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Lore of Proserpine
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.
- GenresResearch
118 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2007
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About the author
Maurice Hewlett
262 books9 followersMaurice Henry Hewlett (1861 - 1923), was an English historical novelist, poet and essayist. He was born at Weybridge, the eldest son of Henry Gay Hewlett, of Shaw Hall, Addington, Kent. He was educated at the London International College, Spring Grove, Isleworth, and was called to the bar in 1891. He gave up the law after the success of The Forest Lovers. From 1896 to 1901 he was Keeper of Lands, Revenues, Records and Enrolments, a government post as adviser on matters of medieval law.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 3, 2015
I found this book by chance, only knowing that it was about fairies and had been written in 1913, and therefore was relevant to some research I was doing. It is something of a curate's egg, containing the fascinating and the dull in one short, uncategorisable volume.
Hewlett claims that everything contained within the pages is true, and his own experiences of the fairy kingdom. He is entirely unyielding in his assertion that his encounters with fairies, dryads and god are real events that he has personally experienced, though he concedes they may have been hallucinations.
"The Lore of Proserpine" is a combination of biography, anecdote, fairy lore, mythology philosophy and anthropology, which to truly appreciate, the reader has to take Hewlett at his word, suspend one's disbelief and accept the possibility of fairies. Hewlett himself treats his subject matter with deadly seriousness, frequently reminding the reader not to impose human morals on a fairy, and pontificating that to call a fairy benevolent or malevolent is like calling a bee benevolent when it makes honey and malevolent when it stings you.
"The Lore of Proserpine" begins with a rather dull first chapter about Socrates and the human soul, which the reader must struggle through to get to the young Hewlett's encounter with a fairy boy in the woods. This is not one of the twee fairies of Cottingley, but the most terrifying Celtic amoral fairy one can imagine. Hewlett goes on to write an astonishingly articulate account of being an isolated adolescent who lived more in books than reality, interspersing autobiography with accounts of his visions of a dryad and a levitating street walker.
Magic realism soon turns to pure fantasy as Hewlett then tells three stories about human-fairy romance, prefacing them with "this happened to an acquaintance of mine etc" disclaimers. These are fascinating if much harder for the reader to suspend disbelief for than the earlier chapters.
The book concludes with a long, dry and sexist essay about intermarriage between people and fairies and some rather disturbing hints of Hewlett's relationship with a female entity he calls Despoina.
It is difficult to know what to make of "The Lore of Proserpine". There are passages and chapters contained within, particularly "The Boy in the Wood", worth a five-star rating. The book is also occasionally racist and sexist and often very dull indeed.
A reader interested in fairies of the non-fluffy kind and prepared to wade through a whole lot of really boring and occasionally mind-blowingly disturbing stuff will get a great deal out of "The Lore of Proserpine", and the book is worthy of more scholarly attention than it has received.
Hewlett claims that everything contained within the pages is true, and his own experiences of the fairy kingdom. He is entirely unyielding in his assertion that his encounters with fairies, dryads and god are real events that he has personally experienced, though he concedes they may have been hallucinations.
"The Lore of Proserpine" is a combination of biography, anecdote, fairy lore, mythology philosophy and anthropology, which to truly appreciate, the reader has to take Hewlett at his word, suspend one's disbelief and accept the possibility of fairies. Hewlett himself treats his subject matter with deadly seriousness, frequently reminding the reader not to impose human morals on a fairy, and pontificating that to call a fairy benevolent or malevolent is like calling a bee benevolent when it makes honey and malevolent when it stings you.
"The Lore of Proserpine" begins with a rather dull first chapter about Socrates and the human soul, which the reader must struggle through to get to the young Hewlett's encounter with a fairy boy in the woods. This is not one of the twee fairies of Cottingley, but the most terrifying Celtic amoral fairy one can imagine. Hewlett goes on to write an astonishingly articulate account of being an isolated adolescent who lived more in books than reality, interspersing autobiography with accounts of his visions of a dryad and a levitating street walker.
Magic realism soon turns to pure fantasy as Hewlett then tells three stories about human-fairy romance, prefacing them with "this happened to an acquaintance of mine etc" disclaimers. These are fascinating if much harder for the reader to suspend disbelief for than the earlier chapters.
The book concludes with a long, dry and sexist essay about intermarriage between people and fairies and some rather disturbing hints of Hewlett's relationship with a female entity he calls Despoina.
It is difficult to know what to make of "The Lore of Proserpine". There are passages and chapters contained within, particularly "The Boy in the Wood", worth a five-star rating. The book is also occasionally racist and sexist and often very dull indeed.
A reader interested in fairies of the non-fluffy kind and prepared to wade through a whole lot of really boring and occasionally mind-blowingly disturbing stuff will get a great deal out of "The Lore of Proserpine", and the book is worthy of more scholarly attention than it has received.
Displaying 1 of 1 review