Writers, Readers, and Reputations: Literary Life in Britain 1870-1918

Writers, Readers, and Reputations: Literary Life in Britain 1870-1918 Philip Waller. Oxford U. Press, 2006. Pp. xii + 1181. $192.50 cloth; $60 paper. This is massive book, 9.8 x 6.7 x 2.5 inches in dimension and weighing 5.65 pounds. Its author, Philip Waller, teaches history; Fellow and Tutor at Merton College, Oxford, he is editor of eminent English Historical Review. Waller observes in his Preface that his conjures up aspects of literary life in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England. period is important as it witnessed rise of a genuine mass-market for literature ... and with it phenomenon of best-seller. Waller adds, authors' behaviour and standing, publics' responses, and images created, are uniting themes of what follows (vii). His book is divided into four sections. first, The Reading World, opens with chapter on film industry, which emerged just before 1914-18 war that Waller insists, in rather outmoded manner, on referring to throughout as the Great War. He writes that by time of Great War, and development of cinema, telephone, and wireless, audio-visual communication was ready to fetter written word and to contest its supremacy over imagination (3). Following the Great War it became commonplace for bestselling authors to be hired to write film scenarios, adapting their own or another's work, or commissioned to produce new story for screen. Waller instances case of W. Somerset Maugham, whose Explorer (1907) was filmed in 1915 and his plays Smith (1909) and Land of Promise (1913-14) in 1917, citing Maugham's quip: horror mitigated only fifteen thousand dollars (15). Many other authors are instanced throughout. Of course there are bound to be omissions. A particularly noteworthy one is Leonard Merrick (1864-1939). Between 1888, date of publication of his first novel Mr. Bazelgette's Agent, and 1911 when his last novel, Position of Peggy Harper, was published, Merrick wrote nine other novels, innumerable short stories, and collaborated in writing of at least eight plays. Between 1918 and 1919 eminent London publishers Hodder and Stoughton published an edition of Merrick's work, and distinguished writers contributed introductions to each title. professionals praising fellow professional, rare event in highly competitive business replete with egotists, include Sir James Barrie, Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, Neil Munro, Maurice Hewlett, Harley Granville Barker, and G. K. Chesterton. With exception of Glasgow-based novelist and working journalist Neil Munro (1864-1930), all are mentioned somewhere in Waller's pages. Merrick's case is especially pertinent, however, to Waller's opening chapter. Merrick appears to have been an exception rather than rule in sense that he gave up writing novels. After 1911 he concentrated his creative energies on writing short stories for high-paying magazines primarily based in United States, and subsequently cashed in on emerging motion-picture industry. earlier of three film versions of Merrick's drama Impostor, written with Michael Morton, another writer not mentioned within Waller's canvas, was released in United States in January 1918. An early Cecil B. DeMille production was Fool's Paradise, loosely adapted from Merrick's quasi-autobiographical short story set in South African goldfield of Kimberley, The Laurels and Lady, released in 1921. A year earlier Merrick's novel Conrad in Quest of His Youth had been released as silent film directed Cecil B. DeMille's elder brother, William C. DeMille. Waller's second chapter, Consenting and Dissenting Bibliophiles in Public and Private, returns to period when still held pride of place among pre-1914 entertainments (17). In order to illustrate mania for reading he draws upon wide range of contemporary recollection and evidence. …

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