Whyte-Melville Delphi Collected Works of George Whyte-Melville Illustrated

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-80170-266-9
Verlag: Delphi Publishing Ltd
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 19, 5545 Seiten

Reihe: Delphi Series Fifteen

The Victorian novelist George Whyte-Melville is noted for hilarious novels concerning field sports, as well as for writing engaging social dramas and historical fiction. His novels take place in a period marked by changing societal norms, as reflected in nuanced characterisations and thoughtful examinations of class and culture. Similar in style to Surtees, Trollope and Lever, Whyte-Melville's inimitable works won him fame and riches throughout the mid-Victorian period. This eBook presents Whyte-Melville's collected works, with numerous illustrations, rare texts appearing in digital print for the first time, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)

* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Whyte-Melville's life and works
* Concise introductions to the major texts
* 20 novels, with individual contents tables
* Many rare novels appearing for the first time in digital publishing, including the author's first success 'Digby Grand'
* Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original Victorian texts
* Excellent formatting of the texts
* Famous works are fully illustrated with their original artwork - hundreds of images
* Includes Whyte-Melville's rare poetry collection - available in no other collection
* The autobiographical manual of horsemanship 'Riding Recollections'
* Features a bonus biography
* Ordering of texts into chronological order and genres

CONTENTS:

The Novels
Digby Grand (1853)
General Bounce (1854)
Kate Coventry (1856)
The Interpreter (1858)
Market Harborough (1861)
Tilbury Nogo (1861)
The Queen's Maries (1862)
Inside the Bar (1863)
The Gladiators (1863)
Brookes of Bridlemere (1864)
Cerise (1866)
The White Rose (1868)
Bones and I (1868)
M. or N. (1869)
Contraband (1870)
Sarchedon (1871)
Satanella (1873)
Uncle John (1874)
Katerfelto (1875)
Black but Comely (1879)

The Poetry Collection
Songs and Verses (1869)

The Autobiography
Riding Recollections (1878)

The Biography
Introduction to Whyte-Melville (1898) by Herbert Maxwell

Autoren/Hrsg.

Whyte-Melville, George

Leseproben

CHAPTER I. THE MORNING OF LIFE

“GRAND AND BUFFLER to stay!” says the “prepostor” of the Lower Remove-Remove, as he darts into our hall of learning on his humane errand. Right well do Grand and Buffler know what that simple sentence indicates; and ere the messenger of Fate, in the shape of a short and dirty lower boy colleger, or “tug,” has departed, they evince by a simultaneous hitching of the waistband, and wistful expression of countenance, their very disagreeable anticipation of the discipline to follow. Gravely the construing proceeds, as it has proceeded from time immemorial within those classic walls, and whatever “Henry’s holy shade” might think of it, I can imagine the pagan ghost of heathen Horace would be somewhat aghast could his repose in the realms of Pluto be disturbed by the blundering schoolboy’s version of his polished stave.

Let us hear how Bullock-major renders the dreaded ode. Justum et tenacem propositi virum, begins the much-enduring master, giving to the thrilling stanza that harmonious roll which shows that much, and often as his favourite has been murdered to his unwilling ear, he still clings to him with all a scholar’s devotion— “Justum,” etc.  “Bullock-major, go on!” Up starts the electrified disciple, with all the readiness of a professor, but deep are the misgivings at his heart, and clouded the impression on his brain; for Bullock-major, though as stalwart a stroke as ever feathered an oar round Lower Hope, and as straight a bowler as ever skimmed the emerald sward of the lower shooting-fields is yet modestly aware of his own deficiencies, and has a wholesome horror of being, like Grand and Buffler, “in the bill.” At it he goes, however, with changeless intonation and nasal twang “Virum, the man” — pause— “justum, just — pause — et tenacem, and tenacious” — (“Bravo, Bull!” says the next boy on the form, a scapegrace of some eleven summers)— “propositi” — a solemn pause — dark grows the masters brow— “Go on, sir propositi” — Bullock grows desperate: “propositi, of his proposition.” Hear him, melodious minstrel of Rome’s palmiest days!— “Sit down, sir! — put him in the bill — next boy go on.” And the unfortunate Bullock-major embarks in the same boat with Buffler and myself.

Ah! those were glorious days, notwithstanding the “bill” and all its horrors; some of the happiest hours that I, Digby Grand, have spent in my chequered career, were passed at dear old Eton; with just enough of school and school discipline to make the relaxation of play delightful, with every kind of amusement the heart of boy could desire — with boating, cricket, football, hocky, paper-chases, and leaping parties, or as we call them “levies” — and above all, with that abundance of congenial society, and those cordial friendships, so delightful to youth. No wonder that the old Etonian’s heart still warms when he catches sight of the walls of College — no wonder that he remembers, with a vividness after years can never obliterate, each characteristic of the long past scene. The dreaded Hawtrey, “my tutor,” by turns loathed and beloved; “my dame,” an object now of ridicule, now of affection; Windsor Bridge, Mother Tolliday, the weary and well-informed Spankie himself; the “ticks-up-town,” the sock-shop, the triumphs on the water, won with sculls and oar — the glories of the sward, when an Eton eleven sacked the second-best team of the Marylebone Club — all and each of these images are clung to and remembered in many a varied scene and distant land; ay, such early impressions as these will return to the imagination of the wanderer, even when the dearest and holiest ties of home are for a time forgotten. But let me also look back through the long vista of years gone by — let me live once more in memory the joyous days of spring, when the heart was merry and the step was light, — when the breeze of morning kissed an open brow, as yet unseamed by care, and lifted clustering locks, unthinned, unbleached by time — when to-morrow was as though it would never be, and to-day was all in all — without a care, without a fear, save of the consequences of some youthful scrape, ending in the fatal catastrophe of corporal punishment.

I was brought up a “dandy” — that was the word in my younger days. From the time I left the nursery, the first lesson inculcated on my youthful mind was, “Digby, hold up your head, and look like a gentleman.”

“Mister Digby, don’t dirty your boots, like the poor people’s children.” I lost my mother when still a baby; so my ideas of her are chiefly drawn from her portrait in the dining-room — a fair and beautiful woman, with large melancholy eyes and nut-brown hair: I presume it was from her that I inherited those glossy locks, on the adornment of which I have spent so much time and trouble, that would have been far better bestowed on the cultivation of the inner portion of my skull. My father, Sir Peregrine Grand, of Haverley Hall, was what is emphatically called a gentleman of the old school; that is to say, his weaknesses were those of drinking a great deal of port at a sitting, swearing considerably even in ladies’ society, and taking an inordinate quantity of snuff; but then he was adorned with all the shining virtues that so distinguished this same old school: he eschewed cigar-smoking as a vice filthy in the extreme. His morals were as loose as those of his neighbours, but his small-clothes were a great deal tighter. He had his hair dressed by his valet regularly every morning — and then he knew his position so well, and he took care everyone else should know it too. Nevertheless, though an ill-judging, he was an indulgent father to me; and I do believe his dearest wishes were centred in myself, his only child. Not that he thought much of my morals or my intellect, but he took care that I should be a good horseman and an unerring shot; and as some fathers would wish their children to be distinguished in the different walks of public life — as warriors, authors, orators, or statesmen — so was it poor Sir Peregrine’s dearest hope that “Digby should be a man of fashion — by Jove! the sort of fellow, sir, that people are glad to see, and a man that knows his position, Dr. Driveller — that knows his position, sir. I recollect many years ago, when I was a young fellow, the women called me Peregrine Pickle; I could do what I liked then, anywhere, and with any of them, but I never forgot my position, sir — never forgot my position.”

“Very true, Sir Peregrine,” said the worthy doctor, who would have assented equally to the most preposterous proposition, if made by my father,  “very true; when Digby leaves Eton, he must go into the army.”

“But not the Line, papa! says the precocious urchin alluded to. “Fortescue-major, at my tutors, says the Line is very low, and most Eton fellows go into the Guards. I shall go into the Guards, papa.”

“Hold your tongue, Digby, and hand me the biscuits. Doctor, ring the bell, and we will just peep into another bottle of port.”

Such was the substance of our usual conversation after dinner when I was at home for the holidays, and such it might have remained, without ever approximating the desired end, had it not been for an accidental circumstance which procured me a friend whose energy urged upon my father the necessity of taking some steps with regard to my entrance into life, and through whose instrumentality I obtained a commission in Her Majesty’s Service.

Everything at Haverley Hall was conducted upon a scale, to say the least of it, of lordly magnificence; and as during my boyhood I never knew a wish ungranted, or a request refused, which had for its object the further circulation of the coin of the realm, my boyish idea naturally was that my father’s resources were inexhaustible, and that, to use a common expression, “money was no object.” How could I tell the lengthy conferences in his private room — from which our old man of business, Mr. Mortmain, used to emerge with a darkened brow and a drooping chin — had for their object the furtherance of supplies, and for their argument the still-to-be-solved problem of making two and two equal to five? — how could I tell that from sheer mismanagement and love of display, year after year a goodly rent-roll was diminishing, and a fine property alienating itself from its natural possessor? Come what might, Sir Peregrine must have three servants out of livery, to say nothing of a multitude of giants in plush and powder. Though he seldom or never got upon a horse, the stables must be filled with a variety of animals, good, bad, and indifferent. Hating standing about in the cold more than anything, he was not by any means a constant attendant at Newmarket; and when there, wished himself anywhere else in the world; but that was no reason why every list of acceptances, for every doubtful event on the Turf, should not be adorned by the name of one of his racehorses, selected from a string which he never saw, but of whose length he might judge by that of his trainer’s bill. One of my first scrapes as a boy was not remembering how Euclid was bred, having confounded that gallant animal with a mathematician of the same name. As for going out in a carriage with less than four horses, Sir Peregrine would rather have walked, gout and all, than compromised “his position” by such a proceeding; and as all his ideas with regard to dinners, entertainments, house-keeping, etc. were upon the same scale, it would have required, indeed, the fortune of a millionaire to support this style of...