{"id":6522,"date":"2020-06-28T15:37:49","date_gmt":"2020-06-28T15:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/?p=6522"},"modified":"2020-06-28T15:37:49","modified_gmt":"2020-06-28T15:37:49","slug":"when-arthur-met-hesketh-met-monty-flaxman-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/when-arthur-met-hesketh-met-monty-flaxman-low\/","title":{"rendered":"When Arthur Met Hesketh Met Monty: Flaxman Low"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you like Holmes, M R James, strange investigations, Victorian tales, and period drawings?\u00a0 Of course you do, so today, dear listener, we offer chaotic interconnections, as we recently found something online we rather liked. No, not chicken carcasses this time, but\u00a0 art by Sidney Paget<\/strong>, the great Holmes illustrator, gifted to the co-creator of detective Flaxman Low, writer Hesketh Prichard<\/strong>, by none other than Sir<\/strong> Arthur Conan Doyle<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

For quick context, writer Hesketh Prichard (of whom we say much more later) was a friend of Conan Doyle, and a fellow member of the Authors Cricket Club, founded in 1892. You can see both of them in the photograph below:<\/p>\n

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Authors v Artists, May 1903: Authors in back row, left to right: E. W. Hornung (1st), E. V. Lucas (2nd), P. G. Wodehouse (3rd), J. C. Snaith (4th), A. C. Doyle (6th), H. V. Hesketh-Prichard (7th)<\/strong>, A. Kinross (furthest right). Front row: S. F. Bullock (2nd from left), J. M. Barrie (3rd from right)<\/strong>, G. C. Ives (2nd from right), A. E. W. Mason (sitting on ground).<\/em><\/p>\n

J M Barrie<\/strong> and Conan Doyle both encouraged Hesketh Prichard to write fiction, and it seems that Conan Doyle gave at least two copies of Sidney Paget’s Holmes illustrations to his friend.<\/p>\n

One was the plate “Is there any other point which I can make clear?”<\/em> from the ‘The Adventure of the Naval Treaty’. The other is shown here, “Look at that with your magnifying glass, Mr. Holmes”<\/em> from ‘The Adventure of the Norwood Builder’. Note the inscription…<\/p>\n

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Rather neat, we thought. And searching around, it seems that more details of the nature and whereabouts of Paget’s Holmes illustrations can be found here, on a site dedicated to tracing them: http:\/\/www.bestofsherlock.com\/sidney-paget-original-art.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

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HOLMES AND THE WEIRD<\/h2>\n

Following those links, now to a tale which manages to include both Flaxman Low and Sherlock Holmes whilst at the same time following up on elements of an M R James<\/strong> story.<\/p>\n

Some time back we delved into the issue of Sherlock Holmes pastiches and wilder re-imaginings of the Great Detective (see our article\u00a0 shades of sherlock<\/a>)<\/em>. And we said that we ourselves liked and wrote straight, canonical Holmes adventures, but that sometimes a really well-written excursion into the supernatural could work.<\/p>\n

Since then, old greydog<\/em> has edited two chunky volumes of such stories for Belanger Books, Sherlock Holmes & the Occult Detectives<\/em>, with tales which question or reinforce Holmes’s scepticism. Both volumes are out now, some 700pp of mystery and malevolence.<\/p>\n

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Anyway, back then, we also mentioned The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes<\/em> (ed. John Joseph Adams<\/strong>, 2009), but had only dipped in and out of that anthology.<\/p>\n

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Afterwards, we came across this review, entirely by accident, on Goodreads:<\/p>\n

The Things That Shall Come Upon Them (Barbara Roden)<\/h5>\n

\u201c…this story should be taken as the model for Holmes-meets-Occult kind of adventures… But more importantly, in this story Sherlock Holmes does NOT do anything that goes against the canonical template of his thoughts & action, and the supernatural element is presented with its chilling moments and menace through the interpretations of the events as done by Flaxman Low… And the topping is that the story actually ties up a few loose ends in one of the greatest horror stories of all times (clue: the most-anthologised story by M.R. James).\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The tale was originally published in the Gaslight Grimoire<\/em> anthology in 2008. In the introduction to it in Improbable Adventures<\/em>, the author says:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story setting \u2013 Lufford Abbey \u2013 former home of Julian Karswell of M R James’s classic ‘Casting the Runes’ \u2013 came after I watched, with our son, the film version of ‘Casting the Runes’, Night of the Demon, and found myself wondering what happened to Karswell’s home after he died in somewhat mysterious circumstances, in France. The involvement of a ‘Dr Watson’ in James’s story was a gift from the writing gods.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And here, for reference, is Dr Watson, from M R James’s text:<\/p>\n

The conductor George was thoughtful, and appeared to be absorbed in calculations as to the number of passengers. On arriving at his house he found Dr Watson<\/strong>, his medical man, on his doorstep. \u2018I\u2019ve had to upset your household arrangements, I\u2019m sorry to say, Dunning. Both your servants hors de combat. In fact, I\u2019ve had to send them to the Nursing Home.\u2019<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Good heavens! what\u2019s the matter?\u2019<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s something like ptomaine poisoning, I should think: you\u2019ve not suffered yourself, I can see, or you wouldn\u2019t be walking about. I think they\u2019ll pull through all right.\u2019<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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from that wonderful film ‘night of the demon’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

THE THAMES HORROR and Other Adventures of Sherlock Holmes<\/em>, four of Barbara Roden’s Holmesian tales including the above, is also available from Amazon and Calabash Press:<\/p>\n

thames horror from calabash<\/a><\/p>\n

thames horror on amazon uk<\/a><\/p>\n

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Finally we travel from Arthur and Monty directly to Hesketh,\u00a0 and in relation to Paget’s work, consider some illustrations by B E Minns<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Benjamin Edwin Minns (1863 \u2013 1937) was a leading Australian watercolorist, but from 1895 to 1915, he worked in England, contributing to St Paul’s Magazine, Punch, The Strand Magazine, the Bystander and other publications as well as sending drawings to The Bulletin.<\/p>\n

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b e minns self-portrait 1928<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(We can’t help feeling that Minns looks rather like M R James in the painting above)<\/em><\/p>\n

As part of his work for London publishers, he produced a series of plates for Flaxman Low’s adventures in 1899…<\/p>\n

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HESKETH, VAYDOUX AND SLOTHS<\/h2>\n

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We think it’s fair to say that if you are called Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard<\/strong> (1876-1922) and nicknamed ‘Hex’ at school, you ought to do something interesting with your life. The fascinating HVH-P did not let anyone down.<\/p>\n

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‘hex’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He hunted for (probably) extinct giant sloths in South America, helped counter German snipers on the Great War, played a mean game of cricket (as above), and explored the world. Through Trackless Labrador<\/i> is one of his, for example, and he brought back some of the first reports of vodoun from the interior of Haiti. He could have been invented for the Boy’s Own Library.<\/p>\n

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In 1899, Prichard was the first white man to cross the interior of the black island republic since 1803, and he wrote a rather prejudiced book about it called Where Black Rules White<\/em>. The nasty politics of the period (and basic humanity aside), it does include an interesting chapter on Vaydoux (voodoo, vodoun), where he describes practices he saw for his own eyes:<\/p>\n

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‘funeral in hayti’ 1890s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAs she danced she cleared her throat and spat with a noise like artillery coming into action. The huge black woman in the centre droned on, and to the drum-beat was added the chink of a key on metal. The Mamaloi quickened in her sinuous dancing. The heat was terrific; humanity sweltered there. And over all presided a portrait of the German Emperor, whose eye I seemed to catch at this juncture.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Papaloi, a small and filthy old man, crouched at one side, as the Mamaloi caught the cock from the hands of the big woman, and, holding it by the neck, flung it over her head and shoulder. Her face was distorted with frenzy; round and round she twisted, accompanied by a swifter measure of the same dead song. She laid the cock upon the heads of the worshippers and began to whirl more and more rapidly to the hurrying, maddening drumming. Suddenly she straightened her arm, spun the cock round and round, its flapping wings beating impotently upon the air. A snowstorm of feathers floated up as she stood with rapt eyes and bared teeth, twirling; then she flung up her hand, and the headless body flew over her shoulder.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHer excitement was horrible; she pressed the bleeding neck to her lips, and, when she slowly withdrew her hand, stood for an instant fixed and immovable, her lips and teeth stained red.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

With his mother Kate O’Brien Ryall Prichard<\/strong>, ‘Hex’ wrote a series of occult detective stories. She also accompanied him on some of his travels, but that’s another matter…<\/p>\n

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THE FLAXMAN LOW STORIES<\/h2>\n

Warning: Occasional spoilers do follow.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

M R James, said of the stories which follow:<\/p>\n

\u201cK and Hesketh Prichard’s ‘Flaxman Low’ is most ingenious and successful but rather over-technically ‘occult’\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The adventures of Flaxman Low were originally attributed to E and H Heron<\/strong>, possibly because the printers couldn’t fit both their full names on the covers. Published in 1898-99, there were twelve stories in total, stories which brought his character onto the occult detective roll of honour. These tales are interesting, unusual and come with a twist of the new science of psychology (these are the 1890s, remember). But wait…<\/p>\n

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We re-read the Heron family, and realised that this stuff is, in fact, frequently nuts. Enjoyable, but nuts. The detective himself is \u201cone of the leading scientists of the day\u201d,<\/em> whose real name is not disclosed. He is also an accomplished sportsman, and a record-breaking hammer-thrower, strong and lean with a high forehead, long neck and thin moustache. We learn this early on, which gets us all a-quiver and ready for the horrors.<\/p>\n

And boy did we have trouble picking which horrors to feature. So much gold in a shallow river. We have rarely felt so dumbfounded when we put a book down. Here are two of Flaxman Low’s encounters and discoveries, to give you the idea:<\/p>\n