Old Pybus

by Warwick Deeping

A bookshop owner in London becomes estranged from his two wealthy and ambitious sons after they refused to enlist in The Great War. As the story opens, he is now elderly and is serving as a porter in a hotel some two hours away from London. He meets the teenaged grandson that he never knew and they find they have a common interest in books and writing. It is not until much later that they learn they are related.

Genres: Fiction

376 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

George Warwick Deeping was a prolific novelist and short story writer, who is best known for his 1925 novel "Sorrell and Son."

Deeping was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, then Trinity College, Cambridge to study medicine and science, and then to Middlesex Hospital to finish his medical training. During the First World War, he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He later gave up his job as a doctor to become a full-time writer.

Deeping's early work was primarily historical romances. His later novels can be seen as attempts at keeping alive the spirit of the Edwardian age. He was one of the best selling authors of the 1920s and 1930s, with seven of his novels making the best-seller list. His short fiction also appeared in several US magazines, including the Saturday Evening Post and Adventure.

Reviews

[John Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

First published 1928.

Oh dear! If this had been my first taste of Deeping it would probably result in me also singing the same hymn as Martin Amis on the subject of (George) Warwick Deeping. Not a hymn of praise.

I liked the story line – little old working class dad (OldPybus) with successful mercantile sons; one of them titled and landed to boot. The sons appear to have a very different life ethos to their father, something of a philosopher, an avid reader and a bastion (albeit in miniature) of human decency. One of Old Pybus’s sons has a teenage son, a budding writer, who discovers his estranged grandfather working as an inn/hotel porter (my god, smelling salts please!!) The two find they have much in common and build up a strong familial friendship which neither has experienced before.

Grandson writes and experiences life in 1920s London, distractions which lead to writing pitfalls. ‘Grandpater’ (as he is referred to by Lance, the writer) provides refuge, help, sustenance… Throughout much of the course of the book Lance is writing a novel which he completes and then has to re-write (for reasons you will have to find out for yourself).

Would that Deeping had done the same with ‘Old Pybus’. The last quarter or so of the book I found excruciatingly awful. It is as though Deeping’s guard slipped and his petty middle class snobberies came tumbling out, which further detracted from the novel’s credence:

“Are we counting heads or cups, my dear? And like those altruists – the socialists – are we with noble gestures-voting to ourselves-other people’s money”.

‘..(the man and girl) going off together in the darkness (to) the common pub below.. The very word “pub”, public-house, smelling of that vulgarity that is so English or Nordic, beer, sweat, a steamy – stuffy room, mouths adhering to cheap glasses, gin, sawdust, silly laughter, silly voices!’

See what I mean?

2*

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow, i think this is my first 5 star book this year, perfect in every way, will now go on ebay to buy all the other works by this author