A current offering on ABE is a cache of letters, addressed
to E.H. Visiak, for an author’s symposium for John o’London’s Weekly in early 1924. The seller is David J. Holmes Autographs, of Hamilton, New
York, and the thirteen letters (7 autograph letters
and 6 typed letters) are priced US$1,000.
The physical documents don’t interest me, but the contents do, and I
recently enlisted the aid of a friend (thanks, John!) and now have a copy of
the symposium, “My Best Book: Famous Authors Name Their Favourites for John o’London,” published in the 22
March 1924 issue. E.H. Visiak is nowhere mentioned in the article, but clearly
he prepared it for publication. Some twenty-six authors (or their secretaries)
are quoted. Here is a selection of the
ones that interest me the most, listed alphabetically:
J. D. Beresford
“My favourite is The
Hampdenshire Wonder, which has the distinction of having sold fewer copies
and of having brought me more friends than any other novel of mine. . . . The
book wrote itself. I could not get it down fast enough. And it has always
remained to me as the admired work of another person rather than of my own.”
Algernon Blackwood
Mr. Algernon Blackwood selects the Centaur, as having expressed most of himself.
G.K. Chesterton
Mr. Chesterton’s secretary writes: “In reply to your letter
of to-day, Mr. Chesterton asks me to say that he considers all his works
deplorable, but the one that has given him most satisfaction to have written is
Orthodoxy.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“I think Sir Nigel
my best novel, and The White Company
second.”
Arthur Machen
“I should think that on the whole The Hill of Dreams is my most successful experiment in literature .
. . [sic]
“Whatever merit the book may have
is perhaps due to the fact that it is a reflection of the impressions of my
native county, Gwent, or Monmouthshire, which I gathered when I was a boy.
“I am a great believer in the
doctrine that a man of letters knows everything vital that he is to know by the
time he is 18.
“When I read that Mr. Thingumbob
has gone to Penzance or Pernambuco ‘to get
local colour for his new novel’ I know that Mr. Thingumbob, is, roughly
speaking, a rotter.”
Barry Pain
Mr. Barry Pain thinks that his best book is Going Home: “It is,” he says, “in the vein of fantasy and
I enjoyed writing it.”
Rafael Sabatini
“In my own opinion Scaramouche
is the best novel I have written. At least, in Scaramouche I was less conscious than usual when the work was done
of a gap between the aim and the achievement.”
Other authors responding include Joseph Conrad (his letter
appears in Visiak’s book on Conrad), John Galsworthy, Jerome K. Jerome, John
Masefield, George Bernard Shaw, May Sinclair, etc.
I agree with Machen about "The Hill of Dreams." I first read it as a teenager after finding a quite battered mustard-yellow Knopf edition in my grandmother's library one summer. I was completely absorbed by its beauty from page one and read it in one long sitting.
ReplyDeleteOf the other writers I have read on the list, I could not disagree more. Sir Nigel?! Really? I suppose writers like Conan Doyle and Chesterton grew to dislike their most popular characters.
May Sinclair is one of the great, undiscovered writers of the supernatural.
ReplyDeleteI read Sir Nigel and the White Company as a child and remember liking them better than Holmes, so my vote is with Doyle on this. Some very memorable, amusing characters, and funnier than one might think, in a dry way.
ReplyDeleteThe Chesterton one made me smile, as a fan of GKC's - the self-deprecating tone is endearingly characteristic. Also, that he was probably too busy writing novels, short stories, polemics, philosophy, essays, etc, to reply personally. (Or visiting Market Harborough.)
I would have liked to know what Jerome K Jerome thought was his best book. Judging from the other authors' opinions, it would _not_ have been Three Men in a Boat.