Something about Rachel Ferguson and The Brontës Went to Woolworths

I first heard about Rachel Ferguson's novel with the intriguing title some years ago, but only recently got around to reading it.

The title is a little misleading: the Brontës appear only briefly in the book and then only in ghost form. 

I found The Brontës Went to Woolworths to be of interest more for the connections and coincidences than for the characters and story.   

The book, which was first published in 1931 and is set in the London of the time, features a bohemian, eccentric family consisting of a widowed woman and her three daughters. They all participate in an ongoing game in which they make up stories about and have imaginary relationships and conversations with real people they have never met. 

This game and the effect that it has on their lives will be covered in a future article; first comes some miscellaneous material of interest.

The Celtic connection 
The last name of the family in The Brontës Went to Woolworths is Carne. The three daughters are Deirdre, Katrine and Sheil.

All of these names have Celtic connections.

Carne is a name of Gaelic origin; it means a pile of stones or a cairn.

Deirdre is an Irish name; Katrine and Sheil are Scottish place names. The girls' father was born on the Isle of Skye.

The Celtic heritage might explain why the girls can see ghosts and their father could see nature spirits.

Ferguson is also a name of Gaelic origin, and ghosts appear in some of Rachel Ferguson's other books.

Brontë connections and the Carne coincidence 
Like many other writers featured on here, May Sinclair for example, Rachel Ferguson was very interested in the Brontës and produced works about and/or inspired by them. She probably got the idea of siblings who share an imaginary world from Brontë biographies. 

Isaac Asimov, public libraries, and National Science Fiction Day

This article for January 2nd is the last in a string of lighter posts for the holiday season. It will soon be time to get back to the depressing biographies and other heavy topics!

January 2nd is the official birthday of the great - if not the greatest - science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who was featured in an article that marked the 25th anniversary of his death. There is also an article about a never forgiven or forgotten brushing-off experience that he had in common with Noel Streatfeild.

Isaac Asimov and public libraries 
Just like many other writers, Terry Pratchett for example, Isaac Asimov was a great user of public libraries as a boy. He learned far more from library books than he did at school, as did I and many other self-educators.

His autobiography In Memory Yet Green contains some details of his early dealings with public libraries, which he first joined at the age of six. Just as I did, he managed to wangle cards from two different libraries so got twice the normal ration of books; just I did, Asimov was soon able to get access to the adult section.

Isaac Asimov read voraciously to satisfy his craving for knowledge, but he was not indiscriminate. I could have written this myself:

“I wanted excitement and action in my stories rather than introspection, soul-searching, and unpleasant people. So if I did reach for fiction in the library it was likely to be a historical novel by Rafael Sabatini...(Usually, when I discovered one book by a prolific author I found I liked I would methodically go through all the others by him I could find.)“

Isaac Asimov remembers public libraries 
Even though he moved on to academic and other professional libraries and eventually established a reference library of his own at home, Isaac Asimov never forgot the huge debt that he owed to public libraries.

A last look at Walter de la Mare's Return

Walter de la Mare suggests several possible futures for Arthur Lawford, the main character in his horror story The Return. The ghost of the wicked Frenchman who is possessing him could slip away and he could be his old self again, free from the malign influence; his wife's circle of friends could declare him hopelessly insane and have him put away; he might leave his family entirely and go off somewhere else; he might even die, perhaps by his own hand.

The final outcome is unclear; the story ends suddenly without Arthur Lawford's fate being spelled out. However, there is still some miscellaneous material to comment on.

Arthur Lawford attacks a fat man 

There isn't much humour in The Return, but I was amused by one passage. When Mrs Lawford calls in a very fat friend of hers called Mr Danton, the French ghost attacks him through Arthur and makes some contemptuous and offensive remarks:

“Danton at heart was always an incorrigible sceptic. Aren’t you, T. D.? You pride your dear old brawn on it in secret?...Firm, unctuous, subtle, scepticism; and to that end your body flourishes. You were born fat; you became fat; and fat, my dear Danton, has been deliberately thrust on you—in layers! Lampreys! You’ll perish of surfeit some day, of sheer Dantonism. And fat, postmortem, Danton. Oh, what a basting’s there!”

The ghost of the Frenchman sometimes recedes leaving Arthur almost his old self, but the mischievous, saturnine, vindictive Nicholas Sabathier is definitely in the ascendant here. 

Other interpretations of the strange symptoms

It is possible that Arthur Lawford's  bizarre  behaviour was originally caused by a subconscious attempt to break out of his unsatisfactory life, the old 'deadly round'; 'Nicholas Sabathier the dark Adventurer' could be Arthur's shadow self, displaying all his repressed qualities and saying things that Arthur would not normally permit himself to say. 

Today is Rafael Sabatini’s birthday

The novelist Rafael Sabatini was born on this day, April 29th, in 1875 in Italy.

I have always thought of Rafael Sabatini as a member of a special trinity. Like the other two members John Buchan and Anthony Hope, he provided food and fuel for the imagination and a chance to escape from the mundane world. He gave a taste of romance, excitement and adventure, often in glamorous and historic settings, to people who had little chance of getting anything like it in real life.

John Buchan was also born in 1875, and by coincidence there are significant occasions in February for all three men: Anthony Hope was born on February 9th; John Buchan died on February 11th and Rafael Sabatini died on February 13th.

I put Rafael Sabatini above Anthony Hope and below John Buchan when it comes to both my enjoyment of their books and finding them a good source of material for articles about unseen influences.

Previous references

Although his books do not inspire commentary the way John Buchan’s do, Rafael Sabatini has been mentioned in a few articles. His wise words about equality have been quoted; the tragic deaths of his son and step-son and his obvious favouring of heroes with black hair over their rivals with blond hair have also been discussed.

To mark the occasion, I want to say a little more about Sabatini and his books.

Rafael Sabatini: equality is a by-product of envy

I recently came across a quotation from one of Rafael Sabatini’s historical novels that is very relevant today:

“The idea of equality is a by-product of the sentiment of envy. Since it must always prove beyond human power to raise the inferior mass to a superior stratum, apostles of equality must ever be inferiors seeking to reduce their betters to their level. It follows that a nation that once admits this doctrine of equality will be dragged by it to the level, moral, intellectual and political, of its most worthless class.”

- From Scaramouche the King-Maker by Rafael Sabatini

This quotation is sometimes said to come from Scaramouche: a Romance of the French Revolution, but it comes from the sequel. The two books were published in 1921 and 1931.

Rafael Sabatini, who died in 1950 so never lived to see what life in the 21st century is like, got it right. What he said about the lowest people trying to drag everyone down to the lowest level is very true. It is getting worse and worse.

Unseen Influences: the sacrifice of the sons?

When I was very young, I was an avid reader of the works of such prolific novelists as Sir Henry Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Rafael Sabatini. I knew at the time that both Rider Haggard and Kipling had a son who died young; it wasn’t until many years later that I learned about similar tragedies in the lives of Conan Doyle and Sabatini. 

Rider Haggard’s only son died of measles around the age of ten. 

Rudyard Kipling’s only son was killed in the first World War at the age of 18. Rudyard Kipling had lobbied for his son’s conscription after the boy was declared unfit for military service. Sadly, Kipling’s elder daughter had earlier died of pneumonia at the age of seven.

Conan Doyle’s first-born son died at the age of 25 in the flu epidemic in 1918. 

Rafael Sabatini’s son and only child died in a car accident at the age of 17 or so. Mrs Sabatini was in the car too but survived: she was thrown from the car, which reminds me of the fatal car accident involving Monaco's Princess Grace and Princess Stephanie. Rafael Sabatini’s young stepson died in a plane accident after joining the RAF. Something went wrong when he flew over the family home to demonstrate his new skills, and his plane crashed in flames nearby.

Aryan supremacy: blond hair and blue eyes versus black hair and brown eyes

The idea that people from the Nordic race are superior to those from other races was of enormous importance to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. They propagated that the best kinds of human beings were Northwestern Europeans, white-skinned people with blue eyes and blond hair; this meant that races such as the Negroid, Slavic and Mediterranean and people with black hair and brown eyes were considered to be inferior. 

Similar ideas affected people whose lives are of interest to me. 

When I first read a biography of Louisa May Alcott, I learned that her father was what we would now call an Aryan supremacist. Bronson Alcott was tall, and he had blond hair and blue eyes. He said that such people were superior to dark-haired people with black hair and brown eyes. Louisa resembled her mother, who could have passed for Spanish or Italian.

Bronson Alcott thought that his colouring indicated associations with the light and good, angelic forces; this implied that Louisa and her mother were not only inferior, but also dark, evil and demonic. When Louisa brought home a young man with fair colouring, Bronson said, “Sir, you are a child of light”. Why was this issue so important to him? What effect did his views have on Louisa and her mother?

Is it just a coincidence that Louisa was born in Germantown, Philadelphia? This reminds me of the connection between the Mitford family, Unity Valkyrie and her Aryan supremacist grandfather Bertie Mitford in particular, and Swastika, Ontario.