The Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature website is hosting 20th Century Notts, a weekly series looking back at our county’s history and heritage through a literary lens. These articles are, and will continue to be, first featured on the City of Literature website three years at a time. Once each decade has been completed it will then appear here. So, as they are currently up to 1911, here is the opener, 1900 to 1909.
1900
Book of the year: Willow the King: The Story of a Cricket
Match by J. C. Snaith (1900)
In the year 1900, author J. C. Snaith played first-class
cricket for Nottinghamshire, the same year in which his novel Willow the King
was published. The book, about an annual cricket match between Little Clumpton
and Hickory, has been described as ‘the best cricket story ever written’.
A Jack of all genres, Snaith wrote novels of romance,
humour, history and crime. He is credited by the Oxford dictionary with the
earliest use of the expression ‘street person’.
Between 1890 and 1913 there was an amateur cricket team
called the Allahakbarries. This team often featured famous writers, with Arthur
Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, A. A. Milne, A. E. W. Mason, E.
W. Hornung and Walter Raleigh all turning out for the side set up by J. M.
Barrie (pictured bowling). During one of their ‘friendly’ matches, Barrie’s
wife took the crease and was promptly struck on the ankle by a yorker from
left-hander J. C. Snaith, a ringer if ever there was one. Apparently, Snaith
didn’t know whether to appeal for forgiveness or lbw.
*****
It was in 1900 that the poet and playwright John Drinkwater
became involved in Nottingham’s amateur theatre scene making an appearance in
a performance at the Mechanics. At that time Drinkwater worked on the staff of
the Northern Assurance Co. in Victoria Street. The young, cash-stripped office worker used to buy rotten fruit from the Market Place to bulk up his lunch.
1901
Book of the year: Forest Folk by James Prior (1901)
J. M. Barrie commented that James Prior was a ‘fine writer’,
and D. H. Lawrence rated him, but Prior never reached the heights his talent
warranted.
Forest Folk is Nottingham born Prior’s best-known work. Full
of the local vernacular it’s awash with believable characters coming together
through the demands of country life, all taking place in North Notts during an
eventful period of history that included the Napoleonic Wars and Luddite riots.
The former Forest Folk pub/hotel in Blidworth was one of the few named after a novel. Would Prior, a teetotaller, have approved?
I were born an’ bred I’ th’ forest, and lay mysen to die
here; it’s a fairish ordinary sort o’ soil to live on an’ be buried in. (from
Forest Folk)
In 2017 Spokesman Books breathed new life into this lost
local literary classic.
1902
Book of the year: The Little White Bird by J. M. Barrie
(1902)
It was this adult novel that introduced the character Peter
Pan, a magical boy who flies around with fairies. Between 1883 and 1884 Barrie
had worked as a writer on the Nottingham Journal. It has been suggested that it
was in Nottingham that he developed Peter Pan, apparently after witnessing a
street urchin wandering through Clifton Grove. It’s more likely that his
inspiration for a boy for whom death would be "an awfully big
adventure" is likely to be traced back to the death of his brother who
died in a skating accident. Barrie later said that his mother had taken some
comfort from the thought that her golden boy would never grow up. Barrie did
however take regular walks through the Arboretum which does share a few
features with Neverland.
The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because
they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings. (from The Little
White Bird)
Philip James Bailey died in this year. Nottingham-born
Bailey is best-known for his epic poem Festus, initially written at Basford
House (pictured) where his father lived. Festus was constantly being added to
by Bailey who read his poem to the writers William and Mary Howitt at their
Chemist’s shop in Nottingham.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart throbs: he most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
(from Festus)
1903
Book of the year: The Management of Money by Lucy H. Yates
(1903)
The daughter of a lace-maker, Lucy Helen Yates was born in
Basford. She wrote for The Girls’ Own Paper, offering fiction and advice on
housekeeping and cookery. One of her many books, The Management of Money, was published
in 1903. It was a handbook of finance for women. Yates was a suffragist who
lectured on 'The Financial Independence of Women’, advising women to read the
money column in the newspapers.
*****
Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála
"Emmuska" Orczy de Orci (better-known as Baroness Orczy) struggled to
find a publisher for her novel The Scarlet Pimpernel so she rewrote it as a
play. This was first performed at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal in 1903 where it
received a lukewarm reception. However, the play’s stars, Fred Terry and Julia
Neilson, had confidence in the play and, with a rewritten final act, took it to
London’s West End to some success. This led to the novel’s publication in 1905,
a book of influence on the mystery genre, arguably creating the ‘masked hero’
prototype: often a person of wealth with an alter ego who operates in the
shadows. Zorro, Batman and other heroes have followed our Pimpernel’s lead.
1904
Book of the year: Recollections of Old Nottingham by Anne
Gilbert (1904)
Anne Gilbert’s Recollections of Old Nottingham was based on
a lecture she had given three years earlier to a Nottingham literary society.
In the book, Gilbert described Nottingham as it was in the 19th Century.
*****
J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up
premiered in this year at the Duke of York's Theatre in London. Nina Boucicault
took the title role and Gerald du Maurier played Captain Hook. During his time in Nottingham, J. M. Barrie lived at 5 Birkland Avenue.
He worked for the Nottingham Journal on Pelham Street.
He was a member of the Nottingham Sette of Odde Volumes, a literary society that met fortnightly on Victoria Street to discuss and read literature. Barrie was said to have been moved when made an honorary member of the group co-founded by John Potter Briscoe.
1905
Book of the year: Bypaths of Nottinghamshire History by John
Potter Briscoe (1905)
John Potter Briscoe, Principal Librarian of the Nottingham
Free Public Libraries from 1869 to 1916, wrote many books on Nottingham,
including Bypaths of Nottinghamshire.
Potter Briscoe was an original member of
the Library Association and a leading figure in the development of professional
librarianship. He extended Nottingham’s services to provide books especially
for children, giving birth to the Nottingham Library for Boys and Girls.
‘The Hemlock Stone’ at Bramcote is one of the enigmas of the
County, not only to the rank and file of its inhabitants but to the generally
well-informed portion of our community. (from Bypaths of Nottinghamshire)
*****
The sister of the writer Henry Septimus Sutton, and daughter
of a publisher/bookseller Richard Sutton, Mrs. Eliza S. Oldham died in this
year. Oldham was author of The Haunted House (1863) and By the Trent (1864),
the latter being an award-winning novel set in a fictionalised Nottingham.
Upon the river the wind rode, and with playful hands turned
back the ripples, and carved them curiously, and whipped their edges softy into
foam. (from By the Trent)
1906
Book of the year: The Clifton Book (Nottingham) by Rev.
Rosslyn Bruce (1906)
The Rector of Clifton’s The Clifton Book (Nottingham) was
published in Nottingham by Henry B. Saxton. Recording a thousand years of local
history it was compiled by the Notts born writer, clergyman and animal rights
campaigner Francis Rosslyn Courtenay Bruce (1871-1956).
*****
Having been an uncertificated teacher at his local chapel in
Eastwood, a twenty-one-year-old D. H. Lawrence took up a two-year teacher
training course at University College, Nottingham.
‘The big college built of
stone,’ at which Lawrence attended, is now NTU’s Arkwright Building. Lawrence
was critical of his education here, writing that his professors ‘went on in
such a miserable jogtrot, earn-your-money manner that I was startled… I came to
feel that I might as well be taught by gramophones… I doubted them, I began to
despise or distrust things.’
Lawrence did admit to gaining maturity from the experience,
and it was during his time at University College that he began to write
Laetitia later to become The White Peacock.
He was assessed as being ‘well-read, scholarly and refined.’
Whilst his professors thought he’d ‘make an excellent teacher of upper
classes,’ they added, ‘but for a large class of boys in a rough district he
would not have sufficient persistence and enthusiasm.’
The big college built of stone, standing in the quiet
street, with a rim of grass and lime-trees all so peaceful: she felt it remote,
a magic-land. Ursula Brangwen’s view of University College, from D. H.
Lawrence’s The Rainbow (1915).
1907
Book of the year: Gods
and Heroes of the North by Alice Zimmern (1907)
Nottingham born Alice Zimmern was a writer, translator and
suffragist whose books made a big contribution to the debate on the education
and rights of women. Gods and Heroes of the North published by Longmans, Green
and co. tells of the Gods worshipped by our English ancestors.
When the Angles and Saxons invaded Britain and gradually
spread their rule over the greater part of this island, they brought with them
their own customs and religion. (from Gods and Heroes of the North by Alice
Zimmern)
*****
Dudley Dexter Watkins (1907-1969) came to Nottingham as a
three-year-old and spent his formative years here. A student at Nottingham’s
School of Art, he went on to illustrate the Scottish comics The Broons and Oor
Wullie.
He also created strips for The Beano, The Dandy and The Beezer, drawing
characters such as Lord Snooty and Desperate Dan. Whilst working on the D. C.
Thompson comics Watkins was the only artist allowed to sign his work.
1908
Book of the year: The Children's Encyclopedia originated and edited by Arthur
Mee (1908)
Stapleford-born Arthur Mee was a journalist at our Post and
our Express, and he edited our Evening News. The founder of the Children’s
Encyclopedia, Children’s Newspaper, Children’s Shakespeare and Children’s
Bible, he produced over a million words a year. The son of a militant
non-conformist, Mee refused an honorary title several times during his life.
His Children’s Encyclopedia broke new ground in its approach
to education, aiming to make learning interesting and enjoyable. With
clearly-written articles it intended to develop character and a sense of duty.
It is a Big Book for Little People, and it has come into the
world to make your life happy and wise and good. That is what we are meant to
be. That is what we will help each other to be, Your affectionate friend,
Arthur Mee. (from The Children’s Encyclopedia)
1909
Book of the year: God the Known and God the Unknown by Samuel Butler (1909)
Samuel Butler was born at the rectory in the village of Langar,
near Bingham. God the Known and God the Unknown, a philosophical work of
Butler’s, was published posthumously in this year. First serialised in The
Examiner, the author discusses many topics, including spirituality, the
existence of God, pantheism, and Orthodox theism. Though anti-Charles Darwin,
Butler was not anti-evolution, and he rightly thought that Darwin took much
from his grandfather, the Notts-born poet Erasmus Darwin, a man Butler had more
time for.
Mankind has ever been ready to discuss matters in the
inverse ratio of their importance, so that the more closely a question is felt
to touch the hearts of all of us, the more incumbent it is considered upon
prudent people to profess that it does not exist, to frown it down, to tell it
to hold its tongue, to maintain that it has long been finally settled, so that
there is now no question concerning it. (from God the Known and God the
Unknown)
*****
The son of a wine merchant, Geoffrey Trease was born in 1909
in Chaucer Street, in the Arboretum area. Trease was educated at Nottingham
High School where he was head boy, leading to a scholarship to study Classics
at Oxford, only to leave after a year to focus on his writing.
At one time,
Trease had more books in print than any other British author. His many titles
included children’s books, novels, autobiography, criticism and historical
studies, such as Portrait of a Cavalier, the life of the duke who built
Nottingham Castle.
