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The Red Cross Barge
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
103 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 5, 2009
About the author
Marie Belloc Lowndes
248 books71 followersMarie Adelaide Elizabeth Rayner Lowndes, née Belloc (5 August 1868 – 14 November 1947), was a prolific English novelist.
Active from 1898 until her death, she had a literary reputation for combining exciting incident with psychological interest. Two of her works were adapted for the screen.
Born in Marylebone, London and raised in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France, Mrs Belloc Lowndes was the only daughter of French barrister Louis Belloc and English feminist Bessie Parkes. Her younger brother was Hilaire Belloc, whom she wrote of in her last work, The Young Hilaire Belloc (published posthumously in 1956). Her paternal grandfather was the French painter Jean-Hilaire Belloc, and her maternal great-great-grandfather was Joseph Priestley. In 1896, she married Frederick Sawrey A. Lowndes (1868–1940). Her mother died in 1925, 53 years after her father.
She published a biography, H.R.H. The Prince of Wales: An Account of His Career, in 1898. From then on, she published novels, reminiscences, and plays at the rate of one per year until 1946. In the memoir, I, too, Have Lived in Arcadia (1942), she told the story of her mother's life, compiled largely from old family letters and her own memories of her early life in France. A second autobiography Where love and friendship dwelt, appeared posthumously in 1948.
She died 14 November 1947 at the home of her elder daughter, Countess Iddesleigh (wife of the third Earl) in Eversley Cross, Hampshire, and was interred in France, in La Celle-Saint-Cloud near Versailles, where she spent her youth.
(from Wikipedia)
Active from 1898 until her death, she had a literary reputation for combining exciting incident with psychological interest. Two of her works were adapted for the screen.
Born in Marylebone, London and raised in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France, Mrs Belloc Lowndes was the only daughter of French barrister Louis Belloc and English feminist Bessie Parkes. Her younger brother was Hilaire Belloc, whom she wrote of in her last work, The Young Hilaire Belloc (published posthumously in 1956). Her paternal grandfather was the French painter Jean-Hilaire Belloc, and her maternal great-great-grandfather was Joseph Priestley. In 1896, she married Frederick Sawrey A. Lowndes (1868–1940). Her mother died in 1925, 53 years after her father.
She published a biography, H.R.H. The Prince of Wales: An Account of His Career, in 1898. From then on, she published novels, reminiscences, and plays at the rate of one per year until 1946. In the memoir, I, too, Have Lived in Arcadia (1942), she told the story of her mother's life, compiled largely from old family letters and her own memories of her early life in France. A second autobiography Where love and friendship dwelt, appeared posthumously in 1948.
She died 14 November 1947 at the home of her elder daughter, Countess Iddesleigh (wife of the third Earl) in Eversley Cross, Hampshire, and was interred in France, in La Celle-Saint-Cloud near Versailles, where she spent her youth.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 17, 2018
I only recently discovered that Ford Marks Ford, one of my favourite writers from the first half of the 20th century, had a brother who was also a writer. Now I discover that Ford's great friend, Hillaire Belloc, had a sister who was also a writer.
A pretty good one too on this evidence, if somewhat eccentric. There are a couple of stylistic quirks in this narrative which were impossible to ignore, though far from ruinous to the overall quality of the story. I'll highlight those later.
As for the story itself, I commend Belloc Lowndes for writing an unconventional tragic love story which probably struggled to find a welcome readership at the time. A German Red Cross doctor falls for a French Red Cross nurse during the initial advance of the invading army during WWI.
Doctor Kellor was certainly a more sympathetic character than any of the German soldiers, but he was still very much a believable product of the Kaiser's Germany, a patriot and a chauvinist, albeit an enlightened one:
'He was a Red Cross doctor, and she a Red Cross nurse; he had, therefore, the absolute right to dispose of her time and services. But, sighing, he dismissed the thought. She was quite unlike any German girl he had ever seen. It would not occur to her to be flattered, or even touched, by his imperious wish for her presence.'
Mademoiselle Rouannès has a sick father to worry about along with the other casualties on her barge. Kellor seems to ingratiate himself, then falls in unrequited love with her. As the fortunes of the German army wax and wane can't help but compare the quiet dignity of the French nurse with the noisy arrogance of an injured Prussian officer.
Now for those quirks. The first was her unusual fondness for extended compounds which popped up all over the place and were hard to ignore, e.g. the wounded officer is described as 'the arrogant by-his-mother-spoilt lieutenant,' the Red Cross as "that splendid, so-entirely-neutral and internationally-universal institution,' and, best of all, when Keller first saw Rouannès he observed how 'he had not seen a so awakening-to-the-better-feelings and pleasant-to-the-senses-of-man sight as was this French golden-haired girl.'
Stranger still, Belloc Lowndes decided to translate Kellor's limited French into the English with precise grammar, despite not doing the same with the rest of the characters and the erroneous sounding effect it had, e.g.
'Cannot my servants make what preparation is needed?' she asked, and there was a tremor of fear and of revolt in her voice.
'I fear not. First these beds must moved out be. But do not be afraid—they will great care take you not in any way to trouble. Indeed, you will not here be, it must now the time be when you away go.'
or,
'When the priest finished has,' he murmured, 'again back him I will take. I have myself responsible for him made.'
Doctor Yoda!
A pretty good one too on this evidence, if somewhat eccentric. There are a couple of stylistic quirks in this narrative which were impossible to ignore, though far from ruinous to the overall quality of the story. I'll highlight those later.
As for the story itself, I commend Belloc Lowndes for writing an unconventional tragic love story which probably struggled to find a welcome readership at the time. A German Red Cross doctor falls for a French Red Cross nurse during the initial advance of the invading army during WWI.
Doctor Kellor was certainly a more sympathetic character than any of the German soldiers, but he was still very much a believable product of the Kaiser's Germany, a patriot and a chauvinist, albeit an enlightened one:
'He was a Red Cross doctor, and she a Red Cross nurse; he had, therefore, the absolute right to dispose of her time and services. But, sighing, he dismissed the thought. She was quite unlike any German girl he had ever seen. It would not occur to her to be flattered, or even touched, by his imperious wish for her presence.'
Mademoiselle Rouannès has a sick father to worry about along with the other casualties on her barge. Kellor seems to ingratiate himself, then falls in unrequited love with her. As the fortunes of the German army wax and wane can't help but compare the quiet dignity of the French nurse with the noisy arrogance of an injured Prussian officer.
Now for those quirks. The first was her unusual fondness for extended compounds which popped up all over the place and were hard to ignore, e.g. the wounded officer is described as 'the arrogant by-his-mother-spoilt lieutenant,' the Red Cross as "that splendid, so-entirely-neutral and internationally-universal institution,' and, best of all, when Keller first saw Rouannès he observed how 'he had not seen a so awakening-to-the-better-feelings and pleasant-to-the-senses-of-man sight as was this French golden-haired girl.'
Stranger still, Belloc Lowndes decided to translate Kellor's limited French into the English with precise grammar, despite not doing the same with the rest of the characters and the erroneous sounding effect it had, e.g.
'Cannot my servants make what preparation is needed?' she asked, and there was a tremor of fear and of revolt in her voice.
'I fear not. First these beds must moved out be. But do not be afraid—they will great care take you not in any way to trouble. Indeed, you will not here be, it must now the time be when you away go.'
or,
'When the priest finished has,' he murmured, 'again back him I will take. I have myself responsible for him made.'
Doctor Yoda!
Displaying 1 of 1 review