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The Spring Song
Excerpt from The Spring Song
'So fair a summer look for never more.' - Thomas Nashe.
Leaning back against the leather cushion of the railway-carriage, Griffith Weston was conscious of an endless panorama of fields and meadows, of green hedges and white hawthorn, and blazing, yellow furze. The whole landscape was bathed in a crude glare of June sunlight, and the heat, and the vivid glittering light, and the rushing train, made his head ache.
He wore a light, loose, flannel suit, without a waistcoat, and his wide short trousers left his knees bare. A dark olive-green silk tie brought out unnecessarily the sallowness of his complexion; his straw hat lay on the seat beside him. He was not in the least a handsome boy, but his expression was pleasing.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
'So fair a summer look for never more.' - Thomas Nashe.
Leaning back against the leather cushion of the railway-carriage, Griffith Weston was conscious of an endless panorama of fields and meadows, of green hedges and white hawthorn, and blazing, yellow furze. The whole landscape was bathed in a crude glare of June sunlight, and the heat, and the vivid glittering light, and the rushing train, made his head ache.
He wore a light, loose, flannel suit, without a waistcoat, and his wide short trousers left his knees bare. A dark olive-green silk tie brought out unnecessarily the sallowness of his complexion; his straw hat lay on the seat beside him. He was not in the least a handsome boy, but his expression was pleasing.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
326 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1916
51 people want to read
About the author
Forrest Reid
59 books15 followersForrest Reid was an Irish novelist, literary critic and translator. He was, along with Hugh Walpole and J.M. Barrie, a leading pre-war British novelist of boyhood. He is still acclaimed as the greatest of Ulster novelists and was recognised with the award of the 1944 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel Young Tom.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 27, 2020
Where's home? Where's his real home? Grif Weston, that is, the boy whose inner self finds a voice in The Spring Song. On holiday in his native Ireland one summer, about, say, 1916, Grif begins a journey that will take him away from his family and the conventionally religious society of which it's a part, and toward a pagan world of nature, the spirits that suffuse it, and the people along its periphery. For Grif is fated somehow to find a place here.
If this sounds familiar it must be said that Grif is, in many ways, the predecessor of Tom Barber, author Forrest Reid's most famous character. The difference is the detective mystery at work here, much in keeping with the times. Raffles and Bunny, Holmes and Watson too, are mentioned in these pages and serve as templates for solving the book's core mystery.
Yet this is not a detective novel, and not even a straightforward novel of adolescence. Reid's work is too complex to easily fit into categories. His style puts the novel beyond them. Here, in a desultory passage, the condensed precision of the prose shows itself:
The subtle prose also makes it difficult to call Grif a gay character. Sexuality isn't part of the story. It's a boy's adventure with a mysterious element to it. But how many times have those threads been plucked at in a Forrest Reid novel only to unravel some allusive or unseen content? Though the story is very much about the spirit world as opposed to the physical one, it's nevertheless hard to imagine after reading it that the author could have been straight or that the protagonist would turn out that way. Reid manages to tell us nothing yet tell us a lot.
The Spring Song is a versatile novel that can be read as a detective tale, a mystery, a coming-of-age story or, with an eye to the allusive prose, something much more. Here fans of Forrest Reid will find themselves on familiar ground.
If this sounds familiar it must be said that Grif is, in many ways, the predecessor of Tom Barber, author Forrest Reid's most famous character. The difference is the detective mystery at work here, much in keeping with the times. Raffles and Bunny, Holmes and Watson too, are mentioned in these pages and serve as templates for solving the book's core mystery.
Yet this is not a detective novel, and not even a straightforward novel of adolescence. Reid's work is too complex to easily fit into categories. His style puts the novel beyond them. Here, in a desultory passage, the condensed precision of the prose shows itself:
Pan and Syrix, the two stable cats, glided like ghosts from their hiding-place, pausing guiltily, every yard or two, as they crossed the lawn, bent on secret deeds that would never be divulged, seeking the shadows and moving forward stealthily, vanishing at last into the darkness.
The subtle prose also makes it difficult to call Grif a gay character. Sexuality isn't part of the story. It's a boy's adventure with a mysterious element to it. But how many times have those threads been plucked at in a Forrest Reid novel only to unravel some allusive or unseen content? Though the story is very much about the spirit world as opposed to the physical one, it's nevertheless hard to imagine after reading it that the author could have been straight or that the protagonist would turn out that way. Reid manages to tell us nothing yet tell us a lot.
The Spring Song is a versatile novel that can be read as a detective tale, a mystery, a coming-of-age story or, with an eye to the allusive prose, something much more. Here fans of Forrest Reid will find themselves on familiar ground.
September 20, 2025
Although there must be hundreds--perhaps thousands--of novels centered around children and the magical adventures of childhood, I know of only one that conflates such disparate elements as lunacy, the visitation of Grecian sylvan deities, a ghost, a juvenile detective, dognapping and hallucinations into its truly unique story line. And that book, the one that I just finished, is entitled, innocently enough, "The Spring Song," by the Irish writer Forrest Reid. Boasting an endless supply of charm, beautifully descriptive prose, some genuinely eerie moments and two memorable young leads, the book has surprisingly turned out to be one of my favorite reads of the year so far, despite having only learned of the novel's existence fairly recently. And if, like me, you also had not been familiar with this title before, a (perforce very brief) look at its publishing history will perhaps explain why.
"The Spring Song" was originally released as a hardcover by the British imprint Edward Arnold in 1916. The following year, Houghton Mifflin in the U.S. would come out with an edition for its American audience, after which the book would go OOPs (out of prints) for no fewer than 96 years, till the fine folks at Valancourt Books opted to resurrect it in 2013. Making this Valancourt edition even more special is the fact that it arrives with yet another wonderfully erudite and informative introduction by Mark Valentine, who had done similar yeoman's work in the publisher's editions of R. C. Ashby's "He Arrived at Dusk" (1933), Oliver Onions' "The Hand of Kornelius Voyt" (1939), and Russell Thorndike's "The Master of the Macabre" (1947). In his detailed intro here, Valentine gives us a handy biography of Forrest Reid, as well as an examination of all his novels. Allow me to boil it all down for you in three or four sentences.
Forrest Reid was born in 1875 in County Down, in what is today Northern Ireland, and it was indeed in Northern Ireland that Reid chose to spend most of his life. Before his death in 1947, at age 71, Reid managed to come out with 17 novels, as well as several biographies, two autobiographies, and several volumes on poetry. His novels all seem to deal with children or young adults, and often have as their hallmark a yearning after something elusive and, sometimes, barely sensed; a mystical desire for the Arcadian days of yore; a yen for a paganistic lifestyle; and a wish for the return of the Attic gods. (Trust me...Valentine expresses it infinitely better than I ever could!) "The Spring Song" was Reid's seventh novel, released when the author was 41.
The book introduces the reader to 13-year-old Grif Weston, who goes to visit his grandfather, the Canon Annesley, as well as his Aunt Caroline, arriving with his four brothers and sisters. Grif, a dreamy, quiet kid, is very unlike his peers: Edward, age 15; Barbara, 12; Ann, 10; and Jim, 9. Also coming to the canon's house for the summer are their governess, Miss Johnson, and Edward's school chum Palmer Dorset, who fancies himself something of an amateur detective. Grandfather's house sits in a pastoral setting outside of a village called Ballinreagh, which we must assume is in County Down. (The town seems to be fictitious, although there are towns in the area today by name of Ballynahinch and Ballynure.) During their first days of the summer vacation, all is serene for the Weston kids. We see them engaging in a croquet tournament, performing a play for the adults, and, naturally, squabbling among themselves. Grif, the dreamy loner, spends time exploring the nearby woods. He also visits the home of the elderly Captain Batt and his two sisters, and makes the acquaintance of the church's organist, a rather odd fellow by name of Clement Bradley, who starts teaching Grif how to sing. And then the troubles begin.
Grif's dog Pouncer is stolen by a few members of a traveling circus, forcing Grif to hop on a train in hot pursuit. After this days-long odyssey, the exhausted Grif returns home to his worried family. Confined to his bed, he begins to hear the playing of pipes at all hours. But what at first blush seems to be an actual visitation from the elder god Pan is later suggested by Mr. Bradley to be something much more dire; namely, the ghost of Billy Tremaine, the grandson of the Batts who had died at age 14, four years earlier, and who is now trying to get the impressionable Grif to join him as a playmate! As Grif's condition worsens, and he begins to grow feverish and to hallucinate some truly bizarre things, Palmer Dorset--brought up on R. Austin Freeman's tales of John Thorndyke, E. W. Hornung's Raffles, and, of course, Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes--goes into full detective mode. Aided by the kindly family practitioner, Dr. O'Neill, he endeavors to discover just what has been going on around Ballinreagh, and how Grif might possibly be saved....
As compared to any of the other great novels dealing with childhood experiences, be they in a realistic setting--such as Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1943) and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1960)--a fantasy setting--such as C. S. Lewis' Narnia books and Madeleine L’Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time" (1962) series--or something a bit more edgy--such as William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" (1954)--"The Spring Song" can stand proudly amongst any of their number. It is a compulsively readable, hugely likeable novel, and a very self-assured piece of work. All of the book's many characters are finely drawn, and all five of the Weston kids are given their own distinct personalities. Although Reid's novel does feature a madman and a reported haunting, not to mention a group of unpleasant roughnecks, it is never especially scary; rather, it is at times eerie, even otherworldly. The author's own experience with what he felt to be a near visitation by the Grecian gods (which Valentine tells us happened when Reid was around 16) is atmospherically conveyed here, in several truly lovely passages.
Grif, it must be mentioned, is a wonderful and sympathetic character, whether he is communing with nature, sensing things unseen, or risking life and limb to rescue his dog. As we learn about him:
"...The cool summer night seemed to stream into his soul. He loved it. He loved the dim shadowy trees, the stars, the sky--loved them in a way he loved people at certain moments, with a desire to put his arms about them and kiss them. Unconsciously, he loved the spirit that was behind them--that great eternal mother who sang to him while he was waking, and through his dreams...."
The young man, over the course of the book, not only hears Pan's piping, but also sees a dragon perched atop his grandfather's church, sleepwalks, hallucinates, goes out of his way to rescue a dragonfly, and, as mentioned, communes with the spirits of the wood. My guess is that he might one day become a big fan of the English author Algernon Blackwood! Grif is a rather odd, delicate little boy--"You're the queerest little fish," Aunt Caroline tells him early on--and the reader does indeed worry about him, especially toward the book's conclusion, when his chances of survival are by no means certain. And we are awestruck when the little dude is given three glasses of raspberry wine to drink at the Batts' residence and consumes them handily! (Hey, I might be hallucinating too after those three drinks!)
Acting as a nice contrast foil to Grif is the older Palmer Dorset, who comes off as more of a hardened adult than his 15 years might suggest. Dorset proves himself to be not only brave and more than capable of using the pistol he illegally acquires, but also the most clearheaded ratiocinator of all the characters here...including the adults! Seemingly fearless and always unflappable, he really is quite a young man, indeed. Forrest Reid would go on to write of some more of his exploits in his 1919 novel "The Pirates of the Spring," and I would love to read that one someday. Hopefully, Valancourt will be adding it to the seven other Reid titles in its current catalog. They all sound fascinating, incidentally, based on Mark Valentine's descriptions.
"The Spring Song," as would be expected, features any number of well-done scenes and set pieces. Among them: the hilarious play that the kids put on, based on an incomplete novel that Miss Johnson is writing; the extended sequence in which Grif hops on a train to catch up with those circus dognappers, trudges many miles through the summer heat, sneaks into the circus camp just before dawn, and is forced to flee, leading to an idyllic interlude; Dorset and Edward setting a nighttime trap to catch some crooks; Grif's nightmares and hallucinations as he lays tossing on his bed; the investigation that Dorset and Dr. O'Neill conduct in Mr. Bradley's empty apartment; and finally, a sudden conflagration in the canon's church. Other things to appreciate in Reid's accomplished piece of work include his lush descriptions of the Irish countryside, utilizing some truly splendid prose, and an exceptionally satisfying ending as the curtain is drawn down. The reader will surely turn over that final page of "The Spring Song" marveling at how fine a book as this one could have languished in oblivion for almost a century!
I should also add here that those entering the world of this book should be prepared for a few instances of century-old slang, such as "Bags, I" and "in a bate," as well as a few obscure references, such as to Eiffel Tower Lemonade and the "Boy's Own Paper"; certainly nothing that your Google machine couldn't help you with, however.
To my great delight, I have none of my usual little nitpicking comments to make here, and I do believe "The Spring Song" to be a flawless piece of work. It is, I hope, just the first of Forrest Reid's works that I will be exploring. At the time of the book's 1916 release, the reviewer with "The Manchester Guardian" wrote that it is "A very exquisite book, written with rare charm and great art," and this reader could not agree more. More than highly recommended!
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of books like this....)
"The Spring Song" was originally released as a hardcover by the British imprint Edward Arnold in 1916. The following year, Houghton Mifflin in the U.S. would come out with an edition for its American audience, after which the book would go OOPs (out of prints) for no fewer than 96 years, till the fine folks at Valancourt Books opted to resurrect it in 2013. Making this Valancourt edition even more special is the fact that it arrives with yet another wonderfully erudite and informative introduction by Mark Valentine, who had done similar yeoman's work in the publisher's editions of R. C. Ashby's "He Arrived at Dusk" (1933), Oliver Onions' "The Hand of Kornelius Voyt" (1939), and Russell Thorndike's "The Master of the Macabre" (1947). In his detailed intro here, Valentine gives us a handy biography of Forrest Reid, as well as an examination of all his novels. Allow me to boil it all down for you in three or four sentences.
Forrest Reid was born in 1875 in County Down, in what is today Northern Ireland, and it was indeed in Northern Ireland that Reid chose to spend most of his life. Before his death in 1947, at age 71, Reid managed to come out with 17 novels, as well as several biographies, two autobiographies, and several volumes on poetry. His novels all seem to deal with children or young adults, and often have as their hallmark a yearning after something elusive and, sometimes, barely sensed; a mystical desire for the Arcadian days of yore; a yen for a paganistic lifestyle; and a wish for the return of the Attic gods. (Trust me...Valentine expresses it infinitely better than I ever could!) "The Spring Song" was Reid's seventh novel, released when the author was 41.
The book introduces the reader to 13-year-old Grif Weston, who goes to visit his grandfather, the Canon Annesley, as well as his Aunt Caroline, arriving with his four brothers and sisters. Grif, a dreamy, quiet kid, is very unlike his peers: Edward, age 15; Barbara, 12; Ann, 10; and Jim, 9. Also coming to the canon's house for the summer are their governess, Miss Johnson, and Edward's school chum Palmer Dorset, who fancies himself something of an amateur detective. Grandfather's house sits in a pastoral setting outside of a village called Ballinreagh, which we must assume is in County Down. (The town seems to be fictitious, although there are towns in the area today by name of Ballynahinch and Ballynure.) During their first days of the summer vacation, all is serene for the Weston kids. We see them engaging in a croquet tournament, performing a play for the adults, and, naturally, squabbling among themselves. Grif, the dreamy loner, spends time exploring the nearby woods. He also visits the home of the elderly Captain Batt and his two sisters, and makes the acquaintance of the church's organist, a rather odd fellow by name of Clement Bradley, who starts teaching Grif how to sing. And then the troubles begin.
Grif's dog Pouncer is stolen by a few members of a traveling circus, forcing Grif to hop on a train in hot pursuit. After this days-long odyssey, the exhausted Grif returns home to his worried family. Confined to his bed, he begins to hear the playing of pipes at all hours. But what at first blush seems to be an actual visitation from the elder god Pan is later suggested by Mr. Bradley to be something much more dire; namely, the ghost of Billy Tremaine, the grandson of the Batts who had died at age 14, four years earlier, and who is now trying to get the impressionable Grif to join him as a playmate! As Grif's condition worsens, and he begins to grow feverish and to hallucinate some truly bizarre things, Palmer Dorset--brought up on R. Austin Freeman's tales of John Thorndyke, E. W. Hornung's Raffles, and, of course, Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes--goes into full detective mode. Aided by the kindly family practitioner, Dr. O'Neill, he endeavors to discover just what has been going on around Ballinreagh, and how Grif might possibly be saved....
As compared to any of the other great novels dealing with childhood experiences, be they in a realistic setting--such as Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1943) and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1960)--a fantasy setting--such as C. S. Lewis' Narnia books and Madeleine L’Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time" (1962) series--or something a bit more edgy--such as William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" (1954)--"The Spring Song" can stand proudly amongst any of their number. It is a compulsively readable, hugely likeable novel, and a very self-assured piece of work. All of the book's many characters are finely drawn, and all five of the Weston kids are given their own distinct personalities. Although Reid's novel does feature a madman and a reported haunting, not to mention a group of unpleasant roughnecks, it is never especially scary; rather, it is at times eerie, even otherworldly. The author's own experience with what he felt to be a near visitation by the Grecian gods (which Valentine tells us happened when Reid was around 16) is atmospherically conveyed here, in several truly lovely passages.
Grif, it must be mentioned, is a wonderful and sympathetic character, whether he is communing with nature, sensing things unseen, or risking life and limb to rescue his dog. As we learn about him:
"...The cool summer night seemed to stream into his soul. He loved it. He loved the dim shadowy trees, the stars, the sky--loved them in a way he loved people at certain moments, with a desire to put his arms about them and kiss them. Unconsciously, he loved the spirit that was behind them--that great eternal mother who sang to him while he was waking, and through his dreams...."
The young man, over the course of the book, not only hears Pan's piping, but also sees a dragon perched atop his grandfather's church, sleepwalks, hallucinates, goes out of his way to rescue a dragonfly, and, as mentioned, communes with the spirits of the wood. My guess is that he might one day become a big fan of the English author Algernon Blackwood! Grif is a rather odd, delicate little boy--"You're the queerest little fish," Aunt Caroline tells him early on--and the reader does indeed worry about him, especially toward the book's conclusion, when his chances of survival are by no means certain. And we are awestruck when the little dude is given three glasses of raspberry wine to drink at the Batts' residence and consumes them handily! (Hey, I might be hallucinating too after those three drinks!)
Acting as a nice contrast foil to Grif is the older Palmer Dorset, who comes off as more of a hardened adult than his 15 years might suggest. Dorset proves himself to be not only brave and more than capable of using the pistol he illegally acquires, but also the most clearheaded ratiocinator of all the characters here...including the adults! Seemingly fearless and always unflappable, he really is quite a young man, indeed. Forrest Reid would go on to write of some more of his exploits in his 1919 novel "The Pirates of the Spring," and I would love to read that one someday. Hopefully, Valancourt will be adding it to the seven other Reid titles in its current catalog. They all sound fascinating, incidentally, based on Mark Valentine's descriptions.
"The Spring Song," as would be expected, features any number of well-done scenes and set pieces. Among them: the hilarious play that the kids put on, based on an incomplete novel that Miss Johnson is writing; the extended sequence in which Grif hops on a train to catch up with those circus dognappers, trudges many miles through the summer heat, sneaks into the circus camp just before dawn, and is forced to flee, leading to an idyllic interlude; Dorset and Edward setting a nighttime trap to catch some crooks; Grif's nightmares and hallucinations as he lays tossing on his bed; the investigation that Dorset and Dr. O'Neill conduct in Mr. Bradley's empty apartment; and finally, a sudden conflagration in the canon's church. Other things to appreciate in Reid's accomplished piece of work include his lush descriptions of the Irish countryside, utilizing some truly splendid prose, and an exceptionally satisfying ending as the curtain is drawn down. The reader will surely turn over that final page of "The Spring Song" marveling at how fine a book as this one could have languished in oblivion for almost a century!
I should also add here that those entering the world of this book should be prepared for a few instances of century-old slang, such as "Bags, I" and "in a bate," as well as a few obscure references, such as to Eiffel Tower Lemonade and the "Boy's Own Paper"; certainly nothing that your Google machine couldn't help you with, however.
To my great delight, I have none of my usual little nitpicking comments to make here, and I do believe "The Spring Song" to be a flawless piece of work. It is, I hope, just the first of Forrest Reid's works that I will be exploring. At the time of the book's 1916 release, the reviewer with "The Manchester Guardian" wrote that it is "A very exquisite book, written with rare charm and great art," and this reader could not agree more. More than highly recommended!
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of books like this....)
January 8, 2025
I have the inclination to give it five stars, though I don't know if I would rate it so highly a second time round when I know how it is going to end. But this first time round it had pretty much everything going for it and was pleasurable to read from beginning to end (though pleasurable is perhaps not quite the right word given the dark side to the narrative). There are sections of the idyllic, nostalgic and warm, as well as the more sinister and tragic and melodramatic elements. It's beautifully and simply written.
November 26, 2021
Like reading in limbo - a purgatory experience on the brim between young adult novel without pretentions and a secretly sublime tale of eerie child adventures long gone...almost forgotten but still at the back of your imagination.
A foggy novel in its purposes until the last quarter when all those tiny little clues that spring out here and there in the early chapters converge dramatically to push the reader to a fast-paced and delicious ending.
A foggy novel in its purposes until the last quarter when all those tiny little clues that spring out here and there in the early chapters converge dramatically to push the reader to a fast-paced and delicious ending.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews