The Ingoldsby Legends, Second Series by Richard Barham (1843)

 Unlike the first series, all these are in verse. Like the first series, they are roistering, ghosty, mock-heroic, mock-antiquarian pieces that give off an unmistakable Cruikshankish air, the humour grotesque and very broadly moral, with just deserts and come-uppances vying with devilish exertions for the highest entertainment. Not a lot else to say, other than that there is in this one an occasional racist (mainly against Jewishness) stereotype and associated assumptions, which mar it. Still prefer his prose fictions, Baldwin and Some Account of My Cousin Nicholas.

The Ingoldsby Legends, First Series by Richard Barham (1840)

I think this strange conglomeration of prose and poetry was first featured individually in Bentley's Miscellany in the late 1830s. They purport, quite lazily, to be snippets of family history saved by the Ingoldsbys at their manor, Tappington (pronounced Tapton, of course) Everard in Kent. I say lazily because none but a fool would think them other than satire. Their intent is to entertain, with stories in verse and prose of vengeful ghosts, foul murder plots, family feuds and mayhem in a welter of different historical periods in Britain, all involving some member or another of the fictitious Ingoldsby family. And of course one of the threads joining them is humour, often scabrous and wild, Barham's specialty. There is an odd point at play here where we are in the twenty-first century: Barham's family actually owned a tiny little old manor called Tappington Hall near Denton in Kent, which seemingly now markets itself as the original of Tappington Everard in these pieces. But it's pretty clear from Barham's descriptions that he intended a much grander sort of house - and there is one very close by, Broome Park. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between. This first series of roistering, much more eighteenth century-feeling pieces than nineteenth, was followed by another in 1843 and Barham's death in 1845. Then a third series was cobbled together and published in 1847. They continued to be extraordinarily successful throughout the rest of the century, only to subside into near nothingness in the following, and on into ours. Not a lot else to say. Some are joyful and splendidly silly, some just miss the mark. And on the whole I prefer his two prior sustained narrative efforts, the pseudonymous Baldwin, and the cracking Some Account of My Cousin Nicholas, but, overall, no complaints.

Some Account of My Cousin Nicholas by Richard Barham (1841)

This was originally published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1834. It is proof, if any is needed, that Barham was far more than a one trick pony, and that, though The Ingoldsby Legends were a staple of Victorian literature, and are the only thing for which he is now remembered (if our current minimal interest can be called remembrance), he was capable of much more. This harks back to the eighteenth century in its farcical, blustering satiric swipe. It is the story of a practical joker, and exactly what whirlwinds his activities reap. Nicholas Bullwinkle is the son of a minor landed gentleman, Sir Oliver Bullwinkle, who, in true Ingoldsbyish fashion, has confounded and disturbed ideas of his family's importance, for which he relates 'family history' which is highly dubious but heartily and comically believed. The story of Nicholas' escapades, as evidenced by the title, is related by his cousin Charles Stafford, each jape overreaching its predecessor, steadily losing taste and proportion as time goes on. Nicholas is not only a joker, he's also a reprobate, running up gambling and other bills all over the land, and a cad, with queues of the disgruntled and offended ever expanding. Almost all of this we see at second hand through Charles' eyes, which adds to the fun as we discover exactly where in the nefarious web Nicholas' impositions apply along with him. His final joke is catastrophic, but only after a long puzzlement, and much digging by Charles and Sir Oliver. Having felt his own version of love for a young heiress to whom Charles is about to become engaged, he constructs a vast web of imposture, tale-telling, evasion, financial fiddling and nonsense to bamboozle them, and tries incognito to grab the gorgeous Amelia from under Charles' nose. Charles' reputation ends up in tatters and Amelia's father despises him. Through a few different agencies, but mainly his own failings, Nicholas is finally exposed - and then commits what will become his fatal mistake: he advertises that his father has died in a less rigorous newspaper. He has, to all extents and purposes, succeeded to the baronetcy, and tradesmen and fellow gamblers all over will extend him any credit he desires, at least for a while! He doesn't think too far ahead, and is considering "some time away on the continent", to let the heat die down. Hiding out at the family country house, in a final confrontation in the dark of his father's study, he is unknowingly surprised by him trying to steal some cash from his bureau; Sir Oliver shoots him as a burglar, and then is horrified as his identity is revealed. A gloriously funny and lackadaisical novel which updates the 'evil' characters of writers like Smollett to a new century. My edition also includes a classic supernatural tale, The Trance, which covers the alchemical summoning-up of the soul of a loved one in a stylish and serious way.

Commonplace Book

'...Romances, it has been justly observed, are Histories which we do not believe to be true, whilst Histories are Romances which we do believe to be true...'

from Some Account of My Cousin Nicholas by Thomas Ingoldsby (Richard Barham) (Second Volume, Chapter III)

Commonplace Book

'Major Stafford was, as I have already hinted, of high unblemished lineage; but Fortune, in bestowing this mark of her good-will upon him, had exhausted all her favours, and denied him that portion of the good things of this world so necessary to secure to rank the respect it claims. He was what is commonly called "a soldier of fortune," that is to say, a soldier of no fortune, - but John Bull is peculiarly felicitous in misnomers of this kind. The man who demands payment under a threat of arrest he terms a "Solicitor," names a cinder-heap in the suburbs "Mount Pleasant," and calls a well-known piece of water the "Serpentine River," because it is not a river, and because it is not serpentine.'

from Some Account of My Cousin Nicholas by Thomas Ingoldsby (Richard Barham) (Volume I, Chapter I)

Baldwin by Richard Barham (1820)

This was published under a pseudonym, namely 'An Old Bachelor', and considerably anticipated Barham's great success with The Ingoldsby Legends. So much so, that it has generally been completely forgotten, as has his other novel, and he is regarded as a one-trick pony. On the basis of this, that verdict seems very unfair. This novel is an unusual amalgam, though less so given its era, of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It has not only the flavour of its own post-Napoleonic era, but also that of Smollett and Fielding. It begins with the discovery one morning in the snow of the body of a lonely man who'd left a coach near his home the night before. Then his lawyer discovers that his fortune is not as has been reputed; his young son and heir is nowhere near so well off as expected. These parts are marked with some ramshackle humour. Then the story progresses into one of love in the local village, where an almost Austenian tone prevails of gentle farce. There is also in this part a diversion to Oxford and the university, and some more rumbunctious wit. The endgame comes with an assignation in a summer-house, and a belatedly discovered murder in which young Baldwin, the heir, is almost uncounterably implicated. Barham takes the reader right up to the point of his hanging before a last minute reprieve in the form of the confession of an as yet unknown other. He then slowly relates a backstory to explain how the murder occurred, and to fully flavour young Baldwin's history and the reason for his diminution of fortune. Moments of wit and satire punctuate the good majority of all this, making a colourful feast of variety and event. The print-on-demand edition I read has the usual faults of very poor photocopying and so on; there are also a few missing pages. One can only hope that this book will get a proper republication, and Barham's reputation a boost which it thoroughly deserves, sooner rather than later.

Commonplace Book

'...Lady Delaval, sooth to say, could as soon have constructed a cathedral as a syllogism, and it is a doubtful point if she had ever drawn an inference in her life; nevertheless nature had been so liberal, and had bestowed on her such a rare talent for argumentation, that the necessity for the assistance of art was in a great measure superceded: so great indeed was her unsophisticated genius in this respect, that it may be questioned whether the redoubtable Aldrich himself, with all his formidable battering train of majors, minors, and consequences, would have been able to force her to capitulate, and admit herself vanquished.'

from Baldwin by Richard Barham (Volume One, Chapter III)