Gallery 4: The Artwork of P. White

Similar to the first edition of Meredith and Co.—and unlike Mills sequels, King Willow and Minor and Major—Oxford University Press issued Meredith in 1950 without many interior illustrations. In fact, save the frontispiece, all of the remaining illustrations are found on the dust cover. [Click on any image to enlarge it.]

The jacket and frontispiece are not full colour: It uses a two colour separation (blue and yellow) with black line. The artist isn't renowned. In fact, he is a mid-20th century illustrator in search of a Christian name: P. White.



His wiry and energetic inks, when used to limn people, are somewhat reminiscent of George Cruikshank, making the frontispiece a little gem of a drawing. Unfortunately, it is muddled by the blue and yellow inks of the separation process, which did little for any of the illustrations, interior of exterior.



It is debatable as to whether or not the quality of the illustrator has fallen off from 1939 to 1950, mostly because the work of White here is not shown off in the best light. Certainly, though, we can see that the quality of the overall artistic book and jacket design has fallen off dramatically. Visually, this edition is miles below the level of artwork OUP set when the noted publisher commissioned C. E. Brock to illustrate the first edition of Meredtith.

Gallery 1: The Work of Charles Edmund Brock

As we continue to try to tie up loose ends here at Who Is George Mills?, it seems a good idea to open an art gallery of sorts related to the writing of George Mills. Over the next few days, we'll be uploading all of art found in Mills's boys' preparatory stories and making it searchable on-line.

Today we're starting with his classic: The first edition of Meredith and Co.: The Story of a Modern Preparatory School, published in 1933 by Oxford University Press, and illustrated by the legendary Charles Edmund Brock.

C. E. Brock, born in 1870, was 63 years of age and at the height of his fame when he was commissioned to do the watercolours for George's first book. That would provide one a great indication of the esteem in which Mills's manuscript was held at OUP at the time.

Besides the cover above [click any image to enlarge it], Brock also did a vertical watercolour of the the boys creeping out of the school at night, as well as a gorgeous frontispiece. You can see these two artworks to the right and below.



Next time, we'll advance to the 1950 edition of Meredith and Co. We'll see you then…

Warren Hill School: An Inside Look

Let's take a bit of a break from profiling Joshua Goodland, once head master of Warren Hill School [left] in Meads, and take a look at another interesting document I've just received from the Eastbourne Local History Society. This folded leaflet promoting the school won't allow us to stray far from our look at the life of Goodland, however.

Dating from around 1930, it describes the Warren Hill of J. Goodland in a way that the images we've seen simply could not. As an American, I'm somewhat familiar with what life in a preparatory school might have been like—after all, I've seen About a Boy and Dead Poet's Society—but this brochure certainly describes the campus, education, and recreation far more clearly than I could have imagined it. Can I assume Warren Hill was fairly typical of a southern prep school of the era between the World Wars?

I realize this pamphlet [right; click to enlarge] was intended for parents and does not discuss specific institutional policies, classroom procedures, rules of conduct, rewards, or punishments that may have been of far greater interest to the children.

We can, however, by reading the books of George Mills, surmise what a term would have been like at Warren Hill (or not-too-distant Windlesham House) from the boys' point of view. His keen "eye" and "ear" describes not only the appearance and jargon of the boys at what Mills felt was a "modern" preparatory school (very much in contrast, I suspect, with his own school days), but also the daily routine—and breaches of that routine—in an exceptional manner.

We can enter the headmaster's office for punishment and are privy to the reactions of boys who take it well and learn from it, as well as lads that the tennis shoe only embitters. We can prowl through empty classrooms after hours, practice our cricket and football, defend our classmates, pretend we're asleep after hours, deal with bullies and practical jokes, do homework, and even get a peek into the back room where a hot and thirsty schoolmaster could draw himself a pint of beer and catch a quick nap!

As we can see [left], Mills was no longer in the employ of Goodland and Warren Hill by 1930, probably when this document was printed, but he likely had been at least an instructor of Junior French, as well as possibly English. The "novice schoolmaster" character in his books, Mr. Mead (the name probably a tribute to his beloved Meads), taught French—although many of the children in his books liked Mr. Mead anyway—and Windlesham House School believes he taught "English and English subjects" in Brighton.

As a teacher, he was able to make keen observations. As a writer, he was able to weave them into insightful, humorous, and believable narrative.

This leaflet helps to flesh out our concept of Warren Hill, and I am indebted to the ELHS for all of their assistance. At first they provided photographs of the edifice itself, and recently populated the campus with images of people associated with the school—and even a dog, Tiny!

This current document serves to enhance further our knowledge of Warren Hill School as a modern institution with a variety of educational, social, and recreational curricula.


Upon sending it, ELHS member Michael Ockenden added: "The dancing teacher, the cricket coach, and the gymnastics and boxing instructor were not permanent staff. They were all residents of the town who worked at various schools. The same was probably true of the piano teacher although I don't see her name among the piano teachers in my 1940 trades directory. Mr Moss had a gymnasium in Meads (Derwent Road) which was used by many of the private schools in the area."

Thank you so much, Michael!

At one time, at least for me, "Warren Hill School" was simply a short sequence of relatively meaningless words in the dedication to largely forgotten children's book, Meredith and Co., a text inspired by the adventures (and one supposes misadventures) of George Mills while teaching at Warren Hill School, with illustrations of the setting and characters [right] conceptualized and rendered by the legendary C. E. Brock.

Many thanks once again to everyone who has made it all become real for me, and who has helped me to so often visit Eastbourne vicariously and begin to know this school far better than I ever thought I would!

The Past, the Present, the Future, and the Mysterious Mr. E. M. Henshaw

Sometimes a person is surprised, and sometimes there's simply a level of virtual shock. That happened to me last evening when my 'first edition' copy of Meredith and Co.: The Story of a Modern Preparatory School by George Mills arrived!

I mean, I knew it was coming, but it was coming from half the world away:

Camberwell Books has confirmed your order.-----

Author: MILLS, GEORGE WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY BROCK, C. E.

Title: Meredith and Co. - the Story of a Modern Preparatory School.

Description: Oxford University Press, London, 1933. 288 pp, coloured frontispiece, minor damage at top of spine, else near fine copy in illustrated, papered boards.. Great C. E. Brock cover illustration showing injured bulldog.

Message from the seller:-------------------------
Harry
Will send
Thanks
Mick

The address of Camberwell Books places it in Victoria, Australia, but the parcel was posted from New Zealand. What a stunningly long journey this book took, both through time and space, to find itself here on my shelf.

I was stunned: The text itself is simply gorgeous. The three watercolour plates by the great C. E. Brock are truly wonderful, and the edition itself is simply a tactile delight! The 'tooth' of the paper upon which the text has been printed is fine and creamy white enough to actually paint a fine watercolor upon, and the thickly calendared leaves each will stand stiffly and straight up without assistance, defying gravity and age. Were it not for the small tear at the top corner of the spine and a light blue streak across the back, I would think someone had just purchased this book a couple of years ago. The word 'lustrous' comes to mind—this was money well spent!

Take away all I said regarding book publishing during the Great Depression during my reading of Arthur Mills's The Apache Girl: This book is gorgeous, a sumptuous volume that certainly belies the woeful state of the world's economies, circa 1933!

Overnight observations of a few of the details of this beautiful tome lead me to a pair of new ideas.

First, just yesterday I was writing about the possibility of George Mills having been out of work and striving to put food on the table during the bleak years of the depression. I have to say, I've reversed my course on that line of thinking, at least regarding 1933. The quality and sheer presence of this impressive book makes me think that Meredith and Co.—apparently the first tale of its kind in accurately portraying the lives of schoolboys, their behaviors, and their slang and idioms—was well thought of by Oxford University Press. Weighing in at 5 kilograms and measuring 4.5 cm (2 inches!) thick, this appears to be a real heavyweight championship contender of a book, quite unlike the tiny, cheaply produced edition of The Apache Girl, also published in 1933 [its fifth impression since 1930], that I finished reading a few weeks ago!

I had thought that Mills star might have been rising in 1938 and 1939 when he published his final three books, but to me he clearly had a bright future in the eyes of O.U.P. earlier in that decade. They even assigned Brock—one of the top illustrators of the era—to depict full-colour scenes his initial novel. Mills and this book, it would seem, were not considered marginal.

A second thing that jumped out at me was something I'd just been tinkering with: Its preface! Or I thought I had been tinkering with its preface. A quick glance immediately told me that something was different in the original preface, true Mills aficionado that I have become. There were far too many initials!

Just three days ago we looked at the preface of the 1957 edition, and here's Mills's final sentence: "I am also very much indebted to that splendid specimen of boyhood, the British Schoolboy, who has given me such wonderful material."

Here's that same sentence from the 1933 edition, with the additional words in bold face: "I am also much indebted to Mr. E. M. Henshaw for his devastating, but most useful, criticisms, and especially to that splendid specimen of boyhood, the British Schoolboy, who has given me such wonderful material."

Mr. E. M. Henshaw? Who the heck is Mr. E. M. Henshaw?

'Devastating criticisms'? Useful or not, Mills certainly went out of his way to make sure that we, the readers, knew he had been painfully wounded by those obviously not-so-gently phrased suggestions!

In the short term, Henshaw certainly was acknowledged for his contributions to the publication of Mills's book. In the long term, he ended up being excised like a bad appendix. In 1933, Mr. E. M. Henshaw had been spared the warmth and gratitude Mills had expressed to Mr. A. Bishop and Mr. H. E. Howell in the previous sentence of the preface, while still being acknowledged. In the time elapsed between 1933 and 1950's second impression of Meredith and Co. [then published without its original subtitle] by O.U.P., Mills must have felt any 'debt' owed to Henshaw already had been paid in full, without needing to further acknowledge him in subsequent editions [1950 and 1957].

Obviously, Mills had changed. Once known as a fellow who "made people laugh, a lot", by the late 1930s things are quite obviously different. By the decade of the 1950s, painful memories and associations have been and are still clearly being expunged from Mills psyche. It seems that a melancholy process had started when he looked back to Haywards Heath and Parkfield School at the turn of the century for the dedication to 1939's Minor and Major. Later, when King Willow was reprinted in the late 1950s, a dedication to Eaton Gate Preparatory School was scratched in favor of a lyrical ode to the future of now-unknown newlyweds Beryl and Ian.

Was the George Mills of the late 1950s still in a struggle with the present, while at the same time yearning for a nostalgic and comforting past, and hoping with all of his might for a more benevolent future for himself and those he loved?

Looking back at 1939, Mills soon returned to the military, an occupation he'd left behind as a lance corporal in 1919. Returning as a lieutenant, I suppose it would have given him a sense of real security, something I believe he was craving. It also may have provided him with a sense of purpose patriotically, and even spiritually at the outset of a conflict that certainly aroused moral as well as political issues.

Craving that security over his recent creativity, Mills apparently preferred the dependability of a regular paycheck and a dress service uniform [right] to the life of an author and a tweed jacket and a good pipe. One wonders what other occupations may have been tried by Mills between teaching positions to see him through to his next book before the War. Perhaps he needed more security; perhaps he needed it for Vera, his wife. Either way, he had felt a need that was quite real.

In returning to the service, Mills seemed to be not only revising his present life at the time, he seemed to be revising his own expectations for his future, and was even busy blue-penciling parts of his past. The eventual removal of Mr. E. M. Henshaw from the preface of Mills's most popular novel would seem to be a good example of that last bit of speculation.

References to an E. M. Henshaw abound in the 1930's and 1940's, and many of those references pertain to the field of psychology. It would be completely reasonable to believe that a psychologist might have been critical of the behavior of the boys in George's first novel, or perhaps on the possible effects the behaviors in Mills's manuscript might have had on British youth at the time. That would make sense.

However, that E. M. Henshaw was Edna Mary Henshaw, not the "Mr. E. M. Henshaw" who 'devastated' George Mills over his 1933 manuscript.

Mister E. M. Henshaw has been far more difficult for me to flush out into the open.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or information you might have about all of this…

Autograph!

How cool is this bit of "Millsness" that just arrived via Royal Mail from Leeds?

My greatly anticipated signature of George Mills arrived this afternoon with an entire book wrapped around it: Meredith and Co., published by the Oxford University Press, Amen House, E.C.4; Reprinted 1950.

It's simply a beautiful edition with gorgeous, creamy white pages and an illustrated dust jacket. The only illustration inside is a frontispiece printed on lovely, glossy paper. It's a pen-and-ink drawing, printed with a two-color separation, that's clearly signed "P. WHITE" and featuring an menacingly angry child [presumably "The Hawk"] looking very much like a young David Bowie, circa 1976, from The Man Who Fell to Earth.

I've read while surfing the web that 1933 first editions of this book have, at the very least, a cover illustration of Uggles, Pongo's beloved bulldog, by the famous illustrator C. E. Brock. I've never seen it, but would love to!

This edition's dust jacket, however, has oval-shaped exteriors of the fictional Leadham House. There's also a drawing of a boy on the spine that I'll quess is Muggs [Meredith], sans Co. The front cover's cameo is presumably the adventure in which three boys ratchet up a loose window and creep into the Master's Room to retrieve a sealed envelope filled with all of the sixth form's signatures, fingerprinted in their blood, swearing revenge on the often overly-severe Mr. Lloyd. Am I correct in assuming that when a book had been reprinted, acquiring the illustrations from a previous edition would have been a separate financial deal entirely—in this case a deal left unmade?

What made this edition special to me, however, was the author's signature, done with an extremely tired blue ball-point, on the first end paper. It's dated "July 1957". Now, I have no idea what month the undated Andrew Dakers Ltd. edition of Meredith and Co. was actually released and hit the booksellers' shelves, but everywhere I look, that year is recorded as 1957—everywhere except within the book itself, that is. My guess right now, though? It'd be in June or July of 1957.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that Mills was likely sitting at a promotional book signing soon after the release of the reprinted 1957 edition [then a distinguished 60 years old] when in must have strolled a long-time fan with a book—the copy that's right here next to me—asking to have his, although I guess I shouldn't be so quick to reject the fact that, even in 1957, it could have been her, older edition signed that day.

This Oxford University Press reprint is interesting. On the flyleaf, it lists the ages of potential readers as "Ages 9-12." Was it completely normal for a children's book, intended for a 9-year-old in 1950, to have 23 fewer illustrations than, say, the 1907 classic edition of Pride and Prejudice?

Meredith and Co.'s first edition in 1933, also published by O.U.P., is catalogued in the British Library and listed as containing "Plates". I won't assume they were all by the likely very expensive Brock, whose classic illustrations of the above-mentioned P&P proliferate to this day all over the internet, but it does imply more than simply a two-color frontispiece.

I've flipped through all of the 288 pages of this text and there's not an illustration to be found within. Does this reflect some post-WW II cost-cutting or simply a difference in children's publishing between 1933 and 1950? The former is my hunch, but the latter wouldn't surprise me given the changes the entire world had seen during those 17 often-bitter years.

Anyway, I'm simply delighted with this wonderful book that eerily smells so much like it was stored for years in a room full of freshly dried marijuana. Please take a moment to let me know if you have any insights into this edition, the illustrations [or lack thereof], the promotional book signings that must have taken place, or the climate of Great Britain in the early- to late-1950s, to provide me with some much-needed context.

Your input would, as always, be most welcome!