Today is the 111th anniversary of Sidney Paget’s death

Sidney Paget, best known for his illustrations of the Sherlock Holmes stories, died on this day, January 28th, in 1908.

He had lung problems for which there was no cure at the time. He went to Margate to benefit from the sea air and died there.

He was only 47 years old.

Just as C. S. Lewis’s Narnia stories wouldn’t be the same without Pauline Baynes’s illustrations, or Lewis Carroll’s Alice books without the pictures of John Tenniel, Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t be the same without Sidney Paget’s contributions.

The deerstalker cap and Inverness cape associated with Holmes were his invention.

If I could have just one of his illustrations, it would be this one:

Stella Benson’s Living Alone: Part III

We now come to Sarah Brown and the House of Living Alone.

Sarah Brown’s initials are the same as Stella Benson’s; she is an autobiographical character: much of what is said in Living Alone by and about Sarah and her life applies to Stella Benson herself, as can be confirmed by reading her biography.

The same applies to the House of Living Alone where Sarah Brown goes to live; Stella Benson knew it well.

Sarah Brown

Sarah Brown is the third main character of interest in Living Alone. 

She is a young woman who lives in London and is a member of the charity committee.

Her health is not good and her life is not satisfactory. Just like the witch Angela, she often goes short of food for lack of money and has to settle for scratch meals.

Sarah Brown is not very good at dealing with the real world; she says this about herself:

“You don't happen to know of a suitable job. I can't cook, and if I sew a button on it comes off quicker than if I hadn't.“

She has written a little poetry and means to write a book some day... some people have a creative temperament without having much creative ability. This does not apply to Stella Benson!

Sarah Brown accepts that magic exists. She can see it in action but cannot practise it herself. She has always wished to be friends with a witch. People who can’t operate very well in the real world or deal very well with real people often look for magical - or other - alternatives:

 “She was not really used to being alive at all, and that is what made her take to magic so kindly.”

This turning to the world of magic can be dangerous. People who seek salvation may be lured to destruction.

Angela the Witch supplies Sarah with sandwiches that, judging by the effects, were enchanted:

 “Sarah Brown would have been very susceptible to such a drug; her mind was always on the brink of innocent intoxication… Therefore, I think, she was a predestined victim of magic, and it seems unlikely that the witch should have missed such an opportunity to dispense spells.”

Sarah accepts Angela’s invitation to come and live in the House of Living Alone. This could be the best thing she has ever done, or it could be the worst.

Stella Benson’s Living Alone: Part II

Stella Benson’s fantasy novel Living Alone contains an assortment of characters.

There isn’t much to say about the purely supernatural element, which includes fairies, a magical white horse and a small dragon.

The ‘real people’ in the book include a policeman, a grocer who is also Mayor and some ladies from a charity committee. They are mainly caricatures or stereotypes, and most of them don’t inspire much in the way of commentary either.

The characters who are of particular interest are a witch, a wizard and someone who is neither magical nor a completely real person.

This article covers the two practitioners of magic, Richard the Wizard and Angela the Witch.

Richard the Wizard

We first learn about Richard from what his mother says about him. She says that he isn’t like other women’s boys. He cannot read or write; he disappears without explanation. The servants are all gone because they can’t stand him and his ways.

Living Alone was first published in 1919; one hundred years later, some of the things that we are told about Richard could be taken as a description of someone with mild autism or something similar.

Richard’s mother tells Angela the Witch:

“Do you know, I have only once seen him with other boys, doing the same as other boys, and that was when I saw him marching with hundreds of real boys ... in 1914.... It was the happiest day I ever had, I thought after all that I had borne a real boy... He deserted twice—pure absence of mind—it was always the same from a child—'I wanted to see further,' he'd say...“

We are told that Richard seems to have none of the small skill in details that comes to most people before they grow up. He does everything as if he were doing it for the first time.

Stella Benson wasn’t human: she had the soul of a snake

The feeling of being very different on the inside from those around them is very common among certain types of people. Some of them even believe that they are not really human: they are aliens who don’t belong in this world.

These ideas come from many independent sources. As I have just learned from reading her novel Living Alone (1919) and her biography by Joy Grant, the writer Stella Benson is one example. 

From an early age she felt very different from other girls; she also had a conviction that she wasn’t a real person; she wasn’t human. A future article about her may go into this in more detail.

In the meantime, there is something that is worth highlighting: she went one step further and confided to her diary that she had a ‘snake-soul’.

Stella Benson’s Living Alone: Part I

I recently re-read Stella Benson’s fantasy novel Living Alone to see what she has to say about witches. As with many other books featured on here, I first read it many years ago and just for entertainment. 

At the time, I overlooked things that now seem very significant indeed; I now see that there is enough material about witches, wizards and magic to generate more than one article.

There are also some autobiographical elements in the book; they will be included in an article about Stella Benson herself.

Part I starts with an overview of Living Alone and continues with some material from the book about magic and its practitioners.

About Living Alone

Living Alone consists of just ten chapters, so it is sometimes called a novella.

Living Alone has been described as a comedy, but it mentions desolation and has a horrible ending.

It is a very strange and unusual book, yet there are some familiar elements:

There are whimsical descriptions in Living Alone that make me think of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

The witches and their broomsticks in the book remind me of Terry Pratchett and his witches.

There are a few scenes that remind me of the use of magic in Diana Wynne Jones’s Charmed Life.

London has a magic of its own. There are many references to locations in London, places that I know well and enjoy reading about. Stella Benson was writing from experience: she too knew London well.

Anyone who wants to read Living Alone will find it on Project Gutenberg.

Two birthdays for two Stellas

Stella Gibbons and her books have been mentioned many times on here. One article compares her and her life with Georgette Heyer and her life; they were both born in 1902.

Stella Gibbons was born on January 5th. A much less well-known writer called Stella Benson was born 10 years earlier on January 6th.

As in previous comparisons, there are some common elements and some large differences in the lives of the two Stellas.

Stella Benson came from a much higher social class than Stella Gibbons. 

Stella Benson suffered from ill-health for much of her life whereas Stella Gibbons was fairly robust. 

Both writers had alcoholic fathers. Stella Gibbons was 24 years old when her father died; Stella Benson was 19 at the time of her father’s death,

Stella Gibbons was sent to school for the first time when she was 13; Stella Benson was 14 when she first attended school.

Stella Gibbons was brought up an atheist. She converted to Christianity after meeting the man who would become her husband. Stella Benson was brought up in a church-going family, but she came to reject Christianity - and other religions.