R. Thurston Hopkins began his writing career in the Nineteen Twenties with short studies of noted contemporary writers such as Wilde, Wells, Kipling and Hardy, and became a hard-working general literary journalist. The first book I found by him was A Cavalcade of Ghosts (1956), which is a diverting collection of non-fiction accounts of alleged hauntings. Hopkins wrote about a glimpse of the spirit of the Eighteen Nineties poet Ernest Dowson, a vignette which has a certain pathos but seems rather more imaginative and impressionistic than strictly veridical, and the same might be said of some of his other spectral anecdotes.
His career as a ‘ghost hunter’ began with his contribution to a shared volume, War and the Weird (1916), a rare book now, which came out in the milieu of the Angels of Mons furore. He also had a special interest in old windmills, with books on Old English Mills and Inns (1927), In Search of English Windmills (1931) and Old Windmills of England (1931), which are regarded with affection by aeolian enthusiasts as evoking and preserving the memories of notable examples now lost.
An unusual book in his catalogue is The Man Who Was Sussex, A Hand-Book for Hikers (1933). This begins when two hikers get lost in a mist near Chanctonbury Ring, the great earthwork and landmark with its tree-ringed summit. A promising beginning, and this had a particular interest for me because, as I recount in the introduction to The Thunderstorm Collectors, I also got lost there one May Day’s Eve in the late Eighties, and I have heard of others who have had a similar experience: the place has attracted many reports of eerie adventures.
Hopkins’ characters are rescued by a local who seems to be both fully human and yet with an ancestral and elemental quality, and he then guides them around other historic and scenic sites in the county. As the title suggests, he is in fact the personification of Sussex and its storied landscape. The book is therefore unusual in that it is both a guide book of the sort that were particularly popular in the Thirties, when hiking and rambling were all the rage, and yet also has a fictive framework. It is indeed technically a secret, forgotten fantasy and supernatural novel. But the question of form aside, it’s also a high-spirited celebration of the county and its antiquities with introductions to out-of-the-way places.
I must admit, however, that I am not sure the hybrid format does quite work, because it ends up being neither one thing nor the other. It isn’t a compelling, plot-driven fiction, because of the guide book element, and it isn’t a practical manual because the fanciful aspects are too fiddly and get in the way. There is also not enough precise detail about the places visited. I have read more down-to-earth guides that nevertheless convey landscape witchery better. Also, the dominance of the ageless mentor precludes any more personal perspective from the author, with the result that the book doesn’t feel all that companionable. That all said, it’s an unusual experiment and has a certain original charm, and would be of interest to collectors of Sussex or Downland arcana or those who like whimsical fantasy.
(Mark Valentine)
Image: Kelleher Rare Books (Ireland)
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