Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole,
CBECBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for "Commander of the Order of the British Empire", a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:* Chemical and Biochemical Engineering...
(13 March 1884 – 1 June 1941) was an English
novelA novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large readership in the United Kingdom and North America. A best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s, his works have been neglected since his death.
Early years
Walpole was born in
AucklandThe Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, New Zealand, the eldest of three children of the Rev George Henry Somerset Walpole (1854–1929),
CanonA canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
of St Mary's Cathedral, Auckland (later
Bishop of EdinburghThe Bishop of Edinburgh is the Ordinary of the Scottish Episcopal Diocese of Edinburgh.The see was founded in 1633 by King Charles I. William Forbes was consecrated in St. Giles' Cathedral as its first bishop on 23 January 1634 though he died later that year...
from 1910 to 1929) and his wife, Mildred Helen née Barham (1854–1925). Walpole was educated at a series of boarding schools in England, principally at
Truro SchoolTruro School is a mixed independent school located in the city of Truro, Cornwall, UK. The current Headmaster is Paul Smith. Deputy Headteachers are Nick Fisher and Anita Firth . Phil Brewer is Assistant Head and Head of Sixth Form...
for two years,
the King's School, CanterburyThe King's School is a British co-educational independent school for both day and boarding pupils in the historic English cathedral city of Canterbury in Kent. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the Eton Group....
for two years and as a day boy for four years at
Durham SchoolDurham School, headmaster Martin George , is an independent British day and boarding school for boys and girls in Durham....
, when his father was principal of
Bede CollegeBede College is a sixth form college located off Marsh House Avenue in Billingham, County Durham. It merged with Stockton Riverside College in May 2008 and has recently started the new year in a brand new 12 million pound building.-Admissions:...
at the university. Walpole's popular character Jeremy lived in the cathedral town of Polchester in Glebeshire, an amalgam of Truro and Durham, which featured in many of his later books. The dust-jacket of
The Inquisitor (1935) depicted a street map of this imaginary town.
Walpole's brief experience of teaching is reflected in his third novel
Mr Perrin and Mr Traill.
Walpole attended
Emmanuel College, CambridgeEmmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...
Walpole's father hoped that his son would follow him into the
clergyClergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
, but after working between 1906 and 1909 as a lay missioner at the
MerseyMersey may refer to:* River Mersey, in northwest England* Mersea Island, off the coast of Essex in England * Mersey River in the Australian state* Electoral division of Mersey in the state of Tasmania, Australian...
Mission to Seamen in
LiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, and as a teacher, Walpole took up writing as his career.
Literary career
Walpole's first novel,
The Wooden Horse (1909), received good reviews but barely repaid the cost of having it typed. His first commercial success was
Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill, published in 1911. The young Walpole cultivated relationships with successful senior writers, and received encouragement from
A. C. BensonArthur Christopher Benson was an English essayist, poet, and author and the 28th Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge....
,
Henry JamesHenry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
,
Joseph ConradJoseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
and
Arnold Bennett- Early life :Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which joined together at the beginning of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the...
.
Ineligible for military service in
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
because of poor eyesight, Walpole worked in Russia, first for the Red Cross, winning the Georgian Medal for rescuing a wounded soldier under fire, and later as head of the Anglo-Russian Propaganda Bureau during the Russian Revolution. He drew on this experience for
The Dark Forest (1916) and
The Secret City (1919). The latter was joint winner of the inaugural
James Tait Black Memorial PrizeFounded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...
.
After the war, Walpole resumed his prolific writing regime. His novels of the 1920s included
The Cathedral (1922), a novel of ecclesiastical machinations; and
Wintersmoon (1928), illustrating the clash between traditionalism and modernism: his own sympathies, though not spelled out, were clearly with the traditionalists.
In 1930 Walpole began his most popular series of novels with his historical romance
Rogue Herries set in
CumberlandCumberland is a historic county of North West England, on the border with Scotland, from the 12th century until 1974. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 and now forms part of Cumbria....
in the mid-eighteenth century. This was followed by
Judith Paris (1931),
The Fortress (1932) and
Vanessa (1933), which brought the saga up to the twentieth century. Walpole said of the Herries series, "It carries the English novel no whit further, but it sustains the traditions and has vitality".
In addition to writing, Walpole frequently lectured on literary subjects. He was a fluent speaker, much in demand, and commanded high fees both in Britain and in America.
Personal life
Walpole's commercial success enabled him to maintain an expensive lifestyle, with a flat in
PiccadillyPiccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...
, London, and a large house, Brackenburn, on the slopes of
CatbellsCatbells is a fell in the English Lake District in the county of Cumbria. It has a modest height of but despite this it is one of the most popular fells in the area. It is situated on the western shore of Derwent Water within of the busy tourist town of Keswick...
overlooking Derwentwater in the
Lake DistrictThe Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...
. A discreet homosexual, Walpole spent much time and energy looking for "the ideal friend". From 1926 to his death, his chief companion was Harold Cheevers, a married former policeman, whose official role was Walpole's chauffeur. Other important figures in Walpole's life included
Percy AndersonPercy Anderson was an English stage designer and painter, best known for his work for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's company at His Majesty’s Theatre and Edwardian musical comedies.-Life and career:...
and
Lauritz MelchiorLauritz Melchior was a Danish and later American opera singer. He was the pre-eminent Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and has since come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type.-Biography:...
.
Walpole was a keen and discerning collector of art. He left fourteen works to the nation including paintings by
Walter SickertWalter Richard Sickert , born in Munich, Germany, was a painter who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century....
,
Édouard ManetÉdouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
,
Augustus JohnAugustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....
and
Jean RenoirJean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...
. Other artists represented in his collection were
Jacob EpsteinSir Jacob Epstein KBE was an American-born British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British citizen in 1911. He often produced controversial works which challenged taboos on what was appropriate subject matter...
,
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
,
Paul GauguinEugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
,
Paul CézannePaul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
and
Maurice UtrilloMaurice Utrillo, , born Maurice Valadon, was a French painter who specialized in cityscapes. Born in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre who were born there....
.
State honours included the Russian Georgian Cross for Walpole's gallantry in the Red Cross; the C.B.E. in 1918; and a knighthood in 1937. In his adopted home of
KeswickKeswick is a market town and civil parish within the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England. It had a population of 4,984, according to the 2001 census, and is situated just north of Derwent Water, and a short distance from Bassenthwaite Lake, both in the Lake District National Park...
, a section of the town museum was dedicated to Walpole's memory in 1949, with manuscripts, correspondence, paintings and sculpture from Brackenburn, donated by his sister and brother.
Walpole's health was undermined by diabetes, and he died of a heart attack at Brackenburn, aged 57. He is buried in St John's churchyard in Keswick.
Published works
Walpole’s published books include:
The Wooden Horse, 1909;
Maradick at Forty: A Transition, 1910;
Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill, 1911;
The Prelude to Adventure, 1912;
Fortitude, 1913;
The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death, 1914;
The Golden Scarecrow, 1915;
The Dark Forest, 1916;
Joseph Conrad, 1916;
The Green Mirror, 1918;
The Secret City, 1919;
Jeremy, 1919;
The Art of James Branch Cabell, 1920;
The Captives, 1920;
The Thirteen Travellers, 1920;
The Young Enchanted, 1921;
The Cathedral, 1922;
Jeremy and Hamlet, 1923;
The Crystal Box, 1924;
The Old Ladies, 1924;
The English Novel: Some Notes on its Evolution, 1924;
Portrait of a Man with Red Hair, 1925;
Harmer John, 1926;
Reading: An Essay, 1926;
Jeremy at Crale, 1927;
Anthony Trollope, 1928;
My Religious Experience, 1928;
The Silver Thorn, 1928;
Wintersmoon, 1928;
Farthing Hall (with J. B. Priestley), 1929;
Hans Frost, 1929;
Rogue Herries, 1930;
Above the Dark Circus, 1931;
Judith Paris, 1931;
The Apple Trees: Four Reminiscences, 1932;
The Fortress, 1932;
A Letter to a Modern Novelist, 1932;
All Souls' Night, 1933;
Vanessa, 1933;
Extracts from a Diary, 1934;
Captain Nicholas, 1934;
Cathedral Carol Service, 1934;
The Inquisitor, 1935;
A Prayer for My Son, 1936;
John Cornelius: His Life and Adventures, 1937;
Head in Green Bronze, and Other Stories, 1938;
The Joyful Delaneys, 1938;
The Sea Tower, 1939;
Roman Fountain, 1940;
The Bright Pavilions, 1940;
The Blind Man's House, 1941;
Open Letter of an Optimist, 1941;
The Killer and the Slain, 1942;
Claude Houghton Appreciations (with
Clemence DaneClemence Dane was the pseudonym of Winifred Ashton , an English novelist and playwright.-Life and career:...
);
Katherine Christian, 1943; and
Mr. Huffam and Other Stories, 1948.
Walpole also wrote three plays:
The Young Huntress (1933);
The Cathedral (adaptation of his 1922 novel), 1936; and
The Haxtons, 1939.
He also assembled a compilation of short stories called
The Second Century of Creepy Stories (1937) by an assortment of writers.
Critical opinion
Walpole was determined to gain critical as well as financial success, and to be accepted as the equal of
Anthony TrollopeAnthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...
,
Thomas HardyThomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
and
Henry JamesHenry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
. In his early days, he received frequent and generally approving scrutiny from major literary figures. He became a protégé of Henry James, whose influence is discernible in
The Duchess of Wrexe (1914) and
The Green Mirror (1917).
Virginia WoolfAdeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
praised his gift for seizing on telling detail: "it is no disparagement to a writer to say that his gift is for the small things rather than for the large… If you are faithful with the details the large effects will grow inevitably out of those very details".
Joseph ConradJoseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
said of him, "We see Mr. Walpole grappling with the truth of things spiritual and material with his characteristic earnestness, and we can discern the characteristics of this acute and sympathetic explorer of human nature".
Walpole was sensitive about his literary reputation and took adverse criticism badly. When
Hilaire BellocJoseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...
praised
P. G. WodehouseSir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
as the best English writer of their day, Walpole took it amiss, to Wodehouse's amusement.
By the 1930s, though his public success remained considerable, critical opinion saw Walpole as outdated, and his reputation took a blow from a malicious caricature in Somerset Maugham's 1930 novel
Cakes and AleCakes and Ale: or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard is a novel by British author William Somerset Maugham. It is often alleged to be a thinly veiled roman à clef examining contemporary novelists Thomas Hardy and Hugh Walpole — though Maugham maintained he had created both characters as composites...
in which the character Alroy Kear, a superficial novelist of more ruthless ambition than literary talent, was widely taken to be based on Walpole. By the time of his death,
The Times's obituary estimation of him was no higher than, "he had a versatile imagination; he could tell a workmanlike story in good workmanlike English; and he was a man of immense industry, conscientious and painstaking," though this belittling judgment brought forth indignant rebuttals from
T. S. EliotThomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
,
Kenneth ClarkKenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark, OM, CH, KCB, FBA was a British author, museum director, broadcaster, and one of the best-known art historians of his generation...
and
J. B. PriestleyJohn Boynton Priestley, OM , known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions , as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls...
, among others.
Within a few years of his death, Walpole was seen as old-fashioned, and his works were largely neglected. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography summed up: "His psychology was not deep enough for the polemicist, his diction not free enough for those returning from war, and his zest disastrous to a public wary of personal commitment". In 2011, Peter Hitchens wrote, "Henry James and John Buchan praised him. Joseph Conrad, T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf were kind about him. What's more, his books sold enormously well on both sides of the Atlantic, he was knighted, and he became very rich ... Yet now he has vanished completely, his books not even to be found on the back shelves of most second hand shops, dismissed as 'unreadable'".
Critics have not questioned Walpole's versatility: his range included short stories; bildungsroman (
Mr Perrin and Mr Traill, 1911, and the
Jeremy trilogy) that delve into the psychology of boyhood; gothic horror novels (
Portrait of a Man with Red Hair, 1925, and
The Killer & The Slain, 1942); biographies (Conrad, 1916;
James Branch CabellJames Branch Cabell, ; April 14, 1879 – May 5, 1958) was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres. Cabell was well regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when his...
, 1920; and Trollope, 1928); plays; and screenplays including
David CopperfieldThe Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger is a 1935 American film based upon the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield...
, 1935. Walpole was also a member of the
Detection ClubThe Detection Club was formed in 1930 by a group of British mystery writers, including Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Freeman Wills Crofts, Arthur Morrison, John Rhode, Jessie Rickard, Baroness Emma Orczy, R. Austin Freeman, G.D.H. Cole, Margaret Cole, E.C. Bentley, and H.C. Bailey. Anthony...
and contributed to the 1930
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
serial written by members of that body,
Behind the ScreenThe Scoop & Behind The Screen are both collaborative detective serials written by members of the Detection Club which were broadcast weekly by their authors on the BBC National Programme in 1930 and 1931 with the scripts then being published in The Listener within a week after broadcast...
, published in 1983 as
The Scoop and Behind the Screen.
Biographies
Two full-length biographies of Walpole were published after his death.
The first, in 1952, was written by
Rupert Hart-DavisSir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis was an English publisher, editor and man of letters. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd...
, who had known Walpole personally. It was regarded at the time as "among the half dozen best biographies of the century" and has been reissued several times since its first publication. Writing, as he was, when homosexuality was still outlawed in England, Hart-Davis avoided direct mention of his subject's sexuality, so respecting Walpole's habitual discretion and the wishes of his brother and sister. He left readers to read between the lines if they wished, in, for example, references to Turkish baths "providing informal opportunities of meeting interesting strangers". Hart-Davis dedicated the book to "Dorothy, Robin and Harold", Walpole's sister, brother, and long-term companion.
In 1972 Elizabeth Steele's study of Walpole was published in Twayne's English Authors series. Much shorter than Hart-Davis's biography, at 178 pages to his 503, it aimed "to show the sources of Hugh Walpole's success as a writer during the thirty-five years and fifty books of his busy career". Steele also wrote the article on Walpole in the 2004
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, which treats his private life briefly but candidly.
External links
- Works by Hugh Walpole at Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...