealing with something understood tobe real. All that they have in common beyond thatis that they agree in exhibiting a sort of story con-tinuum. But some of us are trying to use that storycontinuum to present ideas in action, others to pro-duce powerful excitements of this sort or that, whileagain others concentrate upon the giving of life asit is, seen only more intensely. Personally I haveno use at all for life as it is except as raw material.It bores me to look at things unless there is also theidea of doing something with them. I should finda holiday, doing nothing amid beautiful scenery, not

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FRANK SWINNERTONa holiday, but a torture. The contemplative ecstasyof the saints would be hell to me. In theI forgetexactly how manybooks I have written, it is al-ways about life being altered I write, or aboutpeople developing schemes for altering life. And Ihave never once "presented" life. My apparentlymost objective books are criticisms and incitementsto change. Such a writer as Mr. Swinnerton, onthe contrary, sees life and renders it with a steadi-ness and detachment and patience quite foreign tomy disposition. He has no underlying motive. Hesees and tells. His aim is the attainment of thatbeauty which comes with exquisite presentation.Seen through his art, life is seen as one sees thingsthrough a crystal lens, more intensely, more com-pleted, and with less turbidity. There the businessbegins and ends for him. He does not want youor anyone to do anything.

Mr. Swinnerton is not alone among recentwriters in this clear detached objectivity. But Mr.Swinnerton, like Mr. James Joyce, does not repu-diate the depths for the sake of the surface. Hispeople are not splashes of appearance, but livingminds. Jenny and Emmy in this book are realitiesinside and out; they are imaginative creatures socomplete that one can think with ease of Jenny tenyears hence or of Emmy as a baby. The fickle Alfis one of the most perfect Cockneysa type so easyto caricature and so hard to get truein fiction.If there exists a better writing of vulgar lovemaking,so base, so honest, so touchingly mean and so touch-

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FRANK SWINNERTONingly full of the craving for happiness than this, Ido not know of it. Only a novelist who has hadhis troubles can understand fully what a danceamong china cups, what a skating over thin ice,what a tight-rope performance is achieved in thisastounding chapter. A false note, one fatal line,would have ruined it all. On the one hand laybrutality ; a hundred imitative louts could have writ-ten a similar chapter brutally, with the soul leftout, we have loads of such "strong stuff" and it isnothing; on the other side was the still more dread-ful fall into sentimentality, the tear of conscioustenderness, the redeeming glimpse of "better things"in Alf or Emmy that could at one stroke have con-verted their reality into a genteel masquerade. Theperfection of Alf and Emmy is that at no pointdoes a "nature's gentleman" or a "nature's lady"show through and demand our refined sympathy.It is only by comparison with this supreme conver-sation that the affair of Keith and Jenny seems tofall short of perfection. But that also is at lastperfected, I think, by Jenny's final, "Keith . . .Oh, Keith! . . ."Above these four figures again looms the majestic

invention of "Pa." Every reader can appreciate thetruth and humor of Pa, but I doubt if anyone with-out technical experience can realize how the atmos-phere is made and completed and rounded off byPa's beer. Pa's meals, and Pa's accident, how he

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FRANK SWINNERTONbinds the bundle and makes the whole thing one,and what an enviable triumph his achievement is.But the book is before the reader and I will not

enlarge upon its merits further. Mr, Swinnertonhas written four or five other novels before this one,but none of them compares with it in quality. Hisearlier books were strongly influenced by the workof George Gissing; they have something of thesame fatigued grayness of texture and little of thesame artistic completeness and intense vision ofNocturne. He has also made two admirable andvery shrewd and thorough studies of the work andlives of Robert Louis Stevenson and George Gis-sing. Like these two, he has had great experienceof illness. He is a young man of so slender ahealth, so frequently ill, that even for the mostsedentary purposes of this war, his country wouldnot take him. It was in connection with his Gissingvolume, for which I possessed some material heneeded, that I first made his acquaintance. He hashad something of Gissing's restricted and gray ex-periences, but he has nothing of Gissing's almostperverse gloom and despondency. Indeed he is asgay a companion as he is fragile. He is a twinklingaddition to any Christmas party, and the twinkle ishere in the style. And having sported with him "inhis times of happy infancy" I had an intimate andpersonal satisfaction to my pleasant task of saluting

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FRANK SWINNERTONthis fine work that ends a brilliant apprenticeshipand ranks Mr. Swinnerton as Master.This is a book that will not die. It is perfect,authentic, and alive. Whether a large and imme-diate popularity will fall to it, I cannot say, butcertainly the discriminating will find it and keep itand keep it alive. If Mr. Swinnerton were neverto write another word I think he might count onthis much of his work living, when many of themore portentous reputations of to-day may haveserved their purpose in the world and become nomore than fading names.

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A CONVERSATION ABOUTFRANK SWINNERTON' By p. M.MY great-aunt Eunice put down the book witha sniff. "So that's the kind of story young

people like nowadays!" she sputtered."Why, what's the matter with it ?" I asked, much

interested to know the effect of this entirely modernnovel on one whose standard had always been loyallyfixed on John Halifax, Gentleman.

"There's nobody in it you can look up to," shecomplained. "No one stands out more than anyoneelse. Now which would you rather be yourself,if you had your choiceEmmy or Jenny?""That's easy," I answered ; "Jenny, of course."

"Well, I wouldn't. Goodness knows, I'd hate tobe either of them; but if I had to choose, I'd beEmmy. She at least was sure of a husband, even ifhe was only a shopkeeper, and she could look aheadto a life of security, whereas Jenny gave up every-thing for the sake of that disreputable sailor, andI'd take my oath he'd never come back to her,either."

"She had the satisfaction anyway of enjoying oneglorious adventure," I defended.

"I don't call it a glorious adventure. That's justthe trouble with the story. In my day, the novelshad characters who did things and were good and

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FRANK SWINNERTONnoble. You could tell in the first chapter whom toadmire and whom to despise. In this story thecharacters aren't like heroes and heroines in books.They are just like the people you meet in everydaylife. It's not the kind of pleasure reading I'm usedto."The book under discussion was Nocturne, and I

thought that my Aunt Eunice, quite against her will,had paid the author, Mr. Swinnerton, the supremecompliment. My own estimate of the work com-pletely coincided with hers; but my pleasure-painreactions were so exactly opposite, after readingNocturne, that I felt, instead of homesick longingsfor Victorian perfection, a surge of unrest to gethold of other books of Mr. Swinnerton's and tofind out why they seemed so different from anythingelse I had ever read.

I am one of those meretricious readers who gliderapidly over the pages of a book and forget. Iforget titles and plots and, unless there is somethingvery unusual indeed about the context, only themost leading conversation about the characters canmake me remember having read the book at all. Soit was no slight prick to my interest in Mr. Swin-nerton when, having finished Nocturne, I foundmyself thinking quite warmly and vividly of anotherbook which had strayed into my hands some sixyears before. This was The Happy Family. Inspite of the fact that, at the time, Arnold Bennett,

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FRANK SWINNERTONH. G. Wells, May Sinclair, Granville Barker andvarious others were putting forth exhaustive studiesof the various strata of English middle class familylife, this tale had the faculty of simultaneously arous-ing and satisfying curiosity as none of the other booksdid. It dealt with the life of the London suburbsand it depicted so ruthlessly the discontents of thisunromantic and irritating class of people, whose sor-didness, vulgarity, and aping snobbishness are for-ever doing battle with the fine idealism, the highadventurousness of its own striving youththat evenmy volatile gray matter retained the impression. Iasked all my friends about the book. None of themhad read it. iNone of them had even heard ofFrank Swinnerton.

In the lapse of six years, however, the veil haslifted. Now it is difficult to find a reader on whomone can flash the work of Mr. Swinnerton as a"discovery." He has many friends and correspond-ents on this side of the Atlantic. And by prickingup my ears when I happened into "literary circles,"by begging glimpses of his letters, and by resortingto the meager data furnished by publishers, I wasquite easily able to satisfy myself as to why Mr.Swinnerton stands out so sharply against the erotichomogeneity of the younger English writers. It isbecause he himself was one of the shackled youngadventurers of the London suburbs. And the lifehe saw about him, petty, exacting, devoid of dra-

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FRANK SWINNERTONmatics, was the life he put into his books. That iswhy Great-aunt Eunice, missing her heroes and her-oines, denounced him, and that is why he seems tome unique in his craft.When I say that Mr. Swinnerton portrayed the

life of which he himself was a product, I do notmean that his work is in any sense autobiographical.Certain facts about himself naturally, and aboutthose with whom he associated, are reproduced iahis books. "At fourteen," he writes, "I went towork as an office boy in circumstances similar tothose in which Stephen Moore {The Chaste Wife)began. The previous years had been years of seriousillness and starvation." Again he says: "The char-acter of Amberley, in On the Staircase, is a sort ofsemi-self-portrait, but gilded for purposes of fictionalinterest. The Happy Family enshrines some memo-ries of very early days and gives some of my pub-lishing experience. On the Staircase holds this muchof personal reminiscence that the flat in which theGrettons live at the top of the house in Great JamesStreet is the flat in which my family lived for acouple of years."

These, however, are only incidents, and they arerelieved and illumined, as is all Mr. Swinnerton'swork, with imaginative insight and interpretativesuggestion. According to one who knows himwell, "Mr. Swinnerton thinks one should not nar-rate literally the events of one's own life in writing

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FRANK SWINNERTONfiction, and he rarely adopts suggestions from realpersons for his characters."

But those who are curious about the facts of theauthor's life need not dig out "the man behind thebook" to find them. Mr. Swinnerton makes nomystery of them and they are not such as wouldstimulate sensation hunters. His is a story of suc-cess wrung from poverty, serious ill health, and un-propitious circumstance. He owes much to the in-terest of the friends whom his quiet, rather bafflingpersonality never failed to win for him; but morehe owes to his own ordered will which would al-ways concentrate on the good ahead, no matter howdistressing and upsetting the details of material ex-istence might be.He was born in 1884, and from the first was up

against the cruelties of London at its worst, butalways through the sordidness and gloom a kindlystar shone above his head. During his period asoffice boy his employers, recognizing the serious am-bition of the thoughtful lad, encouraged him to usehis spare time to write. In a few years, throughthe interest of a friend, he found his way into theoffice of J. M. Dent and Company, the publishersof the Temple Classics and the Everyman Library.Here, in the atmosphere of a scholarly house, hebegan his first novel. This book, finished at theage of eighteen, marks the beginning of a careerwhich, though still so young, falls naturally into

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FRANK SWINNERTONthree periods. The first includes three novels thatwere never published ; the second includes threenovels that were published but not read; and thethird includes a bevy of novels some of which havetaken two continents by the ears.

But the work of the first period was not wasted,even though the fine script of its many, many hun-dred pages (I have seen a sample and it is the mostbeautiful handwriting in the world) was soon fedto hungry flames by the author. Young Swinnertonwas busy all this time acquiring technique, learninghow to develop in sharp black and white the im-pressions made on the highly sensitized film of hismind. It was a short tragedy written at this timethat won for him the enthusiastic confidence of Mr.Philip Lee Warner, who soon asked Swinnertonto be proof manager for the firm of Chatto andWindus, in which he was a partner. Spurred bythe congeniality of his work and his surroundings,the young man dedicated his evenings to writing.His first book, The Merry Heart, he bashfully sub-mitted, at Mr. Warner's request, to the house,where, to avoid embarrassment, it was sent to anoutside reader who had no knowledge of the author.Swinnerton received the notice of its acceptance onthe occasion of his twenty-fourth birthday. Whata birthday that was only those who have similarlystriven can know. But the young author did notcelebrate it with champagne. He went to work on

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FRANK SWINNERTONanother story. The Young Idea won from ArnoldBennett the cryptic comment that Swinnerton "knewhis business so well that he didn't need anyone toshow him his faults." Followed The Casement,and apropos of these three books of the secondperiod, Floyd Dell, the first American critic to takenotice of the young author, said that Swinnertonknew all there was to know about the young girl,and prophesied that he would do "bigger work."The prophecy was speedily fulfilled, for the can-

vas of The Happy Family is as inclusive as thesuburbs of London. But the book that won himhis first real appreciation in literary England washis work on Gissing. All the various literary soci-eties and fraternities began to "rush" him, and Wellsinvited him to his house. On The Staircase createda mild furore in London and won him the friendshipof Arnold Bennett. A critical study of RobertLouis Stevenson done at this time earned Swinner-ton his first enemiesnot very vindictive ones, butvery angry ones. Then came the war and an ill-ness so long and serious that it almost put an endto this career so promisingly begun. But Swinnertonrecovered and put all the ardor of his convalescenceinto The Chaste Wife. It is hard not to believethat Stephen Moore is a self-confession, so emotion-ally and unsparingly is this difficult, morose andtormented character drawn, but we must take theauthor's word for it that it is not. At all events.

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FRANK SWINNERTONthe critical opinions expressed by Stephen so im-pressed the editor of the Manchester Guardian thathe immediately wrote to Swinnerton asking him todo literary work for this paper.

Nocturne was written in a period of the greatestdomestic stress, illness, anxiety and loneliness. Sogreat was the author's preoccupation that he had,as he says, no feeling but shame for the work hewas so hurriedly producing. When, however, afterits completion, his own publisher said "it's a master-piece," and Arnold Bennett wrote, "A slight work,but just about perfect," and encomiums poured infrom across the Atlantic, and requests for transla-tion privileges from the other side of the channel,his spirits rose to a height they had achieved onlyonce before in his life, and that was on the occa-sion of his twenty-fourth birthday. Then followedShops and Houses, a study of suburban life, a novelwhich reveals Swinnerton's emotional power with-out sentimentality, in the sympathetic portrayal ofyouth in conflict with family traditions, petty small-town gossip and social tyranny defended by age.Now he has just finished another book calledSeptember. This is a close study of feminine psy-chology. There are four principal characters, aman of about fifty, a woman of thirty-eight, ayoung man of five and twenty, and a girl oftwenty-one. The emotional conflict between thesecharacters, and particularly between the two women,

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FRANK SWINNERTOISis the theme of the story. The tale is divided intothree books, each bearing the name of one of thecharacters.

Swinnerton is now editorial adviser for the firmof Chatto and Windus. He still continues to writeliterary criticisms for the Manchester Guardian andin spare moments is a professional dramatic critic.He contributes articles, short stories and plays tocurrent English periodicals. Thus it will be seenthat his days are very full. Some idea of his powerof concentration may be got from the fact that Noc-turne was written in six weeks less a fortnight, inwhich the story could not be made to progress be-yond a scene on board the yacht; while Septemberwas written in four months. Nocturne has beentranslated into Dutch, Danish and Swedish.Of his characters Mr. Swinnerton humorously

comments: "They don't go down on their knees tome or interpose their own wills in any matter af-fecting their own future. They are real enough toexist apart from the things written down for them,but they cause no sleepless nights. Indeed, I havea scrupulous fancy and do the best I can for them !"

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FRANK SWINNERTONAs Seen by an Editor

By GRANT M. OVERTONEditor, New York Sun Book Review

OF the five novels of Frank Swinnerton that Ihave seen, all are worthy of attentive readingby anyone who cares at all for contemporary fictionin England and America. The best of the fivethey are, in order, The Happy Family, On theStaircase, The Chaste Wife, Nocturne, and Shopsand Housesis the superb Nocturne; but this bookis a special feat and anyone acquainted with it islikely to feel the unfairness of involving other booksin comparisons with it. Putting Nocturne to oneside, on a pedestal not ranged with the others, thething to notice is the steady lifting into eminenceof Mr. Swinnerton's other books, in the order inwhich they have reached us. Each is a better per-formance than its predecessor. The superiority ofOn the Staircase over The Happy Family may notbe remarkable, but The Chaste Wife marks an ad-vance all can see, while Shops and Houses, comedythough it is, will give readers more satisfaction thanThe Chaste Wife, because it has more contact withthe ordinary range of thought, feeling and observa-tion.We talk about romanticists and realists loosely,but I think it will be found that the business of a

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FRANK SWINNERTONnovelist ordinarily resolves itself into one of twobroad tasks. Either he is going to take the im-probable, the weird, the incredible and the bizarreand so present it to us that we can enter into itwith the sense of "This did happen ! I can see howhe (or she) came to act thus and so!"or ournovelist is going to take a piece of everydayness andmake us re-live it in the sense of how wonderfulit all was. I suspect that the novelist who essaysthe first task is the one we call a "romanticist" andthe writer who tackles the second is our "realist."Failures in the first enterprise are very likely as fre-quent as in the second; but they are neither as con-spicuous nor as dismal. This is partly because ourimaginations exert themselves to help the romantic.writer while they lie sluggishly inert in the presenceof the realist, waiting for him to rouse them fromheavy torpor. Besides, it is only in the last halfcentury, or a little more, that the realist (in thesense I have suggested) has been writing. ManyVictorian minds still look upon him as an experi-mentalist engaged in a highly dubious enterprise.Now of course Mr. Swinnerton is a realist in

these terms. But you can't tag a writer as a "ro-manticist" or a "realist" and let it go at that. Mostpeople would call Joseph Conrad a romanticist andbe mainly right; but some of the most perfect real-ism in the world is in his The Secret Agent, andhis Chance is full of it. Making the extraordinary

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FRANK SWINNERTONreal and making the commonplace wonderful are,properly considered, complementary enterprises ofthe story-teller. The episode of Jenny and the sailorKeith Redington in Nocturne is as romantic a pieceof business as a novelist could have to deal with.The love affair of Jenny's sister, Emmy, and theutterly usual Alf is a particularly fine example ofthe commonplace made wonderful.

I think Nocturne is the most perfect work ofimaginative sympathy I have ever read. I used tothink, and perhaps I still think, that Mr. Conrad'sYouth was the finest short story in English; butYouth is a "recapture," a beautiful moment of adora-ble recollection. Nocturne is not a rememberedthing but an imagined thing. Frank Swinnertonhas seen a shopgirl going home at dusk on a Londontram car. He has, in his mind, gone with her, en-tered the house, looked upon the drudging Emmyand the bloated Pa. He has sat at supper withthese three and has found it neither drab nor dull.Pathos and humor have disclosed their presence tohim. And he has found just the right words. Heis never satirical, never harsh, never sentimental;he is kindly, tolerant, understanding, just. He seesbeauty and romance, and he makes you see them.It is incredible to me that anyone could read Noc^turne and not be moved and comforted by it. WellWhen you have written a book of which that c^nbe said, the world owes you something

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BOOKS BYFRANK SWINNERTONDescription and Comment

SEPTEMBERACCORDING to custom the Howard Forstershave come down to their quiet country place

at the beginning of summer. Marian Forster, inher late thirties still wonderfully young, turns hermind wearily to the future- Howard, over fifty, overfed, pathetically foolish in the pursuit of the pleas-ures of youth has ceased to count; within herselfshe feels alone, without any special interest in whatis to come. Then two things happen: she meetsNigel Sinclair, and Cherry Mant's mother sendsCherry to visit Marian. With Nigel, Marian ex-periences a swift, delightful understanding. She isfascinated with trying to understand Cherry, beauti-ful, undeveloped, strangely sophisticated, subtly per-verse, immediately hostile to Marian, envious of hermature calm. Cherry's relations with Howard,Marian's brief poignant happiness in Nigel's love,and, back in town in September, her loss of him toCherry's triumphant youth, make up a tale of thepassionate conflict of two strongly contrasted tem-peraments. Nothing Mr. Swinnerton has done isso finely penetrating as the friendship and the con-flict between these two women. Over and abovethe story, wonderfully sustained, informing the

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FRANK SWINNERTONwhole so that it becomes as one event, broods themood of September, the autumnal quality inMarian's life.

"It is indeed, a very able book. With candorand sincerity Mr. Swinnerton has applied his brainto a very difficult task. The development is original,has an unusual air of truth. Marian Forster'sfigure is finely logically outlined. Her spoils fromthe contest are neither romantic nor showy. Amongmodern novelists very few would choose to makethe fruit of the contest something so quiet. Fewwould plan their story so consistently vAth that endin view. We have read with the conviction that weare being asked to attend to a problem worth solv-inga conviction so rare as by itself to prove thatSEPTEMBER is a novel of exceptional merit."London Times Literary Supplement.

SHOPS AND HOUSESWITH the indignation of youth against the in-stinct of oppression as its theme, this is anabsorbing story of modern life in an English sub-urban town, near enough to London to be thehome of city men. It is an exquisitely humorouspicture of small-town snobbishness. A black-sheepof one of the 'first families' has the effrontery toreturn and set up as a grocer in Beckwith itself!The solution here of the exciting tangle wrought isthrough love. And even Mr. Swinnerton has never

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FRANK SWINNERTONbeen happier than in his portrayal of Louis Vechan-tors, of Dorothy and of Veronicaand of the towngossip, Miss Lampe. "One marvels at the extraor-dinary acuteness of it all." London Bookman."A bright study in fiction of suburban town lifewhile even the most masterly portrayal of small

town types may leave the sympathy chilled and in-ert, or transformed into vexed impatience, no suchfate could befall such a rarely artistic disclosure ofloyalty and courage and pure passion as Mr. Swin-nerton's narrative of the triumph of true love overall obstacles of shops and houses." PhiladelphiaNorth American."An exquisitely humorous picture of small town

snobbishness." San Francisco Chronicle."The book is, of course, admirably written. Mr.

Swinnerton knows a good deal about human nature,and he sets forth his knowledge with many admira-ble and illuminating little touches." New YorkTimes."The day after finishing Shops and Houses you

are likely to chuckle at every one concerned, your-self included. You are equally likely to wait withimpatience for the author's next." New York Sun.

NOCTURNENOCTURNE is only a tale of the millioncommonplace loves of a million common-

place people in which, as humanity's great heart

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FRANK SWINNERTONwell knows, there is little that is either supremelyelevating or meanly sordid.With a few touches less assured, or a single situ-ation vulgarized or even overwrought, Mr. Swin-nerton's story would have fallen in ruins. That hehas been gifted with power to portray low life with-out crassness, and artistically to suggest the patheticyearnings of the lowly for joys of life they can neverattain, nor even understand, is sufficient warrant ofprimacy in a new, exigent school of fiction whichcreates beauty oiit of sheer fidelity of vision, withalmost artless verity of description and character-ization. Philadelphia North American.

"This is a book that will not die. It is perfect,authentic, and alive. If Mr. Swinnerton w^renever to write another word, I think he might counton this much of his work living when many of themore important reputations of today may haveserved their purpose in the world and become nomore than fading names. Mr. Swinnerton haswritten four or five other novels before this one,but none of them compares with it in quality."H. G. Wells."Humor and romance. What could be more ro-mantic than Jenny's adventure that night? Beauty.

Not a beauty of surroundings, though Jenny foundherself in enchanting surroundings, but the beautyof a great love and a sword-sharp jealousy guard-

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FRANK SWINNERTONing it. Pathos in the figure of Pa and the relationof his girls to him. And always the right word.Infallibly the right word, never satirical, neverharsh, never sentimental; kindly, tolerant, under-standing, just. If this is what you mean by realism,read Nocturne and be moved and comforted by it."New York Sun.

"If to write such a book as Nocturne is not towrite a great book, then what is?" Los AngelesTimes."Mr. Swinnerton demands no alteration and sues

for no reforms. Mentally he is an aristocrat if thereever was one." The New York Evening Post.

THE HAPPY FAMILYTHE HAPPY FAMILY is a realistic comedyof life in London suburbs. The scenes are

laid principally in Kentish Town, with excursionsto Hampstead, Highgate, and Gospel Oak; whileunusual pictures of the publishing trade form asetting to the highly important office-life of thechief male characters. The book shows these in-dividuals both at work and at play, and endeavorsto suggest something of the real life of a class whichis very rarely treated in fiction. While it is thusa sympathetic and veracious study, however, TheHappy Family is concerned with people rather thanproblems; for against the background of suburban

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FRANK SWINNERTONand office-life it shows the courageous figures of agirl and a young man, both with their own battlesto fight, emerging at length into freedom and hap-piness. Although parts of the book are pathetic,and even tragic, its tone throughout is optimistic;and it resembles the author's previous work in thequalities of freshness and humor.

"For clever, even brilliant analysis of characterand description of unconsidered details of familyand social life, Mr. Swinnerton must take highrank, and these qualities give his book much merit."Boston Globe.

"His style is controlled, ironic, sometimes vivid,always unemotional. The novel commands atten-tion as a production of exceptional ability and in-telligence." New York Times."He displays the Amerson family with numerous

of its branches as easily as another writer wouldconduct a tete a tete. He knows a hundred fam-ilies like the Amersons. He knows the women aswell as the men, the typists as well as the clerks,and he reproduces them with honest art." ChicagoEvening News.

"People who do not like to read about 'sordidand commonplace' people (that is, themselves andtheir neighbors) are warned to eschew Mr. Swin-nerton's book, and also Balzac and some other men

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FRANK SWINNERTONof reputed talent. But those of firmer vision andmore flexible sympathy will find in The HappyFamily some very great qualities, candor, sanity,right-thinking, and fundamental humor." BostonHerald. THE CHASTE WIFE]\ CARRIAGE or happiness or both! Mr.-*-^-*- Swinnerton, whose frank realism has oftenbeen compared to that of Gissing, finds the secretin a single word: Truth. Priscilla Evandene washappy, though Stephen earned a small pittance.Love, and utter confidence, kept her happy. ButStephen had to have his secret, as so many men do.And when Priscilla's confidence deserted her, lovethreatened to go, too! The whole perplexing prob-lem of marital felicity is stripped of its wrappingsin this tale of love's triumph over a man's mistakenidea of "kindness to his wife."

"It is quite unlike modern novels in that it isfine and brave and big. Mr. Swinnerton is to becongratulated on having written a novel that issomething more than just good, and that shouldoutlast the 'season.' " Chicago Evening Post."The Chaste Wife is a story of marriage written

with sobriety and keen insight. . . . Character iscleanly drawn and sanely developed and there is nofumbling in this story." Boston Herald.

"Frank Swinnerton's The Chaste Wife is the

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FRANK SWINNERTONstory of a poor book reviewer so foolhardy as to getmarried." The Globe."The Chaste Wife is admirably conceived and

finished. Through the window the author throwsopen for us we look in upon the lives and thoughtsof a group of people, all real, and most of themlikable, whom we watch with interest, and of whosefurther experiences, after the last chapter is reachedand the window closed, we would like to be told."New York Times."The Chaste Wife will widen Frank Swinner-

ton's public; it is written, moreover, with sparkleand polish and suggests that the author really loveshis work." Chicago Herald.

"Reading Mr. Swinnerton's story is like cominginto the sunshine and fresh air after a long, stiflingperiod in a dark, poorly ventilated building. Thedelicate accuracy with which he distinguishes hischaracters is done so easily that we have no imme-diate thought of how high a degree of art is re-quired for such perfection of outline." BostonEvening Transcript.

ON THE STAIRCASEYOU do not meet life singly, as an individual,no matter what the ordinary novels say!The unit of life is the family. The family's per-

sonality determines each member.

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FRANK SWINNERTONFrank Swinnerton is one of the few writers who

realize that fact. He writes with cynical humor,genial S5'mpathy, distinguished realism. He herechronicles two families, a cramped menage, and awell-rounded, cheerful household gay father, atalkative mother, a girl who works, and her brother,who teases, and her suitors, who yearn.

Delightful is the incidental romance of Susan,that motherly young person who expected to be anold maid, but amazedly found herself the center ofan idyll.

"Its narrative comes to close grips with life."New York Evening Post."In defiance of all claims of the individualists,

Mr. Swinnerton hymns the family. On the Stair-case is the picture of two groups, Barbara Grettonand her household, gay, quarrelsome, affectionate,independent, and Adrian Velancourt and Cissie, hiswife inevitable tragedy is here and Swinnertonhandles it with sureness and delicacybut he is notafraid of amusing observation and bright humorand good cheer."-^iV^w; York Times."On the Staircase is an entrancing novel of the

experiences, adventures, emotions of a little groupof ordinary young people. ... It is a livingstory." The Independent."On the Staircase is a delightful novel. The

praise it has received from London critics is de-served." Boston Herald.

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELESCOLLEGE LIBRARY

This book is due on the last date stamped below.

ihooiC

Book Slip-35m-9,'62(D221884)4280

imanxsiTT of c


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faulorcl ^PAMPHLET BINDER

Syracuse,Stockton,! UCLA-College Library

PR 6037 S97Z6

L 005 659 272 8

PR6037S9726

A 001 193 536 e


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arnold bennett - frank swinnerton - 1920

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