As We Were: A Victorian Peep-show

by E.F. Benson | Biographies & Memoirs |
ISBN: 0701205881 Global Overview for this book
Registered by wingGoryDetailswing of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 8/16/2005
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6 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by wingGoryDetailswing from Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Tuesday, August 16, 2005
[The previous copy of this book that I'd registered seems to have gotten itself misplaced while on a bookring, so when I found this copy at a marvelously low price I decided to nab it and re-start the ring.]

I've enjoyed nearly everything I've read by E. F. Benson, from his ghost stories to his Mapp & Lucia comedies of manners. He also wrote several non-fiction books of assorted recollections and autobiographical bits; this is the first, with As We Are and Final Edition following up. This book, subtitled "a Victorian Peep-show," was originally published in 1930; this edition came out in '85 and has a new introduction by T. F. Binyon, which includes a lot of biographical info about Benson and his family.

Benson's account begins with "the pincushion," a chapter that uses an ornamental pincushion (procured specifically for a visit from Queen Victoria) to establish the time and place; the descriptions of the furnishings, fashion, and customs of the time are amusing and quaint. About the common practice of "impromptu" musical performances after dinner:
Such songs as "The Lost Chord" (words by my cousin Adelaide Anne Procter, music by Arthur Sullivan) were accepted as test-pieces for tears: the singer tried her strength with them, as if they were punching-machines at a fair which registered muscular force. If there was not a dry eye in the room when she had delivered her blow she was a champion.
But even as Benson describes these evenings he admits that they are long gone:
Now such an evening as this, designed and appreciated as an agreeable social dissipation, seems to us now more socially remote than the feasts of late Imperial Rome or the parties at the Pavilion at Brighton during the heyday of the Regent, and so no doubt it is.
Benson seemed to know nearly everyone who was anyone - his family was quite well-connected. He describes his father's rise from headmaster to head of the Church of England, natters charmingly about a pair of fascinating society women (who may have served as inspirations for some of his fictional heroines), and comments on "three monumental figures" - Gladstone, Tennyson, and Queen Victoria. Of Tennyson he notes:
He was recluse, he did not appear much in London, but a somewhat famous occasion of the sort was when he attended a garden party at Marlborough House. He was there seen by Mr. Oscar Browning, a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, who had an amiable and insatiable passion for intercourse with the eminent. So he went up and shook hands with him, and as the poet seemed not to have the slightest idea who he was, he introduced himself by saying, "I am Browning." Tennyson must have thought that he was impersonating Robert Browning, so he merely replied, "No, you're not," and seemed disinclined to listen to any explanations.
Oscar Browning features largely in another chapter: "He was a genius flawed by abysmal fatuity." And another of the Fellows of King's, one Walter Headlam, is apparently a classic model of the absent-minded professor; there's a hilarious passage describing how he would make little notes on slips of paper about passages he wanted to quote, and then light his pipe with the same papers, all the while having forgotten about the shaving-water that was on the boil. (He also tended to shift books and papers on top of such items as his pipe or his lunch, so I felt him to be a kindred spirit, as I too am a victim of "putting things on top of other things".)

Benson describes the world of fashion as well as the academic world; later in the book he talks of several of the "great ladies" of the era, and of the parties at which they would preside. Many of their guests were notable in their own right: "Oscar Wilde came drifting largely along, and caught sight of some new arrival. 'Oh, I'm so glad you've come,' he said. 'There are a hundred things I want not to say to you.'"

Oscar features more prominently in a later chapter in which Benson discusses his life, works, and the infamous trial; it's interesting to see the viewpoint of a contemporary of Wilde's who had no bone to pick with either side, and though Benson doesn't entirely admire Wilde - at one point he says that his plays "have aged rapidly and become out of date, their wit to us seems tight-roped and acrobatic, and now no one in England will listen to them," and theorizes that had it not been for the trial Wilde's work would not have survived at all - he does conclude with "...of the number of his real friends, who knew what lay below his follies and his vices, there was none who failed to stand by him. There is much to be said for judging a man by his friends."

Other chapters deal with artists, poets, writers, politicians - often all at once. I found it especially charming when Benson would be chatting about various authors' works and then toss in a line about "I was staying with him [Henry James] once at Lamb House in Rye..." - he got a lot of his information about these people from very close at hand!

The book begins with a reminiscence, and ends with a chilling news item about an assassination; at the time it means nothing to Benson and his friends: "'Serajevo?' I asked. 'Oh, yes, I remember. Bosnia is it? I'm nearly as ignorant as I was before.' That was all: we did not allude to it again." But then "early in August the shirt of fire in which Europe was to burn for four years, was ready for the wearing, and the old order of secure prosperity, of which I have been speaking, smouldered into ash, and England will know it no more."

Gossipy, informative, and often very funny; recommended!

Journal Entry 2 by wingGoryDetailswing from Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Tuesday, August 16, 2005
I'm sending this out on a bookring, to replace this missing-and-possibly-stuck-behind-the-wall-by-the-decorators copy. Bookring instructions:

When you receive the book, please journal it, and PM the next person in line for their address so you'll have it ready when you've finished the book.
Note: even if you've sent books to that person before, please PM them before mailing this one, to confirm that the address is correct and that they're able to take on a bookring book at this time.
Read the book promptly - ideally, within a month of receiving it. (If you expect to take longer, you can request to be put at the end of the list. If you find you're swamped with other books when the person before you contacts you about the bookring, you can ask to be skipped, and then let me know whether you'd like to be moved down the list or dropped entirely. If you receive the book and find it's taking longer than you'd planned to get through it, I'd appreciate an update in its journal entries or on your profile, just to let me and the other participants know you haven't forgotten it.)

When you're ready to pass the book along, please make another journal entry containing your comments about the book and stating where you've sent it, and set the book's status code to "traveling". [If you find that you're having problems contacting the next person in line, or don't think you can manage to mail the book as originally agreed, please let me know; I'll be glad to try to work something out.]

***

Participants, in mailing order:

sqdancer [Canada]
icekween01 [MO]
MollyGrue [WA]
deenbat [NH]

...and back to GoryDetails [NH].

Journal Entry 3 by wingGoryDetailswing from Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Controlled release:

The book's on its way to sqdancer in Canada. Hope you enjoy it!

Journal Entry 4 by sqdancer on Thursday, September 1, 2005
Thanks for re-starting this ring. I'm looking forward to reading this book.


Journal Entry 5 by sqdancer on Wednesday, October 12, 2005
ACK! I thought I had journaled this the day I mailed it. Very sorry for the late entry.

I enjoyed the book and Gory's very thorough (as usual) journal entry. Thanks for sharing.

The book was mailed on Thursday, October 6th via Air Mail.

Journal Entry 6 by icekween01 from St. Louis, Missouri USA on Wednesday, October 19, 2005
I tried to read this one, but couldn't get into it. Loaned it to a friend who I thought would enjoy it so it wouldn't be a complete waste and she did say that she found it interesting. Sorry for my late journal entry, I had a minute when I was completely overloaded with rings/rays.

Thanks for sharing your book!

Peace and Happy Bookcrossing!

Journal Entry 7 by MollyGrue from Tacoma, Washington USA on Thursday, March 9, 2006
Received today and looking forward to it. :)

Journal Entry 8 by MollyGrue from Tacoma, Washington USA on Wednesday, July 5, 2006
Finally finished this! I thought this was somewhat more Victorian than I thought it would be, which made it somewhat rough going for me. Glad to have read it, though. :)

Reserved for the next reader.

Journal Entry 9 by MollyGrue at In The Mail in Bookring, A Bookring -- Controlled Releases on Saturday, September 9, 2006

Released 17 yrs ago (9/9/2006 UTC) at In The Mail in Bookring, A Bookring -- Controlled Releases

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

Happy reading!

Journal Entry 10 by wingAnonymousFinderwing on Saturday, September 16, 2006
just arrived today - I was quite surprised! - I will get to it as quickly as I can, I promise.

Journal Entry 11 by deenbat from Carlisle, Pennsylvania USA on Saturday, September 16, 2006
what a dope I am. I forgot that I deleted all my cookies, so I made my journal entry as an anonymous finder instead of as me!!

sigh...

Journal Entry 12 by deenbat from Carlisle, Pennsylvania USA on Sunday, February 18, 2007
I wish I could write an entry full of thoughtful insights about this book... alas, my life is such that I have determined that it might be years before I get to it. So I'm sending it home, with thanks to GoryDetails for willingness to share.

Journal Entry 13 by wingGoryDetailswing from Nashua, New Hampshire USA on Saturday, February 24, 2007
The book's safely home again; thanks to all who participated in the bookring!

Journal Entry 14 by wingGoryDetailswing at Little Free Library, Dandridge Ave. in Salem, New Hampshire USA on Sunday, August 30, 2020

Released 3 yrs ago (8/31/2020 UTC) at Little Free Library, Dandridge Ave. in Salem, New Hampshire USA

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Guidelines for safely visiting and stocking Little Free Libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the LFL site here.

I decided it was time to let this book move on, and left it in the Little Free Library, after a lovely dinner with a friend at nearby Tuscan Kitchen's outdoor seating (get the duck!). Hope the finder enjoys the book!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 20/20 Vision challenge. ***

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