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Probably my favourite BYT era author. What better reason that an article in yesterday's Daily Telegraph to start the official BYT favourite author thread....

an article from yesterday's Daily Telegraph....

Patrick Hamilton: A gifted, whisky-loving chronicler of low life

Patrick Hamilton was, in a way, as astute an observer of England as Dickens - and no one has written better about pubs

By Laura Thompson - 20 Apr 2013

Patrick Hamilton, who died of drink in 1962 at the age of 58, was one of the finest novelists of the 20th century. Yet it was as a playwright that he found his greatest success. Rope (1929) and Gaslight (1938) were colossal hits, filmed three times between them, and making Hamilton a rich man by his mid-twenties. This was not entirely a good thing, as it gave him the means to buy limitless amounts of whisky 鈥� he could get through a bottle a day 鈥� and to pursue the alluring prostitute with whom he had been obsessed in his youth. But then, if Hamilton had led a sensible life, he would not have written the novels that he did.

Now another play, The Duke in Darkness, is being staged for the first time in nearly 70 years at London鈥檚 Tabard Theatre: a fascinating prospect. Little is known of the work. It seems to have been well regarded, but its putative public was probably thrown by the fact that it was set during the French religious wars of the 16th century.

This is about as likely as No毛l Coward setting a play in Brixton. For Patrick Hamilton鈥檚 natural territory was his home turf; in his more oblique way, he was as significant a chronicler of English life as Charles Dickens. His novels 鈥� especially his two trilogies, one of which centres on a pub, the other on a psychopathic swindler named Ernest Ralph Gorse 鈥� give a picture of London and Brighton between the wars that is beyond black in its comedy, oddly compassionate and unparalleled in atmosphere.

Hamilton鈥檚 own origins were middle-class, though financially parlous, and indeed his second wife (neither marriage was particularly fulfilling) was an aristocrat. Nevertheless, he was fascinated by a social milieu beneath his own, on whose edges he constantly teetered and into which he occasionally, almost wilfully, fell. Many of his characters lead a hand-to-mouth existence. Gorse, who is based to an extent on the real-life murderer Neville Heath, lives almost entirely on the savings that he fleeces from a procession of female victims.

The novels are generally regarded as an evocation of low life. For instance, the pub trilogy Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (dramatised by the BBC in 2005) has at its heart the relationship 鈥� highly autobiographical 鈥� between a young barman and the prostitute with whom he becomes grimly infatuated. More precisely, however, Hamilton conjures up hopeless aspiration. Gorse, for all his dogged criminality, has an almost pathetic yearning to be viewed as upper-class. He passes himself off as a casually rich ex-Army officer, or as 鈥淭he Honourable Gerald Claridge鈥�; these personae are the means whereby he deceives his victims, but they also represent what he desperately longs to be.

Then there are the genteel characters who live out their days in boarding houses, such as the Craven House that gives its name to a novel written in 1926, or the Rosamund Tea Rooms 鈥� what a name! 鈥� in which the magnificent Slaves of Solitude (1947) is set. These grim lodgings are portrayed as de facto prisons, in which people politely squeak out their internal agonies.

The Rosamund Tea Rooms is 鈥渢his apparent mortuary of desire and passion鈥�, in which meals take place in a 鈥渓ift-rumbling, knife-fork-and-plate silence鈥�. Presiding over it is Mr Thwaites, a comic creation of unspeakable demonic vigour, a secret admirer of Hitler, who 鈥渞esounded, nasally and indefatigably, with a steady health and virility鈥�, and who speaks in a relentlessly lunatic idiom that Hamilton may be said to have patented:

鈥溾��'I Keeps my Counsel,鈥� said Mr Thwaites, in his slow treacly voice. 'Like the Wise Old Owl, I Sits and Keeps my Counsel.鈥欌�夆��

Hamilton鈥檚 greatness is in this sui generis style of his, which synthesises so completely with subject matter that the reader is trapped, squarely and squirmingly, inside the heads of the equally trapped characters. He is repetitive, detailed, obsessional. Lengthy conversations are had over the meaning of the words: 鈥�'Oh well鈥︹�� 'Oh well what?鈥� 'Oh, well, one often says ''Oh well鈥欌�� 鈥� doesn鈥檛 one?鈥� 'Does one?鈥欌��

When Bob the barman spends evenings in Soho searching for his prostitute, we traverse with him every street, every manic flicker of hope. Meanwhile, Hamilton watches, ironic and detached. Yet at the same time he is deep inside it all, tracing every separate step towards an endgame that every one of us 鈥� character, author, reader 鈥� can see coming.

The prose has the painstaking quality of a drunk walking in a straight line, and indeed Hamilton鈥檚 love affair with booze 鈥� which intensified after a disfiguring road accident in 1932 鈥� suffuses his novels. He inhabits the rhythms of drunkenness, the swaying segue from relaxation to merriment to silliness to melancholia. And no one has written better about pubs. The Midnight Bell, in which Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is set, represents the sole bright force in the lives of its customers, the terrible yet poignant bores who bathe in its 鈥渂ottly glitter鈥� and take on the roles of actors in its theatre. Within this pub is played out the most appalling romance in literature, between the barmaid Ella and her 鈥渆lderly鈥� suitor, the well-to-do Mr Eccles, whom she knows she ought to marry but can scarcely look in the eye.

Hamilton has had some illustrious fans, Doris Lessing and more recently Nick Hornby among them. Some, however, find his fatalistic bleakness overwhelming 鈥� Hangover Square (1941) is undeniably one of the most depressing books ever written 鈥� and Hamilton鈥檚 own publisher took against the relentless, near-sociopathic loathing for almost every character in the Gorse trilogy. In fact those books, written in the Fifties, were ahead of their day. Now it is time to acknowledge a novelistic genius.

The Duke in Darkness, Tabard Theatre, Chiswick, London W4; until May 11

By the way I have only just remembered to mention that I set up a group on GoodReads where Patrick Hamilton readers can join together "to discuss the life and work of the English writer Patrick Hamilton".

Click here for more information and/or to join The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society.

Twopence Coloured (1928), was Patrick Hamilton's 鈥榯heatre鈥� book, and it found him on the cusp of what would be his breakthrough, achieved the following year with The Midnight Bell (based on his relationship with Lily Connolly) and the stage premiere of Rope. Twopence Coloured, though, remains one of the rarest items in Hamilton鈥檚 bibliography. For those with the time and inclination to get stuck into a bit of early Hamilton, we're reading it over at The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society this month.

I will be starting it just as soon as I finish A Year to Remember by Alec Waugh (our August BYT non-fiction read) - it would be great if any of my fellow BYTers wanted to join me.

Click here for more information and/or to join The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society.

I also plan to nominate Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton for our September BYT read. After the wonderful discussion about The Slaves of Solitude earlier in 2013 I think we might be ready for what many regard as his masterpiece.

I have set up Impromptu in Moribundia by Patrick Hamilton as a Group Read for August 2013, over at The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society. Why not come and join in? We're a friendly group who share a love of Patrick Hamilton's work and we like to discuss all manner of things: his era, his work, and similar books and authors.

Click here for more information and/or to join The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society.

Here's a bit more about Impromptu in Moribundia:

A stunning anomaly within the literary oeuvre of Patrick Hamilton, Impromptu in Moribundia (first published in 1939) is the most explicit production of his interest in a Marxist analysis of society. It is a satirical fable about one (nameless) man's trespass (through a fantastical machine called the 'Asteradio') into a parallel universe on a far-off planet where the 'miserably dull affairs of England' are mirrored and transformed into an apparent idyll of bourgeois English imagination.

Moribundia - in the words of Peter Widdowson, editor and annotator of this edition - is the 'physical enactment of the stereotypes and myths of English middle-class culture and consciousness.' Yet the narrator comes to discover that he has stumbled among a people characterized by 'cupidity, ignorance, complacence, meanness, ugliness, short-sightedness, cowardice, credulity, hysteria and, when the occasion called for it ... cruelty and blood-thirstiness.'

I've just finished Twopence Coloured. Here's my review:

I adore Patrick Hamilton's "Hangover Square" (1941) - my favourite novel of all time; "The Slaves of Solitude" (1947) is superb; I also really enjoyed the first two Gorse novels - "The West Pier" (1952); and "Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse" (1953); and "Craven House" (1926) (the book that preceded this one). I would also heartily recommend the biography of Patrick Hamilton, "Through A Glass Darkly: The Life of Patrick Hamilton" by Nigel Jones. Since reading "Hangover Square", I have been working my way through all of Patrick Hamilton's work.

"Twopence Coloured" was published in 1928, two years after "Craven House" which had been well received by both critics and the reading public. "Twopence Coloured" was out of print, and all but forgotten, until the Faber Finds reissue in 2011. This does not surprise me as "Twopence Coloured" is the least successful and pleasing book that I have yet read by Patrick Hamilton. I was dismayed that, after the wealth of disparate characters that appear in "Craven House", he wrote this baggy, meandering, overlong and slight tale. With the light of hindsight, we know this was a blip in an otherwise upward trajectory, and he was to hit form again with "Rope: A Play", and then "The Midnight Bell", and then onwards to the peak that was the sublime "Hangover Square", via the "Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky" trilogy.

There are three main reasons why "Twopence Coloured" is far less successful than "Craven House", and the books that were to follow:

1) It's too long. For the first time ever reading Patrick Hamilton, I felt occasionally bored and was tempted to skip ahead. The tale is slight and could have been effectively told in a short story.

2) The lack of social context. "Craven House" managed to tell an interesting story that highlighted the broader generational conflicts after WW1, along with the social tensions during that era. "Hangover Square" and "The Slaves of Solitude" were to even more perfectly marry social and political comment with compelling drama and wonderfully observational writing about pubs, boarding houses, personal relationships, addiction, love and obsession.

3) Uninteresting characters. The book's two main characters, Jackie Mortimer and Richard Gissing, dominate the story, and yet I felt I never got to know much about either of them. Given the well observed, and perfectly described, characters in Patrick Hamilton's other books, this seems odd and anomalous.

Despite these flaws, the book still has much to recommend it. This is Patrick Hamilton after all. He drew on his experience of working in theatre, and quite seems to perfectly capture the theatrical milieu - both in London's West End, and the provinces. As always with Patrick Hamilton, the dialogue and humour ring with authenticity, and I have no doubt that much of what is stated in the book was originally heard by Patrick Hamilton.

Despite its unnecessary length, "Twopence Coloured" has much to enjoy for readers who have come to know and love Patrick Hamilton's work. Newcomers should start with "Hangover Square" and "The Slaves of Solitude", and then work through the many other highlights of his bibliography before tackling "Twopence Coloured".

I'll finish this review with two pieces of trivia associated with the book:

1) Mark from The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society on GoodReads informed me that UK theatre-goers in the early twentieth century could purchase miniature paper replica model kits of the stage set and the characters, and - once home - re-enact the play for friends and family. These model sets were typically available in two versions - black and white and full colour . The vendors would cry, "Penny Plains! Twopence Coloured!". Now you know.

2) Jackie and Richard dine at Booth's Restaurant in Brighton on a few occasions. As a resident of Brighton and Hove I wondered where this establishment used to be. I had not heard of it before. It was surprisingly difficult to find information, however after some intense searching I discovered that Booth's Restaurant aka Edwin Booth & Sons, Pastry Cooks and Confectioners, was located at 69-70 East Street in Brighton from 1870 until at least 1950. The beautiful double fronted Victorian building is still at 69-70 East Street and, at the time of writing, is a hairdressers.

A reminder that The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society. will be discussing Impromptu in Moribundia by Patrick Hamilton throughout August 2013.

This paraphrases a small part of the section in Nigel Jones' biography of Patrick Hamilton "Through A Glass Darkly":

The 1930s was the age of the political novel, and Patrick responded to the pressure of his time with an interesting and innovative departure from his usual fiction. It eschews bogus proletarianism and tedious worker-hymning in favour of more adventurous routes employing allegory and even surrealism. Whilst the book was a flop, probably because it was too great a departure for Patrick Hamilton's reading public, it was written at the same time as one of his greatest successes, the play Gas Light.

According to Faber Finds:

A stunning anomaly within the literary oeuvre of Patrick Hamilton, Impromptu in Moribundia (first published in 1939) is the most explicit production of his interest in a Marxist analysis of society. It is a satirical fable about one (nameless) man's trespass (through a fantastical machine called the 'Asteradio') into a parallel universe on a far-off planet where the 'miserably dull affairs of England' are mirrored and transformed into an apparent idyll of bourgeois English imagination.

Moribundia - in the words of Peter Widdowson, editor and annotator of this edition - is the 'physical enactment of the stereotypes and myths of English middle-class culture and consciousness.' Yet the narrator comes to discover that he has stumbled among a people characterized by 'cupidity, ignorance, complacence, meanness, ugliness, short-sightedness, cowardice, credulity, hysteria and, when the occasion called for it ... cruelty and blood-thirstiness.'

We can't promise a classic like Hangover Square or The Slaves of Solitude but, for people interested in Patrick Hamilton, this looks like a fascinating - if somewhat idiosyncratic - read.

Click here for more information and/or to join The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society.

Hi Nigeyb, I was unaware of either Patrick Hamilton or Gerald Kersh before your excellent post on Hamilton, and Kersh. I bought an old copy of Gerald Kersh's Men without Bones, and am now looking forward to getting into it. While at the second-hand bookshop I also found 'Wartime and Aftermath, English Literature and its Background 1939-1960' by Bernard Bergonzi. http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

I'll join the Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society. Hangover Square a good one to start with, yes? Looks interesting.
Many thanks.

Greg wrote: "'l'll join the Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society. "

Wonderful news. I always enjoy reading your thoughtful contributions Greg.

Greg wrote: "'Hangover Square a good one to start with, yes? "

Hangover Square or The Slaves of Solitude are both excellent. Hangover is darker, whilst SoS has plenty of darkness but is leavened by some very humorous scenes. Both are directly and indirectly concerned with World War 2. Both, in my opinion, are masterpieces.

I've set up Hangover Square as a group read in September 2013 at The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society. I was hoping we might be reading it here at BYT too, but it looks like it will just miss out to Vita Sackville-West.

I've just finished....



I adore Patrick Hamilton's "Hangover Square" (1941) - my favourite novel of all time; "The Slaves of Solitude" (1947) is superb; I also really enjoyed the first two Gorse novels - "The West Pier" (1952); and "Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse" (1953); and "Craven House" (1926). I felt Twopence Coloured was slightly less successful that these titles. All of these books benefit from a knowledge of Patrick Hamilton's life, and consequently I would also heartily recommend the biography of Patrick Hamilton, "Through A Glass Darkly: The Life of Patrick Hamilton" by Nigel Jones. Since reading "Hangover Square", I have been working my way through all of Patrick Hamilton's work and, with that in mind, have just completed Impromptu in Moribundia.

Impromptu in Moribundia was published in 1939 and is something of an anomaly within the literary oeuvre of Patrick Hamilton. In common with his other novels he uses the book to comment on the 'cupidity, ignorance, complacence, meanness, ugliness, short-sightedness, cowardice, credulity, hysteria and, when the occasion called for it ... cruelty and blood-thirstiness' of contemporary society - in particular 'the sickening stench of the decaying genteels'. However, unlike his other books, which are firmly rooted in the "real world" (of early 20th century southern England), this satirical story takes place on the planet Moribundia. Moribundia is a thinly disguised, albeit comically exaggerated, version of the England of Hamilton's time. By reversing place names, people's names, and other labels, Patrick Hamilton comments on contemporary life. For example, Aldous Huxley becomes 'Yelxuh', Marxists are 'Stsixram', and so on. Life on Moribundia is predominantly split into two distinct classes - the 'Yenkcoc" and the bowler-hatted 'Little Men' who are the self-appointed guardians of the moral law of society (and it transpires based on a popular Daily Express cartoon of the era).

Moribundians are so conditioned by brand advertising that they frequently think and talk in the language of popular advertisements. This tendency is further exaggerated by people revealing some of their thoughts in comic book-style thought and speech bubbles. Moribundia is also populated by other stereotypes e.g. large women with their hen pecked husbands, and even bizarre visual images to represent illness e.g. a dripping tap instead of a nose.

The 1930s was the age of the political novel, and this book was Patrick Hamilton's experimental and innovative response. By using allegory and surrealism, and through the adventures of his nameless narrator's celebrated visit to the planet, Patrick Hamilton holds a mirror up to contemporary English pre-WW2 society. He wrote this book as a convinced Marxist (although he never became a member of the Communist Party) and these convictions are subtly revealed through the story.

Whilst the book was a relative flop, probably because it was too great a departure for Patrick Hamilton's reading public, it was written at the same time as one of his greatest successes, the play Gas Light. Despite its relative lack of commercial success, I enjoyed many aspects of this book: the naming inversions; the playful and funny deconstruction of consumer advertising; and the skewering of many moribund 'Little Englander' attitudes. The inclusion of an informative introduction, and useful notes on parts of the texts, by Peter Widdowson, editor and annotator of this edition, helped to explain and contextualise the story, and some of Patrick Hamilton's "targets".

"Impromptu in Moribundia" has much to enjoy for readers who have come to know and love Patrick Hamilton's work, however I recommend newcomers start with "Hangover Square" and "The Slaves of Solitude", and then work through the many other highlights of his bibliography before reading this book.

Hello fellow BYTer

The October 2013 BYT fiction discussion about Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton is now in full swing.

I am really hoping we get a good discussion.

I must declare a vested interest here: it's probably my favourite book of the BYT era. High praise I know - and perhaps a tad controversial in an era that produced so many great works of literature.

So, if you've not read Hangover Square, why not give it a go?

Click here for a direct link to the October 2013 discussion about Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square.

I hope to see you there soon.

As some of you will know, I am an unapologetic evangelist for Patrick Hamilton. I also moderate a GoodReads group devoted to his genius:

The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society

Throughout January and February 2014, over at The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society, we are doing a group read of....



The Gorse Trilogy: The West Pier, Mr Stimpson And Mr Gorse, Unknown Assailant

I first read these in 2012 and was surprised by how good they were. Especially The West Pier and Mr. Stimpson And Mr.Gorse. They are far better than many would have you believe and there is much to enjoy.

I mention it here at BYT because all the books give the reader a wonderful insight into England in the 1920s and 1930s, in particular the highly delineated class structure. Patrick Hamilton's other great strength is his evocation of the world of more ordinary people - pub goers, middle class types, domestic staff, guest house proprietors, and so on.

The best book of the three is 'Mr. Stimpson And Mr.Gorse' (1955). Mrs Plumleigh-Bruce and her Reading-based companions are wonderful - and wonderfully funny. They are all worth reading though.

Click here to read and join in with the The Gorse Trilogy thread