Clubland Heroes: A Nostalgic Study of Some Recurrent Characters in the Romantic Fiction of Dornford Yates, John Buchan and Sapper

by Richard Usborne

Revised edition. 186 pages. cloth, dust jacket.. 8vo..

Genres: Adventure

186 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

Reviews

[Kit Heart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written description of Buchan, Sapper and Dornford Yates. Great for those who love those style of books. Clubs and old style dining. Jim Maitland by Sapper is one of my favourites. Don't like Yates with his Berry and co. Buchan's Macnab is my favourite of his.

[Amicus (David Barnett) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been meaning to read this book for over thirty years.

[Chris Browning · Rating 3 out of 5]

Usborne’s celebrations of Wodehouse are still beloved by me and absolutely are the match of Plum’s writing. They’re witty, astute, clever and full of admiration for the great man. Here, however, he has a trickier job praising deeply flawed writers and people and his celebratory tone frequently feels a bit half hearted and riddled with self doubt. It doesn’t help that Wodehouse essentially wanted everybody to like him and even his bounders are essentially well meaning. It’s easy to celebrate someone warm and sweet natured. Yates, Buchan (to a lesser extent) and especially Sapper are very much not that. In fact I read huge chunks of this aghast at just how awful some of these people were. As someone who suffered a private school education and decided these people were literally everything in life I did not want to be, it’s awful seeing the people I considered then and consider now among the very worst individuals I have ever met celebrated as heroes. The most fascinating discovery was that McNeile/ Sapper was not particularly good at sports at all but fetishes it as the epitome of what good breeding is that I immediately know the sort of child he was. And trust me, not one I have very fond memories of. Usborne’s always fun but he did not convince me to read either of Yates or Sapper’s books (although he does go a long way to explaining my dad’s love or Buchan - unfussy, modest, just getting on with it all being things my dad would have definitely seen as admirable traits)

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book looks back at the fiction and protagonists of various authors who saw their heyday a century ago—Dornby Yates, Richard Hannay (best known through Hitchcock's adaptation of 39 Steps) and "Sapper" who created the bludgeoning Bulldog Drummond. I read this for a research project; it wasn't quite what I needed, but that's not the author's fault. However even if you're interested in the character, this one came out forty years ago and the age shows; Usborne assumes a familiarity with the tone and characters of the authors that most people don't have (I know them by repute, nothing more). So I wouldn't recommend you unless it really falls into your area of interest.