Edward Harold Begbie
Encyclopedia
Edward Harold Begbie also known as Harold Begbie, was an English
author
and journalist
who published nearly 50 books and poems and contributed to periodicals. Besides studies of the Christian religion, he wrote numerous other books, including political satire, comedy, fiction, science fiction, plays and poetry. Begbie was born in 1871, the fifth son of Mars Hamilton Begbie, rector of Fornham, St. Martin, Suffolk
; he died in London on 8 October 1929.
and joined the Daily Chronicle
and later the Globe. He wrote books of popular verse, and much literature for children. He was a close friend of journalist Arthur Mee
. When Mee embarked on his Children's Encyclopædia
in its initial fortnightly serial form, he gave to Begbie the task of writing a series on "Bible Stories".
At the outbreak of World War I
Begbie wrote a number of recruiting poems and visited America on behalf of his paper. Some of the articles he wrote there were used as propaganda.
(which later became Moral Re-Armament
) and with the Salvation Army
. His concern with social reform appeared strongly in his book The Little that is Good (1917), where he wrote about charitable work among the poor of London. He raised large sums of money for East End
charities.
Begbie might be described as a Broad Church
Anglican, who was interested in the ways in which modern science seemed to cast doubt on materialism by showing matter was more complicated than previously believed. He was hostile to Anglo-Catholic Ritualism and to Roman Catholicism; several pre-First World War novels portray Ritualists as sinister and dishonest crypto-Catholic conspirators. His 1914 book The Lady Next Door, however, supports Irish home rule and gives an idealised portrayal of Catholicism in Ireland as a genuinely popular religion. His hostile view of urban industrial society in Belfast was criticised by many Ulster Unionists including the writer St. John Ervine.
.
In 1902 and 1903, Begbie, together with J.Stafford Ransome and M.H.Temple wrote, under the pseudonym Caroline Lewis, two parodies based on Lewis Carroll
's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
, entitled Clara in Blunderland
and Lost in Blunderland
. These novels deal with British frustration and anger about the Boer War
and with Britain's political leadership at the time.
By 1916, dismayed by the attacks being made on Lord Haldane by Leopold Maxse
in the National Review
, he began to question the government's domestic policy. In 1917, he publicly defended the rights of pacifists and conscientious objectors to oppose the war. He later wrote his best known work under the pseudonym
of "A Gentleman with a Duster", in which various anomalies and injustices were exposed.
Begbie strongly defended the reality of the alleged apparition of the Angels of Mons
and attacked Arthur Machen
for claiming they derived from his story "The Bowmen". Begbie printed numerous accounts of the "Angels" in his book On the Side of the Angels (1915) but these are generally anonymous, second-hand or otherwise unverifiable.
Before the First World War Begbie was an outspoken Liberal social reformist, but he moved rapidly to the right in the post-war period. The "Gentleman with a Duster" books denounce sexually suggestive literature (such as the early plays of Noel Coward
), lament the precarious economic state of the middle classes and the prospective disintegration of the British Empire, and call for a strong hand against left-wing subversives even if this means restricting some traditional British liberties.
.
He also wrote a novel, The Great World, which was published in September 1925 by Mills & Boon.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
who published nearly 50 books and poems and contributed to periodicals. Besides studies of the Christian religion, he wrote numerous other books, including political satire, comedy, fiction, science fiction, plays and poetry. Begbie was born in 1871, the fifth son of Mars Hamilton Begbie, rector of Fornham, St. Martin, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
; he died in London on 8 October 1929.
Early career
At first Begbie took up farming, but later moved to LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and joined the Daily Chronicle
Daily Chronicle
The Daily Chronicle was a British newspaper that was published from 1872 to 1930 when it merged with the Daily News to become the News Chronicle.-History:...
and later the Globe. He wrote books of popular verse, and much literature for children. He was a close friend of journalist Arthur Mee
Arthur Mee
Arthur Henry Mee was a British writer, journalist and educator. He is best known for The Harmsworth Self-Educator, The Children's Encyclopaedia, The Children's Newspaper, and The King's England...
. When Mee embarked on his Children's Encyclopædia
The Children's Encyclopedia
The Children's Encyclopædia was an encyclopædia originated by Arthur Mee, and published by the Educational Book Company, a subsidiary of Amalgamated Press of London. It was published from 1908 to 1964. Walter M. Jackson's company Grolier acquired the rights to publish it in the U.S...
in its initial fortnightly serial form, he gave to Begbie the task of writing a series on "Bible Stories".
At the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
Begbie wrote a number of recruiting poems and visited America on behalf of his paper. Some of the articles he wrote there were used as propaganda.
Religious views
Begbie had a strong religious bent: he was involved in the Oxford GroupOxford Group
The Oxford Group was a Christian movement that had a following in Europe, China, Africa, Australia, Scandinavia and America in the 1920s and 30s. It was initiated by an American Lutheran pastor, Frank Buchman, who was of Swiss descent...
(which later became Moral Re-Armament
Moral Re-Armament
Moral Re-Armament was an international Christian moral and spiritual movement that, in 1938, developed from the American minister Frank Buchman's Oxford Group. Buchman, a Lutheran, headed MRA for 23 years, from 1938 until his death in 1961...
) and with the Salvation Army
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
. His concern with social reform appeared strongly in his book The Little that is Good (1917), where he wrote about charitable work among the poor of London. He raised large sums of money for East End
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
charities.
Begbie might be described as a Broad Church
Broad church
Broad church is a term referring to latitudinarian churchmanship in the Church of England, in particular, and Anglicanism, in general. From this, the term is often used to refer to secular political organisations, meaning that they encompass a broad range of opinion.-Usage:After the terms high...
Anglican, who was interested in the ways in which modern science seemed to cast doubt on materialism by showing matter was more complicated than previously believed. He was hostile to Anglo-Catholic Ritualism and to Roman Catholicism; several pre-First World War novels portray Ritualists as sinister and dishonest crypto-Catholic conspirators. His 1914 book The Lady Next Door, however, supports Irish home rule and gives an idealised portrayal of Catholicism in Ireland as a genuinely popular religion. His hostile view of urban industrial society in Belfast was criticised by many Ulster Unionists including the writer St. John Ervine.
Political views
He acted as ghostwriter for the memoir of the polar explorer Ernest ShackletonErnest Shackleton
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...
.
In 1902 and 1903, Begbie, together with J.Stafford Ransome and M.H.Temple wrote, under the pseudonym Caroline Lewis, two parodies based on Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
, entitled Clara in Blunderland
Clara in Blunderland
Clara in Blunderland is a novel by Caroline Lewis , written in 1902 and published by William Heinemann of London. It is a political parody of Lewis Carroll's two books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass...
and Lost in Blunderland
Lost in Blunderland
Lost in Blunderland: The further adventures of Clara is a novel by Caroline Lewis , written in 1903 and published by William Heinemann of London. It is a political parody of Lewis Carroll's two books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass...
. These novels deal with British frustration and anger about the Boer War
Boer War
The Boer Wars were two wars fought between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics, the Oranje Vrijstaat and the Republiek van Transvaal ....
and with Britain's political leadership at the time.
By 1916, dismayed by the attacks being made on Lord Haldane by Leopold Maxse
Leopold Maxse
Leopold James Maxse was a journalist and editor of the conservative British publication, National Review, between August 1893 and his death in January 1932...
in the National Review
National Review (London)
The National Review was founded in 1883 by the English writers Alfred Austin and William Courthope.It was launched as a platform for the views of the British Conservative Party, its masthead incorporating a quotation of the former Conservative Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli:Under editor Leopold...
, he began to question the government's domestic policy. In 1917, he publicly defended the rights of pacifists and conscientious objectors to oppose the war. He later wrote his best known work under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
of "A Gentleman with a Duster", in which various anomalies and injustices were exposed.
Begbie strongly defended the reality of the alleged apparition of the Angels of Mons
Angels of Mons
The Angels of Mons is a popular legend about a group of angels who supposedly protected members of the British army in the Battle of Mons at the outset of World War I...
and attacked Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror...
for claiming they derived from his story "The Bowmen". Begbie printed numerous accounts of the "Angels" in his book On the Side of the Angels (1915) but these are generally anonymous, second-hand or otherwise unverifiable.
Before the First World War Begbie was an outspoken Liberal social reformist, but he moved rapidly to the right in the post-war period. The "Gentleman with a Duster" books denounce sexually suggestive literature (such as the early plays of Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
), lament the precarious economic state of the middle classes and the prospective disintegration of the British Empire, and call for a strong hand against left-wing subversives even if this means restricting some traditional British liberties.
Works
Among his other works, the best known were Broken Earthware, Other Sheep, In the Hands of the Potter, and his Life of General BoothWilliam Booth
William Booth was a British Methodist preacher who founded The Salvation Army and became its first General...
.
He also wrote a novel, The Great World, which was published in September 1925 by Mills & Boon.
- The Political Struwwelpeter, 1898
- The Story of Baden-Powell: 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps, 1900
- Bundy in the Greenwood, 1902
- Clara in BlunderlandClara in BlunderlandClara in Blunderland is a novel by Caroline Lewis , written in 1902 and published by William Heinemann of London. It is a political parody of Lewis Carroll's two books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass...
, 1902 (New edition 2010, ISBN 978-1-904808-49-7) - Lost in BlunderlandLost in BlunderlandLost in Blunderland: The further adventures of Clara is a novel by Caroline Lewis , written in 1903 and published by William Heinemann of London. It is a political parody of Lewis Carroll's two books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass...
, 1903 (New edition 2010, ISBN 978-1-904808-50-3) - The life of William Booth, the Founder of the Salvation Army, 1920
- The Bed-Book of Happiness, 1914
- The Mirrors of Downing Street: Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster, 1921
- Painted Windows: Studies in Religious Personality, 1922
- Everychild: A Christmas Morality published by James Clarke & Co; 13 & 14 Fleet Street, London, E.C. (no date given)
External links
- The Struwwelpeter Alphabet with verse by Harold Begbie available as full text and zoomable page images in the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's LiteratureUniversity of Florida Baldwin LibraryThe Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature in the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections at the University of Florida's George A. Smathers Libraries contains more than 103,000 volumes published in Great Britain and the United States from the early 18th century through the...