Fumes of Formation. Amanda M. Ros, 1933

Amanda M. Ros. FUMES OF FORMATION. R. Carswell & Son, Belfast. 1933.

Current Selling Prices
$300-$500 /£150-£250


LITERATURE /POETRY / ODDBALLIANA
A scarce 44 page book by the extraordinary Amanda Ros. 2000 copies were printed but only 160 bound up; the remaining sets of sheets were destroyed. It never had a jacket, 100 had rounded spines, 60 had flat spines. Flat is best. A collection of poems, whose source the author describes in a note on the title-page: ''This inventive production was hatched within a mind fringed with Fumes of Formation, the Ingenious Innings of Inspiration and Thorny Tincture of Thought.''

Amanda McKittrick Ros (1860 - 1939) is still something of a cult. She is often cited with William McGonagall as an amazingly bad writer. However whereas WM was simply a thumpingly awful writer, Ros could occasionally turn out magical lines such as her dismissal of the critic D.B. Wyndham Lewis as '...a thick-witted, evil-minded snapshot of spleen.' In describing the gilded young hustlers whom she imagined flaunted along the streets of London she wrote:

'Their hair was a light-golden colour, thickly fringed in front, hiding in many cases the furrows of a life of vice; behind, reared coils, some of which differed in hue, exhibiting the fact that they were on patrol for the price of another supply of dye.... The elegance of their attire had the glow of robbery - the rustle of many a lady's silent curse. These tools of brazen effrontery were strangers to the blush of innocence that tinged many a cheek, as they would gather round some of God's ordained, praying in flowery words of decoying Cockney, that they should break their holy vows by accompanying them to the halls of adultery. Nothing daunted at the staunch refusal of different divines, whose modest walk was interrupted by their bold assertion of loathsome rights, they moved on, while laughs of hidden rage and defeat flitted across their doll-decked faces...'

Aldous Huxley wrote that the above passage is in the very spirit and language of John Lyly's 'Euphues' (1578.) Through her intense solipsism and isolation from current literary thought Amanda Ros had arrived 300 years later at the exact stage of development as Lyly and his disciples- 'We see, as we see in the Elizabethan novelists, the result of the discovery of art by an unsophisticated mind and of its first conscious attempt to produce the artistic. It is remarkable how late in the history of every literature simplicity is invented...'

Fans include Twain, Huxley, Auden, Sassoon, Anthony Powell, Frank Muir and C. S. Lewis. Powell said of her -'She may be a long way from Shakespeare, but she partakes in however infinitely minute a degree, of the Shakespearian power of language.' The Inklings who would meet at the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford for readings of her work - playing a sort of game of trying to keep a straight face for more than a minute while reading from her works and downing pints. Earlier a club of London men of letters (including Lord Beveridge, Desmond MacCarthy, E.V. Lucas and F.Anstey) met specifically to exchange the most ludicrous examples of her work that they could find.In a late interview with the BBC she was asked why she named a villain Lord Raspberry. It is reported that: 'Mrs. Ros put down her teacup with a startled air. "What else should I have called him?" she said.'

VALUE? You could probably build a complete Amanda Ros collection for $1000, for a £1000 they would all be in super condition with the occasional presentation and even signed letter. For £5000 you would be the Roman Abramovich of Ros collectors with a few manuscripts, early jackets and variants, proof copies, portaits, photos and scarce ephemera. There is a ceiling on value and a limited (but keen) coterie of collectors--she is not Sylvia Plath; for the truly borassic collector of Ms. Ros there is a good guide on the web - 'A Pauper's Guide to collecting her works' at Oasis of Futurity ('A Shrine to the Late-Lamented Amanda McKittrick Ros.') Her rarest items are probably the 2 broadsheets from 1915 and 1916 - 'Kaiser Bill' and 'A Little Belgian Orphan' (signed pseudonymously Monica Mayland.) St. Scandalbags (1954) is difficult, as is Poems of Puncture - published by the vanity press Arthur H. Stockwell in 1913. We sold Frank Muir's copy of this (with a few corrections by Ms Ros) in 2005 at £150. Frank had a lot of her books and knew her biographer Jack Loudan. At a London book fair in June 1973 a completist collection formed by a founder of the British Communist Party, one David Mercer of Thames Ditton, was offered by dealer Alf Wallis at £4500 - it contained many manuscripts, letters and rarities. Possibly not a great investment, 34 years later we have less of a taste for oddities, whimsy and weirdness. [ W/Q * ]

One of her rarest books is 'Bayonets of Bastard Sheen ( 50 copies only in 1949). It was culled from letters written between 1927 and 1939 mostly vituperations against critics + a short piece 'Lewis Carroll. A Hasty Evaluation' prompted by the price of £15,400 paid by Dr. Rosenbach for the manuscript. She takes a very dim view of the Carroll book in several letters. Here is a list of her synonyms for critics:

Apprentices to the scathing trade
Auctioneering agents of Satan
Brain-blighters
Brain-bruisers
Character-clipping-combination
Clay-crabs of corruption
Conglomeration of braying opinions
Cornerboy shadows of criticism
Critic cads
Critic Crabs
Critic Curs
Crowdrops
Crows
Denunciating Arabs
Drunken ignorant dross
Egotistical earth-worms
Egotistic atoms
Evil-minded snapshots of spleen
Gang of drunken swags
Gas-bag section
Genius-beetlers
Genius-scathers
Half-starved upstarts
Hogwashing hooligans
Intelligibles of bad-breeding
Maggoty numskulls
Maggoty throng
Mushroom class of idiotics
Mushroom class of talent twisters
Poisonous apes
Poking hounds
Poor apes
Public character-tearers
Raging roughs
Random hacks of illiteration
Rodents of State
Scandalizers of books
Scandalmongering critics
Scathers of genius
Scathing circle
Scorchers of rare talent
Scribblers of thick witted type
Scurrilous scribes
Self-opinionated mortals
Starving critic cads
Street Arabs
Talent-pickers
Talent wipers of a wormy order
Tree of rebuff

Rave on, O rare Amanda!

A – Z of Celebrity Book Collections

Quantity

One of the few book dealers to become a celebrity is ‘ King ‘ Richard Booth, the founder of book-town Hay on the Welsh border. I remember buying from him as a teenager circa 1970 when he would suddenly appear at the counter of the Old Cinema and price books on the spot that you’d chosen. He had the reputation for buying in huge quantities back then, but when I
interviewed him in 2004 his appetite seemed undimmed, despite the debilitating effects of a brain tumour. ‘ I personally drive a two-ton van ‘, he told me, ‘ and travel all over the north-west. I still offer competitive prices for quantity…I will buy a ton of books, where other dealers will turn away ‘. He also revealed that he was seriously considering moving from Hay Castle to set up gigantic book warehouses in Eastern Europe. ‘At Wadlstadt-Wunsdorf, a big army base near Berlin’ he revealed, ‘, there are fifteen disused supermarkets which could be filled with books from America for distribution to the ten new Eastern European countries ‘. He even half-joked that a statue might be erected to him there to replace the one of Lenin.
I don’t know whether, six years on, Booth has gone any way towards realising his dream , but you can’t fault the man for ambition.

Radicalism

Very recently I learnt that a friend had bought a volume bearing the bookplate of the late Michael Foot. We now know that in 2004 he pledged his unique Hazlitt collection, which included rare signed copies, to the Wordsworth Trust. But what happened to the rest of his large and impressive library of works on English political radicalism ? This contained rare pamphlets and radical newspapers from the Golden Age and I daresay his collection of Cobbett even surpassed that of Richard Ingrams. Years ago I tried to arrange an interview with Foot , but I’m not surprised that he turned me down. He was then in his mid eighties and lived alone, circumstances which present security problems.


Amanda McKittrick Ros

The late lamented Frank Muir, a passionate book collector, was a great admirer of this Irish writer, of whom Cyril Connolly wrote: ‘ She has given more indecent pleasure than any living novelist.’ The Inklings, Aldous Huxley and John Betjeman were others who sought out her work, which may have been easier to come by in the twenties. Simon Brett, who was given a copy of the 1926 Nonesuch edition of Ros’s Irene Iddesleigh by Muir, called her ‘ possibly the worst novelist ever to be published ‘. The words ‘ high-flown ‘, ‘ alliterative ‘ and ‘ melodramatic ‘are used by literary people to describe her unique style. For instance, this is how she tells her readers that her heroine earned money through needlework:

‘She tried hard to keep herself a stranger to her poor old father’s slight income by the use of the finest production of steel, whose blunt edge eyed the reely covering with marked greed, and offered its sharp dart to faultless fabrics of flaxen fineness.'

Reading Ros is still a secret pleasure that many writers keep to themselves, and it has been impossible to keep the prices of her novels and two volumes of poetry at an affordable level, such is the demand for her books. It’s odd that no-one has had the wit to republish all of them in full. The absence of such reprints may partly explain why her addicts are loath to part with any of her books that they might be lucky enough to find, which could explain why ABE have so few titles at present Maggs want $822 for a first of Delina Delaney and until recently Jarndyce was offering the exceptionally rare first of Irene Iddesleigh (1897 ) at $206, which is only $5 dearer than the Nonesuch edition for sale at the same time. When you consider how hilarious Ros is, these prices don’t seem too much to pay .

Shakespeare

Lord Baker owns some separately bound Shakespeare plays from the First Folio as well as the exceedingly expensive ( £100,000 + ) King James Bible of 1611, though of course the Bard himself would have relied on the earlier Geneva Bible as a source.

Shell Guides

Celebrity admirers of these classic guides include Oldie editor Richard Ingrams and Jonathan Meades. Ingrams knew the general editors Piper and Betjeman personally and owns a fine collection, including some of the rare spiral-bound editions. Jonathan Meades, who once contemplated writing a Shell Guide himself has a favourite in Dorset by Michael Pitt-Rivers. He also admires the two principal photographers, Edward Piper and Edwin Smith. To Meades, Edwards’s photographs in Buckinghamshire (1981 ) make it appear as though the whole county ‘ was going to suffer an electric storm at any moment...' The Guides have now become iconic and their prices are rising. Less than ten years ago most of the spiral bound editions of the thirties could be had for under £20, but the trendiness of twentieth century British art has seen Shell Guide prices shooting up, particularly those by leading British artists, such as Piper and Paul Nash. At present ABE has no copy of the latter’s Dorset –always a rarish title—which can fetch over £100, and John Piper’s Oxon (1939) is nearly as expensive. So if you are lucky enough to discover a spiral bound Shell Guide in a jumble sale ( as I did once ) count yourself extremely lucky.

Spiderman

Hollywood star Nicholas Cage is said to own one of the largest private collections of comic books in the world. Bespectacled former surgeon Harry Hill is a comic who collects comics. Felix Dennis regrets selling his collection of action comics in his youth but now owns a vast collection of original art work, which he houses in his Warwickshire home.

Surrealism

The late George Melly, jazz singer extraordinaire, owned a fine collection of surrealist paintings, many of which he had to sell. He has also parted with valuable books in his collection, including Max Ernst’s Histoire Naturelle. Back in 2003 he was philosophical concerning the fate of his library after his demise.’ My wife will probably sell them ‘, was his assumption. Poet David Gascoyne, author of A Brief History of Surrealism and Man’s Life is This Meat ( a title given to him by Geoffrey Grigson ), also had to offload most of his surrealist paintings when strapped for cash, but hung on to most, if not all, of his books on surrealism. Celebrity zoologist Desmond Morris, whose great great grandfather was a bookseller in Swindon, is both a surrealist painter and a connoisseur of books on the movement, and the author of a catalogue raisonné (?unpublished) of his hero Joan Miro. One of his rarest volumes is Conroy Maddox: Surrealist Enigmas, edited by Sylvano Levy, which appeared in a limited edition of just twelve. [R.M.Healey.]

Many thanks Robin. Modest of you not to mention that the Shell Guide to Hertfordshire is your own work; must get mine signed. Michael Foot was a great bookshop habituée and is much missed. We nearly bought the library of his nephew Paul Foot--a great collection of radical literature, but the family decided to keep it. Possibly the same thing will happen to Michael Foot's books. Amanda Ros has become a standard collectable but I am not sure if she has a new generation of punters. I sold my own copy of her St. Scandalbags last year and deeply regret it. As for Nicholas Cage, occasionally seen in Charing Cross buying Illustrated books, I heard that he had sold his comic collection and much else due to a very nasty IRS bill. Parts of Melly's library have surfaced in various shops, mostly in Chelsea. As for Shell Guides we will not mention the severe overpricing of them in the Bournemouth area...

Young England. The worst play ever?

Walter Reynolds. YOUNG ENGLAND. Gollancz, London 1935

Current Selling Prices
$160-$250 / £80-£125

PLAY
I was reminded of this appalling play recently when hearing Edwina Currie review the musical 'Kismet' in London as 'dire,dire,dire...' Without having seen it I am sure she is right because as far as I am concerned all musicals are dire. The medium is the message. Martin Cropper, a brilliant and acerbic critic at 'The Times' got the elbow about 20 years for voicing similar opinions. Edwina said that the revival of Kismet was so lousy it might attract audiences in the way that the fictional 'Springtime for Hitler' did. There is a real life precursor--the unforgettable 1934 hit 'Young England.'

'Young England' is a now uncommon book especially in a jacket and of interest to theatre collectors and connoisseurs of the odd and the zany. Reynolds appears to have been a sort of Amanda Ros of the theatre--so very bad that he is good. Our last copy was described thus:

'8vo. pp 288. Frontis portrait, 5 plates. A play in two periods. This play had an unlikely success in the 1930s rather similar to the fictitious 'Springtime for Hitler.' It was so appallingly bad that audiences came along in their droves for over 300 nights to shout amusing remarks and generally revel in its ghastliness. The frontis portrait of the Reverend Walter Reynolds shows a stern Scottish type who apparently would walk up and down the aisles of the theatre during performances telling people to be quiet. Quite scarce.'

The critics voted it the worst show that had opened in London in 20 years: nobody gave it three nights. It ran, to packed houses, for nearly a year. Over a quarter of a million people saw it. Wikipedia has an entry on it and the Time magazine archives have this article from December 1939 :

'...London's bright boys just had to see what the worst show in 20 years looked like. They screamed with laughter at its superpatriotic goings-on, involving gallant officers, dastardly villains, prostitutes, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, taints of illegitimacy, stolen papers, stolen cash, the Union Jack. They went back for more, and their friends went with them. .Soon it became quite as chic to go (preferably halfcocked) to Young England as to the opera. At first the audience merely ad-libbed, then (as they came to know the play virtually by heart) they started beating the actors to their lines. The famed British reserve took its worst pummeling in centuries, and Young England became a rough-&-tumble free-for-all.
Shortly after World War II began, it was decided to revive the play. There were some fears that it might have ad-libbed its usefulness, that jesting at patriotism might not go down in wartime. The fears were groundless. With tension in the air, people have been gladder than ever to relax, and with soldiers in the audience, the wisecracks are even rawer than they used to be.
¶ One set shows a Salvation Army "citadel" with doors marked MEN and WOMEN. Every time an actor starts for one, the crowd shouts: "Wrong door, wrong door."
¶ When Boy Scouts or Girl Guides are assigned to "water detail," voices pipe up: "Stay out of those bushes"; "Be careful of the side of the barn."
¶ One night, when the hero was proved not to be illegitimate, someone yelled: "Consider yourself unbawstardized."
¶ The actors (who otherwise play their roles straight) have made a game of altering their lines if the crowd beats them to the draw. Thus the villain, when led away by the police, pauses to say "Foiled!" He was almost licked one night when the crowd shouted not only "Foiled!" but "Baffled!" "Beaten!" "Frustrated!" "Outwitted!" "Trapped!" "Flummoxed!" He waited until the wits were through, then hissed: "Stymied!"
Walter Reynolds, Young England's 88-year-old author, still takes his dead-serious play seriously. He went to the opening of the revival, a sad, reedy figure in a great black cape, doddered up the stairs to his box holding on to both handrails, sat tense through the uproar, at the end bowed to the audience, thanked them. Asked in a BBC interview whether he wasn't angry at the way audiences treated Young England, he answered: "No. They're a little noisy . . . but they pay as much as 10 and 6 for seats, so they must like it."

I had an aunt who saw the play and still talked about it into her nineties, she recalled people throwing things and a whole lot of shouted audience participation- 'rather like a pantomine.' One old actor recalled being hit by coins ('quite painful.') One wonders if this could ever happen again in the West End; possibly our current theatre goers are not up for a laugh in the same way as the young things of the 1930s. As the 'Time' reporter writes, many of the audience went to the show 'halfcocked' -probably cocktails, given the era.

VALUE? Not vast. Above prices are for nice copies in jacket, for some reason most copies I have seen have been mediocre. You can get more for a good Stoppard first edition - but a nice copy of this play in the jacket, signed by the great man should get well into three figures.