Patrick Hamilton (dramatist)
Encyclopedia
Patrick Hamilton was an English playwright and novelist.
He was well regarded by Graham Greene
and J. B. Priestley
and study of his novels has been revived recently because of their distinctive style, deploying a Dickensian narrative voice to convey aspects of inter-war London street culture. They display a strong sympathy for the disadvantaged, as well as an acerbic black humour. Doris Lessing
wrote in The Times
in 1968: "Hamilton was a marvellous novelist who's grossly neglected".
village of Hassocks
, near Brighton
, to writer parents. Due to his father's alcoholism and financial ineptitude, the family spent much of Hamilton's childhood living in boarding houses in Chiswick
and Hove
. His education was patchy, and ended just after his fifteenth birthday when his mother withdrew him from Westminster School
.
After a brief career as an actor, he became a novelist in his early twenties with the publication of Monday Morning (1925), written when he was nineteen. Craven House (1926) and Twopence Coloured (1928) followed, but his first real success was the play Rope
(1929, known as Rope's End in America).
The Midnight Bell (1929) is based upon Hamilton's falling in love with a prostitute and was later published along with The Siege of Pleasure (1932) and The Plains of Cement (1934) as the semi-autobiographical trilogy Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (1935).
Hamilton disliked many aspects of modern life. He was disfigured badly when he was run over by a car in the late 1920s: the end of his novel Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse (1953), with its vision of England smothered in metal beetles, reflects his loathing of the motor car. However, despite some distaste for the culture in which he operated, he was a popular contributor to it. His two most successful plays, Rope
and Gas Light
(1938, known as Angel Street in the USA), made Hamilton wealthy and were also successful as films: the British-made Gaslight
(1940) and the 1944 American remake
, and Alfred Hitchcock's
Rope
(1948).
Hangover Square
(1941) is often judged his most accomplished work and still sells well in paperback, and is regarded by contemporary authors such as Iain Sinclair
and Peter Ackroyd
as an important part of the tradition of London novels. Set in Earls Court
where Hamilton himself lived, it deals with both alcohol-drinking practices of the time and the underlying political context, such as the rise of fascism
and responses to it. Hamilton became an avowed Marxist, though not a publicly declared member of the Communist Party of Great Britain
. During the 1930s, like many other authors, Hamilton grew increasingly angry with capitalism and believed that the violence and fascism of Europe during the period indicated that capitalism was reaching its end. This encouraged his Marxism and his novel Impromptu in Moribundia (1939) was a satirical attack on capitalist culture.
During his later life, Hamilton developed in his writing a misanthropic authorial voice which became more disillusioned, cynical and bleak as time passed. The Slaves of Solitude
(1947) was his only work to deal directly with the Second World War and he preferred to look back to the pre-war years. His Gorse Trilogy
- three novels about a devious sexual predator and conman - are not generally well thought of critically, although Graham Greene said that the first was 'the best book written about Brighton' and the second (Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse) is regarded increasingly as a comic masterpiece. The hostility and negativity of the novels is also attributed to Hamilton's disenchantment with the utopianism of Marxism and depression. The trilogy comprises: The West Pier (1952); Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse (1953), dramatized as The Charmer in 1987; and in 1955 Hamilton's last published work, Unknown Assailant, a short novel much of which was dictated while Hamilton was drunk. The Gorse Trilogy was first published in a single volume in 1992.
Hamilton had begun to consume alcohol excessively while still a relatively young man. After a declining career and melancholia, he died in 1962 of cirrhosis of the liver and kidney failure, in Sheringham
, Norfolk
. He was married twice, firstly to Lois Marie Martin in 1930, and a year after divorcing Lois, to Lady Ursula Chetwynd-Talbot in 1954.
, and continuing the strong recent revival of interest in his work the British TV channel BBC Two
screened an adaptation of 20,000 Streets Under the Sky
in September 2005, reshown on BBC Four
in January 2006, alongside a documentary account of his life. The adaptation was released on DVD in 2007.
He was well regarded by Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
and J. B. Priestley
J. B. Priestley
John 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...
and study of his novels has been revived recently because of their distinctive style, deploying a Dickensian narrative voice to convey aspects of inter-war London street culture. They display a strong sympathy for the disadvantaged, as well as an acerbic black humour. Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing
Doris May Lessing CH is a British writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos....
wrote in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
in 1968: "Hamilton was a marvellous novelist who's grossly neglected".
Life and works
He was born Anthony Walter Patrick Hamilton in the SussexSussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
village of Hassocks
Hassocks
Hassocks is a large village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex district of West Sussex, England. Its name is believed to derive from the tufts of grass found in the surrounding fields....
, near Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, to writer parents. Due to his father's alcoholism and financial ineptitude, the family spent much of Hamilton's childhood living in boarding houses in Chiswick
Chiswick
Chiswick is a large suburb of west London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located on a meander of the River Thames, west of Charing Cross and is one of 35 major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, with...
and Hove
Hove
Hove is a town on the south coast of England, immediately to the west of its larger neighbour Brighton, with which it forms the unitary authority Brighton and Hove. It forms a single conurbation together with Brighton and some smaller towns and villages running along the coast...
. His education was patchy, and ended just after his fifteenth birthday when his mother withdrew him from Westminster School
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
.
After a brief career as an actor, he became a novelist in his early twenties with the publication of Monday Morning (1925), written when he was nineteen. Craven House (1926) and Twopence Coloured (1928) followed, but his first real success was the play Rope
Rope (play)
Rope is a 1929 British play by Patrick Hamilton. In formal terms, it is a well-made play with a three-act dramatic structure that adheres to the classical unities. Its action is continuous, punctuated only by the curtain fall at the end of each act. It may also be considered a thriller whose...
(1929, known as Rope's End in America).
The Midnight Bell (1929) is based upon Hamilton's falling in love with a prostitute and was later published along with The Siege of Pleasure (1932) and The Plains of Cement (1934) as the semi-autobiographical trilogy Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (1935).
Hamilton disliked many aspects of modern life. He was disfigured badly when he was run over by a car in the late 1920s: the end of his novel Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse (1953), with its vision of England smothered in metal beetles, reflects his loathing of the motor car. However, despite some distaste for the culture in which he operated, he was a popular contributor to it. His two most successful plays, Rope
Rope (play)
Rope is a 1929 British play by Patrick Hamilton. In formal terms, it is a well-made play with a three-act dramatic structure that adheres to the classical unities. Its action is continuous, punctuated only by the curtain fall at the end of each act. It may also be considered a thriller whose...
and Gas Light
Gas Light (play)
Gas Light is a 1938 play by the British dramatist Patrick Hamilton. The play gave rise to the term gaslighting with the meaning "a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim with the intent of making him/her doubt his/her own memory and...
(1938, known as Angel Street in the USA), made Hamilton wealthy and were also successful as films: the British-made Gaslight
Gaslight (1940 film)
Gaslight is a 1940 film directed by Thorold Dickinson, based on Patrick Hamilton's play Gas Light which stars Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard, and Frank Pettingell...
(1940) and the 1944 American remake
Gaslight (1944 film)
Gaslight is a 1944 mystery-thriller film adapted from Patrick Hamilton's play, Gas Light, performed as Angel Street on Broadway in 1941. It was the second version to be filmed; the first, released in the United Kingdom, had been made a mere four years earlier...
, and Alfred Hitchcock's
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
Rope
Rope (film)
Rope is a 1948 American thriller film based on the play Rope by Patrick Hamilton and adapted by Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by Sidney Bernstein and Hitchcock as the first of their Transatlantic Pictures productions...
(1948).
Hangover Square
Hangover Square
Hangover Square is a 1941 novel by English playwright and novelist Patrick Hamilton . Subtitled A tale of Darkest Earl's Court it is set in that area of London in 1939....
(1941) is often judged his most accomplished work and still sells well in paperback, and is regarded by contemporary authors such as Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair FRSL is a British writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, most recently within the influences of psychogeography.-Life and work:...
and Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd CBE is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a particular interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot and Sir Thomas More he won the Somerset Maugham Award...
as an important part of the tradition of London novels. Set in Earls Court
Earls Court
Earls Court is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. It is an inner-city district centred on Earl's Court Road and surrounding streets, located 3.1 miles west south-west of Charing Cross. It borders the sub-districts of South Kensington to the East, West...
where Hamilton himself lived, it deals with both alcohol-drinking practices of the time and the underlying political context, such as the rise of fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
and responses to it. Hamilton became an avowed Marxist, though not a publicly declared member of the Communist Party of Great Britain
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
. During the 1930s, like many other authors, Hamilton grew increasingly angry with capitalism and believed that the violence and fascism of Europe during the period indicated that capitalism was reaching its end. This encouraged his Marxism and his novel Impromptu in Moribundia (1939) was a satirical attack on capitalist culture.
During his later life, Hamilton developed in his writing a misanthropic authorial voice which became more disillusioned, cynical and bleak as time passed. The Slaves of Solitude
The Slaves of Solitude
The Slaves of Solitude is a novel by Patrick Hamilton. It was published in 1947 and reissued by New York Review Books Classics in 2007.- Plot :...
(1947) was his only work to deal directly with the Second World War and he preferred to look back to the pre-war years. His Gorse Trilogy
Gorse Trilogy
The Gorse Trilogy is a series of three novels, the last published works of the author Patrick Hamilton. In these novels, Patrick Hamilton creates one of fiction's most captivating anti-heroes, Ernest Ralph Gorse, whose heartlessness and lack of scruple are matched only by the inventiveness and...
- three novels about a devious sexual predator and conman - are not generally well thought of critically, although Graham Greene said that the first was 'the best book written about Brighton' and the second (Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse) is regarded increasingly as a comic masterpiece. The hostility and negativity of the novels is also attributed to Hamilton's disenchantment with the utopianism of Marxism and depression. The trilogy comprises: The West Pier (1952); Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse (1953), dramatized as The Charmer in 1987; and in 1955 Hamilton's last published work, Unknown Assailant, a short novel much of which was dictated while Hamilton was drunk. The Gorse Trilogy was first published in a single volume in 1992.
Hamilton had begun to consume alcohol excessively while still a relatively young man. After a declining career and melancholia, he died in 1962 of cirrhosis of the liver and kidney failure, in Sheringham
Sheringham
Sheringham is a seaside town in Norfolk, England, west of Cromer.The motto of the town, granted in 1953 to the Sheringham Urban District Council, is Mare Ditat Pinusque Decorat, Latin for "The sea enriches and the pine adorns"....
, Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
. He was married twice, firstly to Lois Marie Martin in 1930, and a year after divorcing Lois, to Lady Ursula Chetwynd-Talbot in 1954.
Novels
- Monday Morning (1925)
- Craven House (1926, revised edition 1943)
- Twopence Coloured (1928)—out of print for many years but re-published by Faber Finds on 27 July 2011
- The Midnight Bell (1929)
- The Siege of Pleasure (1932)
- The Plains of Cement (1934)
- Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (1935 - trilogy of The Midnight Bell, The Siege of Pleasure and The Plains of Cement)
- Impromptu in Moribundia (1939)
- Hangover SquareHangover SquareHangover Square is a 1941 novel by English playwright and novelist Patrick Hamilton . Subtitled A tale of Darkest Earl's Court it is set in that area of London in 1939....
(1941) - The Slaves of SolitudeThe Slaves of SolitudeThe Slaves of Solitude is a novel by Patrick Hamilton. It was published in 1947 and reissued by New York Review Books Classics in 2007.- Plot :...
(1947) - The West Pier (1952)
- Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse (1953)
- Unknown Assailant (1955)
Recent revival
Hamilton was recently the subject of a special season of films at the National Film Theatre in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, and continuing the strong recent revival of interest in his work the British TV channel BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
screened an adaptation of 20,000 Streets Under the Sky
20,000 Streets Under the Sky
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels by Patrick Hamilton.The three books are The Midnight Bell , The Siege of Pleasure and The Plains of Cement...
in September 2005, reshown on BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
in January 2006, alongside a documentary account of his life. The adaptation was released on DVD in 2007.
Further reading
- Jones, Nigel. (1991) Through a Glass Darkly : The Life of Patrick Hamilton, Scribners
- French, Sean. (1993) Patrick Hamilton: A Life, Faber and Faber
External links
- Black Spring Press New publishers of The Gorse Trilogy and Craven House
- Constable & Robinson Patrick Hamilton's original UK publisher, and current publisher of The Slaves of Solitude
- New York Review of Books Classics American reissues of Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky and The Slaves of Solitude
- The lost worlds of Patrick Hamilton: a review in the TLS, May 16, 2007 -- Review of The Slaves of Solitude
- A biography can be found at www.allmovie.com
- Patrick Hamilton at the Internet Broadway DatabaseInternet Broadway DatabaseThe Internet Broadway Database is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade association for the North American commercial theatre community....
-- Review of The Midnight Bell -- Article on Hamilton's screen adaptations - Article on Hamilton revival
- Essay on Hamilton's treatment of London pub culture
- Patrick Hamilton Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at AustinUniversity of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
- "The lost worlds of Patrick Hamilton": D. J. Taylor's introduction to the Gorse Trilogy from TLS, May 16, 2007.
- Simon Goulding's exploration of the London of Patrick Hamilton's 'The Midnight Bell'