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| Murder and drama in the Lakes | Murder and drama in the Lakes |
| (7 days later) | |
| Hugh Walpole's out of fashion novel Rogue Herries has been adapted as a play and will be performed at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick next spring. | Hugh Walpole's out of fashion novel Rogue Herries has been adapted as a play and will be performed at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick next spring. |
| The novel is set in the Lake District in the 18th century. It is the first of four chronicles of the Herries family, stretching over seven generations from early Georgian times until the First World War. The adaptation is by Louise Page, for many years a script-writer for the Archers, so no stranger to peculiar bucolic carryings on. She commented on the novel: | The novel is set in the Lake District in the 18th century. It is the first of four chronicles of the Herries family, stretching over seven generations from early Georgian times until the First World War. The adaptation is by Louise Page, for many years a script-writer for the Archers, so no stranger to peculiar bucolic carryings on. She commented on the novel: |
| It has fantastic set pieces that make it a great community show that calls for children, older people, musicians and dancers. The appeal is in the sheer epic scale of the story. I was also very interested in the father and son relationship at the centre of the book, something very rarely explored in the theatre. | It has fantastic set pieces that make it a great community show that calls for children, older people, musicians and dancers. The appeal is in the sheer epic scale of the story. I was also very interested in the father and son relationship at the centre of the book, something very rarely explored in the theatre. |
| Walpole was a great-great-great-nephew of the Prime Minister Robert Walpole – who makes a fleeting appearance in Rogue Herries as "this heavy-jowled, good-tempered, massive-bellied cynic". He was possibly the most mocked popular writer until Jeffrey Archer's appearance. In the dedication to Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons, thinly disguising him as Anthony Pookworthy, comments on his occasionally exhausting wordiness: | Walpole was a great-great-great-nephew of the Prime Minister Robert Walpole – who makes a fleeting appearance in Rogue Herries as "this heavy-jowled, good-tempered, massive-bellied cynic". He was possibly the most mocked popular writer until Jeffrey Archer's appearance. In the dedication to Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons, thinly disguising him as Anthony Pookworthy, comments on his occasionally exhausting wordiness: |
| Are not the entire first hundred pages of The Fulfilment of Martin Hoare a masterly analysis of a bilious attack? | Are not the entire first hundred pages of The Fulfilment of Martin Hoare a masterly analysis of a bilious attack? |
| Max Beerbohm is gentler, lampooning him as Walter Ledgett, a writer whose novels are "widely read by adults of the infantile persuasion". Worst of all was his close friend Somerset Maugham, who was vicious to him as the opportunistic Alroy Kear in Cakes and Ale, saying: | Max Beerbohm is gentler, lampooning him as Walter Ledgett, a writer whose novels are "widely read by adults of the infantile persuasion". Worst of all was his close friend Somerset Maugham, who was vicious to him as the opportunistic Alroy Kear in Cakes and Ale, saying: |
| I could think of no one among my contemporaries who had achieved so considerable a position on so little talent. | I could think of no one among my contemporaries who had achieved so considerable a position on so little talent. |
| When he complained to Rebecca West that she had reviewed one of his books with "virulent abuse" she wrote back dismissing his complaint but admitting "It's certainly true that I don't like your work; I think it facile and without artistic impulse." | When he complained to Rebecca West that she had reviewed one of his books with "virulent abuse" she wrote back dismissing his complaint but admitting "It's certainly true that I don't like your work; I think it facile and without artistic impulse." |
| However, he did have many admirers as well, some of them quite surprising ones. TS Eliot, for example, wrote enthusiastically of Walpole's | However, he did have many admirers as well, some of them quite surprising ones. TS Eliot, for example, wrote enthusiastically of Walpole's |
| capacity to appreciate and admire generously the work of authors very different from himself. He held in the highest esteem, for instance, the novels of Mr James Joyce and Mrs Woolf. | capacity to appreciate and admire generously the work of authors very different from himself. He held in the highest esteem, for instance, the novels of Mr James Joyce and Mrs Woolf. |
| Virginia Woolf was indeed a great friend and regular correspondent of his. She wrote to him: | Virginia Woolf was indeed a great friend and regular correspondent of his. She wrote to him: |
| how tired I am of being caged with Aldous, Joyce and Lawrence! Can't we exchange cages for a lark? How horrified all the professors would be! | how tired I am of being caged with Aldous, Joyce and Lawrence! Can't we exchange cages for a lark? How horrified all the professors would be! |
| Other admirers included Conrad, who wrote "We see Mr Walpole grappling with the truth of things spiritual and material with his characteristic earnestness". | Other admirers included Conrad, who wrote "We see Mr Walpole grappling with the truth of things spiritual and material with his characteristic earnestness". |
| He was aware that his popularity might not be enduring, accurately predicting in his diary in 1935: | He was aware that his popularity might not be enduring, accurately predicting in his diary in 1935: |
| Shall I have any lasting reputation? Like every author in history who has seriously tried to be an artist, I sometimes consider the question. Fifty years from now I think the Lake stories will still be read locally, otherwise I shall be mentioned in a small footnote to my period in literary history. | Shall I have any lasting reputation? Like every author in history who has seriously tried to be an artist, I sometimes consider the question. Fifty years from now I think the Lake stories will still be read locally, otherwise I shall be mentioned in a small footnote to my period in literary history. |
Walpole was a great lover of Cumberland. In 1923 he bought a modest bungalow not far from Keswick, which he enlarged and filled with his 30,000 books and his impressive art collection, describing it as "this enchanted place, this paradise on Catbells." Not far from his house, on a lower slope of Catbells – which, with Borrowdale more generally, features throughout Rogue Herries – is a simple slate bench, with spectacular views across Derwentwater up towards Skiddaw, and the inscription "To the memory of Sir Hugh Walpole, CBE, of Brackenburn." | Walpole was a great lover of Cumberland. In 1923 he bought a modest bungalow not far from Keswick, which he enlarged and filled with his 30,000 books and his impressive art collection, describing it as "this enchanted place, this paradise on Catbells." Not far from his house, on a lower slope of Catbells – which, with Borrowdale more generally, features throughout Rogue Herries – is a simple slate bench, with spectacular views across Derwentwater up towards Skiddaw, and the inscription "To the memory of Sir Hugh Walpole, CBE, of Brackenburn." |
| A significant portion of the fortune he made writing and lecturing he spent on his art collection. Kenneth Clark, who admired his artistic taste, wrote | A significant portion of the fortune he made writing and lecturing he spent on his art collection. Kenneth Clark, who admired his artistic taste, wrote |
| Hugh Walpole was one of the three or four real patrons of modern art in this country; and of that small body he was perhaps the most generous and the most discriminating. | Hugh Walpole was one of the three or four real patrons of modern art in this country; and of that small body he was perhaps the most generous and the most discriminating. |
| He owned works by Constable, Gainsborough, Turner, Utrillo, Manet, Picasso and Cézanne as well as sculptures by Epstein, Rodin and Maillol. The Tate benefitted greatly from his collection – he left it his Cézanne watercolour of the Mont St Victoire, an Augustus John sketch of WB Yeats and Renoir's charming Head of a Girl as well as works by Manet, Forain, Sickert, Blake and Tissot. Keswick Museum inherited his manuscripts, a bust of him by Epstein and letters to him from Conrad, Lawrence of Arabia and John Galsworthy. | He owned works by Constable, Gainsborough, Turner, Utrillo, Manet, Picasso and Cézanne as well as sculptures by Epstein, Rodin and Maillol. The Tate benefitted greatly from his collection – he left it his Cézanne watercolour of the Mont St Victoire, an Augustus John sketch of WB Yeats and Renoir's charming Head of a Girl as well as works by Manet, Forain, Sickert, Blake and Tissot. Keswick Museum inherited his manuscripts, a bust of him by Epstein and letters to him from Conrad, Lawrence of Arabia and John Galsworthy. |
| Booking opens for tickets for Rogue Herries on November 19. The play runs at the Theatre by the Lake (which sits on what sounds very close to the site of Rogue Herries' complacent brother Pomfret's house), Keswick, from 23 March to 20 April next year. | Booking opens for tickets for Rogue Herries on November 19. The play runs at the Theatre by the Lake (which sits on what sounds very close to the site of Rogue Herries' complacent brother Pomfret's house), Keswick, from 23 March to 20 April next year. |
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