Author | Winston Churchill |
---|---|
Illustrator | Carlton T. Chapman and Malcolm Fraser |
Language | English |
Genre | Historical novel |
Publisher | The Macmillan Company |
Publication date | 1899 |
Publication place | USA |
Media type | |
Followed by | The Crisis |
Richard Carvel is a historical novel by the American novelist Winston Churchill. It was first published in 1899 and was exceptionally successful, selling around two million copies and making the author a rich man. The novel takes the form of the memoirs of an eighteenth-century gentleman, the Richard Carvel of the title, and runs to eight volumes. It is set partly in Maryland and partly in London, England, during the American revolutionary era
Foreword
The novel opens with a fictitious foreword, a brief note dated 1876, in which the purported editor of the memoirs, Daniel Clapsaddle Carvel, claims that they are just as his grandfather, Richard Carvel, wrote them, all the more realistic for their imperfections.
Volume One
The first volume concerns Richard Carvel's boyhood and schooldays. Orphaned at an early age, Richard is raised by his grandfather, Lionel Carvel of Carvel Hall, a wealthy loyalist respected by all sections of the community. Richard describes their way of life, his growing love for his neighbor, Dorothy Manners, and the hostility of his uncle, Grafton Carvel. Richard witnesses a demonstration against a tax collector in Annapolis as a result of the Stamp Act 1765 and grieves his grandfather by his adoption of revolutionary political views.
Volume Two
Mr Allen, Richard's new tutor, tricks him into deceiving his ailing grandfather. Richard is tormented by the coquettishness of Dorothy. At Richard's eighteenth birthday party, he learns that she is to go to England.
Volume Three
With the third volume, the main action of the novel begins. Through the scheming of Grafton Carvel and Mr Allen, Richard fights a duel with Lord Comyn. He is wounded, but becomes fast friends with the lord. His grandfather learns that his political opinions are unchanged but forgives him, partly through the intercession of Colonel Washington. After his recovery, Richard is attacked on the road and kidnapped. He is taken aboard a pirate ship, the Black Moll. There is a fight with a brigantine, in which the pirate ship sinks.
Volume Four
In the fourth volume, the protagonist continues to meet with sudden reversals of fortune. Richard is rescued and befriended by the captain of the brigantine, John Paul, who is sailing to Solway. In Scotland, John Paul is shunned, and vows to turn his back on his country. They take a post chaise to London, and in Windsor meet Horace Walpole. In London they are imprisoned in a sponging-house, from where they are rescued by Lord Comyn and Dorothy.
Volume Five
Volumes five and six are set in London, where the glamor and corruption of fashionable society forms a contrast with the plain and honest values of the emerging republic, embodied in the protagonist. Richard is introduced to London society, where Dorothy is an admired beauty. He makes friends with Charles James Fox and incurs the enmity of the Duke of Chartersea. Richard declares his love to Dorothy but is rejected.
Volume Six
Richard risks his life in a wager but survives against the odds. He visits the House of Commons, and hears Edmund Burke and Fox speak. At Vauxhall Gardens he is tricked into a duel with the Duke, while Lord Comyn is injured saving him from a second assailant. Later he hears that his grandfather has died, and that his uncle Grafton has inherited the estate, leaving him penniless.
Volume Seven
Richard returns to America, where he learns his grandfather had believed him dead. Rejecting Grafton's overtures, he accepts a place as Mr Swain's factor, and for the next few years faithfully tends the Swain estate, Gordon's Pride. In 1774, the discontent among the colonists begins to escalate.
Volume Eight
The final volume sees the dual, interlinked fruition of the two principal aspects of the novel: the political and the romantic. With the coming of war, Richard sets out to fight for his country. He meets John Paul, now calling himself John Paul Jones, and plans to join the nascent American navy. The early years of the war are represented by a summary by Daniel Clapsaddle Carvel, and Richard's narrative resumes at the start of the North Sea action between the Bonhomme Richard , captained by Jones, and the Serapis . Richard is severely wounded, and Jones arranges for him to be nursed by Dorothy. The end of the book sees Richard back in Maryland as master of Carvel Hall, married to his childhood sweetheart.
The Carvels
The Carvel Hall servants
Historical figures
Others
Churchill's 1901 novel, The Crisis , like Richard Carvel, was part of a sequence of novels set at crucial periods of American history. While not otherwise a sequel, its heroine, Virginia Carvel, is the great-granddaughter of the protagonist of the earlier novel. [1] His 'diary' is mentioned in the book.
The review for the New York Times Saturday Review in July 1899 described Richard Carvel as "a notable novel... an event of importance in American fiction", going on to say that it was "the most extensive piece of semi-historical fiction which has yet come from an American hand... the skill with which the materials have been handled justifies the largeness of the plan". [2]
The review in the New York Tribune described the book as "a serious historical novel, embracing a romantic courtship and many events on land and sea, in Maryland and in England, which involve famous personages like Washington, Fox and Horace Walpole." The reviewer took issue with the characterization, saying that the principal characters fail "to get themselves bodied forth in absolute reality," but concluded that "Richard Carvel is a remarkably workmanlike production, considering the present limitations of the author." [3]
A letter from George Middleton to the New York Times praises Richard Carvel for its dramatic qualities, for its portrayal of past times, and for the character of Dorothy Manners, "the most fascinating female character that has appeared in the recent novels". [4]
In November 1899, Richard Carvel provoked a mild controversy in the pages of the New York Times Saturday Review when an anonymous letter writer pointed out certain similarities between the "now famous" novel and Hugh Wynne – Free Quaker by Silas Weir Mitchell, making a veiled accusation of plagiarism. [5] This was rebutted by another correspondent, who pointed out that the first draft of Richard Carvel had been completed five years earlier, two years before the publication of Hugh Wynne. [6] A further letter also drew (unfavorable) comparisons between Churchill's novel and Thackeray's The Virginians . [7]
A later assessment considers the authenticity of the narrative the reason for its remarkable success: "Richard Carvel (1899) is a romantic historical novel of the American Revolutionary period. Though carefully written, the book has the episodic structure characteristic of Churchill. It became a best seller because of the conscientious research that gave remarkable authenticity to events and characters". [8]
Edward Everett Rose adapted the novel for the stage, and Richard Carvel, the play, appeared on Broadway between September 1900 and January 1901. There were 129 performances in all. Richard Carvel was played by John Drew and Dorothy Manners by Ida Conquest. The play was produced by Charles Frohman at the Empire Theatre. [9]
Waltzes from the play were published as sheet music under the title Richard Carvel Waltzes, with a picture of the character in eighteenth-century dress.
A silent film based on the novel was mooted and started production around 1915, but its IMDb entry notes: "There is no reliable documentation that a film bearing this title was ever completed or released." [10]
When Winston Churchill wrote Richard Carvel, he was staying as a paying guest at a Georgian mansion in Annapolis now known as the William Paca House. When the novel achieved its outstanding success, an enterprising developer turned the house into a 200-room hotel and called it Carvel Hall after the Carvels' country house. The Carvel Hall Hotel became very popular, notably with visiting midshipmen, as it was near the United States Naval Academy. [11] However, the house was not the model for the Carvel Hall of the novel, nor for the Carvels' town house. Julian Street had this to say in his 1917 travel book American Adventures:
The Paca house, which as a hotel has acquired the name Carvel Hall, is the house that Winston Churchill had in mind as the Manners house, of his novel "Richard Carvel." A good idea of the house, as it was, may be obtained by visiting the Brice house, next door, for the two are almost twins. When Mr. Churchill was a cadet at Annapolis, before the modern part of the Carvel Hall hotel was built, there were the remains of terraced gardens back of the old mansion, stepping down to an old spring house, and a rivulet which flowed through the grounds was full of watercress. The book describes a party at the house and in these gardens. The Chase house on Maryland Avenue was the one Mr. Churchill thought of as the home of Lionel Carvel, and he described the view from upper windows of this house, over the Harwood house, across the way, to the Severn. [12]
The Tribune in late 1899 reported that Winston Churchill was building a house in Vermont which he proposed to call Carvel Hall. [3]
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford,, known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British Whig politician who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1721 to 1742. He also served as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader of the House of Commons, and is generally regarded as the de facto first prime minister of Great Britain.
John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough,, styled Earl of Sunderland from 1822 to 1840 and Marquess of Blandford from 1840 to 1857, was a British Conservative cabinet minister, politician, peer, and nobleman. He was the paternal grandfather of Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.
Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors. Barrymore was a stage, screen and radio actress whose career spanned six decades, and was regarded as "The First Lady of the American Theatre". She received four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, winning for None but the Lonely Heart (1944).
Winston Churchill was an American best-selling novelist of the early 20th century.
Major John Strange Spencer-Churchill, known as Jack Churchill, was the younger son of Lord Randolph Churchill and his wife Jennie, and the brother of former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Sir Winston Churchill.
Haddon Hall is an English country house on the River Wye near Bakewell, Derbyshire, a former seat of the Dukes of Rutland. It is the home of Lord Edward Manners and his family. In form a medieval manor house, it has been described as "the most complete and most interesting house of [its] period". The origins of the hall are from the 11th century, with additions at various stages between the 13th and the 17th centuries, latterly in the Tudor style.
Sir Henry Channon, known as Chips Channon, was an American-born British Conservative politician, author and diarist. Channon moved to England in 1920 and became strongly anti-American, feeling that American cultural and economic views threatened traditional European and British civilisation. He wrote extensively about these views. Channon quickly became enamoured of London society and became a social and political climber.
The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (1899), by Winston Churchill, is a history of the conquest of the Sudan between 1896 and 1899 by Anglo-Egyptian forces led by Lord Kitchener. He defeated the Sudanese Dervish forces, led by Khalifa Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, heir to the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad, who had vowed to conquer Egypt and drive out the Ottomans. The first, two-volume, edition includes accounts of Churchill's own experiences as a British Army officer during the war, and his views on its conduct.
This is a list of bestselling novels in the United States in the 1900s, as determined by The Bookman, a New York–based literary journal. The list features the most popular novels of each year from 1900 through 1909.
Winston Churchill, in addition to his careers as a soldier and politician, was a prolific writer under the variant of his full name 'Winston S. Churchill'. After being commissioned into the 4th Queen's Own Hussars in 1895, Churchill gained permission to observe the Cuban War of Independence, and sent war reports to The Daily Graphic. He continued his war journalism in British India, at the Siege of Malakand, then in the Sudan during the Mahdist War and in southern Africa during the Second Boer War.
Carvel is a hamlet in Alberta, Canada within Parkland County. It is located on Highway 770, approximately 35 kilometres (22 mi) west of Edmonton. The hamlet's name is derived from the novel Richard Carvel by the American writer Winston Churchill.
Little Lord Fauntleroy is a 1936 American drama film based on the 1886 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The film stars Freddie Bartholomew, Dolores Costello, and C. Aubrey Smith. The first film produced by David O. Selznick's Selznick International Pictures, it was the studio's most profitable film until Gone with the Wind. The film is directed by John Cromwell.
The Celebrity (1897) is the first novel that was published by American author Winston Churchill. It was a minor bestseller of 1898.
The Crisis is an historical novel published in 1901 by the American novelist Winston Churchill. It was the best-selling book in the United States in 1901. The novel is set in the years leading up to the first battles of the American Civil War, mostly in the divided state of Missouri. It follows the fortunes of young Stephen Brice, a man with Union and abolitionist sympathies, and his involvement with a Southern family.
Frances Anne Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, VA was an English noblewoman, the wife of British peer and statesman John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough. One of her sons, Lord Randolph Churchill, was the father of Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. She had a total of 11 children, and her principal home was the monumental Blenheim Palace, which she rejuvenated with her "lavish and exciting entertainments", and transformed into a "social and political focus for the life of the nation". She was invested as a Lady of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert for her efforts at famine relief in Ireland.
Mr. Keegan's Elopement is a short story published by American writer Winston Churchill in June 1896 in The Century Magazine. His first published story, it was republished in book format by Churchill's publisher Macmillan in June 1903 following the success of his first three novels, especially 1899's Richard Carvel.
Edward Everett Rose was an American playwright. He adapted a number of popular novels into plays, including Janice Meredith, Richard Carvel, David Harum, Eben Holden, The Battle of the Strong, Alice of Old Vincennes, and The Rosary.
The Crossing is a 1904 best-selling novel by American writer Winston Churchill. It was the best-selling novel in the United States in 1904, and includes illustrations by Sydney Adamson and Lilian Bayliss. A portion of the book first appeared in December 1903 in Collier's under the title The Borderland.
Zachariah Hood was an Annapolis businessman who in 1765 was given the job of stamp collector for the Province of Maryland, collecting the duty payable under the new Stamp Act. Returning to Maryland from England in August 1765, he was attacked by an angry mob, and was forced to flee to New York for his life, in what may have been the first forcible resistance in America to British taxation in the years preceding the American Revolution. Hood returned to Maryland but, finding himself persona non grata, he left for the West Indies. In 1774 he was appointed comptroller of the Port of Philadelphia, but he fared little better and in May 1775 he was forced again to flee, this time to England, where he was granted a salary by Prime Minister Lord North.
This is a list of bestselling novels in the United States from 1895 through 1899, as determined by The Bookman, a New York–based literary journal. Without the international copyright law which came into force in 1891, these volumes could have been printed and published by anyone, the change in this state of affairs made it possible to compile accurate sales figures.