Rogue Herries (Herries Chronicles)

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An 18th century family saga about the wild and tormented Francis Herries, who starts a new life in Cumberland. Walpole, Hugh. "Why didn't I put Poison in his Coffee?" John O'London's Weekly, 11 October 1940, quoted in Hart-Davis, p. 264 A BBC Radio adaptation of Hugh Walpole's historical novel, set in the Lake District during the 18th Century

Margaret Herries loved her husband dearly, and forgave him everything; and though he didn’t feel the same way he appreciated that and did his best to look after her. He sold his mistress at a country fair after she upset the household, and the scene rang true but it made me compare Walpole with Hardy, and that comparison did not flatter him.

Wodehouse wrote to a friend, "I can't remember if I ever told you about meeting Hugh when I was at Oxford getting my D.Litt. I was staying with the Vice-Chancellor at Magdalen and he blew in and spent the day. It was just after Hilaire Belloc had said that I was the best living English writer. It was just a gag, of course, but it worried Hugh terribly. He said to me, 'Did you see what Belloc said about you?' I said I had. 'I wonder why he said that.' 'I wonder,' I said. Long silence. 'I can't imagine why he said that,' said Hugh. I said I couldn't, either. Another long silence. 'It seems such an extraordinary thing to say!' 'Most extraordinary.' Long silence again. 'Ah, well,' said Hugh, having apparently found the solution, 'the old man's getting very old.'" [116] Ortega, L.; Millward, D.; Luque, F.J.; Barrenechea, J.F.; Beyssac, O.; Huizenga, J.-M.; Rodas, M.; Clarke, S.M. (2010). "The graphite deposit at Borrowdale (UK): A catastrophic mineralizing event associated with Ordovician magmatism" (PDF). Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 74 (8): 2429–2449. Bibcode: 2010GeCoA..74.2429O. doi: 10.1016/j.gca.2010.01.020. Time and place were wonderfully evoked, the descriptions were wonderful, but the book fell down for me on character and relationships. There was no depth, there was no evolution, and there was little to suggest that they were active in setting the course of their own lives. They were simple people, so I wasn’t looking for too much, but many of the moments that would have illuminated their lives, were rushed over or even missed completely. The article was revised and reprinted in James's 1914 book Notes on Novelists under the title "The New Novel". [39] Borrowdale is within the Copeland UK Parliamentary constituency and the North West England European Parliamentary constituency. Trudy Harrison is the Member of parliament.

how tired I am of being caged with Aldous, Joyce and Lawrence! Can't we exchange cages for a lark? How horrified all the professors would be! Hastings, Selina (2009). The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham. London: John Murray. ISBN 0719565545. In 1937 Walpole was offered a knighthood. He accepted, though confiding to his diary that he could not think of a good novelist since Walter Scott who had done so. "Kipling, Hardy, Galsworthy all refused. But I'm not of their class, and range with Doyle, Anthony Hope and such. ... Besides I shall like being a knight." [91] Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, a 20th-century English novelist, had a large and varied output. Between 1909 and 1941 he wrote thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two original plays and three volumes of memoirs. His range included disturbing studies of the macabre, children's stories and historical fiction, most notably his "Herries" series, set in the Lake District.Poesio, Giannandrea; Weedon, Alexis (24 March 2016). The Origins of the Broadbrow: Hugh Walpole and Russian Modernism in 1917 (PDF). Laughing and Coping Entertainment in WW1. Luton, England: University of Bedfordshire. David would have liked to make his own way in the world but he felt tied to the family home. He was his father’s pride and joy, he had promised his dying mother that he would always watch over him, and he didn’t want to abandon Deborah, who had inherited her mother’s reserve. The most powerful chapter describes a pathetic old woman being lynched as a witch, but again I couldn’t see any thematic let alone narrative connection with the rest of the book. (Possibly she is an example of hostility to outsiders, like Herries himself.)

Hugh Walpole was born in New Zealand in 1884, the son of a Bishop. He came to England when he was five years old. He was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Buitenhuis, Peter (1989) [1987]. The Great War of Words – Literature as Propaganda, 1914–18 and After. London: Batsford. ISBN 0713460660. Census 2001: Parish Headcounts: Allerdale". Office for National Statistics. Archived from the original on 13 June 2011 . Retrieved 22 November 2009. Hopkins, Ernest (1920). Fortitude, 1826–1920 – Hugh Walpole Stumbles upon Priceless Literary Treasure in a San Francisco Book Shop. Los Angeles: John Howell. OCLC 13326286.

The main characters, Rogue Herries and his son David are well drawn with Francis (Rogue) being especially complex and troubled. The real star of the show is however the dramatic and beautifully wrought landscape of the area around Borrowdale with its ever changing weather and moods almost as dark as those of Francis. The novel is set in the early to mid eighteenth century and Walpole captures the mood of change very well. His depiction of the period feels very alive with all of its rural poverty, middle class pretension and the overall fragility of life. I particularly liked Walpole's capture of the people's adherence at this time to what are almost medieval beliefs and the mystical feel to some events. In time though, things changed. Deborah fell in love with a clergyman, who told her that he was prepared to wait until she was ready to leave her family. David fell in love with a young woman who he had to wrestle away from her cruel guardian – quite literally. And – most extraordinarily – Francis Herries developed a passion for Mirabell, the daughter of a gypsy woman he had helped and who had asked her to watch over her daughter after her death. He loved her as he had never loved before, she didn’t feel the same way, but she was buffeted by life and he became her refuge. Gunter, Susan E.; Steven H. Jobe (2001). Dearly Beloved Friends – Henry James's Letters to Younger Men. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0472110098. Ziegler, Philip (2004). Rupert Hart-Davis, Man of Letters. London: Chatto and Windus. ISBN 0701173203.

capacity to appreciate and admire generously the work of authors very different from himself. He held in the highest esteem, for instance, the novels of Mr James Joyce and Mrs Woolf. I grew up... discontented, ugly, abnormally sensitive, and excessively conceited. No one liked me – not masters, boys, friends of the family, nor relations who came to stay; and I do not in the least wonder at it. I was untidy, uncleanly, excessively gauche. I believed that I was profoundly misunderstood, that people took my pale and pimpled countenance for the mirror of my soul, that I had marvellous things of interest in me that would one day be discovered. [12]

Until I had come across this novel in a bookshelf in a rented cottage in Ambleside, I had never heard of Hugh Walpole. However my interest was piqued by the Lake District location and the references to Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga. Weis, P; Friedman, I; Gleason, J (1981). "The origin of epigenetic graphite: evidence from isotopes". Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 45 (12): 2325–2332. Bibcode: 1981GeCoA..45.2325W. doi: 10.1016/0016-7037(81)90086-7. The Herries Saga is certainly a weighty tome and as thoughtful and meticulous a "romantic" family saga as I have come across. To the modern reader "thoughtful and meticulous" might be perceived as slow and over-elaborate but I personally liked very much the careful unveiling of the 50 or so years covered by this first of four volumes. By the time of his death The Times 's estimation of Walpole was no higher than, "he had a versatile imagination; he could tell a workmanlike story in good workmanlike English; and he was a man of immense industry, conscientious and painstaking". [111] The belittling tone of the obituary brought forth strong rebuttals from T S Eliot, Kenneth Clark and Priestley, among others. [122] Within a few years of his death, Walpole was seen as old-fashioned, and his works were largely neglected. In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Elizabeth Steele summed up: "His psychology was not deep enough for the polemicist, his diction not free enough for those returning from war, and his zest disastrous to a public wary of personal commitment". [1]