 | |
| Author | A. E. W. Mason |
|---|---|
| Country | England, Argentina |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
Publication date | 1912 [1] |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 344 [1] |
The Turnstile is a 1912 political novel by the English author A. E. W. Mason. The novel's fictional hero was based party upon the author's own experiences as a Member of parliament, and partly upon his friend Robert Falcon Scott, who at that time had yet to start out on his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole.
Cynthia Daventry, the heroine of the story, grows up in Argentina as the adopted daughter of Robert and Jane Daventry, an English couple. Unable to have children themselves, they had adopted Cynthia at the age of three from a foundling hospital where she had been left by her dissolute father, James Glanville, following her mother's death. Cynthia is unaware of her parentage, and is horrified when on her 17th birthday Glanville arrives unannounced to claim her, intending to force her into prostitution in Buenos Aires and live off the proceeds. The Daventrys flee back to England, where they live comfortably, although Cynthia never shakes off her deep-rooted fears.
After the Daventrys’ death, Cynthia marries Captain Harry Rames, an up-and-coming politician whom she had first admired years earlier when as a naval officer he had led an expedition to the Antarctic. She realises that Rames does not love her but hopes that he will in time. Meanwhile, she throws herself into furthering his political career, while secretly regretting that his activities are driven not by any inner conviction but by his desire to win power and influence.
Some years later, in spite of Rames’ increasing success he quite suddenly loses interest in politics, though he hides the fact from Cynthia whom he has now started to love. For her part, Cynthia recognises a change and suspects that he might have taken a lover. When Rames eventually admits that his long-sublimated passion for the Antarctic has reasserted itself, Cynthia consents to his abandoning politics and leading a new expedition south. During the three years that Rames is away Cynthia goes back to live in her childhood home in Argentina. Ultimately, Rames returns safely to her.
Mason's fictional hero, Captain Rames, was based party upon his own experiences as a Liberal Member of parliament between 1906 and 1910, [2] and partly upon his friend Robert Falcon Scott, who at that time had yet to start out on his ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition. [3]
As a candidate for the Liberal cause, Mason had proved himself to be an excellent and rousing political speaker, with JM Barrie writing to Arthur Quiller-Couch that he "is loved all over the place and gets wound up by big meetings to great effect". [4] Rames's election speech in the novel is taken directly from Mason's own experience of being elected as an MP on 16 January 1906, a supporter recalling "On the day of the poll I waited up late with a large crowd in the street to hear the result. When it was announced Mason appeared on a small balcony, and there was much cheering. He had almost lost his voice, but when there was silence he said 'My constituents -- ', and there was so much cheering that he did not have to say any more". [5]
Mason found his duties as an MP challenging, and his harrowing experience of making his maiden speech in the House on 15 November 1906 is described both in this book and in The Dean's Elbow . [6] The pettiness and lack of individuality of party politics galled him bitterly, and he allowed Rames express his disillusionment for him. Ultimately disappointed with political life, Mason abandoned politics for literature in 1910. [7]
Mason had completed the novel by the end of 1911, aligning his hero with Robert Scott more closely by matching his voyage to the Antarctic with the voyage that Scott himself was about to undertake. Unfortunately, by the time of its publication in September 1912, Scott had already perished [8] and the press had published news of Amundsen’s success at the South Pole. [9] In an introductory note dated May 1912, Mason said "In view of recent events, I think it proper to say that this book was planned and the writing of it begun by the spring of the year 1909". [10]
On its publication in 1912, the book was greeted as one of the best parliamentary novels since Disraeli's, and at the same time "as absorbing and admirably written as any Mr Mason has done". [11]
Writing in 1952, Mason’s biographer Roger Lancelyn Green called The Turnstile "one of Mason's most successful novels, a novel pure and simple without any of the adventurous content of his other books". Green noted that the reason for its not being one of Mason's most popular books lies in its unexpectedness, with readers of Mason expecting excitement and adventure rather than a novel of character. [12]
Captain Robert Falcon Scott was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery expedition of 1901–04 and the Terra Nova expedition of 1910–13.
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Scott of the Antarctic is a 1948 British adventure film starring John Mills as Robert Falcon Scott in his ill-fated attempt to reach the South Pole. The film more or less faithfully recreates the events that befell the Terra Nova Expedition in 1912.
Framheim was the name of explorer Roald Amundsen's base at the Bay of Whales on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica during his successful quest for the South Pole. It was used between January 1911 and February 1912.
Olav Bjaaland was a Norwegian ski champion and polar explorer. In 1911, he was one of the first five men to reach the South Pole as part of Amundsen's South Pole expedition.
Alfred Edward Woodley Mason was an English author and Liberal Party Member of Parliament. He is best remembered for his 1902 novel of courage and cowardice in wartime, The Four Feathers, and is also known as the creator of Inspector Hanaud, a French detective who was an early template for Agatha Christie's famous Hercule Poirot.
Oscar Adolf Wisting was a Norwegian Naval officer and polar explorer. Together with Roald Amundsen he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles.
Polheim was Roald Amundsen's name for his camp at the South Pole. He arrived there on 14 December 1911, along with four other members of his expedition: Helmer Hanssen, Olav Bjaaland, Oscar Wisting, and Sverre Hassel.
The Terra NovaExpedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition to Antarctica which took place between 1910 and 1913. Led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the expedition had various scientific and geographical objectives. Scott wished to continue the scientific work that he had begun when leading the Discovery Expedition from 1901 to 1904, and wanted to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole.
The first ever expedition to reach the Geographic South Pole was led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Himself and four other crew members made it to the geographical south pole on 14 December 1911, which would prove to be five weeks ahead of the competitive British party led by Robert Falcon Scott as part of the Terra Nova Expedition. Amundsen and his team returned safely to their base, and about a year later heard that Scott and his four companions had perished on their return journey.
Between December 1911 and January 1912, both Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole within five weeks of each other. But while Scott and his four companions died on the return journey, Amundsen's party managed to reach the geographic south pole first and subsequently return to their base camp at Framheim without loss of human life, suggesting that they were better prepared for the expedition. The contrasting fates of the two teams seeking the same prize at the same time invites comparison.
The Japanese Antarctic Expedition of 1910–12, in the ship Kainan Maru, was the first such expedition by a non-European nation. It was concurrent with two major Antarctic endeavours led respectively by Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, and has been relatively overlooked in polar history. After failing to land in its first season, the Japanese expedition's original aim of reaching the South Pole was replaced by less ambitious objectives, and after a more successful second season it returned safely to Japan, without injury or loss of life.
Nobu Shirase was a Japanese army officer and explorer. He led the first Japanese Antarctic Expedition, 1910–12, which reached a southern latitude of 80°5′, and made the first landing on the coast of King Edward VII Land.
Lawrence Edward Grace "Titus" Oates was a British army officer, and later an Antarctic explorer, who died from hypothermia during the Terra Nova Expedition when he walked from his tent into a blizzard. His death, which occurred on his 32nd birthday, is seen as an act of self-sacrifice when, aware that the gangrene and frostbite from which he was suffering was compromising his three companions' chances of survival, he chose certain death for himself to relieve them of the burden of caring for him.
The Prisoner in the Opal is a British detective novel by A.E.W. Mason, serialised in The Pall Mall Magazine and published in book form in 1928. It is the third full-length novel in Mason's Inspector Hanaud series, and the only one to feature the occult as a significant plot point.
They Wouldn't Be Chessmen is a 1935 British detective novel by A.E.W. Mason. It is the fourth full-length novel in Mason's Inspector Hanaud series.
The House in Lordship Lane is a 1946 British detective novel by A.E.W. Mason. It is the fifth and final full-length novel in Mason's Inspector Hanaud series, published when the author was eighty-one. Unlike the others in the series the story is largely set in England, the Lordship Lane of the title being a thoroughfare in East Dulwich, South London.
Miranda of the Balcony is a novel by the British writer A.E.W. Mason, first published 6 October 1899. It has been called a modern re-telling of Homer's Odyssey and was one of the sources used by James Joyce for his 1922 novel Ulysses.
The Summons is a 1920 novel of adventure and romance by A. E. W. Mason, published by Hodder & Stoughton. Set just before and during the Great War, the novel recounts the adventures of Martin Hillyard, a secret service agent, and his army officer friend Harry Luttrell who aims to restore the battered reputation of his regiment.
The Dean's Elbow is a 1930 novel by the English novelist A. E. W. Mason, first serialised in Harper's Bazaar from October 1929.