Review by Rob Spence
The early years of the twentieth century are fascinating for literary historians. The giants of the nineteenth century were gone, and their replacements were, to say the least, a varied bunch. Some stayed more or less in the Victorian tradition, while others boldly charted new territory as modernists. That fleeting moment, at the end of the Edwardian era, before the First World War changed everything, is rich with writing that reflected both the old certainties and the new challenges to the status quo. Authors of the stature of Henry James, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad, to name a few, were all active and at the height of their powers at the time. What a delight then, to discover this little gem from 1912, in which Max Beerbohm, safe in his new home in Rapallo, presents pin-sharp parodies of their work and of other leading figures of the day.
The hook on which these pieces hang is, quite simply, Christmas. Beerbohm brilliantly imagines how each of his butts would deal with the festive season in their distinctive fashion. The result is a showcase of brilliant pastiches, each unerringly nailing the target writer’s typical style and approach. Some of the pieces originally appeared in the Saturday Review, and Beerbohm added another tranche to make up this book-length collection. If you know the work of these famous authors, you will definitely enjoy Beerbohm’s takes.
Conrad, who had published Heart of Darkness a few years earlier, is represented by a brief tale in which a white colonial type is slow to realise that the Christmas feast will consist of…himself. Henry James’s meandering sentences are expertly imitated in a story in which a character meditates at length and inconsequentially on a Christmas stocking. James himself read it with “wonder and delight.” The Arnold Bennett parody, entitled “Scruts” begins with the deliciously, and aptly named Emily Wrackgarth stirring a Christmas pudding “till her right arm began to ache. But she did not cease for that. She stirred on till her right arm became so numb that it might have been the right arm of some girl at the other end of Bursley.”
Each of these pieces immediately sparks a flash of recognition for anyone who has read the work of the object author. A 1912 review opined that Beerbohm had been given “temporary loans of the very minds” of the writers he targeted. Although most of the authors represented here are still well-known and frequently read, one or two were, to me at any rate, unknown. One such was Maurice Hewlett, who, I discover, was a highly respected historical novelist. Thanks to Wikipedia, I now know that his marriage ended because he disapproved of his wife’s becoming the first woman in the UK to gain a pilot’s licence, a detail that I am sure would have delighted Beerbohm.
This book, newly reissued, is a perfect bedside companion, just right for dipping into over the Christmas season. It would also make an ideal stocking filler, especially for the Henry James fan in your life.
Rob Spence’s home on the web is at robspence.org.uk
Max Beerbohm, a Christmas Garland (Michael Walmer, 2024) ISBN 978-0-645751994, 197pp., paperback.
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