POETRY SPECIAL: Wayside Bundle - Constance Hargreaves (actually Frank Baker)

 

Here's an unusual post for Pretty Sinister Books and the second one inspired by a post I read at A Hot Cup of Pleasure, a book blog hosted and written by Neeru.  This is not unrelated to the content of my own blog for the book that Neeru wrote about in the inspirational post is the renowned Miss Hargreaves, a marvelous fantasy about a fictional character who comes to life.  I wrote about Miss Hargreaves and its author Frank Baker in this blog's inaugural year and it continues to attract the attention of people who rarely come here to read about murder, mayhem and horror. Miss Hargreaves is the antithesis of the kind of books I usually write about, but it still celebrates the human imagination and is, ultimately, a treatise on the power of creativity.  These are also aspects of genre fiction that I discuss in the many books of crime, adventure and supernatural that usually pop up here.

Wayside Bundle (1959) is a book of poetry by Constance Hargreaves, the title character of Baker's fantasy novel. She never existed but in the imagination of Norman Huntley, the protagonist of that novel. Baker, as a gift for his literary friends who had read the novel and fallen in love with the character, created this volume of her poetry alluded to over the course of the novel.  Features of her character's personality crop up in the subject matter of the poems which makes it all the more enjoyable for anyone who has read the novel Miss Hargreaves.  

THINGS I LEARNED: Many of the poems are written in doggerel verse, a feature of her writing mentioned in the novel, but there are also non-rhyming poems and more formal structures like a couple of sonnets and two poems that use the arcane form of a triolet, a short poem of eight lines with only two rhymes used throughout. I'd never heard of a "triolet" until I read these two examples.  I had to look up whether or not the form actually existed.  Here is a brief overview of a triolet according to the American Academy of Poetry: "French in origin, and likely dating to the thirteenth century, the triolet is a close cousin of the rondeau, another French verse form emphasizing repetition and rhyme. The earliest triolets were devotionals written by Patrick Carey, a seventeenth-century Benedictine monk. British poet Robert Bridges reintroduced the triolet to the English language, where it enjoyed a brief popularity among late-nineteenth-century British poets." For an example of the triolet devoted to a serious topic rather than the usual lighthearted verse, they cite Thomas Hardy's "How Great My Grief," a poem I did not know. In fact, I didn't know Hardy wrote anything other than bucolic and melodramatic family saga novels.

And so since I apparently am one of the lucky souls who has acquired one of the rare 350 copies of Wayside Bundle -- ostensibly by Constance Hargreaves, but really written by Frank Baker -- I offered to post some of the poems here.  Neeru mentioned in a comment on her post that some of the Hargreaves poems from this pamphlet (it's a mere 24 pages of handmade laid paper and stapled to a flimsy cardboard cover) are published in Bloomsbury's reprint of Miss Hargreaves.  This is the edition that nearly everyone in the book reviewing blogosphere has read since it was released in 2009 and why there is a mini cult surrounding the novel these days. Neeeru left a list of the poems in her comment and I've decided to post some of the poems that were not reprinted in that edition.

Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, the poetry of Miss Constance Hargreaves!

This is a footnote that appears at the bottom of "to the Reader"
Miss Hargreaves refers to her relative in the novel when first introduced to Norman's parents

Valiant Valancourt Books

I'm always ready to help publicize the work of any small press that dares to reissue my favorite writers languishing in the Limbo of Out-of-Printdom. Valancourt Books, who have reissued some of the earliest Gothic novels from the 18th and 19th century, has now turned their attention to 20th century weird and supernatural fiction. They are in the process of reissuing many of the books of John Blackburn.

Regular readers with good memories may know that I have reviewed three of Blackburn's wholly original thrillers which blend crime and the supernatural into thrillers with a hip 1960s vibe. Not since Dennis Wheatley gave up writing had anyone really done such an exceptional job as Blackburn at incorporating the supernatural into a modern setting.

I was so excited I sent a letter of thanks to the publisher James Jenkins and learned in his reply that my rave review of Broken Boy "helped persuade" him to reprint that book. What an honor for this humble little blog. I helped bring a forgotten book back into print!

Not only has Valancourt chosen to reprint John Blackburn they have a long list of books they plan to reissue, many of them out of print for decades, that will be of interest to readers of weird, supernatural and fantasy fiction. Some of the titles I am anticipating are Benighted by J. B. Priestley, The Hand of Kornelius Voyt by Oliver Onions, the books of Claude Houghton and The Burnaby Experiment by Stephen Gilbert, best known as the author of Ratman's Notebooks, AKA Willard in its movie adaptation. Valancourt Books' forthcoming list also includes crime novels like He Arrived at Dusk by R. C. Ashby (read my review at Mystery*File),  Ritual in the Dark by Colin Wilson and The Killer and the Slain by Hugh Walpole. Perhaps the most astonishing planned release will be The Birds by Frank Baker (author of Miss Hargreaves), an exceptionally scarce title I've wanted to read for years now. This is just a sample of the genre fiction. Valancourt also has an interest in early 20th century literary fiction and early fiction with gay themes. There is plenty that will appeal to a variety of reader tastes. All of it exceptional in quality and wisely chosen, I think.

Three John Blackburn books are available for purchase via amazon.com where Valancourt Books has chosen to market their titles. Below is a list of links. According to a blog post back in December 2012 Valancourt Books plans to reprint at least five other John Blackburn books including extremely scarce titles like The Beastly Business and The Household Traitors. 

All current titles published by Valancourt Books are available in either trade paperback or digital format.

Start saving your pennies, gang. I know I am!

John Blackburn's work at Valancourt Books
Broken Boy
Nothing But the Night
Bury Him Darkly

In a Related Story...

Every now and then I get a very interesting email from a reader of this blog who, in lieu of leaving a comment, sends me a personal note. This one I wanted to share with everyone. So I asked the reader (SteveHL) for permission to post it. It's related to the post on Miss Hargreaves back in March and mentions a similar idea as treated in a short story by a different writer.

I would have just posted this on your blog entry for 3/11 but I don't know if you would ever see that. Thanks for the recommendation of Miss Hargreaves. I ordered it and read it this past weekend. I am in total agreement - a really fine book.

There is a rather similar and very good short story, "Presence of Mind", written by a British writer named Martin Armstrong. It was originally published in 1934 in a book titled General Buntop's Miracle and Other Stories. I read the story in Fantastic Stories of Imagination (October 1962) in what was evidently the only other time it appeared. I don't know if your bookselling includes old science fiction magazines, but if you can find this, it's definitely worth seeking out. It's years since I last read this but I can still remember a lot of it. One of the people brought to life in the same way as Miss Hargreaves is named, I believe, Z. Q. Muggleton Spoffin; if you can bring Z. Q. to life, you can pretty much create anything. (That issue of Fantastic also had the first publication of Fritz Leiber's "The Unholy Grail" about the Gray Mouser in pre-Fafhrd days as well as stories by Tom Disch, Roger Zelazny and Ron Goulart. The Disch was his first published story.)

Thanks, Steve. And now...  further info from your intrepid blog host.  I can never resist a literary research challenge.

Martin D. Armstrong was a writer primarily of short stories. My research turned up four collections of his stories all of which include a handful of supernatural, ghost or fantasy stories. They are listed below with the appropriate genre tales noted. All the books listed below are the first UK editions. A few of his books were indeed published in the US, but I didn't bother looking up all of the bibliographic info on those.

The Bazaar and Other Stories

(Jonathan Cape, 1924)
Including: "Mrs Barber's Christmas", "Helm Hall", and "A Dog's Life")

The Fiery Dive and Other Stories

(Gollancz, 1929)
Including: "The Fiery Dive", "In the Wilds", "Portrait of the Misses Harlowe", "Saint Hercules", "Sombrero", "Widow of Ephesus"

General Buntop's Miracle and Other Stories

(Gollancz, 1934)
Including: "Presence of Mind", and "The Pipe Smoker"

A Case of Conscience and Other Tales

(Gollancz, 1937)
Including: "The Phantom Horseman"

Friday's Forgotten Books: Miss Hargreaves - Frank Baker

From Ray Russell's Supernatural Fiction Database

For this week's forgotten book I'm digging through my reading logs for something that is an all-time favorite book -- a reading experience that was not only satisfying on multiple levels but also transformative. Few books have this power over me anymore, but Frank Baker's supernatural fantasy Miss Hargreaves is one of those rare books that allowed me to see life with a new clarity, to begin to appreciate so much that I have taken for granted. It's one of those books I want to hand out to everyone I know so they too can read it and – with luck – will appreciate it as I did.

I discovered this book late last year a few months just after its reissue in paperback from Bloomsbury. I had owned the book for several years and had just decided to find out what it held in store. I must have been picking up on whatever was in the air, for right after I finished reading the book I went looking for info on Frank Baker of whom I knew nothing. Google searches began returning review after review on Miss Hargreaves from blogs all over the US and UK. Apparently the entire world rediscovered this book and its colorful characters at the same time I did. As I often say, "Isn't life filled with amazing coincidences?"

I did find out a few things about Baker – the most surprising being that he has a website devoted to his life and work. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. These days the internet seems to have a website for everything under the sun. Why not a site for Frank Baker? I'm glad I stumbled across it for I got a bibliography of his work and learned he wrote several enticing books including a dark fantasy that in part inspired Hitchcock's The Birds. And I bet you thought it was solely based on Daphne Du Maurier's novella. Well, I did. And of course now I have a small pile of Frank Baker books that eagerly await reading. But onto Miss Hargreaves…

Norman Huntley and Henry are the best of friends. But they have a habit of indulging in a fantasy game a bit too much. While on vacation in Ireland and touring a dull and gloomy cathedral the two of them invent an elderly poetess friend they dub Miss Hargreaves in order to entertain themselves and befuddle the sexton who is acting as their tour guide. Later they continue to invent and elaborate on the life of Constance Hargreaves who writes doggerel verse, plays the harp, owns a dog named Sarah and a cockatoo named after a character in The Beggar's Opera. Continuing their charade they write a letter to her and send it off to her home (also invented). When they return home Norman is shocked to learn that he has received a telegram from Miss Hargreaves accepting his invitation to visit and that she will be expecting him to greet her at the train station. He and Henry go to the station and are horrified when Miss Hargreaves shows up with cockatoo and dog in tow. Her harp has been previously sent on to Norman's home.


Young Frank Baker

 This has the potential for great farce. It may remind old movie fans of a kind of Harvey in reverse as a perfectly sane man tries to convince everyone around him that a woman they think is real is far from that - that he, in fact, created her. The act of creation is a central theme in the book but moreso the power of the imagination involved in the act of creation. Norman does get a bit of an ego trip out of it all at first. He very quickly begins to regret his elaborate prank. As amusing as it all first appears Norman's adventure in being a demi-god slowly becomes rather sinister -- a word that is used by Baker several times throughout the book.

Norman's father Cornelius, a scatterbrained bookseller who has a similar habit of embroidering the truth (if not completely fabricating it), warns Norman of the dangers of his wild imagination. He also reminds his son that "Creative thought creates" but Norman turns it around and keeps as his dangerous mantra "Destructive thought destroys." With each attempt at making Miss Hargreaves go away Norman only succeeds in making matters worse. She finds ways to transform and transmogrify herself in order to stay put. Amid all the comedy there are faint echoes of Victor Frankenstein in all of this as Norman's creation gradually begins to turn on him.

This is really rather a remarkable book that has much to say about friendship, father and son relations, and the ultimate power of the imagination. The numerous blog reviews I have read have similar heartfelt, personal reactions and a number of profound insights. Great writing often resonates with human emotion. The impressions sent out through the blogosphere support my belief that Miss Hargreaves is not only noteworthy in the supernatural fantasy genre but also a masterwork in English literature.

"Miss Hargreaves--" I murmured. "Miss Hargreaves--?"
I leant over the rail and looked into the darkness of the Irish Sea. It was night. The lights of our boat were the only lights upon the black water. No answer came from the sea as I mumured that name. And yet, it seemed to me that very faintly in the December air, in the wind, I could hear the sighing of my own name. "Norman-- Norman-- Norman--"