#Horace Annesley Vachell

[monkeyssalad-blog]

1931 illustration by Laurence East by totallymystified Via Flickr: For the story Pip And The Tiger by Horace Annesley Vachell. From the Help Yourself Annual.

[mysterieuxclairdelune]

{Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar/ Veronica Roth, Allegiant (Divergent, #3)/ Horace Annesley Vachell, The Romance of Judge Ketchum/ C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)/ Ada Limón, After the Fire/ Katie McGarry, Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, #1)/ Sarah Ockler, Twenty Boy Summer/ Audre Lorde, from "Zami: A New Spelling of my Name," published c. 1982/ George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)/ Cassandra Clare, City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3)/ Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941), from "Poem Of The End" (1924), translated from the Russian by Mary Jane White}

[alovelywaytospendanevening]

>friendship wasn't just a euphemism; it was an integral part of how queer people understood their relationships

I agree. "Romantic friendship" is a very Victorian/Edwardian concept which — while not always a synonym of same-sex desire — was used by a lot of gay people of that period, and it's quite present in the literature they produced, particularly school stories:

Carol bowed his head without a word and kissed him. And thus their friendship was sealed at either end.

– Tim: A Story of School Life (1891) by Howard Sturgis.

He wondered how it could have come about, and he pondered old tales he had read—some of them long ago—tales of a pagan world, in which this wonderful passion of friendship, then so common, had played its part. Returning to him now, they wore a new and added beauty, a meaning he had only dreamed before, but which at present filled his mind with a kind of heavenly radiance. Might not his own friendship be just the same?… Might not it, too, be something more than a mere romantic reverie, than the shadow of a beautiful dream?

– The Garden God: A Tale of Two Boys (1905) by Forrest Reid.

This was almost the last holidays Cæsar and he would spend together; and, afterwards, would this friendship, so romantic a passion with one at least of them—would it wither away, or would it endure to the end?

– The Hill: A Romance of Friendship (1905) by Horace Annesley Vachell.

After tea at the club-house, it seemed a necessity to play again, and this time, regardless of financial stringency, Frank treated David to a caddy, and they went forth with pomp, now playing seawards into the hazy east, now westwards into the blaze of the declining sun, absorbed in their game and yet absorbed in their friendship of boy-love, hot as fire and clean as the trickle of ice-water on a glacier.

– David Blaize (1916) by E. F. Benson.

He knew that his friendship for Morcombe would lead to nothing: very few school friendships last more than a year or so after one or other has left. He thought of Byron's line: "And friendships were formed too romantic to last." It was too true, he had yet to find his real ideal.

– The Loom of Youth (1917) by Alec Waugh.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1851)

Walt Whitman, "When I Heard at the Close of the Day" (1867)

Edward Prime-Stevenson, Imre: A Memorandum (1906)

Bram Stoker, Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (1906)

E.M. Forster, Maurice (1913)

Romantic Friendship and the Birth of Gay Identity

[books0977]

Nether Applewhite: A Story of Strange Lives in an English Village. Horace Annesley Vachell. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1934. First edition. Original dust jacket.

English village set novel of romance and intrigue. Jacket copy reference to "the sinister gypsy Martha Penny, whose mysterious disappearance looks like a clear case of murder."

[seattlemysterybooks]

philsp

April 1927 issue

cover art by A. C. Michael

Seattle Mystery Bookshop 

[thedarkacademiastuff]

I have been crying," she replied, simply, "and it has done me good. It helps a woman you know, just as swearing helps a man.

- Horace Annesley Vachell

[delusionalyapper]

"I have been crying," she replied, simply, "and it has done me good. It helps a woman you know, just as swearing helps a man.

— Horace Annesley Vachel

[outoftowninac]

THE DAUNTLESS THREE / THE SPIDER

1920

The Dauntless Three (later known as The Spider) is a four act mystery play by Horace Annesley Vachell and Walter Hackett based on Vachell’s 1916 play Mr. Jubilee Drax. The original production was produced by the Shuberts and staged by William Devereaux starring Robert Warwick and featuring Estelle Winwood. 

The story concerns an adventurer in search of a missing blue white diamond. A rich American hires him to find the diamond after it has been stolen from the safe of a South African mining company. The mining company employs a girl detective to look for it, and a company of desperate criminals also joins the search. Together they become known as The Dauntless Three. ln the meantime, the gem is safely hidden in the house of a Levantine merchant. The merchant sells the stone, kills the purchaser, resells the gem, again kills the purchaser. How and why the third purchaser remains untold. 

The first act begins with the adventurer telling how the deed was accomplished and the second act takes us back to the actual accomplishment. From there we jump ahead four weeks, and then back two weeks.

The production’s main draw was the return to the stage of Robert Warwick after a five year absence. Warwick had been in Hollywood acting in films to great success. For this reason, ads for the play were careful to stipulate that Warwick was appearing “personally in the spoken drama”. 

Robert Warwick (1878-1964) was born Robert Taylor Bien in Sacramento, California. A matinee idol during the Silent film era, he prospered with the introduction of sound to cinema thanks to a rich, resonant voice, evolving  into a highly regarded character actor, accruing more than 200 screen appearances. He started acting on Broadway in 1903. 

The play opened in Atlantic City at the Globe Theatre on the Boardwalk on October 21, 1920. It played a split week with Sonya, a play featuring Otto Krueger and Violet Hemming. 

The usually generous Atlantic City critics were not enthusiastic, although they admired Warwick. From AC, the production went to the Adelphi in Philadelphia. 

~ ATLANTIC CITY PRESS, November 18, 1920

“In his haste to quit the Klieg lights for the footlights, Warwick may have been unseemingly hurried... One dreads to consider what ‘The Dauntless Three’ would be without him or someone equally as able.” ~ EARLE DROSEY, THE WASHINGTON HERALD 

Philadelphia and DC critics were no more generous than those on the Boardwalk. Undaunted (pardon the pun) the play trooped on to Baltimore and Brooklyn. 

In an attempt to shed its poor reputation, in mid-November it was announced that the play would be known as The Spider. 

“The name of Robert Warwick's play has been changed. It goes into New York as ‘The Spider,' but the identity of the spider is a puzzle. Does the title describe so unflatteringly the dashing young adventurer, or does it apply to the wily Levantine, who certainly sits in his web and waits for the unwary ones who become his prey? But he plays a comparatively unimportant role. Let them call it ‘The Dauntless Three' or 'The Spider,' however, and it will still remain rattling good melodrama.” ~ KATHERINE MCKINSEY, BALTIMORE SUN

But after Washington, the play called it quits, finally daunted by the negative reviews. 

Robert Warwick returned to the screen, appearing in The Family Honor, which opened on December 22, 1920 at Atlantic City’s Criterion Theatre (later called The Strand) on the Boardwalk across from Steel Pier. 

[oneiricworldd]

I have been crying," she replied, simply, "and it has done me good. It helps a woman you know, just as swearing helps a man.

- Horace Annesley Vachell

[peoplesuckandihatethem]

I have been crying," she replied, simply, "and it has done me good. It helps a woman you know, just as swearing helps a man.

— Horace Annesley Vachell

[ibarakaldo]

En la naturaleza no hay recompensas o castigos; hay consecuencias (Horace Annesley Vachell)... #huaweip9 #igersbilbao #igersspain #igerseuskadi (en Baracaldo)

[ourwisechaosstudent]

En la naturaleza no hay recompensas o castigos; hay consecuencias.

Horace Annesley Vachell

[activaparques]

FRASE DEL DIA En la naturaleza no hay recompensas o castigos; hay consecuencias. Horace Annesley Vachell

[anonymims-blog]

"I have been crying," she replied, simply, "and it has done me good. It helps a woman you know, just as swearing helps a man." —Horace Annesley Vachell, The Romance of Judge Ketchum Acrylic on wall

[fiatluxandlove]

I have been crying," she replied, simply, "and it has done me good. It helps a woman you know, just as swearing helps a man.

Horace Annesley Vachell

[fortuitoushappenstance]

"Friendship". Right...

(1905: 1930 edition)