Part 3: The start of the modern period 1890-1920

Introduction

In part 3 of this series we look at the period between 1890 and 1920, which encompasses the end of the Victorian era and the beginnings of the modern novel. We will be focussing on some key works of fiction which represent the main literary movements and embody the common themes of the time. As such, these titles tend to command premium prices.

This was also a period which saw the decline of the “three-decker” or three volume novel as the standard publishing format and the rise of the single volume that dominates today.

Morality, Sexuality and Censorship

The Victorian era is closely associated with the suppression of sexuality and adherence, at least outwardly, to a strict moral code and many leading authors from this period sought to challenge this restrictive outlook through their fiction. For example, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbevilles attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a woman who loses her virginity before marriage. Originally serialised in The Graphic, it was first published in book form in 1991 as a three volume work in an edition of only 1,000 copies.

The outcry against Hardy’s next novel Jude the Obscure, with its frank treatment of sex and apparent attacks on the institution of marriage, was even more vocal with many booksellers selling copies in brown paper bags. The Bishop of Wakefield, William Walsham How, even went so far as publicly burning a copy. Hardy later wrote that this was “probably in his despair at not being able to burn me”. This negative reaction is thought to have been a factor in Hardy’s subsequent abandonment of fiction in favour of poetry.

Oscar Wilde’s only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published as a book in the same year as Hardy’s Tess, having previously been published in a shorter form in the July 1890 edition of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. Some of the critical reaction to the Lippincott version was extremely unfavourable with The Scots Observer describing it as suitable for “none but outlawed noblemen and perverted telegraph boys” – a reference to the Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889 where the police raided a homosexual brothel in Fitzrovia said to have been frequented by the aristocracy and staffed by rent boys who also worked as messengers for the post office. With homosexuality being illegal in England at this time (a situation which remained until 1967) Wilde removed many of the more overtly homoerotic passages prior to the novel’s publication in book form by Ward Lock in April 1891, particularly those relating to the artist Basil Hallward’s admiration for the subject of his portrait. However, they were still apparent to contemporary reviewers and the book was used in evidence against Wilde at his trial for gross indecency in 1895 which resulted in him receiving the maximum sentence of two year’s hard labour.

The attitude of the authorities towards the portrayal of sexual relationships generally in fiction were slow to change during the early part of the twentieth century with D H Lawrence being another author to experience this. His 1915 novel The Rainbow follows the fortunes of three generations of the Brangwen family focussing on the sexual dynamics of the main characters. Although it might be judged tame by contemporary audiences, the novel’s candid treatment of sex caused a furore upon publication and it was the subject of an obscenity trail in late 1915, which lead to it being banned and copies being seized by the police and burned. Although editions were published in the States it would not be available in Britain for another 11 years.

James Joyce also experienced difficulties in getting his semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man published, with several English printers refusing to handle it “on moral grounds”. It was first published by the New York firm B W Huebsch on 29 December 1916 with the first English edition, produced from 750 sets of the American sheets, being published the following year by Harriet Weaver of The Egoist Press priced at 6 shillings. The Egoist edition was issued in a dustwrapper, but this is so rare today that it can add a substantial premium to the price. A jacketed copy “rubbed and marked, with crude sellotape repairs and loss at spine ends” sold for an incredible £31,050 in December 2003 at Dominic Winter Book Auctions.

It was not until 1959, when the defence of artistic merit was introduced in the Obscene Publications Act and subsequently tested in the trial against Penguin Books for publishing an unexpurgated version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover that publishers and authors began to enjoy greater freedom from censorship.

Class

The Victorian era also saw a marked expansion in the economy and the growth of the cities which led to the rise of a middle class of professionals, administrators and clerks and the suburbs in which they lived. The outlook and attitudes of this burgeoning social group were satirised in George and Weedon Grossmith’s The Diary of a Nobody, which was published by the Bristol publishers Arrowsmith in 1892, having originally been serialised in Punch. This comic classic takes the form of a diary in which snobbish and small-minded commercial clerk Charles Pooter documents the banalities of his daily struggles with the various tradespeople who service his house, his efforts to find gainful employment for his son Lupin and Lupin’s relationship with the unsuitable Daisy Mutlar. The humour derived from Pooter’s gauche behaviour is heightened by Weedon Grossmith’s illustrations, which did not feature in the Punch columns.

Moving into the Edwardian era, E M Forster’s novels also focus on the hypocrisy of the middle class. A Room with a View, published in 1908, highlights the narrow-minded views of English tourists abroad with the novel’s central character Lucy Honeychurch being presented with a choice between the repressed Cecil Vyse and the free-thinking George Emerson. In Howard’s End, which appeared two years later, Forster examines the relationships between three different groups within the middle class, represented by the capitalist Wilcoxes, who have made their fortune in the colonies, the intellectual Schlegels, who bear a resemblance to the Bloomsbury Group, and the struggling lower middle class Basts.

The idea of social class is also central to an appreciation of D H Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, published in 1913. Gertrude Coppard, the daughter of a “good old burgher family” marries miner Walter Morel after meeting him at a Christmas dance. However, she soon grows to appreciate the difficulties of living in a rented house off his meagre wages and they begin to drift apart. Later her son William leaves their Nottinghamshire home for a job in London and begins to rise up the middle class.

Imperialism

By the end of Victoria’s reign, the British Empire extended over approximately a fifth of the world’s surface and around a quarter of the population, theoretically at least, owed allegiance to the Queen. Joseph Conrad’s works from this period explore and question the ideology of imperialism. For example, Lord Jim, published in book form in October 1900, concerns an adventure at the height of the empire. Jim, who is first mate on the ship Patna, is complicit in abandoning the ship and its passengers, who are Moslem pilgrims bound for the Hajj in Mecca. Whilst Jim eventually atones for this lapse he remains an ambigous figure and Conrad’s use of a protagonist with a dubious history has been interpreted by some as an expression of his doubts about the empire’s mission. Today Lord Jim is one of the most prized of Conrad’s novels.

Criticism of imperialism is more overt in Conrad’s novella “Heart of Darkness”, in which Marlow (who also serves as the narrator in Lord Jim) takes an assignment as a ferry-boat captain to navigate up the Congo River and relieve the ivory trader Kurtz. Upon arriving at the Inner Station, Marlow discovers that Kurtz has established himself as a god with the natives using brutal methods to obtain his ivory. Originally serialised in Blackwood’s Magazine between February and April 1899,”Heart of Darkness” was published in 1902 in a volume of three stories entitled Youth: A Narrative and Two Other Stories. Given the importance of the story to modern literature it is perhaps surprising that it was not chosen as the title for the collection. Conrad’s anti-heroic characters have influenced a number of authors and the themes of many of his novels makes him a forerunner of modernism.

The Dawn of Modernism

Modernism was a movement that increasingly took hold in the aftermath of World War I – an event that shook many people’s belief in the nature of Western civilisation and culture. In literature it manifested itself as a revolt against traditional literary forms and, thematically, an increased focus on individualism, mistrust of the institutions of government and the absence of absolute truths.

One of the founding fathers of English modernism was Ford Madox Ford whose finest work is generally considered to be The Good Soldier. This story of adultery and deceit focuses on two couples, Edward and Leonora Ashburnham, and their two American friends, John and Florence Dowell. By presenting the story through John Dowell, Ford makes use of the technique of the unreliable narrator and the groundbreaking narrative style influenced many later authors, most notably Graham Greene. Ford (who was born Ford Hermann Hueffer) published The Good Soldier under the name Ford Madox Hueffer. With German connotations becoming unpopular after Word War I he eventually settled upon Ford Madox Ford in 1919.

James Joyce was also a leading figure in modernist literature and many of the innovative techniques that he would later develop in Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake are apparent in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, published in book form in 1916. The novel portrays the formative years of Joyce’s fictional alter ego Stephen Dedalus and his rebellion against the Irish Catholic conventions in which he has been raised, eventually leaving Ireland to follow his calling as an artist.

Enduring Reputations

Whilst almost all of the authors and works covered here will be familiar to contemporary readers, some have not stood the test of time so well, with perhaps the best example being Marie Correlli. Although regularly derided by critics, up until World War I her works were bought in vast quantities and outsold the combined sales of Conan Doyle, Wells and Kipling. Her novels include Wormwood: A Drama of Paris, a lurid melodrama which warns of the perils of absinthe, and The Sorrows of Satan, the faustian story of penniless author Geoffrey Tempest and his temptation by Lucio, an incarnation of the devil. Whilst Corelli’s novels are still collectable today it is worth bearing in mind that, as reading tastes change and the importance of various authors is continually reassessed over time, the value of their books to the collector is unlikely to remain static.

 

THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD: 1890-1920 – SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

A guide to current values of first editions in Very Good condition (with dustjackets).

Corelli, Marie: WORMWOOD: A DRAMA OF PARIS

(Richard Bentley & Son, 1890)…….……………….……………........£750-£1,000

Hardy, Thomas: TESS OF THE D’URBEVILLES

(Osgood, McIlvaine & Co, 1891)………………………………........£5,000-£8,000

Wilde, Oscar: THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

(Ward Lock, 1891)………………………………………..…...............£750-£1,000

Grossmith, George & Weedon: THE DIARY OF A NOBODY

(Arrowsmith, 1892)……………………………………………….............£100-£150

Corelli, Marie: THE SORROWS OF SATAN

(Methuen, 1895)……………………………..……………………...........£200-£250

Hardy, Thomas: JUDE THE OBSCURE

(Osgood, McIlvaine & Co, 1896)………………………………...….........£200-300

Conrad, Joseph: LORD JIM: A TALE

(Blackwood, 1900).…………………..……………………...............£1,000-£1,500

Conrad, Joseph: YOUTH: A NARRATIVE AND TWO OTHER STORIES

(Blackwood, 1902).…………………..……………………..…...............£600-£800

Ditto (McClure, Phillips, US, 1903).….…..……………………………...£350-£400

Forster, E. M.: A ROOM WITH A VIEW

(Edward Arnold, 1908)…..…………..………………………….….........£300-£400

Forster, E. M.: HOWARD’S END

(Edward Arnold, 1910)…..…………..………………………….….........£200-£250

Lawrence, D. H.: SONS AND LOVERS

(Duckworth & Co, 1913)………….…………….…...............£400-£600 (£6,000+)

Hueffer, Ford Madox: THE GOOD SOLDIER

(John Lane, 1915).…………………..………………….…...............£1,500-£1,750

Lawrence, D. H.: THE RAINBOW

(Methuen, 1915).…………………….……………….…........£400-£600 (£6,000+)

Joyce, James: A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN

(B W Huebsch, US, 1916).……..….………………….…...............£1,500-£2,000

Ditto (The Egoist Press, [1917]).…………..…………….....£500-£800 (£20,000+)

Part 4: Modern first editions from 1920 to 1945