The Centenary of ‘The Street of Queer Houses’ by Vernon Knowles

 

This month marks the centenary of the UK edition of The Street of Queer Houses, the first collection of short stories by the Australian author Vernon Knowles. It was published in different editions (with different contents) in New York in 1924 and London in 1925.

It seems likely that his models were the fantasies of Lord Dunsany, the fairy tales of Oscar Wilde, the poetry and perhaps some early stories of de la Mare, the paradoxical romances of G.K. Chesterton, whom we know he also met, and possibly a pinch or so of the sardonic Saki. His tales demonstrate an imagination as rich as these, if a literary craft not yet perfected: but for a young man in his mid-twenties, the collection is still impressive.

The title story reads like a strange allegory—an architect builds homes that suit people’s character and occupation, and at first the Street seems rich and interesting: but sudden, sometimes absurd, strokes of misfortune disturb the quaint harmony. ‘The Three Gods’ is set on the fictional ‘eastern coast of Ragana’, where there is a city of beautiful gardens and jewelled castles, like those fair cities of Dunsany to which we know a doom will come. The King is troubled by a dream; his High Priest interprets it, correctly in one sense, and the city’s three great stone gods (with the Dunsanian names of Bina, Zooma and Tana) are set upon a hill to guard the realm. But the doom in the dream, and the city’s destiny, cannot be thwarted.

Other stories, including ‘The House of Yesterdays’ (dedicated to Walter de la Mare), ‘The Pendant’, ‘The Broken Statue’ and ‘The Mask’, tell how supernatural intervention in the affairs of mortals can be elicited from witches, magicians or gods, but always end with unexpected results. These are ironic parables, whose message is that mortality, loss and decay are our ultimate lot, and we do better to accept them than to try to delay or oppose them. There are also two brief fantasies about authors engaging with their own creations—‘The Author Who Entered His Ms’ and ‘A Matter of Characterisation’—which read like plot ideas briefly sketched, and might have worked better with fuller development.

All of the tales are succinct but somewhat distant in the telling, with a remorseless sense of inevitability, like folk or fairy tales. E.F. Bleiler (The Guide to Supernatural Fiction, 1983), one of the few to notice the collection, called the stories ‘rather weak, amateurish affairs . . . mostly short, undeveloped allegories.’ That is perhaps harsh, but it does convey some of the limitations of the form and style Knowles adopted.

Vernon Knowles was born in Adelaide on 17th April 1899, the youngest of four children of Major Frank Lyndon Knowles, a military paymaster, and his wife Annie. His father was born in Birmingham, England, but had moved to Australia about 1886: his mother had once had artistic ambitions, but had forsaken these for her family.

Despite his deep affection for the country around his home town, Vernon Knowles seems very early to have determined to make his way in England. He visited there in 1921-2, made some literary contacts, and (after a brief return home), went back in 1923. Although he returned to Australia on occasions, England was to become his home for the rest of his life.

A second book of short stories, Here and Otherwhere, followed at the end of 1926 and seems to be written with more assurance and insouciance than the first. The tales are not so bare, the ideas are worked through a little further, and they are slyer and more consciously crafted. They still read like parables or allegories, and are briskly conveyed (with little dwelling upon atmosphere or character), but we are again struck by the fecundity of ideas.

The seven stories in Knowles’ third collection, Silver Nutmegs (1927), are embellished by excellent bold black & white illustrations by Eric Knight, with angular art-deco weirdness in similar style to the work of Wyndham Lewis or Beresford Egan. But this volume seems (like the others) to have met only modest success. Perhaps the temper of the times was not right for such work: Dunsany had given up his tales in this vein almost completely after the Great War.

Whether it was the author or his publisher that was discouraged, no new collection followed for some time. There was one more selection, Two and Two Make Five (1935), which brings together three tales from Silver Nutmegs, and five from Here and Otherwhere, with four previously uncollected works. The publisher called them ‘fairy tales for grown-ups’ and suggested that in a world of advanced science—Einstein, J.W. Dunne’s experiments with time—they should be regarded as ‘tales of the super-real rather than the supernatural’. The strongest new story, ‘The Curious Activities of Basil Thorpenden’, bears that claim out by presenting a set of wonders as the Wellsian experiments of an inventor—though really we are still in the domain of Dunsanyian dreams.

Knowles also published poems and a few novels, and a slim volume of boyhood autobiography, Eternity in an Hour, in 1932. In this, his frank celebration of strangeness and delight in his South Australian upbringing draws the reader in more successfully than the more artificial tone of his tales. We share in the ardour of his response to natural beauty and the intensity of his allegiance to other boys and the excitement of games, adventures and explorations.

Certain recurring themes are seen in his stories: searching for wonder from within a humdrum world, the separation of selves, the sinister twists that come from wishes. They are familiar in the field and suggest an author who has a vision to express that he has not quite fully made his own. But even so, his best and strangest tales—perhaps ‘The Ladder’, ‘Thorpenden’, ‘The Shop in the Off-Street’ and ‘A Set of Chinese Boxes’—are bold and beguiling enough to demand our attention, sufficiently distinctive for us to appreciate the unusual sensibility at work in them. 

(Mark Valentine)

Note: condensed, amended and adapted from part of my essay ‘“Under This Strange Grey Sky” – The Fantasies of Vernon Knowles’ (Haunted By Books, 2005)

Image: Endpaper design in The Street of Queer Houses.

Decadence in the Cumberland Mountains - A Guest Post by Bill Ectric

 Crimes, Criminals, and Characters of the Cumberlands and Southwest Virginia (1970) by Roy L. Sturgill has a Southern Gothic feel from the first page. A murder in the year 1902 begins as a “spree” in Wise County, Virginia. One of the three defendants describes a spree as staying up all night drinking liquor, stealing a chicken from someone’s chicken coop, cooking the chicken over an open fire in the woods, and drinking more liquor. Things go wrong. One of the revelers shoots and kills the homeowner when he surprises them. The book includes excerpts from court records, trial transcripts, contemporary newspaper accounts, and verbatim last words of convicted men on scaffolds.

The book was printed by Quality Printers in Bristol, Virginia. It has a green leatherette paper cover, 5 ½ x 8½ inches, seventy-two glossy pages, bound with two staples in the spine. It is printed by offset press and features many black & white photographs of the lawmen, the bad guys, old courthouses, gallows, gravestones, descendants, and mountain ranges. The one I own was inscribed by the author when my father purchased it in Bristol, Virginia. The seven chapters are historical accounts of real crimes committed between 1892 and 1924. Alongside his own writing, Sturgill has curated some good essays and articles by other writers.

A chapter based on Luther F. Addington’s book, The Red Fox, tells the story of Dr. M. B. Taylor, known as the Red Fox. He was a student of Swedenborg, a “mystic, preacher, herb doctor, revenue officer, and assassin” (Sturgill, 67). Taylor healed people, Rasputin-style, travelled long distances impossibly fast, and preached at his own funeral in 1893. His hair and beard were red, and he tracked bootleggers like a fox.

The Federal government didn’t outlaw alcohol until 1920, but some towns and territories banned the drink as early as 1852 (Maine), and this was the case in parts of Kentucky and Virginia in the 1890s. Not content with healing, the doctor decided he wanted to be a federal agent, “since he was forever riding the mountain trails and mingling with the people, he had a good opportunity to spot moonshiners and bootleggers and he could arrest his share of them” (68). Ironically, despite the latitude given to lawmen, he still managed to cross the line. He decided to kill a man named Ira Mullins, preemptively, after hearing that Mullins wanted to kill him. It was not a fair fight because Mullins had previously been crippled by a bullet from yet another revenue man, not named.

 On the day of his execution, Taylor “preached at his own funeral” from an upstairs window of the courthouse. For two hours he read from the Bible, pontificated, administered the sacrament to his wife and himself, and invited others to join in.

“No one did [join in]” (71).

I found the following photo and obituary for the author.

 

Roy L. Sturgill, Born: December 4, 1913, Died: October 5, 1993

Roy L. Sturgill October 5, 1993 By Gladys Stallard

Roy Lee Sturgill, 79, of 1168 Rhode Island Ave., Bristol, VA, died Tuesday, October 5, 1993, in Bristol Regional Medical Center. He was a native of Coeburn and had lived in Bristol for 45 years.  He was a member of Shelby Masonic Lodge No. 162, National Association of Retired Federal Employees, the Historical Society of Southwest Virginia, The Wise County Historical Society and American Association of Retired Persons.

[. . .]

Roy Lee Sturgill always claimed Coeburn, Virginia, as his hometown, having been born there December 4, 1913, the son of King and Mary Sturgill.  Due to the death of his mother in 1922, the young family of two boys and three girls became separated. Fifty-seven years later, in 1979, they all had a grand reunion.

At age 19, Roy met Barbara V. Mullins.  They were soon married.  He was a coal miner for ten years, then served a stint in the U.S. Navy.  Later, he became a Railway Postal Clerk until passenger service was discontinued in 1969.

He was of the Methodist faith.  He belonged to the National Association of Retired Federal Employees, the AARP, Shelby Masonic Lodge, No. 162, and was a Shriner.

Because of his extensive collection of railroad pictures and memorabilia, Roy Sturgill was persuaded by his son, Phillip to write his last book, Album of Steam Railroading.  Phil typeset the book, and managed to get it completed, printed, and in the hands of his father before Roy died in the Bristol Regional Medical Center, Tuesday, October 5, 1993 . . . (Wise County Historical Society, Necrology) 

I found a Roy E. Sturgill, Jr. on the internet and sent him an email asking if he knew anything about the author. He graciously replied:

Sorry Bill, I probably am [related to him], but I don’t know.  All the Sturgills seem to come from the same place, out of the New River Valley in Virginia. Some headed to North Carolina and others to Kentucky.  Some of the favorite family names are Roy and William. I am from Eastern Kentucky. My father, Roy Sr., was born and raised on Sturgill Branch in Eastern Kentucky. I also have a son, Roy III. Good luck with finding who you are looking for!

Finally, there is a story behind the missing part of the book on the lower right corner. My parents mailed some books to me while I was stationed at the Rota, Spain Naval Station in 1973. I loaned this one to a friend. He was a jet mechanic and kept the book in one of his toolboxes so he could read it at lunchtime. He said it was either hydraulic fluid or some type of solvent. At first it was a small stain, he said, but it began to spread as the day progressed. He cut it off, but didn’t get it all the first time, and had to cut off more. He managed to save the book.

(Bill Ectric)