Book Description
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) was an English novelist. He was born in Auckland in New Zealand and educated in England at the King's School, Canterbury and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He worked as a teacher before turning to writing full time. His first novel was The Wooden Horse (1909), with Fortitude (1913) his first great success. He worked for the Red Cross in Russia during World War I, experiences which fed his The Dark Forest (1916) and The Secret City (1919). Walpole lived at Brackenburn Lodge on the slopes of Catbells in the Lake District from 1924 to his death. Here he wrote many of his best known works including the family saga The Herries Chronicle, comprising Rogue Herries (1930), Judith Paris (1931), The Fortress (1932) and Vanessa (1933). Walpole's work was very popular, and brought him great financial rewards. He was a prolific worker who embraced a variety of genres. He also wrote: The Prelude to Adventure (1912), The Golden Scarecrow (1915), The Captives (1920), and The Cathedral (1922). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Love at the Russian Front

WW I has broken out and two Englishmen, Ivan Durward and John Trenchard, go to Russia to help on the front as medics. Durward is objective and forthright, while Trenchard is dreamy and possessing little self-esteem. Trenchard falls in love with a Russian nurse, Marie, and they become engaged. But the older and roguish Dr. Semyonov also falls in love with her, and is able to take Marie for himself (Trenchard puts up little fight). Marie is later killed during a battle, as is Trenchard. Much of the book is related through a diary kept by Trenchard and another one by Durward. The tone of the book is very somber, even melancholy, despite the passionate love interests. Best of all is Walpole's descriptions of the forest, a dark and sinister place for most, representing the "killing field" of the war (though not for Marie or Semyonov). The war plays a large part of the story, but it would not be fair to call it a "war novel." An interesting and well plotted story, but terribly grave and solemn in tone. ... Read more

Book Description
The author draws on Walpole's journals, letters and diaries to give a skillful and intimate portrayal of both the man and the writer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Hugh-man, All Too Hugh-man
Hugh Walpole was, along with such forgotten authors as Priestly and Bennett, one of the most popular writers of middle-brow fiction in Britain during the early and middle years of the Twentieth Century. His biographer, Rupert Hart-Davis, was, for a few years, the publisher of his own imprint that specialized in fine books concerning that soon-to-be extinct literary specimen, the man of letters.Rupert Hart-Davis was also a close friend of Walpole's; and this biography is a labor of love, which, inadvertently, is also a hilarious send up of literary culture.Walpole was a hack, tis true, tis true.And Rupert Hart-Davis knew that in his heart of hearts (a hack cliche if ever there was one).And so, Rupert Hart-Davis writes a brutally honest biography ticking off Walpole's deficiencies while all the time trying to maintain some shred of literary dignity for his subject.There are lots of howlers throughout this book, such as those concerning Walpole's love of Turkish baths, which Rupert Hart-Davis fails to discern played a large role in homosexual culture at the time.Indeed, Rupert Hart-Davis is not too sure what to make of Walpole's homosexuality, although he drops veiled hints here and there about it.As a result, one winds up with bizarre anecdotes concerning Walpole's Woosterish antics to avoid the pressing attentions of various femme fatales.Oh, and Mr. Pooter makes a recurring appearance as well.If you're in the right humor, this is a delightful, and very well written, book.Not for the serious minded. ... Read more

Book Description
1922. The Australian author, Henry Handel Richardson's (Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson), is best remembered for The Fortunes of Richard Mahony trilogy. Her novel, Maurice Guest, plays out the history of Maurice and Louise against the background of the musical life in Leipzig, of which she has intimate knowledge, having studied music there herself. The other figures in the drama, Madeleine, Krafft, Ephie, Schwarz's wife, landladies and musical students, are inevitably pieces in the principal game, and yet are never deliberately so placed there by the author in order to assist the final catastrophe. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Love can be joy, or our undoing! That has not changed since this novel was written.
I read this book because I read that the movie RHAPSODY was loosely based on it, and I did enjoy that melodramatic film. The film is really not much like the book, except that in both, the "Guest" character, the hero, has an obsessive love for the heroine, Louise, that proves very dangerous for him. I won't give away the ending of either film or novel, but you will want to find out once you get into either of them.

This is as good a book about obsessive love and infatuation as you will ever find, in any era, in any language. The music provides more of a backdrop than it does in the film (in the film the music/concerts are a real high point) but it is a good backdrop. Richardson is a descriptive, somewhat flowery writer--very good, but if you are looking for a "quick read" this is not the book for you.

If you have the time, though, and like novels withEuropean settings that show the culture and values of an earlier time, and if you like personality studies, then you will enjoy MAURICE GUEST. I did. This would be a good book to get into on a train or plane ride, or while you are stuck in an airport. ... Read more

Product Description
His description and comments on eleven of Walpole's novels. Frontispiece portrait of Walpole. ... Read more