Thursday, April 8, 2021

The Star Called Wormwood

Morchard Bishop was the pen-name of Frederick Field Stoner, who also wrote as Oliver Stonor. He is mostly remembered today in the literary field as the friend and champion of Arthur Machen. He compiled ‘The Table Talk of Arthur Machen’, a record of conversations with the Welsh author. This currently remains unpublished, though a chapter was issued as a chapbook, Dreams and Visions: A Brief Journey Into the Remarkable Imagination of Arthur Machen (Caermaen Books, 1987). 

I corresponded briefly with Oliver when Roger Dobson and I were compiling the Dreams & Visions booklet. He seemed to me, from his letters, a meticulously courteous, diffident gentleman, kindly interested in and supportive of our fledgling Machen publications. Here we were, two young, inexperienced Machenites, able to publish only a card-covered, stapled booklet of one part of his work in a small edition: and yet this distinguished man-of-letters, with a dozen books to his name, treated the project warmly and seriously.

At Machen’s suggestion he had translated, in his mid-Twenties, Le Moyen de Parvenir (as The Way to Succeed), a rambling, Rabelaisian work by a 17th century canon of Tours, a ‘gargoyle of a book’, as Machen put it: the latter had himself attempted a translation which could only be issued in a censored form. Bishop’s edition was his first book, in 1930.

As Bishop, he was the author of a biography of William Blake’s patron in Blake’s Hayley (1951), which was well-received, and as Stonor he compiled A First Book of Synonyms (1963). But he also wrote (as Bishop) seven novels, from 1932 to 1948, which have not received very much attention. One of these at least is highly original and peculiar, and also shows a courageous independence of mind. It was an anti-war book published in 1941 by that great maverick and connoisseur of the singular, Victor Gollancz.

The oddity of the book begins with its title, which is in full The Star Called Wormwood. An Investigation of the possible reasons for its Decline and Fall as described in the VIIIth chapter of the Apocalypse. The dustjacket description, in bold black letters on the publisher’s trademark pale yellow colours, announces: ‘Mr Samuel Taylor Coleridge & Mr William Blake in the war-world of 2839 (or is it 1939?)’.

(We may note in passing that this use of a future year to satirise a current one predates George Orwell’s 1984, which was originally going to be called 1948 until his publishers dissuaded him.)

Bishop follows Beroalde’s practice of having elaborate literary apparatus before the narrative of the book begins. In his introduction, Bishop says that it has been drawn to his attention that the book might be seen as criticising the current war and might even harm the war effort: he notes wryly that he is touched by such faith in the book’s influence. He explains that it is aimed rather at the futility of war generally than this specific one, and adds that, once embarked on a war, it is better to get it done with despatch.

The novel begins in the early Victorian period: a stable lad, accidentally shot, hovers in his consciousness. The shock of the injury, and a surgical intervention on the brain, catapult him into the future. This device is somewhat reminiscent of the effect of the lesion on the brain made by Dr Raymond on Mary in Machen’s The Great God Pan, and with similar cosmic effects.

But instead of meeting the ancient Greek deity, the stable boy meets two great poets and visionaries, Coleridge and Blake, and is regaled by their recondite conversation. The author is obviously steeped in their work and thought, and any admirer of these will enjoy his portrayal of them.  The boy, who is uneducated, has to try to interpret what they say in ways he can understand, which makes for a whimsical effect.

The Star Called Wormwood is a learned, thoughtful, unusual novel that will not be to every reader’s taste. It does not attempt to offer the usual narrative satisfactions, nor does it try to emulate, for example, Machen’s lyrical, enchanted prose. It is perhaps closest, in the Machen canon, to such works as The Chronicle of Clemendy and Hieroglyphics.

Yet it has a distinctive character and certainly stands out from the run of fiction of the day, or any day. It has a certain oblique, eccentric quality. The Star Called Wormwood is one of those completely original books that ought to appeal to the adventurous reader. It would not have been out of place in Gollancz’s ‘Rare Works of Imaginative Literature’ series, alongside Lindsay, Shiel, Visiak and Le Fanu.

(Mark Valentine)

Image: Peter Harrington Books

16 comments:

  1. Mr. Valentine-- do you think FOAM could take up the challenge of publishing the "Table Talk"?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That would be welcome, though it is still in copyright and would depend on the literary estate. Mark

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

      Delete
  2. Interesting, and a book to look for, but what happened to the Poetic Guerrilla War that was dangled before us?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well spotted! I had second thoughts about that, but it may appear elsewhere. Mark

      Delete
  3. Very tantalizing write-up, as expected. But also frustrating. So far as I can tell, there are only two copies of this book listed online--one in New Zealand for around $150 and the other from Peter Harrington, per your picture, for considerably more. Sigh. Once the Library of Congress reopens, I can try to call it up there--at least to get a closer look atit. Let me, in the meantime, make a request for future posts: Tell us more about your copy of such books. Where did you find it? Is it a recent discovery or one that's been waiting on your shelves for the right moment to be read and commented on? Did you pay 50 p or 50 pounds? You do this occasionally, but I think most collectors and readers very much enjoy these background details.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A bookseller called Goldeneye had a vg copy in dw on Amazon uk for £125 until moments ago. This is clearly an influential blog

      Delete
    2. Michael, I started looking out for Oliver's books after we published 'Dreams and Visions'. They were not all that easy to get, but occasionally turned up. I forget where I found the 'Star'. Mark

      Delete
  4. Oliver Stonor very kindly contributed to myself and Edwin Pouncey's successful project to erect a stone on Montague Summers's then unmarked grave in the 1980s, as did Victor Gollancz's daughter Livia. I was amazed to get a missive from someone who knew Machen and still have the letter.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I know just what you mean, Sandy, it seemed like a close link to Machen himself. Mark

      Delete
  5. The most marvelous thing related to this is the fact that Coleridge and Blake really were acquainted face-to-face. The frustrating thing is that we don't know what they said. But for confirmation of their having met see G. E. Bentley's The Stranger from Paradise: A Biography of William Blake (Yale, 2001), p. 133, citing diarist Crabb Robinson, and an unsigned article in London University Magazine II (March 1830). Ten years or so ago I fell for the hoax about Dickens having met Dostoevsky. But this isn't a hoax.

    Dale Nelson

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Dale, I did not know that and it is fascinating to learn. Mark

      Delete
    2. Coleridge and Blake are two of my favorites! Even though we don’t know what they said to each other, I wonder if there’s any record of what they said about each other.

      Delete
    3. We do have Coleridge's notes on the individual poems in Songs of Innocence and of Experience. See Bentley's The Strange from Paradise, pp. 350-353.

      Bill, have you read Gilchrist's Life of Blake? The Everyman's Library edition edited by Ruthven Todd may be recommended. I'm particularly found of the material contributed by Samuel Palmer.

      Dale Nelson

      Delete
  6. I have just read Kathleen Coburn's In Pursuit of Coleridge (London: Bodley Head, 1977). Coburn, a Canadian, edited the Notebooks of Coleridge, a great scholarly achievement in its own right, and important also as inspiring the Bollingen/Princeton Collected Coleridge.

    Anyway, Oliver Stonor was a research assistant for Miss Coburn (p. 128). After the British Museum turned the books down, the A. H. B. Coleridge Collection ended up in the Victoria College Library, University of Toronto. The collection travelled across the Atlantic with Miss Coburn.

    In what?

    It was Stonor who located "five tough old suitcases" that would be safe for them. He tested them by jumping on each one -- I assume before the books were packed.

    Dale Nelson

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oliver was my father. His dealings with Ms. Coburn were not always harmonious. I think he was very happy to dispatch those five stout suitcases! In other news, Mike Moorcock is still going strong aged 82, and maintains a lively presence on The Face Book. Do get in touch, Mark - and anyone else who is interested to know more.

      Delete