Social Customs

Non-fiction - essay
First published in The Spectator, 29th April 1937*
1,515 words
(First read 12/06/2014)

Presumably the title Social Customs among the Extremely Rich and Fashionable in Victorian London wouldn't have been deemed catchy enough.  This reads somewhat like EFB's notes for his quartet of novellas Old London, which was published in the September of the same year.  He covers: the development of Belgravia, that swankiest of London districts; the 'season' and country house-parties; carriage etiquette; dinner-parties; entertainments at Buckingham Palace and elsewhere; seemly conversation; and so on and so forth.  It's all jolly interesting if you're interested in that kind of thing, but doesn't really tell you much which, if you're interested in that kind of thing, you wouldnt've known already.
You can read the article online here.

*The essay was collected in Sea Mist: Collected Spook Stories Volume 5 (2005), under the title Social Customs in 1837.

The Unwanted

Fiction ~ novella / long short story
Published 17th September 1937*
Approx. 21,000 words
(First read 11/11/2013) 

The fourth and last of Benson's 'Old London' quartet and my favourite of the bunch.  It's a day-in-the-life story set in a world EFB was completely familiar with: the genteel microcosmic world of the Edwardian London square ~ think Secret Lives and a lot of the spook stories (and no doubt others I've not read yet).  Miss Dorothy Vincent is 'a short, energetic woman of middle age, of full figure and eager countenance' ~ remind you of anyone?  This classic Bensonian spinster

lives in the fictional Beaconsfield Square with her elderly ~ and unpleasant ~ aunt and her pekinese Chang ('known also as "Strong Mannie"'!)  She fills her own and other people's lives with the usual pastimes ~ walking the dog, pestering the local vicar, visiting, that kind of thing, and considers herself busy.  And, of course, of course, she has no idea how utterly unwanted she is.  It would have been easy for EFB to make a figure of fun of her, but he doesn't: I actually felt for her.  I won't give away the plot other than to say that she rounds off the day with a magnificently risky and utterly uncharacteristic 'adventure'.  Not available online.

* The four Old London books were only ever published in the United States, apparently.

Friend of the Rich

Fiction ~ novella / long short story
Published 17th September 1937*
Approx. 20,000 words
(First read 22/10/2013)

The third of the 'Old London' quartet and a big improvement on the previous (Janet ~ qv) largely because Benson was on more familiar ground here.  Set in an indeterminate time during the reign of Queen Victoria, Friend of the Rich is the tale of a middle-aged society cow woman lady and her attempts ~ ultimately failed ~ to launch and subsequently monopolize a new couple of millionaires in town (they hale from Liverpool, no less!).  Mildly ... very mildly amusing.
Not available online.

* The four books in this collection were only ever published in the United States, as far as I'm aware.

Janet

Fiction ~ novella / long short story
Published 17th September 1937*
Approx. 19,000 words
(First read 07/10/2013)

This is the second in Benson's quartet of novellas published under the title Old London.  There's no connexion between the four other than the setting, which in this case is Victorian ... I didn't spot any particular clues as to the exact year, probably 1840s or 50s. 

Original dust jacket

Unlike the first in the series ~ Portrait of an English Nobleman, qv ~ this is a humdrum domestic drama, hardly likely ever to set the world on fire.  Read it if every other book on Earth has been burnt.  Otherwise, don't bother.

*These four little books were never published in the UK, only in the US.  I assume that they were specially commissioned for the American market.
 

Portrait of an English Nobleman

Fiction ~ novella / long short story
Published 17th September 1937*
Approx. 22,000 words
(First read 23/09/2013)

This is the first in Benson's quartet of novellas published under the title Old London.  There's no connexion between the four other than the setting.
This was quite good fun.  It's set in the Georgian period ... to be precise in the very last year of that period, 1829-30.  It's the kind of romp you'd expect of Georgian gents (mistress in a pied à terre in London; frosty wife and kids at home in the country ...), and with lashings of historical detail ~ hardly profound but entertaining enough.

*These four books were only published in the United States.
[10/2014] I saw one of the originals in a secondhand bookshop in Wales the other day ~ the only one I've ever seen.  I didn't buy it because I've already got a set of the modern reprints.   At least, I assume they're modern reprints ~ if not, they're in remarkably mint condition, notwithstanding the lack of any dust-jackets.

The Godmother

Fiction ~ short story
Published in Nash's Illustrated Weekly, 6th December 1919
Collected in Desirable Residences and Other Stories (1991)
Approx. 4,700 words
(First read 04/05/1992) 

Evie Shuttleworth seemingly has everything a 40-year old Benson widowlady could wish for: flawless and entirely natural good looks; a 'delicious doll's-house in Mayfair'; a flourishing hat shop; a talent for producing crayon portraits of her many friends ("Her women all looked thoughtful but dewy, and the men all looked like women"); a boy at Eton; and so on.  Naturally, though, she wants more: she wants ~ though EFB is never so vulgar as to put it in so few words¹ ~ more money, and she wants to hook herself a sound second husband.

E.S. picks V.J. up at the Ritz

With the first aim in mind she 'adopts' Violet Jordan, a stinking-rich widow recently arrived from Canada², and makes her her protégée, introducing her to everyone worth knowing, finding her a country house, etc.³  Unfortunately in doing so she inadvertently introduces Violet to the dull faceless diplomat she's set her 'heart' on as Hubbie No. 2.
The problem with The Godmother is that it's really all situation and no comedy: it toddles along fairly amiably, and not at too great a length, but isn't as funny as it might have been if Benson had been able to think up some plot for it. 


¹ In fact I'm just assuming this is her motive: I can't think of any other.
² Yes, Canada.
³ Benson reprised this theme in one of his 'Old London' novellas, Friend of the Rich (1937).










QUOTABLES
Evie decides to adopt Violet:

With an insincerity that was as characteristic of her as her beautiful bones, she put it to herself that here was this really charming little woman quite alone [...] in London where, as she so naïvely said, she did not know a soul.

Evie's obscure motives ~ this quote follows on directly from the last:

It was clearly, then, the part of any decent Christian to attempt to brighten so dreary a situation.  That there might conceivably be other lonely women in London, without the alleviation of the Ritz and rivers of diamonds, had not previously presented itself to Evie's mind nor roused the Christian spirit, but it was never too late to begin.  Besides (here sincerity popped out its head like a Jack-in-the-box), who knew what insidious people might get hold of Mrs Jordan [...]?

Evie apparently doesn't scruple to resort to bribery to get rid of the woman who would have been Violet's 'godmother' if she hadn't been delayed in Paris:

The companion from Paris, so luckily delayed in the first instance, proved to be no more than the widow of some perfectly unknown baronet, ... [who] after the briefest sojourn in town [...] returned to Paris with a suitable cheque, astonished to find how London had changed since her day.