A New Edition of 'Picture of Nobody' by Philip Owens

In August 2019 I wrote about an unusual interwar novel, Philip Owens’ Picture of Nobody (1936). As I noted, in this ‘Shakespeare is recreated as an impoverished young poet in Nineteen Thirties London. It is not exactly a reincarnation or timeslip fantasy – the book simply takes the character, story and work of the 16th century playwright and reframes them in a setting over three hundred years later.’ Readers contributed helpful information about the author, and I posted further on this in a follow-up note, ‘Picture of Somebody’.

Now, the independent bookseller McNally Jackson has announced pre-orders for a new edition of the book, due out in April, with a foreword by Allen Bratton. This includes an encomium by David Tibet: ‘Truly unlike any other book I have read. Shakespeare and AntiShakespeare, a timeslipping tragicomedy of errors . . . a masterpiece, and a very strange one too.’

The publisher describes it as: ‘A comic yet credible reimagining of the milieu of Elizabethan London in modernist dress, it transcends its premise to provide a poignant portrait, of a Shakespearean mind coming to grips with the twentieth century. Populated by an assortment of characters familiar from Will's life and writing both, it is as much a loving parody as a grim prophecy regarding the fate of genius in "interesting times." ‘

The book is very uncommon in its original edition, so it's good to see this audacious and inventive work rediscovered and newly available, a fitting tribute to Philip Owens' literary legacy.

(Mark Valentine) 

 

Classic, Basic, Unspoilt

About twenty-five years ago, maybe more, a friend told me about a list entitled ‘The Classic, Basic, Unspoilt Pubs of Great Britan’. Its compiler was identified only as ‘RWC’ and it circulated usually in the form of a faded photocopied typewritten sheet. A note explained the author had indeed visited all of the pubs (and more, that did not make the list) to assess their suitability. There was perhaps discernible a South East of England leaning: the very few in the North did not look like the whole picture, and the same could perhaps be said of the South West. But the list was a keen-sighted idea, conscientiously and unobtrusively carried out. 

The Times, evidently rather bewildered, once called it “an obscure list”, but it soon became something of a word-of-mouth success. Real ale and indeed real pub scholars liked the idea, and some went in quest of the chosen inns, or tried to find one that might satisfy the somewhat strict and confessedly idiosyncratic criteria. The idea of the Classic, Basic, Unspoilt Pub was in one way quite simple, being one of those things that you know when you see it, but the essential point was that the pub was just a pub: it was not a restaurant, an amusement arcade, a creche, a games room, or a discotheque.

Usually, the reason for its preservation thus was the stolid determination of the publican not to have any truck with innovation. They were often run by veteran and somewhat formidable landladies much respected by loyal locals. The name behind the list was later revealed to be Rodney Wolfe Coe of Ashford, Kent, and he also seems to have deprecated the internet, which was why originally his list was just known as a paper copy passed about by hand (though scans by others of at least one edition are now online).

New editions of the list came out every so often, but the number on the list began to dwindle as these old pubs were being closed or ‘improved’. When I first saw a copy there were perhaps about 30, later there were about 20, and the last I saw, some years later, had only 11. At some point, I read, there were so few that RWC stopped compiling the list.

I went with my friend P.J. Beveridge to find some of them, rather in the spirit of Jocelyn Brooke searching for The Dog at Clambercrown in his 1955 book of that name. On one occasion we simply couldn’t find the pub we were looking for, despite spiralling around its supposed location, and felt that we were pretty much in Brooke’s story. With The Eagle at Skerne, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, we found it all right, but it was closed. Staring in gave the impression that it had been unchanged for perhaps forty years, with a rudimentary black fireplace, fading wallpaper, red vinyl-topped tables and an air of someone’s front room, with no bar visible. We asked a boy from next door, who happened to emerge, if it ever opened and he looked puzzled. “It doesn’t open, it’s just, kind of like, there,” he said, a remark that seemed oddly profound, as if the mere manifestation of the pub ought to be enough. Alas, soon enough, it wasn’t there, as a pub: and nor were almost all the others.

No doubt this affection, even yearning, for the essential pub, is mixed up with nostalgia for a time that never was. And of course, there is something to be said for the other side. If you are out in the country, it is heartening and cheery to find a pub that serves food. Certain sorts of jukebox playing the pop songs of yesteryear, can also be enjoyable, recalling the soundtrack of our youth. Gentrification can bring a pleasanter, more commodious, if perhaps more anonymous, offering. Even so, the idea of celebrating the pub at its simplest was well worthwhile.

It occurred to me that the ‘Classic, Basic, Unspoilt’ principle could be applied to other things. Museums, for instance, which to qualify would consist simply of obscure objects in glass cases in hushed rooms with creaking floorboards. There would be no audio-visual ‘experiences’ or souvenirs, just a few faded monographs and postcards. Ancient monuments too: these would have as few signs as possible, preferably brief and enigmatic, in a classic font. There would be an admissions kiosk looking like a garden hut, with paper tickets on a roll, and no shop offering heritage chutney. I can imagine the same approach devoted to cafes, gardens, record shops, stationery shops, haberdasheries and other delights.

When some book-collectors talk wistfully about the bookshops of yesteryear, they no doubt have, in their mind’s eye, a certain sort of bookshop which might be thought of as the equivalent of the ‘Classic, Basic, Unspoilt Pub’. Of course, what makes the essential pub is not the same as what is needed for the essential bookshop, but the principle is clear.

Just as the pub list compiler felt it necessary to explain that his choices must all serve real ale, so must the bookshop have proper second-hand books, not remainders or new books, still less souvenirs, gifts or greetings cards. The basic pub has only chairs, tables, stools and a counter, and not much else: the bookshop would simply have shelves and a desk, though stepladders or stools, and possibly a chair or two might be acceptable. However, whereas the classic pub might have at best two or three beers on offer, the classic bookshop would of course be overbrimming with stock, all or most of it uncatalogued, so that finds might be made. The pub arbiter, I think, did not countenance recorded music, wireless or television: ideally, the bookshop should prefer silence or low murmurings. Like the pubs, in the classic bookshop the proprietor would be taciturn, if not brusque. Are there such bookshops still? Certainly: I can think of some, and they seem to have survived in numbers rather better than pubs, but maybe they too are gradually giving way to modernity. Perhaps a Classic, Basic, Unspoilt Bookshops list is needed. 

(Mark Valentine)

Image: The sign for the Sun Inn, Leintwardine, Herefordshire, one of the original Classic, Basic, Unspoilt pubs

Madoc's Dream

In one of the catalogues issued by W M Voynich, there is listed this marvellous title: 

Sir Thomas Herbert of Tintern: Some Yeares Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique. Describing especially the two famous Empires, the Persian, and great Mogull: weaved with the History of these later Times. As also, many rich and spatious Kingdomes in the Orientall India, and other parts of Asia; Together with the adjacent Iles. Severally relating the Religion, Language, Qualities, Customes, Habit, Descent, Fashions, and other Observations touching them. With a revivall of the first Discoverer of America. Revised and Enlarged by the Author (London: Jacob Blome and Richard Bishop, 1638).

The last phrase, about the ‘revivall of the first Discoverer of America’ refers to Madoc ap Owen Gwyneth, a 12^th century Welsh prince said to have voyaged far away to avoid family feuds and power struggles. He sailed across the Atlantic and found land. Herbert refers to an ‘Old Copie’ that he used as a source for the Madoc passage in his history, and, if that existed, it is now a lost MS. He has the voyager departing from Abergele in North Wales, but other sources say Rhos-on-Sea.

Geofffrey Ashe in his Land to the West (1962), about the Irish saint Brendan the Voyager and similar legends, gives short shrift to the Madoc myth, seeing it as a Tudor political invention to justify priority in New World colonisation. The Tudors emphasised their Welsh origins, and wanted to establish a claim to American colonies, against those of France and Spain. Similarly, the Tudor courtier and magician John Dee suggested King Arthur had reached America, extrapolating from Geoffrey of Monmouth's tales of his conquest of Ireland: equally a political fiction (thanks to G J Cooling for this reference). 

However, there are signs that this invented history was sourced in part from a genuine earlier tradition of a voyaging Madoc, not necessarily linked to Gwynedd, long pre-dating the Tudor fabrication, and similar in nature to the Arthur romances. Like the latter, this must have derived ultimately from Welsh court or folk tales. Nothing of this survives except the merest hints.

In Gwyn A. Williams’ thorough study Madoc, The Making of a Myth (1979), he argues, based on the fragmentary evidence, that there was a now lost medieval ‘Madoc romance’. The 15^th century poet Maredudd ap Rhys, for example, proclaimed ‘A Madoc am I to my age’, because of his love of the sea, which clearly implies a Madoc tradition known to his audience.  In a 13^th century Flemish version of the popular medieval tale Reynard the Fox, the author, Willem, states that he also wrote one on Madoc (he is sometimes known academically as ‘Willem, the Maker of Madoc’).

Another Flemish author, Jacob van Maerlant, in his own ‘rhymebook’ of c. 1270 explains that he is now writing true history, not romances such as ‘Madoc’s dream’ or the exploits of Reynard or Arthur. He had earlier written on Merlin, and on the Grail. This important reference tells us both that Madoc romances existed and that they were seen as similar to Arthurian ones. The allusion to ‘Madoc’s dream’ may link it to Welsh dream tales such as ‘The Dream of Rhonabwy’ in The Mabinogion.

A supposed fragment of the Willem ‘Madoc’ was discovered in Poitiers in the 17^th century. This has Madoc questing for The Fountain of Youth and discovering a magical island, Ely, and beyond that an isle full of sunlight devoted to love and music. Ely, says Williams, was Lundy, known to the Welsh as the setting for the Fountain and as Ynys Wair. Perhaps, we might speculate, the sunlit isle beyond, if it is not entirely imaginary, was based on one of the Isles of Scilly, such as Tresco, still often seem as a rare and precious place because of its beautiful gardens. Williams links this part of the tale to the Welsh tradition of the Gwerddonau Llion, the fairy meadows in the sea which are sometimes glimpsed. One of the Welsh Triads refers to ‘The voyage of Gavran and his companions in search of the Gwerdonnau Llion (Green Islands of the Ocean); and their disappearance from the island of Britain’.

When we unhitch the earlier Madoc from the fabricated Gwynedd history, he may have his origins anywhere in magical Wales or indeed in what the Welsh called ‘the Old North’, in Cumbria. Southey, in his poem on Madoc, has him visiting Aberffraw, Mathrafal and Dinefewr, the three royal courts of Wales, respectively of Gwynedd in the North, Powys in the centre and Deheubarth in the west.

There are few clues as to where his myths may have begun. One is the seafaring to isles of wonder, which implies the West, so a West-facing coastline such as that of the Welsh kingdom of Dyfed (Pembrokeshire) looks likely. This is also Mabinogion country around the Prescelli hills, Narberth and Newport. The other is that, like the Arthurian romances, the myths found their way to Continental minstrels, which implies a Norman link, suggestive either of the courts of the Welsh Marcher lordships or again of Pembrokeshire. Quite why it should be two Flemish authors who evoked him is not clear, but that may be an accident of historical survival. A Flemish/Pembrokeshire link would be useful evidence: G J Cooling tells me that in 1100 Henry I is credited with settling Flemish refugees in Pembrokeshire, so there may be the link.

We can probably infer that it was always a magical ship that voyaged, as in that wonderful and enigmatic ancient poem ‘The Spoils of Annwn’ , not a literal one. The land that the original Madoc sought, and perhaps discovered, was probably no earthly terrain, but one of the fabled mid-Atlantic lands, such as The Fortunate Isles or Hy Brasil, or even perhaps Avalon. In any case, we can certainly regret the loss of the Madoc romance, and of Madoc's dream. 

(Mark Valentine)