An Obstinate Virgin Turns Old-Fashioned Girl

The Obstinate Virgin
Sinclair Murray [Alan Sullivan]
London: Sampson Low, Marston [1934]
314 pages

In Essentially Canadian, his 1982 biography of Alan Sullivan, Gordon D. McLeod dismisses The Obstinate Virgin in two sentences:

The most devastating word applied to some of Sullivan's fiction is "ephemeral." It accurately describes The Obstinate Virgin, the only novel published by Sullivan in 1934.

And so, of course, I turned to The Obstinate Virgin as the next title in my exploration of things Sullivan.

The titular virgin is Mary Hellmuth, twenty-one-year-old step-daughter to Mr Henry Bentick, late of Kent. Step-dad is dead. His demise, quite recent, quite unexpected, must surely came as a shock, though no tears are in evidence. Mary's mother – known only as "Mrs Bentick" – had remarried for money, which is not to suggest that Mr Bentick wasn't most kind and considerate. "I wanted the right sort of home for you," she tells her daughter. "I don't complain about the last four years in any way at all, and you shouldn't either." "I'm not," replies Mary, "but naturally just at the moment I can't pretend to be overcome with grief, and equally naturally, I'm looking ahead."

This exchange takes place on the train to London, where they meet with family solicitor Mr Spillsbury of Spillsbury, Burkonshaw and Clewes. Mrs Bentick's expectation is that has inherited an annuity of £5000, the same amount enjoyed by her late husband. It is the solicitor's sad duty to inform that with Mr Bentick's death the entitlement has been transferred to another; the widow can expect no more than an annual payment of £250 drawn from investments made on her late husband's life insurance. This unpleasant news is coupled with the revelation that the grand Bentick house and estate were leased. Of a sudden, mother and daughter are without a home.

Mary takes the news much better than Mrs Bentick; where the daughter is disappointed in having to give up her dreams of a carefree life in London, the mother suffers the horror of having married for money that never existed. Sullivan shows kindness in not passing judgment on either woman.

Mrs Bentick retreats to a modest rooms in Bayswater, demonstrating little concern regarding the daughter for whom (she claims) she had (in part) married Mr Bentick.

Mary's initial searches for steady employment are not at all successful. However, fortunes turn – or do they? – when she responds to an advert placed by Mrs Hathaway, a middle-aged American woman in need of a secretary. It soon becomes clear that the obstinate virgin is hired for looks alone.

But why?

The location shifts to Monte Carlo, where it becomes clear that Mrs Hathaway hopes Mary's beauty might lure Hugo, her mentally unstable son, away from femme fatale Tonia Moore. Looking on is plain American girl Ann Mason who, being incredibly rich, has followed him across the Atlantic.

Monte Carlo, 1934

Mrs Hathaway holds slim hope that Ann might capture her son, though it's hard to see that there's much of a chance when compared to Tonia, "a sinuous, graceful, provocative creature who, when she moved, seemed to have no bones." Mrs Hathaway encourages Mary to chase Hugo, all the while making it clear that that she'd prefer wealthy Ann as a daughter-in-law:

"I've always been fond of her, and she's a fine girl, but she doesn't make any effort to attract, just thinks that it's enough to be natural. She was always like that. Of course, if you're a born beauty" – here she shot a different kind of glance at Mary – "no special effort is necessary, but believe me in Ann's case it is." 

Ouch.

Hugo never gives Mary so much as a second glance, though she does attract considerable attention from lively Italian Conte Guino Rivaldo and a rather serious Englishman named James Brock. The former can really cut a rug, and is recognized by all as Mrs Hathaway's gigolo (though no one suggests that they are lovers). Brock, who appears out of nowhere, somehow manages to attach himself to the group, despite being a right killjoy. As Guino woos the young virgin, Brock pooh-poohs her gambling, criticizes her use of make-up, advises her against swimming in cold water, and discourages her budding friendship with a certain Mme Gagnon. Within two weeks of arriving in Monte Carlo – and with considerable excitement – Mary accepts a proposal of marriage from one of these two men.

No points for correctly guessing which.

As a young woman who had expected an inheritance, had received nothing, and is left to make her own way, Mary Hellmuth is a familiar character. Her predicament is mirrored in Grant Allen's Juliet

Appleton (The Typewriter Girl; 1897) and Lois Cayley (Miss Cayley's Adventures; 1900), but Mary lacks their smarts and enterprise. She's more like the orphaned Monica Madden in George Gissing's The Odd Women (1893): a not-so-bright girl whose beauty tempts disaster. In short, Mary is a Victorian heroine moving through a Depression era novel. Reading The Obstinate Virgin, I kept having to remind myself that it was published the same year as Tender is the Night and The Postman Always Rings Twice. It is so old-fashioned that the passing of an automobile seems incongruous. Mention of a commercial aeroplane flight in the final pages was positively jarring.

This being 1934, Mary being twenty-one, I'll accept that she is a virgin – but obstinate? Mary, a free-spirit, is open to anything, which explains how she gets along with everyone, save spoilsport James Brock.

The last chapter is rushed. Should anything be made of the fact that the page count of The Obstinate Virgin and is nearly identical to that of What Fools Men Are!, Sullivan's previous novel for Samson Low, Marston?

Mary, loses all her money at the roulette table, and goes into debt to Mme Gagnon... who, it turns out, is a white slave trader. Just as she's about to whisk Mary off to Paris, using the promise of a position in a fashion house, the madame is arrested.

No points for naming the person who tipped off the police.

No points, either, for the naming the person who ends up saving Mary from drowning.

A half-point for naming the woman who is revealed as Guino's estranged wife.

As everything goes south, Mary flees north to London. Arriving at Victoria Station, she encounters Brock: "'Hallo!' said he, "'better come with me and have a cup of tea: you look a bit washed out.'"

In the nine remaining pages, Brock explains his motivation in being in Monte Carlo, justifies his actions in the principality, and insists they be married:

Already he was arranging everything for her and she had the complete conviction that he always would, and could see him standing on the hearth after dinner planning the day to come, but for some strange reason instead of vexing it now made her thankful. That practically, was all she knew about him; he would always arrange things, and she, just as regularly, would be glad he should.

As I've more than hinted, Mary is none too smart.

Bloomer: In speaking of Ann's devotion to her son Hugo, Mrs Hathaway has this to say:

"Why she still loves him – frankly, I don't know – but she does just the same. He's queer. Sometimes I think he's frightened of women."

Trivia I: The Bank of England informs that £5000 in 1934 is the equivalent of over £360,500 today. Mrs Bentick's more modest annuity of £250 amounts to something more than £18,000.

Don't know about you, but I'd be pleased as Punch with that kind of money.

Trivia II: Is it not interesting that Gordon D. McLeod describes The Obstinate Virgin as "the only novel published by Sullivan in 1934"?

The only novel? Should we have expected more?

Well, yes.

From 1925 to 1933, Sullivan published an average of nearly three novels a year:

1925

The Crucible

The Jade God

John Frensham, K.C. 

1926

Human Clay

The Days of Their Youth

In the Beginning 

1927

Brother Blackfoot

The Splendid Silence

The Verdict of the Sea

The Whispering Lodge 

1929

The Broken Marriage

Double Lives

The Story of One-Ear

The Training of Chiliqui 

1930

A Little Way Ahead

The Magic Makers

Mr. Absalom

Queer Partners 

1931

Golden Foundling

The Ironmaster

No Secrets Island 

1932

Antidote

Colonel Pluckett

Cornish Interlude 

1933

Man at Lane Tree

What Fools Men Are!

I wonder what happened in 1928. McLeod provides no explanation.

Between 1934 and his death in 1947, Sullivan appears to have relaxed, publishing seven novels, one collection of short stories, and a translation of Félix-Antoine Savard's Menaud maître-draveur.

Object: An unremarkable hardcover, identical in design to Sullivan's What Fools Men Are! (1933). The novel itself is followed by eight pages of advertising for the publisher's "POPULAR CHEAP EDITIONS," consisting chiefly of titles by Jeffrey Farnol, E.C.R. Lora, Leonard A. Knight, Moray Dalton, Silas K. Hocking, Richard Starr, Henry St John Cooper, Donn Byrne, and Faith Baldwin. My copy lacks the dust jacket, but within its pages, I found what may be the rear flap. It appears to have been used as a bookmark.

Anyway, I used it for that purpose.

Access: If WorldCat is an indication, no Canadian library has a copy; the only copies it lists are held in the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, and Dublin's Trinity College Library.

As of this writing, just one copy, a later Sampson Low sixpenny paperback with paper cover (below), is being offered online. At £9.90, it's a steal. Heads up, Library and Archives Canada!

Related posts:

Grant Allen Dons a Woman's Blouse

The Adventures of a Globe-Trotting Girton Girl

A Queer Thing, Nationalism
Stranger in a Strange Land

A Fine Cure for Brain Fag: Earlier Opinions of Hopkins Moorhouse's Every Man for Himself

Further thoughts on Every Man for Himself, the subject of last week's post.

I first learned of Every Man for Himself through "Canadian Crime Writing in English" by David Skene-Melvin, one of thirteen essays on Canadian crime fiction, television, and film included in the anthology Detecting Canada (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2014), edited by Jeannette Sloniowski and Marilyn Rose. Skene-Melvin says little about Every Man for Himself other than it is "set along the North Shore of Lake Superior." In fact, the better part (and best part) of the novel takes place in Toronto.*

Bookseller & Stationer, April 1920

Never mind, it's mere existence as a 1920 mystery with a Canadian setting was enough to get me interested. Was there even another?

Further investigation found that Every Man for Himself had received heaps of praise in its day, much of it having to do with the author having set the novel in his home and native land:

Many Canadian writers like to tell a story of any country but Canada. They seem to forget that nothing better can be offered than a background of our own country. Not so Hopkins Moorhouse, author of "Every Man for Himself." It is a yarn punctuated with some rapid-fire detective work and a real romance — the whole thing is put together with a skill of a Victor Hugo.

—Bookseller & Stationer, August 1920 

This book is not intended for the school library but is a wonderfully good story, full of action — a fine cure for teacher's "brain fag."

—The School, September 1920 

A bully of a Canadian novel of mystery, romance and political intrigue, with a smashing climax ... The local color of this novel, so thoroughly Canadian in its setting and tone is one of the most fascinating features.

—The Grain Growers' Guide, 8 December 1920 

The book is a sit-up-till-you-get-to-the-last-word work, fresh as a new pin with a characterization wholly Canadian. 

—The Canadian Railroader, 5 February 1921

The most greatest praise is found in the 10 August 1920 edition of Windsor's Border Cities Star. A remarkable review, it's worth quoting in full:

"Every Man for Himself." It might mean something serious. You might open the cover. The story starts in Toronto. It is 4 a.m. with the wee sma' hours dying around you but you have read the last word not noticing the time pass. How does an author manage to accomplish this with a reader? Hopkins Moorhouse, who wrote "Every Man for Himself," accomplish it with overwhelming plot with a dash of style as keen as a rapier in action, It is a plot as distinctive as any written by Conan Doyle. It is entertainment fashioned for all people. The college girl, the farm hand, the business man, the sport enthusiast, and Sir George Foster or Premier Drury would find in it equal pleasure. It is so unusual that a big motion picture company in Los Angeles, Cal., has offered Mr. Moorhouse five thousand dollars for the motion picture rights. He is holding out for just two thousand five hundred more than that, and will get it. This Canadian author knows what he is worth.
     This novel, his second, is a scenario of action worthy of Dumas, with a French nearness to life, a Gallic skill of intrigue. As a matter of fact Mr. Moorhouse has French blood in his veins, and he rivals in his writing the cleverest of the race. But while the skill displayed in the book is worthy of the masters of entertainment, its setting is entirely Canadian and its types. Tom Edison would leave aside his next invention, to read it. It is this quality that will make Hopkins Moorhouse with his next two or three books Canada's most popular novelist. "Every Man for Himself" is not "ought-to read" stuff; it's the kind you cannot help reading whether you ought to or not. It carries the charm of the outdoors, the intimacy of Canadian politics and extraordinary type of Canadian heroine, the matched wits of big business men, the young man learning the game of life – a constant interweaving of different elements, situations and flashing change.
     Jot down the name Hopkins Moorhouse in your notebook. It will be the most prominent name among Canadian novelists within five years. To get read evidence of this and enjoy the most enthralling book of the season, read "Every Man for Himself," which has just been published and is Mr. Moorhouse's second book to date.
     "Deep Furrows," was his first, a story of facts picturing the struggles of the Western farmer – a wonderful book and serious reading. "Every Man for Himself," is entertainment, a story for story's sake. a book you cannot put down, a tale of plot, action and speed, a keenness and piquant knowledge as distinct as is found in the works of Arnold Bennett. One taste of the first chapter and you consume to the end. It's as irresistable [sic] as possum to a darky; a concoction inspiringly pleasureable [sic] for the multitude.
     There is no story you have read that is like it. In his descent Mr. Moorhouse carries a liberal dash of courtly French blood. French authors have combined plot and unusual writings as those of no other race in the world, and this is exactly what Mr. Moorhouse has done in "Every Man for Himself," – staging it in Canada with Canadian types.

Rambling, repetitive, drunken... but ignoring the bit about the book being "as irresistable as possum to a darky," who wouldn't like to receive such a review? As a sufferer of brain fag myself, can you blame me for splurging on an old copy of Every Man for Himself?

Can you imagine my disappointment?

I'm banking on Every Man for Himself ending up as my most disappointing novel of the year.

Here's hoping.

* Curiously, Skene-Melvin makes similar mistakes with other novels I've covered: "In 1946, Margery Bonner (Mrs. Malcolm Lowry) set her The Shapes That Creep in Vancouver, and Jane Layhew chose Montreal as the scene for her Rx for Murder." In fact, The Shapes That Creep takes place entirely in Deep Cove, BC ("Deep Water" in the novel). Jane Layhew's Rx for Murder is set in Vancouver and its surroundings. Skene-Melvin goes on to write that E. Louise Cushing's 1953 mystery Murder's No Picnic features "Inspector MacKay of the Toronto Police Department." It does not. What's more, the novel takes place in Montreal and the Laurentians.

Related posts:

A Foggy Night in Hogtown

Sugar Pills and a Nurse Named Molly

Mrs Lowry's West Coast Murder Mystery

No Picnic

The Year's Best Books in Review — A.D. 2015; Featuring Three Books Deserving Resurrection

Yes, the year's best books in review… the best reviewed here, anyway. These past twelve months haven't been the most active at the Dusty Bookcase. Truth be told, I'd planned on closing up shop last January – and even wrote a post to that effect – but then I heard from readers asking me to go on. I felt the love and returned on Valentine's Day.

And so, this casual exploration continues, if more casually. Between this blog and my column in Canadian Notes & Queries I managed to review twenty-four books this year. That's not nothing, right?

Of the twenty-four, I see four worthy of a return to print, but tradition dictates that I choose three:

The Plouffe Family [Les Plouffe]
Roger Lemelin [trans. Mary Finch]

Roger Lemelin's 1948 best seller spawned an excellent film and our two most popular early television series. A monumental work of cultural and historical importance, I still find it hard to believe the translation is no longer in print.

The Fiend
Margaret Millar

A remarkable novel that dares centre on a sympathetic portrayal of a registered sex offender. That I read no other Millars this year is likely the reason only one of her novels features on this list. In 2012, the Kitchener native took all three spots.

The Adventures of Jimmie Dale
Frank L. Packard

Intricate and cleverly-woven adventures starring the Jimmie Dale – bored playboy by day, crime-fighting Gray Seal by night. Enormously influential and surprisingly entertaining.



I'm right now at work at reviving the unnamed fourth. If successful, it'll be back in print by this time next year. If not, my heart will be broken and I will never speak of it again.

In what must be a record, three of the novels covered here this past year are currently in print:

The Town Below [Au pied de la pente douce]

Roger Lemelin [trans. Samuel Putnam]

Toronto: Dundurn, 2013

The Three Roads

Ross Macdonald [pseud Kenneth Millar]

New York: Black Lizard, 2011

Night of the Horns

Douglas Sanderson

Eureka, CA: Stark House, 2015

I may as well add that The Damned and the Destroyed, Kenneth Orvis's "Relentless Story of the Hell of Drug Addiction", is right now available as an ebook from Prologue Books.

I was involved with three reissues this year, all titles in the Véhicule Press Ricochet Books series:

The Mayor of Côte St. Paul
Ronald J. Cooke

A novel about a young writer working for a crime boss in Depression-era Montreal. Is his motivation the need for material? Money? A dame? All three, it seems. I wrote the Introduction.

Hot Freeze
Douglas Sanderson

The first Mike Garfin thriller sees the disgraced former RCMP officer immersed in Montreal's drug trade. My favourite Canadian post-war noir novel, ow could I not write this Introduction, too?

Blondes Are My Trouble
Douglas Sanderson

The second Mike Garfin thriller. This time the private dick does battle with violent men pushing women into prostitution. The Introduction is by J.F. Norris of Pretty Sinister Books.



Praise this year goes to Wilfrid Laurier University Press and the Early Canadian Literature series edited by Benjamin Lefebvre. Dedicated to returning rare texts to print, there have been six titles to date, the most recent being Frederick Niven's The Flying Years with Afterword by Alison Calder.

Wilfrid Laurier University Press offers a 25% discount on online orders. Amazon and Indigo don't come close to matching those prices.

It's on my Christmas wish list.

Related posts:

Dirty Old Town

The Trouble with Charlie

Whatever Happened to Jimmie Dale?

Discovered Vile

A Man's Struggle with Humiliation

'A Relentless Story of the Hell of Drug Addiction'

A Blockhead Tries Writing for Money

Of Sex and Drugs and Montreal

Dark Blondes