ANTHONY HOPE

Taranaki Daily News, 2 September 1933, Page 13 (Supplement)

ANTHONY HOPE

A FORGOTTEN NOVELIST

(By

J.N.)

The late S. A. H. Hawkins (the novelist Anthony Hope) left £29,000, mostly to his wife.

It would be interesting to know how many people, on reading this announcement in the cabled news from London recently, wondered just who this “Anthony Hope” was, and what great things he had done ip the literary field that he should bequeath such a sum as £29,000. One cannot help feeling that if asked who the man was and what novels he wrote, the average novel-reader of 1933 could not give a very lucid or detailed account, if indeed he could say anything at all. Yet at one time the name of Anthony Hope was a household word; his books were read avidly by a surprisingly large section of the public; and the obvious success of his.pen was given further and conclusive force by the number of imitators that inevitably cropped up.

To Anthony Hope the world owes the invention of Ruritania, a country of the imagination in the Balkans, a name that ba.q now perhaps lost much of its significance with the passing of the works concerned as current literature. While the name itself, however, may mean nothing, it may be said that by his creation of that one theme Anthony Hope constituted himself the father of the countless romantic stories that have since entertained lovers of gaily-coloured fiction.

“To be son of the vicar of St. Bride’s, 1 Fleet Street, is almost to be destined x to letters,” claims an English critic. 1 Anthony Hope Hawkins was born of c such parentage in 1863, to become, after t Marlborough, one of Oxford’s brilliarit i sons, a Ballid scholar, double first, and x president of the Union. Returning to t London, through life his constant scene, < he was called to the Bar in 1887, and his face to the end had, so we are 1 assured, “the characteristic features of I the intellectual type of barrister.” 1 November 28, 1893, was the lucky day ] that saw the birth of the idea that was to change the whole course of his life. 3 Then a very young barrister, he was j walking back from Westminster County 1 Court to his chambers in the Temple , when he thought, quite suddenly, of ‘ Ruritania. The next day he wrote the first chapter of “The Prisoner of Zenda, and within a month had completed the novel. The book, appeared in April of , the next year, and was an immediate success. That “history of three months ' in the life of an English gentleman,’ as the sub-title runs, speedily set Hawkins free to follow what may be supposed to ■ have been his inclination from the first. For a few months he lingered at the • Bar, doing a little legal work, but much more writing. But the tragedy for it . was hardly less —was that never, again did the gods send Hawkins inspiration like that which fired him to write, in radiant youth, the wholly satisfying romance of “The Prisoner of Zenda. , Nobody ever wrote “Ruritanian” romance , like its originator, and nobody imitating Anthony Hope was as successful as he ■ was, even when he himself, in stories like “Sophy of Kravonia,” was only imi- . tating Anthony Hope. A week after the publication of his first novel appeared “The Dolly Dialogues,” a reproduction in book form of a series of clever sketches which he had written for weekly instalments in the Westminster Gazette. In 1894 there also appeared “The God and the Car, a novel suggesting the influence on English society of the career of Cecil Rhodes, and “Half a Hero,” a comprehensive study of Australian politics. In a series of novels Anthony Hope advanced from his' lighter comedy and gallant and romantic inventions to the graver kind of fiction of which The God and the Car” had been an earlier essay. Other notable novels of his were “Quisante” (1900), a study of English society face to face with a political genius of an alien type, “Tristram of Blent” (1901), “The Intrusions of Peggy’ (1902), “Double Harness” (1904), “A Servant of the Public” (1905), “The Great Miss Driver” (1908), and “Second String” (1909). His more recent publications include “Beaumaroy Home from the Wars” (1919), “Lucinda” (1920) and “Little Tiger” (1925). The outstanding characteristic of his early work waa his absolute mastery of dialogue; he knew at once how to employ to the utmost advantage this most valuable of features, and there is in his dialogue none of the stiffness and sense of strain that is noticeable among many writers, particularly those of the early nineties. This deftness of dialogue was seen to advantage in his society novels, where often the thinness of plot or sluggishness of action would be balance and the reader’s interest sustained by clever use of conversation at its best. It was probably these novels of contemporary English life, however, which were the chief cause of the decline of his reputation; Hope’s social comedy was felt to be not good enough fox- Hope. In all his work, too, he was never deserted by the wit which, keeping good manners as it did in the nineties, so conspicuously adorns “The Dolly Dialogues.” This series, indeed, . although naturally somewhat old-fashioned in style and tone, still makes delightful and fascinating reading. With it neat epi- ; grains and “demure charm,” the book ' was at the time an entirely new departure, which found many imitators in the field of light literature. In both these characteristics, power of dialogue and wit, Anthony Hope has; ’ i many modem rivals, and interesting ’ i comparisons may be drawn between his ' methods and those of present day writers ’’l of popular fiction. Possibly one of the t ! most striking similarities of theme and . | treatment may be found between Hope ’ and Dornford Yates. Both in his light, ,' “gossipy” conversational style and in his ’I effective use of the romantic setting of , I imaginative European states Yates pro- ’ | vides practically an up-to-date counter- • part of the earlier writer. -1 Both “The Prisoner of Zenda” and ■; “Rupert of Hentzan,” adapted for the t stage by another hand, were spectacularl ly successful in the theatre, and repeat- ■ ed their success as films. It may be ■ contended that to modern eyes “The i Prisoner of Zenda” seems ponderous, E slow-moving stuff, but, emphatically, > that is not a description to be applied f to Hope’s novel. “Nobody would serious- - ly compare Anthony Hope with Robert ;, Louis Stevenson,” says an English critic, » “but the isolated comparison of Hope’s s best work with a minor and similar piece i of Stevenson’s may be made: “Zenda” i makes “Prince Otto” look amateurish and i, meretricious.” i •" """" 1