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Phyllis Livingstone

Chapters 1 and 2 from In Our Metropolis, by Phyllis Livingstone (1940)

Ad from 1940 Times Literary Supplement

Back in March, I posted a short item about two forgotten novels I’d come across in an advertisement in the Times Literary Supplement. Neither received much attention and both quickly disappeared from sight.

I was interested in knowing more about both books, so when I had the chance to visit the British Library for a few hours recently, I requested copies of both and took advantage of the book scanners available in most of the library’s reading rooms to grab a few pages from each. The Library’s copyright policy restricts one to copying one chapter or 5% of a book. I stretched the allowance a bit and scanned in two chapters from each.

I wish I could say great things for both books, but of the chapters of Bargasoles I read, I can only say that Geoffrey S. Garnier was probably smart to stick with visual art. Bargasoles purports to be a comic novel, but the comedy might best be described as lumpy.

Let’s move on, shall we?

In Our Metropolis, however, is blissfully silly. It could have made a fun little B comedy movie starring one of those English actresses with a name like Nova Pilbeam or Enid Stamp-Taylor. It’s almost a parody of itself. Take the first lines of dialogue spoken in the book: “Sweetheart?” “Darling!” “Sherry?”

Elizabeth and Ralph Ware are sophisticated, funny, and broke. “Gentlemen in bowler hats queue up at the door all day,” she complains. Cooped up in their apartment all day, she longs for a little chatter, a little small talk from Ralph. He buries himself behind a newspaper. Frustrated, she strips naked in front of him. “Are you mad?” Ralph exclaims, concerned that their son might walk in. “I promise to conceal all the facts of life from him so that he can get all the information required from the lavatories at Eton,” she assures him.

You can tell this book was published during the Phoney War. Hitler is part of Elizabeth and Ralph’s world, but he hasn’t yet become an existential threat. Asked if she’s been teaching their son geography, Elizabeth replies, “Geography went out when Hitler came in. What’s the good of learning anything about Central Europe with him nipping about in frantic fashion, changing the boundaries out of caprice every five minutes or so?”

I didn’t have time to read the whole book, but I can tell you that they all head off happily to India, well-paid position for Ralph in hand, leaving their creditors behind. What happens in between Chapter 2 and the end, I can’t say, but I have a feeling it matters less than whatever Elizabeth manages to come up with. If In Our Metropolis is at all successful as a comedy, I think it’s most due to her.

If you’re interested in the only sample available outside a handful of libraries, feel free to check out this PDF of Chapters 1 and 2.

In Our Metropolis, by Phyllis Livingstone
London and Melbourne: Hutchinson & Co., 1940

Two Lost Novels

I love to page through old issues of The Saturday Review, the TLS, and other book reviews of the past for the advertisements as much as for the reviews. Browsing through old copies of the TLS online recently, I noticed the following in the lower left corner of a full-page Hutchinson’s ad from 7 September 1940:

Hutchinson's First Novels ad from September 1940

Two of the books sounded interesting: Geoffrey S. Garnier’s Bargasoles and Phyllis Livingstone’s In Our Metropolis. Of Bargasoles, one of the very few reviews I was able to locate, from The Cornishman of 19 December 1940, said:

One usually associates the name of Geoffrey S. Gamier with those delightful etchings which have brought him into the first line of artists. The combination of a successful artist and novelist is a rarity, but the artist is evident in the author, by his deft etching of words, as we are accustomed to the lightness of his work in the realm of art. Those who were fortunate enough to secure copies of the Newlyn harbour sports programmes have already sampled tile shrewd dry wit of the author, and the adventures of George and his colleagues through the pages of Bargasoles form a complete antidote to the dark hours of black-out and the harrowing thoughts of war. This humorous novel is written in entertaining and light-hearted manner which succeeds in making farcical situations convincing. One of the characters, a Chestertonian figure of gargantuan proportions and unfailing wit — is a brilliant example of original creativeness. Readers will look forward with eagerness to the next product of this fertile and versatile brain, of one who appears be our most promising local author.

Another review, from the Liverpool Daily Post, was more moderated: “Some thoroughly impossible but most amusing characters populate Mr. Geoffrey S. Garnier’s entertaining first novel, Bargasoles. It is completely ridiculous farcical comedy, which revolves around football pools and patent medicines in delightfully inconsequential manner.”

Garnier and his wife, the painter Jill Garnier, lived in Newlyn, near Penzance in Cornwall. Garnier had an interesting technique of showing depths and distance through the use of planes of flat shades — a technique that later contributed half the prints that cluttered up American offices in the 1980s. John Branfield’s short biography, Geoffrey and Jill Garnier: A Marriage of the Arts, was published in 2010 but appears to be out of print now. The 1962 edition of Who’s Who in Art credits Garnier with a second novel titled Murdering Mabel, but there is no other evidence I can find that this book ever existed. According to WorldCat.org, there are all of four copies of Bargasoles to be found in libraries.

The second book, In Our Metropolis, is nearly as rare: five copies held by libraries. The University of Pennsylvania holds the only copy in North America. The description from Hutchinson’s catalogue makes the book sound worth reading:

This is a delightful novel with a light, amusing touch which is always realistic. It portrays a few months of life as led by two stormy everyday Londoners, with all their vicissitudes and absurdities. The author, a keen student of psychology, has shown the value of trivial and apparently insignificant incidents as being of extreme importance in their effect on human relationship — particularly that most intriguing of all — Man and Woman.

It received, however, even less notice than Bargasoles. I located three reviews in the British Newspaper Archive, one of which consists of a whole nine words: “Another first novel which has a sophisticated modern setting.” The Tatler ran an only slightly longer item as an excuse to print Livingstone’s picture and note the quality of her connections by marriage:

Phyllis Livingstone, from <em>The Tatler</em>, 23 October 1940
Phyllis Livingstone, from The Tatler, 23 October 1940

A new publication of Hutchinson’s is called In Our Metropolis, written by Phyyllis Livingstone, who in private life is the wife of Captain David Livingston-Learmonth, R. A., a godson of Lord Willingdon, former Viceroy of India, now going to the Argentine and other South American countries on a Trade Mission. The book has a light touch that will be welcomed by many readers, and is the story of modern married life in London Society.

The third review, from the Liverpool Daily Post, was the most positive:

In Our Metropolis by Phyllis Livingstone (Hutchinson, 8s 6d) is a good deal better domestic comedy than its dust-cover would suggest. The story concerns a young married couple, their impecuniosities and other family troubles, their squabbles and reconciliations, and their involvement in a triangle situation which becomes gloriously muddled. The tale is told with an excellent balance of irony and sensibility, and a very satisfying ability to observe and record with freshness the elements of character. This is a first novel. A writer who can begin so entertainingly should go far.

I find no evidence that Livingstone did go any farther in her writing career, however.

Bargasoles and In Our Metropolis were #103 and #110, respectively, in Hutchinson’s First Novel Library, which ran from 1933 to 1951, publishing a total of 139 titles. John Krygier lists the full run, with a few gaps, on his Series of Series website. If anyone has more information about either novel, please let me know.