GA's Non-fiction from 1890
An Annotated Bibliography of GA's Non-fiction from 1890
Last revised: 24 Dec 2019
For the Introduction to this bibliography see Part 1.
No man, probably, ever became by choice a professional writer, a “bookseller's hack,” as our ancestors bluntly but forcibly phrased it. A trade so ill-paid and so overworked would gain no recruits, except for dire necessity. Men are driven into literature, as they are driven into crime, by hunger alone. The most hateful of professions (as a profession, I mean), it becomes tolerable only from a sense of duty to wife and family, or the primary instinct of self-preservation. The wages are low; the prizes few and often fallacious; the work is so hard that it kills or disables most men who undertake it before they arrive at middle life. . . . – 'The Trade of Author' (1889).
Philosophy and science were the first loves of my youth. . . . 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
JANUARY 1890
Sacred Stones
1. Fortnightly Review, 53 (Jan 1890), 97-116.
2. Athenaeum, 18 Oct 1890, ??-??. Unsigned.
FEBRUARY 1890
[Review of Weismann's] Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems. . . .
1. Academy: A Weekly Review of Literature, Science, and Art, 37 (1 Feb 1890), 83-84.
Demos's Maiden Aunt
Against attempts to censor music halls, etc. GA in the unusual, and not very convincing, stance of a supporter of proletarian amusements. The Universal vanished in Dec 1890.
1. Universal Review, 6 (Feb 1890), 198-208.
MARCH 1890
Mountain Stumps
How the great ranges are all geologically speaking quite young; ancient mountains have all been worn down to stumps, outcrops like Charnwood and plains.
MS. 13pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 14 (Mar 1890), 267-278. Unsigned.
2. Living Age, 185 (19 Apr 1890), 161-167. Unsigned.
3. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, 51 (Apr 1890), 516-522. Unsigned.
St George and the Dragon, derived from the Egyptian god Horus
MS. 12pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 14 (Mar 1890), 287-297. Unsigned.
Anonymity? [Letter]
1. New Review, 2 (Mar 1890), 265.
Cap d'Antibes
GA's 'discovery'. 'these lovely nooks have always been seized upon by the wealthy and tasteless//for their experiments in the science of comparative uglification'. But he sings the praises of what is at first sight 'a seemingly dull and monotonous headland'(506-7). On the one side the Bay of Cannes, the Croisette and the little islands of Sainte Marguerite and Saint Honorat, with the hills of the Esterels behind. On the other, Villefranche and Monte Carlo, and as a background to the whole thing, the snowy summits of the Alpes Maritimes. Of Antibes, 'the general aspect of the place, however, is mediaeval' (508). The Hotel du Cap, 'the pleasantest and most home-like house to stop in anywhere on the Riviera' (509. Then almost totally wild. 'When the great purple flowers [of mesembryanthemum] open their round discs to the midday sun, and the music of the breakers resounds from the beaten walls below, one could sit there for ever in the southern sunshine, and forget entirely the bare existence of fogs and strikes and school boards in London' 510. The answer to “Why proclaim it?” is 'there isn't the very slightest danger that the wrong sort of people will ever go to ruralise on the end of the point. . . It's nonsense to talk about all the nice places getting overrun,' he says optimistically. The Cap is now covered by some of the most expensive villas in the world and Allen's hotel is the almost legendary Eden-Roc hotel-resort.
1. Longman's Magazine, 15 (Mar 1890), 505-514.
The Origin of Animals
Animals and plants are not clearly divisible; animals took their rise from 'the motile germs of very low plants'.
1. New Review, 2 (Mar 1890), 254-264.
A Submerged Village
Llanwddyn and Vyrnwy Lake, North Wales. Also elaborates on GA's 'race distinctions' between Celt and Teuton: 'a very great proportion of what is best in our mixed population is has always been of largely Celtic origin' (427).
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 7 (Mar 1890), 421-430.
The Novel of Character
The novel has evolved from fantasy to the 'romance of pure portraiture,' especially in the American novel. He blames periodical publication in England for the hesitancy in following the same path: 'Whoever cooks tales for the Devouring Syndicate must fain season his dish with plenty of pepper, that the consumer's palate may still tingle freshly with undimmed remembrance after a week's intermission'.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 1 (1 March 1890), 225-227.
APRIL 1890
Mr Grant Allen and Oxford
Letter to editor pointing out that he was a Merton graduate and at Oxford 'in residence as a private coach between 1876 and '80'.
1. Outlook, 19 Apr 1890, 346.
Is There a Dominant Race?
1. The Week [Toronto], 7:18 (Apr 1890), 286.
The Gospel According to Herbert Spencer. I. His Cardinal Ideas
1. Pall Mall Gazette, 26 April 1890, 1-2.
The Gospel According to Herbert Spencer. II. The Gist of His System
1. Pall Mall Gazette, 28 April 1890, 1-2.
MAY 1890
The Girl of the Future
This is one of GA's main statements extolling motherhood, women as eugenic gatekeepers, etc.
'It isn't the Quantity but the Quality of our fresh material that is now at stake. . . . the broken-down product of the Oxford Local Examination system will continue to produce on an average two congenitally hysterical and anaemic infants before she finally fades away into thin air at her third childbed (51-2).
“If [a woman were] conscious of possessing valuable and desirable maternal qualities, she would employ them to the best advantage for the State and for her own offspring, by freely commingling them in various directions with the noblest paternal qualities of the men who most attracted her higher nature. And surely a woman who had reached such an elevated ideal of the duties of sex as that would feel she was acting far more right in becoming the mother of a child by this splendid athlete, by that profound thinker, by that nobly-moulded Adonis, by that high-souled poet, than in tying herself down for life to this rich old dotard, to that feeble young lord, to this gouty invalid, to that wretched drunkard, to become the mother of a long family of scrofulous idiots. Which course is in the end the more truly respectable? Which motive is in the last resort the more truly respect-worthy?
…Women will then be as gods, having eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The keys of ethics, of history, of sociology, of economics, will be in their hands to unlock the problem of their sex's destiny(58) … in the end, every sound woman must surely be utilized in the community as an efficient mother of two or three effective children' (59).
Wallace called this version of eugenic gatekeeping 'detestable'.
The editor of the Review added a nervous footnote to this, saying that neither he nor the periodical identified themselves with opinions in signed articles.
1. Universal Review, 7 (May 1890), 49-64.
The Lion's Tale; Antique Lions Decorating the Entrance to the Arsenal at Venice
MS. 11pp. Penn
1. Cornhill Magazine, 14 (May 1890), 484-493. Unsigned.
Woman's Intuition
'The celibate lady lecturer will die unrepresented; the woman with grace, tact, high emotional endowments, pure womanly gifts, will hand down her exquisite and charming qualities to other women, her likes, after her' 333. 'Explains' such intuition in selectionist terms: Those women survived who were quickest to detect the signs of rising wrath in their mates, so escaping the vengeful blow which brained the stupider women lacking the necessary intuitive wisdom.
1. Forum, 9 (May 1890), 333-340.
2. Genius and Woman's Intuition by [Lester] F[rank] Ward and Grant Allen. New York: n.p. [1890]. [Says on cover: 'Reprinted from 'The Forum' vol. ix, June 1890'.]
JUNE 1890
Concerning Thomas
MS. 11pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 14 (June 1890), 628-637. Unsigned.
Our Scientific Causerie: The New Theory of Heredity
The Review of Reviews was founded 1890, and this was GA's first 'causerie' for it.
Weismann's neo-Darwinian theory vs. Darwin's pangenesis. Darwin and Spencer took it for granted that all the properties and qualities of parents were inherited—'both those which are common to the race and those which are acquired by the individual itself during the course of its own lifetime' 537.
Herbert Spencer always insisted upon the importance of habit in producing modification of structures 537.
Darwin…grew gradually in his later years to recognise more and more the importance of this additional factor 537.
Darwin's pangenesis. The weakest effort of that great and acute intellect… He suggested as possible the idea that every organ, and limb, and tissue in the body might have the power of detaching from itself, as it were, little images of its own sort, all of which were present in every germ and every sperm-cell. The germ was thus an epitome of the entire organism 537.
Spencer's Physiological Units. According to this doctrine, the whole organism is made up of parts or units, some of which, indeed, are specially modified to produce special organs, but others of which, remaining undifferentiated in the generalised state, respond sympathetically to every change in the organism as a whole, so that whatever alters or modifies the organism, alters or modifies the physiological units to a proportionate extent. Mr Spencer supposes that all such units are in their own nature capable of reproducing the entire organism, just as a crystal reproduces its predetermined form by its own polarities, and just as the lower animals reproduce lost parts of their own bodies by growth from within. Germ-cell and sperm-cell are physiological units specially told off in higher plants or animals for this work of reproduction; and they rebuild from proper material an entire organism, with all the// modifications impressed upon them potentially during the lifetime of their parents' 537-8
This was the state of opinion on the subject when a few years since Dr Weismann, a well-known German professor, began to attack the same problem from than opposite side. Instead of asking, How can the offspring reproduce such minute variations in the parent? This critical thinker boldly put the prior question, Do the offspring reproduce individual or acquired peculiarities of the parents at all? Searching about for evidence on the subject, Weismann came at last to the startling conclusion that they do nothing of the sort. There is no proof, he says, that the offspring ever resemble parents in any but the qualities which the parents themselves inherited or possessed congenitally—no proof, in other words, that acquired characters, gained during the individual life, are ever transmitted. Having thus completely traversed the accepted view, and altered the venue from Why to Whether acquired characters are transmitted, Weismann started a new theory of his own on the subject, which he calls the “Theory of the Continuity of the Germ-plasm.”
According to this view, each individual plant or animal receives at the outset from its parent or parents a small piece of formative matter, which he calls the germ-plasm. Out of this matter the new organism is developed by gradually taking up other bodies from outside. But at an early date, the germ-plasm, as Weismann believes, separates (roughly speaking) into two parts, out of one of which the new body itself grows, while the other portion persists through life and forms the germ-plasm which the fresh organism transmits in time to its own descendants …. It is extremely hard to understand on this hypothesis the origin of Mind, which has hitherto always been explained by evolutionists as a result of inheritance of accumulated habits… In spite of the difficulties involved in acceptance of Weismann's view, however, it has been enthusiastically accepted in England by the younger Darwinian school… Weismannism became the fashionable creed of the day. Alfred Russel Wallace…gave it the weight of his authority…The old school of Lamarck seemed dead; even the ideas of Herbert Spencer and of Darwin himself as to 'use and disuse' began to be looked upon as antiquated and unphilosophical… At the present moment a reaction has set in; the battle is raging fiercely…Alike in Germany and in England, criticism and doubt as to Weismann's premises are beginning to take place of the paean of exultation…. It need hardly be added that Mr. Herbert Spencer himself still stands out, and holds to his own early theory of Physiological Units in all its integrity…What is wanted now is some decisive experimental settlement of the question. Can it be shown that in any case a capacity or habit acquired beyond a doubt during the life-time of the individual is transmissible to the off-spring? If that can be proved, Weismannism falls at once to the ground, and we revert to the primitive Darwinian and Spencerian problem. 538.
1. Review of Reviews, 1 (June 1890), 537-538.
JULY 1890
My Islands
The evolution of the Azores, done from a god-like perspective.
1. Longman's Magazine, 16 (July 1890), 334-346.
2. My Islands; the Azores: How Plant and Animal Life Developed There. Living Age, 186 (26 July 1890), 222-238.
3. Science in Arcady (1892)
AUGUST 1890
A Desert Fruit
Prickly pear cactus, and the evolution of cacti in general.
1. Prickly-pears. North American Review, 151 (Aug 1890), 223-227.
2. Longman's Magazine, 19 (Feb 1892), 377-386.
3. Desert Plants. The Week [Toronto], 9 :17 (Mar 1892), 266.
4. Popular Science Monthly, 41 (May 1892), 109-117.
5. Science in Arcady (1892).
Fish as Fathers
A wide-ranging article on reproductive habits.
MS. 12pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 15 (Aug 1890), 164-176. Unsigned.
2. Living Age, 186 (6 Sep 1890), 622-629. Unsigned.
3. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, 52 (Sep 1890), 391-397. Unsigned.
4. Science in Arcady (1892).
The Gods of Egypt
1. Universal Review, 8 (Aug 1890), 51-65.
OCTOBER 1890
The Isle of Ruim
Topography of the Isle of Thanet and its reclaimed estuary.
1. Longman's Magazine, 16 (Oct 1890), 654-666.
2. Science in Arcady (1892).
NOVEMBER 1890
Deep-sea Fish
MS. 10pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 15 (Nov 1890), 534-542. Unsigned.
2. Living Age, 187 (13 Dec 1890), 697-702. Unsigned.
3. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, 53 (Jan 1891), 71-76. Unsigned.
A Literary Causerie
Complains about the constraints on English novelists. GA contrasts their position with Maupassant's: he isn't obliged to write for girls, in three volumes; he doesn't have to serialise; he writes for a sympathetic European and American market. In England, the novelist has to 'fling his book point-blank at the head of Mr Mudie's erubescent young person. . . . Sentimentalism and romanticism are the breath of his nostrils. He moves ever in fetters, supplied him by girls from eighteen to thirty'.
1. Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science and the Arts, 2 (1 Nov 1890), 495-496.
DECEMBER 1890
Big Birds
MS 14pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 15 (Dec 1890), 629-641. Unsigned.
2. Living Age, 187 (27 Dec 1890), 812-818. Unsigned.
Why Not Antibes?
1. Pall Mall Budget, 27 Dec 1890.
Promoting the virtues of the Cap, where he wintered regularly. He wonders why everybody 'doesn't come here'. Well later they did.
1891
FEBRUARY 1891
The Celt in English Art
Claims Burne-Jones's Brier Rose and the Sleeping Princess is 'the return-wave of Celtic influence over Teutonic or Teutonized England' and goes on to illustrate this at great length. 'From the very beginning, the modern aesthetic movement in England—which is essentially a movement for the restoration of the decorative arts to their true place in our national life—has been due above everything to Celtic influence' (373). Even Rossetti is roped in as a Celt. This influential essay particularly attracted Wilde, who wrote to GA praising his 'superb assertion of the Celtic spirit in Art that Arnold divined, but did not demonstrate, at any rate in the sense of scientific demonstration such as yours is'. (Letters, ed Hart-Davis, 1962, p.286-7).
1. Fortnightly Review, 55 (Feb 1891), 267-277.
2. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, 53 (Mar 1891), 369-376.
3. [London: Chapman & Hall], 1891.
The Heart of London
1. Longman's Magazine, 17 (Feb 1891), 378-386.
APRIL 1891
On the Wings of the Wind
Natural contrivances for seed dispersal by the wind.
MS. 12pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 16 (April 1891), 366-375. Unsigned.
2. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, 53 (June 1891), 731-736.
3. Science in Arcady (1892).
From Grant Allen Esq. Author of Philistia, In All Shades, etc etc.
11 May 88. … Might I take the liberty of asking you if you would kindly give a few lines which I could add to a future edition of my circular, that is to say, if I have done the work with which you have kindly entrusted me to your satisfaction. [Watt]
'The Nook, Dorking. April 17, 1891. My Dear Watt, Why, certainly. Nothing could give me greater pleasure than to testify publicly to the great advantage I have derived from your management of my business. In three ways, it seems to me, I've benefited by placing my manuscripts in your hands. First, I've been able to find room for them as serials in mediums which I would never have thought of approaching personally. Second, I've got something for American, colonial, and foreign rights. And third, I've been saved a lot of fuss and bother. And as our relations have been always most cordial in every way, I have never had any cause to regret having put my financial affairs entirely under your supervision. If other fellows will do the same, I don't doubt they'll have reason to be equally satisfied. Yours very sincerely, Grant Allen.'
1. Collection of Letters Addressed to A.P. Watt by Various Writers. London: Literary Agency, 1893, pp.1-2.
The Peripatetic Philosopher
A causerie on miscellaneous subjects which lasted for three issues. This one covers the last winter (GA was returning from Antibes), the American copyright act, and a fire warning in a theatre in Paris.
1. Black and White, 25 April 1891), 362.
MAY 1891
The Greenwood Tree
Nutrition of plants; plants as solidified gas.
MS. 11pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 16 (May 1991), 493-503. Unsigned.
2. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, 53 (June 1891), 805-811. Unsigned.
2. Science in Arcady (1892).
Democracy and Diamonds
A fierce attack on materialism and social snobbery, typified by the wearing of diamonds.
1. Contemporary Review, 59 (May 1891), 666-677.
The Peripatetic Philosopher
On a late Spring; on the meanness over funding a new art gallery (the Tate?); comparison with the Antwerp gallery; on Hedda Gabler and its censorious critics.
1. Black and White, 9 May 1891), 434.
The Peripatetic Philosopher
A critique of Holman Hunt’s May Morning on Magdalen Tower; News from Nowhere versus Spencer; Q’s Noughts and Crosses; causerie on miscellaneous subjects which lasted for three issues.
1. Black and White, 23 May 1891), 506.
JUNE 1891
The King's Luck
MS. 12pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 16 (June 1891), 601-611. Unsigned.
2. Living Age, 190 (1 Aug 1891), 310-316. Unsigned.
The Mystery of Birth
'No peculiarity of living creatures – be they plants or animals – seems more mysterious to the average mind…' Really on reproduction, asexual and sexual, in plants and animals. Allen reworked this for a Fortnightly article in 1895.
1. New Review, 4 (June 1891), 531-539.
Letters in Philistia: a Bourgeois Literature
A radical piece on censorship. GA's airy claim that Parnell's adultery was nothing more than a breach of etiquette and equivalent to cracking your egg at the 'wrong' end was particularly execrated. A very energetic piece. Probably only Frank Harris would have published it: 'It gave sinister evidence of its power the other day, when it managed almost to overthrow the strongest man in Ireland for a breach of etiquette – if I remember aright, he'd broken an egg at the little end, or got out of a house without the aid of a footman' . As in other pieces, GA's point is not that writers must write what people want to read, but that readers take their tastes from a few narrow-minded arbiters.
1. Fortnightly Review, 55 (June 1891), 947-962.
2. Letters in Philistia. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, 54 (July 1891), 114-124.
AUGUST 1891
High Life
Showing how and why alpine flowers, not tropical ones, have the finest blooms.
MS. 12pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 17 (Aug 1891), 169-178. Unsigned.
2. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, 54 (Sep 1891), 363-368.
3. Living Age, 191 (10 Oct 1891), 111-116. Unsigned.
4. Popular Science Monthly, 40 (Nov 1891), 108-116. Unsigned.
5. Science in Arcady (1892).
Note on a New Poet
Demonstrates GA's spectacular lack of critical judgement in promoting William Watson as a poetic genius: 'the name that some day will be famous.' Watson was a Lane author, b.1858. Had two sides: as a serious rhetorical, high minded poet, and a producer of comic verse. Took to journalism. Anti-decadent. Rabelasian letter writer. A drunk and mentally unstable – prosecuted for an attack on royalty.
1. Fortnightly Review, 56 (Aug 1891), 196-202.
2. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, 54 (Oct 1891), 517-521.
3. Living Age, 191 (17 Oct 1891), 186-190.
The First Sundew
1. The Week [Toronto], 8:38 (Aug 1891), 610.
Autumn at Meran
Visit in October to Merano, on the southern side of the Alps.
1. Pall Mall Gazette, 5 Nov 1891, 1-2.
The Heart of the Tyrol
A 10 mile hike up to the Schloss Tyrol. GA describes himself as a 'miserable wreck'.
1. Pall Mall Gazette, 30 Nov 1891, 3.
A Tyrolese Kurort
A reworking of the two articles above. First English publication untraced.
1. Argus [Melbourne], 12 Dec 1891, 4.
DECEMBER 1891
Mud
The history and evolution of the alluvial plains; the first home of civilisation.
MS. 12pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 17 (Dec 1891), 617-627. Unsigned.
2. Science in Arcady (1892).
The Mistletoe Bough
The 'golden bough' and its anthropological significance.
MS. 12pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 17 (Dec 1891), 599-608. Unsigned.
2. Living Age, 192 (13 Feb 1892), 421-426. Unsigned.
Memories of Fontainebleau
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 9 (Dec 1891), 201-208.
Scope of Modern English Literature
1. Current Literature, 8 (Dec 1891), 481.
1892
Science in Arcady
Reprints 16 essays from Longman's, Cornhill, Gentleman's, and North American Review, all located.
1. London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1892.
2. London: George Routledge and Sons/New York: E.P. Dutton, 1892. Reprinted 1904.
3. London & Bombay: George Bell and Sons, 1894.
4. A New Edition. London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1897.
5. London: Gibbings, 1903.
6. Ottawa : CIHM, 1980. Four microfiches of the Lawrence & Bullen, 1892 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #05069.
The Tidal Thames. With Twenty Full-page Photogravure Plates Printed on India Paper, and Other Illustrations, After Original Drawings, by W. L. Wyllie, and Descriptive Letterpress by G. Allen.
Some of GA's best easy descriptive prose: a narrative of a trip on the yawl Puffin up the Thames from the estuary mouth to London Bridge. GA adds a note, pp.133-134: “My part of this joint production was written and finished some eight or more years ago. The necessity for revising and submitting . . . his sketches for the volume delayed my fellow-worker's portion of our joint task . . . . I have allowed it all to stand, however, just as I originally wrote it.”
1. London/Paris/Melbourne: Cassell, [1892].
2. Ottawa: CIHM, 1985. Three microfiches of the Cassell, [1892] ed. Copy in the Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #44158.
C. Valeri Catulli Attin annotavit, illustravit, anglice reddidit Carolus Grant Allen, B.A. Coll Merton. Apud Oxon. Olim Portionista. The Attis of Caius Valerius Catullus. Translated into English Verse, with Dissertations on the Myth of Attis, on the Origin of Tree-worship, and on the Galliambic Metre. By Grant Allen, B.A., Formerly Postmaster of Merton College, Oxford.
GA's introduction offers this as his first appearance as a 'versifier'. 'It is now nearly twenty years ago that I read Catullus's masterpiece with my class of students in an abortive little government college in Spanish Town, Jamaica. After the lads had mastered the poem from the purely linguistic and grammatical point of view, I noticed that they didn't appear to have the slightest conception of the literary merit and human interest of that marvellous outburst of impassioned song.' ix Anthropology rather than poetry, promoting GA's ideas about the origin of religion. GA saw himself as being able to offer a connecting link between Spencer and Frazer's Golden Bough. (Frazer promoted a theory of animism: the earliest gods took the form of the animals of the hunt, and later in the pastoral stage, as corn or fruit-tree gods, or human shapes personifying them.) 'The main idea of my essays is thus briefly this—that while all gods were originally ghosts, sacred trees and tree-gods owe their sanctity to having grown in the first place on the tumulus or barrow of the deified ancestor'. Xi. GA's second 'excursus' offers many illustrations of his combination theory: bleeding or speaking trees connected with burial mounds. Why though were ghosts connected to vegetation-growth? The piled soil was deep mould, and therefore be especially green. (Tumuli began long before the cultivation stage.) The corpse, plus those of servants, animals etc would add fertility. Blood, milk, oil etc would be poured on the mound, manuring it. The grass and bushes on the mound would therefore appear miraculous. GA sees cultivation and farming as possibly arising from this, not the 'kitchen midden' theory. This connects with the earth-god sacrifices, scattered in the fields to ensure fertility, of Frazer's theory. Frazer conceded that this was not just a propitiatory sacrifice. The 'meriah' was himself regarded as more than mortal. 'I would venture to differ, with all deference and humility, as of a scholar towards his master, from Mr Grazer, in the explanation which he gives… To him the human god, who is so frequently sacrificed for the benefit of the crops, is envisaged as primarily the embodiment of vegetation: I would make bold to suggest, on the contrary, that the corn or other crop is rather itself regarded as the embodiment or ghost of the divine personage' 52. Sacred stones and trees go together.
Excursus III: On the galliambic metre is severely technical. The metre is given as: 'we shall treat it as an essentially iambic-anapestic rhythm, with resolution of the last foot but one into a tribrach. More definitely we might say, the measure consists of two halves, divided by a caesura; the first half being composed of an anapest, two iambi, and a long syllable, while the second consists of an anapest, a tribrach, and again an iambus' 128.
This book is the one referred to twice in the hands of the 'poor bibliophile' in the Sherlock Holmes story 'The Adventure of the Empty House.'
1. Londini MDCCCXCII. Apud Davidem Nutt in Via Dicta Strand/London: David Nutt, 1892. Bibliothèque de Carabas, v.6. [Edited by Andrew Lang.]
2. Ghost Worship and Tree Worship [extracts]. Popular Science Monthly, 42 (Feb 1893), 489-504; (Mar 1893), 648-662.
3. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Two microfiches of the David Nutt, 1892 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #03848.
FEBRUARY 1892
Pretty Poll
The evolution and variety of parrots.
MS. 15pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 18 (Feb 1892), 167-179. Unsigned.
2. Living Age, 193 (2 April 1892), 43-50. Unsigned.
3. Science in Arcady (1892).
MAY 1892
Big Bills
MS. 13pp. Penn.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 18 (May 1892), 517-527. Unsigned.
A Persistent Nationality
Survival of elements of Etruscan religion in modern Tuscany – invariably repellent and horrible themes. GA took a very different view of the Etruscans to D.H. Lawrence. GA said in the preface to Science in Arcady, ie in 1892, that the article “has still to be introduced to an English audience”.
1. North American Review, 148 (May 1889), 602-606.
2. Science in Arcady (1892).
JULY 1892
Fiction and Mrs Grundy
A lengthy, vigorous assault on censorship, mostly using Hardy's Tess as an example.
1. Novel Review, 2 (July 1892), 294-315.
The Worm Turns
“I have often been laughed at for saying in print that the English author, unless rich enough actually to defy his public, must work under painfully soul-killing restrictions. May I be permitted briefly to recount a recent experience of mine which proves my thesis?
For years those who know me well have said to me frequently, “Why do you never put anything of yourself into your novels?” But I knew my public too well; I gave it itself instead – which is what it wanted. Some months since, however, I was tempted by conscience to set to work at a more serious romance on a social theme that deeply interested me. I got absorbed in it; I was carried away by the subject; I wrote at white heat, in a glowing fever of moral enthusiasm. I put my soul into the thing. I put my religion into it. And I wrought long and hard at it, with graver and burnisher, till I believed for once I had made a work of art. It was a part -- a small part, a first instalment -- of the authentic Message which, rightly or wrongly, I imagine the Power that inheres in the universe had implanted in me for transmission to humanity. When it was finished, I gave it to a publisher who is also a personal friend, and in whose judgement I have absolute confidence -- he knows his public even better than I do. After reading it, he implored me in the strongest terms not to publish. He said the book would ruin me. Nobody would afterwards take any other novel of mine. It would spoil my future. I am a very sane monomaniac. I yielded at once to his advice. I dare run no such risk. I shall destroy the manuscript.
I hope those who read this note, so wrung out of me, will pardon its egotism. However insignificant a man may seem to others, to himself the failure of his life-work must always be a tragedy.
But after this, nobody, I am sure, can ever laugh at me for saying free thought is gagged in England. GRANT ALLEN”. N. MacColl was ed. 1871-1900. This letter was reprinted without comment in the Pall Mall Gazette in the same week.
1. Athenaeum (30 July 1892), 160.
AUGUST 1892
Eight-legged Friends
One of GA's best naturalist essays, on two spiders minutely observed over a season.
1. Longman's Magazine, 20 (Aug 1892), 365-376.
2. The Spider and the Wasp [extract]. New York Times, 11 Sep 1892, 18.
3. Spider Webs [extract]. New York Times, 9 Oct 1892, 18.
4. In Spider Webs: How the Busy Insects Build Their Geometrical Snares. Washington Post, 6 Nov 1892, 12.
5. Science in Arcady (1892).
Shelley the Seer
Letter to the editor promoting Shelley as 'the Apostle of Revolt, which is the one divine thing in this chaotic universe.' This was apropos Shelley celebrations and the likelihood of a memorial to him at University College Oxford, from which he had been ejected.
1. Pall Mall Gazette, 4 Aug 1892.
SEPTEMBER 1892
My First Book
GA's only piece of sustained autobiography. The ultimate source for some of the facts of his life: Clodd must have plundered it for his biography. GA writes with thoroughly self-deprecating irony and detachment about his career, especially about his trade as a novelist. The Idler was founded 1892 as one of the new illustrated monthlies in competition with the Strand.
1. Illustrations by George Hutchinson and Miss Fuller. Idler: An Illustrated Magazine, 2 Sep 1892, 154-163.
2. 'Physiological Aesthetics' and 'Philistia'. My First Book. With an Introduction by Jerome K. Jerome. London Chatto & Windus, 1894. [Incorporates minor changes from #1.]
How It Feels To Die. By One Who Has Tried It
1. Pall Mall Gazette, 3 Sep 1892, 1-2.
NOVEMBER 1892
'Cauld Iron'
Theory about the origins of the folklore belief in iron (eg horseshoes) as a remedy against witches, fairies etc.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 19 (Nov 1892), 520-530. Unsigned.
DECEMBER 1892
Bates of the Amazons
An admirable summary of the career of the great naturalist, including some personal reminiscences.
1. Fortnightly Review, 58 (Dec 1892), 798-809.
2. Living Age, 196 (11 Mar 1893), 679-687.
Tennyson's Homes at Aldworth and Farringford
Another hymn in praise of the Surrey countryside: Black Down.
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 10 (Dec 1892), 146-156.
1893
A Note on the Author
1. James Runciman, Side Lights. With Memoir by Grant Allen, and Introduction by W. T. Stead. Edited by John F. Runciman. London: T. F. Unwin, 1893. Runciman was a journalist and schoolteacher who died young. In his 'Note' to this final collection of Runciman's essays, GA reveals the astonishing information (available nowhere else) that he, GA, acted for years as the agony aunt and contributor to the working-class paper the Family Herald. He says: 'For many years I had answered the correspondence and written the social essays in that excellent little journal [the Family Herald]-- a piece of work on which I am not ashamed to say that I always look back with affectionate pleasure. … It needed a writer sufficiently well educated to answer a wide range of questions on the most varied topics, yet sufficiently acquainted with the habits, ideas, and social codes of the lower middle class and the labouring people to throw himself readily into their point of view on endless matters of life and conduct. Above all, it needed a man who could sympathise genuinely with the simplest of his fellows. The love troubles of housemaids, the perplexities as to etiquette, or as to practical life among shop-girls and footmen, must strike him, not as ludicrous, but as subjects for friendly advice and assistance. … Those who do not know the nature of the task may smile; but the man who answers the Family Herald correspondence, stands in the position of confidant and father-confessor to tens of thousands of troubled and anxious souls among his fellow-countrymen, and still more his fellow-countrywoman.' [None of these contributions have been examined; they would be most interesting.] An unknown contributor adds: 'Those clever people who - though they have never read it - are accustomed to sneer at the Family Herald, will learn with some surprise that the short essays which form an "improving" feature of that journal were for years written by no less a person than the late James Runciman; moreover, that prior to his taking the work up, it was done by Grant Allen. It seems that the essays and the Answers to Correspondents go together, and are paid for at the rate of L300 a year.' [Reprinted in the NZ Star, 10 Feb 1894.]
Preface
'the public straightway desires to know a large number of curious little details about you which ought to be left to your conscience, your cook, and the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. When does the Great Man rise? How does he take his tub? What does he eat for breakfast? 12
1. Raymond Blathwayt, Interviews. With Portraits, and a Preface by Grant Allen. London: A.W. Hall, 1893.
FEBRUARY 1893
Unsuspected Englishmen
Etymology of forenames – those used all over Europe are of English/Low Dutch origin, except for those derived from the Bible.
1. Longman's Magazine, 21 (Feb 1893), 360-373.
I. – Post-prandial Philosophy. The Struggle for Life among Languages
The first of GA's 56 pieces for this new Newnes evening paper, started 31 Jan 1893. E. T. Cook was ed. 1893-6. It was touted as a 'new high-class Liberal evening paper' and designed to preserve the political continuity of the PMG which had changed proprietor. A feature of ads for it were: 'Among the features already arranged for is a Column by Mr. GRANT ALLEN, which will appear twice a week, dealing with Popular Science and other matters.'
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (2 Feb 1893), 3.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
II. – Post-prandial Philosophy. Concerning Art Production
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (8 Feb 1893), 3.
2. Anent Art Production. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
III. – Post-prandial Philosophy. Science in Education
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (11 Feb 1893), 4.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
IV. – Post-prandial Philosophy. The Theory of Scapegoats
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (15 Feb 1893), 4.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
V. – Post-prandial Philosophy. American Duchesses
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (22 Feb 1893), 4.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
VI. – Post-prandial Philosophy. Is England Played Out?
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (25 Feb 1893), 4.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
MARCH 1893
VII. – Post-prandial Philosophy. On the Casino Terrace
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (1 Mar 1893), 4.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
VIII. – Post-prandial Philosophy. The Role of Prophet
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (8 Mar 1893), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
IX. – Post-prandial Philosophy. The Romance of the Clash of Races
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (15 Mar 1893), 4.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
X. – Post-prandial Philosophy. The Monopolist Instincts
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (23 Mar 1893), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
The Riviera
Divided into short articles with the following headings: 'In the days of the Doges', 'Origin of the name', 'The blue bay of Cannes', 'Ste. Marguerite and St. Honorat', 'Historical associations', 'The Rue L'Antibes', 'The rock of Monaco', '"Notre Dame de la Roulette"', 'From Monte Carlo to Mentone', 'San Remo', 'A romantic railway'.
1. Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly Magazine, 35 (Mar 1893), 273-288.
2. [Pp. 273-281 of #1 only.] Ch. VII of The Mediterranean: its Storied Cities and Venerable Ruins by TG Bonney, EAR Ball, HD Traill, Grant Allen [et al]. New York: James Pott, 1902.
APRIL 1893
The Epic of April
Proves his point that 'the drama of nature runs through five acts daily' by spotting new developments in the countryside for almost each individual day of an April. 'I stand aghast with surprise at the foolishness of men that choose rather of deliberate predilection the bare flags of towns, on the singular ground that they see, as they say, 'more life there'! More life, forsooth! Why, the town is above all things dull, void, and lifeless' (626).
1. Longman's Magazine, 21 (Apr 1893), 615-626.
XI. – Post-prandial Philosophy. “Mere Amateurs”
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (1 Apr 1893), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
XII. – Post-prandial Philosophy. A Squalid Village
A denunciation of London architecture which aroused some comment.
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (8 Apr 1893), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
XIII. – Post-prandial Philosophy. Concerning Zeitgeist
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (15 Apr 1893), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
XIV. – Post-prandial Philosophy. The Game and the Rules
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (26 Apr 1893), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
JUNE 1893
The Anabasis of London
A fanciful prediction of what could happen if a 'Land Appropriation Act' were passed. The most 'most beautiful and romantic portions of the country' would be preserved, but for the rest there would be /'such an exodus from the Thames Valley to the Surrey hills and the heights of the Chilterns as left the congested centre half deserted.' It didn't quite work out that way. (1-2)
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (7 June 1893), 1-2.
XV. – Post-prandial Philosophy. Eye Versus Ear
1. Westminster Gazette, 1 (27 June 1893), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
JULY 1893
XVI. – Post-prandial Philosophy. The Political Pupa
1. Westminster Gazette, 2 (24 July 1893), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
XVII. – Post-prandial Philosophy. Concerning Aristocracy
1. Westminster Gazette, 2 (31 July 1893), 1-2.
2. In the Matter of Aristocracy. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
Beautiful London*
A savagely mocking catalogue of London's 'attractive' features, contrasted ironically with those of other European cities - a follow-up to 'A Squalid Village' in the Westminster Gazette, which had been much decried, eg in the Athenaeum [according to GA; not located.] Quite a tour-de-force of sarcastic irony.
1. Fortnightly Review, 60 (July 1893), 42-54.
AUGUST 1893
Night Life
1. Cornhill Magazine, 21 (Aug 1893), 136-145. Unsigned.
A Historic Reminiscence
A short amusing fantasy in protest against Karl Pearson's recent National Life and Character. GA imagines himself in a previous incarnation as Egyptian and Roman, being lectured about the 'inferiority' of the Greeks and the northern Europeans respectively. Ends: 'I lived once for three years in close intimacy with a black population, and I could never for the life of me see that negros and negresses were anything on earth but just you and me with woollier hair and flatter features' (2). GA expressed rather different sentiments at the time of his closer association in Jamaica.
1. Westminster Gazette, 2 (29 Aug 1893), 1-2.
2. Gleaner [Jamaica], 25 Sep 1893, 7.
SEPTEMBER 1893
The First Engineer
On moles.
1. Cornhill Magazine, 21 (Sep 1893), 259-268. Unsigned.
Immortality and Resurrection
1. Fortnightly Review, 60 (Sep 1893), 317-328.
2. The Hand of God (1909).
The Tuscan Nationality
1. National Review, 22 (Sep 1893), 83-??
2. Living Age, 199 (28 Oct 1893), 195-204.
3. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science and Art, 121 (1893), 837- ??
NOVEMBER 1893
XVIII. – Post-prandial Philosophy. The Celtic Fringe
1. Westminster Gazette, 2 (23 Nov 1893), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
DECEMBER 1893
XIX. – Post-prandial Philosophy. The Decline of Marriage*
1. Westminster Gazette, 2 (4 Dec 1893), 1-2.
2. Current Literature, 15 (Mar 1894), 234.
3. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
XX. – Post-prandial Philosophy. Concerning Abroad
1. Westminster Gazette, 2 (12 Dec 1893), 1-2.
2. About Abroad. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
XXI. – Post-prandial Philosophy. Why England is Beautiful
1. Westminster Gazette, 2 (19 Dec 1893), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
The Modest Scorpion
1. Cornhill Magazine, 21 (Dec 1893), 643-654. Unsigned.
2. Living Age, 200 (20 Jan 1894), 175-182. Unsigned.
1894
Post-prandial Philosophy
Reprints 25 essays, some slightly modified, from the Westminster Gazette, all located. They give the best insight into GA's social and political thinking. Of them Richard Le Gallienne wrote: 'Think what a clearness of conception, what a mastery of literary expression and illustration, it means to be able in eight or ten pages to deal, far from superficially but invariably striking bedrock, with topics of such breadth of range and world-wide significance as those which for the most part Mr Allen takes for his themes: the big, ever-enduring, ever-changing problems of the relations of races, nations, societies, sexes, and individuals. And all discussed with such bonhomie, such playful humour, such grace, and sometimes even beauty of expression. Slight as these essays seem (for the slightness is only in the seeming), they form, I almost think, the most important book Mr Allen has given us . . . pellets of philosophical dynamite admirably contrived for the waistcoat pocket'. [Review in Retrospective Reviews, II, 93].
Chatto wrote on 15 Jan 1894: 'We shall be pleased to undertake the republication in book form of your Post-prandial Philosophy on the basis of a royalty 15 per cent on every copy sold as in the case of your other three volumes of Essays into which category this seems to come; or if you would prefer I should be pleased to give L50 for the remaining book rights. I am sorry that philosophy is not at a better quotation'. GA took the cash.
1. London: Chatto & Windus, 1894. [Probably pub. March]
2. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Three microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1894 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Serial #05061.
The Wrongfulness of Riches
1. Vox Clamantium: the Gospel of the People by Writers, Preachers and Workers. Brought Together by Andrew Reid. London: A.D. Innes, 1894.
Introduction
1. James Rodway, In the Guiana Forest. Studies of Nature in Relation to the Struggle for Life. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1894.
2. T. Fisher Unwin, ed. Good Reading about Many Books Mostly by their Authors. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1894-5.
The Isocratic Party
1. The New Party, Described by some of its Members. Edited by Andrew Reid. (London: Hodder Brothers, 1894), pp.1-10.
Contains some evidence that (a) Allen had been, and was, somehow involved in the internal politics of the Liberal Party, and (b) that he supported the formation of a broad based `Labour Party' that would take over the mantle of the 'party of progress' from Gladstone's Liberal Party. Andrew Reid was a prominent Liberal Radical, closely connected to the Christian Socialist movement. Reviewing The New Party on 29 June 1894, the Times called it 'the most foolish book, not of the week, but of the year' and said of Allen: 'Everybody knows that Mr Grant Allen can write very nicely about birds and butterflies, and can expound the Darwinian theory quite intelligently. . . . Science and literature, however, do not content him; he must attain political eminence as well'. (Thanks to Terry Rodgers for this item.)
JANUARY 1894
XXII. – Post-prandial Philosophy. Imagination and Radicals
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (2 Jan1894), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
XXIII. – Post-prandial Philosophy. A Glimpse into Utopia*
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (9 Jan1894), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
XXIV. – Post-prandial Philosophy. Of Second Chambers
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (16 Jan1894), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
XXV. – Post-prandial Philosophy. About Moral Commonplaces
'Have you ever come across the Positivist Review?' This article was apparently omitted from the book version.
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (23 Jan1894), 1-2.
XXVI. – Post-prandial Philosophy. A Point of Criticism
'Talking in this place a few days ago, I ventured to remark that in Utopia or the Millennium the women of the community would probably be supported in common by the labour of the men . . . Now I get a great many letters in answer to these Post Prandials; and some of them, strange to say, are not wholly complimentary.'
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (30 Jan1894), 1-2.
2. Post-prandial Philosophy (1894).
Insect Gods
1. Cornhill Magazine, 22 (Jan 1894), 45-55. Unsigned.
2. The Hand of God (1909).
Character Sketch: Professor Tyndall
A lengthy obituary article reviewing his career. GA is eager to claim Tyndall as an Irishman: 'a thorough-going Celt in physique and temperament. He had the iron constitution, the wiry strength, the reckless love of danger and adventure, the fervid imagination, the fiery zeal, the abundant eloquence, the somewhat flowery rhetoric, the tenderness of heart, the munificent generosity which distinguish the character of his Celtic countrymen' (22). No wonder GA liked to be thought a Celt himself.
1. Review of Reviews, 9 (Jan 1894), 21-26.
2. Professor John Tyndall. Review of Reviews (American ed.), 9 (Feb 1894), 172-178.
FEBRUARY 1894
Botticelli's 'Spring'
Letter to the editor giving GA's interpretation of the allegory in the painting.
1. Academy: A Weekly Review of Literature, Science, and Art, 45 (3 Feb 1894), 109-110.
An Interlude of Guillotines
A witty response to an objector who had complained that GA's views would lead to revolution.
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (6 Feb1894), 1-2.
Victorian Literature
How hard for a critic properly to appreciate the work being done in his own maturity – the literature soon to come will be didactic.
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (13 Feb1894), 1-2.
The Evolution of the House
How the defensive plan for houses (a blank wall and inner courtyard) is the standard; the modern house is a quite recent development.
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (20 Feb1894), 1-2.
The Burden of the Specialist
Specialists are invaluable in society, but the generalist is happier. 'A country walk will be richer in his eyes if he knows the birds and beasts, the flowers and insects. A Continental trip will be the richer in his eyes if he can delight his soul as much in a Mantegna or a Van der Weyden, in the spires of Cologne or the façade of the Certosa, as in the Boulevards and the Opera, the Rigi or the Matterhorn. Geology, history, poetry, make the world the fuller for him. Here rolled the triassic sea: here brooded the ice plain: here Francesca paced the grey streets of Rimini. Every subject in which human thought can steep itself adds to the pleasure and the depth of life. That is why it were well to make the basis of our education as wide, as real, and as varied as possible. Let us ground our boys and girls in realities, not words: in knowledge of life and the world they live in, not in irregular verbs and rules of syntax. Superadd upon that, if you will, the technical principles of their chosen profession. But make men and women of them first, specialists afterwards.'
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (27 Feb1894), 1-2.
MARCH 1894
Explosive Energy
Social reform is always a product of a charge finally reaching detonation, even in England.
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (6 Mar 1894), 1-2.
The Endowment of the Thinker
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (13 Mar 1894), 1-2.
The Dead Level of Mediocrity
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (20 Mar 1894), 1-2.
London Provincialism
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (27 Mar 1894), 1-2.
Defence not Defiance
1. Cornhill Magazine, 22 (Mar 1894), 286-296. Unsigned.
Queen Dido's Realm
Description of a wasp colony.
1. Longman's Magazine, 23 (Mar 1894), 521-531.
The New Hedonism
An influential piece inveighing against asceticism and puritanism and (implicitly) perverse, Decadent aestheticism: 'painting and sculpture, nude limbs of classic nymphs . . innocent love, innocent pleasure'. The power of the (heterosexual) impulse is, via sexual selection, responsible for everything good and beautiful in life: the song of birds, the pleasing shapes of flowers, fruits and animals, our sense of duty, paternal and maternal love…. Condemns the 'money-grubbers' for whom 'love is a thing to be got over once for all in early life, and relegated thenceforth to the back parlour of existence in the most business-like way, so that the mind may be free for the serious affairs of alternating psalm-singing and retail trading'. Another piece that was severely criticised and gave rise to much debate. Frank Harris ceased to be editor of FR in October.
According to John Stokes, the phrase was regarded as code in some circles for homosexuality; GA may have taken it from Dorian Grey.
1. Fortnightly Review, 61 (Mar 1894), 377-392.
2. New York: Tucker Publishing, [1900]. Balzac Library, #68.
APRIL 1894
Pastoral Advice
The supreme need to visit Italy, long and often; it is the 'antipodes' of England.
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (4 Apr 1894), 1-2.
How to Grow Anarchists
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (17 Apr 1894), 1-2.
Fra Angelico at San Marco
The paintings in the convent at Florence: 'attempts to get at the idea in the painter's design are not art criticism. But they are, I maintain, the condition-precedent of all sound art criticism.' That was what GA addressed in all these essays on paintings, with conspicuous success. PMM was founded 1893 as another of the illustrated monthlies.
1. Pall Mall Magazine, 2 (Apr 1894), 892-903.
The Sweet Tooth
1. Cornhill Magazine, 22 (Apr 1894), 369-380. Unsigned.
MAY 1894
About Raw Material
Art, especially building and sculpture, depends on local and natural raw material. 'As the civilisation of the Nile is based on mud and granite, so the civilisation of Greece is based on sea and marble. . . . take the horrid example of our own squalid village, plumped down in the midst of a basin of brick earth, which has given us the architectural glories of Gower-street and the artistic variety of Mayfair and Belgravia'.
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (2 May 1894), 1-2.
The Philosophy of Nettles
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (8 May 1894), 1-2.
Some Ethnical Fallacies
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (15 May 1894), 1-2.
Two Streams of Tendency
The two antithetical tendencies in Victorian feminism: 'Lock up the men!' and 'Give the women a latch-key!'
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (22 May 1894), 1-2.
The Beginnings of Speech
1. Longman's Magazine, 24 (May 1894), 58-67.
The Origin of Cultivation
1. Fortnightly Review, 61 (May 1894), 578-582.
Toft and Croft
1. Cornhill Magazine, 22 (May 1894), 521-531. Unsigned.
JUNE 1894
About an Ugly City
Ugliness or otherwise no indicator of their treasures: 'Nothing to see in Milan, indeed! Why, the Brera alone would give you work for a twelvemonth.'
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (5 June 1894), 1-2.
John Burns and Cimabue
1. Westminster Gazette, 3 (20 June 1894), 1-2.
JULY 1894
The Annual Exodus
In America there is a great deal of land, but no country. In fact, country is almost exclusively an English creation; only in England can one live in the deep country as well as in the cities, as all the civilised amenities are available there.
1. Westminster Gazette, 4 (9 July 1894), 1-2.
The New Man
'I occupy a middle place in this controversy, because, while I don't care two straws for Mrs Grundy and her absurd conventions, I believe profoundly in the sanctity of the home, the child, the parental relation. / . . . The New Woman in her best avatar will surely choose him; what she chooses in her worst matters nothing to anybody. He will not be a mere machine for money-making; nor will he be a feeble and fatuous sinner of strange sins, with a face like one of Aubrey Beardsley's posters. The sound and wholesome girl who has been educated and elevated is not going to accept the man of the music-halls or the man of the race-course. She will have a Man; he must be a person worthy of her' (2).
1. Westminster Gazette, 4 (16 July 1894), 1-2.
AUGUST 1894
Shaping the Ages
1. Westminster Gazette, 4 (7 Aug 1894), 1-2.
Provincial London
1. Westminster Gazette, 4 (21 Aug 1894), 1-2.
SEPTEMBER 1894
Something in a Name
1. Westminster Gazette, 4 (21 Sep 1894), 1-2.
The Cinderella of Civilisation
History and use of rubber.
1. Longman's Magazine, 24 (Sep 1894), 492-501.
About the New Hedonism
Answering 'The New Hedonism' by T.G. Bonney in Humanitarian, 5 (Aug 1894), 106-113 which was a critique of GA's 'The New Hedonism'. Fortnightly Review, 61 (Mar 1894), 377-392. GA repeats that he deplores Christian asceticism, and rejects Christianity, especially the idea of the afterlife. 'The mere fact that somebody has asserted or believed a thing is no presumptive evidence of its reality. I don't investigate the truth of the Phoenix' 182. As to the teaching of the Gospels, that is not in any ordinary sense Christianity. A great part of it is universal morality; a small part of it is now obsolete or is distinctly ascetic, and much of it is clearly unpractical' 183. GA defines his position about sexual ethics: “I am a Social Purity man . . . our existing system is not, as people hypocritically pretend, a system of pure monogamous marriage; it is a mixed system of marriage and prostitution, or rather, if one treats it from the practical side in the order in which most men come to know it, a mixed system of prostitution and marriage. The greater number of men are introduced to the sexual life through prostitution alone; they bringing at last to marriage and the production of future // generations only the leavings and relics of an effete constitution. . . . Hardly one man in ten brings to marriage and child-getting an unimpaired virility” (184-5).
In case anyone got the wrong idea GA was linking himself with Wilde or Pater (the 'New Hedonism' phrase appears in Dorian Gray), he also spoke against the idea that 'the New Hedonism would regard without dislike or disgust certain hateful and unnatural vices of Graeco-Roman society. . . . I can find no language sufficiently strong to say with what dislike and repulsion I regard such vices' (184).
1. Humanitarian: A Monthly Review of Sociological Science, 5 (Sep 1894), 181-185.
OCTOBER 1894
Epochs of Health
1. Westminster Gazette, 4 (10 Oct 1894), 1-2.
The Complexity of Things
On the moor near my house I have long observed certain strange mounds and dykes of clearly human origin'.
1. Westminster Gazette, 4 (16 Oct 1894), 1-2.
Are we Decadent?
Claims we are not: we are full of originals, vivid personalities: even the supposed Decadents like Wilde are vigorous and far removed from the real signs of decadence.
1. Westminster Gazette, 4 (23 Oct 1894), 1-2.
Moorland Idylls. The Night-jar
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 12 (Oct 1894), 29-31.
2. Moorland Idylls (1896)
NOVEMBER 1894
Forecasts of Winter
1. Westminster Gazette, 4 (15 Nov 1894), 1-2.
Surging Upward
1. Westminster Gazette, 4 (21 Nov 1894), 1-2.
[Review of] Raphael's Madonnas, and Other Great Pictures by Karl Karoly
1. Academy: A Weekly Review of Literature, Science, and Art, 46 (24 Nov 1894), 428-429.
Moorland Idylls. Our Winged House-fellows
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 12 (Nov 1894), 95-97.
2. Moorland Idylls (1896).
DECEMBER 1894
Aesop up to Date
1. Westminster Gazette, 4 (28 Dec 1894), 1-2.
The King's Palaces
1. Cornhill Magazine, 23 (Dec 1894), 621-632. Unsigned.
1895
In Memoriam: George Paul Macdonell
A short eulogy for a lawyer and would-be radical politician who died at 40. GA and his wife met him first in 1879 and 'went away frankly in love with him'. Nothing more is known of him.
1. London: Percy Lund, 1895.
2. Ottawa : CIHM, 1984. One microfiche of the copy of the Percy Lund, 1895 ed. Copy in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Library. Series #44241.
The Story of the Plants. With Illustrations
A primer on botany. The introduction does not say that the constituent chapters were published separately first, as a later ed. claimed.
1. London: George Newnes, 1895.
2. The Story of Plants. Second edition. With 49 illustrations. London: George Newnes, 1896. The Library of Useful Stories. Reprinted 1898, 1899, 1901, 1903, 1906.
3. The Story of Plants. New York: D. Appleton, 1895. Reprinted 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1902, 1904, 1907, 1909, 1910, 1912, 1914, 1915,1917.
4. Zhizn´ rasten ii. [Translation into Russian]. No place or publisher, 1898.
5. Dieren en planten. [Translation into Dutch]. Uit het Engelsch door dr. H.C. Redeke. Zutphen: W.J. Thieme, 1899.
6. New York: McClure, Phillips, 1902. Reprinted 1905, 1909.
7. Plant Life. With Forty-nine illustrations. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1908.
8. New York [?]: The University Society, 1909.
9. The Plants. With Many Illustrations. New York: Review of Reviews, 1909. Stories of the Universe. Reprinted 1910, 1911.
10. A New Edition, Fully Revised and Annotated, and with a Biography of the Author, by Marcus Woodward. London: Hodder and Stoughton [1926]. Woodward states that the original book was published first as 'magazine essays' but if so none has been traced.
11. New York: Doran, 1927.
12. Ottawa : CIHM, 1984. Three microfiches of the George Newnes, 1895 ed. Copy in the D.B. Weldon Library, University of Western Ontario. Series #05071.
13. Ottawa : CIHM, 1987. Three microfiches of the George Newnes, 1899 ed. Copy in the Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #39552.
14. Ottawa : CIHM, 1987. Three microfiches of the Hodder & Stoughton, 1908 ed. Copy in the Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #64936.
Gods I Have Known
Takes on some former and current reputations: Browning, Lytton, Wagner, Ibsen etc.
1. Phil May's Illustrated Winter Annual (1895), 21-26.
JANUARY 1895
Depression
On, among other things, the fantastic profusion of literary journals. 'When we were boys the Christmas number of the Illustrated London News, with a coloured plate of bluff King Hal, after Sir John Gilbert, sufficed for some thirty millions of Britons at home and in the Colonies. Now that there are sixty millions we might reasonably expect to find the Illustrated supplemented by one rival—the Graphic. But how about this pink and blue invasion of Christmas numbers innumerable—the Gentlewoman, the Lady, Black and Whte, St Paul's, Truth, the Penny Illustrated—a round dozen of imitators? And then the magazines! the double Christmas numbers! The Gentleman's Annual, Phil May, Good Cheer, the unco'guid, the world, the flesh, and the devil! Every variety of creed or taste is represented; every form of chromo-lithography is pressed into the service. You can be domestic or wicked or inter//mediate as you will. . . .
Look again at the ordinary stream of weekly papers. What a riotous profusion! For our youth, did not Punch, the Saturday, the Athenaeum suffice? Nowadays we run to seed in Pick-me-ups and Lika-Jokos, in the Speaker and the Liberal, in National Observers and Academies, and Realms, in the Westminster Budget, the Young Man, To-day, To-morrow. Or look, again, at our reckless output of monthly magazines, especially the pictured ones—the Strand, the Idler, the English Illustrated, the Pall Mall, all of which must be allowed in the clearest sense to be unbridled luxuries. Look at the Sketch among weeklies, an enormous success, entirely devoted to the interest of amusements. There may be no money forthcoming for investment, it is true, but there is plenty forthcoming for papers with pictures in them'.
Ironically this piece on journalism was GA's last piece for this paper. Whether he freely withdrew after the publication of The Woman Who Did, or was no longer accepted, is unclear.
1. Westminster Gazette, 5 (19 Jan 1895), 1-2.
Moorland Idylls. A Rabbit of the World
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 12 (Jan 1895), 94-96.
2. Moorland Idylls (1896).
The Amateur in Science
Complains that the latest generation of scientists have been 'drilled and dragooned' producing men who are 'bricklayers, not architects'. Compare Spencer: 'no man is going to produce so lasting an effect upon the thought of the future'. Refers to the latter's 'marvellous theory of Physiological Units, perhaps the finest conception ever yet begotten by a human brain' (305). Speaks up for the 'inspired outsider,' clearly himself. 'The current ideas of force and energy, in particular, are formless and meaningless, full of contradictions, and purely anthropocentric in conception and expression. They are the ideas of an intelligent but unphilosophic mechanic, and they are couched in terms of a workingman's vocabulary/ . . . These new ideas are in the air' (308).
1. New Science Review, 1 (Jan 1895), 301-308.
The Word “Scientist”
The editor, who regarded this as an ugly word (you might as well call a conchologist a 'shellist' he wrote) contacted 'eight personages whose opinions would carry weight with the public'. Seven replied. Most were against it. T.H. Huxley wrote 'to anyone who respects the English language, I think 'Scientist' must be about as pleasing a word as 'Electrocution'.' GA wrote: 'Dec 20th, 1894. Dear Sir, —Personally I dislike the word 'Scientist' and never admit it into my own vocabulary. No fellow is compelled to use any particular word himself unless he chooses. 'Man of science' seems to me to do the duty well enough for any purpose. But I fully recognise the fact that languages grow, and grow irresponsibly. If the majority of the persons who speak a particular language choose to adopt a new word, however ill-formed, it is mere pedantry for individuals to object to it. We have swallowed 'Sociology'; we have swallowed 'Altruism'; and I don't see why, after camels like these, we need strain at a comparative gnat like 'Scientist'. It has come to stay. Many of us don't like it; but I am afraid we have only the usual alternative—of lumping it.'
1. Science-Gossip, 1 (Jan 1895), 242.
FEBRUARY 1895
The Literature of the Twentieth Century
'The Twentieth Century, I take it, will begin with one of the greatest outbursts of literary genius England has ever known.' But it is sobering that not one single name of the 'galaxy of poets and prose writers' which he mentions as evidence of this assertion is remembered today; nor are most of his novelists.
1. Great Thoughts, 4 (Feb 1895), 283.
A History of Hands; and the Development of Organs for Grasping
1. Cornhill Magazine, 24 (Feb 1895), 187-196. Unsigned.
Moorland Idylls. A Flight of Quails
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 12 (Feb 1895), 33-35.
2. Moorland Idylls (1896).
The Woman Who Did [letter to the editor]
'against [prostitution] I have endeavoured to wage war to the utmost. The moral of my book is, we must put down this hateful slavery of women. And marriage, I contend, necessarily entails it. Therefore, I imagine a pure woman, who, seeing the issues involved, logically and ethically pronounces against marriage. I thought I had put this contention in the plainest possible language; but so far, strange to say, not one of my critics seems to have grasped it.'
1. Westminster Gazette, 5 (23 Feb 1895), 2.
MARCH 1895
Moorland Idylls. A Butterfly Episode
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 12 (Mar 1895), 33-35.
2. Moorland Idylls (1896)
[Letter Responding to Percy Addleshaw's Review of] The Woman Who Did
This prompted a reply from Addleshaw in Academy, 16 Mar 1895, 240.
1. Academy: A Weekly Review of Literature, Science, and Art, 47 (9 Mar 1895), 215.
[Letter Responding to Wells's Review of] The Woman Who Did
Adds some important information about its composition. Wells had accused him of Cant. 'I have never written a single word that I did not honestly believe. What I have often complained about was that I had to hold my tongue about the things I really thought and felt, not that I had to say the things I didn't think and feel'…. [The novel] was written with long and calm deliberation. I spent five years in maturing it, before I ever put pen to paper. I spent several months in writing the first outline. I spent two years in re-reading, polishing, correcting it, till every episode, every sentence, every image, every epithet had been considered and reconsidered eight or nine times over. Good or bad, it is my best possible work. There is not a word in it which I desire to change. And though I may not have pleased your critic, yet I have certainly attained the end he denies; I have written what I consider to be a work of art, and I am ready to stand or fall by it'.
1. Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, 79 (16 Mar 1895), 351.
Two Family Histories: Carps and Catfishes
1. Cornhill Magazine, 24 (Mar 1895), 284-294. Unsigned.
APRIL 1895
Norman Blood or Otherwise
1. Cornhill Magazine, 24 (Apr 1895), 405-415. Unsigned.
Moorland Idylls. The Gnarled Pine-tree
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 12 (Apr 1895), 33-35.
2. Moorland Idylls (1896).
MAY 1895
Evolution in Early Italian Art 1. The Marriage of the Virgin
GA's first piece of fine art criticism?
1. Pall Mall Magazine, 6 (May 1895), 82-95.
2. Evolution in Italian Art (1908).
St Nicholas in England
1. Cornhill Magazine, 24 (May 1895), 482-492. Unsigned.
Moorland Idylls. A Desperate Struggle for Life
1. English Illustrated Magazine (May 1895), 143-145.
2. Moorland Idylls (1896).
JUNE 1895
Moorland Idylls. A Heather Episode
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 12 (June 1895), 273-275.
2. Moorland Idylls (1896).
A Guinea Saved
Soliciting contributions to the Fresh Air Fund.
1. Pearson's Weekly, 258 (28 June 1895). [Page nos. undetermined.]
Evolution in Early Italian Art II. The Visitation
1. Pall Mall Magazine, 6 (June 1895), 202-216.
2. Evolution in Italian Art (1908).
JULY 1895
Evolution in Early Italian Art III. The Annunciation
1. Pall Mall Magazine, 6 (July 1895), 372-389.
2. Evolution in Italian Art (1908).
Moorland Idylls. A Summer Stroll
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 13 (July 1895), 305-307.
2. Moorland Idylls (1896).
The Mystery of Birth
A reworking of the article pub. in New Review, 4 (June 1891), 531-539 addressing the views of Weismann on heredity. 'I propose to investigate the central miracle of heredity. And in doing so, I am going to try a flank movement against Weismann. .. We said, “How strange that a single cell should be able to transmit, not merely all that the parental organism began by being, but also – so marvellous is its delicate receptivity – all that it learnt or became in the course of its history!” Weismann interposed with a sceptical “But does it?”' (113). If the central miracle of assimilation, the ability of the organism to make not-self into self be accepted, isn't it a 'minor matter' that germ cells have the same power? Isn't heredity simply a more limited case of the general power of growth and repair? When foodstuffs are transformed into body, 'they rebuild him with all the marks of his past history imprinted upon him. … Refrain from swimming for ten years, and then try the water once more: you will find the acquired power is still present in arms and legs, no actual living particle of which ever before performed any active work in swimming' (118). Why should the germ-plasm be so specialised? 'Is it only in order that it may boast of its “continuity,” and give Dr. Weismann an occasion for a theory?' (118). 'If it can rebuild the parent, why not also the offspring?' (120). Anon. 'Mr Grant Allen's Views,' Natural Science: a Monthly Review of Scientific Progress, 7 (Sep 1895), 159-160 makes a good point that 'the mystery of inheritance is not the mystery of assimilation, but something more. . . . Mr Grant Allen's apparent simplification of the problem is attained only by ignoring it' (160).
1. Fortnightly Review, 64/58ns (July 1895), 113-120.
2. The Hand of God (1909).
AUGUST 1895
Social Anarchy
Protests against his name being linked to those 'prophets of decadence' condemned by one Stutfield writing in Blackwood's. 'Our forum of marriage, with its cloaca of prostitution, is as good a plan as we can well devise; its worst victims, after all, are not of our own class, while the incidental disadvantages of contagious disease and moral prostitution are not nice to talk about. Why this prurient love of overhauling drains?'
1. Humanitarian: A Monthly Review of Sociological Science, 7 (Aug 1895), 81-87.
Moorland Idylls. The Arcadian Donkey
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 13 (Aug 1895), 405-408.
2. Moorland Idylls (1895).
Moorland Idylls. A Life-and-death Struggle
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 13 (Aug 1895), 407-408.
2. Moorland Idylls (1895).
Evolution in Early Italian Art IV. The Madonna and Child
1. Pall Mall Magazine, 6 (Aug 1895), 610-626.
2. Evolution in Italian Art (1908).
SEPTEMBER 1895
About Amber
1. Cornhill Magazine, 25 (Sep 1895), 278-287. Unsigned.
Evolution in Italian Art V. The Madonna and Saints
1. Pall Mall Magazine, 7 (Sep 1895), 60-74.
2.Evolution in Italian Art (1908).
Moorland Idylls. The Devil's Punchbowl
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 13 (Sep 1895), 485-487.
2. Moorland Idylls (1895).
Moorland Idylls. Nests and No Nests
1. English Illustrated Magazine,13 (Sep 1895), 481-483.
2. Moorland Idylls (1895).
Moorland Idylls. A Spotted Orchis
1. English Illustrated Magazine,13 (Sep 1895), 483-485.
2. Moorland Idylls (1895).
OCTOBER 1895
Evolution in Italian Art VI. The Adoration of the Magi
1. Pall Mall Magazine, 7 (Oct 1895), 203-220.
2. Evolution in Italian Art (1908).
Mr Grant Allen on the Defensive
"To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. Sir, In your issue of Saturday you say of me, 'He used frankly to boast that he had no level; anything that would sell was good enough for him.’ Will you allow me to reply that no words of mine, either spoken or written, justify that assertion? You have, no doubt unintentionally, but none the less seriously, misrepresented me. My complain was, on the contrary, that having a very distinct level of my own, I was seldom allowed by editors or publisher to print anything that nearly attained it. I venture to say, though I say it myself, that whether I work well or ill, I am at least, as a matter of fact, one of the most conscientious and minute literary workmen of the present generation. No piece of work goes out of my workshop, be it only a newspaper article, which does not absolutely satisfy my critical faculty, in its own kind. I take enormous pains with style and composition. Every manuscript is corrected six or seven times over: every verb, every noun, every epithet, every clause , is scrutinized and considered. The result may not happen to please the rest of the world: if so, that is the fault of my intellect, not my industry: I give the very greatest care of which I am capable to all my writing. You misunderstand my assertion that as regards moral attitude (a much more important matter to me than even literary perfection) I have seldom been allowed to say what I thought in my own fashion. Your own compositors, however, will assure you that during the many years when I contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette no writer sent in copy so carefully interlined, so frequently and elaborately corrected, as mine. Even in the case of these tales now under discussion, I wrote them as well as I could write them for their particular purpose – as sensational stories for a syndicate of country newspapers. But you yourself would be the first to admit that certain articles may be excellent and effective journalism, yet by no means worthy of publication in volume form as permanent literature. To put in briefly, you and many others have treated by protest in favour of a higher moral standard in romance as if it were an exhibition of the most brutal cynicism. Now I am an enthusiast, a Utopian, a fanatic if you will: but the last thing on earth that I am is a cynic. My contention is that editors and publishers compel authors to cut down their ideas to the commonplace standard of the careless and immoral world around them: and you straightway tell me I boast of having no level. I regret that I have had to write so long a letter on so personal a question; but when a man is accused of holding the exactly opposite opinion from that which he really holds, it is natural that he should desire to remove the misapprehension.
I have a friend, a sculptor, who longs to produce ideal nude figures, but who usually receives commissions for statues in frock-coats and busts of successful aldermen. Would you be justified in saying, because he avows his dislike to this kind of work, which he turns out admirably and artistically finished, that ‘he thinks any sculpture good enough, as long as the corporation of Pedlington will buy it’? I submit that you would not. A good workman produces good work under any circumstances, even if he work itself which he is employed to produce does not happen to satisfy his own ideals. Yours obediently, Grant Allen.”
1. Pall Mall Gazette, 4 Oct 1895, 3..
A Study in Wives – The English Wife
Short contribution to discussion about wives of different nationalities and - in GA's piece - of different classes. Some hint of his first marriage here?
1. North American Review, 161 (Oct 1895), 429-432.
After Francia
Francia's 'Madonna and Child' in the National Gallery – deciphering the identity of the saints.
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 14 (Oct 1895), 27-31.
Preface
1. Exhibition of the Haslemere Society of Artists, October 23rd to 26th 1895. Guildford: Surrey Times Office, 1895.
NOVEMBER 1895
An Altarpiece of L'Ortolano's
The Ferrarese painting as a votive plague-offering, with St Sebastian, St Roch and St Demetrius.
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 14 (Nov 1895), 184-188.
Evolution in Italian Art VII. The Presentation
1. Pall Mall Magazine, 7 (Nov 1895), 351-365.
2. Evolution in Italian Art (1908).
DECEMBER 1895
Evolution in Italian Art VIII. The Pieta
1. Pall Mall Magazine, 7 (Dec1895), 573-586.
2. Evolution in Italian Art (1908).
That Great Painter, Ignoto
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 14 (Dec 1895), 237-241.
2. Evolution in Italian Art (1908).
1896
Moorland Idylls
Reprints 33 short essays, of which 14 appeared in the English Illustrated Magazine between October 1894 and September 1895. Most of or all the remainder appeared in the Illustrated London News at unknown dates. These essays on natural history are all based on observations made from GA's home on the moorland near Hindhead, and provide small glimpses of his life there. They are much shorter and flimsier than the ones in his earlier collections. Chatto on 1 Oct 1894 offered 'on the same royalty of 1/- [?] on all copies sold at the published price of 6/- as we pay on your Evolutionist volumes, unless you would prefer to take L50 down for the copyright as with Post Prandial Philosophy – not that that experiment has been altogether successful as yet; still I should like to make another venture with the illustrations you suggest from the English Illustrated Magazine.' Allen took the L50.
Chatto added, 12 Dec 1895, 'I have received from the printers the [ ] of your Moorland Idylls which they say will make in this form about 180 pages. As this seems to me to be rather short, I shall be glad to avail myself of the kind offer you made to supply a little more copy for the book if reprinted. I hope that this will not give you any trouble, and that you may have by you some other articles already published that may find an appropriate place in the volume.'
1. London: Chatto & Windus, 1896.
2. Ottawa : CIHM, 1980. Three microfiches of the Chatto & Windus, 1896 ed. Copy in the Scott Library, York University. Series #05054.
Prophetic Autumn
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
2. [Combined with 'Our Winged House-fellows']. By the Light of the Glow-worm Lamp: Three Centuries of Reflections on Nature. Edited by Alberto Manguel. NY/London: Plenum Trade, 1998.
A Neighbourly Gossip
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
The Adder's Siesta
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
In Leafless Woods
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
The Frozen Pond
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
Ivy in the Copse
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
Coltsfoot Flowers
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
The Chrysalis Year
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
A Moorland Fire
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
The Shrike's Larder
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
The Crouch Oak
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
The Root of the Matter
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
The Lark in Autumn
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
The Squirrel's Harvest
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
A Drained Fishpond
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
An Interview with a Cock-sparrow
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
The Green Woodpecker
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
The Harebell
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
The Untamable Shrew
1. Moorland Idylls (1896)
[Review of] Ethnology by A.H. Keane
1. Academy: A Weekly Review of Literature, Science, and Art, 49, 159-60.
JANUARY 1896
A Third-rate Painter
The work of Lorenzo da San Severino.
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 14 (Jan1896), 407-410.
FEBRUARY 1896
An Altarpiece of Perugino's
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 14 (Feb 1896), 535-539.
MAY 1896
Our Lady of Ferrara
Interpreting three Ferrarese Madonnas in the National Gallery: by Cosimo Tura, Ercole di Giulio, Garofalo.
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 14 (May 1896), 149-153.
2. Evolution in Italian Art (1908).
Hints to Young Authors
General advice on writing: GA says that 'in my next paper' he intends to provide guidance for 'those unfortunate youths and maidens who desire to shine more particularly in fiction and poetry'.
1. Great Thoughts from Master Minds, 7 (May 1896), 115-116.
Hints to Young Authors of Poetry
1. Great Thoughts from Master Minds, 7 (May 1896), 131.
JULY 1896
The Painters' Jordan
Paintings in the National Gallery & elsewhere of the Baptism, showing the evolution of this theme.
1. English Illustrated Magazine, 15 (July 1896), 371-376.
2. Evolution in Italian Art (1908).
[Review of] The Garden of the Matchboxes, and Other Stories by W.D. Scull
1. Academy: A Weekly Review of Literature, Science, and Art, 50 (4 July 1896), 8.
The Lobster at Home
The structure and habits of the crustacean – eg the odd fact that the two claws are differentiated in function.
1. Longman's Magazine, 28 (July 1896), 270-281.
Art Notes
1. The Week [Toronto], 13:36 (July 1896), 903.
A Rare Thames Blossom
On the Villarsia, or aquatic gentian, which has moved into the Thames from water gardens.
1. Daily News, 23 July 1896, 8.
Thames-side Castles
A trip down the Thames from Oxford to London in medieval times, mentioning great buildings which have vanished.
1. Daily News, 29 Sep 1896, 8.
AUGUST 1896
Novels Without a Purpose
Condemns literature which does not deliberately teach moral truths. Praises Shelley as 'far and away the greatest of English poets.'
1. North American Review, 163 (Aug 1896), 223-235.
NOVEMBER 1896
Under the Willows
Willows and other catkin-bearing plants.
1. Longman's Magazine, 29 (Nov 1896), 33-45.
Is it Degradation?
A reply to St George Mivart, 'The Degradation of Women,' Humanitarian, 9 (Oct 1896): ' I hold the ideal for our race to be this,--that every man and every woman should freely choose at every moment that woman or that man towards whom, at that particular time and place, he or she feels an immediate impulse—physical, moral , intellectual, spiritual—which is amply reciprocated.'346. 'Women cannot bear to submit to any man except the man whom they can respect and admire and go forth to' 347. GA argues against marital rape, which Mivart had more or less endorsed: 'the law compels the woman to make a hard-and -fast contract for life beforehand, with an untried man, and then forces her to abide by it, once made, no matter what opinion she may afterwards form of her half unknown partner'.
1. Humanitarian: A Monthly Review of Sociological Science, 9 (Nov 1896), 340-348.
1897
Florence
The first in a series entitled 'Grant Allen's Historical Guides'. The series was continued by other hands after his death. Allen thought Florence was the finest city in the world. However, nothing existed in it, for him, save its art and architecture and its history as revealed through these; and so this guide (and the others) has a narrow focus - to put it mildly.
1. London: Grant Richards, 1897. Reprinted 1900, 1902, 1904.
2. Florence: Grant Allen's Historical Guide Books to the Principal Cities of Europe Treating Concisely and Thoroughly of the Principal Historic and Artistic Points of Interest Therein. New York: Wessels, 1900.
3. New Edition, Revised and Enlarged by J.W. & A.M. Cruikshank. London: Grant Richards/New York: Wessels, 1904. Reprinted 1906, 1907, 1909.
4. 2 vols. Boston: LC Page, 1902 [c1901]. Reprinted 1906. Travel Lovers' Library.
5. New Edition. 2 vols. Boston: LC Page, 1912. Travel Lovers' Library.
6. Florence. With 32 Reproductions from Photographs. [Revised by JW and AM Cruikshank]. New York: Holt/ London: Grant Richards, [1911].
7. Florence. With 32 Reproductions from Photographs. [Revised by JW and AM Cruikshank]. New York: McBride, Nast, 1913.
8. Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. Three microfiches of the Grant Richards, 1897 ed. Copy in the Library of Congress. Series #25657.
9. Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. Three microfiches of the Wessels, 1900 ed. Copy in the Library of Congress. Series #28669.
10. Ottawa: CIHM, 1998. Four microfiches of the Grant Richards, 1906 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #65592.
Paris
Same approach as the Florence volume.
1. London: Grant Richards, 1897. Reprinted 1900, 1902, 1903.
2. Paris. In two volumes Vol 1[II] Illustrated. Boston: LC Page, 1901. Reprinted 1907, 1912. Travel Lovers' Library.
3. With a Photogravure Frontispiece and Sixty-four Full Page Plates in Duogravure. Boston: LC Page, 1912. Travel lovers' Library.
4. Paris: Grant Allen's Historical Guide Books to the Principal Cities of Europe Treating Concisely and Thoroughly of the Principal Historic and Artistic Points of Interest Therein. New York: Wessels, 1900. Reprinted 1902, 1904, 1906.
5. Revised and Enlarged Edition. London: Grant Richards, 1906. Reprinted 1907, 1909, 1912.
6. With thirty-two Reproductions from Photographs. New York: H Holt/London: Grant Richards, 1908. Reprinted 1912.
7. New York: Stokes, [nd].
8. Ottawa: CIHM, 1980. Three microfiches of the Grant Richards, 1897 ed. Copy in the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Library, Dalhousie University. Series #05055.
9. Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. Three microfiches of the Wessels, 1900 ed. Copy in the Library of Congress. Series #26534.
10. Ottawa: CIHM, 1982. Three microfiches of the Grant Richards, 1900 ed. Copy in the Scott Library, York University. Series #28977.
Cities of Belgium
Same approach as the Florence volume.
1. London: Grant Richards, 1897. Reprinted 1902, 1906.
2. New York: Wessels, 1900. Reprinted 1902, 1905, 1907, 1910.
3. Belgium: Its Cities. 2 vols. Boston: Page, 1894, 1903. Travel Lovers' Library. Reprinted 1908, 1912.
4. Belgium: Its Cities. With a Photogravure Frontispiece and Sixty-four Full Page Plates in Duogravure. New Edition. Boston: Page, 1904, [1912].
5. London: Richards/New York: Holt, [1912].
6. Ottawa:CIHM, 1980. Three microfiches of the Richards, 1897 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #05015.
The Evolution of the Idea of God. An Inquiry into the Origins of Religions
Long, anthropological labour of love which took years to write. Sold 750 copies in 3 weeks. As an Rationalist Press publication after GA's death in 1903 it sold 80,000 copies. It traces the religious impulse (including Christianity, whose origins GA assumes are almost totally mythical) back to corpse-worship, or rather the deified memories of dead men. He argued this differentiated into polytheism and finally into monotheism. GA takes no interest in ethics, which he assumes are entirely detachable from the origin of religion. Thought to be too heavily indebted to The Golden Bough, and coldly received. Reviewed devastatingly by Andrew Lang.
MS: Autograph manuscript with interspersed typescript additions. 358pp. Lacking pp.1-2, 118, 197-37. Penn.
1. London: Grant Richards, 1897. Reprinted 1901, 1904.
2. New York: H Holt, 1897.
3. Revised and Slightly Abridged by Franklin T. Richards. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited, by Arrangement with Mr Grant Richards. London: Watts, 1903. Reprinted 1908, 1911, 1916, 1923.
4. Die Entwickelung des Gottesgedankens. Eine Untersuchung uber die Ursprunge der Religion. Deutsche Bearb. von H. Ihm. [Translation into German.] Jena: Costenoble, 1906.
5. London: Alexander Moring The De La More Press, [1907].
6. L'evoluzione dell'idea di Dio. Torino: Bocca, 1911.
7. Revised and Slightly Abridged by Franklin T. Richards. London: Watts, 1931. The Thinker's Library #18. Reprinted 1949.
8. New York [?]: Truth Seeker, [nd].
9. New York [?]: Warne, [nd].
10. New York [?]: Kerr, [nd].
11. New York [?]: Gordon Press, 1977.
12. New York [?]: Health Research, 1977.
13. London [?]: Society of Metaphysicians, 1988.
14. Ottawa: CIHM, 1983. Five microfiches of the Holt, 1897 ed. Copy the University of Alberta, Edmonton. Series #27424.
15. Boston: Elibron, 2001. [Facsimile of the Grant Richards, 1897 ed. in eBook format.]
Natural Inequality
1. Forecasts of the Coming Century by a Decade of Writers: Alfred Russel Wallace, Tom Mann, H. Russell Smart, William Morris, H.S. Salt, Enid Stacy, Margaret McMillan, Grant Allen, Bernard Shaw, Edward Carpenter. Manchester: The Labour Press/London: W Scott, 1897.
2. Hand and Brain: a Symposium of Essays on Socialism. By William Morris, Grant Allen, George Bernard Shaw [et al]. East Aurora, New York: The Roycrofters, 1898.
3. London: Labor Press Library, [1900?], #30.
FEBRUARY 1897
Spencer and Darwin
An article-review of Pioneers of Evolution by Edward Clodd.
1. Fortnightly Review, 67 (Feb 1897), 251-262.
2. [Excerpts]. Review of Reviews, 15 (Mar 1897), 344.
3. Living Age, 212 (20 Mar 1897), 834-842.
4. Popular Science Monthly, 50 (Apr 1897), 815-827.
5. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science and Art, 128 (1897), 463-??
6. The Hand of God (1909)
Turnstone
On the bird.
1. Illustrated London News. [Not located.]
2. Living Age, 212 (6 Feb 1897), 414-415.
APRIL 1897
The Living Earth
On dying and decay as demonstration of the 'boundless community' of life.
1. Longman's Magazine, 29 (Apr 1897), 554-566.
2. Living Age, 213 (15 May 1897), 449-457.
3. The Decay of Animal Matter. New York Times, 16 May 1897, 23.
4. Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science and Art, 129 (1897), 33-??
5. The Hand of God (1909).
MAY 1897
The Vice of Thrift
1. Humanitarian: a Monthly Review of Sociological Science, 10 (May 1897), 342-347.
JULY 1897
Glimpses of Nature. I. – The Cows that Ants Milk
Aphids and others – ants have domesticated 584 different crustaceans. GA had none of his non-fiction in the Strand for its first 6 years.
1. Strand, 14 (Jul 1897), 12-19.
2. Flashlights on Nature (1898).
AUGUST 1897
Glimpses of Nature. II. – A Plant that Melts Ice
The alpine Soldanella which when it sprouts generates enough heat to melt the snow covering.
1. Strand, 14 (Aug 1897), 129-136.
2. Flashlights on Nature (1898).
SEPTEMBER 1897
Glimpses of Nature. III. – A Beast of Prey
The biography of a particular garden spider.
1. Strand, 14 (Sep 1897), 287-294.
2. Flashlights on Nature (1898).
3. http://arachnophiliac.com/burrow/oddities_gon.htm
OCTOBER 1897
The Romance of Race
1. Cornhill Magazine, 3 (Oct 1897), 461-471. Unsigned.
2. Living Age, 215 (20 Nov 1897), 545-552.
3. Popular Science Monthly, 53 (Aug 1898), 511-521.
Modern College Education: Does It Educate in the Broadest and Most Liberal Sense of the Term?
Education still bears traces of its priestly origins. We don't need much in the way of languages: 'who learn languages most easily? Children, negroes, servants, the uneducated' (613). Two years of travel is better than 3 years of university. 'Speaking for myself, I can honestly say I went away from Oxford without a single element of education worth speaking of, and without the slightest training in method or development of faculties. Everything that I have ever learned worth knowing I have taught myself since by observation and travel'(615) especially going to Italy. This was an American, advanced periodical of the new 'smart' kind.
1. Cosmopolitan, 23 (Oct 1897), 611-616.
2. Trinity University Review [Toronto], 10:11 (Nov 1897), 142-4.
Glimpses of Nature. IV. – A Woodland Tragedy
The habits of the shrike, or butcher bird – impales insects and animals as live food.
1. Strand, 14 (Oct 1897), 401-408.
2. Flashlights on Nature (1898).
NOVEMBER 1897
Glimpses of Nature. V. – Marriage among the Clovers
1. Strand, 14 (Nov 1897), 588-596.
2. Flashlights on Nature (1898).
Mr Le Gallienne's Omar
Letter to the editor loyally complaining about the review of a long-forgotten poem by his friend..
1. Daily News, 19 Nov 1897, 6.
DECEMBER 1897
“Strike, But Hear Me!”
Rejoinder to Hon Aubrey Herbert, 'The Creed of Restricted Faculties,' Humanitarian: a Monthly Review of Sociological Science, Oct 1897).
GA defends himself against a misrepresentation of his socialist principles. In a short review of this rejoinder, the Review of Reviews, 16 (Dec 1897) rudely called it 'little more than an elaborate piece of nonsensical chaff' (615).
1. Humanitarian: A Monthly Review of Sociological Science, 11 (Dec 1897), 389-394.
Glimpses of Nature. VI. – Those Horrid Earwigs
1. Strand, 14 (Dec 1897), 704-712.
2. Flashlights on Nature (1898).
1898
Flashlights on Nature
Reprints 12 lengthy and substantial essays on natural history which appeared in the Strand between July 1897 and Dec 1898, all thoroughly illustrated.
1. With 150 illustrations by Frederick Enock. New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1898.
2. With 150 illustrations by Frederick Enock. London: George Newnes, 1898. Reprinted 1899, 1911.
3. Toronto: W.M. Briggs, 1899.
4. Flashlights on Nature: a Popular Account of the Life Histories of Some Familiar Insects, Birds, Plants, etc. Photographic Frontispiece by J.H. McFarland and Nearly One Hundred and Fifty Drawings by Frederick Enock. Toronto: W. Briggs, 1905.
5. Flashlights on Nature: a Popular Account of the Life Histories of Some Familiar Insects, Birds, Plants, etc. Photographic Frontispiece by J.H. McFarland and Nearly One Hundred and Fifty Drawings by Frederick Enock. New York : Doubleday, Page, 1905.
5. Ottawa : CIHM, 1980. Four microfiches of the Briggs, 1899 ed. Copy in the Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #05035.
6. Ottawa : CIHM, 1983. Four microfiches of the Newnes, 1899 ed. Copy in the Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #27569.
7. Ottawa : CIHM, 1984. Four microfiches of the Doubleday & McClure, 1898 ed. Copy in the University of British Columbia Library. Series #28146.
Venice
Same approach as GA's other travel guides. The last he wrote in this series.
1. London: Grant Richards; 1898. Reprinted 1901, 1902, 1906, 1908, 1909.
2. Venice: Grant Allen's Historical Guide Books to the Principal Cities of Europe Treating Concisely and Thoroughly of the Principal Historic and Artistic Points of Interest Therein. New York: A Wessels, 1900, 1902, 1905.
3. 2 vols Boston: L.C. Page, 1903. Travel Lovers' Library.
4. Boston: L.C. Page, 1912. Travel Lovers' Library.
5. Venice. With Thirty-two Reproductions from Photographs. New York: H Holt, 1898, 1901, 1902, 1906, 1912.
6. Venice. With thirty-two Reproductions from Photographs. London: E.G. Richards, 1912.
7. Ottawa: CIHM, 1983. Three microfiches of the Grant Richards, 1898 ed. Copy in the University of Windsor Library. Series #05089.
JANUARY 1898
Glimpses of Nature. VII. – The First Paper-maker
Habits of wasps – fully illustrated.
1. Strand, 15 (Jan 1898), 57-66.
2. Flashlights on Nature (1898).
FEBRUARY 1898 [GA's 50th birthday]
Glimpses of Nature. VIII. – Abiding Cities
Ants' nests and ant habits.
1. Strand, 15 (Feb 1898), 222-229.
2. Flashlights on Nature (1898).
MARCH 1898
The Season of the Year
Temporal rhythms of life, in the tropical and temperate regions.
1. Longman's Magazine, 31 (Mar 1898), 447-460.
2. Living Age, 217 (16 Apr 1898), 204-213.
3. Popular Science Monthly, 54 (Dec 1898), 230-242.
Glimpses of Nature. IX. – A Frozen World
1. Strand, 15 (Mar 1898), 257-265.
2. Flashlights on Nature (1898).
APRIL 1898
Glimpses of Nature. X. – British Bloodsuckers
Habits of mosquitoes, or in Britain the gnat, and gadflies or horse-flies.
1. Strand, 15 (April 1898), 393-401.
2. Flashlights on Nature (1898).
JUNE 1898
Glimpses of Nature. XI. – A Very Intelligent Plant
The common gorse – various defensive and reproductive strategies.
1. Strand, 15 (June 1898), 626-634.
2. Flashlights on Nature (1898).
JULY 1898
Glimpses of Nature. XII. – A Foreign Invasion of England
Habits of the hessian fly.
1. Strand, 16 (July 1898), 97-105.
2. Flashlights on Nature (1898).
How Ants Make Slaves: Warrior Ants which Enslave the Small Weaker Species
1. Washington Post, 24 July 1898, 24.
DECEMBER 1898
Underground Passages and Trap-doors
The trap-door spider of southern Europe and other tunnelling spiders.
1. Strand, 16 (Dec 1898), 738-747.
A Note on The Woman Who Did
1. Adult, 2:1 (1898), 32.
Letter to the editor (George Bedborough). 'The question of sexual freedom is in abeyance just now; the public still remains in its reactionary mood … I have determined for myself to be silent on this topic till I see signs of returning interest; indeed I am holding back a long novel written three years ago. I do not mean this in a commercial spirit, but as a matter of tactics, in the interests of the movement itself; one does harm by being out of season'. [This novel may have been the mysterious lost The Finger Post.]
1899
The European Tour. A Handbook for Americans and Colonists
The last of GA's hectoring, opinionated but extremely lively travel books. Like the others, it is relentlessly highbrow. Art, and history through art, is the only motive for travel that he will recognise. This one is remarkable for its claim that apart from the London art galleries and a few country towns, there is no reason for anyone from the new world to linger long in Britain.
1. London: Grant Richards, 1899.
2. The European Tour. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1899. Reprinted 1900, 1901, 1902, 1905, 1906, 1908, 1909, 1923.
3. Second Edition Revised. London: Grant Richards, 1914.
4. Ottawa: CIHM, 1981. Four microfiches of the Dodd, Mead, 1899 ed. Copy in the National Library of Canada. Series #05031.
JANUARY 1899
In Nature's Workshop. I. – Sextons and Scavengers
1. Strand, 17 (Jan 1899), 25-33.
2. In Nature's Workshop (1900).
FEBRUARY 1899 [GA's 51st birthday]
In Nature's Workshop. II. – False Pretences
1. Strand, 17 (Feb 1899), 149-159.
2. In Nature's Workshop (1900).
[Review of] The Last Link: Our Present Knowledge of the Descent of Man by Ernst Haeckel
1. Academy: A Weekly Review of Literature, Science, and Art, 56 (4 Feb1899), 623.
MARCH 1899
Holy Week Observance in the Abruzzi [letter].
1. Folklore, 10 (Mar 1899), 111.
In Nature's Workshop. III. – Plants that Go to Sleep
1. Strand, 17 (Mar 1899), 279-288.
2. In Nature's Workshop (1900).
APRIL 1899
In Nature's Workshop. IV. – Masquerades and Disguises
1. Strand, 17 (Apr 1899), 387-395.
2. In Nature's Workshop (1900).
MAY 1899
In Nature's Workshop. V. – Some Strange Nurseries
1. Strand, 17 (May 1899), 555-563.
2. In Nature's Workshop (1900).
JUNE 1899
In Nature's Workshop. VI. – Animal and Vegetable Hedgehogs
Spined animals and plants.
1. Strand, 17 (June 1899), 647-657.
2. In Nature's Workshop (1900).
Sir John Lubbock on Buds [Review of On Buds and Stipules]
1. Academy: A Weekly Review of Literature and Life, 56 (10 June1899), 623.
OCTOBER 1899 [GA dies, 25th]
In Nature's Workshop. VII. – The Day of the Canker-Worm
Life-cycle of the cicada, with lavish illustrations.
1. Strand, 18 (Oct 1899), 409-418.
2. The Canker Worm. Scientific American Supplement, 49 (20 Jan 1900), 20122-20124.
3. In Nature's Workshop (1900).
DECEMBER 1899
In Winter Woods: A Christmas Nature Study by the late Grant Allen.
One of GA's last columns, packed with information to the end.
1. Leeds Mercury Weekly Supplement, 9 Dec 1899, 4. First UK publication untraced.
1900
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White. Edited with Notes by Grant Allen. Illustrated by Edmund H. New.
GA contributed an introduction of 14pp, giving an outline of White's career and explaining his, GA's, editorial method; his notes, though brief, are extensive, appearing on most pages. However, one reviewer claimed that 'the simple-minded and unobtrusively pious naturalist might have found a more sympathetic editor than the late Mr. Grant Allen, who belonged pre-eminently to modern science; and the notes, brief and sometimes contemptuous, are unsatisfactory.'
1. London: John Lane The Bodley Head, [1899]. This edition seems to have been issued in parts, probably in monthly instalments. Part 2 was announced by Lane in The Times, 24 Mar 1899; Part 4 on 11 May 1899. Reprinted 1902, [1908].
2. London/New York: John Lane The Bodley Head, 1900. Apparently a slightly abridged edition of the above, with some different contents.
3. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1923.
4. Ottawa: CIHM, 1984. Seven microfiches of the John Lane The Bodley Head, 1900 ed. Copy in the Douglas Library, Queen's University. Series #27727.
MARCH 1900
In Nature's Workshop. VIII. – Armour-plated Animals
1. Strand, 19 (Mar 1900), 297-307.
2. In Nature's Workshop (1900).
The Wily Savage
A little fable about primitive capitalism. Supposedly reprinted from the 'Review of the Week', unknown.
1. Clarion, 10 Mar 1900, 6.
1901
County and Town in England Together with Some Annals of Churnside. With an introduction by Frederick York Powell, Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford University.
This book was put together by GA's friend F.Y. Powell from 44 essays (37 located) on local history and topography which according to his introduction 'were first printed in the Pall Mall Gazette, 1881-82' (sic: actually both there and in the St James's Gazette). Powell slightly edited the essays with small additions and alterations shown in square brackets in the text. The essays on the following counties and towns apparently did not appear in either of the newspapers above and have not been located:
'Introduction. What is a County?' , 'Norfolk and Suffolk', 'Manchester and Salford', 'Salisbury', 'Dorchester', 'Colchester', 'Bath'. They may have been added by Powell.
The last section of the book is called 'Annals of Churnside' and consists of 11 essays (all located) published in the Pall Mall Gazette between 31 Jan and 9 May 1881. Grant Richards paid L25 on account of a 12.5% royalty on this book, though he thought it very unlikely to sell 1000 copies.
1. London: Grant Richards, 1901.
2. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1901.
3. Ottawa: CIHM, 1996. Four microfiches of the copy of the Grant Richards, 1901 ed. held by the National Library of Canada. Series #80377.
In Nature's Workshop
After a brief introduction by Edward Clodd this reprints 8 essays published in the Strand between Jan 1899 and Mar 1900.
1. With 100 illustrations by Frederick Enock. London: George Newnes, 1900. Reprinted 1901, 1904, 1911.
2. Toronto: W. Briggs, 1901.
3. New York[?]: Mansfield, 1901.
4. Ottawa: CIHM, 1994. Three microfiches of the W. Briggs, 1901 ed. held by the National Library of Canada. Series #73484.
MARCH 1901
Stevenson in Gath
Not clear when this was written. A comment on a passage in the Vailima Letters where Stevenson laments that The Beach of Falesa is considered immoral and writes: 'I usually get out of it by not having any women in it at all.' GA attacks the Philistines who compel 'the most vivid and most sensitive writer of his time absolutely to ignore in his books one half of humanity'. Adds: 'Philistia is very solicitous about the young person. Does it never reflect that it owes something also to the great artist?' (210)
1. Humanitarian: A Monthly Review of Sociological Science, 18 (Mar 1901), 208-210.
APRIL 1901
The British Aristocracy
A contemptuous assault on the class for an American audience, despite the fact that GA's novels are full of lords.
1. Cosmopolitan, 30 (Apr 1901), 657-662.
1904
Personal Reminiscences of Herbert Spencer
This is a remarkable essay for anyone interested in Spencer. A note says: 'This article was written in 1894, on the understanding that it should not be published during Herbert Spencer's lifetime.' How it came to the Forum is not stated. Spencer had 'the finest brain and the most marvellous intellect ever yet vouchsafed to human being' (610). In scientific and philosophic grasp 'no man who ever yet trod our planet gave proof of such mastery' (610). Admits he went 'grievously wrong' in his social and political views nearer the end of his life. Says his personal connection began in 1874, in Jamaica. He had read Spencer from childhood on: his father was a great admirer. At Oxford he read First Principles and Principles of Biology. He read the Principles of Psychology over and over in Jamaica, where no one else cared, being 'neither rum nor sugar' (612). He mentions the ode. Spencer got the ode printed in American papers. He had a disappointingly ordinary face but a perfectly smooth forehead. Allen was a close acquaintance, who even had access to S's workroom over a milkshop. He had 'serious moral defects' in his character, and 'errors and lapses' in his intellect (619). He came to the Dorking house in the Spring of '88 (he was 68) and stayed till the autumn. The Allens then moved to the South, leaving him possession, with the servants. He stayed till March, and wrote regular letters complaining about the laundry. However, GA does not let on that this was in any way unacceptable. Claims that S's 'political theories' had no real 'organic connection' with his general system (627) – a curious claim for the originator of a such a grand inclusive system. It is very curious how well Allen sees and indeed reinforces the general perception of Spencer's absurdity, yet he clung on to his hero worship to the end. This paper gives no real idea why S. is important as a thinker. GA refers to 'mighty generalisations' of which two are 'the Instability of the Homogeneous' and the 'Multiplication of Effects' 'which will endure after Oxford and Cambridge are forgotten' (628). 'I prefer to think of him as the discoverer of that wonderful theory of Physiological Units whch completely clears up, without any metaphysical or mystical abstractions, the difficulties in the comprehension of reproduction and heredity which Darwin's Pangenesis and Weismann's Germ-plasm, both purely imaginary and unphysical concepts, befog and darken' (628). One of the abiding mysteries about GA's thought processes is how he could accept that the mysteries of genetics were likely to be unravelled in a study over a milkshop, by a mere summariser and synthesiser.
1. Forum, 35 (Apr 1904), 610-628.
Spencerian
1. Booklovers' Magazine, ?? (July 1904), ??-??
1906
Cities of Northern Italy. By Grant Allen and George C. Williamson
According to a note: 'Mr Grant Allen mapped out the plan of this book for his series of historical guides before his death, and the work was carried on and written by his friend, G. C. Williamson.' GA's actual contribution is unknown.
1. 2 vols. Boston: LC Page, 1906. Travel Lovers' Library.
2. New Edition. Boston: LC Page, 1912.
[No CIHM microfiche]
1907
Evolution in Italian Art
A Publisher's Note says: 'Evolution in Italian Art was practically complete at the time of the author's death, but its chapters have been revised and brought up to date in the light of recent knowledge and research, by Mr J. W. Cruickshank.'
According the Introduction by Cruikshank, '[GA] was not a specialist in the criticism of pictures, yet a trained power of observation and a mind sensitive to life in all its aspects, gives interest and point to his attitude. He had the sympathetic imagination of a born teacher; he was also a constant learner, and the fact that he was not professionally a critic of art, brought him in some ways nearer to the student, and enabled him to understand the difficulties of the beginner.
The present series of papers originally appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette [sic] and the English Illustrated Magazine. They were based on observations made in Italian and other galleries, during many journeys arising from the sad necessity of spending winters abroad on account of ill-health. Many years before these journeys were undertaken, preparation for such studies had been made in an investigation into the physiology of aesthetics, a treatise published in 1877. The treatment of the present subject was not intended// as an authoritative criticism, it was rather a carefully planned suggestion to help those who desire to some clue in the study of such a complex thing as Italian art.' 15-16. The extent of Cruickshank's 'revision' is nowhere made clear. All of the original essays have been located.
GA's purpose in this book is this: 'The evolutionist…coming to art with the preconceptions formed in very dissimilar fields of study, may sometimes see certain unessential yet interesting aspects// of art more vividly than they are seen by the artist or the art-critic.' 57. He was struck by 'the singular similarity between the course of [Italian art's] evolution and the course of evolution in animal and vegetable life. . . . I believe I have certain neglected aspects of the case to present which are relatively new. . . . I do not mean, of course, to assert that the idea of evolution or of comparative study in art is new; but I do believe that the conception of the individual composition as an organic type, evolving along lines of its own, is a new and fruitful one' (57).
Put briefly, I would say, every subject or theme in Italian art starts, like an organic type, from a special central form, Byzantine or Giottesque, as the case may be; and varies therefrom by descent with modification. And the resulting varieties are produced by diversities of type in the environment. The Umbrian and Sienese forms, influenced by the pietism of St Francis of Assisi// and St Catherine of Siena, vary in the direction of spirituality, fervour, a purely religious aim, a certain almost affected daintiness of composition. The Florentine, more cultivated, and tinged from the first with humanism, vary in the direction of grace, a sense of beauty, poetry, the ideal. The Venetian, as one might expect from a great commercial community, work out their own worldlier evolution in the direction of richness, luxuriance, an opulence of colour, a voluptuous wealth of female loveliness. The Lombard type is gracious; the Paduan, scholastic, as befits the denizen of a university city. But still, as in organic forms derived from a common origin, we can affiliate all on a single ancestor. .. Mr Herbert Spencer's formula is justified even here: each step in the evolution shows greater heterogeneity, greater coherence, and greater definiteness than the stage that preceded it.' 57-8
This is possible because 'the painters of that age exerted their faculty for the most part upon a comparatively limited range of subjects, the elements of which were rigorously prescribed for them by religious convention. … Their art was almost entirely religious in character and the subjects with which it dealt were few and well specified. The artist received a commission from his patrons for such-and-such a definite work—a Madonna and Child, a St. Sebastian, a Transfiguration; and he produced a panel which resembled in all its principal features similar pictures of the same subject by earlier painters. Originality in design was strongly discouraged; indeed, in many cases it was even expressly stated in the bond tha the painting agreed upon should closely follow a certain treatment of the theme with which it dealt by some previous hand in such-and-such a church or such-and-such a convent. So many figures were to be introduced for the money. It was also// stipulated with legal accuracy that the haloes should be diligently gilded throughout, and the jewels and ornaments proper to saint or bishop should be carefully designed in the most elaborate and correct fashion.' 30-31. … I will take advantage of the opportunity afforded me by the set subjects of early Italian art, and will trace the evolution in the treatment of each particular theme from the earliest available examples to the full Renaissance, exactly as one might trace the variations in structure and function of an organ or an organism' 31.
The classification and making a genealogical tree of paintings, though valuable, is not an end in itself. It may be so in biology, where tracing the evolution of say beetles is valuable because it throws light on the mechanism and precise details of how exactly variation and natural selection work. But GA's evolution of paintings is only metaphorical. Italian art shows a development comparable with biological evolution. Paintings were not really subject to natural selection. We are not interested very much in the individual beetles, or at least not their aesthetics; whereas we want to know from a critic why this Madonna and Child is better worth looking at than that one. GA's critical judgements are fairly rudimentary: a fresco is 'distinctly alive' 43. A particular Sposalizio is 'exquisite' 43. 'The longer we look at it [a Fra Angelico], the more we love it' 44.
1. With Sixty-five Reproductions from Photographs. London: Grant Richards, 1907. Reprinted 1908.
2. New York: A.Wessels, 1908.
[No CIHM microfiche]
1909
The Hand of God and Other Posthumous Essays Together with Some Reprinted Papers
Has a prefatory note by Edward Clodd, and then follows 'The Hand of God' and 'The Worship of Death', neither apparently published before but intended to form part of a supplemental volume to The Evolution of the Idea of God. It also reprints 11 essays, all located. Clodd does not say why these 11 essays were selected for this volume.
1. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association. [With a prefatory note by Edward Clodd]. London: Watts, 1909. Issued in hardback and paperback.
2. Ottawa: CIHM, 1998. Two microfiches of the Watts, 1909 ed. Copy in the Stauffer Library, Queen's University. Series #98005.
The Hand of God
The Hand of God and Other Posthumous Essays (1909)
The Worship of Death
The Hand of God and Other Posthumous Essays (1909)