Embedded Files
An Annotated Bibliography of His Fiction & Poetry 1890 Onwards
Last revised: 02 Feb 2020
This bibliography is intended to help students of Grant Allen by listing everything from his pen and providing annotations for most items. It lists all known publications of his fiction & poetry. Some of these items are extremely obscure, and I am greatly indebted to Victor Berch of Brandeis University and others for uncovering many of the rarest items.
I am grateful for help from many other people, and seek eagerly more details and corrections. There is a section on unresolved problems and acknowledgements at the end. Contact me by email.
All printed bibliographies of Allen's creative work are unsatisfactory. Even the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature is slightly inaccurate and incomplete in its entries for fiction. The bibliographies in the three volumes of the Dictionary of Literary Biography (Gale) which have articles on GA also have omissions and some minor errors. All of these ignore GA's very many uncollected stories for the periodicals. The bibliography of GA's fiction by Phil Stephensen-Payne and Virgil Utter (Galactic Central Publications, 1999) is incomplete.
The Library of Congress, the University of Toronto Library and the University of California libraries seem to hold the fullest collections of GA's fiction. There is an excellent collection of first editions in the Kingston Public Library, Ontario.
All novels were published in one volume, unless stated otherwise.
The BBC broadcast readings from An African Millionaire under the title 'Colonel Clay' at the following dates:
1. "Mexican Seer" 8 Jan 2000.
2. "Diamond Links" 9 Jan 2000.
3. "Tyrolean Castle" 15 Jan 2000.
4. "Arrest of Colonel Clay" 16 Jan 2000.
5. "German Professor" 13 Nov 2000.
6. ""Scottish Retreat" 14 Nov 2000.
7. "Old Master" 15 Nov 2000.
8. "The Japanned Dispatch Box" 16 Nov 2000.
An African Millionaire was adapted as a play by Frederick W. Sidney in 1904 and was performed 8 times in New York, at the long since demolished Princess Theatre on Broadway.
These details, obtained thanks to Michael Wynn, are not included in the following bibliography.
Except in special cases I have given up indexing GA's work which has been uploaded, as the URLs come and go, and it's easier to google for specific items. Many of the links to such material given below are broken now, but I have left them in place. A lot of GA's books are now available as print-on-demand books or e-books, and I have given up trying to list these. Now that so many newspapers have been digitised, it's become apparent that GA's short stories (in particular) were reprinted endlessly, including in translation. I've given up indexing these appearances except in the cases where the original English publication is untraced.
Abbreviations:
CIHM=Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions, Ottawa
Penn=Rare Books and Manuscripts, the Pennsylvania State University Libraries
CW=The Chatto & Windus Archives, University of Reading Library
"I wasn't born a novelist, I was only made one. Philosophy and science were the first loves of my youth. I dropped into romance as many men drop into drink, or opium-eating, or other bad practices, not of native perversity, but by pure force of circumstances. . . . The education of an English novelist consists entirely in learning to subordinate all his own ideas and tastes and opinions to the wishes and beliefs of the inexorable British matron. . . . I had a ten years' hard struggle for bread, into the details of which I don't care to enter. It left me broken in health and spirit, with all the vitality and vivacity crushed out of me. I suppose the object of this series of papers is to warn off ingenuous and aspiring youth from the hardest worked and worst paid of the professions. If so, I would say earnestly to the ingenuous and aspiring – 'Brain for brain, in no market can you sell your abilities to such poor advantage. Don't take to literature if you've capital enough in hand to buy a good broom, and energy enough to annex a vacant crossing'." -- My First Book (1892).
1890
What's Bred in the Bone. £1000 prize novel
The prize-winner from 20,000 entries in one of the richest literary awards ever offered, according to Peter Keating. Its convoluted and colourful plot turns on questions of heredity and atavism: the ancestry of the Waring twin brothers, and Home Counties-bred Elma Clifford. The latter comes on her mother's side from a line of gypsy snake dancers, and she displays a periodic urge to dance wildly with a feather boa in her bedroom. A murderous judge, multiple mistaken identities and scenes of tribal life in South Africa decorate this extraordinary confection, which is certainly a testament to GA's versatility and cold-blooded grasp of the popular market.
MS: Autograph manuscript with revisions and corrections. 325pp. Penn.
1. Serialized Tit-Bits, 19 (20 Dec 1890), 176-176B; 27 Dec, 192A-192B; 3 Jan 1891, 208A-208B; 10 Jan, 224A-II; 17 Jan, 240A-II; 24 Jan, 256A-II; 31 Jan, 272A-II; 7 Feb, 288A-II; 14 Feb, 304A-II; 21 Feb, 320A-II; 28 Feb, 336A-II; 7 Mar, 352A-II; 14 Mar, 368A-II; 21 Mar, 384A-II; 28 Mar, 400A-II; 4 Apr, 416A-II; 20 (11 Apr 1891), 16A-II; 18 Apr, 32A-II; 25 Apr, 48A-II; 2 May, 64A-II; 9 May, 80A-II; 16 May, 96A-II; 23 May, 112A.
2. London: 'Tit-Bits' Offices, 1891. [At least the "Eighth thousand" was reached in 1891].
3. Chicago & New York: Rand, McNally, 1891. Globe Library
4. New York: Munro, 1891. Seaside Library Ordinary Edition, #1870.
5. New York: Munro, 1891. Seaside Library Pocket Edition, #1870.
6. Boston: Tucker, 1891. Tucker's Library, vol. 1, #1.
7. New York: Dearborn, 1892
8. New York: H.M. Caldwell, [nd].
9. New York: International Book, [nd].
10. Chicago & New York: Rand, McNally, [nd].
11. Hvad i Kodet er baaret [Translation into Danish.] Oversat af P. Jerndorff-Jessen. (Martins Halvkrone Udgave). (192S.). 10. John Martin. 1893.
12. Chicago: M.A. Donohue & Henneberry, [1895].
13. New York: Knight & Brown, 1898.
14. New York: Illustrated Library of Famous Books #263, 1898
15. London: George Newnes, 1894, 1900, 1913, 1915, 1918. Newnes' Sevenpenny Series.
16. London: George Newnes, [nd]. Illustrated by A.S. Hartrick. Sixpenny Novels Illustrated.
17. New York: Street & Smith, [19--?]. Select Fiction Library.
18. New York: Fenno, 1902. Select Series, #82.
19. Aettareinkennio. [Translation into Icelandic]. Winnipeg : Prentsmioja Heimskringlu, 1911, 1939. Series Sogusafn Heimskringlu.
20. What's Bred in the Bone Comes out in the Flesh. Silent film, Master Studio, 1916. Screenplay and director Sidney Morgan.
21. London: Newnes Trench Library, 1917.
22. Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. Three microfiches of the Knight & Brown, 1898 ed. Copy in National Library of Canada. Series #26242.
23. Ottawa : CIHM, 1982. Three microfiches of the Donohue & Henneberry, [1895] ed. Copy in the University of British Columbia Library. Series #17942.
24. Ottawa : CIHM, 1983. Five microfiches of the 'Tit-Bits' Offices, 1891 ed. Copy in the Trent University Library, Peterborough. Series #05092.
The Great Taboo
As GA says in his preface, this novel draws heavily on the anthropology of Frazer's 'admirable and epoch-making' The Golden Bough and the writings of Andrew Lang on myth and ritual.. Washed overboard from an Australian liner, Felix Thurstan and Muriel Ellis make it to a Polynesian cannibal isle, where they are promoted to the status of gods of Rain and Clouds respectively. Their reign will be short, however; they will be killed and eaten after some months. Fortunately they learn the exact process by which the reigning supreme god, Tu-Kila-Kila, is replaced from the babble of an ancient parrot once owned by a sailor castaway, and with this knowledge Felix steals the golden bough from the sacred grove and kills the incumbent in single combat. Felix and Muriel introduce a new humane regime and, before escaping on a passing ship, promise to send colonial officials to continue their work of enlightenment. GA does a good job of dramatising the network of taboos and the resulting endless fears and suspicions prevailing in these societies and the novel is certainly a page-turner; but some aspects of his plot are wildly implausible. An ambitious idea which GA is just not capable of pulling off entirely.
How much the serialisation brought isn't clear, but Chatto wrote on 16 June 1890 that 'The market for collections of short stories is not an improving one, and I would therefore advise you to let your new tale A Cannibal God reappear in book form by itself. I shall be glad to make the venture with in a popular form and will give £80 for the remaining rights, which is more than I could see my way to give for a collection of short stories even (paradoxical as it may appear) were this story to form one of them. ... Watt obtained this £80 on 16 Oct 90 [CW].
MS not located.
Serialization. A note between Watt and C&W says 'serially published in Short Cuts under the title of A Cannibal God.' [Untraced so far – help welcome].
1. London: Chatto & Windus, 1890.
2. Second Edition [a 'yellowback']. London: Chatto & Windus, 1891. Reprinted 1892.
3. New York: A.L. Burt, 1890.
4. New York: Harper, 1891. Harper's Franklin Square Library, #691.
5. New York: G Munro, 1891. Seaside Library Pocket Edition, #1783.
6. New York: Springfield, 1891. Advance Library, #2.
7. New York: National Publishing, [nd]. The Red Letter Series of Select Fiction. Issued weekly. No.79, Jan.3.
8. Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. Four microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1890 ed. Copy in the University of British Columbia Library. Series #05039.
9. Ottawa: CIHM, 1982. Four microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1891 ed. Copy in the D.B. Weldon Library, University of Western Ontario. Series #27755.
10. Ottawa : CIHM, 1983.Three microfiches of the Burt, 1890 ed. Copy in the University of Victoria Library. Series #18108.
Wednesday the Tenth. A Tale of the South Pacific
A boys' adventure story: Julian Braithwaite, commander of the 'Albatross', goes to the aid of a missionary family who are to be sacrificed. They are delayed by a breakdown, but still make it when they realise the island is on the other side of the date-line, so they have a day in hand.
MS not located.
1. Atalanta, 3 (Oct 1888-Jan 1890). Oct 1889, 33-9; Nov 1889, 97-103; Dec 1889, 181-6; Jan 1890, 252-8.
2. Boston: D. Lothrop, 1890. Reprinted [1898].
3. The Cruise of the Albatross, or When was Wednesday the Tenth? A story of the South Pacific. Illustrated by Bridgman. Boston: Lothrop, [1898]. [The text in fact contains no illustrations].
4. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Two microfiches of the Lothrop, [1898] ed. (The Cruise of the Albatross) in the National Library of Canada. Series #05020.
5. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Two microfiches of the Lothrop, [1890] ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #05091.
The Sole Trustee
Noel Maynard gambles not only his own inheritance on a speculative Canadian oil well, but defrauds his sister of hers also. In all he raises twenty thousand pounds, pouring it all into the venture. At first all goes well; oil is struck and production starts. Then the reservoir collapses. Meanwhile his sister wants to marry an artist who is suffering from cataracts and is slowly going blind. Maynard faces up to his responsibilities and goes to Canada, eventually retrieving the situation and making a modest income. One of the three novellas GA wrote for the SPCK in 32pp. each. The exact required length of the tales was specified in the advertisements for this series.
MS not located
1. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, [1890]. Penny Library of Fiction.
2. Hägrande miljoner. [Translation into Swedish.] Stockholm: Nordiska Förlaget, 1912.
[No CIHM microfiche available]
Periodical contributions in 1890; by month where known
André Canivet's Curse
Hot-headed French revolutionary falls foul of a Parisian industrialist over a wall built along a Provencal road.
1. Short Stories: André Canivet's Curse [et al.]. London: The 'Clarion' Newspaper, [c.1890]. Dawn-O'-Day Library, No. 1.
AUGUST 1890
Old Margaret
An old midwife poisons her patients to extract their gold teeth.
A letter from GA to Watt dated 12 Dec [1889] refers to this story. GA was paid his standard rate at this time: 2 gns per 1000w. The proofs in the NYPL are headed: "Series of Short Stories. 4th Instalment. Not to be published before August 9, 1890." It was apparently written for the Herald and was copyrighted 1890 to the 'Author's Alliance'. No UK publication known.
1. The Sunday Herald [Boston, MA], 10 Aug 1890, 23.
2. Morning Call [San Francisco], 10 Aug 1890, 10.
My One Gorilla.
A naturalist in Africa secures a rare orchid in the jungle but has it taken from him and eaten by a gorilla.
1. Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 10 Aug 1890.
Dick Prothero's Luck
A Canadian pioneer thinks he has lost his family in a fire; when he prepares to kill himself in a grave he has dug, he finds gold nuggets.
1. Newcastle Courant, 13 Sep 1890, 6.
2. The Desire of the Eyes and Other Stories (1895)
1891
Dumaresq's Daughter. A Novel
Apparently written as early as 1888; it was sold to Chambers's that October; it was probably delayed to avoid overwhelming the market with GA's fictions. Written with a bit more psychological penetration than many of GA's fictions, the central character is Haviland Dumaresq, a philosopher and originator of a grandiose Encyclopaedic Philosophy. Dumaresq is aging, embittered by his relative failure and early years of poverty, and an opium addict. He is obviously based on GA's hero and mentor, Herbert Spencer. But even Dumaresq is forced to engage with the Philistine world when planning the future of his beloved daughter Psyche. She is in love with a successful, shy painter, Austen Linnell, who has inherited a fortune from his father's American patent medicine company but is ashamed of it. (Perhaps GA got this idea from 'John Oliver Hobbes', ie Pearl Craigie, whose father supposedly made a fortune from liver pills.) He lets no one know he is rich. Dumaresq, fearing his daughter will marry a penniless painter, forces her to promise not to encourage him for three years. Feeling jilted, Linnell leaves for Khartoum on a crazy adventure with a journalist. He is present at the death of General Gordon; and assumed to be dead. (The description of the siege and massacre in 1885 is well done.) In England Psyche starts to suffer from episodes of psychosomatic blindness. The scene shifts to Algeria, where Dumaresq takes Psyche for the winter, hoping she will forget Linnell. Thanks to the kindness of an American, Cyrus Vanrenen, a young Cincinnati pork-packer and his cheerful sisters Corona and Sirena (all amusingly treated as naïve, good-hearted Americans abroad), Psyche and Linnell are eventually reunited. There are several other plot complications and a range of minor characters including an unsympathetic treatment of a highly educated young woman, Ida Mansel, given to saying things like 'War's an outlet for our surplus population. It replaces the plagues of the Middle Ages. There are plenty more soldiers where those came from'. But later it is said of her cuttingly that 'even Girton had not wholly extinguished her feminine instincts'.
11 Oct 88: 'Dear Mr Grant Allen, I have pleasure to inform you that I have received today from Messrs Chambers their cheque for £300 for Dumaresq's Daughter. In accordance with your instructions I have paid to your Bank £260.2.6 this being the balance after deducting enclosed for typewriting and my commission.' [Watt]
Chatto must have thought GA's novels were looking up again, for he wrote 'I am very pleased to be able to say that we shall be able to pay you for the remaining rights in the next novel after first serial publication an advance of £60 upon the price paid for The Tents of Shem so that we shall be pleased to pay you at any time that suit your convenience £180 for the new story and we trust that we may be [able?] to make another advance in the price of the succeeding stories'. [CW, 15 May 1890]. Further, Chatto asked and got £40 for the US rights from Harper in Aug 1891. [CW]
Melchiori writes not unreasonably of this novel: 'If Grant Allen was receiving even eight shillings a page for this particular piece of nonsense, he was grossly overpaid. In 1890 he had published four novels and in 1891, the year of Dumaresq's Daughter, three more, and the strain undoubtedly was beginning to tell'. She points to the several careless inconsistencies and contradictions in plot details. (The Downward Path, p.20)
MS not located.
1. Serialized Chambers's Journal, 5th Series, 8 (3 Jan1891-10 Oct 1891): 1-7; 18-21; 35-39; 52-55; 67-70; 83-86; 98-101; 115-117; 131-135; 148-151; 163-165; 178-182; 195-197; 211-213; 227-229; 243-245; 259-262; 275-277; 292-294; 307-309; 323-324; 339-341; 355-358; 370-384; 387-389; 402-407; 419-421; 435-437; 451-453; 467-470; 483-486; 499-501; 514-516; 531-533; 546-549; 564-566; 578-581; 595-596; 612-613; 633-635; 649-651.
2. 3 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1891.
3. New York: Harper, 1891. Harper's Franklin Square Library, #710.
4. New York: Munro, 1891. Seaside Library Ordinary Edition, #1908.
5. A New Edition. London: Chatto & Windus, 1892. Reprinted 1893, 1915.
6. London/Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press, 1908. Series Collins' 7d. net modern fiction; #89. Reprinted 1912.
7. Ottawa : CIHM, 1980. 1+4+3+4 microfiches of the copy of the Chatto & Windus, 1891 ed. Copy in Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Library. Series #05027-05030.
8.Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. Five microfiches of the Collins, 1908 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #26238.
9. Ottawa: CIHM,1982. Four microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1892 ed. Copy in the University of British Columbia Library. Series #17938.
10. Ottawa : CIHM, 1983. Four microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1893 ed. Copy in the University of Saskachewan Library. Series #17939.
The Duchess of Powysland
A high-society story showing GA's ability to handle a complicated if unlikely plot. The central action involves the shrewd and beautiful Linda Figgins, a lodging-house landlady, whose brother Cecil is an engineer of genius. The two of them make a fortune in America from Cecil's inventions. Linda then becomes a Duchess by marrying the dissolute, half-crazy Bertie Montgomery, Duke of Powysland. The Duke, depressed by gambling debts and suspicion of his wife, kills himself with morphine, laying the blame in pure spite on his wife. A courtroom drama follows, and Linda is released due to the efforts of her lawyer-lover, Douglas Harrison. There are two sub-plots, one involving Arthur Roper, an early version of the Raffles type of gentleman burglar and his accomplice, Elizabeth Pomeroy, and the other the love-affairs of Sabine Venables (sister of the Duke). Her philistine father marries a shrinking, neurotic creature called Woodbine Weatherly, an over-educated 'new woman' who dies in childbirth. Of this event the narrator comments: 'The higher education of women, that fashionable Moloch and Juggernaut of our time, slays its annual holocaust so regularly nowadays that nobody is astonished when one more Girton girl, unequal to her self-imposed task of defying with impunity all the laws of nature, breaks down and dies in her first futile attempt to fulfill the natural functions of motherhood' (Ch. 19). Hereditarian ideas figure largely.
The Watt Papers (Chapel Hill) have a note from GA showing he got £283.10.00 (ie £300 less commission) for the UK serial rights from the People. Chatto wrote on 22 Feb 1892 'I enclose cheque for £190 for the remaining rights in The Duchess of Powysland which I am sorry to say I have been able to make only £10 more that for Dumaresq's Daughter. I had set my hopes on being able to make a more appreciable advance. . .' [CW] A further memo by Andrew Chatto dated 'Sep 12.91' says: 'Arranged with Mr Grant Allen (at Dorking) that we would take the remaining rights in the Duchess of Powysland now running in the People for £180 – the price we would increase if the success of Dumaresq's Daughter warrants. I have to ask Mr Watt if he has a typewritten copy of The Duchess – if not to send GA the slips from The People.' [CW]
MS not located
1. Serialized People, 24 May 1891, 3; 31 May, 3; 7 Jun, 3; 14 Jun, 3; 21 Jun, 3; 28 Jun, 2; 5 Jul, 3; 12 Jul, 3; 19 Jul, 3; 26 Jul, 3; 2 Aug, 3; 9 Aug, 3; 16 Aug, 3; 23 Aug, 3; 30 Aug, 3; 6 Sep, 3; 13 Sep, 3; 20 Sep, 3; 27 Sep, 3; 4 Oct, 3; 11 Oct, 3; 18 Oct, 3; 25 Oct, 3; 1 Nov, 3; 6 Nov, 3; 15 Nov, 3.
2. Serialized Liverpool Weekly Courier 24 May-15 Oct 1891. [Page nos. not determined.]
3. Serialized Yorkshire Weekly Post 23 May-14 Nov 1891. [Page nos. not determined.]
4. New York: United States Book, [1891]. According to CW, the US Book Co. paid $250 as an advance on royalties of 10%. The agreement was that if a pirated edition appeared 'and the sale of the edition issued by the parties of the first part thus interfered with' the payment would be a complete payment without further royalties.
5. 3 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1892.
6. New York: National, 1892. The Red Letter Series No. 180.
7. New York: Munro, 1892. Seaside Library.
8. Boston: B R Tucker, 1892. Tucker's Library v.1, 8.
9. A New Edition. London: Chatto & Windus, 1893. Reprinted 1894.
10. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. 1+3+4+4 microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1892 ed. Copy in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Library. Series #05023-6.
Recalled to Life
Una Callingham, rendered amnesic from the shock of being present at her father's murder, slowly recovers the (fairly incredible) truth about her past. Quite ingenious plotting, but heavily padded and quite unmemorable otherwise.
MS not located.
Serialization. None known
1. Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith; London: Simkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co, [1891]. Arrowsmith's Three-and-Sixpenny Series.
2. New York: H. Holt, 1891. Leisure hour series. [Issued in hardback and paperback.]
3. Återkallad till livet. Oversattning fran engelska originalet av E. Lilljebjorn. [Translation into Swedish.] Stockholm: Nordiska Förlaget, [1911].
4. Elämään palautunut. [Translation into Finnish.] Helsinki: Ahjo, 1920.
5. Ottawa : CIHM, 1983. Two microfiches of the Holt, 1891 ed. Copy in the University of Victoria Library. Series #18111.
6. Ottawa : CIHM, 1980. Three microfiches of the Arrowsmith/Simkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, [1891] ed. Copy in the Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #05062.
Periodical contributions in 1891; by month where known
JANUARY 1891
A Deadly Dilemma
GA was quickly into the Strand, which started in Jan 1891, ed. George Newnes. It lasted until 1950, when it fell into the arms of Men Only.
1. Strand, 1 (Jan 1891), 14-21.
2. W.E. Norris, A Deplorable Affair. New York: Tate, [c1892], pp. [139]-163.
MARCH 1891
Jerry Stokes
1. Strand, 1 (Mar 1891), 299-307.
2. Washington Post, 3 May 1891, 15.
3. The Reluctant Hangman. The Reluctant Hangman and Other Stories of Crime; Those Being the Two Criminous Tales from Ivan Greet's Masterpiece, etc. With the original illustrations from the Strand Magazine, by Alfred Pearse & Sidney Paget. Edited by Tom & Enid Schantz. Boulder, Colo: Aspen Press, 1973.
4. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/jerrysto.htm [Copy text not stated. Accessed Jan 2001.]
APRIL 1891
Selwyn Utterton's Nemesis
Murderous doctor is haunted by the apparition of the feet of his dead wife; a rational explanation in terms of 'disease spots' on the retina is provided.
1. Black and White, 25 Apr 1891, 374-377.
2. Romance, 4:3 (Apr 1892), 466-480.
3. Times [Philadelphia], 10 May 1891, 16.
4. Strange Happenings: Being Stories by H. D. Lowry, W. Clark Russell, W. E. Norris, Grant Allen, etc. London: Methuen, 1901.
MAY 1891
General Passavant's Will
Three grand-daughters conspire to defeat the provisions of a will defining whom they may not marry.
1. Black and White, 30 May 1891, 550-553.
2. The General's Will by Grant Allen. And Other Stories. [On spine: 'General Passevant's will by Grant Allen']. London: Richard Butterworth, [1892?].
3. Stories from "Black and White". London: Chapman & Hall, 1893.
4. To Please His Wife by Thomas Hardy. A Memorial Swim by W. Clark Russell. The Ghost of the Past by Mrs E Lynn Linton; and Other Tales. 2 vols. London: Croome, [1893? Said to be a pirated edition of #3.]
5. London: R.E. King, 1903.
The Briefless Barrister
Thorold Ashby dies on a Pacific island leaving a will that is apparently unsigned. Will Protheroe, a young barrister, is able to show that it was signed with plant juice that turns invisible until activated. Will marries the heiress. GA's first piece for the ILN, probably because C. K. Shorter had become ed. (1891-1900). A note in the Watt Papers (Chapel Hill) from Shorter shows payment was three guineas a column.
1. Illustrated London News, 98 (9 May 1891), 609-612.
JUNE 1891
Melissa's Tour
A stuffy English couple escort an American, Melissa Easterbrook (her first name is treated as comical), across the Atlantic, suspecting she has designs on their son. However, she wins them all over with her naive enthusiasms.
1. Longman's Magazine, 18 (June 1891), 150-163.
2. New York Times, 21 June 1891, 18.
3. Washington Post, 28 June, 1891, 15.
4. Living Age, 190 (18 July 1891), 168-175.
5. Ivan Greet's Masterpiece (1893).
6. Stories by English Authors: the Sea. New York: Charles Scribners', 1895.
Karen: a Canadian Romance
A Mennonite community, of Russian 'fanatics' select couples for marriage by lot; Karen's lover flees and becomes rich as an engineer. Meanwhile, his Karen and her lot-selected husband have also risen in the world: she is a famous soprano. The husband is lost in a shipwreck, and all works out well.
1. Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, 43 (Summer Number, [29 June] 1891, 6-7.
2. Ivan Greet's Masterpiece (1893).
AUGUST 1891
The Prisoner of Assiout
A Coptic Egyptian tells how he outwitted a Sheikh in a quarrel over a woman.
1. Strand, 2 (Aug 1891), 176-183.
2. A Prisoner of the Assiout. Romance: Being the Tales of the New York Story Club, 4:1 (Nov 1891), 25-35.
3. Great Short Stories. Edited by William Patten. New York: Collier, [1909].
4. The Omnibus of Adventure. Edited by John R. Colter. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1930.
OCTOBER 1891
The Abbe's Repentance
Ivy Stanbury, staying at a hotel in Antibes, meets a handsome, cultured young priest; badly tempted, he kills himself while fooling himself that he is avoiding 'deliberate' suicide.
1. Contemporary Review, 60 (Oct 1891), 568-581.
2. New York Times, 25 October 1891, 18.
3. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science and Art, 54 (Nov 1891), 674-682.
4. Ivan Greet's Masterpiece (1893).
5. Twelve Tales with a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo (1899).
6. The Backslider (1901).
Maisie Bowman's Fate
1. Yorkshire Weekly Post, 10 & 17 Oct 1891.
2. Weekly Mail [Wales], 10 & 17 Oct 1891, 1.
3. Bolton Weekly Journal, 26 Aug 1893, 11 & 2 Sep 1893, 11.
4. The Desire of the Eyes and Other Stories (1895).
5. Mayflower Tales. New York: J.S. Ogilvie, [nd]. Onyx edition.
DECEMBER 1891
Naomi's Christmas Eves
An English singer finds her marriage to a Russian prince is a trick, and invalid. She secures Tsar Alexander's help to force him into a proper marriage; then she leaves him. Later, she intercedes when he is to be shot as a traitor; but he spurns her, preferring death.
1. The Gentlewoman (Christmas 1891), 10-14.
1892
Blood Royal
A flimsy story of Richard Plantagenet, who comes from a poor country family whose members, to one degree or another, are proud of their supposed royal ancestry. Richard wins a history scholarship to Oxford; his father, a drunkard and failed journalist, drowns in the Isis while visiting him. Richard fears he will have to take up his father's occupation (dancing-master) to keep the family. Fortunately, though, through personal influence, he gets a job as a genealogist. Soon he proves, to his despair, that his family are not 'true' Plantagenets but belong to a spurious branch. Such is his unworldliness that he is not mollified by the news that this proof actually makes his family eligible for an inheritance of £150,000. There are various tedious love complications.
How much Chambers paid for the serial is unknown, but Chatto wrote on 24 Aug 1892: 'We shall be pleased to pay £60 for the remaining rights in your short story of about 45,000 words running in Chambers' Journal, you retaining the right of future serial publication and the American rights. I wish I could have made a higher offer but so short a story will require a good deal of management to make a marketable book' [CW]. The Great Thoughts serial netted GA £12.10.00.
MS not located
1. Serialized Chambers's Journal, 5th S 9 (27 Aug1892-17 Dec 1892): 561-563; 578-583; 595-599; 610-613; 628-632; 643-646; 659-661; 675-677; 685-688; 691-693; 708-710; 724-727; 738-740; 754-756; 772-774; 786-789; 803-806.
2. New York: Cassell, [1892].
3. Toronto: National, [1892?].
4. London: Chatto & Windus, 1893. Reprinted 1894.
5. Heritage du sang. [Translation into French by Léon Boschet.] Serialized Le Temps, 13 Aug – 11 Oct 1895. Reprinted in booklet form, Extraits du journal Le Temps [1895].
6. Serialized Great Thoughts (Nov 1894-Feb 1895).
7. Washington: Library of Congress, [nd]. Microfilm reel of the Cassell, [c1892] ed.
8. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Four microfiches of the National, [1892?] ed. Copy in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Library. Series #05011.
9. Ottawa: CIHM, 1982. Four microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1893 ed. Copy in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Library. Series #26647.
A Lone Land Bride
Tom and Jake, two backwoodsmen in Canada share a cabin; Tom marries and Jake worships the wife, who is badly treated. Jake murders both of them in a rage, then sets off across the winter wastes to give himself up.
1. Novel Review, 1 (Jan-June 1892), 122-132.
2. Tauchnitz Magazine, -- (Aug 1892), 36- [British Library lacks.]
3. Tom's Wife. Ivan Greet's Masterpiece (1893).
Periodical contributions in 1892; by month where known
JANUARY 1892
That Friend of Sylvia's
A snobbish philistine father is mistaken about the aspirates of his daughter's suitor, whom he supposes wrongly to be a vulgar parvenu.
1. Leeds Mercury Weekly Supplement, 26 Dec 1891. [Page nos. not determined.]
2. Tauchnitz Magazine, -- (Jan 1892), 48-59. [British Library lacks.]
3. Short Stories [US], -- Oct. 1892, 139-152.
JUNE 1892
The Conscientious Burglar
A young painter runs out of money in the German mountains. He steals money from the room of a vulgar but kindly aristocrat; confesses, and is obliged to accept a loan through a trick played on him by the victim.
1. Strand, 3 (June 1892), 586-596.
2. Ivan Greet's Masterpiece (1893).
3. The Reluctant Hangman and Other Stories of Crime; Those Being the Two Criminous Tales from Ivan Greet's Masterpiece, etc. With the Original Illustrations from the Strand Magazine, by Alfred Pearse & Sidney Paget. Edited by Tom & Enid Schantz. Boulder, Colo: Aspen Press, 1973.
AUGUST 1892
The Minor Poet
Another parable about the writing trade. Arthur Manningham is a minor poet. He sends his anonymous collection on publication to his friend the Great Poet, who promises his views on it but then forgets about it. Decades later, in Manningham's old age, his friend sends him with words of praise a volume he has recently accidentally run across – it is the collection. Manningham confronts him with the inscribed copy he had sent him and dies. Reissued, it is a great success. A self-pitying fable.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 6 (27 Aug 1892), 261.
2. Ivan Greet's Masterpiece (1893).
SEPTEMBER 1892
The Governor's Story
A governor in a West Indian colony recalls how he very nearly starved while waiting for the proceeds of his natural history collection to come in from Britain.
1. Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 18 Sep 1892, 6.
2. Bolton Weekly Journal, 2 Dec 1893, 11.
3. The Desire of the Eyes and Other Stories (1895)
OCTOBER 1892
The Pot-boiler
Obviously semi-autobiographical; Ernest Grey, an idealistic artist, is obliged to paint insipid pictures for cash; a bachelor friend flatters him, and 'goaded [him] on into letting his wife and child starve for the benefit of humanity'. However, when Grey's child nearly dies of scarlet fever, he recognises this temptation as 'a peculiarly seductive form of self-indulgence' and returns to his trade. 'Still, it's a tragedy,' concludes the narrator.
1. Longman's Magazine, 20 (Oct 1892), 591-602.
2. Living Age, 195 (26 Nov 1892), 561-567.
3. Arthur's Home Magazine, 63 (Jan 1893), 68.
3. Ivan Greet's Masterpiece (1893).
The Great Ruby Robbery. A Detective Story
A rich American loses her ruby necklace; it proves to have been stolen by the investigating detective. A classic early detective story.
1. Strand, 4 (Oct 1892), 376-387.
2. Ivan Greet's Masterpiece (1893).
3. The Reluctant Hangman and Other Stories of Crime; Those Being the Two Criminous Tales from Ivan Greet's Masterpiece, etc. With the Original Illustrations from the Strand Magazine, by Alfred Pearse & Sidney Paget. Edited by Tom & Enid Schantz. Boulder, Colo: Aspen Press, 1973.
4. Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: Forty Stories of Crime and Detection from Original Illustrated Magazines by Grant Allen . . . [et al], Selected and Introduced by Alan K. Russell. Secaucus, N.J.: Castle Books, 1978.
5. A Treasury of Victorian Detective Stories. Edited by Everett F. Bleiler. New York: Scribner's, 1979. Brighton: Harvester, 1980.
6. Maddened by Mystery: A Casebook of Canadian Detective Fiction. Edited by Maurice Richardson. Toronto: Dennys, 1982.
7. Crime Stories from the Strand. Selected by Geraldine Beare. Introduction by H. R. F. Keating. Illustrations by David Eccles. London: Folio Society, 1991
8. Victorian Detective Stories: An Oxford Anthology. Edited by Michael Cox. Oxford/New York: Oxford UP, 1993, 214-232. [Anthology originally published in 1992 as Victorian Tales of Mystery and Detection].
9. Detective Stories of the Nineteenth Century. Four Sound Cassettes Narrated by Flo Gibson. Audio Book Contractors, 1996.
10. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/greatrby.htm [Copy text not stated. Accessed Jan 2001.]
NOVEMBER 1892
Ewen Murray's Swim
Slight tale set in Canadian wilds – hero nearly drowns on returning from the pub across a lake in a canoe; he struggles valiantly to save himself and a friend because he fears his wife will assume he died drunk.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 6 (12 Nov 1892), 590-592.
Ivan Greet's Masterpiece
'I sent it, I confess, in fear and trembling, and was agreeably surprised when I found the editor [of the Graphic] had the boldness to print it unaltered.' (Preface) Pathetic and realistic story set in Jamaica of a idealistic and frustrated poet, whose mistress, after his death, labours in vain to get his epic printed. Offers a much more attractive, even romantic, picture of Jamaican life than GA described at the time nearer to living there. The 'frame' story reflects on GA's obsessive concern at this time about 'selling out' to the journalistic/pot-boiling market.
1. Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, 46 (Christmas Number, [28 Nov] 1892), 11-13.
2. Ivan Greet's Masterpiece (1893).
3. Twelve Tales with a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo (1899).
4. The Backslider (1901).
Pallinghurst Barrow
One of GA's best ghost stories. The hero almost falls prey to the ghosts of the ancient barrow: or is it a nightmare induced by a medical dose of cannabis? Closely follows GA's theory of religion. Watt Papers (Chapel Hill) suggest the ILN was paying GA about L25 for first serial rights for these stories.
1. Illustrated London News, 101 (Christmas Number, [28 Nov] 1892), 12-18.
2. Ivan Greet's Masterpiece (1893).
3. The Thrill of Horror. Edited by Hugh Lamb. London: W.H. Allen, 1975.
4. Spine-chillers: Unforgettable Tales of Terror. Edited by Roger Elwood & Howard Goldsmith. New York: Doubleday, 1978.
5. The Mammoth Book of Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories. Edited by Richard Dalby. NY: Carroll and Graf, 1995. [Also published as The Giant Book of Classic Ghost Stories (Magpie, 1996) and as Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1997)].
6. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/palling.htm[Copy text is #1. Accessed Jan 2001.]
1893
Ivan Greet's Masterpiece etc.
Contains a Preface and 16 stories: 'Ivan Greet's Masterpiece' [Graphic], 'Karen' [Graphic], 'Pallinghurst Barrow' [Illustrated London News], The Abbe's Repentance' [Contemporary], 'Claude Tyack's Ordeal' [Longman's], 'Tom's Wife' [Novel Review (as 'A Lone Land Bride')], 'The Sixth Commandment', 'The Missing Link', 'The Great Ruby Robbery' [Strand], 'The Conscientious Burglar' [Strand], 'The Pot-boiler' [Longman's], 'Melissa's Tour' [Longman's], 'A Social Difficulty' [MS: 19pp. Penn; Cornhill], 'The Chinese Play at the Haymarket' [Belgravia], 'My Circular Tour' [Belgravia], 'The Minor Poet' [Speaker]. Two stories, 'The Sixth Commandment' and 'The Missing Link' appeared here for the first time, having been refused publication in any periodical, according to GA's Preface: 'They were sent round to every magazine in which they possessed the ghost of a chance; but, as usually happens when one writes anything in which one feels more than ordinary personal interest, they were unanimously declined by the whole press of London. Hitherto, I have been in the habit of cremating all such stillborn children of my imagination; henceforth I shall keep their poor little corpses by my side, and embalm them from time to time in an experimental volume of Rejected Efforts.' (The two deal with adultery and the loss of religious faith under the impact of Darwinism, respectively). 'The Pot-boiler' gives some insight into the sense of duty which kept GA to his rather uncongenial path as a fiction writer.
Chatto wrote on 25 Jan 1893: 'I wish I could have made some advance on our offer over the price paid for The Beckoning Hand, but I am sorry to say that it is becoming more and more difficult to find a market for collections of reprinted short stories, and I am reluctantly compelled to limit our offer it to L75.' [CW].
1. With a frontispiece by Stanley L. Wood. London: Chatto & Windus, 1893.
2. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Five microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1893 ed. Copy in the Isaak Walton Killam Memorial Library, Dalhousie University. Series #05046.
Michael's Crag
Michael Trevennack, a public servant of proud Cornish ancestry, suffers from an intermittent belief that he is the Archangel Michael. He is consumed by an insane hatred for Walter Tyrrell, a Cornish landowner, whom he holds responsible for his son's death. Sketchy character-drawing, as usual, but an effective study of periodic insanity and clever use of Miltonic echoes of St Michael. The unusual illustrations are striking and peculiarly appropriate to the theme.
MS: Autograph manuscript. 112pp. Contains corrections and revisions. Penn.
Illustrations. 63 original silhouette illustrations by F. and A. Carruthers Gould. Ink heightened with gouache. Penn.
Serialization. None known.
1. Mr. Grant Allen's New Story 'Michael's Crag'. With Three-hundred and Fifty Marginal Illustrations in Silhouette by Francis Carruthers Gould and Alec Carruthers Gould. London: Leadenhall Press, 1893
2. Michael's Crag. With over Three Hundred and Fifty Illustrations in Silhouette by Francis Carruthers Gould and Alec Carruthers Gould. Chicago and New York: Rand, McNally, 1893.
3. Michael's Crag. Chicago and New York: Rand, McNally, [nd]. The Alpha Library.
4. Michael's Crag. Chicago and New York: Rand, McNally, 1893. The Globe Library, 207.
5. Ottawa : CIHM, 1980. Three microfiches of the Rand, McNally, 1893 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #05052.
6. Ottawa : CIHM, 1983. Three microfiches of the Leadenhall Press, 1893 ed. Copy in the University of Victoria Library. Series #18110.
The Scallywag
Written mid-1889.
The scallywag of the title is Paul Gascoyne, and he is so called by his Oxford friends because he seems to have some secret in his life. It's a very inappropriate label for the naive Paul, whose secret is that he is heir to a totally impoverished baronetcy. His father, Sir Emery, is a common cab driver in a small town. Paul is totally under the financial thumb of Judah Solomons, a money-lender, who has financed his education as a long-term investment, expecting Paul to come good eventually by marrying an heiress on the strength of his title. Paul takes this commitment very seriously, recording every minute expenditure in the meantime, and he bears Solomons no ill-will. On holiday in Mentone, where Paul is tutoring a university friend, he moves in the circle of an adventuress, Madame Ceriolo; Nea Blair, the daughter of a clergyman, and an American heiress, Isabella Boynton: needless to say, he falls in love with the second of these. His tutoring duties intrude on his studies, and he gets a poor degree; he is obliged to "take to literature". Of this, the narrator says: "an open trade – a trade which needs no special apprenticeship – is always overstocked. Every gate is thronged with suitors; all the markets overflow" (XXV). But he is quickly successful after an amusing interview with an editor, who gives him good advice. Meanwhile, Solomons' rascally nephew Lionel has been lured into marriage by Madame Ceriolo, who persuades him to steal his uncle's bonds and papers. Their scheme fails when the ship which they are taking to South America founders off Land's End; Paul becomes Solomons' heir instead after the death of the latter under dramatic circumstances. There are some lively Oxford scenes, obviously based on GA's student days, and a resolute attempt to avoid any sense of anti-semitism in the relationship between Paul and the Solomons family. This novel was quite well received by the critics.
5 July 89: 'I have pleasure to inform you that I have disposed of the British serial rights of your new novel The Scallywag for the sum of four hundred pounds, reserving American and other rights for you. The MS to be delivered some time in August next and publication to commence anytime after the delivery. … The purchaser is Mr Edward Lloyd of Lloyd's Weekly, but he does not wish it be known that he is contemplating the publication of fiction. Kindly let me know when you think you can deliver the MS.' [Watt]
24 July 89: 'I have sold the story to Australasia for £50. America I shall also try to arrange and perhaps there I should get it typewritten as you suggest.' [Watt]
Watt secured £200 for the book copyright from Chatto exclusive of US rights. [CW].
According to the Watt Papers (Chapel Hill) the US book rights (to Cassell) went for 40 pounds plus 10% royalty. The Australasian serial rights went for £70. Italian translation rights went for £1-19-8d [CW].
2 Oct 1889: 'W.E. Lloyd has been seriously [-- ] and is only now recovering, but I am glad to say he is out of danger. Only today have I received his cheque for the use of your story The Scallywag, and I have pleasure therefore to [--] for £351.8 the amount less my commission and the enclosed a/c for copying. I have not yet [--]'
MS: Autograph manuscript with revisions and corrections. 363pp. Dated "May 1st 1890". Penn.
1. Serialized Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, 47 (7 Jan 1893, 9-11; 21 Jan, 49-50; 28 Jan, 65-7; 4 Feb, 97-9; 11 Feb, 130-1; 18 Feb, 166-168; 25 Feb, 185-7; 4 Mar, 218-220; 11 Mar, 245-7; 18 Mar, 281, 284; 25 Mar, 305-308; 1 Apr, 337-9; 8 Apr, 370-1; 15 Apr, 401-2; 22 Apr, 433-4; 29 Apr 465-7; 6 May, 493-5; 13 May, 525-7; 20 May, 565-6; 27 May, 605-6; 3 Jun, 628-9; 10 Jun, 656-7; 17 Jun, 682-4, 686; 24 Jun, 713-4).
2. Serialized Sydney Mail, 7 Jan 1893, 32, 34; 14 Jan, 88, 90; 21 Jan, 144, 146; 28 Jan, 198, 200; 4 Feb, 239-40; 11 Feb, 295-6; 18 Feb, 347-8; 25 Feb, 399-400; 4 Mar, 451, 453; 11 Mar, 510, 512; 18 Mar, 562, 564; 25 Mar, 614, 616; 1 Apr, 666, 668; 8 Apr, 718, 720; 15 Apr, 770, 772; 22 Apr, 822, 824; 29 Apr, 867-8; 6 May, 926; 13 May, 978, 980; 20 May, 1030, 1032; 27 May, 1082, 1084; 3 Jun, 1134; 1136; 10 Jun, 1186, 1188; 17 Jun, 1238, 1240; 24 Jun, 1290, 1292-3.
3. 3 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1893.
4. A New Edition with Twenty-four Illustrations by G. P. Jacomb-Hood. London: Chatto & Windus, 1893. Reprinted 1894, 1895, 1903.
5. New York: Cassell, [1893].
6. New York: Union Square Library, 1895.
7. Illustrated by G.P. Jacomb-Hood. London and New York: Ward, Lock [1897].
8. In Strange Company. London: Ward, Lock, 1900. [Bound with: Guy Boothby, In Strange Company; Edwin Lester Arnold, Phra the Phoenician; E.Phillips Oppenheim, The Mysterious Mr Sabin. Originally issued in wrappers.]
9. London: World's Best, 1919.
10. The Scallywag. Silent film, Masters Studio, 1921. Screenplay by Walter Courtenay Rowden. Directed by Challis Sanderson. Produced by H.B. Parkinson. With Fred Thatcher as Paul Gascoyne and Hubert Carter as Judah Solomon. The film contract with Chatto called for £300 for the rights, & 'the publication of the Author's name immediately following the title of the said novel in type easily readable by the public' [CW].
11. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980.1+4+3+3 microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1893 ed. (3 vols.) in Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Library.. Series #05065-8.
12. Ottawa: CIHM, 1982. Five microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1895 ed. Copy in the Trent University Library, Peterborough. Series #35822.
13. Ottawa: CIHM, 1982. Two microfiches of the Ward, Lock [1897] ed. Copy in the University of Toronto Library. Series #26648.
14. Ottawa: CIHM, 1983. Five microfiches of the Cassell, [1893] ed. Copy in the University of Toronto Library. Series #18112.
15. Ottawa: CIHM, 1987. Five microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1893 ed. (1 vol.) in Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #64937.
16. Boston: Elibron, 2001. [Facsimile of the Cassell, [1893] ed. in eBook format.]
An Army Doctor's Romance
Published as 'The Breezy Library Series No.3'. According to a note by the publisher, the Breezy Library 'is an attempt to dissociate a shilling from a shocker, and to supply rather a series of 'Shilling Soothers'". This novel meets the prescription. It is a simple love-story in which Muriel Grosvenor finds herself in the position, thanks to her domineering mother, of having agreed to marry two men at once. Both are in the Army and before the matter can be resolved they are sent off to Africa on a campaign to quell a rising of the Matabele. Here the doctor Oliver Cameron saves his wounded rival's life; fortunately, the latter falls in love with his nurse. It is curious that GA, a formidable anti-imperialist, should so often describe such bloody inter-racial colonial conflicts as though they were mere boyish pranks.
MS not known.
Serialization. None known.
1. Illustrated by Harry Payne. London/Paris/New York: Raphael Tuck, [1893]. Breezy Library, #3. Reprinted 1894.
2. Ottawa: CIHM, 1994. Two microfiches of the Raphael Tuck, [1893] ed. Copy in the Carleton University Library, Ottawa. Series #94433.
The Sixth Commandment
No periodical would touch this story. Basil Hume is an artist working in the Vosges. He has taken a fancy to the married Marcella Griswold, whose husband is away in Paris. But Basil has a rival, in the form of a handsome Frenchman, De Marigny. However, the husband returns and shoots the Frenchman dead; a step well approved by the guests of Basil's hotel. The husband is of course let off, in a French courtroom scene: 'The French jury, set to try this man, had tried him neither according to the laws of God nor the moral sense of civilised man, but according to the dictates of their own barbaric jurisprudence, the national outcome of a false and dying system.' Basil, out of a stern sense of duty, takes upon himself the role of avenging justice, and shoots Griswold dead. The commandment under examination is, of course, Thou shalt not Kill, not the other one.
1. Ivan Greet's Masterpiece (1893).
The Missing Link
GA was growing more aggressively anti-philistine by this date and again, no periodical would print this story. Richard Hawkins a doctor in a dreary Suffolk village, is also a fossil-hunter. He is one of those 'solid, stolid cast-iron Britons who knew they're in the right, and will go to the stake gladly for their dearest prejudices rather than swerve an inch to the right or to the left from the path of truth as their eyes envisage it' 168. Hawkins is a Christian and anti-Darwinian, who 'combated the growing scepticism of this Erastian age with the two-edged sword of the Bible and Science—that was a rare treasure' 169. He is opposed by a 'blaspheming cobbler'. One day Dr Hawkins finds a finger-bone with a Pliocene deposit on it: a dreadful indicator: bones 'ghastly in their reminiscence of the great anthropoids'. The vicar warns him not be too rigid, but he is adamant: "I won't play fast and loose with the plain words of the Book. If God made man in His own image, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life on the Sixth Day of Creation, then I can understand all the rest: the Immortal Soul; Free Will; the Plan of Salvation, thed
ifference that marks us off from the lower animals; the existence within us of a divinely-sent conscience. But if ever it can be shown conclusively, shown beyond the shadow of a doubt, we're descended from an ape, then I give up all. We can be nothing more than the beasts that perish. For at what point in the series of evolving monkeys can the Immortal Soul first come in? How can we ever say where the ape leaves off, and the man begins? Once admit the existence of a continuous chain of life, and you abandon the citadel. Either man is created in the image of God, or else he is a direct descendant of the monkey, the lizard, the ascidian, the Jelly-fish. What is true of them is true also of him. The soul, the conscience, eternal life, depend entirely on direct creation."
The vicar knocked off his ash pensively, and perused his boots. Logically, he had nothing to answer to the doctor's argument; but practically, he knew in his own soul that if evolutionism were to prove man's animal origin beyond the shadow of a doubt tomorrow morning, he'd stick to the vicarage of Dimthorpe still, and debate as hotly as ever at the diocesan synod over apostolic succession and the eastward position.' 179. Having confessed his new atheistic conviction to the bemused cobbler, Dr Hawkins poisons himself.
1. Ivan Greet's Masterpiece (1893).
FEBRUARY 1893
Langalula
An African chief is converted to Christianity, and finds it necessary to murder his latest 'wife' to meet the missionary's requirements.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 7 (11 Feb 1893), 158-159.
2. Twelve Tales with a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo (1899).
MARCH 1893
The Assassin's Knife
A short tale of a 'justifiable' assassination in Padua under Austrian rule. Much reprinted in Australian newspapers within a few months.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 7 (18 Mar 1893), 311-312.
2. The Week [Toronto], 10:38 (Aug 1893), 903.
APRIL 1893
The Artist and the Penny-a-liner
A dialogue between these two literary types: obviously autobiographical, with GA identifying with the second; eg. 'I have things I long to say that I see no chance of saying. Not art like yours, I admit, but rugged truths for humanity. It kills me to coop them up for ever in my own bursting bosom. But I shall have to do it. And I shall go on earning my living all the same by what seems to you a disgraceful prostitution. For the choice is merely between that and starvation'.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 7 (1 Apr 1893), 370-371.
A Casual Conversation
An impetuous young artist meets his ideal of a model on a train to Venice.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 7 (29 Apr 1893), 485-486.
JUNE 1893
Mad Medlicott. Illustrated by Leslie Willson
German Medlicott, a missionary to the Chinese, takes his English bride to a squalid upcountry town; after showing superhuman fortitude and powers of forgiveness, he is murdered by a mob, but his wife escapes: Allen's tone is only mildly ironic.
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 10 (June 1893), 619-627.
JULY 1893
A Doctor's Story
A poisoner who calls in a doctor to secure an alibi for himself is thwarted.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 8 (22 July 1893), 74-75.
2. Wagga Wagga Express (16 Sep 1893), 6
SPTEMBER 1893
How to Succeed in Literature
A brief bitter fable (text here) describing the career of failing writer Montague Watts, which is autobiographical except for the ending of suicide.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 8 (9 Sep 1893), 271-272.
NOVEMBER 1893
Torrigiano
This fiery sculptor, a real character who broke Michelangelo's nose, falls into the hands of the Spanish Inquisition on a charge of desecration.
1. Pall Mall Magazine, 2 (Nov 1893), 96-105.
2. The Wave [San Francisco], 6 Dec 1893.
DECEMBER 1893
A Modern Sibyl: A Florentine Sketch
A painter in Florence seeks a model for a painting of a Sibyl, with disastrous results. No earlier publication known.
1. Leeds Mercury Weekly Supplement, 16 Dec 1893.
1894
At Market Value. A Novel
The young 7th Earl of Axminster abandons his hereditary title and vanishes, believing that he should earn his bread by doing something useful in the world. He becomes a sailor and goes sealing, assuming the identity, when back in London, of Arnold Willoughby. He is not recognised, even by his intimates, because he has had some mysterious treatment akin to a face-lift. During the summer months he paints pictures in Venice. He falls in love with a fellow-artist, Kathleen Hesslegrave, who, though she comes from a fairly affluent background, has a shiftless brother sponging on her. Complications ensue when Kathleen accidentally discovers Arnold's real identity; he repudiates her, thinking that she is in love only with an Earl, not a common sailor. Back at sea, Arnold's hand is crushed by an iceberg, but fortunately he has acquired in Italy an Elizabethan manuscript by an adventurer which, when he translates and publishes it, launches him on a new literary career. The love difficulties are resolved with the help of a generous American friend. A lively story of no depth of characterisation but plenty of amusing insights, especially into the 1890s publishing world.
Chatto wrote on 15 Jan 1894: 'I shall be pleased to secure the remaining rights of your serial publication in Chambers Journal of your new three volume story At Market Value on terms as [--] that is £150.' [CW]
MS not located.
1. Serialized Chambers's Journal 5th Series 11 (6 Jan1894-21 July 1894): 1-7; 19-22; 35-38; 51-54; 68-71; 83-86; 99-101; 114-117; 130-133; 146-149; 162-166; 179-182; 194-197; 211-214; 227-231; 243-245; 258-261; 275-277; 291-294; 306-309; 322-325; 340-343; 356-359; 372-374; 386-389; 403-406; 421-424; 440-443; 456-458.
2. Serialized Sunday Herald (Boston, MA) 8 April 1894, 32; 15 April, 31; 22 April, 32; 29 April, 16; 6 May, 8; 13 May, 32; 20 May, 31; 27 May, 31; 3 June, 32; 10 June, 32; 17 June, 27; 24 June, 32; 1 July, 32; 8 July, 31; 15 July, 20; 22 July, 28; 29 July, 28.
3. 2 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1894. Reprinted 1896.
4. Chicago/New York: F.T. Neely, 1894. Neely's International Library. Reprinted 1895.
5. Serialized Victoria Daily Colonist (Vancouver), from 11 June 1995.
6. A New Edition. London: Chatto & Windus, 1895. Reprinted 1906.
7. New York: Hurst, 1901. The Hawthorne Library.
8. For Egen Skull. Oversattning fran engelska originalet av Eva Wahlenberg. [Translation into Swedish.] Stockholm: Nordiska Förlaget, 1895, 1911.
9. Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. 1+3+3 microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1894 ed. Copy in University of British Columbia Library. Series #05002-4.
10. Ottawa : CIHM, 1982. Four microfiches of the F.T. Neely, 1894 ed. Copy in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Library. Series #26646.
Under Sealed Orders. A Novel
A political thriller. Sacha and Owen Cazalet, raised quietly in England by an aunt, are really the children of a Russian revolutionary. Owen's guardian is the mysterious Lambert Hayward, who runs a photographic business in London but is really Prince Ruric Brassoff., a Nihilist who has been preparing Owen since his youth to strike a blow for freedom by murdering the Tsar. But Owen, after he falls in love with Ionê Dracopoli, an exotic young woman whom he meets while she is making a solo expedition on horseback across Morocco, reneges on this long-meditated plan. Various complications ensue. Some interesting side-issues emerge when the three arty friends Sacha, Ione and Blackbird set up a flat in London, resolving to share the housework and live without servants. (Fortunately some men friends offer to come in regularly to do the rough work!) Blackbird is a graduate of Lady Margaret Hall and another of GA's over-educated, etiolated young women who have defied their destinies: "'they crammed me with everything on earth a girl could learn. Latin, Greek, modern languages, mathematics, natural science, music, drawing, dancing, till I was stuffed to the throat with them. Je suis jusque la' and she put her hand to her chin with some dim attempt at feminine playfulness. 'Like Strasbourg geese . . .'" (Ch.13). When her lover presses her to marry him, she applies her chemistry skills to distilling prussic acid from laurel leaves, and kills herself. She is obviously based on the poet-suicide, Amy Levy.
The returns & payments on this novel are tangled. It was certainly written several years before it appeared, probably in 1891 or 1892. Watt apparently secured the large sum of £800 for the 'copyright and all interest' from Chatto in an agreement dated Sep 7 1891 and this is reinforced by a letter dated 7 Sep 1891 from Chatto: 'My dear Grant Allen I have the pleasure of enclosing with best thanks for your kindness in accepting this mode and time of payment, our draft on the City Bank at 4 months date for £800 for the copyright of your novel Under Sealed Orders . . . .' [CW]. Presumably this was for all rights, and perhaps on the basis of the firm being able to place the serial. For on 10 Dec 1891 Chatto wrote: 'I have been working very hard to obtain an "opening" for the serial issue of Under Sealed Orders, but have not succeeded in placing it yet. There may be a better chance now that the serial story in The Pictorial World is out of the way. ..' Could this have been the otherwise unknown 'Rennell's Remorse' bought for the Pictorial World in a Watt agreement of 12 Oct 1891 for 100 gns? [Pictorial World ran to 9 July 1892.] On 22 Feb 1892 he added that he had not 'found an opening yet for Under Sealed Orders.' In Sep 1892 Watt, probably acting for Chatto, sold the rights for the novel to the Fairlee Press to be serialised in The Home Magazine, first number to be issued in Nov or Dec 1892, with the work to be delivered around September 1893. Chatto was to receive £450 for these rights. However, this fell through: The Home Magazine: A Family Magazine for Home Reading ran only for one issue, in Sept 1892. This was confirmed on 15 Jan 1894 when Chatto wrote to Allen: 'Mr Watt has still Under Sealed Orders in hand. I regret that he has not yet been able to find another opening for the serial use of it since the arrangement, which you will remember, he made for its appearance in the new serial in The Home Magazine in December 1893 fell through in consequence of funds not being forthcoming to start the proposed magazine.' In June 1894, at long last, Watt got the People to take it. This time the rights went for £300: the editor's [Madge] verdict was that 'it is not altogether suitable for The People, being above the heads of the ordinary readers of that paper. There are too many references to foreign phrases, which they would not understand, and the action, except towards the end, rather drags.' However, they took it. The plan was to publish around July 1895 [Watt papers, Chapel Hill]. Reporting this, Watt in a letter to Chatto dated 6 June 1894 says that 'Mr Madge [of the People]... although I pressed him very hard, I regret to say that he would not increase his offer of the sum of £300. . . Under these circumstances I have -- as authorised by you -- closed the matter and Mr Madge's cheque will be forthcoming within a week from date.' [CW]. Watt adds in a letter to Chatto dated 6 June 1894 that 'I am to-day offering the story to Mr P.F. Collier, of New York, for use in his "Once a Week" library at the sum of £250.0. 0.' [CW] and this is confirmed by a letter from Watt dated 15 Dec 1894 saying it was sold 'to Mr Collier for use in his Library for the sum of three thousand dollars', ie £298.9.11. The three-decker finally published in London by Chatto & Windus in 1895 must have been one of the last of its kind.
Wolff (1981, Item [125], says that 'a Nihilist Russian noblewoman, disguised as a spy for the Tsarist police, is a portrait of Mme Novikov, and of her great influence on the Foreign Minister, Lord Caistor, like Olga Novikov's on Gladstone.' Wolff discusses this theme further in Strange Victorian, p. 501.
MS: Holograph draft. Undated. 334pp. Accompanied by a "Short summary of plot," 6pp. Berg Collection. New York Public Library.
1. Serialized People, 15 July 1894, 3; 22 July, 3; 29 July, 3; 5 Aug, 3; 12 Aug, 3; 19 Aug, 3; 26 Aug, 3; 2 Sep, 3; 9 Sep, 3; 16 Sep, 3; 23 Sep, 3; 30 Sep, 3; 7 Oct, 3; 14 Oct, 3; 21 Oct, 3; 28 Oct, 3; 4 Nov, 3; 11 Nov, 3; 18 Nov, 3; 25 Nov, 3; 2 Dec, 3; 9 Dec, 3; 16 Dec, 3; 23 Dec, 3.
2. In two parts—part one [two]. New York: Peter Fenelon Collier, 1894. Once a Week Semi-monthly Library, vol.12, 10-11.
3. In two parts—part one [two]. New York: Peter Fenelon Collier, 1894.
4. 3 vols. London: Chatto & Windus, 1895.
5. London: Chatto & Windus, 1896.
6. New York: New Amsterdam/London: Chatto & Windus, 1896. Issued in both hardback and paperback editions.
7. A New Edition. London: Chatto & Windus, 1896. Reprinted 1898.
8. Under Sealed Orders: A Novel of Love and Adventure. Illustrated by H.C. Edwards. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, [c1896].
9. Ottawa : CIHM, 1981. Six microfiches of the Peter Fenelon Collier, 1894 ed. Copy in the Library of Congress.. Series #26537.
10. Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. 1+3+4+3 microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1895 ed. Copy in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. Series #05085-05088.
11. Ottawa : CIHM, 1982. Four microfiches of the Grosset & Dunlap, [c1896] ed. Copy in the Victoria University Library. Series #26861.
12. Ottawa : CIHM, 1983. Four microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1896 ed. Copy in the University of Victoria Library. Series1 #18109.
13. Ottawa: CIHM, 1983. Four microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1898 ed. Copy in the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Library, Dalhousie University. Series #29758.
The Lower Slopes: Reminiscences of Excursions round the Base of Helicon, Undertaken for the Most Part in Early Manhood.
Contains poems: 'A Bas la Bourgeoisie', 'Animalcular Theology', 'An Answer', 'A Ballade of Evolution', 'The First Idealist', 'For Amy Levy's Urn', 'For a Special Occasion', Forecast and Fulfillment', 'Forget-me-not', 'Gambetta', In Bushey Park', 'In Coral Land', 'In Magdalen Tower', 'In the Night Watches', 'Mylitta', 'The New Poetry', 'Only an Insect', 'Passiflora Sanguinea', 'Pessimist', 'Pisgah', 'A Prayer', 'The Return of Aphrodite', '1789-1848 – 1870', 'Sunday at Braemar', 'Sunday Night at Mabille', 'To Herbert Spencer', 'Ut Flos in Septis', 'A Vindication'.
1. London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane at the sign of the Bodley Head/Chicago: Stone & Kimball, 1893. [The volume was officially published 12 Feb 1894. The University of Liverpool Library owns an apparently unique copy dated 1893. All other known copies are dated 1894, although a reference in one of Allen's letters implies that Lane offered him a copy with the older title page as a rarity; he declined it. This may have arisen through Lane's practice of printing in the US and returning unbound sheets to the UK. The ingenious art nouveau binding design and title page is by Illingworth Kay.]
2. London: Bodley Head, 1894. 'Of this edition 600 copies have been printed for England'.
3. Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. Two microfiches of the copy of the Elkin Mathews & John Lane at the sign of the Bodley Head/Chicago: Stone & Kimball, 1894 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada.. Series #05050.
The Return of Aphrodite
1. [Pamphlet]. London: [no publisher], [no date 1894?].
2. Temple Bar, 59 (Aug 1880), 504.
3. Rose Belford's Canadian Monthly and National Review (5 Oct 1880), 411.
4. The Lower Slopes (1894).
5. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. One microfiche of the copy of the pamphlet in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Library. Series #05063.
Magdalen Tower
1. [Pamphlet]. [London: [no publisher], [no date 1894?].
2. Rose Belford's Canadian Monthly and National Review (6 Jan 1881), 33-6.
3. The Lower Slopes (1894).
4. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. One microfiche of the copy of the pamphlet in Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Library. Series #05051.
For Amy Levy's Urn
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
For a Special Occasion
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
Forget-me-not
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
Gambetta
Leon Gambetta, 1838-1882 was the French Republican leader and a strong anti-clerical.
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
In Coral Land
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
In the Night Watches
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
Mylitta
Mylitta was the Babylonian/Assyrian goddess of fertility and childbirth, whom the Greeks later associated with Aphrodite. Her cult involved the prostitution of virgins.
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
The New Poetry
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
Pessimist
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
Pisgah
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
1789-1848 -- 1870
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
Sunday at Braemar
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
Sunday Night at Mabille
The Bal Mabille was one of the more notorious Second Empire dance halls. The dancers there was famous for their lace bonnets with a silk bow. There was a Sainte Mabille also.
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
Ut Flos in Septis
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
A Vindication
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
An Answer
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
A Bas la Bourgeoisie
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
Animalcular Theology
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
A Prayer
1. The Lower Slopes (1894).
2. The Woman Who Did (1895).
3. [Untitled.] Academy, 57 (28 Oct 1899), 473.
4. Prayer: A Crowned Caprice is God of this World. Fortnightly Review, 72 (Dec 1899), 1020.
5. [Untitled.] Saturday Review of Literature, 19 (17 Dec 1938), 14.
Periodical contributions in 1894; by month where known
Nemesis Wins
A gypsy 'princess' seeks to wed a gorgio; her father is murdered when he seeks to prevent it.
1. Phil May's Illustrated Winter Annual. London: Walter Haddon's Central Publishing and Advertising Offices, 1894, pp. 49-53.
JANUARY 1894
Cecca's Lover
1. Longman's Magazine, 23 (Jan 1894), 311-321.
2. Short Stories [US], ?? (April 1894), 597-608.
3. Twelve Tales with a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo (1899).
4. The Backslider (1901).
FEBRUARY 1894
A Self-respecting Servant
An ideal parlour-maid nurses her married mistress when she gets typhoid fever. Then the maid succumbs; the mistress nurses her back to health. Then the maid gives notice: 'I couldn't demean myself by stopping in a place where the lady of the house waits on the servants' (474).
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 11 (Feb 1894), 471-474.
The Strange Fate of the Countess Cherici
1. The World, 18 Feb 1894, 14.
MARCH 1894
Passiflora Sanguinea
This is the red passion flower.
1. Athenaeum, 103 (24 Mar 1894), 368.
2. The Lower Slopes (1894).
An Excellent Match
A sardonic anecdotal tale of a society marriage where the two parties, far apart in age, have come to a convenient arrangement.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 9 (24 Mar 1894), 335.
Major Kinfaun's Marriage
Major Kinfaun woos a mysterious young widow at Antibes; he marries her full of foreboding that he is being tricked. When her true wealth is revealed at her English manor house, Kinfaun's wits are unhinged. A stylish, urbane story with a feeble ending.
MS. 16pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 22 (Mar 1894), 271-285. Unsigned.
APRIL 1894
Grateful Joe
A respectable married couple give a home to Joe, a waif; he tries to do them a good turn by stealing a rare coin, which isn't appreciated.
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 11 (Apr 1894), 703-707.
MAY 1894
An Idyll of the Ice
A Canadian flirt is rescued by her lover as they skate on the thin ice of the St Lawrence.
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 11 (May 1894), 776-780.
Criss-cross Love
Two young people, engaged in England, find when they meet up in India to marry, that they actually prefer other people.
1. Nottinghamshire Guardian, 26 May & 6 June, 6.
2. Leader: A Weekly Journal of News, Politics, Literature, Science, Agriculture, and Sport [Melbourne], 16 June 1894, 33-4; 23 June 1894, 33-4.
3. The Desire of the Eyes and Other Stories (1895)
4. Bolton Weekly Journal, 4 Apr 1896, 2 & 11 Apr 1896, 2.
JUNE 1894
Poor Little Soul
An odd little parable in which an unborn soul begs to be let off being given the gifts of 'originality, brilliancy, genius' on the grounds that during life he will be condemned and misunderstood. He asks for 'mediocrity, obscurity, silence . . . a narrow heart, a narrow brain, a narrow outlook'. The evidence of this and associated pieces seems to hint that GA was going through a episode of depression or mild mental instability in the early-middle 90s. Cf 'The Temple of Fate'.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 9 (9 June 1894), 641.
Amour de Voyage
Man (a poet) meets woman (a Spanish-American) amid the art treasures of Florence; they enjoy three exquisite days together without revealing their circumstances to each other; then separate for ever. GA refers to his explication of Botticelli's Privavera again. Clement Shorter founded the Sketch.
1. Sketch, 20 June 1894, 409-410.
AUGUST 1894
The Dynamiter's Sweetheart
Essie Lothrop, an American artist in Paris, falls for the Pole and anarchist, Laminski. They are both killed by his bomb when she tries to prevent him throwing it.
1. Strand, 8 (Aug 1894), 137-147.
2. Short Stories [US], -- (Dec 1894), 459-474.
3. Caulfield & Elsternwick Leader [Victoria], 6 & 13 Oct 1894, 7.
NOVEMBER 1894
The Poet's Meed
Five-line poetic squib lamenting the pathetic fate of the poet in the public 'mart'.
First published in the Academy - details not traced.
1. The Labour Leader, 10 Nov 1894, 3.
2. Los Angeles Herald, 5 Jan 1895, 5.
A Triumph of Civilisation
Camilla sets off in yacht to northern Australia to find her mother who has been seized by 'savage black fellows'. She discovers 'the Thing that had had once been Ruth Mordaunt' – in grass skirt with 3 light-brown children. Mother grabs pistol, shoots daughter, son-in-law and drowns herself to avoid family shame.
1. Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, 50 (Christmas Number [19 Nov] 1894), 3-5.
DECEMBER 1894
Dr. Wardroper's Lie
A doctor, in love with the wife of a brilliant playwright dying of consumption, lies to him about the success of his play, which has had a frigid reception.
1. Strand, 8 (Dec 1894), 592-598.
The Miraculous Explorer
Dr Emile Ritter has a supernormal talent for archaeological finds; then, at the opening stages of a fatal fever, he confides that he is a reincarnated Egyptian.
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 12 (Dec 1894), 99-102.
2. Swenska tribunen, 5 June 1895, 6 [in Swedish as 'Den underbare forskaren'].
3. Svenska folkets tidning, 7 Aug 1895, 2.
1895
The Woman Who Did
By far GA's best-known novel, which was a scandalous success. High-thinking Girton graduate Herminia Barton embraces social martyrdom by entering into a free union and refusing to marry even when she falls pregnant. She finally kills herself after being spurned by her own conventional daughter. The excruciating moral earnestness and stagy dialogue makes this classic 'new woman' novel hard to take seriously except as social history. It earned GA a lot of money (and Lane a lot more) but even those sympathetic to Allen's intentions (eg H.G. Wells) found more matter for mirth in it. GA said in his Preface that he had written 'for the first time in my life wholly and solely to satisfy my own taste and my own conscience,' which rather overlooks his earlier similar claim about Philistia. Very few contemporary reviewers noticed that GA's 'real' views on sexual morality were far more radical than anything shown in this novel.
The supercharged moral indignation in the novel, which far exceeds the needs of its 'message' about marital arrangements, comes from GA's obsessive concern about prostitution, which hardly figures in its pages. This is turn relates to the circumstances of GA's first marriage, which has not hitherto been noticed..
The agreement with Lane, dated 20 Sep 1894 ran: 'Dear Sir I agree to publish your volume, of which the type-written copy is now in my hands, entitled 'The Woman Who Did', in my 'Keynotes' series, at 3/6 net. I undertake all risks including paper, printing, binding, advertising and distributing, and agree to pay you a royalty of ninepence per copy on all copies sold. The royalty on the first 2500 copies to be payable on the day of publication and subsequent payments [ ] with account of sales. The copyright of the book remains your own property, but the control of the book with me, insofar as related to the maintenance of the original published price or its reduction of it should seem expedient, in which case a proportionate reduction of the royalty would be arranged. As to American rights I will pay you one half of all sums received from America on account of the book This agreement to be binding for a period of five years. Yours faithfully, John Lane.' [CW] GA was therefore paid under £100 on publication, but since he had received about £1000 from sales within some months (as he told Gissing) then this implies initial sales of about 26,000 copies in Britain.
MS Typescript with numerous corrections and revisions, 134pp. Accompanied by a MS reader's report (2pp) by Richard Le Gallienne dated Oct 1893, and by an ALS (8pp) from George Moore to John Lane dated 4 Nov [1893], both recommending publication. In a private collection.
Serialization. None.
1. [With a title page and cover design by Aubrey Beardsley.] London: John Lane, Vigo St; Boston: Roberts Bros., 1895. Keynotes series #8. Published Feb. This edition was also printed in the United States at the University Press, Cambridge: these copies give "Boston: Roberts Bros, 1895 London: John Lane, Vigo St" as the publisher. Lane probably printed in the US and imported unbound sheets for the UK ed, his practice at the time. Reprinted 1896.
2. Boston/London: Little, Brown/John Lane, [1895], 1898, 1904. Keynotes series #8.
3. Hon vågade det. Översattning från engelska originalet av Emilie Kullman. [Translation into Swedish.] Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 1895, 1911.
4. Die es tat. [Translation into German.] Übers. Von Sophie Wiget. 178 S. Zurich, Verlag von Sterns, literar. Bulletin der Schweiz. 1895.
5. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1895. Reprinted 1896, 1898. Tauchnitz edition #3055.
6. Le Roman d'une féministe. [Translation into French by G. Labouchere.] Serialised in La Vie Moderne, 21 Sep 1895-12 Jan 1896. [The serialisation was discontinued for unknown reasons, with a note claiming the novel was published whole in 1896; untraced].
7. Cheaper Edition. London: E. Grant Richards, 1906. Published at one shilling in Sep. Print run said to be 20,000 copies.
8. New Edition. London: Richards, 1908. [April; 3/6 edition]
9. London: Richards, 1908. [April; sixpence edition]
10. The Woman Who Did. Silent film. Broadwest Films Ltd, 1915. Scenario by Aubrey Fitzmaurice. Produced by Walter West. With Eve Balfour as Herminia Barton.
There was a new sixpenny edition as a tie-in with the movie, with another print run of 20,000.
11. Hennes livs historia. Översattning fran engelska av Oscar Nachman. [Translation into Swedish.] Stockholm : B. Wahlström, 1916.
12. Di froy velkhe hot es gethon: Roman. [Translation into Yiddish by Saul Joseph Janovsky]. Philadephia/New York: Aroysgegeben fun Malermans literarishe poblishing kompanye, 1918.
13. Die Frau mit dem schlecten Ruf. German film version directed by Benjamin Christensen, 1924.
14. With an Introduction by Ernest Boyd. Boston: Little, Brown, 1926.
15. London: The Richards Press, 1927.
16. New Haven: Conn: Research Publications, 1977. Microfilm reel 35mm. History of women, Reel 499, 3790. [Reproduction of the first UK ed].
17. Introduced by Sarah Wintle. Oxford/London/New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. [Issued in hardback and paperback. Copy text is not stated, but OUP has confirmed it was the first UK ed.]
18. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Three microfiches of the John Lane/Roberts Bros., 1895 ed. Copy in the Scott Library, York University. Series #05094. (Series #28978 is a duplicate of this).
19. Ottawa: CIHM, 1982. Three microfiches of the Little, Brown/John Lane, 1895 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #27600. (Series #26241 is a duplicate of this). Page images at http://www.canadiana.org/cgi-bin/ECO/mtq?id=e2b89dc9a7&doc=27600. [Accessed Dec 2000].
20. Boston: Elibron, 2001. Facsimile of the Roberts/Lane, 1895 ed. in eBook format.
21. http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/hcs_history/womanwho.doc
22. Edited by Nicholas Ruddick. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2004.
By far the best modern edition, with much contextual material.
The British Barbarians. A Hill-top Novel
Written 1889. A mysterious stranger, Bertram Ingledew, turns up in a strait-laced English village and proceeds calmly to analyse the customs and taboos of the inhabitants just as though they are members of a savage tribe. He succeeds in converting Frida Monteith, the wife of a boorish Scotch businessman, to his point of view (the social philosophy is all Allen, of course.) They run away together and enjoy an idyllic few days on the breezy uplands. Quickly they are hunted down by Monteith, who, too barbarously monogamous to accept having his marital property stolen from him, shoots the stranger dead. His body evaporates into the ether, leaving only a pleasant smell: he is revealed to be an anthropology student from the 25th century. The novel ends with Frida's apparently planning suicide to join him. An amusing and perceptive satirical squib about cultural relativities, done in Allen's best deliberately and calmly 'shocking' mode, dramatising his radical views. Although it has its ridiculous moments, this is the most formally satisfying of his novels: it is economically written, suits Allen's powers of irony and style and theme match for once.
Note that according to the letter GA wrote H.G. Wells on 4 October 1895 (a month before the novel was published) it was actually written in 1889, and declined by Chatto. The introduction is GA's manifesto for his approach and views as a novelist, although his promise there about his hill-top novels was never fulfilled..
Lane paid a royalty of 20% of the published price on all copies, 'reckoned thirteen to the dozen according to the custom of the trade'. On American sales 10% royalties, less a commission of one tenth for his services as agent. There are no sales figures, but it did not sell well.
MS not known
Serialization. None.
1. [With title-page and cover design by Aubrey Beardsley.] London: John Lane, Nov 1895. Keynotes series, #21. Published Nov.
2. London: John Lane/New York: G P Putnam's Sons,1895. Keynotes series, #22.
3. London: John Lane/New York: G P Putnam's Sons, 1895. [Includes lists of published books].
4. New York/London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1895.
5. New Edition. London: John Lane, 1904. [Pub. May and Nov at 1/6 in The Canvas Back Library].
6. New York: Arno Press, 1975. [Facsimile of the Lane, 1895 ed.]. Science Fiction series.
7. New York: Garland, 1977. [Facsimile of the John Lane/G.P. Putnam's Keynote series v.22, 1895 ed.]. The Decadent consciousness series.
8. Ottawa: CIHM,1981. Three microfiches of the G.P. Putnam's, 1895 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #26236.
9. Ottawa: CIHM,1982. Three microfiches of the John Lane/G.P. Putnam's Keynote series, v.22, 1895 ed. Copy in the University of British Columbia Library. Series #17937.
10. Ottawa: CIHM,1982. Three microfiches of the John Lane/G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1895 ed. [Includes lists of published books] in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. Series #01446. Page images at http://www.canadiana.org/cgi-bin/ECO/mtq?id=e2b89dc9a7&doc=01446. [Accessed Dec 2000.]
11. http://www.blackmask.com/books10c/britbarb.htm. [Copy text not stated.]
The Desire of the Eyes and Other Stories
1. London: Digby, Long, Nov 1895. Reprinted 1906, 1912.
Nothing is known of the circumstances of this publication. This edition contains 5 stories: 'The Desire of the Eyes', 'Criss-cross Love', 'Maisie Bowman's Fate', 'The Governor's Story', 'Dick Prothero's Luck'. All are weak.
2. New York: RF Fenno, 1895.
The Fenno edition contains 14 stories; the 5 above plus the following 9 reprinted: 'The Reverend John Creedy' [Cornhill], 'Mr Chung' [Belgravia], 'The Curate of Churnside' [Cornhill], 'An Episode in High Life' [Belgravia] , 'My New Year's Eve among the Mummies' [Belgravia], 'The Foundering of the "Fortuna"' [Longman's], 'The Mysterious Occurrence in Piccadilly' [Belgravia], 'Carvalho' [Belgravia], 'Pausodyne: a Great Chemical Discovery' [Belgravia].
3. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Four microfiches of the RF Fenno, 1895 ed. Copy in Scott Library, York University. Series #05021.
Periodical contributions in 1895; by month where known
JANUARY 1895
Leon and Leonie
Two Provencal lovers are separated by Leon's military service; their letters are intercepted by a rival of Leonie's in the post office. But Leonie wears out her rosary praying in a sacred grotto, and one day her prayers are answered.
1. Cassell's Family Magazine, 21 (Jan 1895), 81-85.
FEBRUARY 1895
A Cosmic Emotion [a poem]
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 11 (9 Feb 1895), 160.
Joe's Rascality
An unpleasant brief story-anecdote set in Queensland of an innocent Kanaka who is executed for murder.
1. Cassell's Family Magazine, 21 (Feb 1895), 203-205.
MARCH 1895
Evelyn Moore's Poet
A long short story. A young woman on holiday in Venice meets a fascinating, rich and artistic man who is given to quoting his own half-familiar verse. At the denouement he is revealed to be a madman who thinks he is Shakespeare; when Evelyn rejects this fantasy he kills himself. GA manages to make this implausible story quite credible and moving.
1. Longman's Magazine, 25 (Mar 1895), 487-511.
2. Chautauquan Magazine, 20 (Dec 1894), 305-312; (Jan 1895), 434-441.
Frasine's First Communion
Zelie, the Provencal cook of the narrator, has an illegitimate daughter Frasine; she invites the father from Paris to attend his daughter's first communion, and all ends happily. A story that plays on French flexibility over such matters.
1. Sketch, 6 Mar 1895, 295-296.
2. Twelve Tales with a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo (1899).
3. The Backslider (1901).
The Dead Man Speaks. Illustrations by Hal Hurst.
During a rising in Jamaica, at Newcastle, 'just a desperate rising of infuriated negroes, blind mouths, asking blindly for bread and justice' (199) a Colonel Yates dies of exhaustion before he can reveal the location of a vital will. The narrator-doctor and a colleague, finding him only 'functionally dead' bring him back momentarily from the grave.
1. Idler Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, 7 (Mar 1895), 190-207.
A Study from the Nude
A young girl refuses to model for a fashionable artist; forced by necessity to do so, she goes mad. A disagreeable story.
1. In Town. A Magazine of the Moment. [not located; early 1895].
2. Washington Post, 17 Mar 1895, 22.
3. South Wales Echo, 4 Jan 1897.
APRIL 1895
Cecca's Choice
A Florentine waiter tells of his Cecca who wanted to marry a painter - the painter turns out to be an untaught genius from their own village.
1. Cassell's Family Magazine, 21 (Apr 1895), 387-391.
JUNE 1895
The Desire of the Eyes
Lionel, nephew of a rich Russia merchant, refuses to marry an Irish peer's daughter because he loves a 'Lady's companion'. As a lawyer, he will 'try to pick up a little easy journalism.' 'It seems so simple to earn your living by journalism—when you have never tried it. Just a pen, ink and paper, and there you are. But, oh, heaven, the reality' (18). His lady gets smallpox at Antibes; he stays constant but isn't tested as they go down together in a rowing boat off the coast.
1. Nottinghamshire Guardian, 1 June 1895, 6.
2. The Desire of the Eyes and Other Stories (1895)
3. Bolton Weekly Journal, 2 Oct 1897, 11.
JULY 1895
The Making of a Poet
Short satiric fable about producing poets in the future according to 'eugenic' principles.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 12 (13 July 1895), 46-47.
The Man from Cumbrae
Sir Theophilus Ivimy, president of the 'Anthropometric Society', identifies a murderer on a train as coming from the island of Great Cumbrae, by his physical features alone.
1. Sketch, 31 July 1895, 18.
Fogo Skerries
A lighthouse keeper off the Newfoundland Banks has to keep his mate's corpse dangling in a barrel outside to protect himself against suspicion of murder.
1. Cassell's Family Magazine, 21 (July 1895), 591-596.
AUGUST 1895
The Great Californian Heiress
1. Strand, 10 (Aug 1895), 176-183.
2. The Type-written Letter and Other Stories. Edited by Robert Barr. Cincinnati: Monitor, 1897.
SEPTEMBER 1895
Cap'n Tom Woolley
A slight Cornish tale of a near-drowning.
1. Cassell's Family Magazine, 2 (Sep 1895), 737-741.
The Girl at the Fair
A 'novel in a nutshell' (the Sketch's label): a theatrical manager spots a talented performer at a French fair, but is thwarted in his scheme to hire her because of her fidelity to her lover.
1. Sketch, 4 Sep 1895, 315-316.
NOVEMBER 1895
Love's Old Dream
Two lady councillors are asked to relieve a tramp, imprisoned after having love problems.
1. Sketch Christmas Number, 22 Nov 1895, 34.
A Modern Pygmalion
A museum robbery is thwarted by a detective disguised as a statue.
MS. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas.
1. Boston Evening Transcript, 20 Nov 1895, 10 and 21 Nov 1895, 8.
2. Sydney Mail and NSW Advertiser, 21 Dec 1895 (Xmas Supplement), 14
DECEMBER 1895
A Bride from the Desert
GA accepted an offer of L80 for the total copyright of this story. (Watt Papers, Chapel Hill).
1. A Bride OF the Desert. Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 22 Dec 1895, 16; 29 Dec 1895, 8; 5 Jan 1896, 8; 12 Jan 1896, 8; 19 Jan 1896, 8; 26 Jan 1896, 8; 2 Feb 1896, 8.
2. A Bride from the Desert (c1896).
1896
A Splendid Sin
Upright young Englishman Hubert Egremont, physiologist and researcher into heredity, fears he will be unable to marry his aristocratic Italian fiancee Fide because he discovers he is the son of a dissolute, drunken colonel, who suddenly turns up in Switzerland to blackmail his wife. All comes right when Hubert's mother reveals he is really the bastard son of an American poet and Italian national hero: news which is received with surprising equanimity all round.
MS not known.
Serialization. None known.
1. London: F V White, Oct 1896. Reprinted 1897, 1898.
2. London/Bombay: George Bell & Sons, 1896. Bell's Indian and Colonial Libary.
3. New York: F M. Buckles, 1899.
4. Ottawa : CIHM, 1980. Three microfiches of the F M. Buckles, 1899 ed. Copy in the Scott Library, York University. Series #05070.
5. Ottawa : CIHM, 1987. Three microfiches of the F V White, 1896 ed. Copy in the Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #14808.
A Bride from the Desert.
Reprints: 'A Bride of the Desert' [Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper], 'Dr Greatrex's Engagement' [Cornhill], 'The Backslider' [Cornhill].
1. New York: R.F. Fenno, [c1896].
2. Ottawa : CIHM, 1980. Three microfiches of the R.F. Fenno, [c1896] ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #05012.
3. Boston: Elibron, 2001. [Facsimile of the R.F. Fenno [c1896] ed. in eBook format.]
Periodical contributions in 1896; by month where known
JANUARY 1896
The Practical Test
Another 'novel in a nutshell': a wife and mother on a liner denies that a woman's duty is to her children first and her husband second. This is denounced by her husband as contrary 'to the very essence of the feelings engendered in us by natural selection'. She denies this again, claiming 'we are not beasts,' but he is proved right when the liner goes down and she takes to a lifeboat with their children, abandoning him to the waves.
1. Sketch, 15 Jan 1896, 612.
A Confidential Communication
The murderous narrator and his wife stab a philanthropist, but are outraged to find he carries no money on him. Another good piece of psychological analysis.
1. Sketch, 22 Jan 1896, 671.
2. Twelve Tales with a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo (1899).
APRIL 1896
The Great Temperance Preacher
A temperance society offers a fifty-guinea prize for a tale which will promote total abstinence. A drunkard Oxford graduate wins it with a horribly realistic account, 'The Crimson Brand,' drawn from his own domestic life: with the cash he drinks himself to death.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 13 (11 Apr 1896), 396-397.
JUNE 1896
A Day on the River
Nora Thackabury, a rich young widow, will lose her fortune if she remarries a rising young journalist. Ethel Sievewright and her beau are involved in a legal tangle over the same will; all is resolved when they meet by chance during an afternoon on the Thames.
1. Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, 53 (Summer Number [27 June] 1896), 3-5.
The Episode of the Mexican Seer
The first of the episodic crime stories for the Strand; 35 followed.
1. Strand, 11 (June 1896), 659-667.
2. An African Millionaire (1897)
3. More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: Cosmopolitan Crimes. Edited by Hugh Greene. London: Bodley Head, 1971
4. Sleight of Crime. Edited by Cedric Clute & Nicholas Lewis. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1977.
5. Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: Forty Stories of Crime and Detection from Original Illustrated Magazines by Grant Allen . . . [et al], Selected and Introduced by Alan K. Russell. Secaucus, N.J.: Castle Books, 1978.
6. Detective Stories. Edited by Deborah Shine. Illustrated by Roger Fereday. [London]: Octopus Books [1980].
7. The Best Crime Stories of the Nineteenth Century. Edited by Isaac Asimov. New York: Dembner, 1988.
8. Crime in a Cold Climate. Edited by David Skene-Melvin. Toronto: Simon & Pierre, 1994.
9. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/africn01.htm [Copy text is #2. Accessed Jan 2001.]
JULY 1896
A Midsummer Episode. Illustrated by Dudley Hardy
A long short story: Roland Iverarity, heir to a rich estate, puts on an outdoor performance of As You Like It. He is in love with the Rosalind actress, but his mother objects to her being professionally on the stage. All comes right when she finds she comes from a respectable family, and sees how talented the lady in question actually is.
1. Sketch (Supplement), 1 July 1896, 3-13.
2. The Pastoral Play. A Midsummer Episode. New York Clipper, 25 July 1896, 1,2 & 1 Aug 1896, 1.
Riverside Rhymes
Sings humorously the praises of the suburban Thames.
Sketch, 15 July 1896, 478.
The Episode of the Diamond Links
1. Strand, 12 (July 1896), 97-106.
2. An African Millionaire (1897).
3. The Diamond Links. Rogue's Gallery. Edited by E. Queen. New York: Little, Brown, 1945.
4. More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: Cosmopolitan Crimes. Edited by Hugh Greene. London: Bodley Head, 1971.
5. Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: Forty Stories of Crime and Detection from Original Illustrated Magazines by Grant Allen . . . [et al], Selected and Iintroduced by Alan K. Russell. Secaucus, N.J.: Castle Books, 1978.
6. Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, 34:1 (Jan 1989). New York: Davis.
7. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/
gaslight/africn02.htm [Copy text is #2. Accessed Jan 2001.]
Omar at Marlow [poem]
1. The Critic [New York], 29 (25 July 1896), 61.
2. The Book of the Omar Khayyhm Club. London: Privately printed, 1896.
3. Edward Clodd, Grant Allen. A Memoir . . . with a Bibliography. London: Grant Richards, 1900, pp137-9.
4. Edward Clodd, 'Grant Allen 1848-1899,' Fortnightly Review (July 1916). [BL p. refs]
5. Edward Clodd, Memories. London: Chapman & Hall, 1916, pp32-34.
A Mere Matter of Standpoint
Two starving Frenchman see an Englishman in a restaurant toying with, and rejecting, his dinner; maddened with hunger one stabs him, not knowing he is dying of consumption.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 14 (25 July 1896), 92-93.
2. A Matter of Standpoint. Twelve Tales with a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo (1899).
AUGUST 1896
Fair Exchange
Tables turned on a pickpocket when he leaves a diamond ring behind.
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 15 (Aug 1896), 399-404.
2. Vestkusten, 11 (18 Mar 1897), 7 [in Swedish as 'Ett fordelaktigt utbyte'].
The Cowardly Dynamiter
1. Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 9 Aug 1896, 8.
2. South Wales Echo, 4 Sep 1897, 4.
The Episode of the Old Master
1. Strand, 12 (Aug 1896), 201-209.
2. An African Millionaire (1897).
3. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/africn03.htm [Copy text is #2. Accessed Jan 2001.]
SEPTEMBER 1896
The Episode of the Tyrolean Castle
1. Strand, 12 (Sep 1896), 281-290.
2. An African Millionaire (1897).
3. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/africn04.htm [Copy text is #2. Accessed Jan 2001.]
OCTOBER 1896
Janet's Nemesis
Janet, an unmarried mother, is hired as a wet-nurse for the baby of Lord and Lady Remenham. She swaps her own baby for the Remenhams', so she can go on feeding her own boy. The deception is never spotted, and she has to give up her son; but later she becomes passionately attached to the weakly but clever lord's son, who has been raised 'by hand' and is taken to be her own. By heroic efforts she sends her 'son' to Oxford, which her real son attends too – the latter has become a horrible aristocratic lout. She kills herself to avoid revealing all the truth.
1. Pall Mall Magazine, 10 (Oct 1896), 230-241.
2. Twelve Tales with a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo (1899).
3. The Backslider (1901).
Entirely Accidental
A tough sexist editor succumbs to a brilliant new supposedly male contributor who turns out to have 'a Burne-Jones forehead'.
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 16 (Oct 1896), 47-52.
The Episode of the Drawn Game
1. Strand, 12 (Oct 1896), 449-458.
2. An African Millionaire (1897).
3. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/africn05.htm [Copy text is #2. Accessed Jan 2001.]
NOVEMBER 1896
Wolverden Tower
Allen's most effective spine-chiller, though as usual he provides an alternative rational explanation.
1. Illustrated London News, 109 (Christmas Number, [23 Nov] 1896), 26, 29-30, 33-34, 37-38, 40.
2. Twelve Tales with a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo (1899).
3. The Backslider (1901).
4. Perturbed Spirits: A Book of Ghost and Terror Stories. Edited by Cecil Bull. London: Arthur Barker, 1954; Dragon Books, 1958.
5. Victorian Tales of Terror. Edited by Hugh Lamb. W.H. Allen, 1974.
6. Tales to Make the Flesh Creep. Edited by H. van Thal. London: Constable, 1977.
7. Christmas Ghosts: An Anthology. Edited by Seon Manley & Gogo Lewis. NY: Doubleday, 1978.
8. The Twelve Frights of Christmas. Edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg & Carol-Lynn Rossel Waugh. New York: Avon, 1986.
9. Ghosts for Christmas. Edited by Richard Dalby. London: O'Mara, 1988; London: Headline, 1989.
10. Der Turm von Wolverden. [Translation into German.] Geister zum Fest: weihnachtliche Gruselgeschichten, ed. Richard Dalby, transl. Stefan Trossbach. München: Droemer Knaur, 1992.
11. La Tour de Wolverden. [Translation into French by Marie-Hélène Bernaille.] Contes de Noël, ed. Xavier Legrand-Ferronnière. Paris: Editions Joëlle Losfeld, 2000, 131-164.
12. http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/wolvrden.htm [Copy text is #2, 2nd ed, 1900. Accessed Jan 2001.]
13. Dead Good Read: 21 Classic Tales of Mystery & Horror. Pleasantville/Montreal: Reader's Digest, 2001.
The Episode of the German Professor
1. Strand, 12 (Nov 1896), 504-512.
2. An African Millionaire (1897)
3. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/
gaslight/africn06.htm [Copy text is #2. Accessed Jan 2001.]
DECEMBER 1896
The Episode of the Arrest of the Colonel
1. Strand, 12 (Dec 1896), 629-638.
2. An African Millionaire (1897).
3. The Great British Detective. Edited by Ron Goulart. New York: Mentor, 1982.
4. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/
gaslight/africn07.htm [Copy text is #2. Accessed Jan 2001.]
The Blue Butterfly
Two Welsh peasants argue whether a local witch, disguised as a butterfly, is preventing their butter from being churned.
1. Illustrated London News, 12 Sep 1896, 334.
1897
An African Millionaire: Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay
The new Strand magazine offered GA a more lucrative outlet for his light fiction than he had previously enjoyed, and this was the first of three attempts at the linked episodic format which the magazine called for in the wake of Conan Doyle's success. This is a set of 12 stories dealing with the frauds practised on Sir Charles Vandrift, the millionaire, and his brother-in-law/secretary by the mysterious Colonel Clay and his female accomplice. Ingenious if often rather incredible plotting; distinctly lightweight, but notable as a pioneer in the genre of detective fiction. In book form, this was the first fiction to be published by his nephew's company. Bell, the colonial publisher, took more than 4000 copies in sheets.
MS not known.
1. Serialized Strand, 11-13 (June 1896-May 1897), 12 consecutive monthly episodes.
2. London: Grant Richards, Jul 1897. Reprinted 1898.
3. London: G. Bell, 1897.
4. An African Millionaire. New York: E. Arnold, 1897.
5. Ein afrikanischer millionär. Episoden aus dem Leben. Illustriert von Colonel Clay. Einzig autorisierte übersetzung. Mit dem bildnis des verfassers. [Translation into German.] Leipzig: Philipp Reclam jun., 1901.
6. London: George Newnes, 1902.
7. En afrikansk Millionaer. Roman. Aut. Overs. ved Johs. Magnussen. [Translation into Danish.] Hjemmets Romanbibliotek, 1905.
8. Le Colonel caoutchouc et ses aventures extraordinaires, traduit de l'anglais de Meade et Halifax [sic] par Jean l'Enigme. [Translation into French.] Paris: Richonnier, nd [c1905]. Pirated edition. Inside the title is: Les Aventures extraordinaires du Colonel Caoutchouc le Prince des Filous.
9. New York: Arno Press, 1976.
10. With an Introduction by Norman Donaldson. London/New York: Constable/Dover, 1980.
11. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Four microfiches of the Grant Richards, 1898 ed. Copy in the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Library, Dalhousie University. Series #05000.
12. Ottawa : CIHM, 1984. Four microfiches of the E. Arnold, 1897 ed. Copy in the Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #32086. Page images at http://www.canadiana.org/cgi-bin/ECO/mtq?id=e2b89dc9a7&doc=32086. [Accessed Dec 2000].
The Type-writer Girl
Told in the first person, this follows the fortunes of feisty young Juliet Appleton, American-born Girton graduate, who suddenly needs to earn her living as a secretary. The novel starts in Allen's brightest, most sprightly manner as his heroine tries out a sleazy lawyer's office and an anarchist colony in Horsham, suffering sexual harassment in both; it goes downhill after she moves on to a genteel publisher and falls for her boss. Damaged as usual by sentimentality, feeble dialogue and superficial engagement with the material. Allen wrote too fast and was unwilling (like his readers no doubt) to confront the darker side of his material; this could have been an effective piece of social realism like Wells' Ann Veronica of a few years later.
MS not known
Serialization. None known
1. By Olive Pratt Rayner. London: C.Arthur Pearson, 1897.
2. By Olive Pratt Rayner. New York: Munro, 1900. Seaside Library Pocket Edition, #2215.
3. The Typewriter Girl. New York: Street & Smith, [1900]. Arrow Library, 101. A preface says: 'This work when originally published was ascribed to the authorship of 'Olive Pratt Rayner', but since the death of Mr Grant Allen it has developed that the story is from his pen.'
4. London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1908. [6d edition, May 1908].
5.Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. Three microfiches of the C. Arthur Pearson, 1897 ed. Copy the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Library. Series #05084.
Tom, Unlimited: A Story for Children
An uninspired story for children of around 10-11. Two children enter a strange garden, meeting characters from the past. The setting and details are too obviously derived from the Alice stories and the setting is confusing and not well realised. Grant Richards lost money on this one.
MS not known.
Serialization. None known.
1. By Martin Leach Warborough. With Illustrations by Miss Bradley. London: Grant Richards, 1897.
2. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Three microfiches of the Grant Richards, 1897 ed. Copy the Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #05082.
Periodical contributions in 1897; by month where known
JANUARY 1897
The Episode of the Seldon Gold-Mine
1. Strand, 13 ( Jan 1897), 32-40.
2. An African Millionaire (1897).
3. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/africn08.htm [Copy text is #2. Accessed Jan 2001.]
The Camisard's Bride
A romantic tale of French Protestant rebels in 1702 after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
1. Cassell's Family Magazine, 23 (Jan 1897), 183-189.
FEBRUARY 1897
The Episode of the Japanned Dispatch-Box
1. Strand, 13 (Feb 1897), 167-175.
2. An African Millionaire (1897).
3. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/africn09.htm [Copy text is #2. Accessed Jan 2001.]
MARCH 1897
Llanfihangel Skerries
Monica Frewen, a 'Girton girl' who is not 'pallid, emaciated and book-wormy' like the first generation of students there, is in Wales to finish a book on Etruscan sarcophagi. She rescues a young Oxford graduate in a boating accident, but otherwise rejects him for 'alarmingly' logical reasons.
1. Boston Evening Transcript, 24 Feb 1897, 12 & 25 Feb 1897, 8.
2. English Illustrated Magazine, 16 (Mar 1897), 658-664.
3. The Pocket Magazine, 4 (May 1897), 124-149.
The Episode of the Game of Poker
1. Strand, 13 (Mar 1897), 336-343.
2. An African Millionaire (1897).
The Bishop of Tortuga
A friend visiting the West Indies embarrasses the married Bishop with tales of their university jinks; he is persuaded to ship out the next day.
1. Sketch (31 Mar 1897), 416.
2. A College Chum. Samoa Weekly Herald [Apia], 3 (9 Oct 1897), 3.
APRIL 1897
The Episode of the Bertillon Method
1. Strand, 13 (Apr 1897), 417-424.
2. An African Millionaire (1897).
A Lady of Florence
Hot-blooded love rivals in American/Italian society in Florence, seeking the hand of the Nevada heiress Maimie Pattison. GA's contribution to a series of stories called 'Tales of Other Cities'.
1. Cassell's Family Magazine, 23 (Apr 1897), 483-491.
MAY 1897
The Episode of the Old Bailey
1. Strand, 13 (May 1897), 512-520.
2. An African Millionaire (1897).
That Greyhampton Mystery
Two young doctors are too late to save man convicted of poisoning from execution.
1. Sketch, 14 Apr 1897, 484.
2. A British Verdict. Boston Daily Globe, 20 May 1897
A Quite Unimportant Personage
On an imaginary visit to England the painter Rubens offers to paint Shakespeare at Elizabeth's court: the Queen forbids it as he is a person of little interest.
1. Illustrated London News, 28 Aug 1897.
SEPTEMBER 1897
A Domestic Tragedy
A short imaginary reconstruction of the story behind an Etruscan tomb statue of a matron doing her needlework. The sarcophagus is in the Florence archaeological museum, where no doubt GA saw it.
1. Illustrated London News, 4 Sep 1897, 332.
2. A Costly Tomb. Geelong Advertiser (2 Apr 1898), 6.
3. A Costly Tomb. Westfield Republican (16 Apr 1902), 6.
NOVEMBER 1897
A Freak of Memory
A man trains himself to remember, first every detail of his childhood and then – thanks to 'inherited memory' – disturbing details of his father's life. The latter, to protect himself, has him committed to a lunatic asylum.
1. The Queen, the Lady's Newspaper, 102 (13 Nov 1897), 909-911.
2. Washington Post, 14 Nov 1897, 27.
The Judge's Cross
A trivial anecdote: a judge's commemorative cross on a hilltop facilitates another murder.
1. Illustrated London News, 111 (Christmas Number [22 Nov] 1897), 48.
DECEMBER 1897
The Thames Valley Catastrophe
Suburbia overwhelmed by a volcanic eruption; an impressive very early excursion into the 'cosy catastrophe' genre.
1. Strand, 14 (Dec 1897), 674-684.
2. Science Fiction by Gaslight: A History and Anthology of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazines, 1891-1911. Edited by Sam Moskowitz. New York/Cleveland: World, 1968, pp.53-68.
3. Beyond the Gaslight. Edited by Hilary Evans & Dick Evans. London: Frederick Muller, 1976.
4. Isaac Asimov Presents the Best Science Fiction of the 19th Century. Edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg & Charles G. Waugh. Beufort, 1976.
5. Science Fiction by the Rivals of H G Wells: Thirty Stories and a Complete Novel by W.L. Alden . . . . Edited by Alan K. Russell. Secaucus, N.J. : Castle Books, 1979.
6. Strange Tales from the Strand. Edited by Jack Adrian. Foreword by Julian Symons. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
7. http://www.heliograph.com/ff/library/thames/thames.htm [Copy text is #1. With original Strand illustrations. Accessed Jan 2001.]
The Great Oriental Seer
A fake psychic predicts an earthquake; as usual, GA gives a rational explanation for the trick.
MS: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas.
1. Boston Evening Transcript, 16 Dec 1897, 11 and 17 Dec 1897, 11.
2. English Illustrated Magazine, (Jan 1908), 387-394.
1898
Linnet. A Romance
Allen's last substantial novel, a melodrama with quite well-drawn characters and an action-packed plot which moves between the Tyrol, London and Monte Carlo. While on holiday in Austria, Will Deverill, a composer of light operas, falls in love with a sennerin, the 'Linnet' of the title – a gifted but untrained singer. She is, however, an uneducated peasant girl and a devout Catholic; and after terrific pressure is applied by her parish priest, she is soon married off to the cold and greedy impresario of her village, Andreas Hausberger, during Will's absence. Hausberger thereby earns the enmity not only of Deverill, but of Linnet's other unwanted lover, Franz Lindner, a fiery young Alpine jager. Over the next three years, Hausberger, by a process of merciless bullying, turns his wife into an international star. After many complications which give GA lots of opportunities for mocking comment on Catholic intransigence and hypocrisy with respect to divorce, Linnet and Will are of course united. There is an interesting sub-plot involving a fake American psychic, Joaquin Holmes, obviously based on the medium D.D. Home, who is eventually murdered by Franz Lindner after some heavy gambling and card-sharping at Monte Carlo. This novel is noticeably franker about matters of sexual morality than most of its predecessors, perhaps suggesting GA's continued, or renewed, zeal for taking on the censorious 'British matron'. Will's friend, the very camp music critic Florian Wood, is the last in the line of GA's fantastical talkers, possibly a mixture of Andrew Lang and Wilde and GA himself, whose conversation, or monologue, surges forward on a wave of allusion, quotations and free association.
MS: Autograph manuscript with numerous revisions and corrections. 417pp. Also typescript of 2 chapters, unpaginated, with corrections in ink. Penn.
Serialization. None known.
1. London: Grant Richards, 1898. Reprinted 1899.
2. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1900.
3. New York: New Amsterdam Book, 1900.
4. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Five microfiches of the Grant Richards, 1899 ed. Copy in the Harold Campbell Vaughan Memorial Library, Acadia University. Series #05049.
5. Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. Five microfiches of the New Amsterdam, 1900 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #26240.
6. Ottawa: CIHM, 1986. Five microfiches of the Grosset & Dunlap, 1900 ed. Copy in the Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #59225.
The Incidental Bishop. A Novel
Probably intended for young adult readers, this opens with an account of the brutal 'blackbirding' slave trade based in Queensland. Tom Pringle, an ingenuous young Canadian sailor, is caught up during a raid on an island to acquire slave cargo. When the slave ship is stopped by the Sydney authorities he half-accidentally takes on the identity of a murdered missionary, Cecil Glisson. In England thirty years later, he has risen to be a bishop; then his impersonation starts to come unravelled and 'Cecil' suffers agonies of conscience over his illicit episcopal duties. Clearly inspired in part by the Tichborne claimant case. Padded and superficial, but an ingenious and not implausible idea.
MS not located
Serialization. None known.
1. London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1898.
2. New York: D. Appleton, 1898.
3. New York: D. Appleton, 1898. Appleton's Town and Country Library, #238.
4. The Incidental Bishop. A New Edition. London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1902.
5. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Four microfiches of the C. Arthur Pearson, 1898 ed. Copy in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. Series #05045.
6. Ottawa: CIHM, 1983. Four microfiches of the D. Apppleton, 1898 ed (Appleton's Town and Country Library, #238). Copy in the University of Alberta Library. Series #27426.
Periodical contributions in 1898; by month where known
MARCH 1898
The Adventure of the Cantankerous Old Lady
1. Strand, 15 (Mar 1898), 320-330.
2. Miss Cayley's Adventure. Albury Banner and Wodonga Express, 24 Feb 1899, 7-8.
3. Miss Cayley's Adventures (1899).
4. Adventure Stories from The Strand. Selected by Geraldine Beare. Introduction by Tim Heald. Illustrations by David Eccles. London: Folio Society, 1995.
5. Twelve Women Detective Stories. Edited by Laura Marcus with Chris Willis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, 63-80.
6. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/cayley01.htm [Copy text not stated. Accessed Jan 2001.]
7. Take it Easy: Englische und amerikanische Kurzgeschichten. Ausgewählt von Richard Fenzl. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2001.
APRIL 1898
The Adventure of the Supercilious Attache
1. Strand, 15 (Apr 1898), 424-435.
2. Miss Cayley's Adventures (1899).
3. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/cayley02.htm [Copy text not stated. Accessed Jan 2001.]
MAY 1898
The Pirate of Cliveden Reach. Illustrated by H.G. Burgess
A robber in a canoe preys on the water traffic on the Thames.
1. Windsor Magazine, 7 (May 1898), 668-676.
2. Washington Post, 26 Jun 1898), 27.
3. Albury Banner, 11 Nov 1898, 7-8.
4. Bolton Weekly Journal, 14 Jul 1900, 11.
The Adventure of the Inquisitive American
1. Strand, 15 (May 1898), 513-523.
2. Miss Cayley's Adventures (1899).
3. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/cayley03.htm [Copy text not stated. Accessed Jan 2001.]
JUNE 1898
The Adventure of the Amateur Commission Agent
1. Strand, 15 (June 1898), 733-744
2. Miss Cayley's Adventures (1899)
3. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/cayley04.htm [Copy text not stated. Accessed Jan 2001.]
JULY 1898
The Adventure of the Impromptu Mountaineer
1. Strand, 16 (July 1898), 65-74.
2. Miss Cayley's Adventures (1899).
3. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/cayley05.htm [Copy text not stated. Accessed Jan 2001.]
Joe's Wife
Joe kicks his wife to death for selling his prized lilies. This brutal story was syndicated in many papers. The Penny Paper had cut some sentences from the temptation scene for no obvious reason; these were restored in, eg, the Newcastle Courant, 2 July 1898, 30.
1. Penny Illustrated Paper and llustrated Times, 2 July 1898, 6.
AUGUST 1898
The Adventure of the Urbane Old Gentleman
1. Strand, 16 (Aug 1898), 201-212
2. Miss Cayley's Adventures (1899)
SEPTEMBER 1898
The Adventure of the Unobtrusive Oasis
1. Strand, 16 (Sep 1898), 328-338.
2. Miss Cayley's Adventures (1899)
OCTOBER 1898
The Adventure of the Pea-green Patrician
1. Strand, 16 (Oct 1898), 394-403.
2. Miss Cayley's Adventures (1899)
Isenberg's Regiment
A Jew in a cavalry regiment is hounded to suicide by his anti-semitic fellow officers. Probably inspired by the Dreyfus affair (1894-). It may have been retitled 'Christian Charity' by the Tillotson's Fiction Bureau (the last words of the story) and published elsewhere.
1. Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, 11 Jan 1896, 20.
2. Western Mail (Perth), 31 Jan 1896, 37.
3. Telegraph (Brisbane), 29 Oct 1896), 8.
4. The Pocket Magazine. Edited by Abbot Frederic, 6 (Oct 1898), 36-49.
NOVEMBER 1898
The Adventure of the Magnificent Maharajah
1. Strand, 16 (Nov 1898), 512-522.
2. Miss Cayley's Adventures (1899).
3. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/programs/arts/english/gaslight/cayley09.htm [Copy text not stated. Accessed Jan 2001.]
DECEMBER 1898
A Woman's Hand: a Story
Another fictional rebellion in Jamaica thwarted by heroic English residents.
1. Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, 58 (Christmas Number [21 Nov] 1898), 1-3.
2. Cosmopolitan, 26 (Dec 1898), 151-163.
3. Sir Theodore's Guest and Other Stories (1902).
The Adventure of the Cross-eyed QC
1. Strand, 16 (Dec 1898), 688-698.
2. Miss Cayley's Adventures (1899).
The Christmas Eve Concert
A singer prays for guidance on the platform; she chooses Burns and so brings together a warring married couple, to the relief of their daughter.
1. Cambrian [Wales], 23 Dec 1898, 6.
2. Canadian Magazine of Politics, Science, Art and Literature, 12 (Dec 1898), 140-148.
3. Some Short Stories by Seumas MacManus . . . [et al.] New York: Impressionist, c.1900, 5-28.
4. Woodbridge, Conn.: Research Publications, 1970-1978. Wright American fiction ; v.3 (1876-1900), reel S-41, #5070. One microfilm reel 35mm of the Impressionist, c1900 ed.
1899
Miss Cayley's Adventures
In these 12 connected 'adventures', Lois Cayley, another resourceful young Girton graduate and amateur detective, makes a tour of the world. Usual cast of confidence-tricksters and cads, and travelogue detail. Early chapters have a bicycling theme. Notable, together with Hilda Wade, as a pioneer work in the female-detective genre.
It is probably this of which GA wrote to his nephew: 'My dear Grantie, You will see from the enclosed note from Greenhough Smith that Newnes consents to my terms of £1000 for British and American serial rights of the 12 short stories. I retain book rights. I have therefore written an official letter, que voila. Govern yourself accordingly. …'
MS: Not located
1. Serialized Strand, 15 (Mar 1898-Feb 1899) in 12 consecutive monthly episodes.
2. With Illustrations by Gordon Browne. London: Grant Richards, 1899.
3. With Eighty Illustrations by Gordon Browne. New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons The Knickerbocker Press, 1899.
4. New York: Munro, 1899. Seaside Library Pocket Edition, #2017.
5. London: George Newnes, 1902.
6. Frk. Cayleys Eventyr. Roman. Aut. Oversaettelse ved Johs. Magnusson. [Translation into Danish.] Hjemmets Romanbibliotek, 1905.
7. En Selskabsdames Eventyr. Roman. Aut. Danks-norsk Udgave ved Johs. Magnussen. Hjemmets Romanbibliotek, 1905.
8. Met een dubbeltje de wereld door, naar het Engelsch van Grant Allen door Hilda [pseud]. Geillustreerde volksuitgave. . . .[Translation into Dutch by Mathilde Ramboux]. Zalt-Bommel: H.J. van de Garde [191-?].
9. Mengembara dengan oeang sepoeloeh senoleh Grant Allen; dibahasa melajoekan oleh Soetan Sjahboedin Latif. [Translation into Bahasa Indonesia.] Weltevreden : Balai Poestaka, 1920. (Weltevreden : Drukkerij Volkslectuur). Reprinted 1948.
10. Miss Cayleys Abenteuer. Abenteuer-Roman. [Translation into German.] Rentlingen: Enklin & Laiblin, [19]25.
11. Ngalalana mekel saketip karangan Grant Allen; disoendakeun tina basa Malajoe koe Koerdi. 2 vols. Weltevreden : Bale Poestaka, 1927. [Translation into Sundanese]. Serie uitgaven door bemiddeling der Commissie voor de Volkslectuur; 752).
12. Met een dubbeltje de wereld door Grant Allen. Geheel opnieuw bwerkt. Met illustraties van Jaap Beckmann. [Translation into Dutch]. Antwerp: Uitgeversfonds 'Het Boekhuis', [nd].
13. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Four microfiches of the Putnam's, 1899 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #05053.
14. Ottawa: CIHM, 1982. Four microfiches of the Grant Richards, 1899 ed. Copy in the Dana Porter Arts Library, University of Waterloo. Series #29076.
Twelve Tales with a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo: being select stories by Grant Allen. Chosen and Arranged by the Author
Contains an Introduction and 15 stories, all but one reprinted: 'A Confidential Communication' [Sketch], 'The Reverend John Creedy' [Cornhill], 'Frasine's First Communion' [Sketch], 'The Child of the Phalanstery' [Belgravia], 'The Abbe's Repentance' [Contemporary ], 'Wolverden Tower' [Illustrated London News], 'Janet's Nemesis' [Pall Mall Magazine], 'Langalula' [Speaker], 'The Curate of Churnside' [Cornhill], 'Cecca's Lover' [Longman's], 'The Backslider' [Cornhill], 'John Cann's Treasure' [Cornhill], 'Ivan Greet's Masterpiece' [Graphic],'The Churchwarden's Brother' [previously unpublished], 'A Matter of Standpoint' [Speaker]. In the Introduction: 'fearing that they might stand in the way such little scientific reputation as I possessed, I published them under the prudent pseudonym of J. Arbuthnot Wilson'. This is not quite the full story of the pseudonym, as can be shown.
Of this collection GA wrote to Chatto on 11 Oct 1898, 'My nephew, Grant Richards, is anxious to publish a sort of edition de luxe in one volume of the best of my short stories, published or unpublished: and he wants to include in the book some five or six of those in Strange Stories and Ivan Greet's Masterpiece. They would be accompanied by an equal number of stories the copyright of which belongs to myself. He proposes to pay me a royalty of twenty per cent on all copies sold. Would you be prepared to give your consent to such selection and republication if I paid you half the total royalties received? I do not think such republication would in the least hurt your copyrights: on the contrary, I believe it might stimulate demand, as the source of each story would be acknowledged. I have no doubt, also, that Grant Richards would allow an advertisement of your other books by me to appear in the volume. Perhaps the easiest way would be for you to talk the matter over with him, if you are inclined to entertain the proposal. Yours. . .' And Chatto replied on 13 Oct 'I have much pleasure in agreeing to the proposal, contained in yours of Oct 11th that Mr Grant Richards should [... ] in to one volume de luxe edition of your best short stories , five or six of them in Strange Stories and Ivan Greet's Masterpiece, you dividing with firm the royalties secured'.
1. London: Grant Richards, 1899.
2. Second edition. London: Grant Richards, 1900.
3. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Four microfiches of the Grant Richards, 1899 ed. Copy in the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Library, Dalhousie University. Series #05083.
4. Ottawa: CIHM, 1982. Four microfiches of the Grant Richards, 1900 ed. Copy in the Dana Porter Arts Library, University of Waterloo. Series #29077.
Rosalba: The Story of Her Development: With Other Episodes of the European Movement, More Especially as They Affected the Monti Berici near Vicenza
An undemanding novel with a pompous title. Rosalba Lupari tells this story of her early life. She is a beautiful high-spirited peasant girl living in Vicenza, but she and her sister are half-English and have lived for some years in London: their father was a waiter at Gatti's; their mother is Irish. One day they meet two young men, English tourists: Arthur Wingham, a handsome young artist of 20 and his older friend, John Stodmarch, a slightly older stuffy civil servant. Wingham sketches Rosalba and is discomfited when he finds she understands English. Rosalba's mother drinks and abuses her; she runs away and takes up with a knife-grinder and his wife. They wander slowly across Europe heading for England, and on the way Rosalba develops her brilliant talent for busking performances, involving dance and puppet-shows adapted from Shakespeare and other books which have come her way. In England she is taken up by an artist, Mrs Mallory, whose cousin happens to be Stodmarch. The latter, fascinated by Rosalba, has her formally educated in an English school for young ladies. She intends to marry him out of a sense of obligation, even though she is in love with his friend Wingham. Meanwhile she meets her sister Mariana who has come to London as a famous opera singer. Both are horrified to receive the news that their mother, reduced to beggary, has taken up with some anarchists and has been fatally wounded in an explosion in France. Rosalba rushes to the deathbed out of a sense of obligation against her fiance's sternest orders not to. When she returns Rosalba breaks off the engagement and gets a contract to appear on the music-halls as a comedienne. She does not have to go through with this; fortunately (like several of Allen's characters) she is able to make a living as a writer (her first story is 'Cecca's First Lover' – a "feeble little tale" [390] and a title close to one of Allen's own). All turns out well; her drunken mother is found really to be only her step-mother; she can start to pay back Stodmarch and to marry Wingham. Some colourful Italian detail, and some of Rosalba's views about marriage echo GA's 'feminist' sentiments, it is remarkable how despite Rosalba's gypsy existence on the roads of Europe Allen makes sure she is correctly chaperoned throughout!
MS not located.
Serialization. None known.
1. By Olive Pratt Rayner. London: C.Arthur Pearson, 1899.
2. By Olive Pratt Rayner. Rosalba: the Story of Her Development. New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1899. Hudson Bay Library,39. Reprinted as paperback 1903.
3. By Olive Pratt Rayner. London: Methuen, 1906.
4.Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. Four microfiches of the copy of the C.Arthur Pearson, 1899 ed. Copy in the University of British Columbia Library. Series #05064.
5. Ottawa : CIHM, 1984. Five microfiches of the G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1899 ed. Copy in the Library of Congress. Series #29757.
The Churchwarden's Brother
1. Twelve Tales with a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo (1899).
JANUARY 1899
The Adventure of the Oriental Attendant
1. Strand, 17 (Jan 1899), 49-58.
2. Miss Cayley's Adventures (1899).
Joseph's Dream
An ordinary clerk has a dream of famine and riot in London, and writes it down as a warning to the politicians: a reworking of the Biblical story - owes something to Wells.
1. Cosmopolitan, 26 (Jan 1899), 277-287.
2. Illustrated by Ralph Cleaver. Temple Magazine (Silas K. Hocking's Illustrated Monthly), 3 (Dec 1899), 202-211.
FEBRUARY 1899
The Adventure of the Unprofessional Detective
1. Strand, 17 (Feb 1899), 191-201.
2. Miss Cayley's Adventures (1899).
Hobbling Mary
Mary, an old West Indian witch, secures a lock of her annoying young mistress's hair and buries it with a corpse. Rosa gets to hear of it and is eventually driven mad by a supposed persecution by the 'jumby'.
1. Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, 10 July 1897, 20.
1. The Pocket Magazine, (Feb 1899), 154-169.
MARCH 1899
The Episode of the Patient Who Disappointed Her Doctor
1. Strand, 17 (Mar 1899), 327-337.
2. Hilda Wade (1900).
APRIL 1899
The Episode of the Gentleman Who Had Failed For Everything
1. Strand,17 (Apr 1899), 431-444.
2. Hilda Wade (1900).
MAY 1899
The Episode of the Wife Who Did Her Duty
1. Strand, 17 (May 1899), 516-527.
2. Hilda Wade (1900).
JUNE 1899
The Episode of the Man Who Would Not Commit Suicide
1. Strand, 17 (June 1899), 693-705.
2. Hilda Wade (1900).
JULY 1899
A Regrettable Error
A boy is taken off to the 'fever hospital'. He is reported to have died there, whereupon his mother kills herself. But an error has been made. It's the 'system's' fault.
1. Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, 15 July 1892, 22.
Peace-at-any-price Bill
Bill, a fisherman, is saved by the Russian who has killed his son in the Crimean war, and is converted to pacifism.
1. Illustrated by Frank Craig. Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, 59 (Summer Number [17 July] 1899), 15-17.
The Episode of the Needle That Did Not Match
1. Strand, 18 (July 1899), 65-76.
2. Hilda Wade (1900).
AUGUST 1899
The Episode of the Letter With a Basingstoke Post-Mark
1. Strand, 18 (Aug 1899), 184-195.
2. Hilda Wade (1900).
SEPTEMBER 1899
The Episode of the Stone That Looked About It
1. Strand, 18 (Sep 1899), 321-332.
2. Hilda Wade (1900).
His Ways Inscrutable
A mother drowns herself after her child dies in a fever hospital; too late it is discovered he is still alive.
1. Ainslee's: the Magazine that Entertains, 27 (Sep 1899), 153-156.
OCTOBER 1899
The Episode of the European With A Kaffir Heart
1. Strand, 18 (Oct 1899), 461-471.
2. Hilda Wade (1900).
NOVEMBER 1899
The Episode of the Lady Who Was Very Exclusive
1. Strand, 18 (Nov 1899), 496-507.
2. Hilda Wade (1900).
DECEMBER 1899
The Episode of the Guide Who Knew The Country
1. Strand, 18 (Dec 1899), 684-695.
2. Hilda Wade (1900).
Luigi and the Salvationist
Italian Catholicism in conflict with a Salvation Army zealot, to the considerable advantage of the former.
1. Pall Mall Magazine, 19 (Dec 1899), 489-501.
2. Sir Theodore's Guest and Other Stories (1902).
3. New York: Tucker, [1900]. Balzac Library, #4.
4. Alexandria, Va: Chadwyck-Healey, 1987. One microfiche of the Tucker [1900] ed. Series Radical Pamphlets in American Collections. Anarchism collection, fiche 1.1.1545.
Deign, Kindly Editor, to Look [poem]
1. Clement K. Shorter, 'The Late Grant Allen,' Bookman [London] (Dec 1899), 76-78.
2. The Critic [New York], 36 (Jan 1900), 38-43.
Oh, How We Laughed until We Cried/In Strafford House, at Whitsuntide!
Poem written Whitsunday, 1894.
1. Clement K. Shorter, 'The Late Grant Allen,' Bookman [London] (Dec 1899), 76-78.
2. The Critic [New York], 36 (Jan 1900), 38-43.
3. Edward Clodd, Memories. London: Chapman & Hall, 1916, pp.34-35.
A Christmas Adventure
A young man breaks his leg in the wilds but is saved when he disables a hydraulic ram.
1. Cambrian, 22 Dec 1899, 2.
2. Montreal Morning Free Press, 22 Dec 1899.
1900
Hilda Wade
In 12 connected episodes, nurse Hilda Wade (her real name is the rather more aristocratic Maisie Yorke-Bannerman) pursues the evil Professor Sebastian, who has had her father indicted for murder. She is assisted by her lover Dr Hubert Cumberledge -- the relations between the two owe a good deal to Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson -- and together they pursue him round the world. Hilda enjoys an astounding eidetic memory, and this, combined with her 'female intuition' gives her almost supernatural powers. A publisher's note says GA had intended to acknowledge 'his indebtedness for one of the main conceptions of this book to Mr Furneaux Jordan's Character in Body and Parentage'. Presumably this is where GA got the theory behind a typical scene where Hilda predicts a QC will murder his new wife within the year, because she has the bodily characteristics of an intolerable shrew: 'an odd spinal configuration' and 'scanty hair' -- 'women with faces like that always get assaulted.'
There may be variant title pages to the various editions, some alluding to the role of Arthur Conan Doyle as part-author. Doyle reports, in Memories and Adventures, 2nd ed. London: Murray, 1930) that when GA was on his death-bed 'he was much worried because there were two numbers of his serial, 'Hilda Wade' which was running in 'The Strand' magazine, still uncompleted. It was a pleasure for me to do them for him, and so relieve his mind, but it was difficult collar work, and I expect they were pretty bad' (pp.303-4). Note that 'uncompleted' is ambiguous; Doyle's precise role is unclear.
MS: Not located
1. Serialized Strand, 17-19 (Mar 1899-Feb 1900), 12 consecutive monthly episodes.
2. With Illustrations by Gordon Browne. London: Grant Richards, 1900.
3. Toronto: Copp, Clark, 1900. Grant Richards's Indian and Colonial Library.
4. Hilda Wade. A Woman with Tenacity of Purpose. With Ninety-eight Illustrations by Gordon Browne. New York & London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1900. The Knickerbocker Press.
5. Hilda Wada: powiesc Grant Allena. Trans. Emilia Weslawska, 1900. [Polish translation].
6. London: George Newnes, 1902. Newnes' Popular Sixpenny Novels.
7. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Five microfiches of the Grant Richards, 1900 ed. Copy in the Dana Porter Arts Library, University of Waterloo.. Series #05040.
8. Ottawa: CIHM, 1982. Five microfiches of the G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1900 ed. Copy in the Morisset Library, University of Ottawa. Series #26393. Page images at http://www.canadiana.org/cgi-bin/ECO/mtq?id=e2b89dc9a7&doc=26393. [Accessed Dec 2000].
9. Ottawa: CIHM, 1984. Five microfiches of the Copp, Clark, 1900 ed. Copy in the Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #27570.
Whitsun at Aldeburgh
A poem written 1896 at the Clodd long weekend.
1. Edward Clodd, Grant Allen. A Memoir . . . with a Bibliography. London: Grant Richards, 1900, 115-117.
La Dame aux Camelias (To Alexandre Dumas, fils)
The date of composition of this biographically highly suggestive poem is unknown. The evidence is admittedly circumstantial, but the dying woman with whom the poet reads again her favourite novel is almost certainly Caroline Bootheway Allen, GA's first wife. The novel is of course Dumas' story of a reclaimed prostitute who dies of tuberculosis, as did GA's wife. GA omitted it from his own collected poems. It was apparently given by Franklin Richards to Clodd, who describes it suggestively as 'one more personal than those published' (152). There is an MS copy of the poem in GA's hand in Penn.
1. Edward Clodd, Grant Allen. A Memoir . . . with a Bibliography. London: Grant Richards, 1900, 152-154.
Periodical contributions in 1900; by month where known
JANUARY 1900
The Episode of the Officer Who Understood Perfectly
1. Strand, 19 (Jan 1900), 85-97. Completed, or written, by Conan Doyle.
2. Hilda Wade (1900).
Meriel Stanley, Poacher
Pen-portrait of a wild village girl, destined to be hanged for murder.
First UK publication unknown; possibly Pearson's Weekly.
1. Cornish Telegraph, 10 Jan 1900, 3.
2. Washington Post, 14 Jan 1900, 27.
FEBRUARY 1900
The Episode of the Dead Man Who Spoke
1. Strand, 19 (Feb 1900), 217- 224. Completed, or written, by Conan Doyle.
2. Hilda Wade (1900).
AUGUST 1900
A Question of Colour
Charlie Wells, a rich young Philadelphian, betrays his mistress, an beautiful octoroon. She shoots him, but on his deathbed he marries her and she confesses. 'How much depends upon latitude and longitude! On the meridian of Greenwich, Lydia Stone would have been hailed as a distinguished musician, much courted and sought after – painted by Leighton and hymned by rising bards. . . . In Philadelphia, Lydia Stone was a coloured woman at a concert hall, not to be named in the same breath with the 'high-toned' daughter of one of our most respected fellow-citizens.' This is certainly reprinted from an earlier appearance, possibly under a different title.
1. Pearson's Weekly, 527 (25 Aug 1900), 98-99.
NOVEMBER 1900
Fra Benedetto's Medal: a Story
An old monk in Perugia recalls how he helped to throw off Papal government in 1859 and save the lives of three patriots.
1. Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, 62 (Christmas Number [26 Nov] 1900), 11-13.
2. Cosmopolitan, 30 (Dec 1900), 207.
3. Sir Theodore's Guest and Other Stories (1902).
1901
The Backslider
Reprints: 'The Backslider' [Cornhill], 'John Cann's Treasure' [Cornhill], Ivan Greet's Masterpiece' [Graphic], Wolverden Tower' [Illustrated London News], 'The Abbe's Repentance' [Contemporary], 'The Reverend John Creedy' [Cornhill], 'Janet's Nemesis' [Pall Mall Magazine], 'The Child of the Phalanstery' [Belgravia], 'Cecca's Lover' [Longman's], 'Frasine's First Communion' [Sketch].
1. London/New York : Lewis, Scribner, 1901.
AUGUST 1901
The Temple of Fate: a Fable
A brief ironic fable in praise of mediocrity. Cf 'Poor Little Soul'.
1. Cosmopolitan, 31 (Aug 1901), 386-387.
1902
The Bold Buccaneer. By the Late Grant Allen
A poem in six stanzas. A romantic poet meets the capitalist buccaneer and asks him what great deeds he has done in a distant land. The 'glorious cause' says the buccaneer, was 'L.s.d.' A heading note says: 'Mr Jarrard [sic] Grant Allen sends us, says The Morning Leader, the following verses, which were written by his late father. The immediate occasion of the verses, it will be seen, was an event of some years ago. But they are not inapt at this moment.' This leaflet is extremely rare and may exist only in the form of a microfilmed collection of anti-Boer War pamphlets.
1. London: Stop-The-War Committee. No. 8. [nd].
Sir Theodore's Guest and Other Stories
Contains 7 stories: 'His Last Chance' [untraced], 'Sir Theodore's Guest' [untraced], 'A Woman's Hand' [Graphic], 'The Stoke-Parva Murder' [untraced], 'Luigi and the Salvationist' [Pall Mall Magazine], 'The Next Presentation' [untraced], 'Fra Benedetto's Medal' [Graphic]. Some of these stories seem to be more sophisticated than GA's earlier efforts. 'Luigi and the Salvationist' is particularly successful.
1. Bristol: JW Arrowsmith/London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1902. Arrowsmith's Three-and-Sixpenny Series.
2. Ottawa: CIHM, 1996. Four microfiches of the JW Arrowsmith/Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1902 ed. Copy in National Library of Canada. Series #79359.
His Last Chance
Miriam Maitland is being blackmailed by Carlo Molinari, her ex-lover, over some letters. She buys arsenic and adds it to his coffee. Fortunately the doctor attending him covers up the crime.
First periodical publication untraced.
1. Sir Theodore's Guest and Other Stories (1902).
Sir Theodore's Guest
Sir Theodore invites an archbishop to stay, whom he has formerly known as the lively Dick Kesteven. His discovers Kesteven hates his strait laced role so much that he finally commits arson by setting light to his host's heath land estate as a form of rebellion.
First periodical publication untraced.
1. Sir Theodore's Guest and Other Stories (1902).
The Stoke-Parva Murder
The Rev. Wainmaker gets a visit from Adair, a college friend and gentleman gone to the dogs. Adair blackmails him with letters the curate has written to a woman now married; unfortunately he has failed to date his letters fully with the year (as GA didn't do either), making them look compromising. The curate kills him accidentally but escapes discovery.
First periodical publication untraced.
1. Sir Theodore's Guest and Other Stories (1902).
The Next Presentation
Leonard Wolstonholme, a curate with a large family, on L340 a year, is waiting for a reversion of a living occupied by a crusty old canon: the latter is in no hurry to die. He finds a poison plant in the municipal gardens, applies it and gets away with it.
First periodical publication untraced.
1. Sir Theodore's Guest and Other Stories (1902).
APRIL 1902
[On] The Way to Keronan
A young adventurer seeks to enter this holy city of Islam, and on the way rescues an English girl from a fate worse than death. First periodical publication (if any) untraced.
1. Manchester Courier (supplement), 5 Apr 1902, 1.
2. Washington Post, 6 Apr 1902, 38.
JUNE 1902
Lucy Lockett
A superstitious Devon village woman gives her views on child rearing.
First periodical publication in English untraced
1. Leader [Melbourne], 28 June 1902, 29.
DECEMBER 1902
A Telephonist as Matchmaker
A switchboard telephonist listens in on conversations and so helps to solve a love confusion.
First periodical publication in English untraced. Exact English title unclear.
1. Scandinavia, 10 Dec 1902, 7 [in Swedish as 'Telefonisten som aktenskapsstitare'].
1904
Spencerian
1. Booklovers' Magazine (July 1904), --
1912
The Death Jump
A daring circus horse-rider is told he has a heart complaint, but he chooses death rather than give up the thrill of the ring.
First periodical publication in English untraced.
1. Nordstjernan, 17 Dec 1912, 5 [in Swedish as 'Dodshoppet'].
2. Vartland, 15 May 1913, 8.
A Failed Speculation
A broke Army officer pretends that he has gone to Egypt as a volunteer in a cholera epidemic, in the hope that his aunt will pay his debts and recall him. Unfortunately he is reported dead, whereupon his aunt has a stroke and eliminates him from her will before dying.
First periodical publication in English untraced.
1. Nordstjernan, 17 Dec 1912, 5 [in Swedish as 'En misslyckad spekulation'].
1913
The Black Lady
A spooky optical illusion stops a train plunging off a broken bridge just in time.
First periodical publication in English untraced.
1. Vart land. 9 Oct 1913, 10 [in Swedish as 'Svarta damen'. Reprinted from Nordstjernan {North Star}].
FICTION: PROBLEMS AND UNLOCATED ITEMS: Help eagerly sought
A story 'A Modern Pygmalion' was reprinted in the US in the Boston Evening Transcript. UK publication details are sought.
I seek information about the (possible) serialisation details of some remaining GA novels, particularly serializations in newspapers and magazines outside the UK.
According to the Watt Papers, the rights to a story 'Rennell's Remorse' were bought for the Pictorial World in agreement of 12 Oct 1891. Price 100 gns. Nothing more is known of this. The British Library holds a file of this paper but the 1891 volume is 'unfit for use' file of the paper has not been checked.
The Bodleian's records of the Tillotson's Fiction Bureau refer to the following stories, about which nothing more is known: 'Christian Charity' . All publication details are sought. [Thanks to Graham Law for these references.]
The Watt letter books (Berg) have a letter from Watt, 20 May 1891 speaking of GA delivering a story (?) 'The Peripatetic Philosopher' to Black and White. It was paid for by June 6. This has not been traced. There are references also to 'articles' in Black and White. A file of this paper has not been examined.
Penn holds a story [?} MS called 'An Afternoon's Episode' (17pp). Publication details sought.
Penn holds a story [?} MS called 'The Hop-picker: a Phantasm of the Living'. Publication details sought.
Penn holds article and story MSS titled 'The Emancipated Woman', 'Three Little Fables', 'Venetian Sketches', 'Narcissus and Daffodil', 'The Amateur Americans', 'The New Woman Movement', 'Jamaican Reminiscences', and 'The Philistine Turns' (last was probably pub. somewhere on 13 Dec 1882). Publication details of all are sought.
A story 'The Luck of Kamouska' was promised (by advertisement on 9 Nov 1895) in the journal Country House for Issue #2. The BL formerly recorded their file of this periodical as destroyed, but now it is listed in their catalogue. No other holding is known.
I have been unable to determine which novels the following are Danish translations of:
En Selskabsdames Eventyr. Roman. Aut. Danks-norsk Udgave ved Johs. Magnussen. Hjemmets Romanbibliotek, 1905.
The following Polish translations held in the National Library of Poland cannot be identified:
Energiczna panna (1903)
Milioner w opalach (1902, 1903)
Powiesci dziwne
Sila krwi: powiesc (1894, 1928)
According to a letter from Grant Richards to the Italian Corriere della Sera of 26 July 1906, this paper had just paid £10 for the right to publish serially Hilda Wade. Other details are sought.
Acknowledgements
Many people have given help with this bibliography, supplying me with information from their own researches about obscure GA items which I would never have found myself: Jack Adrian, Mike Ashley, Pierre Coustillas, Sabine Ernst, Colin Harris, Chris Gosling, Alan John,Toni Johnson-Woods, Richard Landon, Graham Law (for several obscure reprintings), Xavier Legrand-Ferronniere (for details of French translations), Bernie Lightman, Barbara Arnett Melchiori (particularly for locating, summarising and copying some Allen items in the Cambridge University Library, and for letting me see draft chapters of her book on Allen), a Private Collector (for information and copies of unique items in his collection), Terence Rodgers, Sandra Stelts, and the late Chris Willis. Thanks to others too.
I would like to record my considerable debt to Phil Stephensen-Payne, a science fiction bibliographer, whose own work on Allen was developed to a late stage before we became aware of each other's labours. Among other things, he and his collaborator Virgil Utter made known to me nearly all of the items reprinting Allen's speculative fiction and detective fiction in recent decades, which I would assuredly have missed otherwise. His completed working bibliography (Galactic Central Publications, 1999) offered a valuable means of cross-checking items. However, numerous new items have been located since Phil's bibliography was published a few years ago.
Finally, a special thanks to Victor Berch of Brandeis and Robert Jackson for their formidable ability to uncover so many of GA's previously unknown stories.
****
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse