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Azemia
Azemia is a satirical attack on what William Beckford perceived as characteristically feminine novel-writing. First published in 1797, under the pseudonym Jacquetta Agneta Mariana Jenks, it joined its companion volume Modern Novel Writing, or, The Elegant Enthusiast (1796) in ridiculing the sentimental and sensational novels of the day, and especially the productions of William Lane's Minerva Press. However, it is also a biting political satire, attacking the Tory party and its leader, William Pitt the Younger, for the war with France, repressive legislation, and neglect of the poor. This is the first-ever scholarly edition of the novel and includes a new introduction by Robert J. Gemmett, as well as thorough annotations, a bibliography, and contemporary illustrations. William Beckford (1760-1844) was a novelist, travel writer, art critic, and collector. One of the most controversial figures of his time, as well reputedly the richest man in England, he is probably best remembered as the author of the Gothic novel Vathek (1786) and the creator of Fonthill Abbey. Robert J. Gemmett, Professor of English at the State University of New York, Brockport, is an acknowledged expert on William Beckford and is the author of numerous books and articles on his life and works. He is also editor of the first scholarly edition of Modern Novel Writing , published in 2008.
217 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1974
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39 people want to read
About the author
William Beckford
297 books89 followersWilliam Thomas Beckford was an English novelist, a profligate and consummately knowledgeable art collector and patron of works of decorative art, a critic, travel writer and sometime politician, reputed at one stage in his life to be the richest commoner in England. His parents were William Beckford and Maria Hamilton, daughter of the Hon. George Hamilton. He was Member of Parliament for Wells from 1784 to 1790, for Hindon from 1790 to 1795 and 1806 to 1820.
He is remembered as the author of the Gothic novel Vathek (1786), the builder of the remarkable lost Fonthill Abbey and Lansdown Tower ("Beckford's Tower"), Bath, and especially for his art collection.
He is remembered as the author of the Gothic novel Vathek (1786), the builder of the remarkable lost Fonthill Abbey and Lansdown Tower ("Beckford's Tower"), Bath, and especially for his art collection.
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February 28, 2019
A product of whimsy and strong opinions; a novel of rants, sarcasm, and resentful parodies; a two-hundred-year-old troll fiction, Gothic of style to make rude gestures towards its most fanciful writers.
Beckford was rarely viewed favourably by his contemporaries, nor should one expect to find him lauded in our day and age. Back then his open homosexuality was considered a problem – he was never put to trial for it (though King George III did wish for his execution), but as a result of it he was shunned by his society and refused any position of power – and at least on that point he would be thought no less of by most of us who are alive now. On the other hand, he thought that those people were imbeciles who spoke up for the betterment of the slaves’ lot, and thought nobility a sign of the pinnacle of human excellence – in this he would find little sympathy from the post-modern reader. (Also, the potential reader of Azemia should observe that the fifth chapter of the book contains an infamous deliberation on his ideas about this.) His relationship with a ten year old boy is also still frowned upon. He eventually decided to leave the country to avoid the discontent, and it is unlikely that he would have fared any better now even if social media have made it more difficult to escape one’s critics.
It seems likely that in order to understand Azemia one has to understand something essential about the different ways in which criticism can be handled: If one is criticized one has the options to either (a) accept the criticism as valid, (b) contest it as invalid, (c) ignore it, or (d) embrace the criticism as part of themselves. Beckford clearly made the latter choice, taking on a pariah role where his deviancies in the eyes of society was his freedom to break conventions and norms as he pleased. The criticism served only to nourish his narcissistic resentment of the world – and it is this resentment which has been put to ink in Azemia. It was aimed at provoking and angering; it was a silver tipped cane of the most exquisite craftsmanship, with which he intended to prod this resented world and laugh as the prodded would rush to their high horses, stumble and fall over as they in livid outrage collide with one another, headless as chickens and braying like witless donkeys – and as they lie there in their heap he would have his chuckle, but not only, for as everyone who has ever successfully trolled an internet forum knows, there is a sense of empowerment in being able to incite such reactions from the masses with such little effort on one’s own behalf. If this was indeed his intent, and there seems to be every reason to believe so, then this is nothing less than a two-hundred-year-old troll fiction.
Azemia is a work of provocation which was meant to target a subset of writers of Gothic romances, his half-sister amongst them, and the literary critics who lauded them. (There are also quite a few comments on political issues, but unlike those aimed at the writers, they seem to be but occasionally injected outbursts rather than a systematic attack.) These writers were primarily women (or men using a female pseudonym) and also catered to the female reader. Their tales centred on the emotional heroine who either lamented her fate or fawned after an amour who could only be obtained with much difficulty, and, more importantly, they developed a rigorous set of tropes that became fixtures in any such tale, which caused these tales to grow ever more similar, long past the point where creating new tales no longer amounted to anything beyond the replication of the generic. For example, Beckford points out this:
Azemia, however, entered the gloomy building—she knew not why—(We know not neither, unless, because she was guided by some invisible impulse; and because it is now necessary in novels for all the heroines to go into black marble mausoleums and greystone ruins whenever they meet with them.) (vol. 2, p. 89)
This illuminates what many of the problematic tropes amount to: The visibility of the writer’s hand in what is written. Whenever a character needs to be a certain place or in a certain state, they would readily break with their established personality or perform an act of folly, sometimes of complete irrationality, in order for the story to take the turn wanted by the author, and it leaves the tale sporting these blemishes which, due to these clearly-touched-by-the-hand-above scenarios, disrupts the immersion and thus the very reading experience of fictional literature. One does indeed tire quickly of such elements, and irritation soon follows as one encounters them repeatedly; Beckford’s nausea with them is understandable. Yet, he chooses to complain about it through sarcasm and insult – he, among other things, chose a female pseudonym so that he could pretend to be one of the writers he intended to prod, and write just as poorly as they did to show them how bad it was – which easily masked whatever validity his arguments may have had, and turned the whole endeavour into an inflammatory agent as far as the debate is concerned, rather than an informative one. This reviewer would argue that this was likely what Beckford intended it to be, and thus the book succeeded in its goal – or, at least it would have if the pseudonym hadn’t failed to keep the true author hidden.
Note, for instance, the postscript titled ‘To the Reviewers of All the Reviews, All the Magazines; and All the Newspapers.’ It covers twenty-two pages containing imaginary reviews by the critics, all of whom applaud J.A.M. Jenks’ blind adherence to the tropes and place laurels on her head. The portrayal of these critics can be compared to the image of monkeys who have learned to clap when certain stimuli is shown to them. It was surely written to insult rather than correct. But the critics recognized Beckford through his style, aided also by the fact that he had already written a similar parodic novel the year before, named Modern Novel Writing, or the Elegant Enthusiast, and signed it with another pen name, Lady Harriet Marlow, who he in turn wrote a dedication to in the first edition of Azemia. (Also, his friend Samuel Rogers was apparently a bit loose-lipped regarding the fact, which surely did not help the intended secrecy.) The result was that instead of causing outrage, Azemia mostly garnered a bland feedback, being dismissed as an average work which did not live up to the author’s abilities; a few reviews even considered it a good satire. This led Beckford to make two notable changes to the second edition (also included in all subsequent ones): He added an introduction where he applauds the critics for discovering that she, the author, was really none other than the poet Robert Merry – who incidentally died in 1798, the same year as the second edition was printed, leaving the whole joke in poor taste; even so this reviewer cannot find anywhere that anyone gave Beckford the satisfaction of a reply to this – and he added a short tale named ‘Edward and Ellen’ which was written to be as excessively ladylike as possible (in his opinion, anyway). This whole addition ends up feeling like too much effort was put into it and reads like written by an Emily Howard (the character from Little Britain); it seems unlikely that many would have been duped to take it seriously, and so even that second attempt failed to troll its readers.
The story is only a secondary trait of the book; it is just a narrative to which Beckford could attach his jabs, japes, and rants. Yet, the book is named Azemia and so it would be amiss if Azemia, the forty-fifth daughter of the wealthy Hamet-beig of Constantinople, and her adventures were not introduced if only briefly. She was to wed a nasty Nazarene named Oglow Muley – if the reader of this review was wondering then, yes, Beckford did unkindly name most of the characters after what traits he found least fortunate about them – and was to be brought to him by a French ship, but France was at war with Great Britain at this point in time and as a result of a naval battle she changes hands, leading her journey to end in Lad Lane in Portsmouth. Azemia thus arrives in a country entirely unfamiliar to her, and in doing so she becomes a set of foreign eyes in the very country which Beckford wishes to point fingers at. Strangely he chose to utilize this coincidence only on a few occasions, preferring instead to use characters who digress from the main story to make his points.
Also, true to the style of writing which he parodies, Beckford also included a lengthy story (a hundred and four pages) which serves little function beyond filling out additional pages – publishers often paid per page and so those who relied on their manuscripts for an income would often pad them out to increase their monetary value – named ‘Another Blue-Beard, an Authentic Story Well Known in Lincolnshire.’ It is no more than a manuscript discovered by a side-character and is in no other way related to the rest of the book. Still, it is worth mentioning since Beckford had mastered one thing which he did better than most contemporary writers, and that is to create unforgettable villains. As far as the Gothic genre goes, the most memorable characters are indeed the villains – Dracula outfames Professor van Helsing, and Frankenstein’s Monster is so well known compared to his creator that many erroneously call him just Frankenstein in complete ignorance of Victor – and Mr. Grimshaw, also known as the Blue-Beard, is an uncommon terror whose sociopathy makes him rank among the most loathsome of evildoers. It is he and he alone that makes ‘Another Blue-Beard’ the most valuable part of Azemia as far as the story-experience goes.
This review is based on a facsimile by Gale ECCO Print Editions. It is of the second edition, which was originally published in 1798 by Sampson Low, and therefore looks and almost feels like the original book as it was when freshly printed centuries ago. This sense of history can greatly enhance the reading experience for those of us who are predisposed towards such displacements in time, but there is an inherent risk in choosing to order a copy of an old manuscript since one often does not know what its condition is beforehand. Fortunately, that is not an issue with this one as it is almost spotless and has only a handful of illegible words. This reviewer has not perused any other version, including the Gale ECCO Print Editions’ reprint of Azemia’s first edition, but since the first edition lacks both the new introduction and the short story ‘Edward and Ellen’ (thirty-nine pages in total) I see no reason to go for that one. The Valancourt edition has a lengthy introduction which includes, amongst other things, a very valuable explication of many of the authors and works parodied in the book. However, this reviewer has been unable to discover whether or not it includes the extras from the second edition. If it does then it might be the modern edition of choice, unless one wishes for the historical immersion which accompanies the facsimile, in which case the reviewed edition comes with high recommendations.
Reading Azemia is a curious experience. It is a book wrought by an author who has mastered his trade perfectly as far as language and feeling goes, and he puts that to use creating a fiction that is nine-tenths sarcasm. He even hides rude words in the charades he provides in volume two. It is an eccentrically unlikeable book by an eccentrically unlikeable man, and, oddly enough, that is its allure. It is such a unique book that it is alone in being able to satisfy the curiosity connected to its concept – alone except for Modern Novel Writing, or the Elegant Enthusiast that is. On the other hand, if one views this as a plain story rather than as a troll fiction, then there is a disappointment in store. Azemia’s journey and experiences amount to very little that could excite the reader; the romance itself even felt so unimportant that I saw no reason to include it in the description. Nor is the book as rich in parody as one might think when it is described as one, (though Modern Novel Writing does a rather thorough job there). As previously stated, ‘Another Blue-Beard’ is worth reading for its own sake, but the remainder of the book should be read for its otherness and little else.
Beckford was rarely viewed favourably by his contemporaries, nor should one expect to find him lauded in our day and age. Back then his open homosexuality was considered a problem – he was never put to trial for it (though King George III did wish for his execution), but as a result of it he was shunned by his society and refused any position of power – and at least on that point he would be thought no less of by most of us who are alive now. On the other hand, he thought that those people were imbeciles who spoke up for the betterment of the slaves’ lot, and thought nobility a sign of the pinnacle of human excellence – in this he would find little sympathy from the post-modern reader. (Also, the potential reader of Azemia should observe that the fifth chapter of the book contains an infamous deliberation on his ideas about this.) His relationship with a ten year old boy is also still frowned upon. He eventually decided to leave the country to avoid the discontent, and it is unlikely that he would have fared any better now even if social media have made it more difficult to escape one’s critics.
It seems likely that in order to understand Azemia one has to understand something essential about the different ways in which criticism can be handled: If one is criticized one has the options to either (a) accept the criticism as valid, (b) contest it as invalid, (c) ignore it, or (d) embrace the criticism as part of themselves. Beckford clearly made the latter choice, taking on a pariah role where his deviancies in the eyes of society was his freedom to break conventions and norms as he pleased. The criticism served only to nourish his narcissistic resentment of the world – and it is this resentment which has been put to ink in Azemia. It was aimed at provoking and angering; it was a silver tipped cane of the most exquisite craftsmanship, with which he intended to prod this resented world and laugh as the prodded would rush to their high horses, stumble and fall over as they in livid outrage collide with one another, headless as chickens and braying like witless donkeys – and as they lie there in their heap he would have his chuckle, but not only, for as everyone who has ever successfully trolled an internet forum knows, there is a sense of empowerment in being able to incite such reactions from the masses with such little effort on one’s own behalf. If this was indeed his intent, and there seems to be every reason to believe so, then this is nothing less than a two-hundred-year-old troll fiction.
Azemia is a work of provocation which was meant to target a subset of writers of Gothic romances, his half-sister amongst them, and the literary critics who lauded them. (There are also quite a few comments on political issues, but unlike those aimed at the writers, they seem to be but occasionally injected outbursts rather than a systematic attack.) These writers were primarily women (or men using a female pseudonym) and also catered to the female reader. Their tales centred on the emotional heroine who either lamented her fate or fawned after an amour who could only be obtained with much difficulty, and, more importantly, they developed a rigorous set of tropes that became fixtures in any such tale, which caused these tales to grow ever more similar, long past the point where creating new tales no longer amounted to anything beyond the replication of the generic. For example, Beckford points out this:
Azemia, however, entered the gloomy building—she knew not why—(We know not neither, unless, because she was guided by some invisible impulse; and because it is now necessary in novels for all the heroines to go into black marble mausoleums and greystone ruins whenever they meet with them.) (vol. 2, p. 89)
This illuminates what many of the problematic tropes amount to: The visibility of the writer’s hand in what is written. Whenever a character needs to be a certain place or in a certain state, they would readily break with their established personality or perform an act of folly, sometimes of complete irrationality, in order for the story to take the turn wanted by the author, and it leaves the tale sporting these blemishes which, due to these clearly-touched-by-the-hand-above scenarios, disrupts the immersion and thus the very reading experience of fictional literature. One does indeed tire quickly of such elements, and irritation soon follows as one encounters them repeatedly; Beckford’s nausea with them is understandable. Yet, he chooses to complain about it through sarcasm and insult – he, among other things, chose a female pseudonym so that he could pretend to be one of the writers he intended to prod, and write just as poorly as they did to show them how bad it was – which easily masked whatever validity his arguments may have had, and turned the whole endeavour into an inflammatory agent as far as the debate is concerned, rather than an informative one. This reviewer would argue that this was likely what Beckford intended it to be, and thus the book succeeded in its goal – or, at least it would have if the pseudonym hadn’t failed to keep the true author hidden.
Note, for instance, the postscript titled ‘To the Reviewers of All the Reviews, All the Magazines; and All the Newspapers.’ It covers twenty-two pages containing imaginary reviews by the critics, all of whom applaud J.A.M. Jenks’ blind adherence to the tropes and place laurels on her head. The portrayal of these critics can be compared to the image of monkeys who have learned to clap when certain stimuli is shown to them. It was surely written to insult rather than correct. But the critics recognized Beckford through his style, aided also by the fact that he had already written a similar parodic novel the year before, named Modern Novel Writing, or the Elegant Enthusiast, and signed it with another pen name, Lady Harriet Marlow, who he in turn wrote a dedication to in the first edition of Azemia. (Also, his friend Samuel Rogers was apparently a bit loose-lipped regarding the fact, which surely did not help the intended secrecy.) The result was that instead of causing outrage, Azemia mostly garnered a bland feedback, being dismissed as an average work which did not live up to the author’s abilities; a few reviews even considered it a good satire. This led Beckford to make two notable changes to the second edition (also included in all subsequent ones): He added an introduction where he applauds the critics for discovering that she, the author, was really none other than the poet Robert Merry – who incidentally died in 1798, the same year as the second edition was printed, leaving the whole joke in poor taste; even so this reviewer cannot find anywhere that anyone gave Beckford the satisfaction of a reply to this – and he added a short tale named ‘Edward and Ellen’ which was written to be as excessively ladylike as possible (in his opinion, anyway). This whole addition ends up feeling like too much effort was put into it and reads like written by an Emily Howard (the character from Little Britain); it seems unlikely that many would have been duped to take it seriously, and so even that second attempt failed to troll its readers.
The story is only a secondary trait of the book; it is just a narrative to which Beckford could attach his jabs, japes, and rants. Yet, the book is named Azemia and so it would be amiss if Azemia, the forty-fifth daughter of the wealthy Hamet-beig of Constantinople, and her adventures were not introduced if only briefly. She was to wed a nasty Nazarene named Oglow Muley – if the reader of this review was wondering then, yes, Beckford did unkindly name most of the characters after what traits he found least fortunate about them – and was to be brought to him by a French ship, but France was at war with Great Britain at this point in time and as a result of a naval battle she changes hands, leading her journey to end in Lad Lane in Portsmouth. Azemia thus arrives in a country entirely unfamiliar to her, and in doing so she becomes a set of foreign eyes in the very country which Beckford wishes to point fingers at. Strangely he chose to utilize this coincidence only on a few occasions, preferring instead to use characters who digress from the main story to make his points.
Also, true to the style of writing which he parodies, Beckford also included a lengthy story (a hundred and four pages) which serves little function beyond filling out additional pages – publishers often paid per page and so those who relied on their manuscripts for an income would often pad them out to increase their monetary value – named ‘Another Blue-Beard, an Authentic Story Well Known in Lincolnshire.’ It is no more than a manuscript discovered by a side-character and is in no other way related to the rest of the book. Still, it is worth mentioning since Beckford had mastered one thing which he did better than most contemporary writers, and that is to create unforgettable villains. As far as the Gothic genre goes, the most memorable characters are indeed the villains – Dracula outfames Professor van Helsing, and Frankenstein’s Monster is so well known compared to his creator that many erroneously call him just Frankenstein in complete ignorance of Victor – and Mr. Grimshaw, also known as the Blue-Beard, is an uncommon terror whose sociopathy makes him rank among the most loathsome of evildoers. It is he and he alone that makes ‘Another Blue-Beard’ the most valuable part of Azemia as far as the story-experience goes.
This review is based on a facsimile by Gale ECCO Print Editions. It is of the second edition, which was originally published in 1798 by Sampson Low, and therefore looks and almost feels like the original book as it was when freshly printed centuries ago. This sense of history can greatly enhance the reading experience for those of us who are predisposed towards such displacements in time, but there is an inherent risk in choosing to order a copy of an old manuscript since one often does not know what its condition is beforehand. Fortunately, that is not an issue with this one as it is almost spotless and has only a handful of illegible words. This reviewer has not perused any other version, including the Gale ECCO Print Editions’ reprint of Azemia’s first edition, but since the first edition lacks both the new introduction and the short story ‘Edward and Ellen’ (thirty-nine pages in total) I see no reason to go for that one. The Valancourt edition has a lengthy introduction which includes, amongst other things, a very valuable explication of many of the authors and works parodied in the book. However, this reviewer has been unable to discover whether or not it includes the extras from the second edition. If it does then it might be the modern edition of choice, unless one wishes for the historical immersion which accompanies the facsimile, in which case the reviewed edition comes with high recommendations.
Reading Azemia is a curious experience. It is a book wrought by an author who has mastered his trade perfectly as far as language and feeling goes, and he puts that to use creating a fiction that is nine-tenths sarcasm. He even hides rude words in the charades he provides in volume two. It is an eccentrically unlikeable book by an eccentrically unlikeable man, and, oddly enough, that is its allure. It is such a unique book that it is alone in being able to satisfy the curiosity connected to its concept – alone except for Modern Novel Writing, or the Elegant Enthusiast that is. On the other hand, if one views this as a plain story rather than as a troll fiction, then there is a disappointment in store. Azemia’s journey and experiences amount to very little that could excite the reader; the romance itself even felt so unimportant that I saw no reason to include it in the description. Nor is the book as rich in parody as one might think when it is described as one, (though Modern Novel Writing does a rather thorough job there). As previously stated, ‘Another Blue-Beard’ is worth reading for its own sake, but the remainder of the book should be read for its otherness and little else.
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