When I was editing Grotesqueries—A Tribute to the Tales of L A Lewis (Zagava, 2022), I checked for any previously published books called Grotesqueries, and found in the British Library catalogue, Card Queens – A Grotesquerie in One Act by Ernest Randolph Reynolds (Samuel French, 1932). Liking the title, I looked into him further and found he was a Northampton poet, playwright, actor, connoisseur and writer on theatre, opera and antiques.
There is a fascinating post about him by Barry Van Asten at the Ghost Blooms blog, which notes that he is little-known even in his own town. I can vouch for this: though from Northampton myself, and a quester after lost literature, I had never heard of him. He was ‘a British Council Lecturer at Baghdad and Lisbon between 1940 and 1944, before teaching English at Birmingham University’. While in Baghdad he published Scheherazade, A Drama in One Act, From the Arabian Nights (1942) and while in Lisbon he published King Sebastian, A Verse Drama in A Prologue and Three Episodes (1944).
I could not find a copy of Card Queens, but I did discover his Mephistopheles and the Golden Apples: A Fantastic Symphony in Seven Movements (Heffers & Sons, Cambridge, 1943), bylined from Baghdad, 1941, a rollicking Faustian and Arthurian verse drama. In the opening ‘movement’ of the book an Oxford don is beguiled by the Devil’s emissary and then conducted to a cavalcade of fantastical pageants, all extravaganzas of his fevered imagination under the demonic spell.
These each present episodes of myth, legend or history. The seven movements comprise: The Don and the Demon; Scheherazade; The Snow Queen; Merlin’s Pantomime (set at Tintagel); Tristram and Iseult; Pique Dame; and Crosses for the Queen. There are also interludes, including a Festival of Literary Ghosts, featuring pastiches of Swinburne, Baudelaire, Rossetti, Hopkins, Lawrence, Wilde, Whitman, Verlaine, Samain, Lear and Beddoes: quite a feat of imitation.
The Pique Dame movement presents the four Playing Card Queens, and a Knave, as conniving courtiers in a macabre Jacobean tragedy. The Card Queens play I had noticed in the catalogue was presumably an earlier version of this, now incorporated into this larger work, or else a separate piece exploring a similar theme.
Reynolds later created Candlemas Night, A Fantastic Comedy, a radio play about Lucifer’s agent in Oxford, three university dons and the conjuration of the playing card queens. This was broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on Boxing Day 1955 (and repeated on 30 December), produced by Frederick Bradnum, featuring Freda Jackson and Ernest Milton with Vivienne Bennett and Gordon Davies, and with music by the Northampton-born composer Malcolm Arnold. It seems slightly odd that it wasn’t kept for Candlemas Night itself, but perhaps it was thought the supernatural theme was suitable for the Christmas season.
The Radio Times description of Candlemas Night was as follows:
‘This play tells of the attempt of Miss Spanheim, Lucifer's minister in Oxford, to seduce three disillusioned Dons from the Arts to ‘the banner of Science and Death and the earth-shattering fires of the hydrogen bomb ...' The Dons willingly co-operate, and are taught how—by a spell of cards-to conjure up and make prisoner the goddess of Wisdom (in the French pack the Queen of Spades is identified with Pallas Athene); but she is too clever for them and, escaping, strikes the Dons dumb. Rather surprisingly, their wives view this situation with alarm, and set about calling back the Queen of Spades to plead with her. Unfortunately, their calling of the cards is not correct, and they raise instead the Knave of Diamonds (Hector of Troy). The ensuing complications do not aid Miss Spanheim . . .’
This sounds rather fun, with elements of M R James and Charles Williams to it, but Candlemas Night doesn’t seem to have been published under this title or in this form. However, Mephistopheles and the Golden Apples does have many similarities, suggesting Reynolds drew on it for this later radio play, and it may therefore give us some of its flavour.
As a verse drama, Reynolds’ book has a bizarre panache, and if ever performed it would certainly give the scenery, costume, lights and special effects crews plenty to do. If it had been recast as a novel, it would be savoured by connoisseurs of the weird: as it is, readers can still relish Reynolds’ over-brimming zest in the published play, and try to imagine the gist of that wintry wireless broadcast.
(Mark Valentine)
Thanks for another fascinating account of an unknown and somewhat eclectic author Mark. I was able to locate a copy his Mephistopheles title, which should make for a fun read.
ReplyDeleteThank you Mark for a very interesting post and for mentioning my article on Reynolds (Ghost Blooms). I have held you in high regard since receiving the wonderful Arthur Machen, Artist and Mystic (1986) signed by Roger and yourself, many years ago, many thanks, Barry Van Asten.
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