Showing posts with label Parker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parker. Show all posts

12 February 2024

Behold the Translation of a Savage on Film!


Being an addendum to the recent post on The Translation of a Savage by Gilbert Parker.

Hollywood has blessed us with twenty-three adaptations of Gilbert Parker stories. I've managed to see just one, but not for want of effort. This post concerns the three adaptations of The Translation of a Savage, Parker's 1893 bestselling novel. As I'm intent on getting through all three in one post, criticism and snide comments will be kept to a minimum.

Promise.


The Translation of a Savage
1913

A "short," but how short? Amongst lost silent films, Translation is so lost that even its run time is unknown. The Edison Films advert above from the May 1913 Moving Pictures World provides a glimpse of what we are missing. Do not be tempted by Newcombe's Necktie, it's The Translation of a Savage we're interested in here.

The description, "little savage" included, is in keeping with Parker's novel. The very same issue of  Moving Picture World issue provides this synopsis:

In Parker's novel, Greyhope, the Armour family home, is in Herefordshire, not Staffordshire; a minor, seemingly inexplicable change. Much more significant is the description of Lali as "the daughter of a primitive trapper" and not the offspring of an "Indian chief." The surviving credits include a character named "Henri - the Trapper," suggesting French Canadian or possibly Métis heritage. We may never know. What I do know is that in Parker's imaginings Lali never runs and hides in the hedges.

Oh, how I wish I could include an image of Lili "looking beautiful in the dress of a woman of to-day," but I've yet to find a single image related to this film.


Behold My Wife!
1920

A better title, would you not agree?

This second adaptation holds no ambiguity; Lali is an "Indian." Of all the material attached to the film, this lobby card is my favourite by far:


Here we see Lali, as portrayed by Mabel Julienne Scott. Are those foothills in the background? If so, they're far from the novel's "Hudson's Bay country" setting. I'll add that cacti aren't native to Manitoba, northern Ontario or  northern Quebec.

The most detailed description I've read is found within a Photoplay Magazine review (January 1921):


The "two-fisted surveying gang foreman" aside, everything fits with Parker's story.

What the reviewer picks out as the film's flaw is shared with the novel:
The only weakness the story reveals is in the lack of sufficient excuse for the English hero's determination to be revenged upon his family. He had little reason to believe they had conspired against him, which weakens his subsequent action and the effect of Lali's arrival in England.

I wonder what's going on here: 


Do you think that's meant to be a Navajo hogan? In Hudson Bay country?

Another lost film, alas. 


Behold My Wife!
1934

Not a lost film! In this final adaptation – I can't imagine that there will be another – the "Indian" wife is played by Sylvia Sidney, the New York-born blue-eyed daughter of Russian and Rumanian immigrants. I'm guessing I first saw her as Juno in Beetlejuice, though its just as likely that I caught Sidney in stray episodes of My Three Sons, Eight is EnoughMagnum, P.I., and WKRP in Cincinnati. Her final role was as Clia in the Malcolm McDowell fin de siecle reboot of Fantasy Island.


The 1934 Behold My Wife! owes so little to The Translation of a Savage that it is pretty much unrecognizable. In this telling, the story takes place entirely in the United States. Frank Armour is reimagined as Michael Carter (Gene Raymond), a sauced son of the East Coast leisure class. His family are overly concerned with appearance, and so conspire to break his engagement to perfectly nice stenographer Mary White (Ann Sheridan). She commits suicide, which is not the result they expected.


Michael is met with the awful news on what he'd thought would be his wedding day. Despite a hangover, he's sharp enough to recognize that his mother, father, and sister are to blame for the dive Mary took out of her apartment window. Michael sets off on a drunk driving tour of the United States, winding up in a New Mexico saloon, where he's shot – accidentally – by an Apache named Pete (Dean Jagger). Gentle beauty Tonita Storm Cloud, Pete's sister, removes the bullet, and gets off the best line: "My father sent me to school. I learned many things in college."


Somehow, Tonita falls in love with a man who is entirely unworthy. I've seen similar tragedies play out in real life.

If anything, Michael Carter is even more dislikable than Frank Armour. In Parker's novel, an inebriated Frank marries Lali upon learning that his fiancée has married another. In Behold My Wife!, alcoholic Michael – sober, for once – is much more calculating. He marries the woman who saved his life as a means of revenge over his fiancée's suicide. Like Frank, he insists that Lali wear "Indian" dress when meeting her new in-laws, then sinks several levels further in asking her to do the same for a formal soirée intended to introduce her to "society." Here Tonita appears in a Parisian evening gown proves charming, clever, and quite a wit, particularly when confronting prejudice. In short, she is a sensation. Michael is enraged, revealing his motivation in marrying her.


A remarkable scene, this is the film's climax. Others may disagree as there's still a murder to come.

Yes, murder.

As I say, this adaptation owes little to Parker's novel. It's a strange film, shifting abruptly between comedy, slapstick, pathos, and tragedy. The plot is absurd, but is held together by strong dialogue and Sylvia Sidney. I acknowledge my promise to keep criticism to a minimum, but her performance is so heartbreaking, when it is not comedic or endearing. Behold My Wife! and The Translation of a Savage have one important thing in common, that being that they are well-intentioned works with flaws flaws that become more evident with each passing decade.

Both Behold My Wife! (1934) and The Translation of a Savage are available – gratis – online.

I recommend them both.

For good or bad, they are part of our heritage.

Fun fact (personal): In the 1920 version, Lali's father, Chief Eye-of-the Moon, was played by Englishman Fred Huntley, who was born one hundred years to the day before yours truly!

05 February 2024

Gilbert Parker's Savage Novel



The Translation of a Savage
Gilbert Parker
London: Methuen, [c.1897]
240 pages

I'm writing this after having spent several hours shovelling heavy slushy snow and stacking firewood. It may not be the best time – the mind is less than sharp and the body is tired – but I can't put off sharing my discovery of The Translation of a Savage, which is by far the most unpleasant and problematic novel I've ever read.

The Camden Democrat
6 October 1894
I mean discovery in a personal sense, of course; The Translation of a Savage was a bestseller in Canada, Great Britain, and the United States. Lippincott's Monthly Magazine devoted much of its June 1893 edition to publishing the novel in full. It was serialized in newspapers throughout the United States, and was thrice adapted by Hollywood. In the introduction provided for his 24-volume Works, Parker remarks on the novel's "many friends – sufficiently established by the very large sale it has had in cheap editions."

Sadly, those friends are long dead, and there is precious little evidence the novel is being read today.*

The Translation of a Savage begins in uninteresting fashion as yet another tale of the Canadian North. Frank Armour is a son of English privilege come to "Hudson Bay country" to further his fortune through mining. In doing so, he leaves behind his betrothed, beautiful Miss Julia Sherwood. The Armour parents aren't terribly keen on favourite son Frank's fiancée because she doesn't come from money; they'd much rather he marry Lady Agnes Martling, who "had long cared for him, and was most happily endowed with wealth and good looks." In their son's absence, mama and papa conspire to prevent the union.

Easily done! They invite Miss Sherwood to Greyhope, their Herefordshire home, then bring in young Lord Haldwell, and Bob's your uncle!

It's quite a blow to Frank, who receives his "Dear John" letter after reading about Julia and Hopewell's wedding in the society pages. He knows to blame his parents for the broken engagement, though as I've suggested, they didn't put in much effort. Nevertheless, brandy in his belly and revenge in his heart, he looks to "bring down the pride of his family" by marrying Lali, daughter of Chief Eye-of-the-Moon. After a brief honeymoon, the bride is dispatched to Greyhope in buckskin dress.

Lali, as portrayed by Mabel Julienne Scott, in Behold My Wife!, the 1920 Hollywood adaptation of The Translation of a Savage.

Lali's arrival in England is preceded by a well-crafted letter in which Frank acknowledges his parents' anxiousness that he wed "acceptably." He takes pains to note that Lali is of "the oldest aristocracy, in America." Because they'd wished him to marry wealth, he has sent them a wife rich in virtues, "native, unspoiled virtues." Frank trusts that they will take his bride to their hearts and cherish her, ever aware of their firm principles of honour. They will be kind to Lali until his return, "to share the affection which he was sure would be given to her."

The letter lands in the second of the novel's fifteen chapters. Twenty-first-century readers familiar with Victorian literature and mores will anticipate the reaction. I did, but was taken aback by a racial epithet entirely new to me. As I'm not one for censorship, I present it here. If you want to read it, click on the image below.

Richard Armour is the hero of this story. Frank's younger older-looking bookish brother, "not strong on his pins," has devoted his life to helping pensioners, the poor, and the infirm. Lali's acceptance at Hopewell is all Richard's doing. He is her defender. With gentle touch, he manipulates his family to her side, and provides the guidance she needs in navigating English society. 

Lali is the heroine. A young bride – her age is never disclosed – she wed Frank for love. Because that love is not blind, Lali quickly comes to recognize the awful truth behind her marriage.

Frank is the villain. After marrying Lali, he remains in Canada, and never so much as writes. His ventures are unsuccessful, in large part because his wife's people come to question what has become of Lali. Frank's people – by which I mean his family – do not trust his judgement. By the time Lali gives birth to a son, seven or so months after arriving at Hopewell, she has won over the Armour family. They recognize how badly she has been treated, and so respect her wishes that they keep the child's existence a secret.

Four years pass before Frank's return, during which Lali has adapted to her new surroundings. The woman he encounters in the halls of Greyhope is very different than the "heathen" he married.

Lali (Mabel Julienne Scott) and Frank (Milton Sills) are reunited in
Behold My Wife! (1920).

That word – "heathen" – is the used by Lali at the novel's climax, in which she is pushed to confront her husband:

Years of indignation were at work in her. “I have had a home,” she said, in a low, thrilling voice, — “a good home; but what did that cost you? Not one honest sentiment of pity, kindness, or solicitude. You clothed me, fed me, abandoned me, as — how can one say it? Do I not know, if coming back you had found me as you expected to find me, what the result would have been? Do I not know? You would have endured me if I did not thrust myself upon you, for you have after all a sense of legal duty, a kind of stubborn honour. But you would have made my life such that some day one or both of us would have died suddenly. For” — she looked him with a hot clearness in the eyes — “for there is just so much that a woman can bear. I wish this talk had not come now, but, since it has come, it is better to speak plainly. You see, you misunderstand. A heathen has a heart as another — has a life to be spoiled or made happy as another. Had there been one honest passion in your treatment of me — in your marrying me — there would be something on which to base mutual respect, which is more or less necessary when one is expected to love. But — but I will not speak more of it, for it chokes me, the insult to me, not as I was, but as I am. Then it would probably have driven me mad, if I had known; now it eats into my life like rust!"

Ultimately, of course, "heathen" is Parker's word, as is the measure of what a woman can bear. Lali existed only in his imagination, and remains with us today solely through the printed page.**

Frank tries to make amends, though His motivation is unclear. Is it, as Lali suggests, a sense of duty and a stubborn kind of honour? Might it have something to do with her "translation" to a woman who has been accepted by Society? Or is it simply because the two have a son? I have no answer, though will direct the curious to an associated theological question (below).

The very definition of a forgotten novel; The Canadian Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia of Canadian LiteratureThe Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, and The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature don't so much as mention The Translation of a Savage. This old Canadian Studies, English, and History major always saw it as just another of the dozens of Parker titles. I knew nothing about the novel, but feel I should have been made aware.

The Translation of a Savage begins as a story of the Canadian North. Aforementioned racial epithet aside, its attitudes and depictions of First Nations people are typical of Victorian literature; Lali's father, for example, is the very example of the "noble savage." What sets the novel apart is Lali and her translation.

She receives love in the Old World, in the main from the Amour family, making life sufferable, but her story is terrible. The entire story is terrible. Lali would like to return to Hudson Bay country, but feels she is too much changed. The novel's final sentences hint at reconciliation with Frank, but it is in no way a happy ending.

After all the time that has passed since reading those final words – some of it spent shovelling snow and stacking firewood – I'm still not sure what to think. What I can say, without hesitation, is that The Translation of a Savage should be read, studied, and discussed.

* Highly unscientific I know, but I do note that Goodreads features one lone readers' rating (one star), whereas Parker's The Right of Way has fourteen (3.36 stars average).

** I acknowledge that variations of Lali have appeared throughout the years on the silver screen – 1913, 1920, and 1934, to be precise – but Parker had no input in those depictions.

The subject of a future post.

Trivia: Frank receives news of Julia's marriage at Fort Charles – twice "Fort St. Charles" – a Hudson Bay Company outpost not far from the Kimash Hills and the White Valley. All exist only in Parker's fiction, most notably Pierre and His People (1894) and A Romany of the Snows (1898).

Interestingly, in 1907 poet Harmony Twichwell submitted an outline of an opera titled 'Kimash Hills' to her future husband Charles Ives.

Not trivia: In The Works of Gilbert Parker the author writes that the story "had a basis of fact; the main incident was true. It happened, however, in Michigan rather than in Canada; but I placed the incident in Canada where it was just as true to the life."

A theological question (spoiler): The novel ends suddenly with a contrived crise, after which we learn that Lali accepts "without demur her husband's tale of love for her." The suggestion is that this brings the couple together. Then come the last two ssentences:

Yet, as if to remind him of the wrong he had done. Heaven never granted Frank Armour another child.
If this is God's punishment is He not also punishing Lali?

Criticism: In his Works introduction, Parker notes that the novel was well-received. Despite the author's misgivings, Sir Clement Konloch-Cooke was eager to publish it in The English Illustrated Magazine. This was followed by enthusiasm from an unexpected source:  

The judgment of the press was favourable, – highly so – and I was as much surprised as pleased when Mr. George Moore, in the Hogarth Club one night, in 1894, said to me: “There is a really remarkable play in that book of yours, The Translation of a Savage.” I had not thought up to that time that my work was of the kind which would appeal to George Moore, but he was always making discoveries.

Object and Access: The novel made its debut in the June 1893 edition of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. My copy was purchased online late last year from a French bookseller. Price: US$14.65. It was advertised as the 1894 first British edition; indeed the title page suggests as much, but the novel itself is followed by a 40-page catalogue of Methuen titles dated March 1897. Included are seven Parker novels and Robert Barr's disappointing In the Midst of Alarms.

Je ne regrette rien.


This copy, the copy that now rests in my Upper Canadian home, once belonged to Parker's fellow Tory Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, who from 1892 to 1900 was British Ambassador to Spain.


Sir Henry was also the father of prolific novelist Anne Cleeve, author of The Woman Who Wouldn't (1895), written in response to Grant Allen's The Woman Who Did (1895).

In its first three decades, The Translation of a Savage went through plenty of editions from plenty of publishers. I'm betting most used booksellers can't be bothered listing them for sale online. Of those who have, the least expensive – an undated Nelson at £2.80 – is offered by a UK bookseller. The most expensive is a cocked copy of Appleton's 1893 American first edition at US$75.00.

Those with an aversion to previously-owned books – I knew one such person – will see that both Indigo and Amazon sell this Esprios World Classics print on demand edition. 

The photograph used on the cover was taken in 1902 at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, Wasco County, Oregon, adding further insult.

Related posts:

10 January 2024

O Lucky Man!



You Never Know Your Luck: Being the Story of a
   Matrimonial Deserter
Gilbert Parker
Toronto: Bell & Cockburn, 1914
328 pages

The dust jacket invites comparison with The Right of Way, Gilbert Parker's 1901 runaway bestseller, but I would have gone right ahead regardless. Both novels centre on married men who, brought down by vice, go missing. In The Right of Way that man is Charley Steele, Montreal's most feared lawyer and closet drunkard. Whatever you may think of him, Charley is not a matrimonial deserter. What happens is that he goes slumming, gets into a bar fight, and receives such a blow to the head that he loses his memory. It takes the talents of a world-renowned French surgeon to set things right, by which time the lawyer has been declared dead and his wife has remarried.

It is a story of redemption. Charley does not return to Montreal, his mansion, his vast wealth, and his beautiful wife. He'd married Kathleen for her looks, but she is now wed to a man who loves her back. Charley recognizes the private pain and public sensation that would result in reappearing Lazarus-like.

Shiel Crozier of You Never Know Your Luck is a lesser man. He begins the novel as J.G. Kerry, living a modest life in an Askatoon (read: Saskatoon) boarding house run by young Kitty Tynan and her widowed middle-aged mother. Shiel's true identity, that of a married Irish baronet, is revealed through his testimony as witness to a murder involving the Macmahon Gang. Gus Burlingame, the lawyer for the defence, holds a grudge. He was turfed from the boarding house after Shiel caught him groping Kitty.

Munsey's Magazine, April 1914

Pretty Kitty has a thing for Shiel. It's easy to see why. Handsome, personable, fun, and smart as a whip, he's seems the most eligible bachelor in Askatoon – that is until Burlingame gets him on the stand and has him disclose that he has a wife overseas. Before Kitty can digest the revelation the Macmahon Gang strikes again! This time, the target is Shiel himself. He survives a gunshot to the gut through the good work of the local physician, known affectionately as "the Young Doctor."

Munsey's Magazine, April 1914
While recovering, Shiel summons the doctor, Kitty, and Mrs Tynan to his bedside, where he expands upon the revelations revealed during the trial. The scene, which takes the entirety of the sixth chapter, is depicted in two not dissimilar illustrations by George Wright (above) and William Leroy Jacobs (below). 

You Never Know Your Luck
Toronto: Bell & Cockburn, 1914

Shiel speaks of his privileged birth, his education at Eton, his education at Oxford, and his education at London's Brooks's Club, where he was introduced to the Crozier family's long history of placing wagers on just about anything. Taking up the tradition, Shiel starts on a track that will lead to the loss of his inheritance, but not before he marries heiress Mona (maiden name not provided). His bride had encouraged him to change his ways. Shiel promised he would, only to bet the last of his fortune on a horse named Flamingo at Epsom Downs. What happened next was tragedy, no doubt inspired by Emily Davison's death at the 1913 running.

The Daily Sketch, 7 June 1913 

Like George V's Anmer, Flamingo was brought down by a woman stepping onto the racecourse, though this action had nothing to do with the Suffragette cause.

In an instant, Shiel is rendered nearly penniless. Because he hasn't the fortitude to face his spouse, he makes for the colonies, but doesn't escape before receiving a letter from Mona. Shiel's been carrying it, unopened, ever since.

The Right of Way ranked amongst the ten bestselling novels in the United States in both 1901 and 1902. It was adapted once by Broadway and thrice by Hollywood.

You Never Know Your Luck didn't make nearly so big a splash, though there was a 1919 Sunset Pictures production starring House Peters and Mildred Southwick. Alas, 'tis another lost silent film. Very lost. The only image I've found comes courtesy of this advert in the 16 December 1919 edition of the Beaver, Pennsylvania Daily Times

The reason The Right of Way did so well and You Never Know Your Luck not falls on Shiel's shoulders. He is a matrimonial deserter; there's no getting around this, it's right there on the title page.


The appealing, charismatic character we encounter in the novel's early pages is exposed on the stand. Though he's portrayed as having got the better of Burlingame when on the stand, he never managed to restore his reputation with this reader. And yet, Kitty's love endures, as does Mrs Tynan's. The novel's most interesting passage involves an awkward exchange in which daughter and mother reveal to one another that they are in love with the same man. Parker really pushes things when the deserted wife, still very much in love with her husband, arrives in Askatoon.

It is in Shiel that the fault lies.

Parker treads terrain that is similar to that of The Right of Way, but here his footing is nowhere near as sure. This time out, his hero is far too flawed.

The poorly composed seven-page epilogue – too wordy, too flowery – concludes with the marriage of the novel's most likeable character. It is not a happy ending. There's uncertainty, some of which stems from the fact that the groom has a vice of his own. And the bride? Well, she's in love with another man.

It's in these last few pages that the novel redeems itself.

Bloomer:

Object: Purchased seven years ago for six dollars, far more than I usually pay for a Parker; but just look at the thing!

First, there's the dust jacket, which has somehow managed to survive these last 110 years. Next we have four colour plates and illustrated endpapers by William Leroy Jacobs.

Access: You Never Know Your Luck first appeared in the April 1914 edition of Munsey. Much was made of it at the time.

Munsey provides nineteen illustrations, the first depicting Kitty Tynan:

My Bell & Cockburn edition is the Canadian first. Torontonian George H. Doran published the American first. Online seller Babylon Revisited Rare Books, whom I've dealt with in the past  and so, can recommend  has the two best copies on offer. Both Doran firsts in uncommon dust jackets, they're going for US$85.00 and US$125.00. Condition is a factor. The only Bell & Cockburn edition is offered by a Manitoba bookseller. At US$6.00, it is also the least expensive. 

Related post:

23 October 2023

Whither the Canadian American Bestseller?


Earlier this month, I tried to sell a friend on Basil King, as is my habit. I mentioned that in 1909 his novel The Inner Shrine outsold every other book in the United States, adding that he very nearly repeated that accomplishment the following year, and again the year after that. In this regard, King bested fellow Prince Edward Islander L.M. Montgomery, who never once made the annual top ten.

The annual top ten?

I refer here to lists compiled by The Bookman and Publisher's Weekly. The former cobbled together the first in 1895, the year Scotsman Ian Maclaren's Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush was all the rage. It didn't take long for a Canadian to appear. In 1896, Gilbert Parker's The Seats of the Mighty placed third, blocked from the top spot by Francis Hopkinson Smith's Tom Grogan and A Lady of Quality by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which I'm sure you've all read.

Gilbert Parker – later, Sir Gilbert Parker – was a publisher's dream. Scribner's 1912 twenty-four volume Works of Gilbert Parker is a beautiful thing. The more expensive editions come with a tipped in handwritten autographed letter.


And there was more to come! In 1914, Sir Gilbert's The Judgement House ended up as the republic's fourth best-selling book.

Parker is one of eight Canadians to hit the American year-end top ten. What follows is a year-by-year list  of those authors and their titles, beginning with Parker's The Seats of the Mighty. Some may question the inclusion of Saul Bellow and Arthur Hailey. My position on both men is simple. Saul Bellow was born in Lachine, Quebec. He was a nine-year-old when his family left Canada for the United States. Arthur Hailey immigrated to this country after the Second World War and became a Canadian citizen.

Long-time Toronto resident John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire, which placed second in 1981, is not included because it wasn't until 2019 that he became a Canadian citizen.

W.H. Blake's translation of Louis Hémon's Maria Chapdelain, which in 1922 was the eighth bestselling book in the United States is excluded. Though the novel has been described as a "a classic of French-Canadian literature," Hémon was French, not French-Canadian. His visit to this country lasted months, not years. My late friend Michael Gnarowski argued that Hémon would've become a citizen had he not been struck and killed by a train whilst walking the tracks outside Chapleau, Ontario. On this we disagreed.

1896

#3 – The Seats of the Mighty by Gilbert Parker

"A Romance of Old Quebec" with cameos by Wolfe and Montcalm, The Seats of the Mighty was the only Parker novel to been adopted as a New Canadian Library title. It's available today through Wilfrid Laurier Press.


1901 

#4 – The Right of Way by Gilbert Parker

#4The Right of Way by Gilbert Parker

A Montreal melodrama involving amnesia, murder, drinking, romance, and false identity, I raced through The Right of Way last year. Recommended.

Two spots down from Parker – at #6 – we find The Visits of Elizabeth, the debut novel by one-time Guelph girl Elinor Glyn.

1902

#4 – The Right of Way by Gilbert Parker#6 – The Right of Way by Gilbert Parker

The Right of Way again, and why not! It's a hell of a story, as evidenced by the fact that it was adapted for Broadway. Hollywood took it on three times!




1907

#2  The Weavers by Gilbert Parker

"A Tale of England and Egypt of Fifty Years Ago," this one concerns a young Quaker who brings the Gospel to the Land of the Pharaohs. Must admit that each time I see this title I hear "Goodnight, Irene." 


#9 The Doctor by Ralph Connor [Charles W. Gordon] 

I've not read this Connor, but Ron Scheer did. Sadly, Ron is no longer with us. I miss his scholarship and astute criticism. Happily, his blog survives. Ron's review of The Doctor is a fine example of his work.


1908

#10  The Weavers by Gilbert Parker

The Weavers again, yet unlike The Right of Way, this one never made Broadway, nor was it adapted by Hollywood.

Seems an opportunity.




1909 

#1 – The Inner Shrine by Anonymous [Basil King]

Reverend King's sixth novel, The Inner Shrine was the year's literary sensation. I think that much of the interest had to do with questions over authorship. Did it come from the pen of Edith Wharton? Henry James? How about the daughter of Willian Dean Howells?

 

1910
#3 – The Wild Olive by the author of The Inner Shrine [Basil King]

Publisher Harper maintains the mystery.

I once described The Wild Olive as the best Basil King novel I'd ever read. Ah, but that was seven years ago and I was so young; The Empty Sack and The Thread of Flame are even better.


1912

#2  – The Street Called Straight by the author of The Inner Shrine [Basil King]

Shortly after The Street Called Straight was published, Reverend King revealed himself as the author of all three books. He continued to have success commercially, but his books never again appeared in the year-end top ten.


1913

#4  The Judgement House by Gilbert Parker

Lesser-known today – but then isn't Parker himself? – The Judgement House is set against the backdrop of the Boer War. Apparently, a femme fatale features. You can bet I'll be ordering a copy!
1918

#7  The Major by Ralph Connor [Charles W. Gordon]

One of Connor's Alberta novels, as expected, it was heavily influenced by the Great War. Germans and their country's imperialist aspirations don't come off nearly so well as settlers establishing themselves on the Prairies.



1919

#5 – The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land by Ralph Connor [Charles W. Gordon]

A Great War novel, complete with horrors. The author served as Chaplain in the 43rd Cameron Highlanders. I have more to say on this in an old post on New Canadian Library intros.



1927

#5 
– Jalna by Mazo de la Roche

The book that launched the longest running series of novels in Canadian history. Sixteen in total! 







1928

#9 
– Jalna by Mazo de la Roche

Jalna. Of course, Jalna. Do not get me started on the CBC's disastrous The Whiteoaks of Jalna, which at age ten served as my introduction to the works of Mazo de la Roche, and nearly killed my interest in Canadian literature.




1931

#8 
– Finch's Fortune by Mazo de la Roche

Interestingly, Finch's Fortune is the third volume in the Jalna saga; Whiteoaks of Jalna, the second, failed to make the year-end top ten.

 



1933

#7 – The Master of Jalna by Mazo de la Roche

The last in the series make the year-end top ten, which is not to say that Jalna was abandoned by the reading public. The surprisingly brief de la Roche Canadian Encyclopedia entry reports: "Jalna novels have sold 9 million copies in 193 English- and 92 foreign-language editions."
 

1945

#3 – 
The Black Rose by Thomas B. Costain

The Black Rose sold over two million copies. I learned this courtesy of The Canadian Encylopedia's entry on Costain, which is even shorter than de la Roche's!

More anon.


#9 
– Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham

The author's second and final novel, I've made the argument that its success had a paralyzing effect. Earth and High Heaven was to have been a film starring Katherine Hepburn, but Gentleman's Agreement, which deals with similar material, put an end to all that.


1946

#8 – 
The Black Rose by Thomas B. Costain

The Black Rose is a historical novel about a young Saxon's adventures in thirteenth-century China. I'm not much taken by the idea, but millions were. To be frank, I'm much more interested in the Hollywood adaptation starring Orson Welles, Tyrone Power, and Cécile Aubry, but not so much that I've seen it.

1947

#2 
– The Moneyman by Thomas B. Costain

Apparently, Thomas B. Costain wrote four unpublished historical novels in high school, one of which focussed on Maurice of Nassau, Prince of OrangeThe Moneyman takes as its inspiration the life of Jacques Couer, royal banker to Charles VII of France.


1949

#7 
The High Towers by Thomas B. Costain

One of two historical novels Costain set in what is now Canada; the other being Son of a Hundred Kings (1950). It was through my father's copy of the 1950 Bantam paperback edition that I was introduced to Costain. and so I share its cover and not Doubleday's bland and predictable jacket illustration.
 

1952

#1 
– The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain

Here Costain enters Lloyd C. Douglas territory with the tale of Basil of Antioch, a sensitive silversmith who is commissioned to decorate the chalice used by Christ in the last supper.




1953

#2 
– The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain

The novel continued to sell, but I wonder whether Costain missed the opportunity to write a sequel inspired by the burial of the Holy Grail on Oak Island by the Knights Templar.




1955

#9  – The Tontine by Thomas B. Costain

Book of the Month Club copies once littered every church rummage sale. The same might be said of many BOMC selections, but what set The Tontine apart was that it was published in two volumes, meaning that there were twice as many seemingly identical books. I never managed to pair volumes one and two. 

1957

#9 
– Below the Salt by Thomas B. Costain

New to me, Below the Salt marked a bit of a departure for Costain. It relies on the theory of reincarnation, linking a modern-day senator (American) to a thirteenth-century serf (English).




1964

#3 
– Herzog by Saul Bellow

How to explain Herzog's presence? It was awarded the National Book Award, but so had The Adventures of Augie March, and so would Mr. Sammler's Planet, and they didn't make the year-end top ten.





1965

#3 
– Herzog by Saul Bellow

In my first year of university I found a very nice first edition in dust jacket. I've carried it from home to home ever since, but it was only in putting this piece together that I saw the face in the cover.

That perfect font is so distracting.

#8 
– Hotel by Arthur Hailey

In Hailey's bibliography, Hotel follows In High Places (1962), a political thriller centred on challenges both domestic and international faced by Canadian prime minister James McCallum. Hotel doesn't sound nearly so interesting, though it did inspire a 1967 feature film and the ABC prime time soap of the same name starring James Brolin. 


1968

#1 
– Airport by Arthur Hailey

The novel that spawned Airport, Airport 1975, Airport '77, The Concorde - Airport '79Airplane!, and Airplane II: The Sequel,  Airport was the second Canadian novel I ever read. I think there were some sexy bits, but I'm not sure. If they existed, they weren't so memorable as the stuff in Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers.


1971

#1 
– Wheels by Arthur Hailey

A novel set inside the Detroit auto industry. Interestingly, the ten-hour five-part 1978 NBC mini-series starring Rock Hudson and Lee Remick is set in the 'sixties. It's a period piece, though you wouldn't know it.  




1975

#2 
– The Moneychangers by Arthur Hailey

The idea of a novel centring on banking, finance and investing doesn't sound nearly so interesting as one about a sleek and powerful car, which may explain why The Moneychangers failed to land at #1. It was kept from top spot by E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime


1979

#3 
– Overload by Arthur Hailey

Here the author whose previous novels were set in the hospitalty industry, the aviation industry, the automotive industry, and the banking industry, presents a 512-page novel focussed on a California utility company.

There will be brownouts!


And that's it.

Arthur Hailey went on to write three more novels: Strong Medicine (1984), The Evening News (1990), and Detective (1997). All were bestsellers, but not so much that they dominated the bestseller lists. He died in 2004, the eighth and last Canadian to have written a book that landed in the year-end top ten.

Between 1896 and 1979 eight Canadians wrote twenty-seven novels in the annual list of top American bestsellers. Six of the twenty-seven titles appeared two years running. These figures are impressive, until one realizes that all happened within an eighty-three-year span, and that it's been forty-three years since any Canadian writer has done the same. Margaret Atwood? Not even The Testaments. Life of Pi didn't make the cut, nor did The English Patient.

Why is that?

All my theories have fallen flat.

Any ideas?