Sunday 2 December 2012

Interview with J.L. Rowling

This is the full transcript of my interview with J.L. Rowling the famous author of books for children who like magic, and posh schools.

Did you steal the Harry Potter character from another author?

No, I did not. My book doesn't contain a character called Harry Potter.

I think you will find it does Ms. Rowling. In fact all your books have a character called Harry Potter in them. All except the new rubbish one.

I have only written one book Mr. Walker, and that contains no mention of a Harry Potter.

Liar.

You are obviously a sick man Mr. Walker who is in need of psychiatric help.

Me mad? You're a crazy women. I offer you the chance to appear on my Blog to discuss your overrated Potter books, and you deny ever writing them.

Mr. Walker, my name is J.L. Rowling, and I have written a book about sheep farming in a convent which is entitled "Bar Nun."

Well why didn't you say so before?

I'm leaving now.

Friday 30 November 2012

J.R.R. Tolkien and American Publishing

This article is taken from the October, 1969, issue of Books and Bookmen.

Written by James Blish.

One of the most unexpected swings in recent US literary taste has been the widespread popularity, especially among undergraduates, of heroic fantasy. Curiously, the early and still the major beneficiaries of this interest were British authors, but this situation is now in process of change.
The boom began with the 'hobbit' fantasies of the Oxonian J.R.R. Tolkien, a past member of the Oxford Inklings circle which also included C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams. These books had had a small but extremely devoted following in the States since their publication there, but they were not as popular as the three interplanetary romances of Lewis, or the turgid horror stories of the American H.P. Lovecraft.
Then, five years ago, the US paperback publisher Ace Books discovered that through a failure on the part of Tolkien's American publishers, his major work, the three-volume The Lord of the Rings, had been thrown into the public domain in the States. Ace promptly brought out all three volumes in paperback, and the Tolkien cult grew from a few hundred people to many thousands. At first, Ace proposed to pay Tolkien none of the proceeds, and another paperback house, Ballantine Books, risked bringing out an authorised edition, with small changes and additions which could be re-copyrighted, a public notice that Ballantine would pay royalties to the author, and a note from Tolkien asking readers to buy this edition and no other.
Amazingly, this worked. The new printing prospered, at the expense of the Ace edition, and Ballantine now have in print what appears to be every word Tolkien has ever published. (They also do a sizeable trade in 'Come to Middle Earth' posters, originally intended for bookstores but now for sale, and there is even an LP record of hobbit songs.)
Another accident enables one to make a rough estimate of the magnitude of the market. Under pressure from Tolkien fans and writers' organisations, Ace eventually made to Tolkien a royalty payment of around £3,333. Starting from the fact that the minimum paperback royalty in the States is two and a half percent, it must be assumed that the Ace edition at that point (three years ago) had sold about 337,000 copies, despite a year of Ballantine competition. As for the Ballantines, they claim to have grossed more than $1 million on Tolkien, placing their sales in the vicinity of 1,053,000 - a staggering figure, even allowing for the fact that they have more Tolkien books (and posters) to offer, especially when one adds to it the Ace sales. Mr. Tolkien may not yet be in the same league as Harold Robbins, but for a genre author he is setting records of his own (and will probably last a lot longer).

Wednesday 28 November 2012

Self-Promotion

Thought it was about time I promoted something that I have written, as I seem to spend most of my waking hours trying to promote others.
My short story "Father Christmas and the Elephunk" will be free for just one day on the 1st December. So if you have any children who like to be read to, or you're just a big kid yourself, please feel free to get something for free. See what I did there?
So if you would like to get in the mood for Christmas read this heartwarming story set on Christmas Eve, 1940.

Monday 26 November 2012

Shakespeare Was Illiterate

What I am about to disclose will undoubtedly sadden many, and shock even more, but the truth, however hard it is to stomach must be told.

Yesterday while searching through an old box of Star War's toys I came across a screwed up piece of paper (see photographic evidence). I immediately stopped playing with my Star War's toys and went to work on unscrewing the screwed paper. The words that were written on this document made my blood run cold, and my heart pound like a drum being pounded by someone big. You will now read what I have read. Please be aware that what you are about to be told could make you feel uncomfortable, and possibly a little sick, so have a bucket by your side. Here goes.

 Friday, 12th September, 1617.

To whom it may concern

My name is Betty Birtles, and I was shacked up with William Shakespeare for nigh on thirty-three long years. He was a wrong-en, but I always went for bad men. They excite me. Now he is dead I want to tell the world what a terrible thing me and Will done.

It was back in 1585, and me and Will had just started doing it with each other. I was working in a bakers shop, and Will was an unsuccessful pickpocket. One day Will came home to our hovel in Stepney and said he had something to show me. I wasn't in the mood for his naughty games so I hit him over the head with a poker. Once Will was unconscious on the floor I rifled through his pockets to see what he had. All I could find was a half-eaten chickens head, and an empty bottle of gin. Then I opened up his coat and inside was thousands of sheets of paper with words on. I thought what does Will want with words when he can't even read or write? Well I started to read some of the words, and to my great surprise the words were put together in such a way that they told stories, wonderful stories.
When Will finally woke up I asked him where he got all the paper, he told me he had stolen them from a bloke in the pub. I then slapped him round the face, we both ended up rolling on the floor punching and scratching each other. Obviously we then had sex and drunk lots of gin.
In the morning after me and Will had pissed out of the window, I told Will that those papers he had pinched might be worth some money, and that I had a plan that might help to change our miserable lives for the better. My plan was this: Will would have to kill the man that he stole the papers from, and then make out that he had written all the wonderful stories. Will thought I was jesting, and laughed out loud, so I hit him with the poker. We then had sex again. After sex I explained to Will that this was not a laughing matter, and that he must be a man and kill this bloke from the pub. Will said that he would be happy to kill the fella as long as I'd get on top next time we had sex. 
After I had climbed off of Will we set about getting the plan straight. This was not easy for Will because he was an idiot.

Part II. The dastardly deed

The next day I decided that trying to explain the whole of my plan to Will was a complete waste of  time. Will was good in bed, but utterly useless in the brain department. I found out from Will what pub he had robbed his victim in and went straight over there. It was the Ten Bells in Whitechapel, a rather rundown establishment frequented in the main by prostitutes and their clients. I went into the pub, and told the bald dwarf sitting on the bar to get me the manager. The bald dwarf told me that he was the manager, he also said that I was far too ugly to work in there as a prostitute. I explained to him that I was a good girl, and if he ever saw me all made up he would have a hard-on all day long. The dwarf then asked me to do something to him that is far too disgusting to describe in this letter. Once I had done what he had asked, I washed my mouth out with a glass of gin, and then explained to him about the papers that had come into my possession, and that I thought they might have once belonged to one of his customers. The dwarf told me that if they were papers with writing on they must have belonged to.....

To be continued.




Sunday 25 November 2012

The Charles Dickens Interview

Mr. Charles Dickens kindly responded to my good friend Madame Sharlatane's (the famous medium) request for an interview, and here it is.

Me: Good evening Charles, before we begin, and on behalf of my millions of readers I would like to thank you for agreeing to give us this interview.

Charles: No problem at all Gary. I have had the pleasure of reading some of your own brilliant work, so I would be honoured to be interviewed by such a literary God as you.

Me: You are too kind sir.

Charles: No, you are the kind one sir.

Charles then spent over an hour telling me what a fantastic writer I was. I have left this out of the finished transcript because it was all a little embarrassing for me.

Me: Charles, could you let my readers know where you got the idea for Wuthering Heights?

At this point Madame Sharlatane heard what she thought was the word "Ucker," this could be a Germanic term. It's not widely known that Charles Dickens was actually German, and spent his early years working as a waitress in a Bierkeller in Hamburg. Sadly all contact with Mr. Dickens was then lost. Madame Sharlatane will be attempting to speak to him again tomorrow.


Saturday 24 November 2012

William Shakespeare Interview

Yesterday Mr. Shakespeare decided to go for a few drinks with Keith Moon instead of giving me an interview, today, although hungover he has decided to allow me to ask him a few questions. Mr. Shakespeare had contacted me through the famous Medium, Madame Sharlatane. William had told her that he was very angry about the excessive use of 5 Star reviews in relation to self-published books on Amazon.

ME: Good evening Mr. Shakespeare.

WILL: Don't "Good Evening" me you ignorant little man.

ME: Sorry. Can you let my readers know why you are so upset with the reviews on Amazon?

WILL: What's in it for me?

ME: I don't understand.

WILL: What do I get out of it - what's my cut?

ME: I'm giving you the chance to speak to the writers of 2012 from beyond the grave, isn't that enough?

WILL: Fuck off.

According to Madame Sharlatane, Mr. Shakespeare then made a farting noise by blowing hard on the back of his hand, and walked off singing sea shanties with Marilyn Monroe.

We will try and get Mr. Shakespeare to continue this interview on a day when he has not been drinking. So watch this space.

Friday 23 November 2012

Interview with William Shakespeare

Yesterday I was contacted by a medium going by the name of Madame Sharlatane who informed me that the bard himself, Mr. William Shakespeare had spoken to her, and requested that she find someone that would interview him. He told Madame Sharlatane that he had been turning in his grave ever since God had shown him some of the 5 Star reviews received by a large number of self-published authors on Amazon. He informed Ms. Sharlatane that he had never once in his entire literary career got more than a 4 Star review. He had become quite agitated while chatting to Ms. Sharlatane about the 2 Star review he had been awarded for Romeo and Juliet. He insisted that it was well worth 3 Stars, even though he accepted that the plot was a little far-fetched.
I was intending to interview Will tonight, but he has decided to go drinking with Keith Moon instead. He has told Ms. Sharlatane that if he's not too hungover tomorrow he will do the interview late afternoon, after he has watched the football.

To be continued

Princess Antoine Bibesco


Travel and Travellers

By Princess Antoine Bibesco


Written in 1940.


This is not an ideal moment for talking about travelling. Towns empty by day, invisible by night, the sea carrying an uneasy burden of mines and submarines, aeroplanes playing hide-and-seek among the clouds. These are mere temporary disabilities. A traveller is always a traveller, just as a tourist is always a tourist. They have little in common except, perhaps, the same sturdy obstinacy. A traveller explores the unknown, a tourist pounces delightedly on some confirmed fact. Every strutting pigeon in the piazza of Saint Mark gives him a sense of justification. He was right; there really were pigeons.
But though we can now only travel by mind there still are journeys.
Maps are anthologies for poets.

I spent some years, when my husband was en poste, in Spain.
Among many loves, a major love but a minor town, there was Brihuega. From the strategical point of view it is, I am told – I know nothing of strategy – not a minor town at all. It played an important part in the Peninsular War; it played an important part in the Civil War. It is, in fact, a “pivotal position.”
To me, ignorant of pivotal positions, it is merely a great love. You must imagine the houses split on to the sheer hillside, the churches not poised on a summit but clinging precariously to the lower rungs of a steep incline, hoping to land safely in the valley.
Opposite, bleak, and blazing with colour – not a mountain, an erect rising of earth – there is a palace, circular, down-at-the-hill, threadbare with obsolete dignity.
And a garden – a real garden, with arches of clipped yews through which you see the split houses and the burnished hill opposite…..

To be continued

Wednesday 21 November 2012

English Fiction To-day by Elizabeth Bowen

This article was written by Elizabeth Bowen in 1950, and appeared in John O'London's Weekly.

In general, something is expected of, or at, the turn of a century. A Term of time by being demarcated acquires character, which, as such, makes itself evident as it matures. So a century halfway along its course may be considered due to declare maturity, to have reached culmination-point, to make seen the fruition of its inherent ideas.
The twentieth century's development, however, has been in some directions so violently forced, in others so notably arrested as to seem hardly to be a development at all, or at least to be difficult to recognize if it is one. In European countries, certainly, life and art are still seeking their footing in their actual time - both have the stigmata of an over-long drawn-out adolescence. The mid-century call for an exhibition may therefore be said to have taken us by surprise, and found us unready, in disarray.
As to art, it is not that there is nothing to show; the difficulty is rather in presentation - arrangement, classification and rating order. Individually, no potential exhibit is not expressive: how, however, is each so to be placed as to bring out its relationship with the others? For the warrant and point of an exhibition must be its overall significance and expressiveness. In this case, one is tempted to ask, of what? 

In England - if one may press the display analogy further there would be particular difficulty in arranging the fiction stall. The novel, onward from 1914, has in different ways reflected the sense of flux. The cracking and splintering of the social mould during and after the first World War accounted for a shift, as to the subject, from outer to inner, from man as a public being to man as a seat of isolated and in the main suffering private sensibility. For the greater part of the inter-war years, subjectivity hazed over the English novel; there was disposition to follow the stream of consciousness "from caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea." With this went, it may now be felt, a misuse or perversion of some influences - the overheated for-or-against reaction to D.H. Lawrence, the attempted segregation of Henry James and Proust from their beau-monde, of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Turgenev from their thriving social-sensuous universe, of Thomas Hardy from his Wessex exhuberance.
The intellectually respectable English novel for some time concentrated upon, insisted upon the victim-hero - whether at school, in love or at large in the jungle which by overgrowing the ruins of fixed society succeeded to what that used to be. There was almost a convention of disillusionment. The forte of the novelist was analysis. The alternative to the analytical was the caustic - the iconoclastic novel of ideas: for this, Aldous Huxley gave the prototype.
The English inter-war novel, it seems now, was somewhat "out" in its concept of what makes tragedy. It did not finally diagnose the modern uneasiness - dislocation. Dorothy Richardson (still owed full recognition) and Virginia Woolf did best, in their stress on the interplay between consciousness and and the exterior world; but these two delicate novelists of the senses cannot be called, in their last implication, tragic.
The salutary value of the exterior, the comfortable sanity of the concrete came to be realized only when the approach of the second World War forced one to envisage wholesale destruction. The obliteration of man's surroundings, streets and houses, tables and chairs sent up, for him, their psychological worth. Up to now, consciousness had been a sheltered product: its interest as consciousness diminished now that, at any moment, the physical shelter could be gone. 

To be continued.

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Religion

With the discussion on whether women should be able to become Church of England Bishops now reaching its conclusion, I thought I should share this short video with you.


Friday 16 November 2012

Father Christmas and the Elephunk



London, England.

Christmas Eve, 1940.


“I’m quite certain this was the place,” said Father Christmas.
He was staring up and down the little street where he had halted his sledge and was pulling at his long white beard as he did so. It was the kind of street that would be called a cul-de-sac, with only one entrance and a brick wall at the other end, and there was just room on each side for six houses.
But now Father Christmas could see no houses at all, only a heap of bricks and plaster, with here and there the leg of an armchair, the back of a sofa, or the iron frame of a bed with a burnt-out mattress protruding from it. It was only where the brilliant moon lit these up that he could see clearly what they were, and it seemed that at this sight he was greatly distressed.
He kept pulling his beard and looking up to see the name of the road on the broken wall of the last house, the shell of which was still left, but even that was in shadow.
“There were sixteen children here,” said Father Christmas sadly. “It was my favourite road in all London.” He spoke half to himself and half to Ready and Willing, the magnificent reindeer that drew the Christmas sledge. They were tossing their horns in their bewilderment, because they could no more make up their minds about what to do than could Father Christmas.

While he was thinking, Father Christmas pushed back the cloak which made him invisible, as well as unheard, and went on talking aloud.
“They’ll all wonder what has become of me as much as I wonder what has become of them,” he continued, looking at the reindeer as if they might have something to suggest. And indeed they would have done so if they could have thought of anything, for all the year they had been looking forward to this night of Christmas Eve, when the gnomes of fairyland would put on their silver harness and they would set out on their wonderful journey with the sledge full of toys that never seemed to come to an end until every child in Christendom had had his or her share.
All they could do now was to shake their heads until their silver bells tinkled and clashed, and the shadow of their horns was like the shadow of a twisted rope being moved from side to side.
But at the sound of Father Christmas’s voice, which, now that he had thrown off his cloak, could be heard by anyone who chanced to be near, there was a little rustle among the rubbish in one of the heaps, and a small boy – a very little boy indeed – came slowly towards him, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. He was a very dirty little boy, and his clothes had been torn by grubbing about in the heap of broken things. His face was stained with tears, and it was quite evident that no one had given or lent him a handkerchief.
“Please,” he said, catching Father Christmas by his robe, “have you seen my skin elephunk?”
Father Christmas looked down at him and a very kind twinkle came into his blue eyes. He did not even draw back the hood of his cloak, for here was a child in trouble, and nobody knows better than Father Christmas how to put things right again.

First he drew out his big white handkerchief and wiped the grubby little face, and then he answered.
“I haven’t seen anything yet,” he said, except heaps of rubbish. But perhaps we may be able to find it if we try very hard. It’s quite possible that it may have joined the other elephants in my sledge. There are millions of elephants, you know, only you won’t see them all at once!”
Billy – for that was the little boy’s name – shook his head.
“I fink,” he said, “he would have waited until I came back, unless he’s been bombed again and had to go to the hospital. Please, are you an Air Raid Warden?”
Father Christmas shook his head. He was standing in the shadow so that Billy could not see him very well. If he had he would have seen Father Christmas’s merry face grow sad and angry as he looked round the poor little street that had once been full of happy children.
“Where have all the other children gone?” he asked.
“Some of them went in the ambulants,” said Billy, “and some are in the Shelter. Granny’s there too – I came away when she was talking to some ladies. You see” – Billy’s voiced quivered and a dirty little fist went up again to rub his eyes – “I couldn’t go away and leave my elephunk all alone. He might certainly have been bombed if Hitler came back.”
“Well,” said Father Christmas, “I think you will have to go and ask my reindeer, Ready and Willing. They have been standing waiting at the end of the road and they have the brightest eyes in the world, because they were born in fairyland. They could see a pin even if it was right under the biggest heap that Hitler ever made.”

Billy stopped crying in a moment and caught at Father Christmas’s hand.
“Oh, come, please come,” he said. “Perhaps, if there’s another air raid, Ready and Willing will go home to fairyland. Please don’t let them go until they’ve found my elephunk.”

“They won’t go until I do,” said Father Christmas, “but come along and we’ll find out what they have to say.” 

To find out what happens to Billy and his Elephunk click Here

Thursday 15 November 2012

Sorry Mummy

Mummy has gone to the shops. Daddy and me are watching cartoons on the television. We like to watch the cartoons. When mummy gets back we will be having a birthday tea. My birthday tea. The cake is on the table with eight candles, and a picture of Tigger is on the icing. I love Tigger, he's so funny. Daddy explained to me why mummy had been grumpy, he told me that it wasn't my fault, and that I shouldn't worry. I can't wait to open my presents, they are all wrapped up and waiting in the dining-room. I was going to have a party with lots of my friends coming round but mummy told me that I had been a bad girl so I should be glad that I was having a birthday at all. I had a bad dream last night, and I think I was screaming which was probably why mummy and daddy woke up. Daddy came into my room and sang a song about Jack and Jill, but mummy stopped him. I think I screamed again and mummy stopped me. Mummy seems much happier now. Me and daddy just watch cartoons.

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Mickey Spillane Interview from 1967

This interview appeared in the September, 1967 issue of Books and Bookman. This is just a short extract, if any fans of Mickey Spillane would like to purchase the original issue feel free to contact me.

My father was an Irish bartender. I was brought up in the time of the depression. I had to scratch and crawl my way up. It was a very tough Polack neighbourhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and I was an only child with no big brothers to call on. I took my lumps by myself and found that with a banana stalk in my hands I could take care of myself quite well. What we call Instant Education. But I've never been overly aggressive. Never had to be. I'm gregarious, I like people. I don't go down and get into big brawls. I've never had anybody come up to me and say, 'Hey, you're Mike Hammer. Let's see how tough you are.' No, they say, 'Hi, Mike. How about having a drink with me?' A lot safer and a lot more satisfying.

Slicks and Pulps  

I started in what we call the slicks and you call the glossies. It was 1935 and I was 17, but I'd already been from a kid on the typewriter - turning out stories, school plays, things like that. Whe I got out of High School I went right into it. I was all ready for it. I turned out my first stories and got everything sold. I never had anything rejected.
But the trouble with the slicks was that you had so much picayune work to do, as a result of this editorial opinion and what-all. I never got bugged too much by editorial opinion, but what little they gave me I disagreed with, so I went into the pulps. Let's say it was a lower class of work, but the income was better. You didn't have a lot of editorial nonsense. You could go a little further into the fields of violence and sex, as you might call it, which wasn't as it is today. I don't really go for sex and violence unless it's necessary.
From the pulps I went into the comic book field, where again you're working your way down statuswise, but working your way up economically. I was one the group of people who originally initiated comic books. Costume things - Captain Marvel, Captain America, those things. We wrote story line, captions, instructions to the artists, action - it's just like writing a television script. We had a two page story I used to write, mainly so they could carry only fourth-class mailing charges. I used to have a big Mickey Spillane by-line. Out of that arose some trouble one day......

To be continued

Sunday 11 November 2012

My Homemade Movie Trailer

I thought I would attempt to make a short promotional movie trailer for my Christmas Story, Father Christmas and the Elephunk. I don't think Steven Spielberg will lose any sleep, but here it is for your "enjoyment."


Tuesday 6 November 2012

Grazia Deledda

A brief outline of the sadly long-forgotten Grazia Deledda, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927.

When the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to the Italian novelist Grazia Deledda it meant much more to her than it did to many previous laureates whose literary work had already brought them affluence. For conscientious artist as she was, Grazia Deledda had never been a "best seller," and the merits of her books were out of all proportion to the money she ever received for writing them. In 1927 she received six thousand pounds, which at the time was calculated at over half a million lire. So the Nobel Prize meant that Grazia and her family could for once live in comfort and security.
Her undoubted masterpiece is Cenere, ("Ashes"), which with its simple plot reproduces with convincing truth the manners and thoughts of the Sardinian peasant.

If you love to read beautifully written books find a copy, and immerse yourself in quality.

Free Book Promotion

I have just begun to use my website "Look 4 Books" to help promote my own, and some of my Twitter followers self-published books. This service is totally FREE of charge, and will always remain free of charge. So if you would like your own book featured on "Look 4 Books" feel free to contact me via my Twitter account and I will do the rest. All I ask in return for this service is that you occasionally mention "Look 4 Books" in one of your tweets, or place a link on your blog, or website. This free promotion is only available to self-published authors.

Monday 5 November 2012

Self-Publishing and Reviews

Over the last few weeks I have begun to self-publish a few of my short stories on Amazon for Kindle. During this period I have also been reading quite a few self-published novels to try and ascertain the general quality of the work on offer. Like many would be customers of Kindle books I like to read the reviews of the work that I'm considering paying for before making my purchase. Yesterday I decided to buy four books all of which had 5 Star reviews, and all of these reviews painted a picture of these books as being something of a literary masterpiece, up there with the likes of Crime and Punishment and Oliver Twist. Sadly I must report that all four books fell well short of greatness, in fact they appeared to have been written by people who have never heard of punctuation, or with any ability whatsoever to tell a story.
I do realise that there is a huge temptation on the part of authors to get family and friends to write glowing reviews of their work, but if this practice becomes widespread and uncontrolled, it could turn the whole business of self-publishing into a joke in the eyes of the general public, and jeopardise the very future of this wonderful new outlet for would be writers. 

Friday 2 November 2012

Oh When The Saints

A Short Story by Gary Walker.

Everyone in Lowestoft knew Jimmy.
He could be seen on most mornings hurrying round the town, head down, chattering to himself, carrying his brown attache case. If anyone spoke he nodded, pointed repeatedly to himself and grinned: 'Me, Jimmy.' Otherwise he bothered no one.
He was small, with black spiky hair and darting eyes set in a tiny nut-brown face. Winter or summer, he wore the same blue suit, red pullover and bow tie. His widowed mother had looked after him all his thirty years and saw to it that he appeared on the streets every day clean and tidy, with three pound coins in his pocket. Jimmy never needed it. There wasn't a shopkeeper who hadn't at one time treated him, or a citizen who hadn't gone out of his way to help. If they laughed at him it was in a kindly, tolerant way, looking on him, not as some halfwit, but as one who's mind was different from theirs. Almost, they envied him, he was so happy with his lot.
His little case contained three items only: the first a tin of polish, the second a brush, for Jimmy loved nothing better than to shine his shoes. It was the third article in his case, however that gave Jimmy the most joy. He wouldn't let anyone touch it. Not even his mother. It was his. 'Me, mine. Me' Jimmy,' he'd say. Lovingly he'd show it to anyone - his telescopic silver-plated bandmaster's conducting baton.
Jimmy's greatest delight in all the world was to go down to the Market Square, or across to the park, and imitate Bandmaster George Fuller leading his men. If the band played Oh when the saints go marching in, Jimmy entered into seventh heaven. It didn't matter a scrap to him that he'd beat time so fast his stick would become a silver blur in the air; he just kept on going furiously until the band caught up with him and they could all finish together. When the applause came it was as much for him as the bandsmen, Jimmy thought, and no one begrudged him such private glory.
One day Jimmy lost his baton - stolen for a giggle by a group of youths as he knelt to polish his shoes in the High Street. A second only, off guard, and the stick and the thieves were gone. Jimmy went wild. He tore his hair, and ran round in circles, shouting what he believed to be bad words. For two days he was inconsolable. Mile after mile he ran round the town, searching everywhere, his little body full of terrible despair. Then he saw a man with a case similar to his own and attacked him. The police were called and they took Jimmy home to his mother. The policeman promised Jimmy he would leave no stone unturned in searching for his stolen baton.
Within twelve hours the baton was found and returned, and Jimmy's agony was over. No names were mentioned and no one was prosecuted, but Danny Snyder, and his mate over the following weeks had more flat tyres in their scooters than the rest of the town put together. After that Jimmy was more careful than ever. He slept with his baton under his pillow.
Two months after Jimmy had seen his baton returned it was to be the night of The Grand Festival of Music, held every year at the Church Hall. Jimmy sat with his mother at the back of the hall, resplendent in a new suit, with his precious case safely stowed between his legs. He realised it wasn't proper on this occasion to conduct with his own baton, but was content to help the band along by beating time unobtrusively in his lap, using both fore-fingers and a lot of concentration. In this way the band got through Selections from Showboat and the James Bond Theme Tunes. Then it came time for the big finale with George Fuller as Bandmaster. George called upon Danny Snyder, as the youngest member of the band to conduct his fellow bandsmen in the playing of Oh when the saints go marching in.
Danny Snyder stepped from his seat in the cornet section, but no further.
Someone in the gallery shouted: 'Never mind about Danny Snyder. What about Jimmy? What about Jimmy? Give him the honour!' For a moment there was stunned silence in the hall.....then just as suddenly everyone started clapping and cheering, simultaneously struck by the brilliant rightness of the suggestion. 'Yes,' they all cried, turning round in Jimmy's direction, urging him forward. 'Come on, Jimmy, bring your baton!'
The vicar didn't like the idea, nor George Fuller, but it was difficult in an instant to do anything without appearing less than Christian. And in seconds it was impossible. When it became clear to Jimmy that he was being asked to conduct the band for real with his own Bandmaster's baton, there was no stopping him.
He was now in the aisle, and marching forward. Cheers carried him all the way to the platform on the stage, and not one person in the hall could doubt this was to be Jimmy's finest hour.
He had watched George Fuller often enough to know how to start by tapping the music stand for attention, and this gesture he copied perfectly.
Instruments at the ready, tongues prepared, the band and everyone in the hall waited.
Jimmy started.
Oh when the saints....he brought the basses in. Go marching in....the brass trombones. Oh when the saints go marching in. Oh Lord I want....to be amongst that number. WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN!
It was a glorious moment for Jimmy. Taller than he had ever been in his life, he was in control of his band. Full control.....until Danny Snyder's tiny revengeful pride became evident. With a wink in his mates direction, Snyder started slowing some bars, then rapidly increasing the tempo in the next, and in no time the whole band was playing chaotically out of rythym and out of tune. The more they tried to correct themselves the worse they became.
Jimmy didn't know what to do. It was beyond his comprehension. All he knew was that his beloved Saints shouldn't be sounding the way it was, and he could only think that he should beat even faster.
Someone at the back of the hall started to giggle, then another, and soon the whole hall was rocking with laughter. The braying band in front, and the bellowing laughter all around was the worst noise that Jimmy had ever heard in his life. He pushed his little fists into his ears to block out the bedlam of the world around him.
As suddenly as they had erupted into laughter seconds before, the hall froze to a silence. The Vicar stepped forward and led Jimmy from the platform, and his mother took Jimmy home.
Jimmy spent the following day sitting silently on a chair, his arms folded - as if he were cold.
Try as she might, his mother could not get Jimmy to speak, or to move. He showed no interest in his case, or in polishing his shoes. In the evening George Fuller came round to apologise on behalf of the town, but Jimmy showed no sign of knowing who the Bandmaster was.
Jimmy doesn't spend his days on the streets of Lowestoft anymore, he sits in his chair with his fists in his ears.

The End 

The Gaberbocchus Press

Individual flavour is the first impact of Gaberbocchus publications. The thing seems almost impertinently impossible. How this Press continued for thirty-one years, and managed to keep out of the rat-race is still a mystery. To quote from an Italian glossy: 'Every Gaberbocchus book is a little intellectual whore capable of doing you a lot of good in times of mental crisis. Men don't borrow Gaberbocchus books, they possess them.'
The first Gaberbocchus publication was Aesop: The Fox and the Eagle and the Eagle and the Fox, which appeared in 1948, and was hand-printed by the directors of the firm, Stefan and Franciszka Thermerson. (Gwen Barnard, the abstract painter, did not become the third co-director until 1953.) From the very start Gaberbocchus were concerned with best books and not best sellers.
Will we ever see the like of Gaberbocchus again? I very much doubt it.

Thursday 1 November 2012

Short-Story Writing

One vital point in their construction.

The beginning to the short story is what hair is to a woman's appearance. An ugly or unbecoming hairstyle sat on the head of an otherwise beautiful lady gives much the same first impression about her overall appearance as does a poor, inartistic, or overwrought opening to a short story.

Never explain or apologize.

A short story that begins with an explanation or an apology is unpardonably inartistic and dull; while the writer who starts with a bit of overwhelming excitement is very soon obliged to climb down to sobriety in order to "begin." The master story-tellers put a great deal of art into their openings. In their minds, evidently, they conceive and perceive their plots in the most lucid way, and then proceed to give them out with a like lucidity, beginning with a deft, concise "pen-and-ink" sketch of either an out standing character or the setting, or else of character and setting combined.

Tuesday 30 October 2012

My Book Covers





Here are four of the book covers that I have designed and made myself before using them for my self-published Kindle books. Some of them are undoubtedly better than others. If there are any authors out there who are struggling to get a design for their own book, and would like me to have a go at designing one for them FREE of charge, please don't hesitate to get in touch. You can private message me on Twitter.


Tips for People Who Give Tips

Blogs are full of people who give tips on how best to do things. They usually have a list of 10 tips for increasing your social media presence, or tips on becoming the best writer since Charles Dickens. When reading these wonderful tips, please remember if the individuals giving out these tips actually knew what they were talking about they would be sunning themselves on a tropical beach, instead of sitting in their bedrooms thinking up new tips.
That's my tip.

Friday 26 October 2012

The Poppy Girl's Husband


The Poppy Girl’s Husband by Jack Boyle. A short extract from a very rare piece of American crime writing that influenced writers, and movie directors from Raymond Chandler, to Francis Ford Coppola.

 Boston Blackie let the afternoon paper slip to his knees.
“Harry Dutton is coming back,” he said, with a startled accent of one announcing a catastrophe. “The Pardon Board has granted him an immediate parole.”
“Harry Dutton?” repeated Mary, interrogatively. Then as remembrance came to her: “Not Hairpin Harry? Not the Poppy Girl’s Husband?”
“Yes, Hairpin Harry,” said Blackie. “He’s done eight, nine – yes, almost ten years’ hard time; and now his coming back – to what?”
Blackie paused, his brow criss-crossed with the furrows of pained friendship and sympathy.
“Think of it, Mary,” he added, slowly. “He’s coming back after ten long years, and he doesn’t know what has happened while he has been doing time.”
“Doesn’t know?” cried Mary. “Do you mean that even in prison no one has told him? Why, it’s years and years since she….. “
“No one has told him,” interrupted Blackie. “One man tried it, I heard, but Harry choked him half to death with the words still in his throat. And since then Harry has done most of his time in the dungeon. No, he doesn’t know.”
Mary looked up at her husband with a helpless, awed gesture.
“If that is so, and he cares for her, Blackie,” she said, gently, “it would have been kinder if he had died inside – still in ignorance. Does he care?”
With the paper that had resurrected old and all but forgotten memories lying discarded in his lap, Boston Blackie stared in silence into the open fire. He saw the banquet-room of a once famous restaurant that had vanished beneath the ashes of San Francisco’s great fire. He saw a long table with great banks of golden Californian poppies lying against its snowy linen. The chatter of the gay company of the crook world gathered about it was hushed as a man rose from beside a young girl as luxuriously beautiful as the brilliant wild flower for which they had named her.
“Friends,” he had said, “it’s easier for me to open a lock with a hairpin than to tell about, but when a man feels anything hard enough, he can say it. That’s me to-night. I’ve taken a pal for life. I’ve married Polly, the Poppy-Girl; and she’s the best, the truest, the sweetest little pal any man ever had. So we’re going to play the old game together, folks – play it to the end without fear or favour, me for her always, and she for me. And I’m going to be as right and square with her as I have been with you who have worked with me, so help me God! Friends, meet my wife and …..” His voice had trembled as he finished: “I’m the happiest and luckiest guy who ever walked the streets of dear old Frisco.”
Boston Blackie stirred uneasily in his chair. The vision of the banquet-room faded. In its place he saw a court-room. A judge was on the bench pronouncing sentence against a man who faced him from the prisoner’s bar with troubled but defiant eyes.
“Fourteen years,” said the judge.
The sound of a woman’s hysterical sobbing came from the rear of the court-room as he vanished into his chambers. The curious crowd filed out, and Blackie saw himself alone with Hairpin Harry Dutton and a woman who held a tiny boy in her arms and cried heartbrokenly against her husband’s breast.
“It’s tough luck, Blackie,” said the sentenced man, kissing the girl with the tenderness of great love. “It’s hard to leave her like this, but – fate is fate. Anyway, I’ve enough banked to take care of her while I’m doing time, even if I do it all. On the first of every month, all she has to do is step down to the bank and draw a hundred-dollar note. That’ll keep her and the boy. I’d put it all in her name now, but she’s only a kid and can’t manage money any better than a baby. So I’m playing safe for her, and I’ll go up, taking along the comfort of knowing she is drawing that little old century note every month while she and the boy are waiting for me to come home. Fourteen years! It’s a long, long time, Blackie, when a man’s waiting to get back to a wife like Polly and a boy like ours.”
He stooped and kissed the baby in the woman’s arms, then held his wife against his breast, soothing her grief until the sheriff’s deputies beckoned him to them. A door clanged behind him, and Hairpin Harry Dutton vanished from the world of living men.

“Did he care for her, Blackie?” repeated Mary. Blackie roused himself from his reverie and brushed a hand across his eyes as if to sweep away the visions of the past.
“He care for her so much.” He said, slowly, “that someone must tell him before he comes back. No one but I will think of it. If I catch the midnight mail, I can be at Folsom in the morning to meet him. Pack my grip, Mary.”
From the crossroads at the foot of the grade, Boston Blackie saw a figure turn the crest of the ridge that encircles Folsom Penitentiary. Even at a distance a glance identified him as a convict in his first hour of restored freedom.
The man came on hurrying eagerly. Blackie, watching from the roadside, saw that he walked with a painfully awkward limping gait in which the right leg lagged and was dragged forward at each step with seeming effort.
As the man approached, Blackie stared more curiously.
“Is this Harry?” he thought. “Can it be? He should be young even after ten lost years, and this man is old, bent, grey, hopelessly broken. What a wreck!”
The freed convict was quite close now. He walked with the unsteady feebleness of atrophied muscles. His face was a ghastly, corpselike hue. As he lifted his hat to mop a brow dripping with the effort of unfamiliar exercise, Blackie saw that his once black hair was shot with patches – not streaks – of white. His hands, and the wrists which showed below the too short sleeves of his coat, were fleshless and curiously withered, like plants that had slowly died for lack of sunlight.
Hairpin Harry Dutton had taken youth with him when he had entered Folsom. He was returning now to a world that had all but forgotten him.
Boston Blackie stepped into the roadway and extended both hands.
“Welcome back, Harry,” he said. The oppressing knowledge of what he had to tell kept Blackie from saying, “Welcome home.”
Hairpin Harry stopped and stared: and then, as recognition came to him, he flung himself into his friend’s arms in almost womanly abandonment to joy.
“Blackie,” he cried. “My old pal. Blackie, here to welcome me back! Where is Polly and the boy? Waiting at the railway station, eh, Blackie – waiting there for me now to wipe out with a kiss and a hug all memory of the nine years ten months and twenty-one days I have been away? Come, Blackie, come! I can’t wait; I can’t speak; I can’t even think until I have seen them.....”

This incredibly rare Novelette wriiten by the man that pioneered great American gangster fiction is now available on Amazon Kindle. BOSTON BLACKIE

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Hatchard's Bookshop

This fascinating article is taken from the July 5, 1919, issue of John O'London's Weekly.

Hatchard's. The Story of a Famous Bookshop.

A few months ago I happened to be staying with a friend of mine who writes successful novels. One morning at breakfast he showed me the following letter, which he had just received from a rich aunt:
Dear---
I hear you have written a new book. I am so anxious to read it. How can I get hold of a copy?
Your affectionate Aunt.
Later in the day I had the privilege of seeing his reply:
Dear Aunt
Take a taxi or a bus (either will do) and get out in Piccadilly just before you come to Prince's. Close by you will find a shop called Hatchard's. Go inside, put down six shillings on the counter, and in a loud, clear voice ask for my book. It is very unlikely that you will have any further trouble.
Your affectionate Nephew

I do not know whether the lady acted on his suggestion, but she could hardly have received more sound advice. For anyone who is baffled by the obscure technicalities of obtaining a printed work Hatchard's offers the readiest and most pleasant solution in London. "A good pull-up" for bookmen and book lovers, it has stood its ground for over a hundred years - a cheerful literary refuge amid the roaring traffic of the most famous street in England.

John Hatchard.

The establishment, in which Mr. A.L. Humphreys is a well-known character, is not, however, the original building. Hatchard's has wandered in turn from 173 to 190, eventually coming to rest in its present home at 187.
John Hatchard, the founder, seems to have been a most worthy and respectable gentleman. From his portrait, which still survives, one might easily mistake him for a bishop, and the description of his dress, given by a contemporary, certainly assists to bear out the illusion. Knee-breeches and gaiters, a black frock-coat of episcopalian cut, and a waistcoat buttoning up to the throat, was the impressive habit in which he was accustomed to dispense his wares.
For all his dignity, however, there were, to use a distressingly vulgar expression, "no flies on" John. Starting business in 1797 with only five pounds in his pocket, he pursued his stately and successful course until 1849, when he died, worth nearly a hundred thousand of the same desirable articles.

His beginning.

The foundation of his fortune appears to have been the publication of a semi-religious pamphlet bearing the spirited title, "Reform or Ruin - take your Choice!" This was the work of one John Bowdler, father of the notorious Thomas, who immortalized himself by purging Shakespeare of some of his grosser obscurities. That it appealed to the taste of our forefathers is proved by the fact that it circulated in phenomenal numbers, and gave its enterprising publisher that first lift forward along the road to prosperity which was all that a gentleman of his attainment needed.
From that time forward the house that John built rose steadily in fame and fortune. There was some fear about being a bookseller during the earliest years of the nineteenth century. It was a transition period in the habits of literary men, when the despised Grub Street atmosphere was passing slowly but surely into the gilded respectability that surrounds the modern author. The old coffee-houses of Dryden's day had gone the way of all earthly things, and such rollicking resorts as the present Athenaeum Club had not yet come into existence. When poets and writers wished for a little congenial society, the bookseller's shop, or the publisher's office (they were still practically synonymous) was their natural resort. It was at Murray's, for instance, that Byron first met Scott and that those two prodigies of learning Gibbon and Porson, struck up their majestic acquaintance.

A centre of gossip.

As a centre for literary gossip Hatchard's was the most popular place in London. The majority of its patrons were on the Tory side in Politics, and in an Edinburgh review of 1810 Sydney Smith glances at them with the rather unkind humour that you might expect from a protege of Holland House.
"There is a set of well-dressed prosperous gentlemen who assemble daily at Mr. Hatchard's shop, clean, civil personages, well in with the people in power, delighted with every existing institution, and almost every existing circumstance, and every now and then one of these personages writes a little book, and the rest praise that little book, expecting to be praised in their turn for their own little books, and of these little books thus written by these clean, civil personages so expecting to be praised, the pamphlet before us appears to be one."

"Holy Hannah."

It must not be imagined, however, that the whole of John's clientele could be dismissed in this contemptuous fashion even by the redoubtable Sydney. In the list of his regular and occasional patrons may be found names of practically all the leading men of letters and the most distinguished public characters of his time.
Macaulay, when only little Tom and the son of his father, was accustomed to visit Hatchard's and make his precocious purchases. Readers of Trevelyan's "Life" will remember the many stories of Hannah More, and her various endeavours after the intellectual training of the young historian. On several occasions when she sent him money to buy a book she recommended Hatchard's as a suitable place at which to make the purchase. This was not surprising, for "Holy Hannah" herself (as Horace Walpole flippantly christened her) was a great friend of John's, and generally employed him to publish her own improving volumes.

Famous customers.

In that delightful life of George Crabbe, written by his son and so justly praised by Edward Fitzgerald, there is a charming sketch of the old poet caught in the act of neglecting his clerical duties. Mr. Crabbe says: "Calling one day at Mr. Hatchard's in Piccadilly, he (Mr. H.) said 'Look round,' and pointed to his inner room, and there stood my father reading intently, as his manner was, with his knees somewhat bent, insensible to all around him. How homelike was the sight of that venerable white head among a world of strangers!"
Other famous customers included George Canning (surely the most attractive Prime Minister we ever had), William Wilberforce, the Duke of Wellington, and those two well known actors, Liston and Charles Young. It is related that the latter dropped in one morning and inquired the name of the curate who had on the preceding day read, or rather murdered, the lesson at St. James's Church. He then requested to have a Bible handed to him, and, in the middle of the shop, he first imitated the sing-song tones of the offending curate, and then in his fine, trained, sonorous voice, showed how the business ought really to be done.

The old order.

The interior of Hatchard's was, of course very different in those days from the up-to-date book-lined establishment with which we are now acquinted. The lighting, no doubt, left something to be desired, for oil-lamps were the only illuminant. In the centre, by the fireplace, was a table, upon which were placed the daily papers - the Morning Herald (not to be confused with the Daily Herald), the Morning Chronicle, and the Times. There were also some old fashioned chairs to match the customary occupants. All this was considered a part of the business, and as much care as possible was taken not to disturb the slumbers of those who, as the chairman in "Pickwick" would say, were temporarily "in the arms of Porpus." Outside the door might be seen another instance of the proprietor's kindly forethought. This took the shape of a bench to accommodate the flunkeys who rode on the platforms behind their masters' carriages.
It is pleasant to reflect that, although all these exterior features except the outside benches have long since passed away, Hatchard's still retains the same atmosphere of friendly welcome which characterized the old bookshop.

The Experiment

My review of The Experiment by Patrick Skene Catling. Published in 1968.

There are some novelists who skirmish uneasily amongst the meat-pots of sex, dropping in the odd explicit paragraph for the sake of potential sales. Indeed, I have heard it rumoured that some publishers ask for such paragraphs to be inserted, yeast in the unrisen dough, white bread for the hungry masses. Patrick Skene Catling apparently reasons that if sex sells novels, the bestselling novel should be all about sex.
So for his subject he has taken a university-sponsored research project into the sexual responses of homo sapiens. If the leer is there, so is a sense of humour, and it is this which makes his novel bearable, even funny at times. The central joke is that one of the research workers is a young virgin whose innocence almost verges on ignorance. The perimeter of the jest lies in the fact that the research subjects are all prostitutes who feel that for once their profession can be used to further the limits of human knowledge and their true golden-heartedness will be a matter of record in the scientific libraries of the world.
The author can be congratulated on his skill at thin-ice skating. A little more or less finesse and he would never have found a publisher to partner him on the ice, but he judged the temperature of the times so finely that he was rewarded with lots of gold.
Worth a read? Yes.

Great Old Advertising

These wonderful old advertising features are taken from the 1919 issues of John O'London's Weekly.

GROW TALLER
It Pays to be Tall

Short people are snubbed and overlooked.
By my simple private method you can add several inches to your 
height without violent exercises, without apparatus.
No risk or strain.
Full particulars free if you write at once mentioning John O'London, 
and enclose stamp for postage - John Edison, Ltd., 87, Great George Street, Leeds.


WEAK NERVES

Health and happiness are impossible where nerve weakness exists. 
My FREE BOOK (intensely interesting) shows how lassitude, 
depression, all nerve, stomach, or heart weakness, irritability, 
brain fag, self-consciousness, etc., may be positively cured, under guarantee. 
My treatment succeeds when all else has failed. BE EFFICIENT! 
Stop failing, and become the success you were meant to be. 
Enclose 2 stamps, mention ailment. Sympathetic and expert reply by return. DO IT NOW!
THOMAS INCH,
(Dept, J.O.L.) 74, Clarendon Rd.,
Putney, London, S.W.15.

Laurens van der Post

An short extract from an interview with Lauren van der Post conducted by Jane Taylor, and published in the October, 1970, issue of Books and Bookmen.

He has the distanced eyes of an explorer; but it is perhaps his paramount concern with what Gerard Manley Hopkins called 'the inscape of man' that has given Lauren van der Post's travel books their special quality. His works of fiction have been illumined by the same clear light - he has now written a book about war.
There can be few subjects that have given rise to such highly charged debate, to such searchings of conscience, as that of the world's first atom bomb, dropped on Hiroshima on 6th August 1945. In The Night of the New Moon, published on the 25th anniversary of Hiroshima, Laurens van der Post tells from his own experience something of the life of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp and in particular of the effect of the dropping of the bomb.
'Many people have written about the bomb but they seem to regard it as something that happened all on its own when it was actually part of our vast tragedy. I think this particular book of mine is concerned with the processes in man which have produced this kind of tragedy throughout human history. Either by commission or omission we are all in a sense responsible for war when it happens.
'One thing that is perhaps surprising is that I didn't write about it immediately the war was over, but this was partly because I was afraid that it might be used merely as an atrocity story against the Japanese by war crimes investigators - and that was the last thing I wanted. I believe that war only has a meaning in so far as it gives one the opportunity when it is over of saying 'All right, we have wiped the slate clean. Here is a moment of innocence in history and we can start afresh'. The awful thing is that people don't take it as an opportunity to start afresh.'

Monday 22 October 2012

Erotic Romancing

Andrea De Nerciat.

Although The Unexpected Love Lesson was first published in 1788 as Le Doctorate Impromptu, and Summer in the Country (Un Ete a la Campagne) in 1867, they are uncannily like each other. Both are in the form of letters from one girl to another, but subsist on a diet of voyeurism and Lesbianism with just a dash of heterosexuality. The novels are cool, limpid, and every so often slide into vacuity. If this is erotica then the vigilantes have nothing to fear.
De Nerciat was first translated into English for the Victorian pornographic journal The Exquisite, but the pellucid French writer was not altogether to the taste of 19th century connoisseurs - the 'goats' as Carlyle called them - as he lacked the animosity, the flagellation scenes, and the sadism, that the Victorians demanded in their pornography.
These novels are not crude, and there is a merciful absence of heavy breathing. But if the aim of pornography is to make the reader as randy as possible then these two books are not pornography. It may be that there is a clearly defined chasm between erotica and pornography. There is assuredly a gap between English and French erotica, and the publication of this pair of books would have confirmed the opinion of snob Victorian enthusiasts that French erotica was not amenable to translation, and that the truest of a gentleman was whether or not he could read French erotica in the original language. H.S. Ashbee, that prurient bibliographer of smut under the anagramatic pun 'Pisanus Fraxi', went along with this. Summer in the Country, he declared, 'is written throughout with that delicacy of expression only attainable in the French language'.
I would not describe either book as a sparkling masterpiece, but compared with their semi-illiterate modern equivalent they can be seen as charming light novels, that could be read by lovers of Jane Austen - although on second thoughts, maybe not.

Sunday 21 October 2012

The Triumph of Gallio

In my humble opinion "The Triumph of Gallio" by Walter Lionel George is one of the most underrated novels of the 20th Century. This is my poor attempt at a review of this superb novel first published in 1924.

"A Vision of Sin" dealt with the disillusioned cynic in the abstract; Tennyson wrung beauty from the pain and ended on a note of hope. In "The Triumph of Gallio" George deals with the disillusioned cynic in the concrete. There is neither beauty nor hope. The book is hideously powerful, arrestingly interesting, devastatingly clever, brutally coarse. After reading it men may like themselves the less and women may like men the less, unless they realise that the self-revealing Tarrant is made, not born, and that he is an intellectual Robot rather than a man. Tarrant is a young hired demagogue disillusioned with democray, then a pedlar; later a millionaire ship owner, later a bankrupt. At the end, once more a pedlar, he has stocked his pack with his runaway wife's trinkets and is walking fast to outdistance poor, faithful, pursuing Paula - the only woman he has ever loved - on his way to some no-man's land of consciousness where nothing can hurt him.
Find it, buy it, read it.