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Philistia
It was Sunday evening, and on Sundays Max Schurz, the chief of the London Socialists, always held his weekly receptions. That night his cosmopolitan refugee friends were all at liberty; his French disciples could pour in from the little lanes and courts in Soho, where, since the Commune, they had plied their peaceful trades as engravers, picture-framers, artists'-colourmen, models, pointers, and so forth-for most of them were hangers-on in one way or another of the artistic world; his German adherents could stroll round, pipe in mouth, from their printing-houses, their ham-and-beef shops, or their naturalists' chambers, where they stuffed birds or set up exotic butterflies in little cabinets-for most of them were more or less literary or scientific in their pursuits; and his few English sympathisers, chiefly dissatisfied philosophical Radicals of the upper classes, could drop in casually for a chat and a smoke, on their way home from the churches to which they had been dutifully escorting their un-emancipated wives and sisters. Max Schurz kept open house for all on Sunday evenings, and there was not a drawing-room in London better filled than his with the very advanced and not undistinguished set who alone had the much-prized entrée of his exclusive salon.
298 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1884
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About the author
Grant Allen
1,215 books33 followersCharles Grant Blairfindie Allen (February 24, 1848 – October 25, 1899) was a science writer and novelist, and a successful upholder of the theory of evolution.
He was born near Kingston, Canada West (now incorporated into Ontario), the second son of Catharine Ann Grant and the Rev. Joseph Antisell Allen, a Protestant minister from Dublin, Ireland. His mother was a daughter of the fifth Baron of Longueuil. He was educated at home until, at age 13, he and his parents moved to the United States, then France and finally the United Kingdom. He was educated at King Edward's School in Birmingham and Merton College in Oxford, both in the United Kingdom. After graduation, Allen studied in France, taught at Brighton College in 1870–71 and in his mid-twenties became a professor at Queen's College, a black college in Jamaica.
Despite his religious father, Allen became an agnostic and a socialist. After leaving his professorship, in 1876 he returned to England, where he turned his talents to writing, gaining a reputation for his essays on science and for literary works. One of his early articles, 'Note-Deafness' (a description of what is now called amusia, published in 1878 in the learned journal Mind) is cited with approval in a recent book by Oliver Sacks.
His first books were on scientific subjects, and include Physiological Æsthetics (1877) and Flowers and Their Pedigrees (1886). He was first influenced by associationist psychology as it was expounded by Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer, the latter often considered the most important individual in the transition from associationist psychology to Darwinian functionalism. In Allen's many articles on flowers and perception in insects, Darwinian arguments replaced the old Spencerian terms. On a personal level, a long friendship that started when Allen met Spencer on his return from Jamaica, also grew uneasy over the years. Allen wrote a critical and revealing biographical article on Spencer that was published after Spencer was dead.
After assisting Sir W. W. Hunter in his Gazeteer of India in the early 1880s, Allen turned his attention to fiction, and between 1884 and 1899 produced about 30 novels. In 1895, his scandalous book titled The Woman Who Did, promulgating certain startling views on marriage and kindred questions, became a bestseller. The book told the story of an independent woman who has a child out of wedlock.
In his career, Allen wrote two novels under female pseudonyms. One of these was the short novel The Type-writer Girl, which he wrote under the name Olive Pratt Rayner.
Another work, The Evolution of the Idea of God (1897), propounding a theory of religion on heterodox lines, has the disadvantage of endeavoring to explain everything by one theory. This "ghost theory" was often seen as a derivative of Herbert Spencer's theory. However, it was well known and brief references to it can be found in a review by Marcel Mauss, Durkheim's nephew, in the articles of William James and in the works of Sigmund Freud.
He was also a pioneer in science fiction, with the 1895 novel The British Barbarians. This book, published about the same time as H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, which includes a mention of Allen, also described time travel, although the plot is quite different. His short story The Thames Valley Catastrophe (published 1901 in The Strand Magazine) describes the destruction of London by a sudden and massive volcanic eruption.
Many histories of detective fiction also mention Allen as an innovator. His gentleman rogue, the illustrious Colonel Clay, is seen as a forerunner to later characters. In fact, Allen's character bears strong resemblance to Maurice Leblanc's French works about Arsène Lupin, published many years later; and both Miss Cayley's Adventures and Hilda Wade feature early female detectives.
Allen was married twi
He was born near Kingston, Canada West (now incorporated into Ontario), the second son of Catharine Ann Grant and the Rev. Joseph Antisell Allen, a Protestant minister from Dublin, Ireland. His mother was a daughter of the fifth Baron of Longueuil. He was educated at home until, at age 13, he and his parents moved to the United States, then France and finally the United Kingdom. He was educated at King Edward's School in Birmingham and Merton College in Oxford, both in the United Kingdom. After graduation, Allen studied in France, taught at Brighton College in 1870–71 and in his mid-twenties became a professor at Queen's College, a black college in Jamaica.
Despite his religious father, Allen became an agnostic and a socialist. After leaving his professorship, in 1876 he returned to England, where he turned his talents to writing, gaining a reputation for his essays on science and for literary works. One of his early articles, 'Note-Deafness' (a description of what is now called amusia, published in 1878 in the learned journal Mind) is cited with approval in a recent book by Oliver Sacks.
His first books were on scientific subjects, and include Physiological Æsthetics (1877) and Flowers and Their Pedigrees (1886). He was first influenced by associationist psychology as it was expounded by Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer, the latter often considered the most important individual in the transition from associationist psychology to Darwinian functionalism. In Allen's many articles on flowers and perception in insects, Darwinian arguments replaced the old Spencerian terms. On a personal level, a long friendship that started when Allen met Spencer on his return from Jamaica, also grew uneasy over the years. Allen wrote a critical and revealing biographical article on Spencer that was published after Spencer was dead.
After assisting Sir W. W. Hunter in his Gazeteer of India in the early 1880s, Allen turned his attention to fiction, and between 1884 and 1899 produced about 30 novels. In 1895, his scandalous book titled The Woman Who Did, promulgating certain startling views on marriage and kindred questions, became a bestseller. The book told the story of an independent woman who has a child out of wedlock.
In his career, Allen wrote two novels under female pseudonyms. One of these was the short novel The Type-writer Girl, which he wrote under the name Olive Pratt Rayner.
Another work, The Evolution of the Idea of God (1897), propounding a theory of religion on heterodox lines, has the disadvantage of endeavoring to explain everything by one theory. This "ghost theory" was often seen as a derivative of Herbert Spencer's theory. However, it was well known and brief references to it can be found in a review by Marcel Mauss, Durkheim's nephew, in the articles of William James and in the works of Sigmund Freud.
He was also a pioneer in science fiction, with the 1895 novel The British Barbarians. This book, published about the same time as H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, which includes a mention of Allen, also described time travel, although the plot is quite different. His short story The Thames Valley Catastrophe (published 1901 in The Strand Magazine) describes the destruction of London by a sudden and massive volcanic eruption.
Many histories of detective fiction also mention Allen as an innovator. His gentleman rogue, the illustrious Colonel Clay, is seen as a forerunner to later characters. In fact, Allen's character bears strong resemblance to Maurice Leblanc's French works about Arsène Lupin, published many years later; and both Miss Cayley's Adventures and Hilda Wade feature early female detectives.
Allen was married twi
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June 10, 2023
Grant Allen was a Canadian-origin science writer who, at the age of 36, put his heart and soul into his first novel 'Philistia' (1884). It got panned. This did not stop him from becoming a popular writer of 'sensational novels' and speculative fiction for the next fifteen years.
His turn from serious literature towards popular entertainment should not be regretted because he produced some fine genre work that made him at times the contemporary equal of Conan Doyle but this first effort bears re-visiting. It is, I think, better than most first novels that I have read.
The main reason that it was criticised stands up. It is a novel of ideas and, I am afraid, too frequently the ideas (while cogently expressed) are too often delivered as lengthy speeches by the protagonists (at least in the first third) but I suspect there was more to the dislike than this.
It is in fact a satire on the high Victorian class system and especially on the upper middle classes that happens to be both cynical and kindly at the same time. It is no accident that this was a colonial with a scientific mind enjoying the hypocrisies and complexities of the English class system.
I suspect some of the satirical strikes - especially at the expense of journalism and popular radicalism more than at the expense of the Church and aristocracy - hit home. There would be something here to displease every reader without a sense of humour.
In fact, while I could not say that this novel should be added to the syllabus of literary studies classes, it could, with profit, be read by anyone interested in high Victorian culture and even history . It could be used as a primer on almost everything that drove the ideology of the day.
The characters also prove to be surprisingly likeable even when they are foolish (which is often in some cases) while the 'hypocrites' and the conventional are allowed to condemn themselves by their speech and actions rather than be tagged by the author.
The 'socialism' in the novel is hidden in plain sight. Although Max Schurz, the old revolutionary, is clearly modelled on someone like Karl Marx, the kindly intellectual is clearly offering us something closer to Christian Socialism with added class struggle.
Indeed, a very British left-wing link betwen traditional Christian values (as opposed to established Church values) and the emerging secular socialism pushing up against the hypocrisies of Victorian radicalism is evident here.
The ambience is unusual - the interface between religious fervour, early idealistic socialism, the workings of the market (specifically journalism) and the idiosyncrasies of all classes which are treated as often the more absurd the higher they are in the pecking order.
The passionate cause of Ernest Le Breton walking out of his job in an aristocratic household - the moral wrongness of shooting pigeons - is a delightful bit of humour. The sharp caricature of the aristocracy sometimes has bite when it comes to the matter of the London slums.
And yet the most attractive and intriguing character is Lady Hilda Tregellis, a society beauty who is determined not to marry an Algy or Bertie or a Montie, has no theoretical ethics whatsoever but does the most practical good in cahoots with the likeable working class origin aesthete Arthur Berkeley.
Perhaps this is the indirect message of the book. Life is about how you deal with the people you care about and who are in your circle, grand ideas are all very well but success in life depends on having 'pals' and love will eventually conquer all.
The women in general are very much treated as interesting characters in their own right with another strong character in Selah, the Hastings lower middle class girl who stands her ground against one reprobate Le Breton brother and marries a nicer one.
Class is everything in this novel. The working classes are treated perhaps too comically or as 'other' but it is the lower middles and the wilful aristocratic woman who triumph and marry for love into the coterie of upper middle class intellectuals around whom the book is built.
Nor is Allen unwilling to shock the reader - a key character very surprisingly dies), The cynical reality of power and patronage and the impossibility of truly 'bucking the system' is made crystal clear. Although happiness breaks out for the deserving, it is quite definitely an authorial 'fix'.
So many aspects of Victorian life and ideas are covered in this novel that it would be tiresome to go much further. It is simultaneously a caricature of that society and a fond reaffirmation of the values of the best of the age - especially a mock-Dickensian compassion, good done through deeds.
No, it is not a masterpiece of English literature but it is amusingly written - only a couple of places removed from Wodehouse at times - and keeps the reader entertained with only very rare quasi-philosophical longeurs. The satire is biting but never cruel.
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