Owen Rutter
Encyclopedia
Edward Owen Rutter was an English historian, novelist and travel writer.
After serving with the North Borneo Civil Service from 1910 to 1915, Rutter returned to Britain during World War I
and was commissioned. Rutter served with the 7th Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment
in France and on the Salonika Front. He edited the Balkan News which included, under the pseudonym
"Klip-Klip", his parody of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
's The Song of Hiawatha
in serial form. Entitled Song of Tiadatha it has been described as "one of the masterpieces of Great War verse". Later published as a book, Tiadatha ("Tired Arthur") was the story of a naive, privileged young man who matures through his war experiences, particularly on the Macedonian front
fighting against the Bulgarians, and including the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917
. This volume was followed by Travels of Tiadatha (1922).
Accompanied by his wife, who also took many of the photographs for his books, Rutter travelled around the globe, making extended stops in Borneo
, Hong Kong
, Taiwan
(formerly known as Formosa), Japan
, Canada
and the United States
among other places.
His many books included The Scales of Karma, (1940) Pirate Wind (1930), Triumphant Pilgrimage: An English Muslim's Journey from Sarawak
to Mecca
, (1937) Pagans of North Borneo (1929) and Through Formosa: An Account of Japan's Island Colony (1923). He was also the author of works on Captain William Bligh and the Mutiny on the Bounty
. His novel Lucky Star was filmed as Once in a New Moon in 1935.
During World War II Major Rutter worked for the Ministry of Information
writing a number of booklets covering the British war effort.
He was fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
and of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Rutter was a member of the Athenaeum Club, London
. In his later years he was a partner in the Golden Cockerel Press
.
After serving with the North Borneo Civil Service from 1910 to 1915, Rutter returned to Britain during World War I
World War I
World 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...
and was commissioned. Rutter served with the 7th Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment
Wiltshire Regiment
The Wiltshire Regiment was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army, formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 62nd Regiment of Foot and the 99th Duke of Edinburgh's Regiment of Foot....
in France and on the Salonika Front. He edited the Balkan News which included, under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
"Klip-Klip", his parody of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
's The Song of Hiawatha
The Song of Hiawatha
The Song of Hiawatha is an 1855 epic poem, in trochaic tetrameter, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, featuring an Indian hero and loosely based on legends and ethnography of the Ojibwe and other Native American peoples contained in Algic Researches and additional writings of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft...
in serial form. Entitled Song of Tiadatha it has been described as "one of the masterpieces of Great War verse". Later published as a book, Tiadatha ("Tired Arthur") was the story of a naive, privileged young man who matures through his war experiences, particularly on the Macedonian front
Macedonian front (World War I)
The Macedonian Front resulted from an attempt by the Allied Powers to aid Serbia, in the autumn of 1915, against the combined attack of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. The expedition came too late and in insufficient force to prevent the fall of Serbia, and was complicated by the internal...
fighting against the Bulgarians, and including the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917
Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917
250px|thumb|The fire as seen from the quay in 1917.250px|thumb|The fire as seen from the [[Thermaic Gulf]].The Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 was an accidental fire that got out of control and destroyed two thirds of the city of Thessaloniki, second-largest city in Greece, leaving more than...
. This volume was followed by Travels of Tiadatha (1922).
Accompanied by his wife, who also took many of the photographs for his books, Rutter travelled around the globe, making extended stops in Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
(formerly known as Formosa), Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
among other places.
His many books included The Scales of Karma, (1940) Pirate Wind (1930), Triumphant Pilgrimage: An English Muslim's Journey from Sarawak
Sarawak
Sarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , Sarawak is situated on the north-west of the island. It is the largest state in Malaysia followed by Sabah, the second largest state located to the North- East.The administrative capital is Kuching, which...
to Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
, (1937) Pagans of North Borneo (1929) and Through Formosa: An Account of Japan's Island Colony (1923). He was also the author of works on Captain William Bligh and the Mutiny on the Bounty
Mutiny on the Bounty
The mutiny on the Bounty was a mutiny that occurred aboard the British Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789, and has been commemorated by several books, films, and popular songs, many of which take considerable liberties with the facts. The mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian against the...
. His novel Lucky Star was filmed as Once in a New Moon in 1935.
During World War II Major Rutter worked for the Ministry of Information
Minister of Information
The Ministry of Information , headed by the Minister of Information, was a United Kingdom government department created briefly at the end of World War I and again during World War II...
writing a number of booklets covering the British war effort.
He was fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
and of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Rutter was a member of the Athenaeum Club, London
Athenaeum Club, London
The Athenaeum Club, usually just referred to as the Athenaeum, is a notable London club with its Clubhouse located at 107 Pall Mall, London, England, at the corner of Waterloo Place....
. In his later years he was a partner in the Golden Cockerel Press
Golden Cockerel Press
Golden Cockerel Press was a major English private press operating between 1920 and 1961.The Press was founded by Harold Midgley Taylor in 1920 and was first in Waltham St Lawrence in Berkshire where he had unsuccessfully tried fruit farming...
.
Partial bibliography
- 1920 The Song of Tiadatha
- 1921 Chandu (Opium) (London: Queensway Press)
- 1922 British North Borneo: An Account of Its History, Resources and Native Tribes (London: Constable and Co Ltd)
- 1922 The Travels of Tiadatha (London: T. Fisher Unwin)
- 1923 The Dragon of Kinabalu. Bornean folk-tales
- 1923 General Sir John Cowans G.C.B., G.C.M.G. The Quartermaster-General of the Great War. Volume I (with Major Desmond Chapman-Huston) (London: Hutchinson and Co)
- 1923 Through Formosa: An Account of Japan's Former Island Colony
- 1924 General Sir John Cowans G.C.B., G.C.M.G. The Quartermaster-General of the Great War Volume II (with Major Desmond Chapman-Huston) (London: Hutchinson and Co)
- 1925 Dog Days (An anthology of poems on dogs)
- 1925 The New Baltic States and Their Future: an Account of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia (London: Methuen)
- 1926 Sepia (London: Hutchinson and Co) (republished in 1934 as Passion Fruit)
- 1928 Ask Me Another (London: T. Fisher Unwin)
- 1928 Golden Rain (London: T. Fisher Unwin)
- 1929 Lucky Star
- 1929 The Pagans of North Borneo (London: Hutchinson and Co)
- 1930 One Family, A Dream Of Real Things (London: Elkin Mathews & Marrot)
- 1930 The Pirate Wind: Tales of the Sea-Robbers of Malaya (London: Hutchinson and Co)
- 1931 (ed) The Court Martial of the Bounty Mutineers (William Hodge)
- 1932 The Monster of Mu (London: Ernest Benn)
- 1932 Once in a New Moon
- 1932 The Ostrich, at Colnbrook. With illustrations (Some British Inns. no. 14.)
- 1933 If Crab No Walk: A Traveller in the West Indies (London: Hutchinson and Co)
- 1933 What, Where & Who? A Book of Questions for Children (London: Benn)
- 1934 (ed) The History of the Seventh (Service) Battalion, the Royal Sussex Regiment. 1914-1919 (London: Times Publishing Co)
- 1934 One Fair Daughter (London: Victor Gollancz)
- 1934 Passion Fruit (originally published in 1926 as Sepia)
- 1935 (ed) Rajah BrookeJames BrookeJames, Rajah of Sarawak, KCB was the first White Rajah of Sarawak. His father, Thomas Brooke, was an English Judge Court of Appeal at Bareilly, British India; his mother, Anna Maria, born in Hertfordshire, was the illegitimate daughter of Scottish peer Colonel William Stuart, 9th Lord Blantyre,...
& Baroness Burdett CouttsAngela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-CouttsAngela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts , born Angela Georgina Burdett, was a nineteenth-century philanthropist, the daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet and the former Sophia Coutts, daughter of banker Thomas Coutts...
. Consisting of the letters from Sir James Brooke to Miss Angela, afterwards Baroness, Burdett Coutts - 1935 (ed) The Voyage of the Bounty's Launch (Golden Cockerel Press)
- 1936 Clear Waters
- 1936 The True Story of the Mutiny in the Bounty (Newnes)
- 1936 Turbulent Journey: a Life of William BlighWilliam BlighVice Admiral William Bligh FRS RN was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. A notorious mutiny occurred during his command of HMAV Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, after being set adrift in the Bounty's launch by the mutineers...
Vice-Admiral of the Blue (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson) - 1937 Bligh's Voyage in the Resource (Golden Cockerel Press)
- 1937 The First Fleet. The Record of the Foundation of Australia from its Conception to the Settlement at Sydney Cove. Compiled from Original Documents, with Extracts from the Log-Books of HMS Sirius (Golden Cockerel Press)
- 1937 Triumphant Pilgrimage: An English Muslim's journey from Sarawak to Mecca
- 1938 Anne Alone (London: Michael Joseph)
- 1938 At the Three Sugar Loaves and Crown: a Brief History of the Firm of Messrs. Davison, Newman & Company Now Incorporated with the West Indian Produce Association Limited (London: Davison, Newman & Co )
- 1938 Regent of Hungary: The Authorized Life of Admiral Nicholas HorthyMiklós HorthyMiklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" .Admiral Horthy was an officer of the...
(London: Rich and Cowan) - 1939 (ed) John Fryer of the Bounty (Golden Cockerel Press)
- 1939 Portrait of a Painter. The Authorized Life of Philip de László (with Fülöp Elek László)
- 1939 White Rajah (London: Hutchinson and Co)
- 1940 The Scales of Karma
- 1941 (ed) Allies in Arms. The Battle for Freedom
- 1941 The Land of Saint Joan (London: Methuen)
- 1943 Red Ensign: A History Of Convoy (London: Robert Hale)
- 1944 The British Navy's Air Arm: The Official Story of the British Navy's Air Operations
- 1946 (ed) We Happy Few' An Anthology I: Britain at War II: Britain at Sea III: Britain in the Air (Golden Cockerel Press)
- date of publication uncertain The Four Leaf Clover
- date of publication uncertain One Family. A Dream of Real Things ... Adapted from the film by Walter Creighton, with illustrations therefrom
- date of publication uncertain Rack Your Brain. A Naval Question Book
- date of publication uncertain Vendetta
- date of publication uncertain Violation: A Variation on an Old Theme