The Course of True Love

If I were to get into the spirit of things, I would probably use today's post to give a cringeworthy guide to writing love scenes, or list the top ten best Valentine's gifts for writers, or detail how a caring and tolerant partner is an essential component of the writerly life.

I'm a cynical sod, however, and don't wish to celebrate Hallmark Day in any other way than to be left alone to get on with stuff, so my only concession to today's occasion is that the title of the following 19th-century poem refers to True Love.

I discovered this anecdote/joke a few months ago, and was impressed by its triumph-of-the-underdog theme and its wry realism. It dates from 1897 and appeared in Judy magazine.

***

“I understand that Rudyard Kipling is paid two shillings a word for his poetry,” said the soulful poet to the hard-headed editor. “Now you don't pay me any such price for my poetry.”

“I can hardly pay you two shillings, but look here I'll give you two shillings a line for a short poem.”

Next day, the budding poet returned with this:

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE
.

I,

John,

Yearns,

Jane

Turns:

Eyes

Meet,

Love

Sweet!

Jane

Stops,

John

Pops.

Both

Wed,—

'Nough

Said.

II.

John

Mad,

Jane

Sad.

Both

Fight;

Sad

Sight!

Whole

Week,

Won't

Speak.

Re-

Course

Di-

vorce.

The Editor counted the lines, paid the money, saying “I'm beaten for once. I thought you were only a poet, but you've got brains.”

**************************

Ah, who am I trying to kid with all this cynicism? Here at Strictly Writing, we really do have something to celebrate, because our very own Caroline Green has been shortlisted in the Romantic Novelists' Association Awards for her wonderful young adult novel, Dark Ride. 

Caroline's book is up for the Young Adult Romantic Novel Award, and we're all very excited for her as the awards ceremony approaches. Congratulations, Caroline, on such a fab achievement!

Guest Post by Essie Fox - plus Prize Draw to win a signed copy of The Somnambulist!

THE SETTING THAT INSPIRED MY NOVEL…

What could be lovelier at this time of year than a walk in the English countryside, with everything so fresh and green you can almost taste the sap in the air?

These days I live in London, but I often return to Herefordshire and have such happy memories of childhood walks in the local woods, where I used to run along sun-dappled paths, where the darkness around seemed magical. But I always stayed very close to my mother. I never wanted to go and get lost, because who knew what monsters those trees might hide.

The romance and mystery – and fear – of those woods went on to inspire my novel. The heroine, Phoebe Turner, is raised in the bustle and grime of East London. But then, one hot summer she leaves her mother to work in a sprawling country house – and that house is surrounded by miles of woods where Phoebe often wanders alone, unaware of what dangers and secrets might lurk in those shadows...

‘My skirts brushed against the damp grasses. Directly ahead trees were steaming with moisture almost as if they were living and breathing. I hesitated, and all Nature’s sounds seemed to hesitate too, as if those woods sensed my arrival, the stranger about to enter their dawn realm of dappled green gloom.’

The house in which Phoebe goes to live is as real and alive as those woods to me. It has haunted my thoughts for many years, ever since those Sunday afternoon drives where, on one particular route, I would peer through the car’s back window and see tall iron gates looming out of the verge, and beyond them a long straight gravel drive at the very end of which was a house – and the feelings I had on seeing that are echoed on Phoebe’s arrival …

‘I shivered and yawned with exhaustion, finally letting my eyes droop closed – only stirred when Jim pushed my head from his shoulder, when he jumped from the cart to close up some gates which, being of iron, very heavy and large, made the most horrible clanking sound. And now, wide awake from that raucous alarm, as we drove on past expanses of lawns, nothing prevented my view of the house – a central square tower above an arched entrance, castellated walls running either side, and so many windows, I couldn’t count – and each one unlit and unwelcoming. But, as the moon’s face broke through fast-scudding clouds I saw something else that quite took my breath, the thing that was lying behind that house, spreading upwards and outwards for several miles: the dense, sloping woodlands that glistened like silver. And, being quite overawed, and sounding far more like Old Riley than me, I exclaimed, “Strike a light! What a wonder. I’ve never seen so many trees in my life.”’

I always felt a tingling excitement whenever I saw that view. To my fanciful eyes it seemed to be the setting for a fairy tale, and surely a sleeping beauty must be hiding somewhere within those walls. But, as the house was privately owned no opportunity ever arose to see if my suspicions proved true – until one hot summer holiday when I came home from university and was offered the job of a cleaner; a post I accepted immediately, and though not particularly fond of the work it did give me the chance to explore every room and soak up the wonderful atmosphere – a mixture of mediaeval splendour combined with the later Victorian wings. One moment I was polishing ancient suits of armour, the next I was dusting ornate sets of china, or changing the linen on four poster beds, or gazing into the orangery; a glass house designed by Paxton who also constructed the Crystal Palace that once graced Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Hampton Court in Herefordshire – renamed in my novel as Dinwood Court – really is worth a visit today, if only to see the redesigned gardens which are absolutely glorious, or to sit in the elegant café converted from Paxton’s orangery – though personally I’d much rather see it filled up with pots of palms and ferns. And perhaps, when you’ve had your cup of tea, why not venture on up into the woods and imagine my heroine’s spirit there – just sleeping, just waiting to come to life.

***

Essie Fox’s debut novel, The Somnambulist, is a Victorian gothic mystery published by Orion Books on May 26^th. To be in with a chance of winning a signed copy, leave a comment below and we'll draw the lucky winner's name out of a silk-lined top hat.

Essie’s website is: www.essiefox.com

Essie blogs as the Virtual Victorian: www.virtualvictorian.blogspot.com

The Hampton Court official site: http://www.hamptoncourt.org.uk/

Fraudulent Folly

While on the lookout for dodgy historical goings-on for my quackery website, I discovered the following case of Victorian literary dishonesty that forms a salutary tale for the plagiarists of modern times.

Like many newspapers past and present, The Bristol Mercury ran a regular Poet's Corner. The quality of this was as variable as you can imagine, but in June 1872 it printed some poignant lines by one T. L. B. of Clifton Wood. Nature and Faith was purportedly written to commemorate someone's death in May of that year, and it began:

We wept – 'twas Nature wept – but Faith

Can pierce beyond the gloom of death

And in yon world so fair and bright

Behold thee in refulgent light;

We miss thee here, but Faith would rather

Know thou art with thy Heavenly Father.

Comforting words indeed, if you like that sort of thing. Unfortunately for T. L. B., bereaved people had been receiving this poem from sympathetic friends since its publication in The Floweret Gathered by Thomas Goodwin Hatchard fourteen years previously – and some of them were readers of the Bristol Mercury.

One correspondent politely suggested that the poet must have made some mistake, while another called his actions 'as flagrant an instance of literary fraud as I have ever met with.'

The best response, however, came from Poet's Corner regular W. H. Dowding, who addressed the hapless T. L. B. with lines that are still relevant to the problem of plagiarism today:

Oh! T. L. B., though to me you're a stranger,

Allow me to send you a rhyme, in my way,

To tell, that by actions like yours there is danger

Of losing all claim to the chaplet of bay;

If you had tarried for sober reflection,

Surely you would not have acted so wrong,

Plain common sense must have told you, detection

Would follow your fraudulent folly ere long.

Strive not the voice of your conscience to smother

Just for a few fleeting moments of fame.

Rob not the wreath from the brow of another,

Such a mean act is deserving of blame.

Beauty and truth shall flourish for ever,

Falsehood shall perish 'neath scorn and disdain;

Work, if you can, with an honest endeavour

Work, if you can, with your own pen and brain.

.

An editor's visitors - 1890

It's my turn to blog on Strictly today, but a few hours before this post is due to go up, I, as an international woman of mystery, will have just (I hope) arrived home from a top-secret mission to the Middle East. (Well, it's not really top secret, but it sounds cooler and more enigmatic that way.) I am, therefore, scheduling this post in advance. I'm handing it over to one Arthur Lockyer Esq, a Victorian editor who gives a glimpse into the process our writerly forebears had to endure when submitting their work. This is an excerpt from a piece he wrote for The Graphic newspaper in April 1890.

The editor probably suffers more than any other professional man from the visits of people whom he has no desire to see, but who are eager for a personal interview with himself. In this respect, therefore, his ideal of bliss lies in the two polysyllabic words, inaccessibility and invisibility. In the case of an extensive and highly organised concern, it is possible to achieve the first of these two substantives.

Let us give an example. You want to see the editor, or one of the editors, for in such an establishment there are often several of them. But you have learnt from private sources that the name of the particular editor whom you wish to see is Marmaduke Johnson, and so, with your manuscript in your hand or concealed somewhere about your person, you climb a steep narrow staircase until your progress is arrested by a sort of sentry-box, wherein sits an undersized, but preternaturally intelligent, youth. He has a manner as if the name of Johnson was entirely foreign to his ear; nevertheless he is fairly civil, and after inspecting your card, and holding a colloquy with an invisible person through a flexible tube, he hands you over to a commissionaire. The military hero, after conducting you along several passages, suddenly says 'In here, sir,' and ushers you into a small room containing nothing but a desk, two chairs, and a rather ancient map of London.

You inspect the map for about five minutes, when the door again opens, and in comes an elderly gentleman in spectacles, who asks you to be seated, and listens to your statement with patience and courtesy. You say to yourself, 'What a nice fellow Marmaduke Johnson is!' Unfortunately, however, this is not Johnson at all, but only his deputy, for presently the elderly gentleman says: 'Your manuscript shall have Mr. Johnson's best attention.' He then bows, touches a bell, the inexorable commissionaire appears instantly, like an Arabian Nights' genie, and in another two minutes you are politely marched off the premises, without having even seen the great man's coat-skirts. This is a specimen of the Inaccessible Editor, and a very enviable mortal he is, in this respect.

But, as spacious premises and a large and well-trained staff of subordinates are required to render an editor triumphantly inaccessible, some editors, who do not possess these advantages, strive, often with indifferent success, to render themselves invisible. Some accomplish this by notifying to their would-be interviewers that they are to be seen on Fridays between 4 and 6 P.M., and by taking care always to be absent on those afternoons; while others have a couple of doors to their den, and when they hear in the outer office the voice of a well-remembered bore they bolt incontinently through the inner doorway down the staircase, and hide themselves until the bore's patience is exhausted, and he reluctantly departs.

Clumsy, vulgar and unspeakably idiotic

Those of you who read my history blog, The Quack Doctor, (shameless plug!) will know that I have an interest in 18th- and 19th-century medical advertising. My research for the blog involves looking at a lot of old newspapers, periodicals and pamphlets, and I often find snippets that aren't relevant to what I'm working on but that nevertheless deserve to see the light of day. The following are all genuine Victorian (mainly 1890s) jokes about writing. They come from newspaper humour columns, and show that some things never change:

.

Editor (to aspiring writer): You should write so that the most ignorant understand what you mean.
Aspirant: Well, what part of my paragraph don't you understand, sir?

*********************************

The Poet: Did she think my sonnet was good?
Friend: She must have – she didn't believe you wrote it.

*********************************

'Has the editor read my poem?' asked the long-haired young man.
'I don't know for sure,' replied the office boy. 'He was taken away in a strait-waistcoat this morning.'

*********************************

'You wish to join our staff as proof-reader?'
Applicant: 'Yes, sir.'
'Do you understand the requirement of that responsible position?'
'Perfectly, sir. Whenever you make any mistakes in the paper, just blame 'em on me, and I'll never say a word.'

*********************************

Critic: I have sent up a two-column criticism of the new play, and I'll be back about midnight to look at the proofs.
Editor: Where are you going now?
Critic: To see the play.

*********************************

Advice to writers:
1. Write plainly on one side of the sheet.
2. Now read it and admire.
3. Now add this phrase: 'Declined with thanks.'
4. Now chuck it in the fire.

*********************************

'Would it be a betrayal of an office secret to tell me how you select your poems?'
Magazine Editor: 'I don't see any harm in telling you. We first submit them to the commissionaire, and from him they are passed on up through the various grades of employee till they reach the editor-in-chief. If the poem is of such a character that any one of the censors understands it, it is rejected.'

*********************************

Amateur Poet (loftily): Aw! Here is a little thing I wrote in five minutes last evening.
Editor (astonished): You did? Why, man alive! Anyone who can write that in five minutes ought to make his living by his pen!
Poet (much flattered): Oh, thanks!
Editor: Yes. You can get eighteenpence a thousand for addressing envelopes.

*********************************

'Your poem used? I should say not,' answered the editor.
'Would you give me a candid criticism of it?'
'Certainly. It's clumsy and vulgar, and unspeakably idiotic.'
'Good.'
'Good?'
'Yes; set to music it will become a popular song.'

*********************************

She was a literary lass
And edited a cultured journal;
And, oh, I loved her with a love
That lives and lasts for time eternal.

And so to win her maiden heart
I wrote a simple, soulful sonnet,
With careful rhythm and studied phrase,
And staked my wealth of love upon it.

I sent it her; my mind could see
Her quaint and queerly wise expression
Change, as with blushes deep she read
My heart's first thought, my 'Love's Confession.'

Her answer came; but who would think
That she could cut so cute a caper?
She wrote: 'Your manuscript returned;
Don't write on both sides of the paper.'

Guest Blog by Sarah Fox - Exorcising the Ghost

When I started to write my first novel, I was entirely seduced. It was like being caught in a spell – seeing real words appear on the screen, the story unfolding before my eyes. And, never knowing what twists and turns the plot might happen to take – well, that only added to the thrill of creating an entirely new world of my own.

But then, perhaps I was too selfish. The Diamond was all about me, the sort of novel I wanted to read, with no thought of maintaining a consistent genre and no concept of sales and marketing teams and, despite securing an agent, my story was only published in Russia. Not that I’m ungrateful for that, and I think the cover is ‘Brilliant’ which by chance is the name in translation! But, to write a whole book and then be unable to read a word unless I do a crash course in Cyrillic – well, that’s quite a cruel irony, don’t you agree?

It was set in a sinister Victorian world of dark circles and amoral tricksters. It had a maharajah, a cursed diamond displayed in a golden cage, and...Oh, there I go again. But, it’s been so hard to let go of that book when I didn’t just write it, I lived it. I peered into every dingy room, and smelled the acrid candle smoke, and walked every gas-lit cobbled street as if I’d become my heroine: that naive crinolined narrator beset by ghosts and dissolute cads.

And now, I wonder if I was possessed during one of my séance scenes, because all of my characters seem too real. I still muse on what fate had in store for them next – where they went, what they did when I wrote THE END. They’re the dead who still walk, who refuse to rest, who keep drawing me back into their world – so much so that, over the past few months I’ve rewritten the start and added more scenes. I’ve tossed and turned in the depths of night with their voices hissing around me like snakes. It’s been almost enough to drive me mad, except – and might this be too much to hope? – I may have recently stumbled upon a way to throw the spirits off.

I’m going to reclaim my own destiny. I’m going to kill my antagonist – the glamorous and cunning fiend who, despite all of his villainous deeds, I just couldn’t bear to leave behind. It’s painful, but it has to be done. He’s been having his wicked way for too long, seducing and then almost ruining me with his unfulfilled promises and dreams.

I must take a deep breath and prepare to be strong. This time there will be no going back, and I know exactly what to do. He’s going to burn in a terrible fire when a candlestick is knocked to the floor. I can already hear the crackling roar as the flames take a hold of his bed sheets. Oh, but how will I bear his agonised screams? I know – he’ll be drugged and senseless. That way, I won’t hear him call my name and be tempted to save his life again. He’ll die, and my soul will be exorcised.

And, in case that doesn’t work, if I weaken and fail to carry it through – has anyone got a crucifix – or some holy water – or a wooden stake? Desperate times require desperate measures!

As a form of diversion therapy, Sarah has recently started a blog: THE VIRTUAL VICTORIAN – FACTS, FANCIES AND FABRICATIONS. She would love to see you there. http://virtualvictorian.blogspot.com/