The Position of Peggy Harper

by Leonard Merrick

Set in British theatre-land in the early 20th century, this is a tale of one man's quest as an actor for a secure wage and fame.

Christopher Tatham lurches from bit part to bit part, always hoping for the longed-for leading-man role, relying on the kindness of relations to keep him housed and clothed. A chance encounter with the enchanting Peggy Harper seems to preempt a change of fortune. Will they both attain the success they crave? Toasting engagements without ginger-beer, living hand-to-mouth, Merrick's seedy world makes for grim reading and when Peggy turns out to be as fame-hungry, vain, and vacant as she first appears, Christopher's lot looks unlikely to improve. In an age in which fame and celebrity are widely courted and craved, this book still makes for an intriguing and, potentially, cautionary tale.

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1911

About the author

Leonard Merrick was an English novelist. Although largely forgotten today, he was widely admired by his peers, J. M. Barrie called Merrick the "novelist's novelist."

Reviews

[Neale · Rating 4 out of 5]

'The Position of Peggy Harper' is Leonard Merrick's most accessible book (although the title may put off some readers – it sounds a bit ‘Perils of Pauline-ish’, although it isn’t). Published at the end of Merrick’s career, it shows all of his virtues in a relaxed mood, and is a good introduction to the themes that obsess his fiction - theatre, money, love, the position of 'new' women, the inadequacies of 'new' men - even if it doesn't reach the heights of his very best work.

Merrick has been seen as a ‘depressing’ writer, because of his commitment to realism, but he is more a compassionate ironist than a tragedian. Unlike his contemporary George Gissing – with whom he shares a sense of fin-de-siecle disillusion, a refusal to seek solace outside the world of daily life – Merrick is more likely to punish his characters with success than with failure, and ‘Peggy’ is a good example. However, even when his characters appear to get what they want, one feels that in Merrick’s world they are the exceptions, and it is their early trials that we feel and remember most deeply.

[Libri & · Rating 3 out of 5]

Christopher Tatham è solo un ragazzo quando suo padre muore lasciando a lui e a sua madre una rendita modestissima, che costringerà il ragazzo a contribuire al manteniento della madre. Per fortuna lo zio di Christopher è un commerciante di luppolo di successo, e può garantire al nipote un lavoro sicuro come impiegato. Un futuro certo ma poco soddisfacente, quello dell’impiegato, che a Christopher, il quale ha sempre sognato di calcare le scene, va decisamente stretto.

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[Erich C · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded down.

I liked this book less than Cynthia, but the writing is consistently good and the book was enjoyable.

Merrick flirts with naturalism but never quite gets there. I was reminded in some ways of both Lost Illusions and Nana: the struggle of the artist and the hypocrisy of the art world. Merrick's book treats similar themes on a gentler and less epic scale. His artist struggling to be true to his calling does so without a family falling out or a break with society, in between clerking shifts. Merrick pulls back from a spectacular opportunity to have Galbraith's failure match either the farce of Wopsle or the sinister wallowing of Fontan; instead, the character simply disappears.

Merrick seems to be too moral himself to even imagine the vicious power dynamics of the theater that Zola exposes so well. Small acts of professional sabotage, slight flirtations, the director's wife at the other end of the casting couch, bellies that are never quite empty, swollen pride - these form the range of Merrick's novel. In such a world, the game is safe, but the stakes are low.

p 65: Thanks to the ease with which human nature can avert its eyes from the uncomplimentary, time is referred to exclusively as the 'healer'. That it is the cynic that mocks love, friendship, ideals, and various virtues, believed to be lifelong while they absorbed us, we prefer to ignore.

p 71: "It's a funny thing, though, you know, if I had taken a glass or two this evening, it wouldn't have led to any ill results. It's only when I'm in an engagement that I can't stop. I can take a drink as rationally as anybody else when I haven't got to be at the theatre at night. I know when I've had enough then just as well as you do. But - it's a most mysterious thing - the moment a salary depends on my keeping sober, a single drop is absolutely fatal to me; it's like the taste of blood to a tiger."

p 80: It was at this stage that the ordinary young man ceased to make illusions for himself. He no longer strove to stifle repentance with the assertion that 'though he wasn't in love, he was very fond of her.' He knew that the tenderness of his kiss had been the tenderness of pity; he saw clearly that he had blundered the night that he kissed her first. But he was honourable, or weak enough - the epithet varies with the point of view - to believe that he would be a cad to own it to her. She had waited for him so long; she had waited because he had asked her to wait! The knowledge burdened him. That he had been very young when he asked her, that, in looking back, he seemed to have been amazingly young and mindless, even for his age, could not liberate him, he felt. Ethically, perhaps, he would be doing her a greater wrong to marry her than to confess the truth; but conventionally, the worse offence would be to tell her so late that he didn't care for her.

[Mark Rabideau · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is well written and peopled with interesting characters. Sadly, the plot is totally predictable.