Writers through the centuries - 19th Century authors part 4

episode 12

"It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it."

Oscar Wilde

You can never be overdressed or overeducated.

Oscar Wilde

"Never give up… No one knows what’s going to happen next."

L. Frank Baum

"Nothing on earth can make up for the loss of one who has loved you."

Selma Lagerlof

"It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember this."

Rudyard Kipling

"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."

H.G. Wells

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wilde was born in Dublin (part of the UK at the time) in October 1854, the son of a medical doctor from Roscommon, Sir William Robert Wilde, and Jane Agnes. This poet wrote under the pen name of “Speranza”, born in Wexford. Oscar Wilde’s mother showed a profound interest in the fine arts, demonstrated by the busts and paintings throughout his childhood home, an interest in the neo-classical revival.

On his father side, Oscar’s ancestry took him all the way to a colonel in the service of King William of Orange (William III of England) and on his mother a bricklayer from County Durham.

The family has moved a year after Oscar was born in Merrion Square in Dublin's central south-east region. The new house hosted much influential and intellectual capable persons, painters, politicians, editors and academicians.

Because of two private governesses, Oscar learned French and German language, and he wasn’t even nine.

From 1864 till 1871, he studied in Enniskillen at Portora Royal School, his elder brother's alma mater. His avid interest in reading provided such skills in which he could read two pages simultaneously and read books quite fast. This pleasure for reading had also given him a gift for storytelling that his colleagues appreciated.

His interest in the Latin and Greek authors, translating multiple texts from authors of this period (antiquity), earned him numerous prizes.

Because of his intellectual capabilities, he obtained a scholarship at the prestigious Trinity College, Dublin. From there, he competed for another scholarship, which he easily won, to continue his studies at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Being in Oxford, he petitioned and was accepted at the “Apollo” masonic lodge. But soon after, his interest in freemasonry diminished severely, as it clashed with his increasing beliefs in Catholicism religion, appealing due to its more intellectual masses. He had an audience with Pope Pius IX and studied Cardinal Newman's books (a former Anglican priest converted to Catholicism) which provided much of his intellectual appetite desired.

After he graduated from Oxford, he returned to Dublin, where he met once more Florence Balcombe, the future wife of Bram Stoker (in 1878).

With a good amount of money inherited from the sale of his father’s house (his father passed away in 1876), Wilde moved to London.

He published several poems in various magazines, including Dublin University Magazine, which he later gathered into one book, that was not well received.

In 1882 he was asked by his friend, Richard D’Oyly Carte, to accompany him on a tour of “Patiente” through the U.S., but he was the subject of various caricatures, subject of anti-Irish parodies.

With some income from his theatre play: “The Duchess of Padua”, Oscar Wilde moved once more to Paris in 1883.

While lecturing in Dublin, he re-met with Constance Lloyd, and in May 1884, they were married. She was the daughter of a Queen’s counsel with an annual income of 250£ ( 27,000 £ in today’s money), but the family had luxurious tastes that overwhelmed this budget. In 1885 and 1886, they had two sons. While during the years of 1885 to 1887, Wilde had been an editor and contributor to multiple magazines.

In 1888 he published: “The happy prince and other tales” and in 1891: “Lord Arthur Savile’s crime and other stories” and “A house of pomegranates”, a series of short stories.

But it was the year 1890 that brought him the famous novel: “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was published in that year, in Philadelphia's literary magazine (U.S.) “Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine”.

The story was censored, the editor deleting some hundred words, but it still was considered an offensive novel by the English book reviewers as an attack on public morality. The story was revised and edited, “The picture of Dorian Gray”, published as a book in 1891.

But through this criticism, his popularity increased and another play: “Lady Windermere’s Fan”, performed for the first time in February 1892, brought some grand financial gains 7,000£ just in the first year ( over 750,000 £ in today’s money.

After several clashes with the Victorian society, he faced multiple trials, which was finally concluded with incarceration from 1895 to 1897 on the accusation of committing sodomy with several boys. In May 1897, he was released from prison and fled directly for Dieppe, France.

In November 1900, Oscar Wilde developed meningitis, dying by the end of this month. Discussions remain as to whether the cause of death was meningitis or syphilis.

Oscar Wilde personal life might have been controversial and much of a topic of debate, but what is certain that his literary capacity can be seen in the well crafted, powerfully written: “The picture of Dorian Gray.”

Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919)

In the middle of the 19th century, 1856 New York, Lyman Frank Baum was born in a devout Methodist family. His father had multiple labour jobs, out of which oil drilling was one of them.

He grew up on his parents' estate, called Rose Lawn, Mattydale, New York. His desire for literary art came soon into his life, and from a young age, he asked his father if he could purchase a smaller, cheaper printing press.

Alongside his brother, Henry put together a local, family newspaper, called: “Rose Lawn Home Journal”. This local newspaper was given to family and friends.

This passion to establish himself as a journalist, continued in his youth. When he was 20 he started breeding poultry and established a monthly trade journal.

From this, he pursued a career in acting, joining the theatre, and in 1880 his father built him a theatre in Richburg, New York where Baum could write plays and gathered a company to act in them. 2 years later he married Maud Gage.

The family moved in 1888 Baum moved to Dakota, where he opened a store called: “Baum’s Bazaar”. The experience in Dakota will later influence his description of Kansas in “The wonderful Wizard of Oz”.

However his newspaper wasn’t that successful and eventually failed in 1891, which made the whole family to move to Chicago, where he took a job as a reporter for the Evening post, in 1897 he founded a magazine called: “The Show Window”. In the same year he wrote and published: “Mother Goose” and 2 years later he published “Father Goose, his book”.

In 1900 he published: “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” which brought financial success and literary acclaim. Two years after the publication, Denslow and composer Paul Tietjens produced a musical stage version of the story, which fructified in a 1901 musical with the same name.

Under the same category of books, Baum continued his work, and published Dot and Tot of Merryland, which was a failure, and this broke Baum collaboration with Denslow.

In 1905 Baum thought of some plans for an Oz amusement park, but because of his continuous love for thatre, he continued to finance a series of cultural activities, including musicals which deteriorated his financial status.

In 1914 Frank Baum started his own film production, named: “The Oz film manufacturing company”.

On May 1919 he suffered a stroke, which caused him to slip into a coma, and died aged 62. His final book: Glinda of Oz, was published post-mortem, in 1920.

Selma Lagerlof (1858-1940)

Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlof, was born in Varmland in what was then the Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway. Her father was a military men and a well-to-do merchant. She was the fifth child, our of six, and a childhood poor health caused her to have some problems with mobility, out of which she would later recover.

Maybe because of this she enjoyed a bit more solitude. Selma was very interested in reading, and she wrote poetry. Selma was also influenced into literature by her grandmother who would often tell her fantasy stories and fairytales.

By the age of seven, she decided she would be a writer. Her childhood was also impacted by her father illness, and as he was a Christian she believed if she would read the bible from start to finish, this would save her father. Indeed this occurred when she was 10 and her father would live for another 17 years.

From 1882 to 1885, she studied in Stockhol, after which she worked as a schoolteacher at a high school just for girls. She had a good relationship with her students, and grabbed their attention by telling them the stories she heard herself as a child.

Her writing career started with a debut novel: “Gosta Berling’s saga”, while she was working as a teacher in Landskrona. Her talent was appreciated as she submitted some of the stories chapters to a literary contest, winning which brought her a publishing contract.

In 1900 she made a visit to Jerusalem which inspired her to write a book, under the same name, and was supported financially by the Swedish academy and royal family. Contemporary literary critics compared her writing skills with that of Shakespeare and Homer.

It was this talent that triggered the National Teacher’s association to ask her to write a book for children, which she did under the title: “The Wonderful adventures of Nils”, a novel about a Swedish boy who gets shrunk to a very small size, and gets to ride across Sweden on the back of his new friend: the goose. Going through multiple adventures he finally gets restored to normal size.

As on the beginning of the 20th century movie rihts were emerging for successful books, in 1919 Lagerlof sold the movie rights to some of the yet unpublished work.

On 10 December 1909 she won the Nobel prize. Further to this, in 1907 she received a doctoral degree in letters from the Uppsala University, followed by an honorary doctorate from the University of Greifswald’s Faculty of Arts.

Just after the start of world war II, Selma Lagerlof died in 1940.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

With an Irish Catholic descent, his father born in England, Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in May 1859. But because of his father growing alcoholism the family separated in 1864, three years later came back together.

Arthur was supported by a wealthy uncle, to go to the Jesuit preparatory school in Stonyhurs, Lancashire, after which he attended college until 1875, after which he attended the Jesuit school in Feldkirch, Austria, in 1876.

After 1876, he returned to Edinburgh where he studied medicine from 1876 to 1881. It was during this studies that he discovered his literary apptitudes and started to write stories.

Arthur graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and a Master of Surgery in 1881, finalised with a doctoral study in 1885, not before associating with a former classmate, George Budd in a medical practice in Plymouth, England, and from there he moved to an independent practice in Portsmouth, England in June 1882. In 1891 he went on to study ophthalmology in Vienna.

Although he was a very successful doctor, in his writing career he struggled to find a publisher for: “A study in Scarlet”, the first apparition of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. But his persistence was payed off when Ward Lock & Co accepted to publish his work, in 1886, but on a very small payment of 25 £ (in today’s money about 2,900 £).

Arthur Doyle took much inspiration when created Sherlock Holmes, from a former university teacher, named: Joseph Bell, which was observed by another fellow writer, called: Robert Louis Stevenson.

Another story in the same series, called The Sign of the Four appeared in 1890, but Doyle felt exploited by his publisher, as he thought they took advantage of him, because of him being a new writer.

In 1893 he dedicated more time on historical novels, and in 1901 the novel “The Hound of the Baskervilles” appears.

On the personal life, he married Louisa Hawkins in 1885, but she contacted tuberculosis and eventually died in 1896. A year after her death, he married Jean Elizabeth Leckie. He had five children, two with his first wife, and three with the second wife.

Arthur Doyle was fascinated by freemasonary, mysticism and paranormal, reason why so many elements are found in his books, but he also supported the detective investigations, based on deductions and attentiot to details.

He died of a heart attack in 1930, aged 71.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Rudyard Kipling was born in British India in the winter of 1865, Bombay. His father was a university professor at the School of art and architecture in Bombay. Moving to India his parents wanted to maintain a bit of England with them, hence the name of Rudyard, after Lake Rudyard from Staffordshire, England.

When he was five years of age, he and his sister Alice (who was three at the time) was taken to Southsea, Portsmouth where he stayed with a family that took care of British nationals children, who were living abroad. However, Kipling did not enjoy his time living with this family and felt like he was the victim of cruelty and neglect.

Reaching the end of his schooling, it was established that Kipling did not have the academic ability to be admitted to Oxford and as such he was returned to India, Lahore, where his father was a professor at Mayo college of art and a curator at the local museum, his son: Rudyard Kipling was offered a job as an assistant editor at the local newspaper. Between 1883 and 1889 he worked for local newspapers in British India. And some of his stories started to appear in the local Gazette, and he continued to write and publish his short stories. But in 1889 after a dispute with “The Pioneer”, he was discharged, sold the rights to his stories and left-back for London.

In London, he got some of his stories accepted by magazines, and for the next couple of years, he lived near Charing Cross. In 1892 he married Carrie Balestier, which was 6 years older than him. And took their honeymoon in the US, where the first ideas of “The Jungle book” were drawn.

In 1894 the book that made him famous: “The Jungle book” got published by Macmillan in 1894.

Because of some family disputes, especially with his wife’s brother, Kipling and his wife moved once more from the United States back to the United Kingdom, and 1896 finds him in Torquay, Devon.

During the first world war, he wrote extensive pamphlets that were supporting the UK and encouraged the freedom of Belgium from Germany. He lost his son, John in the war, in the Battle of Loos of 1915.

After an internal haemorrhage in his small intestine, he underwent surgery, but it was already too advanced, as he was having a perforated duodenal ulcer, and died in January 1936.

H.G. Wells (1866-1946)

Herbert George Wells was born in Kent, in autumn 1866 to a modest family, but due to the fact his family inherited some money, the family, therefore, opened a small shop where they could sell sporting goods.

An unfortunate event in Wells childhood actually turned him to literature. He broke his leg when he was 8 years old and in recovery, he started to read more and more literature, brought by his father.

Another accident, three years later, in 1877 where his father fractured his thigh, and therefore could not play cricket professionally, doubled by the fact the shop they owned was not doing all that well, the family had to put the children in small apprenticeship jobs for some extra earnings.

He also accompanied his mother in one of the wealthy houses, where she worked as a housekeeper and had a very vast library, therefore he read wors from Plato or Daniel Defoe.

Being of a brilliant mind, he was enrolled in 1883 at the Grammar school in Midhurst whereas as a pupil-teacher he studied further Latin. Further, he studied Biology in London. Until 1887 because of his scholarship, he was able to earn a weekly allowance. Furthermore, he established the Royal College of Science Association, for which he became the president in 1909.

In 1888 Herbert Wells was located in Stoke on Trent, where the industry was flourishing. The images and daily life seen here inspired him in his future writing: “The war of the Worlds”.

He went on with his studies and obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology in 1890. He went on to a post as a teacher for Henley house school in London, which he later left, but left him without an income. His aunt assisted him with accommodation and in order to get some earnings, he wrote multiple short humorous articles for different journals.

Between 1891 to 1894 he was married to Isabel Mary wells, but he later fell in love with one of his students: Amy Robbins, which he married in 1895. He had two sons with her: George Philip and Frank Richard, both of which died in the 1980s. He had multiple mistresses, with one he had a child: in 1909 Anna-Jane his daughter with Amber Reeves was born.

Wells is one of the pioneers of the science fiction genre. Alien invasion and time machines, which in current times have so much exposure, were introduced to the public by his novels. Even the term time machine was introduced by his book.

“Time machine” published in 1895 was the initializer of multiple books and movies that involved time travelling and enhanced the readers and viewers appetite for this type of stories. In the next century, multiple comic books would present the same type of action.

Next year, 1896, “The Island of Doctor Moreau” was published, and once more a new type of science fiction was introduced. The plot involved a mad scientist that is performing experiments on people’s and animals nervous systems, creating hybrid creatures.

Another year, another science fiction book. 1897 and “The Invisible Man” was published, creating once more a plot that would get repeated and retold. A scientist who through his research, accidentally develops the ability to reflect light and become invisible.

In 1898 his book: “War of the worlds” was published which became then released as a movie, tv series in multiple cinematic representations.

He influenced writers with his genre, and his literary works, one of them that needs to be mentioned is George Orwell.

Just after the end of the war, Herbert George Wells died in August 1946, aged 79 on unspecified causes.

Nihil sine Deo