In Brief Authority

by F. Anstey

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124 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1915

About the author

Thomas Anstey Guthrie was an English novelist and journalist, who wrote his comic novels under the pseudonym F. Anstey.

He was born in Kensington, London, to Augusta Amherst Austen, an organist and composer, and Thomas Anstey Guthrie. He was educated at King's College School and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and was called to the bar in 1880. But the popular success of his story Vice Versa (1882) with its topsy turvy substitution of a father for his schoolboy son, at once made his reputation as a humorist of an original type. He published in 1883 a serious novel, The Giant's Robe; but, in spite of its excellence, he discovered (and again in 1889 with The Pariah) that it was not as a serious novelist but as a humorist that the public insisted on regarding him. As such, his reputation was further confirmed by The Black Poodle (1884), The Tinted Venus (1885), A Fallen Idol (1886), and other works. Baboo Jabberjee B.A. (1897) , and A Bayard from Bengal (1902) are humorous yet truthful studies of the East Indian with a veneer of English civilization.

Guthrie became an important member of the staff of Punch magazine, in which his voces populi and his humorous parodies of a reciter's stock-piece (Burglar Bill, &c.) represent his best work. In 1901, his successful farce The Man from Blankleys, based on a story that originally appeared in Punch, was first produced at the Prince of Wales Theatre, in London. He wrote Only Toys (1903) and Salted Almonds (1906).

Many of Anstey's stories have been adapted into theatrical productions and motion pictures. The Tinted Venus was adapted by S.J. Perelman, Ogden Nash, and Kurt Weill into One Touch of Venus in 1943. Vice Versa has been filmed many times, usually transposed in setting and without any credit to the original book. Another of his novels, The Brass Bottle, has also been filmed more than once, including The Brass Bottle (1964).

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it isn't quite the ever-escalating farce that Anstey did so well in The Tinted Venus or The Brass Bottle , and is neither as packed with incident or as comedic as either of them, this is an amiable comedy set in England and Fairyland in 1914. The advent of the First World War leads to an author's introductory note excusing the use of German names from the Brothers Grimm, and an epilogue which abandons comedy and talks seriously about the war.

It reminded me in a way of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta: the mistaken identity/swapped heir plot, the clash between English culture and a quite different one, the way in which people who are out of their social class are also out of their depth and behave comically as a result, the mixing and matching of potential partners, the philosophy taken seriously to the point of absurdity.

The story involves a suburban English family with pretensions to be upper-middle-class; the husband, Sidney, is a partner in a firm which does something, I don't remember what (maybe it was never specified), but is ignored by his senior partner whenever he suggests anything; the wife is a social climber with absolutely zero ability at self-reflection or self-critique, and nobody has as high an opinion of her as she has herself; the older daughter has pretensions to be an intellectual, but has no real grasp of the subjects she goes to hear lectures about (including the philosophy of Nietzsche, which almost leads to disaster later on when she encourages a love interest to adopt it); the son would like to be one of P.G. Wodehouse's idle, useless rich idiots, but isn't rich, and has just been sacked from his job for being idle and useless and a bit of an idiot; only the younger daughter, who's about 10, is anything like a decent human being. Her governess, Daphne Heritage, is, it turns out, the heir to the throne of a fairytale kingdom, though she's unaware of this, and sells her employer a pendant she inherited from her father to cover a debt incurred by her late mother. The pendant is the mark of the heir, and so when a representative of the kingdom turns up, he mistakes the mother of the family for the queen, and they are installed as the royal family of Märchenland (Fairytale Land) in the capital city of Eswareinmal (German for "Once Upon a Time," if I'm not mistaken).

Nobody except the family themselves consider themselves remotely qualified for this job, especially the supposed Queen Selina, and they proceed to make a mess of things. The son, Clarence, is now rich... but still idle, useless, and a bit of an idiot, and bored because nobody will play golf with him and he can't get any cigarettes. Daphne is smart enough not to give in to his rather half-hearted attempts to woo her, particularly since his intention is for her to be his mistress rather than his princess (he doesn't use the word "mistress", but it's clear enough what he means).

Various people get engaged, or are supposed to get engaged but don't, and meanwhile the rather doddery old Court Godmother, who isn't as good at manipulation as she ought to be, discovers the mistaken identity. Since it was partly her mistake, she doesn't necessarily want to announce it, but she uses it as leverage to try to resolve the situation as she feels it should be resolved, with mixed success.

Everyone's plans go awry, in fact, since nobody is particularly bright or competent, and a difficult time is had by all before we get a good fairy-tale ending - somewhat brought down by the ensuing realities of the war in the epilogue, in which Clarence finally does become good for something.

It's not by any means my favourite Anstey book (at time of writing, that's probably The Brass Bottle), but it's amusing, and worth a read.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delight from F. Anstey, probably his best book. A social climbing family (with a mother not a million miles from Hyacinth Bucket) are whisked away to Fairyland where it is believed she is their lost queen. Unlike some of Anstey's other works such as Vice Versa, The Tinted Venus and The Brass Bottle this one seems to have been completely forgotten, which is a shame as it seems a much more modern read.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was some seriously entertaining stuff. Victorian era fantasy fiction, in which a upwardly aspiring middle class family finds themselves (incorrectly, as it turns out) abducted and made King and Queen of Faeryland. (This is not exactly a new, totally modern plot, folks!)

[Janelle]

The story looks like it will be entertaining, but I don't think I can stand a whole book with the mc.