Sleeping Waters

by Ernest George Henham, Gerald Monsman (Editor), John Trevena

Father John Anger is worn down from a hard life as a Catholic priest ministering to the poor of London's slums. He travels to a remote village in Dartmoor seeking to recover his health by means of the salubrious air and medicinal waters, and he anticipates a long and tedious convalescence in the sleepy place. But Anger soon finds that despite the village's rustic appearance, it holds as much drama and tragedy as even London. Curgenven, a humpbacked dwarf and scheming attorney, has a diabolical plot to steal the ignorant villagers' land and resell it at a huge profit. Anger resolves to thwart the lawyer's plan, but he is not prepared for the dangerous secrets he will uncover, or the violent climax that his interference will provoke. . . .

Ernest G. Henham (1870-1946) published melodramatic popular novels as a young man before moving to Dartmoor for his health and reinventing himself as "John Trevena." Trevena was regarded as one of the finest novelists of his time, but today he has fallen into total neglect, and his books are all but unobtainable. This 100th anniversary edition of Sleeping Waters (1913) includes a new introduction by Prof. Gerald Monsman, who argues for reconsideration of Trevena as an important Edwardian writer and regional novelist as significant as Thomas Hardy.

"It would be difficult to find a novel more unusual or more original. That it is beautifully written, full of poetic passages, and contains many fascinating descriptions [...] will be regarded as a matter of course by those who have read any of [his] preceding books, and therefore know that John Trevena is unquestionably one of the most notable of living writers." - New York Times, Jan. 10, 1915

"The construction of the book is very artistic and is difficult to accomplish, but apart from its structural merits 'Sleeping Waters' has high value. [...] Our admiration for this author has been expressed over and over again. There is grasp and reach and power in [his] books [...] and they are books that place their author among the foremost of the English novelists." - Los Angeles Times, Feb. 21, 1915

"The story is magnificently told. . . . The vividness and monstrosity of the characters remind one of the Brontës." - Chicago Tribune, Jan. 13, 1915

"Sleeping Waters is a unique novel, and it discloses still further and more emphatically the genius of John Trevena." - Boston Transcript, Jan. 13, 1915

404 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1913

About the author

Ernest George Henham was a Canadian-British author who wrote novels at the beginning of the 20th century about Dartmoor and Devon, England. He also published literary works under the pseudonym John Trevena.

Ernest G. Henham was born in 1870 and his writings include a series of novels based on Dartmoor, the moorland in Devon, England, where he lived much of his life. He created a pseudonym, John Trevena, for many of his books. It was probably no coincidence that the surname he chose was the original name for Tintagel, the legendary location of King Arthur's castle.

Henham wrote more than two dozen books, which were published between 1897 and 1927. He was considered a recluse, but often used people he encountered in real life for the characters in his work. In addition to the United Kingdom, his books were also published in the United States.

Reviews

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books)]

Started out brilliantly, with some very fine writing sprinkled throughout, but the story and characters got so wonky farther in that I gave up just shy of the halfway mark.

[Zynab · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is such a bizarre book. Henham is a tremendous and original stylist, but his plotting is so hamfisted it makes me want to cry. A quarter of the way through with Sleeping Waters, I was bored and tired of being reminded of basic plot points (it was like the ghost of Henham pinching my nose over and over yelling “This is the point of book! This is the point of the book! Remember this ok??). 3/4 of the way through, I was shivering fearfully from the power of the phantasmagoric scenes he had crafted, the sweaty desperation of the witless hero that had grown to be my own. When I got to the last page, I almost screamed because Henham had ruined all the extraordinary work he’d done by treating his readers like children at the end of a storytime, spelling things out for them veeeery slowly and with a sneer, taking good care to crush their bright imagination and finer feelings! Oh my goodness was it a bummer, though he clearly meant to mitigate and explain all the horror and tragedy that came before. Right now I’m trying to imagine the psyche of the kind of person who would write like this; I’m just shaking my head. I’m not giving up on Henham and will be exploring a different part of his oeuvre but I need to recover from this mad morality-fantasy first.

[Boris Cesnik · Rating 2 out of 5]

As at Page 177 - so far two stars - will update as soon as (if and when) I manage to complete the reading.

[Christopher Robinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Weak.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for a British and American lit class. I enjoyed the story and characters. Travena (aka Ernest Henham), according to my professor, belongs on the must read list. After reading this book I agree with him.