Corvo's Icicle: A Guest Post by Fogus

Of particular interest among the items in the “Frederick W. Rolfe, Baron Corvo Collection” at Georgetown University are a pile of letters in which Corvo fanatic Donald Weeks describes his adventures in the U.K., engaging in research for the biography Corvo (1971) and hunting for ephemera related to the Baron. While skimming the letters, I happened upon a fascinating claim by Weeks in a letter to “Stan & Joan” dated October 25, 1970: ‘An inventor, Rolfe may have “invented” the disappearing murder weapon in the form of the icicle (Toto story, 1898-9).’

Although I can’t recall ever reading a story using a melting murder weapon, I’m familiar with the plot device, having first encountered it many years ago in the Colombo episode “The Most Crucial Game." I was astonished at the prospect that the device may have originated with Corvo, and so I decided to go on a hunt to prove it.

I found an early lead in an appendix entry in Weeks’ aforementioned biography. Weeks mentions the Baron’s use of the device in the Toto story “About Our Lady of Dreams” published in the collection, In His Own Image (1901). Julian Symons notes in the same entry that the earliest use of the plot device that he knew of was published 10-years later in Anna Katherine Green’s locked-room mystery Initials Only (1911). Indeed, Green’s novel is generally credited with utilizing the first instance of the icicle weapon, specifically in the form of an exceedingly impractical bullet.

By contrast, Corvo’s icicle was the cause of the mysterious death of the butcher-boy Aristide via stabbing under a secluded cliff summit. In the story, Aristide’s friend Diodato, charged with murder, was eventually exonerated thanks to an angelic dream vision visited on Frat’ Innocente-of-the-Nine-Quires. It’s unknown if Ms. Green had read the Toto story before writing her novel and thus impossible to determine if she found any inspiration there. Therefore, I determined that another angle of attack in my quest was needed to determine if there were any earlier icicle uses than Corvo’s.

I’d be a liar if I said that the prospect of finding an earlier example in the infinity of literature prior to 1901 didn’t intimidate me. However, there was one potential investigative trail immediately available. As I mentioned earlier, Julian Symons mentioned Green’s novel in the Corvo endnote, but he closed with an interesting aside: ‘The actual use of an icicle has been attributed to the Medici’.

This seemed like a promising path for progress as the Medici factored prominently in Corvo’s book Chronicles of the House of Borgia (1901). Alas, I couldn’t find a single mention of icicles there at all, and even tracing a significant portion of the reference material listed in the first edition proved fruitless. That said, there are dozens of references that I was unable to gain access to, so there’s a possibility that the Medici icicle simply awaits future discovery. Despite this possibility, the path forward appeared daunting indeed.

However, in my explorations I came across a story of the son of a parish clerk of Brampton in Devon who died from a wound inflicted by an icicle that fell from the local tower in 1776. The epitaph to the child reads:

Bless my i.i.i.i.i.i.

Here he lies

In a sad pickle

Kill’d by icicle

Did Corvo know of this epitaph? Was this the inspiration for his Toto story? These are unanswerable questions of course, and so I found myself back at the beginning. However, during my work as a programming language designer I’ve found value in a powerful technique for problem solving – reframing the question. I determined that it was too much to try and trace the vague idea of “mysterious death by icicle” and instead convinced myself that it would suffice to place the Baron’s use in a historical context instead.

Reframing the problem led me to John Dickson Carr’s famous locked-room mystery novel The Hollow Man (1935). Carr wrote many locked room mysteries in his time, but The Hollow Man is arguably the preeminent example of its kind. The novel itself contains a metanarrative element in which the investigator Dr. Gideon Fell holds a “locked room lecture” enumerating the classes and their instantiations of locked-room murders. In the lecture, Fell outlines two main branches of locked-room murder: one, no murder was in the room;  two, murder was in the room.

Like much of the historical analysis around locked-room mysteries, I’ll play fast and loose with the term “room” and liken it to the solitude of an icy summit. The primary type of “no murder” described by Fell are ‘a series of coincidences ending in an accident which looks like a murder.’ Interestingly, Fell outlines particular literary instances of death involving icicles, but they all involved either suicide or murder. Therefore, I think that Corvo’s Toto plot fits nicely into Fell’s accidental death category and occupies a unique niche within it.

I was happy to claim a small victory, but I’m not one for half-measures. Therefore, I decided to read the rest of the “locked room lecture” to see if I could gain more insight into avenues for further exploration. Imagine my surprise when I soon came across an aside on icicles by Fell: ‘To continue with regard to the icicle; its actual use has been attributed to the Medici.’

It was at that moment that the boulder of my free time again slipped from my grasp and rolled back down the proverbial hill. It dawned on me that perhaps trying to trace the lineage of literary firsts was a futile effort and I now consider myself fortunate that I managed to stumble on a fixpoint. Truly, doing so allowed me to take a step back and accept the fact that although I’d like to think that there are deep and finite connections to find, I’m now of the mind that perhaps ideas are hanging in the aether, waiting to embed themselves into the skulls of unsuspecting authors passing underneath.

(Fogus)

  

 

The Centenary of 'May Fair' by Michael Arlen: A Guest Post by John Howard

  

Mayfair is that part of the West End of London bounded by Park Lane, Oxford Street, Regent Street, and Piccadilly. It was a grid of fine streets with cobbled mews behind and narrow lanes such as those of Shepherd’s Market; a village of townhouse terraces and aristocratic mansions set in their own gardens; the grandeur of Grosvenor Square as well as the sloping irregular space of Berkeley Square. Historically Mayfair was a part of London where the very rich and those of more modest means lived next to each other: an impecunious writer could inhabit a shabby room a few yards from the residence of a duke.

Some writers seem to stake out their territories and define their times. They make them their own. Such an author was Michael Arlen (1895-1956) who chronicled the lives of a set of inhabitants of his – even then – disappearing Mayfair during the Prohibition-free British version of the Jazz Age.

Arlen’s first novel, The London Venture (1920), was autobiographical, describing a young man’s ‘assault on London’. These Charming People (1923) was subtitled ‘being a tapestry of the fortunes, follies, adventures, galanteries and general activities’ of the recurring characters who connect the stories, set against the background of Mayfair. Arlen’s Mayfair seems a place somewhat apart, as if behind invisible barriers. There the ‘right’ people loved, lost, and had their being in a London of sunshine, fog, rain, moonlight and stars. Strange things can happen; the supernatural and uncanny are never far away in Arlen’s stories. There can be intrusions anywhere, and the ordered streets and fine houses of Mayfair were no exception.

These Charming People was successful, and Michael Arlen became a literary celebrity. His novel The Green Hat (1924) was a bestseller, as was May Fair, the book that followed. My copy is from the seventh impression – still from the month of original publication, which was one hundred years ago in June 1925.

May Fair was a sequel to These Charming People and boasted a similarly lengthy subtitle: ‘…purporting to reveal to Gentlefolk the Real State of Affairs…together with Suitable reflections on the last follies, misadventures, and galanteries…’. Unlike the earlier stories those in May Fair do not rely as much on recurring characters to link them. It is more Mayfair itself, as the common setting and background, that emerges as the main character. Brick and stone complement the flesh and blood.

May Fair consists of ten stories, together with a long Prologue and Arlen’s ‘au reservoir’ “Farewell, These Charming People”. The stories are written in the rather convoluted and circumlocutory style that Arlen had developed: a leisurely pleasure and indulgence after the initial challenge of settling into it. Appropriately, its Baroque quality was modern and reflected the contemporary rebuilding of the West End and its transformation from the domestic and elegant brick and stucco of the Georgian and Regency eras to the large-scale Portland stone and concrete of the new commercial ‘Georgian Imperial’ age. May Fair was as much a valediction as a celebration of London.

The titles of the stories are evocative and enticing, for example: “A Romance in Old Brandy”, “The Battle of Berkeley Square”, “The Three-Cornered Moon”, and “The Ghoul of Golders Green”. Some stories include ‘novels’ reminiscent of those in Arthur Machen’s The Three Impostors. As the older writer had, Arlen wrote of a small group who ‘cannot remain commonplace’: ‘In my life, as you know, I have not had many dealings with the grotesque. But the grotesque seems lately to be desiring the very closest connection with me (116)’. Although Arlen’s flaneurs also stroll up and down Piccadilly, they live in Mayfair and dine there, rather than maintaining their rooms in Bloomsbury and patronising the restaurants of Soho.

For all Arlen’s fame and wealth, he seems never to have been quite accepted by many – perhaps those he wished to impress most. Did his success breed envy? His persona seemed at times to be an attempt to answer un-named disparagers and critics and prove himself at least as English as the native-born. Michael Arlen was originally Dikran Kouyoumdjian, born of Armenian parents in Bulgaria. He was brought to England as a child and received an exemplary public-school education. The young man had not been allowed to fight for King and Country in World War I: the country of his birth was one of the Central Powers and so an enemy, and he had not yet changed his name and become naturalised, which Arlen did in 1922.

Following the run of successful books during the 1920s Arlen still produced work that glittered, but which also reflected the continued ambiguities of his status. The novel Hell! Said the Duchess (1934) was reminiscent of The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen, while the effective combination of supernatural horror with a darkening view of London high society was Arlen’s own. He left for Italy and France before moving to the United States, returning to England at the outbreak of World War II to take a position in the Civil Defence organisation. Yet Arlen’s loyalty came under question again; he resigned and returned to the USA, where he lived until his death.

But Arlen and Mayfair could not be separated. The novelist and man of letters Anthony Powell was a decade younger than Arlen and outlived him by over forty years. Powell’s grand sequence of twelve novels A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-75) frequently used Mayfair and West End settings for the exploits of the coterie of exotic characters from across the class spectrum he found there – and chronicled throughout in an appropriately unhurried mannered style. In the second volume of his memoirs (Messengers of Day, 1978) Powell recalled that his arrival in London in 1926 had been influenced by Arlen: ‘…I might not have admitted to everyone that the Shepherd’s Market seduction scene which opens Michael Arlen’s novel, The Green Hat, chiefly caused me to set my sights on that small village enclave so unexpectedly concealed among the then grand residences of Mayfair’. Thirty years later Powell was to give Arlen luncheon, remembering him as ‘Small, slight, neat, infinitely sure of himself, yet somehow set apart from other people…’ (2).

Michael Arlen seems to have been a humane and urbane man, thoughtful and generous, who did not wish to reject his heritage but found himself marked by it as an incomer, the eternal outsider. And yet, perhaps, it takes such a one to perceive most sharply something of the veracities of the places they have chosen to inhabit and explore, rather than just the superficialities visible to all.

(John Howard)

 

How I Tried to Buy a Phantom Island from The Hudson's Bay Company

The recent news that The Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada is closing all its stores and has sold its brand names to a competitor, reminded me of my attempt to buy a non-existent island from the Company. Their plaque proudly boasts it was founded on 2 May 1670, when it was given charters by Charles II to explore lands in the North Atlantic, and exclusive rights to trade with these. By modern times it had developed into a chain of department stores selling household goods, hardware and soft furnishings, among other things.

I have long been interested in islands sighted, thought once to exist and marked on maps, but which we now know were navigational mistakes or fantasies. As I have noted before, there are a small number of charming and fascinating books on this theme, including Raymond Ramsay's No Longer On the Map (1972), Henry Stommel's Lost Islands: The Story of Islands That Have Vanished from Nautical Charts (1984) and Donald S Johnson's Phantom Islands of the Atlantic (1994).

One of these islands, supposed to be somewhere in the North Atlantic between Ireland and Iceland, was named Buss Island. This was sighted variously close to Rockall or further out, south of Greenland, and on several occasions. A Martin Frobisher expedition to find the North West Passage reported seeing it in 1578 from their ship Emanuel, a type of vessel known as a “buss”, hence the name.  

A captain of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Thomas Shepherd of the Golden Lion, claimed to have landed there in 1671. Taking no chances against rival powers, or rival merchants, the Company soon secured the rights to Buss Island from the king: and these rights had never been relinquished, though it was removed from maps in the early 19^th century. Explanations for its appearance include sunken islands, icebergs, mirages in mist and outright invention to justify further voyages.

In 2003 I wrote to the then current incarnation of the Company as follows: ‘This is a rather unusual query. In 1675 the Company was granted a Charter to an island that did not, in fact, exist: Buss Island, which had been mistakenly sighted by earlier mariners. I would like to acquire these rights from you, purely as a piece of whimsy, and because I am writing a novel based on the story. I know this may seem a somewhat out-of-the-ordinary inquiry . . .’

The idea had come to me after reading Margaret Elphinstone’s Hy Brasil (2002), about an imaginary version of this long-fabled island said to exist in the Atlantic. The author had kindly allowed me to issue stamps for her fictional version of the island, and I had in mind a similar plan for Buss Island. It was a shame it did not have a more romantic name: Emanuel, Frobisher’s, Shepherd’s or Golden Lion Island would have been much better. Perhaps I could re-name it. The novel I was writing, or rather thinking about, never got any further, although the idea of lost islands remains an alluring theme. 

The reply I received from the Company’s Manager of Heritage Services, was somewhat bemused but tolerant and quite interested. It read: ‘Yours is indeed an unusual request! Usually people who want to buy something from us are very interested in the tangible aspect of what they will obtain . . .  I am curious: where did you learn about Buss Island, and that Hbc "owned" it? The ready mention to it we found is in the Peter C. Newman book "A Company of Adventurers" but it certainly is not the only source talking about this island. I have initiated a discussion within the company - imaginary or not the island is, there are still administrative procedures to follow - and, can I share the fun we are all having over this? Newman mentions that the only surviving trace of Hbc ownership of Buss island is in the Northamptonshire Records Office: have you had the privilege of seeing it? . . . I would welcome any additional information you could pass on to me, it would be very much appreciated.’

The proof of the company’s rights to Buss Island to which this reply refers was a supplementary charter of which the only copy was in the Records Office named. This was in fact in my home county, which seemed a nice coincidence, and I knew this archive quite well since I had delved there when researching the holy wells of the shire, but I was unaware then of the important charter. Understandably, the charter was only available to view in person and by appointment, and I was then no longer near Northamptonshire. The Company did, however, draw my attention to an article in Beaver Magazine, entitled "Mythical land of Buss" by Alice M. Johnson, in the December 1942 issue, p.43-47, which reproduces an image of the charter.

I replied to this message on 7 March 2003, explaining ‘I heard about Buss Island in a book called "Phantom Islands of the Atlantic" by Donald S. Johnson (Goose Lane Editions, New Brunswick, 1994, and Souvenir Press, England, 1997). According to this (pps 72-3), HBC were granted a charter by Charles II bestowing ownership of the island and all the trading, mining rights, etc, in 1675. But in fact the island never existed: it was the result of navigational and sighting errors by mariners. There is an entire chapter in Johnson's book about the non-existent island.’

Sensing that even a non-existent island might have the potential to be what is called an incorporeal asset, and the Company, now alerted, might be reluctant to part with it, I made a bid instead for more fantastical licences. ‘It's very good of you to respond so well to what must seem a very peculiar request. May I just leave another thought with you? If for nostalgic or other reasons the Company could not see its way to "selling" the island, perhaps we could devise some fanciful rights in the island that the Company could grant to me - such as, for example, the rights to any dragons’ eggs or serpent farming or silver mines!’

Well, no doubt the Company had plenty of other pressing business and it was good-humoured of them to indulge me thus far. In due course I received a brief and evidently final reply thanking me again for re-acquainting them with Buss Island but adding that the Company had decided not to dispose of any of its rights. There was, I recall, during the correspondence, a vague idea that they might somehow make use of the island in their heritage brands, but I am not aware that anything ever came of this. I wonder whether the new owners know about the island? Perhaps I should put in another bid for those dragons’ eggs . . .

(Mark Valentine)

Picture: Map of Buss Island by John Seller (1671).