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Modern Novel Writing: Or The Elegant Enthusiast
First published in 1796, Modern Novel Writing is a satirical attack on the sentimental and sensational novels of the day, as well as William Pitt the Younger, the war with France, repressive legislation, and government neglect of the poor. Edited with an introduction and notes by Robert Gemmett, professor of English at SUNY Brockport and an acknowledged expert on William Beckford, it is the first scholarly edition of this novel.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
About the author
William Beckford
311 books91 followersWilliam Thomas Beckford was an English novelist, a profligate and consummately knowledgeable art collector and patron of works of decorative art, a critic, travel writer and sometime politician, reputed at one stage in his life to be the richest commoner in England. His parents were William Beckford and Maria Hamilton, daughter of the Hon. George Hamilton. He was Member of Parliament for Wells from 1784 to 1790, for Hindon from 1790 to 1795 and 1806 to 1820.
He is remembered as the author of the Gothic novel Vathek (1786), the builder of the remarkable lost Fonthill Abbey and Lansdown Tower ("Beckford's Tower"), Bath, and especially for his art collection.
He is remembered as the author of the Gothic novel Vathek (1786), the builder of the remarkable lost Fonthill Abbey and Lansdown Tower ("Beckford's Tower"), Bath, and especially for his art collection.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 19, 2020
Beckford’s second troll fiction, what nonsense it was; both Lady Marlow and Mr. Merry was blamed for the flatulence.
(The full title of this work of fiction is: Modern Novel Writing, or the Elegant Enthusiast; and Interesting Emotions of Arabella Bloomville. A Rhapsodical Romance; Interspersed with Poetry. In Two Volumes. This is obviously much too long to repeat in the review without turning it somewhat Pythonesque, Modern Novel Writing will have to suffice. Beckford’s other two works of troll fiction also have annoyingly long titles and have been shortened in the same manner.)
Many, if not most, works of fiction seek to invoke some kind of feeling in the reader, though very few try for this feeling to be ‘annoyance.’ Annoying people is the domain of troll fiction, and it would seem that Beckford did quite enjoy being a troll at times. He wrote his first troll fiction as a young adult, Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters, which was a deliberate attempt at misinformation regarding his fathers art collection. Several years later came Modern Novel Writing and Azemia which poke fun at the contemporary writers of romances and Gothic fiction, including Elizabeth Hervey, his step-sister, in an eloquently childish manner, comparable to jeering someone with ‘this is what you are like’ and then making a face. Some critics attributed them erroneously to the poet Robert Merry, and when Beckham discovered this he tried to further this illusion by attaching an incriminating foreword to the second edition of Azemia. Other writers he gave a puerile treatment by including them in unfavourable ways, such as this take on the poet William Gifford:
It happened that on a fine summer’s evening I went to pay a visit without my mamma to a Mr. Gifford, a gentleman somewhat known in the literary world, and who has written a satirical poem called the Baviad. This terrible writer stiles himself the modern Perseus, is a little sour looking fellow but prodigiously powerful with his pen, for he is desperately severe, and though he cannot write a line of genuine poetry himself, yet he is extremely alert in abusing those who can. (vol.1, pp. 87-88)
But as far as this reviewer can see, it seems he didn’t get much of a rise from people, at least not in writing. And perhaps that was not entirely unintentional. The other aspect of troll fiction is comedy, after all – a good trolling is perceived to be like a good roasting in the sense that it needs to balance its insult with humour – and most contemporary readers seems to have thought of Modern Novel Writing as a parody, which undeniably it is. Hervey even saw the references to her texts as particularly flattering. What Merry thought of it is something this reviewer has been unable to discover, but he might not have been too pleased since he was having an affair with Hervey at the time. In other words, while the novel did a decent job of insulting the writers and consumers of the genre, most of them caught on to the humour and enjoyed it for what it was.
The story of Arabella Bloomville and her romantic interest Henry Lambert, is not much of a story really. It’s style is akin to the more recent troll fiction Atlanta Nights (by Travis Tea), id est a purposefully randomised mess,¹ but where Atlanta Nights used the mess to provide proof that the editing promised by a certain publisher (PublishAmerica/America Star Books) was non-existent, Modern Novel Writing used it to show how poorly skilled writers of romantic and Gothic fiction were. Parts of the text is copied from other books, including entire pages stolen word by word from The Encyclopaedia Britannica. Spelling errors occur from time to time, and though they are not frequent they have been crafted to be as much of a nuisance as possible.² Characters come and go without consequence, facts keep changing and contradicting themselves, completely meaningless words of wisdom pop up in the strangest places, and the actions of the two main characters are nothing but haphazardly introduced clichés; a side plot containing a separate tragical romance is also included, but annoyingly enough it is never resolved. With this in mind it is hopefully apparent why it is utterly meaningless to describe the goings-on of the novel beyond this: Arabella loves Henry, Henry loves her back, and inexplicable things occur to unnecessarily complicate this.
This review is based on the reprinting by Gale ECCO Print Editions of the first printing, published in 1796 by G. G. and J. Robinson. The reprint is made directly from microfilm scans of the original books, allowing the reader to experience them almost exactly like they were back in the late 18th century. This method lets the text retain an elevated sense of history, though sometimes it leaves it flawed, either because some of it is lost in the process or because the flaws were already present in the original. This edition is fortunate in having few of these and none that are so severe as to leave any part unreadable. There have been removed a few pages, but all of them were vacat pages used to separate chapters. It should also be mentioned that Beckford knew many languages including Latin and Greek, and had a tendency to include words and quotes from these in his works, though without explaining them. In the topmost comment I have included a translation for the few that have made their way into this one.
This is perhaps the strongest of Beckford’s troll fictions as far as comedy is concerned. This at least is the opinion of this reviewer, but it finds some support among the contemporary critics, amongst whom there were those who stated that they thought Azemia a lesser work than this. At least half of the laughter erupts due to the novel’s sheer absurdity and so it is likely that ones taste for such comedy will decide whether one agrees with this or not. The remainder is largely due to its inappropriateness, this including the ‘trolling’ itself. I end this review with a sample of such inappropriate ludicrousness, namely this description of Arabella herself:
Her bosom was the throne of love, full, firm, and fairer than the purest ivory (vol.1, p. 32)
1. It is difficult to describe the workings of nonsense and so this reviewer would rather include a paragraph as an example than attempt to make sense out of it:
The maid servant who had been sent up stairs for the Castle of Otranto, met Matthew the butler on the landing place, and being in the secret of Lucinda’s perturbation, asked him rather petulantly, whether Jim the groom had sent the parson the potatoes. As lady Di Martin came out of the parlour, she eagerly enquired if the Letters were come in, which very much tended to confirm Matthew’s suspicion, for as Captain Warley and his three sisters were expected to dinner, it gave a scope to the discussion. In the mean time Lord Mahogany, though one of the best chess players in Europe could not find his spencer, and as the key of the hall door had been left in the green-house, by Peggy Tomlinson the housemaid, so it was absolutely impossible to get the chaise ready in time. The confusion therefore was great in every part of that venerable mansion, yet the hapless Lucinda, profiting of the occasion, suffered herself to be led quietly to her chamber by the compassionating Countess; then throwing herself upon a chintz sopha she gave vent to the most lamentable accents of anguish and despair. Had the sentinel kept his word, perhaps nothing of the kind would have happened, for Lord Mahogany’s first wife was a cheesemonger’s daughter, and his eldest child had been born with a hare lip; this therefore was the only circumstance that could so materially have offended him. A vindictive mind, it must be owned, is a scourge to the possessor, for one of the greatest virtues is, that a man should learn to subdue his passions. (vol. 1, pp. 27-29; errors as in the original text)
2. The most vicious error is found on page 59 of the second volume. Here is found the French phrase ‘petit né retrousse,’ which roughly translates to ‘little born hitched up,’ which does not mean anything. Likely it is a misspelling of ‘petit nez retroussé,’ meaning ‘small snub nose.’ Those who know little or no French would surely have been perplexed by this, perhaps even appropriately annoyed, but the error is so slight and elegant that one might nevertheless understand why Beckford included it.
(The full title of this work of fiction is: Modern Novel Writing, or the Elegant Enthusiast; and Interesting Emotions of Arabella Bloomville. A Rhapsodical Romance; Interspersed with Poetry. In Two Volumes. This is obviously much too long to repeat in the review without turning it somewhat Pythonesque, Modern Novel Writing will have to suffice. Beckford’s other two works of troll fiction also have annoyingly long titles and have been shortened in the same manner.)
Many, if not most, works of fiction seek to invoke some kind of feeling in the reader, though very few try for this feeling to be ‘annoyance.’ Annoying people is the domain of troll fiction, and it would seem that Beckford did quite enjoy being a troll at times. He wrote his first troll fiction as a young adult, Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters, which was a deliberate attempt at misinformation regarding his fathers art collection. Several years later came Modern Novel Writing and Azemia which poke fun at the contemporary writers of romances and Gothic fiction, including Elizabeth Hervey, his step-sister, in an eloquently childish manner, comparable to jeering someone with ‘this is what you are like’ and then making a face. Some critics attributed them erroneously to the poet Robert Merry, and when Beckham discovered this he tried to further this illusion by attaching an incriminating foreword to the second edition of Azemia. Other writers he gave a puerile treatment by including them in unfavourable ways, such as this take on the poet William Gifford:
It happened that on a fine summer’s evening I went to pay a visit without my mamma to a Mr. Gifford, a gentleman somewhat known in the literary world, and who has written a satirical poem called the Baviad. This terrible writer stiles himself the modern Perseus, is a little sour looking fellow but prodigiously powerful with his pen, for he is desperately severe, and though he cannot write a line of genuine poetry himself, yet he is extremely alert in abusing those who can. (vol.1, pp. 87-88)
But as far as this reviewer can see, it seems he didn’t get much of a rise from people, at least not in writing. And perhaps that was not entirely unintentional. The other aspect of troll fiction is comedy, after all – a good trolling is perceived to be like a good roasting in the sense that it needs to balance its insult with humour – and most contemporary readers seems to have thought of Modern Novel Writing as a parody, which undeniably it is. Hervey even saw the references to her texts as particularly flattering. What Merry thought of it is something this reviewer has been unable to discover, but he might not have been too pleased since he was having an affair with Hervey at the time. In other words, while the novel did a decent job of insulting the writers and consumers of the genre, most of them caught on to the humour and enjoyed it for what it was.
The story of Arabella Bloomville and her romantic interest Henry Lambert, is not much of a story really. It’s style is akin to the more recent troll fiction Atlanta Nights (by Travis Tea), id est a purposefully randomised mess,¹ but where Atlanta Nights used the mess to provide proof that the editing promised by a certain publisher (PublishAmerica/America Star Books) was non-existent, Modern Novel Writing used it to show how poorly skilled writers of romantic and Gothic fiction were. Parts of the text is copied from other books, including entire pages stolen word by word from The Encyclopaedia Britannica. Spelling errors occur from time to time, and though they are not frequent they have been crafted to be as much of a nuisance as possible.² Characters come and go without consequence, facts keep changing and contradicting themselves, completely meaningless words of wisdom pop up in the strangest places, and the actions of the two main characters are nothing but haphazardly introduced clichés; a side plot containing a separate tragical romance is also included, but annoyingly enough it is never resolved. With this in mind it is hopefully apparent why it is utterly meaningless to describe the goings-on of the novel beyond this: Arabella loves Henry, Henry loves her back, and inexplicable things occur to unnecessarily complicate this.
This review is based on the reprinting by Gale ECCO Print Editions of the first printing, published in 1796 by G. G. and J. Robinson. The reprint is made directly from microfilm scans of the original books, allowing the reader to experience them almost exactly like they were back in the late 18th century. This method lets the text retain an elevated sense of history, though sometimes it leaves it flawed, either because some of it is lost in the process or because the flaws were already present in the original. This edition is fortunate in having few of these and none that are so severe as to leave any part unreadable. There have been removed a few pages, but all of them were vacat pages used to separate chapters. It should also be mentioned that Beckford knew many languages including Latin and Greek, and had a tendency to include words and quotes from these in his works, though without explaining them. In the topmost comment I have included a translation for the few that have made their way into this one.
This is perhaps the strongest of Beckford’s troll fictions as far as comedy is concerned. This at least is the opinion of this reviewer, but it finds some support among the contemporary critics, amongst whom there were those who stated that they thought Azemia a lesser work than this. At least half of the laughter erupts due to the novel’s sheer absurdity and so it is likely that ones taste for such comedy will decide whether one agrees with this or not. The remainder is largely due to its inappropriateness, this including the ‘trolling’ itself. I end this review with a sample of such inappropriate ludicrousness, namely this description of Arabella herself:
Her bosom was the throne of love, full, firm, and fairer than the purest ivory (vol.1, p. 32)
1. It is difficult to describe the workings of nonsense and so this reviewer would rather include a paragraph as an example than attempt to make sense out of it:
The maid servant who had been sent up stairs for the Castle of Otranto, met Matthew the butler on the landing place, and being in the secret of Lucinda’s perturbation, asked him rather petulantly, whether Jim the groom had sent the parson the potatoes. As lady Di Martin came out of the parlour, she eagerly enquired if the Letters were come in, which very much tended to confirm Matthew’s suspicion, for as Captain Warley and his three sisters were expected to dinner, it gave a scope to the discussion. In the mean time Lord Mahogany, though one of the best chess players in Europe could not find his spencer, and as the key of the hall door had been left in the green-house, by Peggy Tomlinson the housemaid, so it was absolutely impossible to get the chaise ready in time. The confusion therefore was great in every part of that venerable mansion, yet the hapless Lucinda, profiting of the occasion, suffered herself to be led quietly to her chamber by the compassionating Countess; then throwing herself upon a chintz sopha she gave vent to the most lamentable accents of anguish and despair. Had the sentinel kept his word, perhaps nothing of the kind would have happened, for Lord Mahogany’s first wife was a cheesemonger’s daughter, and his eldest child had been born with a hare lip; this therefore was the only circumstance that could so materially have offended him. A vindictive mind, it must be owned, is a scourge to the possessor, for one of the greatest virtues is, that a man should learn to subdue his passions. (vol. 1, pp. 27-29; errors as in the original text)
2. The most vicious error is found on page 59 of the second volume. Here is found the French phrase ‘petit né retrousse,’ which roughly translates to ‘little born hitched up,’ which does not mean anything. Likely it is a misspelling of ‘petit nez retroussé,’ meaning ‘small snub nose.’ Those who know little or no French would surely have been perplexed by this, perhaps even appropriately annoyed, but the error is so slight and elegant that one might nevertheless understand why Beckford included it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review