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Eminently a Victorian

James Roose-Evans on Augustus Hare, Peculiar People: The Story of My Life

‘To tell the truth,’ wrote Augustus Hare, ‘had my books not been published, had The Story of My Life, and Memorials of a Quiet Life never seen the light of day, I should have missed even the most abusive things people say. One critic wrote, “What is Augustus Hare? He is neither anybody nor nobody, neither male nor female. Mr Hare’s paragraphs plump like drops of concentrated venom on the printed page.”’

Sam Pepys from Walworth

James Roose-Evans on Fred Bason, Diaries

It was the second-hand book-dealer Malcolm Applin, whose catalogue I find always opens doors and windows, who first introduced me to the Cockney bookseller and writer Fred Bason. Fred had been encouraged to keep a diary by James Agate who told him, ‘Keep a diary and one day it will keep you.’ It was, however, his friend and mentor, Arnold Bennett, who gave him the most valuable advice when he told the young Fred, ‘Talk it, then write it. If you say “ain’t” or “Cor, luv a duck!” then put it down just as you do in ordinary conversation. And that will be your style.’

Such Devoted Sisters

James Roose-Evans on the works of Edith Olivier

Edith Olivier, born in 1872, was one of ten children whose father was for nearly fifty years Rector of Wilton, on the estate of the Earls of Pembroke, outside Salisbury. After the death of their parents, Edith and her beloved sister Mildred were invited by the Earl of Pembroke to live, at a peppercorn rent, in the old Dairy House (which Edith renamed as the Daye House) in Wilton Park. When, in 1924, Mildred died of cancer, Edith was desolate. She wrote in her journal, ‘I cannot realize that I am going to be lonely always.’ Being a devout Anglican – each day of her life she went to an early Eucharist – she considered entering a convent, but at 52 she was told by the Mother Superior not only that she was too old but also that she was ‘too rebellious of mind’.

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