The Centenary of Adventures of Monsieur De Mailly by David Lindsay

David Lindsay (1876-1945) wrote seven novels, and Adventures of Monsieur de Mailly is always seen as the odd one out. Unlike his other six, it is not especially philosophical, and it is often relegated to the inferior status of potboiler. (Though Lindsay himself said it was not one, as is noted below.)  Even critically there has been nonsense written about it—e.g., Bernard Sellin (mostly a perceptive critic) claimed that Lindsay’s wife probably had a hand in it (“It is also probable that The Adventures of Monsieur de Mailly was as much the work of Jacqueline as of David Lindsay. . . . being of French origin on her mother’s side, she was well qualified to provide all the relevant information on the background of the plot” The Life and Works of David Lindsay,  p. 28) But Lindsay’s wife was actually from a Romanian Jewish family that emigrated first in the early 1880s to Rosh Pinna (then in Ottoman Palestine, but now in Israel) before then coming to England in the mid-1890s. So Sellin’s supposition has no relevance.

Adventures of Monsieur de Mailly was, paradoxically, the most successful book published by Lindsay during his own lifetime. It was his only novel to be reprinted, and it was the only one to achieve a contemporaneous American edition.

In the U.K., Adventures of Monsieur de Mailly (the title has no initial indefinite article) was published by Andrew Melrose of London in September of 1926. This month it celebrates its centenary. The firm Andrew Melrose was bought ought by the increasing maw of another publisher, Hutchinson, in very late 1926, and Hutchinson soon reprinted de Mailly (the most notable differences from the first printing being the change of address on the title page and the change of printer). The novel was retitled A Blade for Sale: The Adventures of Monsieur de Mailly for publication in February (but dated March) 1927 by Robert M. McBride of New York.

Lindsay’s own title for the book had been The Enterprises of Monsieur de Mailly. Basically, it tells some stories of twenty-seven year old Gaston de Mailly and his scandalous affairs in and around Paris and Versailles in the year 1700, during the reign of Louis XIV.  To his friend E.H. Visiak, Lindsay wrote: “It has been called a potboiler, but it is not one. I wrote it from high spirits, as the result of a somewhat protracted course of Saint Simon” (14 September 1929). The course of Saint Simon refers to the multi-volumed Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, covering the years from 1692 through the passing of Louis XIV in 1715 and beyond. If Lindsay did not read the memoirs in French, the most recent translation into English before the writing of de Mailly was the six volume abridged series translated by Francis Arkwright, published in 1915-1924.

Of the few U.K. reviews, that in the Scotsman was the longest, noting:  “There is excellent invention in the weaving of the intricate web of intrigue and adventure in which De Mailly finds himself involved, and through which he manages to adroitly wriggle or boldly cut a way” (7 October 1926). The Scotsman reviewer even expressed hope to hear more of de Mailly in the future, for: “A hero so instant in thought, word, and deed is not to be lightly parted with.” The Spectator gave it a one-sentence review (“The book is full of excitement” 9 October 1926). The Times Literary Supplement did not review it, alone among Lindsay’s novels.

In the U.S. I have found over a half dozen reviews, all positive, though a few are very short. Frederick H. Martens in the Literary Review (of The New York Evening Post) noted “the triumphant emergence of the ready-witted hero from a wicked web of ingenious plot and counterplot with glory, gold and girl is excellent Dumas” (2 April 1927). The reviewer in the New York Times wrote: “A pleasant bit of Summer reading is assured in A Blade for Sale, which portrays the daring adventures of Gaston de Mailly, a soldier of fortune. Mr. Lindsay has liberally treated the plot with humor, mystery, romance and action, a combination that will prove popular with readers of varied tastes” (12 June 1927). The Tuscaloosa News & Times Gazette (of Alabama) claimed “it is exceedingly well written and there are many moments when it reminds the reader of the masterpieces among all writings of its kind” (1 May 1927).

This is a David Lindsay novel unlike his others, and if a reader can approach it for what it is (a historical adventure novel of the time of Louis XIV), it is good indeed.