A G Macdonell's England Their England The Characters

A. G. Macdonell's

England, Their England (1933)

Who was who?

by L. J. Hurst

The Fiction	The Inspiration

"a very stout publisher"	Cecil Harmer
Bobby Southcott	(*1) Alec Waugh (author of Loom Of Youth, brother of Evelyn)* (2) Michael Arlen, novelist (3) William Gerhardie, novelist
Donald Cameron	A. G. Macdonell himself
Mr William Hodge (editor of London Weekly)	J. C. Squire (editor of The London Mercury)
Mr Tommy Huggins	J. B. Morton (“Beachcomber”)
Rupert Harcourt	(1) Hugh Mackintosh, poet (2) Clifford Bax*
Bob Bloomer	J. H. Thomas (His budget leak came later) .
Professor of Ballistics	E N da C Andrade*
Major Hawker	Captain Reginald Berkeley, MC*
Lady Ormerode	Nancy Astor*
Ormerode Towers, Surrey	Cliveden, Buckinghamshire*
The cricket team	*The Invalids Cricket Club (subject of the book Sing Willow)*
"Fordenden, Kent" Venue of the cricket match	(1) Rodmell, Sussex. “A local cricket match was immortalised by A. G. Macdonell *in England, Their England”.* (It was actually only their second ever). (2) Fordcombe, Kent*

England, Their England was awarded the James Tait Black Prize in 1934.

Note:

W. E. Henley wrote “What have I done for you, England, my England? What is there I would not do, England, my own?” in his poem “Pro Rege Nostro” in 1892, collected in For England’s Sake (1900).

In 1915, D. H. Lawrence wrote his short story, “England, My England” – allegedly another roman a clef – which was collected eponymously in 1922.

Macdonell followed in 1933,

and in 1940 George Orwell wrote his essay “England, Your England”.

In 1961 Colin MacInnes published England, Half English, while

Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall wrote England, Our England, a revue , a year later (for which Dudley Moore wrote the music).

Does only the question “England, Whose England?” remain outstanding?

Dr P. J. Goebbels and A. G. Macdonell

Dr Josef Goebbels, the Reich Minister for Propaganda, in his diary entry for December 8th, 1940 wrote about his experience of reading A. G. Macdonell:

"I read a book by the Englishman MacDonell, Self-Portrait of a Gentleman, an unspeakably frivolous and cynical concoction that shows the English plutocrat without his mask. This is the face of the people whom we must overthrow."

Translator Fred Taylor points out that this is a reference to Scottish author Macdonell's 1939 novel, Autobiography of a Cad.

Dr Goebbels, despite his distaste, continued to read Macdonell. On Monday December 23, 1940 he wrote:

"Carry on dictating and reading for a long while. Macdonell's Self-Portrait of a Gentleman. Simply horrifying. One can feel nothing but outrage as one finishes the book."

The edition in question must have been Selbstbildnis eines Gentleman (Stuttgart: Franckh'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1940), translated from the English by Karin von Schab. While both Goebbels and Macdonell died before the end of the war, perhaps it would have been better for the world if the order of their demise had been reversed. Or if Goebbels had had a sense of humour.

Unhappily, Dr Goebbels never had the time to read an earlier novel of Macdonell's, Lords And Masters, published in 1936. Chapter XVII contains the following rumination by a character recently returned from Germany:

"Veronica [a Unity Mitford-like girl], who heartily despised the physical appearance of any male under about six-foot-three, was not so narrow-minded as to despise male intelligence simply because it was encased in a relatively dwarfish body. After all, no one could call the Fuehrer particularly handsome, and yet what a mammoth intellect he had got! Dr. Goebbels was positively ugly, but look how he scattered the non-Aryans with his inner fires of patriotism and genius!"

A examination in July 2007 showed many German second-hand booksellers continuing to classify Selbstbildnis eines Gentleman as a (n auto)biography.

A. G. Macdonell

Bibliography

Fiction

England, Their England (1933)
How Like An Angel (1934)
Lords and Masters (1936)
Autobiography of a Cad (1939)
Flight From a Lady (1939)
Crew of the Anaconda (1940)

Short Stories

The Spanish Pistol (1939)

Drama

What Next, Baby? or Shall I Go to Tanganyika? (1939)
The Fur Coat (1943)

Non-Fiction

Napoleon and his Marshalls (1934)
A Visit to America (1935)
My Scotland (1937)

All were published by Macmillan in Britain, except My Scotland, published by Jarrolds

Crime Bibliography

A. G. Macdonell also wrote detective stories under three pseudonyms:

CAMERON, JOHN

The Seven Stabs (1929)

Body Found Stabbed (1932)

GORDON, NEIL

The Factory on the Cliff (1928)

The Professor's Poison (1928)

The Silent Murders (1929)

The Big Ben Alibi (1930)

Murder in Earl's Court (1931)

The Shakespeare Murders (1933)

(Filmed in 1934, as The Third Clue and again in 1938, as The Clayton Treasure Mystery)

KENNEDY, ROBERT MILWARD

(co-authored with Milward Kennedy Burge)

The Bleston Mystery (1928)

Archibald Gordon Macdonell (1895 - 1941)

For Macdonell's biography, click here.

Sources include:

Richard Ingrams (Ed.): Introduction to Best of Beachcomber
William Amos: The Originals: Who's Really Who in Fiction
Harry T. Moore: The Priest of Love, a life of D H Lawrence
Nigel Rees: Cassell Companion to Quotations
Hugo Vickers’ Introduction to England Their England (Folio Society 1986) * (Added 20 July 2011)
Allen J. Hubin: Crime Fiction III: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 1749-1995
Fred Taylor (Trans. & Ed.): The Goebbels Diaries 1939-41

Goebbels/Fred Taylor spell Macdonell's name with a capital D, "MacDonell". Other references do not, which was Macdonell's own usage.

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