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Mr Fortune's Maggot
After three years on the remote tropical island of Fanua, Timothy Fortune, a missionary from London, has made little headway. The islanders show very little interest in Christianity and he has only a single convert: a boy, Lueli. As Mr Fortune's affections for both Lueli and his new island home deepen, he begins to question all his old certainties - until one day he is put to a terrible test.
A wry exploration of faith, colonialism and the demands of love, Mr Fortune's Maggot is as quietly subversive as it is delightful.
A wry exploration of faith, colonialism and the demands of love, Mr Fortune's Maggot is as quietly subversive as it is delightful.
147 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1927
11 people are currently reading
274 people want to read
About the author
Sylvia Townsend Warner
92 books448 followersSylvia Townsend Warner was born at Harrow on the Hill, the only child of George Townsend Warner and his wife Eleanora (Nora) Hudleston. Her father was a house-master at Harrow School and was, for many years, associated with the prestigious Harrow History Prize which was renamed the Townsend Warner History Prize in his honor, after his death in 1916. As a child, Sylvia seemingly enjoyed an idyllic childhood in rural Devonshire, but was strongly affected by her father's death.
She moved to London and worked in a munitions factory at the outbreak of World War I. She was friendly with a number of the "Bright Young Things" of the 1920s. Her first major success was the novel Lolly Willowes. In 1923 Warner met T. F. Powys whose writing influenced her own and whose work she in turn encouraged. It was at T.F. Powys' house in 1930 that Warner first met Valentine Ackland, a young poet. The two women fell in love and settled at Frome Vauchurch in Dorset. Alarmed by the growing threat of fascism, they were active in the Communist Party of Great Britain, and visited Spain on behalf of the Red Cross during the Civil War. They lived together from 1930 until Ackland's death in 1969. Warner's political engagement continued for the rest of her life, even after her disillusionment with communism. She died on 1 May 1978.
She moved to London and worked in a munitions factory at the outbreak of World War I. She was friendly with a number of the "Bright Young Things" of the 1920s. Her first major success was the novel Lolly Willowes. In 1923 Warner met T. F. Powys whose writing influenced her own and whose work she in turn encouraged. It was at T.F. Powys' house in 1930 that Warner first met Valentine Ackland, a young poet. The two women fell in love and settled at Frome Vauchurch in Dorset. Alarmed by the growing threat of fascism, they were active in the Communist Party of Great Britain, and visited Spain on behalf of the Red Cross during the Civil War. They lived together from 1930 until Ackland's death in 1969. Warner's political engagement continued for the rest of her life, even after her disillusionment with communism. She died on 1 May 1978.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
January 10, 2023
I picked this novella off the library shelf solely on the strength of its author. Sylvia Townsend Warner is a fascinatingly versatile writer. I’ve read six of her novels and they are all very different in setting, genre, and plot. They share a similar cool, clever narrative style and striking originality. Mr Fortune's Maggot includes a preface by the author explaining that the novella came to her in a dream and was written very quickly. It does have a somewhat dreamlike feeling, being set in a tropical island named Fanua that has very little contact with the rest of the world. The titular Mr. Fortune, previously a bank clerk, moves to the island as a missionary intending to convert the indigenous people to Christianity. This does not go according to plan. In another writer’s hands, I think such a topic could have aged very badly in the last hundred years. Townsend Warner’s psychological insight into her protagonist has kept it interesting and thoughtful. The essential absurdity of Mr. Fortune’s mission is evident from the start.
The novella begins gently by treating the reader to descriptions of glorious tropical forest and idyllic beaches as Mr. Fortune settles in. It becomes much sharper halfway through. In quite subtle fashion, the narrative contrasts allegedly civilised and uncivilised ways of life, asking which of them actually makes better sense. It also considers in microcosm friendship, colonialism, and faith in a higher power.
Published in 1927, this miniature critique of the British Empire and Christian evangelism seems oddly contemporary in tone. It isn’t hard-hitting as such: Mr Fortune is no avatar of imperial rapaciousness and his efforts at conversion are limited and incompetent. Yet the message is powerful nonetheless. Seemingly well-meant attempts to impose an allegedly more modern and developed culture are inherently harmful. Sylvia Townsend Warner, who was left-wing and anti-fascist throughout her life, sets out this still-radical idea elegantly in a succinct little gem of a book.
The novella begins gently by treating the reader to descriptions of glorious tropical forest and idyllic beaches as Mr. Fortune settles in. It becomes much sharper halfway through. In quite subtle fashion, the narrative contrasts allegedly civilised and uncivilised ways of life, asking which of them actually makes better sense. It also considers in microcosm friendship, colonialism, and faith in a higher power.
Published in 1927, this miniature critique of the British Empire and Christian evangelism seems oddly contemporary in tone. It isn’t hard-hitting as such: Mr Fortune is no avatar of imperial rapaciousness and his efforts at conversion are limited and incompetent. Yet the message is powerful nonetheless. Seemingly well-meant attempts to impose an allegedly more modern and developed culture are inherently harmful. Sylvia Townsend Warner, who was left-wing and anti-fascist throughout her life, sets out this still-radical idea elegantly in a succinct little gem of a book.
January 25, 2021
This book, according to Warner, was like giving birth to a Venetian glass baby. The Reverend Timothy Fortune, a missionary to the island of Fanua, finds himself attracted to his one convert, Lueli. As the writing goes, Warner started the novel, had the youthful Duncan Grant for lunch, and then continued. Two novelist of the other persuasion -- exactly the right ambiguous ambience for Mr Fortune's Maggot. The writing in the novel is careful, but not fragile. Warner does not let the writing descend into a a biting satire on religious hypocrisy nor does she allow it to become romantically innocent. Gently, she walks a tightrope, showing the clash between two cultures and the resultant tragicomedy. A piece of tremendous writing that is wonderfully toned from start to finish.
March 9, 2016
An incredibly sensitive and self reflecting take on colonialism and Englishness. I was fortunate enough to read a first edition thanks to the library, and having read a good deal of 1920s fiction, much of which is painfully imperial, I am delighted to find STW once again sees through the prejudices of that era and writes something that stands up very well in the light of modern perception.
If the idea of reading a book about an English missionary (and ex-bank employee) trying to convert an island of Polynesians sounds unbearable - I thought much the same, but trust me, this is both touching and very very funny.
If the idea of reading a book about an English missionary (and ex-bank employee) trying to convert an island of Polynesians sounds unbearable - I thought much the same, but trust me, this is both touching and very very funny.
June 2, 2021
What a wonderful unique story this is. Mr. Fortune, fed up of his dour subfusc life as a bank clerk in Britain, goes on a mission to "civilize the natives" on the the fictional Polynesian island of Fauna. Despite months of proselytizing he manages a single convert, Lueli, a young boy with whom a unique friendship and bond forms.
What an exploration of colonialism, how the white man has always believed it his right to teaching the rest of the world the "right way" to live. He's racist without any malice, seeing the locals as lazy, fickle and unscientific because that's what he's been conditioned to think. The girls/women he sees as "brown minxes" because they don't conform to his idea of a women. All the while the language is rich and intense, evoking the humid fecundity of the island. Here's an example:
"The shade on his wet limbs, the sound of the sea, the breathing murmur of the woods in the soft steady wind was comforting to his headache. He began to feel slightly lachrymose and a good deal better, and with the tenderness of the convalescent he watched the fish darting in and out of the streaming weed."
I wont spoil the story for you but it really is a heartwarming, strange, unique and beautifully moving tale of Mr Fortunes philosophical journey and growth. All the while Sylvia Townsend Warner keeps it funny. There's a bit about the man and boy trying to sync up their harmonium and pipe respectively that gives me a giggle when I think about it. The islanders reactions to this strange white man, or lack thereof is also played up for comic effect.
This is a volcanic island and my reading of the book coincided with my watching of the wonderful documentary by Werner Herzog called "Into the Inferno" which is about volcanos and that definitely heightened the effect of some of this beautiful nature writing. Here's the trailer if you're curious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoSmP...
Finally, about aesthetics, the penguin modern classics book cover is a painting by the one and only roughish (to me) Paul Gauguin who did famously go to Tahiti, a Polynesian island to live and paint and I couldn't ask for a more apt cover.
All in all I cant wait to read more of Miss Warner's poetic hypnotizing and thoughtful stories.
What an exploration of colonialism, how the white man has always believed it his right to teaching the rest of the world the "right way" to live. He's racist without any malice, seeing the locals as lazy, fickle and unscientific because that's what he's been conditioned to think. The girls/women he sees as "brown minxes" because they don't conform to his idea of a women. All the while the language is rich and intense, evoking the humid fecundity of the island. Here's an example:
"The shade on his wet limbs, the sound of the sea, the breathing murmur of the woods in the soft steady wind was comforting to his headache. He began to feel slightly lachrymose and a good deal better, and with the tenderness of the convalescent he watched the fish darting in and out of the streaming weed."
I wont spoil the story for you but it really is a heartwarming, strange, unique and beautifully moving tale of Mr Fortunes philosophical journey and growth. All the while Sylvia Townsend Warner keeps it funny. There's a bit about the man and boy trying to sync up their harmonium and pipe respectively that gives me a giggle when I think about it. The islanders reactions to this strange white man, or lack thereof is also played up for comic effect.
This is a volcanic island and my reading of the book coincided with my watching of the wonderful documentary by Werner Herzog called "Into the Inferno" which is about volcanos and that definitely heightened the effect of some of this beautiful nature writing. Here's the trailer if you're curious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoSmP...
Finally, about aesthetics, the penguin modern classics book cover is a painting by the one and only roughish (to me) Paul Gauguin who did famously go to Tahiti, a Polynesian island to live and paint and I couldn't ask for a more apt cover.
All in all I cant wait to read more of Miss Warner's poetic hypnotizing and thoughtful stories.
June 7, 2025
A strange little book. Although only 148 pages, was a battle to finish. Found writing style hard. That said, I got the message and enjoyed elements of it.
June 10, 2020
Mr. Fortune’s Maggot is my second Warner novel, and I was spurred to read my first, Lolly Willowes, when I read a NY Times review of a re-issued novel, The Corner that Held Them, a long novel by Warner that recounts the daily doings of a 14th-century nunnery over several generations, where there is no central drama and no principal protagonist. This “celebration” of self-abnegation and the willful suppression of ego and self-importance intrigued me. I started with Lolly Willowes, however, as an introduction to the author, and I was taken with the unconventional portrait of the spinster who amiably repudiates her role as the neutered and dedicated adjunct to her family so that she might live on her own as a witch.
Now, after Mr. Fortune’s Maggot, I am even more intent on reading Corner. I find a repose in Warner’s fiction, a sedateness that prevails and abides. This tranquility accompanies a general sense of well being and gentle good humor about the foibles of self and others. It’s a balm and a tonic to read an author whose sanity and sensibility are so even-keeled, whose diffident protagonists—a spinster aunt cum witch and a missionary who makes no converts—might have thought “stay calm and carry on” was, perhaps, too shrill a statement of the obvious.
In 1905, Timothy Fortune, a former bank clerk, becomes a missionary in the South Seas, after a nondescript upbringing and a seminary education afforded through an aunt’s legacy. After ten years of service, principally as a bookkeeper for the missionary, he feels the call to redeem the natives of Fanua, a small island at the end of the archipelago. Diffidently attempting to convert the friendly, welcoming people of the island, Mr. Fortune is met with smiles but little interest. One boy, however, is drawn to Mr. Fortune, and over the course of three years they form a strong bond. For a long while Mr. Fortune believes the boy, Lueli, has become a Christian, devout in the knowledge of scripture and rite, but a random wandering reveals that Lueli still shows fealty to a private god, one embodied in a carved idol. As with many other disturbances to his equilibrium, Mr. Fortune ponders the effect of his disquiet and anger, at the harsh words he feels compelled to speak, and, as in those other instances, he abandons institutional orthodoxy and dogma in favor of nurturing the natural ease of their mutual enjoyment of one another’s company.
The novel’s chief crisis shortly follows, when Lueli’s idol is destroyed in a fire, and he becomes destitute and listless, certain he must die without his personal god. Saved from an attempt to drown himself, the boy’s natural vitality is restored, and Mr. Fortune resolves to give Lueli his freedom and leave the island. Mr. Fortune reflects that his love for the boy always ends, not with contentment, but with some well-meaning effort to enact a change. In secret Mr. Fortune carves for Lueli a new idol, and the two separate with much affection. The novel’s final words, its “envoi”, invoke the sentiments Lueli never speaks: “My poor Timothy, good-bye! I do not know what will become of you.” Ironically, the boat that returns Mr. Fortune to the real world is aflutter with news of the outbreak of the Great War.
Now, after Mr. Fortune’s Maggot, I am even more intent on reading Corner. I find a repose in Warner’s fiction, a sedateness that prevails and abides. This tranquility accompanies a general sense of well being and gentle good humor about the foibles of self and others. It’s a balm and a tonic to read an author whose sanity and sensibility are so even-keeled, whose diffident protagonists—a spinster aunt cum witch and a missionary who makes no converts—might have thought “stay calm and carry on” was, perhaps, too shrill a statement of the obvious.
In 1905, Timothy Fortune, a former bank clerk, becomes a missionary in the South Seas, after a nondescript upbringing and a seminary education afforded through an aunt’s legacy. After ten years of service, principally as a bookkeeper for the missionary, he feels the call to redeem the natives of Fanua, a small island at the end of the archipelago. Diffidently attempting to convert the friendly, welcoming people of the island, Mr. Fortune is met with smiles but little interest. One boy, however, is drawn to Mr. Fortune, and over the course of three years they form a strong bond. For a long while Mr. Fortune believes the boy, Lueli, has become a Christian, devout in the knowledge of scripture and rite, but a random wandering reveals that Lueli still shows fealty to a private god, one embodied in a carved idol. As with many other disturbances to his equilibrium, Mr. Fortune ponders the effect of his disquiet and anger, at the harsh words he feels compelled to speak, and, as in those other instances, he abandons institutional orthodoxy and dogma in favor of nurturing the natural ease of their mutual enjoyment of one another’s company.
The novel’s chief crisis shortly follows, when Lueli’s idol is destroyed in a fire, and he becomes destitute and listless, certain he must die without his personal god. Saved from an attempt to drown himself, the boy’s natural vitality is restored, and Mr. Fortune resolves to give Lueli his freedom and leave the island. Mr. Fortune reflects that his love for the boy always ends, not with contentment, but with some well-meaning effort to enact a change. In secret Mr. Fortune carves for Lueli a new idol, and the two separate with much affection. The novel’s final words, its “envoi”, invoke the sentiments Lueli never speaks: “My poor Timothy, good-bye! I do not know what will become of you.” Ironically, the boat that returns Mr. Fortune to the real world is aflutter with news of the outbreak of the Great War.
November 15, 2023
For some reason I had gained the impression that Sylvia Townsend Warner was a good writer, now enjoying a modest revival. On the basis of this novella, however, I was misinformed.
First published in 1927, Mr Fortune’s Maggot tells the story of a Hornsey bank clerk who receives a modest inheritance and becomes a missionary. Sent to the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, Mr Fortune fails to make any converts, but befriends a local boy and idles away his time pleasantly enough before deciding that the Cook Islanders are happy enough without him.
Not a strong narrative, therefore, but that is not essential. How about a study of character and relationships – colonial missionary smitten by native youth with faith-testing consequences? Not in this book. Mr Fortune is more puppet than person. Why does he become a missionary? Because Sylvia Townsend Warner says so.
Lueli, the local boy, gets even shorter shrift, being given less character than the average fictional dog. Why is he the only islander to befriend Mr Fortune? Because Sylvia Townsend Warner says so.
If not character, then how about local colour and description? Alas, no. The author never visited the Cook Islands. Her South Pacific paradise belongs to the realms of hackneyed fantasy where bronzed, happy-go-lucky natives spend their days swimming, singing, and plucking ripe fruit off passing trees.
So at least is the writing any good? Well, it’s serviceable but very, very lightweight – nothing too original, nothing too remarkable.
In the end, the best thing that can be said about this tepid little satire is that it is short. One can profitably make it even shorter by not reading it.
First published in 1927, Mr Fortune’s Maggot tells the story of a Hornsey bank clerk who receives a modest inheritance and becomes a missionary. Sent to the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, Mr Fortune fails to make any converts, but befriends a local boy and idles away his time pleasantly enough before deciding that the Cook Islanders are happy enough without him.
Not a strong narrative, therefore, but that is not essential. How about a study of character and relationships – colonial missionary smitten by native youth with faith-testing consequences? Not in this book. Mr Fortune is more puppet than person. Why does he become a missionary? Because Sylvia Townsend Warner says so.
Lueli, the local boy, gets even shorter shrift, being given less character than the average fictional dog. Why is he the only islander to befriend Mr Fortune? Because Sylvia Townsend Warner says so.
If not character, then how about local colour and description? Alas, no. The author never visited the Cook Islands. Her South Pacific paradise belongs to the realms of hackneyed fantasy where bronzed, happy-go-lucky natives spend their days swimming, singing, and plucking ripe fruit off passing trees.
So at least is the writing any good? Well, it’s serviceable but very, very lightweight – nothing too original, nothing too remarkable.
In the end, the best thing that can be said about this tepid little satire is that it is short. One can profitably make it even shorter by not reading it.
December 31, 2016
a policeman could not have been kinder, a mother more competent.
July 16, 2024
I picked this up off the classics shelf at the old book store because I was captivated by the title and cover – and I'm so glad I did.
I'm completely charmed by this strange, delightful story about friendship, love, and faith. Written with so much care, very very funny, with warm surprises at every turn. I was full of sympathy for Mr Fortune, his ordinariness, his good intentions, his Englishness! And utterly hypnotised by the vivid descriptions of the island of Fanua, which felt so alive and authentic.
I'm completely charmed by this strange, delightful story about friendship, love, and faith. Written with so much care, very very funny, with warm surprises at every turn. I was full of sympathy for Mr Fortune, his ordinariness, his good intentions, his Englishness! And utterly hypnotised by the vivid descriptions of the island of Fanua, which felt so alive and authentic.
September 25, 2022
Such a sweet story of an unlikely friendship and a lot of personal growth, in a unique setting.
December 30, 2021
I'm split with this book. It's extremely flirtatious and provocative but Mr. Fortune's relationship with Lueli never goes beyond the platonic stage.
I'll be honest, this wasn't a book which I looked forward to reading every time I picked it up but once I started reading it I was intrigued and having finished it, I'm secretly wanting more. The prose is long and there aren't any chapters, or breaks, and Warner's literary style almost makes it feel like a long poem. Ironically, the fact that the main interactions in the book are between two characters in some parts makes it feel like a theatre play. The plot is simple but the narrative is far from that.
The themes are complex and the irony is that although Mr. Fortune is supposed to be the 'civilised' of the two main characters he is, in fact, the more complex, confused and less grounded of the two. In his attempts to civilise Fanua, he is the one who in fact dumps Christianity - his parting words to Lueli (the only island inhabitant he tries to convert) is that 'he is leaving his God on the island' and we're never quite left to know whether this is for the good or bad of Fanua's inhabitants.
Of all the books that I have read I really don't know which way to go with this one, it is not a book which I think I wil pick up again anytime soon (hence not giving it 5 stars) but then it is a book that I would highly recommend.
I'll be honest, this wasn't a book which I looked forward to reading every time I picked it up but once I started reading it I was intrigued and having finished it, I'm secretly wanting more. The prose is long and there aren't any chapters, or breaks, and Warner's literary style almost makes it feel like a long poem. Ironically, the fact that the main interactions in the book are between two characters in some parts makes it feel like a theatre play. The plot is simple but the narrative is far from that.
The themes are complex and the irony is that although Mr. Fortune is supposed to be the 'civilised' of the two main characters he is, in fact, the more complex, confused and less grounded of the two. In his attempts to civilise Fanua, he is the one who in fact dumps Christianity - his parting words to Lueli (the only island inhabitant he tries to convert) is that 'he is leaving his God on the island' and we're never quite left to know whether this is for the good or bad of Fanua's inhabitants.
Of all the books that I have read I really don't know which way to go with this one, it is not a book which I think I wil pick up again anytime soon (hence not giving it 5 stars) but then it is a book that I would highly recommend.
January 25, 2014
This book was a present and as such I was compelled to read and finish it.
An odd little book, first published in 1925. It has little speech, long sentences and an imagined environment. It is focused on the main character Mr Fortune and his experience of going for 3 years to the island of Fauna as a missionary. It tells of his time there, his feelings and his analysis of his feelings. Summed up towards the end of the book by Mr Fortune's own enlightened comment that you cannot love anything without messing it about.
Although not addressed in the book it provides an opportunity to reflect on the role of missionaries, there funding and impact as well as the challenges of writing in the 20's about far off lands!
I can't say I enjoyed it but it raised some interesting things.
An odd little book, first published in 1925. It has little speech, long sentences and an imagined environment. It is focused on the main character Mr Fortune and his experience of going for 3 years to the island of Fauna as a missionary. It tells of his time there, his feelings and his analysis of his feelings. Summed up towards the end of the book by Mr Fortune's own enlightened comment that you cannot love anything without messing it about.
Although not addressed in the book it provides an opportunity to reflect on the role of missionaries, there funding and impact as well as the challenges of writing in the 20's about far off lands!
I can't say I enjoyed it but it raised some interesting things.
April 12, 2023
I love and respect Sylvia Townsend Warner, but my previous experience with her writing is that she is cold and heartless with her characters. In her tales of Elfinland was not one happy ending; The Corner that Held Them was a wild romp through the minds of mostly unpleasant people; and Lolly Willows literally ends with a deal with the devil. So when I picked up this book, purportedly about a minister attempting to convert natives on a fictional pseudo-Polynesian island, where his faith is ‘put to a terrible test’, I expected to be in for a bracing dunking in the icy waters of Warner’s knife-sharp cruelty.
And perhaps had I read this in 1927, when it was first published, that is what I’d feel. But the first surprise I had was that it was so funny. So funny, in fact, that in a baggage drop queue in Gatwick I sniggered aloud a few times. Not that Warner hasn’t demonstrated her erudite wit for me before, but she allowed herself to drop down a level to outright good-humoured humour this time. She presents a portrait of Reverend Fortune that’s actually incredibly sympathetic, which is perhaps why I found the humour more palatable (and therefore funny).
The crux of the story is Fortune’s attempt to convert Lueli, a curious boy who’s the only one willing to properly listen to his proselytising. However, in the course of Fortune’s sojourn on Fanua, long before the ‘test’ of the volcano eruption, he loses first his appetite for converting the people and then his own faith. He apologises for telling Lueli to burn his ‘god’ (a wooden object of devotion) and, for the finale, makes him another.
‘Believe me, though I told you to burn your god, yet at this moment, if it were possible for me, I think I would even give it to you again.’
I’ve never read anything so touching and so insightful on the topic of religion – although, given The Corner that Held Them, it’s not shocking. I just didn’t know Sylvia Townsend Warner could be kind.
LOLs (literally):
‘Once upon a time when he was still a bank clerk and had leisure for literature the phrase ‘a bevy of young girls’ had sounded in his ears quite pleasantly, suggesting something soft as ‘a covy of partridges’ but lighter in colour. Now it sounded like a cross between ‘a pack of wolves’, ‘a swarm of mosquitoes’, and a ‘horde of Tartars’.’
‘The best thing that could be said for the girls of Fanua (unless judged as trials of temper, mortifications, and potential stumbling-blocks, in which case they would have received very high marks) was that they afforded an admirable foil to Lueli’s maidenly demeanour.’
‘In the middle of an account of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem Mr Fortune would find himself obliged to break off and describe a donkey.’
‘Lueli might grow accustomed to these daily delights, but he did not tire of them anymore than Wordsworth tired of the Lesser Celandine.’
‘After all there was nothing but what was manly and might quiet him in Elliman’s Embrocation – used extensively by many athletes and as far as he could remember by horse doctors.’
And what provokes Fortune to accept the superior way of life on Fanua and question all his own deeply-held convictions? Nothing more or less than what would nowadays be called mindfulness, or living in the present.
‘Till now there had been no leisure in his life, there had only been holidays; and without being aware of it, in body and soul he was all clenched up with fatigue, so that it was an intuitive ecstasy to relax.’
‘One does not admire things enough: and worst of all, one allows whole days to slip by without once pausing to see an object, any object, exactly as it is.’
WILD.
And perhaps had I read this in 1927, when it was first published, that is what I’d feel. But the first surprise I had was that it was so funny. So funny, in fact, that in a baggage drop queue in Gatwick I sniggered aloud a few times. Not that Warner hasn’t demonstrated her erudite wit for me before, but she allowed herself to drop down a level to outright good-humoured humour this time. She presents a portrait of Reverend Fortune that’s actually incredibly sympathetic, which is perhaps why I found the humour more palatable (and therefore funny).
The crux of the story is Fortune’s attempt to convert Lueli, a curious boy who’s the only one willing to properly listen to his proselytising. However, in the course of Fortune’s sojourn on Fanua, long before the ‘test’ of the volcano eruption, he loses first his appetite for converting the people and then his own faith. He apologises for telling Lueli to burn his ‘god’ (a wooden object of devotion) and, for the finale, makes him another.
‘Believe me, though I told you to burn your god, yet at this moment, if it were possible for me, I think I would even give it to you again.’
I’ve never read anything so touching and so insightful on the topic of religion – although, given The Corner that Held Them, it’s not shocking. I just didn’t know Sylvia Townsend Warner could be kind.
LOLs (literally):
‘Once upon a time when he was still a bank clerk and had leisure for literature the phrase ‘a bevy of young girls’ had sounded in his ears quite pleasantly, suggesting something soft as ‘a covy of partridges’ but lighter in colour. Now it sounded like a cross between ‘a pack of wolves’, ‘a swarm of mosquitoes’, and a ‘horde of Tartars’.’
‘The best thing that could be said for the girls of Fanua (unless judged as trials of temper, mortifications, and potential stumbling-blocks, in which case they would have received very high marks) was that they afforded an admirable foil to Lueli’s maidenly demeanour.’
‘In the middle of an account of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem Mr Fortune would find himself obliged to break off and describe a donkey.’
‘Lueli might grow accustomed to these daily delights, but he did not tire of them anymore than Wordsworth tired of the Lesser Celandine.’
‘After all there was nothing but what was manly and might quiet him in Elliman’s Embrocation – used extensively by many athletes and as far as he could remember by horse doctors.’
And what provokes Fortune to accept the superior way of life on Fanua and question all his own deeply-held convictions? Nothing more or less than what would nowadays be called mindfulness, or living in the present.
‘Till now there had been no leisure in his life, there had only been holidays; and without being aware of it, in body and soul he was all clenched up with fatigue, so that it was an intuitive ecstasy to relax.’
‘One does not admire things enough: and worst of all, one allows whole days to slip by without once pausing to see an object, any object, exactly as it is.’
WILD.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 16, 2025
I love her preface and how she imagines this book at westbourne public library as much as the book itself. This was charming; Im tempted to read more of her. It didn’t quite ignore for me though.
It is inconsequentiality and slight; but in a way it is about the most important things in life, purpose and friendship.
“So now do you feel better?”
“Not now. But I shall later on”
“Though the Reverend Timothy Fortune had spent three years on the island of Fanua, he had made one convert”
“Their expressions were this of a people struck into by some surprising novelty. Mr Fortune wondered if he was that novelty or Huntley and Palmers”
“Mr
Fortune refused, as politely as his horror would allow, for he had had more than enough of the girls of Fanua”
Once upon a time when he was still a bank clerk and had leisure for literature the phrase ‘ a Bevy of young girls’ had sounded in his ears quite pleasantly, suggesting something soft as a ‘covey of partridges’ but lighter in colour. Now it sounded like a cross between ‘pack of wolves’, a ‘swarm of mosquitoes’ and ‘a horde of tartars”
“Shredding his mind into surmises and waiting for the colour of day to come back to the whispering bushes and the black mountain”
Moments of supreme comedy; the sermons that no one pays attention to; his preaching to the “bevy” whilst up to his waste; waking scared of being surrounded by snakes when in his sleep someone has arranged bananas all round him
“He had never felt less in rhe mood for martyrdom. The last twelve hours has given him more than enough to cope with”
It’s poignant - his loss, his lack of success, his faultless optimism.
The sadness when he has nostalgia of the rain in England:
Again the past flowed back, insurgent and actual. He was at the Oval, and out of an overcharged sky it had begun to rain again. In a moment the insignificant tapestry … ranged round with tier upon tier of blackly glistening umbrellas…he longed to describe it all to Lueli, ot seemed to him at the moment he could talk with the tongues of angels about umbrellas. But this was a lesson in mathematics…’-an umbrella, Lueli, when in use resembles the - shell that would be formed by rotating an arc of curve about its axis of symmetry…” Lueli made no answer. He lay down again, this time face downward”
It is inconsequentiality and slight; but in a way it is about the most important things in life, purpose and friendship.
“So now do you feel better?”
“Not now. But I shall later on”
“Though the Reverend Timothy Fortune had spent three years on the island of Fanua, he had made one convert”
“Their expressions were this of a people struck into by some surprising novelty. Mr Fortune wondered if he was that novelty or Huntley and Palmers”
“Mr
Fortune refused, as politely as his horror would allow, for he had had more than enough of the girls of Fanua”
Once upon a time when he was still a bank clerk and had leisure for literature the phrase ‘ a Bevy of young girls’ had sounded in his ears quite pleasantly, suggesting something soft as a ‘covey of partridges’ but lighter in colour. Now it sounded like a cross between ‘pack of wolves’, a ‘swarm of mosquitoes’ and ‘a horde of tartars”
“Shredding his mind into surmises and waiting for the colour of day to come back to the whispering bushes and the black mountain”
Moments of supreme comedy; the sermons that no one pays attention to; his preaching to the “bevy” whilst up to his waste; waking scared of being surrounded by snakes when in his sleep someone has arranged bananas all round him
“He had never felt less in rhe mood for martyrdom. The last twelve hours has given him more than enough to cope with”
It’s poignant - his loss, his lack of success, his faultless optimism.
The sadness when he has nostalgia of the rain in England:
Again the past flowed back, insurgent and actual. He was at the Oval, and out of an overcharged sky it had begun to rain again. In a moment the insignificant tapestry … ranged round with tier upon tier of blackly glistening umbrellas…he longed to describe it all to Lueli, ot seemed to him at the moment he could talk with the tongues of angels about umbrellas. But this was a lesson in mathematics…’-an umbrella, Lueli, when in use resembles the - shell that would be formed by rotating an arc of curve about its axis of symmetry…” Lueli made no answer. He lay down again, this time face downward”
April 8, 2024
4+ stars and I'm rounding up. This is the sort of short novel I can easily imagine on an alternate-universe school curriculum, it's just packed full of the sort of things teachers like to assign essays about. Which makes it seem awful, and it's not. Even the plot description deters me: missionary travels to small island to convert the natives. That's just not the sort of thing I seek out.
But instead, would I want to read a short, beautifully-written touching novel by one of the best stylists of the last century? Why not! And so I did, and it was lovely. She manages to do three things well that are often at odds with each other: write beautiful prose, about distinctive characters, immersed in an interesting plot. (That's all I want, really, and yet so often writers only manage two (or one) of the three.)
There was also a fairly apparent undercurrent of gay longing-without-realising-it, at least to me, so I felt a bit sad that Mr. Fortune didn't get to experience that kind of happiness. (There's an essay topic: conversion as a metaphor for ... well, conversion, I guess). He does state once that that's not what he's feeling, but I brushed that aside as simply just the times.
The upshot is that a person I thought of as a fine writer has been upgraded to "one of the best writers," and I look forward to more from her (I know she's not still writing, but I haven't read her entire output yet.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
But instead, would I want to read a short, beautifully-written touching novel by one of the best stylists of the last century? Why not! And so I did, and it was lovely. She manages to do three things well that are often at odds with each other: write beautiful prose, about distinctive characters, immersed in an interesting plot. (That's all I want, really, and yet so often writers only manage two (or one) of the three.)
There was also a fairly apparent undercurrent of gay longing-without-realising-it, at least to me, so I felt a bit sad that Mr. Fortune didn't get to experience that kind of happiness. (There's an essay topic: conversion as a metaphor for ... well, conversion, I guess). He does state once that that's not what he's feeling, but I brushed that aside as simply just the times.
The upshot is that a person I thought of as a fine writer has been upgraded to "one of the best writers," and I look forward to more from her (I know she's not still writing, but I haven't read her entire output yet.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
January 20, 2023
Quite a disappointment compared to Lolly Willowes - very different books. Though Mr. Fortune and Luara Willowes are both searchers. I guess what disappointed me was that Mr. Fortune couldn't see that he wasn't bringing faith but religion. When you boiled things down to the essentials these islanders were without sin - or the concept of sin. For the most part they lived as a community that practiced Christ's teachings of love thy neighbor - they fed the hungry, sheltered everyone, clothed everyone (in their fashion), cared for the elderly and sick, didn't store up wealth or possessions and were good stewards of their island home. Mr. Fortune is changed by his experiences - he does develop a level of respect for this different culture and that he was wrong to try to change it - but at a great cost. I did feel that the author "did go on" - meaning this volume could have been edited by a third - less would have been more.
July 4, 2021
I only knew Sylvia Townsend Warner as TH White’s biographer, so I was very intrigued when I came across Mr. Fortune’s Maggot, a novel with a strange name.
And a strange blurb. A banker gets it into his head to become a missionary on an utterly remote in the South Pacific and makes one convert. The blurb intimates that the convert, a young boy, has joined him because of a love, possibly even a physical love. This book was written in 1927, it doesn’t go ‘there’ does it?
Sort of. It’s clear that Mr Fortune has not had many relationships with women, and he actively fears the young, naked, free-spirited women on the island - only really being able to make friends with an older woman who reminds him of his gran. He says that it is ‘his hope to live in charity with all men, girls included’, which I think aptly summarises the abstract way he sees women. It’s also clear that he is attracted to the adolescent boy, Lueli. He imagines ‘ravishing’ him for one brief moment and is frequently stunned by his beauty. Yet - beyond swimming together and oiling each other up, I don’t feel theirs is a physical relationship and it’s mixed and mushed up with the two other main themes of the book, belief and colonialism.
Mr Fortune’s is a very weak version of Christianity, more tied to the comfort of ritual and words, whose moral striving seems to be to be a decent gentleman. After an earthquake, which destroy’s Lueli’s physical God idol and Fortune’s own belief in God, it’s Lueli who feels the loss. Fortune barely misses his God, realising that he was never there to begin with and feeling rather embarrassed with his attempts to convert people.
It doesn’t stop with his colonial impulses though. Where he comes to the island of Fauna to help them by spreading his enlightened religion, when he gives up the religion, he doesn’t give up on the idea of his culture being more enlightened. To try and nudge Lueli out of his funk he tries to teach him geometry, reasoning that it’s a beautiful branch of knowledge that is founded on unequivocal truth. Not only do the lessons not go well, he loses patience far more than he did when he was trying to introduce the boy to more wooly topics like theology.
He concludes that there is a sickness in him and with those who come from colonial powers. That while he does love Lueli and the island, he can’t help trying to change it, that the colonial mind can’t help interfering with what it loves. Even actions like trying to tame parrots shows how he can’t simply leave alone.
When he leaves the island, he’s informed that the first world war has been raging but he doesn’t really care. He goes off unsure of what he’s going to do with his life and so are we.
This was an easy to read, digestible little fable. While Fortune is a bit of an archetypical ‘little man’, he was an interesting protagonist, a man with no real reason to be doing what he’s doing and doing it badly because he isn’t as much on an iron-clad orthodox missionary as he presumed himself to be. The book ends by wishing him luck in his future, and I did too.
And a strange blurb. A banker gets it into his head to become a missionary on an utterly remote in the South Pacific and makes one convert. The blurb intimates that the convert, a young boy, has joined him because of a love, possibly even a physical love. This book was written in 1927, it doesn’t go ‘there’ does it?
Sort of. It’s clear that Mr Fortune has not had many relationships with women, and he actively fears the young, naked, free-spirited women on the island - only really being able to make friends with an older woman who reminds him of his gran. He says that it is ‘his hope to live in charity with all men, girls included’, which I think aptly summarises the abstract way he sees women. It’s also clear that he is attracted to the adolescent boy, Lueli. He imagines ‘ravishing’ him for one brief moment and is frequently stunned by his beauty. Yet - beyond swimming together and oiling each other up, I don’t feel theirs is a physical relationship and it’s mixed and mushed up with the two other main themes of the book, belief and colonialism.
Mr Fortune’s is a very weak version of Christianity, more tied to the comfort of ritual and words, whose moral striving seems to be to be a decent gentleman. After an earthquake, which destroy’s Lueli’s physical God idol and Fortune’s own belief in God, it’s Lueli who feels the loss. Fortune barely misses his God, realising that he was never there to begin with and feeling rather embarrassed with his attempts to convert people.
It doesn’t stop with his colonial impulses though. Where he comes to the island of Fauna to help them by spreading his enlightened religion, when he gives up the religion, he doesn’t give up on the idea of his culture being more enlightened. To try and nudge Lueli out of his funk he tries to teach him geometry, reasoning that it’s a beautiful branch of knowledge that is founded on unequivocal truth. Not only do the lessons not go well, he loses patience far more than he did when he was trying to introduce the boy to more wooly topics like theology.
He concludes that there is a sickness in him and with those who come from colonial powers. That while he does love Lueli and the island, he can’t help trying to change it, that the colonial mind can’t help interfering with what it loves. Even actions like trying to tame parrots shows how he can’t simply leave alone.
When he leaves the island, he’s informed that the first world war has been raging but he doesn’t really care. He goes off unsure of what he’s going to do with his life and so are we.
This was an easy to read, digestible little fable. While Fortune is a bit of an archetypical ‘little man’, he was an interesting protagonist, a man with no real reason to be doing what he’s doing and doing it badly because he isn’t as much on an iron-clad orthodox missionary as he presumed himself to be. The book ends by wishing him luck in his future, and I did too.
July 24, 2025
A seeming critique of colonialism that falls into exactly the same traps as other novels. It is clear that Townsend Warner wanted to lampoon the missionary mentality in the Tropics. She does so by reading two books about Micronesia and then creating a novel based on a dream about an Englishman forcibly inserted into the society.
For me the critique fell flat when she does not both to flesh out and parts of the society or the island itself. She admits in the preface that she got her ideas from only two books and the second was the inspiration for the lamp shaking during the earthquake.
To me, the creepy older peadophile overtones that she was trying to portray and the crisis of faith faced by Timothy Fortune seemed like a half-baked idea that did not come to fruition.
For me the critique fell flat when she does not both to flesh out and parts of the society or the island itself. She admits in the preface that she got her ideas from only two books and the second was the inspiration for the lamp shaking during the earthquake.
To me, the creepy older peadophile overtones that she was trying to portray and the crisis of faith faced by Timothy Fortune seemed like a half-baked idea that did not come to fruition.
January 30, 2025
A soft and melancholy portrait of a would-be-colonialist who just doesn't have it in him. Warner depicts the title character's loneliness in a subtle, sometimes funny, way. At the same time there's this sublime terror of the natural world -- an earthquake, a volcano, the sea -- that is the backdrop to the bumbling human element. Fortune's love for his friend Lueli, who is maybe his only convert, is very sweet. When it comes to novels that deal with the disconnectedness the individual feels with the world around them, this is one of the gentler and less brooding.
December 4, 2017
A 1927 novel that explores an ex-bank clerk turned minister's
adventures. A wry look at religious zealotry and the importance
of respect and tolerance when confronted with another kind of
society. Mr Fortune asks to be sent to a Pacific volcanic island called
Fanua. His high hopes or fancies that he will convert many to
Christianity are slowly negated. A maggot is the word for a fancy
or whimsy, usually an odd one. Recommended.
adventures. A wry look at religious zealotry and the importance
of respect and tolerance when confronted with another kind of
society. Mr Fortune asks to be sent to a Pacific volcanic island called
Fanua. His high hopes or fancies that he will convert many to
Christianity are slowly negated. A maggot is the word for a fancy
or whimsy, usually an odd one. Recommended.
April 19, 2020
Beautifully written but rather a bore. I couldn’t care less about Mr Fortune (the name is not ironic, just dull). It was a struggle to complete this novella which is a scant 150 pages. I will pass on the second novella, thank you.
March 27, 2020
Interesting title. Mr. Fortune's Maggot. Maggot (sense 2) being a whimsical or perverse fancy; a crotchet. N.E.D.
January 4, 2023
STW’s writing is always pretty faultless to me. Her story here is intriguing. Whilst not my favourite novel by this author would recommend as a shorter read. Thoughtful, philosophical and timeless.
April 28, 2024
What happens when institutional religion intrudes into the Garden of Eden.
July 28, 2025
3.5, poignant love story
October 10, 2015
I did not actually find this book in the Ath Stacks, although I've listed it there. It came from the Elmwood Public Library, apparently taken out only a half dozen times since its purchase in 1928, the year after publication. The binding is original, the corners softened and the acidic paper and board powdering away in buff dust.
I'm glad I discovered Sylvia Townsend Warner. I like her writing style. Nothing flashy, just reliably readable.
I found myself oddly touched by this novel because I, too, am a meddler. Mr. Fortune wants to see Lueli as he wishes him to be, and is continually surprised by how much Lueli is simply himself.
Jane Austen's Emma discovers the same. But we three interfering projectionists have three different remedies. Mr. Fortune believes there's only one way for him to resist the temptation to remake Lueli: he must exile himself from the paradise he's grown to love. Emma marries Mr. Knightly who will challenge her whenever she tries to control others. And I am left with schooling myself daily, examining my conscience daily, and confessing to my notebook daily any forays into remaking the people I love.
April 14, 2015
Mr Fortune’s Maggot was Sylvia Townsend Warner’s second published novel, and is according to the blurb on the back on my lovely old VMC green – her best loved novel.
A maggot as defined by Warner in the front of this book is a fancy or whimsy – Mr Fortune, or Rev Timothy Fortune to give him his correct title, an idealistic former bank clerk, is a missionary. Following a decade in the south-seas Mr Fortune’s particular fancy is to go to Fanua, a remote, volcanic island and convert the people there to Christianity.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2015/...
A maggot as defined by Warner in the front of this book is a fancy or whimsy – Mr Fortune, or Rev Timothy Fortune to give him his correct title, an idealistic former bank clerk, is a missionary. Following a decade in the south-seas Mr Fortune’s particular fancy is to go to Fanua, a remote, volcanic island and convert the people there to Christianity.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2015/...
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