The City of Beautiful Nonsense (novel)

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The City of Beautiful Nonsense was a best-selling novel written by Ernest Temple Thurston. It became the inspiration for two films (see below for details). It was originally published by Chapman and Hall in 1909, [1] but because the copyright has expired, the text of the book is now in the public domain. [2] There was a "new and illustrated" edition, with illustrations by Emile Verpilleux, published a year later in 1910. It may fairly be described as a sentimental novel: Temple Thurston himself wrote that "To many, from the first page to the last, it had not the faintest conception of reality, and indeed has earned for me the classification of sentimentalist". This was in the Author's Note to the sequel, entitled The World of Wonderful Reality, published a decade later in 1919. His obituary in The Times (20 March 1933) stated that "there were those who might suggest that sentimentalism was too evident in Temple Thurston's work". As well as being a vehicle for Edwardian romanticism, the novel shares the Roman Catholic faith of its author with its main characters. It is a tale of two cities: mainly Edwardian London – the sidelights on life in London for the shabby genteel are interesting – but also Venice.

Copyright is the exclusive right, given to the creator of a creative work, to reproduce the work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States. Some jurisdictions require "fixing" copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders. These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution.

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Contents

Films

The first film based on the novel was The City of Beautiful Nonsense , a silent movie released in 1919, [3] which featured Henry Edwards, Chrissie White and Henry Vibart

City of Beautiful Nonsense is a 1919 British silent film drama directed by Henry Edwards, who also starred in the film with Chrissie White. The film is based on the best-selling 1909 novel of the same name by E. Temple Thurston and is a tale of a woman intending to marry for financial gain and security, who realises at the last minute that to be true to herself and to have the prospect of a happy future she must instead marry for love. A sound version of the same story was made in 1935 by Adrian Brunel.

Henry Edwards (actor) English actor

Henry Edwards was an English actor and film director. He appeared in 81 films between 1915 and 1952. He also directed 67 films between 1915 and 1937. Edwards was married to actress Chrissie White, who co-starred in a number of his films. He was born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset and died in Chobham, Surrey.

Chrissie White British actress

Chrissie White was a British film actress of the silent era. She appeared in over 180 films between 1908 and 1933. White was married to actor and film director Henry Edwards, and in the 1920s the two were regarded as one of Britain's most famous and newsworthy celebrity couples. The couple had two children, a son who died when he was a baby, and a daughter. She starred in the 1920 film The Amazing Quest of Mr. Ernest Bliss, which as of August 2010 is missing from the BFI National Archive, and is listed as one of the British Film Institute's "75 Most Wanted" lost films.

The second film was a talkie, released in 1935 as City of Beautiful Nonsense . It starred Emlyn Williams, Sophie Stewart and Eve Lister. Both were filmed and produced in the United Kingdom.

Sound film Motion picture with synchronized sound

A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures were made commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923.

City of Beautiful Nonsense is a 1935 British drama film directed by Adrian Brunel and starring Emlyn Williams, Sophie Stewart and Eve Lister. The film is based on the best-selling 1909 novel of the same name by E. Temple Thurston, which had previously been filmed as a silent by Henry Edwards in 1919. The plot deals with a young woman who is in love with a penniless composer, but believes she must marry a wealthy man to please her father and only realises after various tribulations that she should follow her heart rather than her head.

Emlyn Williams Welsh dramatist and actor

George Emlyn Williams, CBE, known as Emlyn Williams, was a Welsh writer, dramatist and actor.

In The Souvenir , Joanna Hogg's 2019 film, Honor Swinton Byrne reads to Tom Burke from the novel.

<i>The Souvenir</i> 2019 film directed by Joanna Hogg

The Souvenir is a 2019 drama film written and directed by Joanna Hogg. It stars Honor Swinton Byrne, Tom Burke, and Tilda Swinton.

Joanna Hogg is a British film director and screenwriter. She made her directorial and screenwriting feature film debut in 2007 with Unrelated.

Honor Swinton Byrne is a Scottish actress, and daughter of playwright John Byrne and actress Tilda Swinton. Swinton Byrne had a cameo role in the 2009 film I Am Love, and stars in the Joanna Hogg films The Souvenir (2019) and its sequel The Souvenir Part II.

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References

  1. ↑ Arnold. Books and Persons. Forgotten Books. pp. 290–. ISBN   978-1-4510-0667-4 . Retrieved September 19, 2012.
  2. ↑ Ernest Temple Thurston (1915). The city of beautiful nonsense. Dodd, Mead & Company. Retrieved September 17, 2012.
  3. ↑ Advance: (1920). Congregational Publishing Society. 1920. pp. 1–. Retrieved September 17, 2012.


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