The Kings of Redonda

As I mentioned a few entries ago, I recently read M.P. Shiel’s novel The Purple Cloud, a ripely Late-Victorian melodrama following one lone man’s survival of a global catastrophe. I read it in the new Tartarus Press edition which is set splendidly between purple endpapers and covers, with a purple marker-ribbon to keep ones page. After that, I started reading Tomorrow In the Battle, Think On Me, a sophisticated literary novel of secrets & lies by the contemporary Spanish writer Javier Marías, which I finished only yesterday. I never would have imagined any link between these two authors, had I not glanced at the acknowledgements on the reverse of the Tartarus edition’s title-page, where I read the following:

This edition is made possible by the kindness of Javier Marías (Xavier of Redonda), the executor and holder of the estate of M.P. Shiel. The publishers would like to express their thanks to King Xavier, [...] and the Redondan Cultural Foundation.

So, I had to wonder, what was all that about? King Xavier? And where, or what, was Redonda? The internet had the answers, of course, which I will now attempt to summarise.

Marías had bought a collection of private papers that had formerly belonged to a writer and literary enthusiast by the name of John Gawsworth, at an auction at Sotheby’s in 1995. Gawsworth had previously figured as a character in Marías’ Oxford-set novel All Souls (which I haven’t read yet). With the papers came literary executorship for the estates of Gawsworth and Shiel. The title of King of Redonda, Marías claims, also came to him as part of this package. It was only some five years later that King Xavier laid any public claim to the Redondan crown, to the dismay of King Leo of Redonda, who had considered himself the King since 1989. Marías used his title as part of the background to a new publishing venture, and has conferred dukedoms on authors and other public figures he admires.

John Gawsworth was the pen name used by the poet and editor Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong (1912-70). Gawsworth had, as a young man, been a tireless supporter of and campaigner for the pre-modernist writers he idolised - notably Shiel, Arthur Machen, Ernest Dowson and Richard Middleton. By the ‘30s, these authors had become altogether unfashionable, and Machen and Shiel had every reason to appreciate Gawsworth’s efforts on their behalf (Dowson and Middleton had both died young). Shiel expressed his gratitude by designating Armstrong as his executor, and as his successor as King of Redonda. Shiel had married twice, and had at least two children, but must presumably have been estranged from them. Gawsworth’s later career was, alas, blighted by chronic alcoholism, and his reign as King Juan I of Redonda descended into chaos.

Gawsworth’s talents as a poet and man of letters failed to sustain him in the bleak post-war years, and he gradually fell on evil days, taking odd jobs, suffering from ill-health, and spending much time in the bar of the “Alma” tavern in Westbourne Grove, West London. Here he often held court, and knowledgeable tourists would frequently track him down. In return for buying His Majesty a drink, it was sometimes possible to receive a Dukedom, inscribed on the back of a beermat. Such prodigality, together with Gawsworth's undoubted skill in keeping the Realm in the public eye by newspaper reports (usually compiled by himself) eventually brought the Realm into disrepute - source here.

Gawsworth gave dukedoms to writers such as J.B.Priestley, Dorothy L.Sayers, Arthur Ransome, Henry Williamson, George Barker, Henry Miller, Dylan Thomas, and Lawrence & Gerald Durrell. The actors Vincent Price and Dirk Bogarde were also honoured thus, as, incongruously, was Diana Dors. Gawsworth attempted to sell his kingdom to a member of the Swedish Royal Family, but the sale was never concluded. That there are now as many as nine pretenders to the Redondan throne is a testament to the confusion of Gawsworth’s last years.

M.P. Shiel (1865-1947) had reigned as King Philip (or Felipe) of Redonda since 1880. During that time he had written some twenty-five novels, and dozens of short stories. Many of his books were romantic mysteries and adventure stories in a popular vein, whilst others had a science-fictional basis (The Purple Cloud, for example), or were concerned with the supernatural. Shiel also penned philosophical and religious texts. His works earned praise from such diverse figures as H.G. Wells, August Derleth and Dashiell Hammett, but he was perhaps his own greatest admirer, considering himself ‘the best prose writer living.’

The kingdom of Redonda had been a gift to Shiel from his father. Matthew Dowdy Shiell, a wealthy trader of Irish descent from the Caribbean island of Montserrat, had claimed the ‘rocky and uninhabitable remnant of an extinct volcanic cone’ as his own in 1865, to celebrate the birth of his first and only son: he already had nine daughters. Columbus had discovered the islet, naming it Nuestra Señora de la Redonda, in 1493, but no government had officially annexed it until the British Empire did so, ca 1872. Disregarding this imperial expansionism, Shiell senior abdicated his ephemeral throne in July 1880, on Matthew Phipps Shiell’s fifteenth birthday, and in a coronation ceremony performed by the Bishop of Antigua, passed the crown on to his son.

Posted by misteraitch at June 19, 2004 10:29 AM | TrackBack