The Booker Longlist for 1910 - First Instalment

This is inspired by a continuing wish to help my fellow human beings to an appreciation of the wider spaces of literature. I'm imagining a yearly prize given out by the Man group, current sponsors of the Booker Prize, to the best novel of 100 years ago. (Just think Man group, the authors are all dead, no prize money necessary!) A deliberate effort to get people reading these shots from another world, as it now seems, though it's supposed just to be an antecedent of this one.

My main aim, of course, being the nasty, rigid classicist that I am (ha ha) is to help readers of modern literature to an idea of what erudition is all about. Back then, they did it the hard and good way; now, we sludge around in physicalist grammatically-challenged navel-staring, goes the standard bleat. But that bleat at least partly has it right. I don't think literature is lost, but I do think that creative-writing-class-ism has taken over pretty appallingly. I think a lot of those who aspire to novel-writing today would be astounded by the minds of those who wrote a century ago:

'What do you mean you didn't follow the steps laid out in a self-help book?'

'How on earth did you think of that?'

'That's not the way to do it - it says so here.'

would no doubt be familiar refrains passing up and down the corridors of modern excellence.

Of course it's not as bad as all that. I desperately hope.

So, I envision the first award going to the best novel of its year, commercially successful or otherwise, in the opinion of the judges. (Who might they be? is another question.) Remember that the list needs to contain only novels for adults from the Empire (as it then was). So, no short stories, no children's books, no non-fiction and so on......

On those grounds, 1910 was a relatively quiet year. No Conrad, no Kipling, no Galsworthy, no James, no Hardy. Meredith had died the year before and his last unfinished novel, Celt and Saxon, was published this year, but I'm fairly sure unfinished shouldn't be allowed. But there were a few still appreciated novelists on the hustings.

The old guard of that time, meaning those whose main thrust of career is 19th century rather than 20th, is represented by five women and four men. Sensation novelist Mary E Braddon's Beyond These Voices came out now, as did an apparently fine later instalment in the fading career of Rhoda Broughton, The Devil and the Deep Sea. The oft-despised Marie Corelli produced an extraordinary fictional attack on the automobile entitled The Devil's Motor which no doubt fed into, and from, conservative hell-in-a-handcart prophecy. The sprightly EL Voynich's sequel to her renowned 'The Gadfly' came out at this time, entitled An Interrupted Friendship. And Mary Augusta Ward, commonly known as Mrs Humphry Ward, brought out another of her highly coloured full-weave tapestries, Canadian Born.

The old guard men include writers whose reputations have slipped a little, and a couple who still command an audience. SR Crockett, most famous for The Stickit Minister, published Dew of their Youth, H Rider Haggard graced us with two typical pieces Morning Star and Queen Sheba's Ring, Anthony Hope revealed Second String, and "Q", otherwise known as Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, brought out Lady Good for Nothing.

Two of the newer guard whose names still strongly echo are HG Wells and Arnold Bennett. Wells' The History of Mr Polly and Bennett's Helen with the High Hand and Clayhanger (the first novel of the trilogy) were out this year.

Here is the first part of the complete list. It is gleaned from my bibliographic sources and there are more to check. I have the Annals of Australian Literature edited by Grahame Johnstone and published by Oxford University Press in 1970 whose contents for this year I have included. The main part of this list has been retrieved from The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, volumes three and four, edited respectively by George Watson and IR Willison, and published in 1969 and 1972:

ADAMS, Arthur H. Galahad Jones
ANONYMOUS (later revealed to be Viola Meynell). Martha Vine
BAILEY, HC. Storm and Treasure
BENNETT, Arnold. Clayhanger
BENNETT, Arnold. Helen with the High Hand
BOWEN, Marjorie. I Will Maintain
BRADDON, Mary E. Beyond These Voices
BROUGHTON, Rhoda. The Devil and the Deep Sea
BUCHAN, John. Prester John
CANNAN, Gilbert. Devious Ways
CORELLI, Marie. The Devil's Motor
CROCKETT, SR. Dew of their Youth
DEEPING, Warwick. The Lame Englishman
DEEPING, Warwick. The Rust of Rome
FORSTER, EM. Howards End
FOWLER, Ellen Thorneycroft. The Wisdom of Folly
GLYN, Elinor. His Hour
HAGGARD, H Rider. Morning Star
HAGGARD, H Rider. Queen Sheba's Ring
HEWLETT, Maurice. Rest Harrow
HOPE, Anthony. Second String
HUEFFER, Ford Madox. A Call
HUEFFER, Ford Madox. The Portrait
HUNT, Violet. The Wife of Altamont
KAYE-SMITH, Sheila. Spell Land
LOCKE, William J. Simon the Jester
LOWNDES, Marie Belloc. When No Man Pursueth
MASON, AEW. At the Villa Rose
MAXWELL, WB. The Rest Cure
MONTAGUE, CE. A Hind Let Loose
MORGAN, William de. An Affair of Dishonour
NORRIS, WE. Not Guilty
ONIONS, Oliver. The Exception
OXENHAM, John. Lauristons
OXENHAM, John. A Maid of the Silver Sea
PAIN, Barry. The Exiles of Faloo
PHILLPOTTS, Eden. The Thief of Virtue
PRAED, Rosa. Opal Fire
"Q". Lady Good for Nothing
REYNOLDS, Stephen. The Holy Mountain
RICHARDSON, Henry Handel. The Getting of Wisdom
RIDGE, W. Pett. Nine to Six-Thirty
SANDES, John. Love and the Aeroplane
SIDGWICK, Ethel. Promise
SINCLAIR, May. The Creators
SNAITH, JC. Fortune
SNAITH, JC. Mrs Fitz
SWINNERTON, Frank. The Young Idea
VACHELL, Horace Annesley. The Other Side
VOYNICH, EL. An Interrupted Friendship
WALLACE, Edgar. The Nine Bears
WALPOLE, Hugh. Maradick at Forty
WARD, Mrs Humphry. Canadian Born
WODEHOUSE, PG. A Gentleman of Leisure
WODEHOUSE, PG. Psmith in the City
YOUNG, EH. A Corn of Wheat

Of course, there are other names to conjure with here. Younger guns, the most obvious being John Buchan's notable Prester John, two from Ford Madox Ford (then still known as Hueffer), EM Forster and his seminal Howards End, May Sinclair's The Creators, PG Wodehouse's hilarious A Gentleman of Leisure and Psmith in the City and the debut work of the underrated EH Young, A Corn of Wheat. There's a good deal of quite exotic fiction from Maurice Hewlett (the most highly sculpted writer I can imagine from that time), JC Snaith (another exquisite stylist), Horace Annesley Vachell, William de Morgan (the notable potter and tile-maker turned rich-toned storyteller) and a young CE Montague prior to his First World War glory days in subject matter.

And in between them, some incredibly interesting corners of popular literature and also some forgotten literary territory. A treasure trove for the reader, and at long last a non-academic raison d'etre for the Print On Demand publishers - a good majority of these books are available from them. I don't care for their production standards, but I'll take them anytime over unavailability!

(My bibliographic sources cover Britain and Australia, but if anyone out there feels that a prominent Canadian or South African or other Empire novel of this year should be included, please provide the details. I still have research to do in The Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction, so a subsequent instalment of this will include a supplemental list from there.)