Norena Shopland
The mystery genre has always been a good home for the diversity of characters. One of the first twentieth-century stories to feature a queer character in the UK is Arthur Conan Doyle’s (1859-1930) short story The Man with the Watches originally published in the Strand magazine in 1898 but in book form in 1909. In it, Edward often dresses in female attire for nefarious purposes with his partner Sparrow McCoy who tells Edward’s brother ‘you didn’t love him a cent more than I loved him, though you’ll say that I took a queer way to show it.’ Doyle describes Edward as ‘a man of weak intellect. The excessive wearing of jewellery is an early symptom in some forms of mania.’ In this, he may have been drawing on the eccentric Marquis of Anglesey (1875-1905) a wealth, eccentric aristocrat, addicted to acting, writing plays, and designing great costumes for himself and the cast, all weighed down by jewels. Indeed, his love of jewels and ostentatious displays became legendary – often making him a figure of fun in the media who satirised his habit of carrying a perfumed poodle under his arm, his effeminate appearance, and his extravagances in dress and jewels. When the Marquis was robbed of a large collection of jewels in 1901, he wanted Arthur Conan Doyle, himself an avid amateur detective, to personally investigate but there is no evidence that Doyle became involved.
While a number of works appeared in the early twentieth century, they are predominantly European with the exception of what is suggested to be the first gay character in a mystery novel, Greenmantle (1916) by John Buchan.[1] While E.M. Forster’s (1879-1970) famous work Maurice was written in 1913-14 it was privately published and did not become publicly available until 1971. Following this, most literature featuring queer characters was American. In the UK, Radclyffe Hall’s (1880-1943) The Well of Loneliness appeared in 1928 and The Charioteer by Mary Renault in 1953 – but what has been overlooked is four Welsh novels from the 1920-30s.
The title considered here is The Murder of My Aunt published in 1934 (the other three titles will be discussed in later blogs). It is one of the earliest British mystery novels featuring, according to Anthony Slide in Lost Gay Novels, ‘a gay angle’ and ‘certainly the first novel of any genre to feature a gay narrator.’
The author is Richard Hull (1896-1973) a pseudonym of Richard Henry Sampson who published fifteen mystery novels between 1934-1953 and who described himself as a ‘confirmed bachelor’ specialising in unpleasant characters because he found them more interesting. The Murder of My Aunt is Hull’s first novel, written while working for years as a chartered accountant.
Sampson’s link to Wales, as explained by Martin Edward in his introduction to the 2018 Faber and Faber edition (from which all page numbers quoted here relate to[2]) is a house called Dysserth near Welshpool, Powys which the Sampson family had owned since the 1840s before selling it in 1933. The information was provided by Hull’s great-nephew, the late Anthony Goodwin. However, the only property located with a similar name is Dyserth Hall (now a Grade II listed building) owned by the Roberts family and currently, no connection to that property and the Sampson family has been found. It could, of course, be that they were minor members of the Roberts family. Goodwin told Edwards that the house Brynmawr in the novel is based on Dysserth and the fictionalised town of Llwll, in Welshpool.
Edward Powell, the man who wants to murder his aunt, narrates the story and the book begins with Edward’s diatribe against Wales and in particular Llwll:
I usually pronounce it Filth. It describes the place … and a more horrid place I have never seen. It is amazing to me how many people admire the Welsh scenery; indeed I am always being told how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful country-side. I cannot imagine what they see in it. Nothing but silly hills, very fatiguing to walk up and instantly going down again, sodden damp woods, out of which, if I do try to exercise my dog in them, I am instantly chased by some keeper who says I am doing harm to his beastly pheasants and stupid little grass meadows. Ugh! how it bores me. Give me Surrey every time. (16)
This is a feature of the four other early Welsh novels – how Wales is used to describe something ‘other’ something remote and unfathomable.
Edward’s other great hatred is Aunt Mildred and his financial dependency on her. She is unmarried and has a masculinity about her that she tries to inject into Edward with little effect and suspects his flawed character has been inherited from his father whom she suspects murdered her sister, leaving her to bring up their difficult child. During a conversation, about the hard-working men of Wales Edward sneers and she tells him, ‘will you remember, Edward, that you’re a Welshman, and that by these constant sneers at them you only run yourself down?’ to which he replies, with a contemptuous glance ‘some of us manage to outgrow the disadvantages with which we start.’ (107)
The plot of the novel is an inverted mystery, in that we know who is the villain and who is the intended victim, and we follow Edward through a series of bungling attempts. Tension is added by words and actions of Aunt Mildred making us suspect that she might know more about Edward’s plot than he thinks.
Throughout the narrative there runs a queer reading of Edward’s character. He smokes scented cigarettes (81) and deplores Aunt Mildred’s failure to use a cigarette case instead of a crumpled yellow packet of Gold Flake. He takes his tea in a china cup with a slice of lemon (95); uses ‘Essence of Flowers’ in his hair (132) and mocks Aunt Mildred’s dislike of delicate perfumes (158). His clothes are tailored and expensive and when looking through the window of a women’s clothes shop, he wishes they would sell men’s clothes as he is convinced they would have something to appeal to him (157). He spends a lot of money on books, particularly French titles which he bought through customs with difficulty (118) and which would ‘appeal not to the many-headed’ and suspects Aunt Mildred secretly reads his ‘debauchery’ – but adds that her poor knowledge of French would prevent her from ‘appreciating the more subtle nuances of the more interesting double ententes’ (119). Edward’s two great loves are his large and expensive car called ‘La Joyeuse,’ and a spoilt Pekinese called So-so whom he adores.
When Aunt Mildred loses her temper with him, she says of Edward, ‘I was fat, I was pimply, my hair was too long, my face was too puffy, and my clothes were those “of a namby-pamby little pansy boy”’ (181); later she recalls him as a youth ‘so very effeminate in appearances and tastes’ (187). However, Aunt Mildred does not appear to suspect him of homosexuality merely perversion but when she accuses him of being interested in the maid Mary, Edward ‘trills’ his objections (81).
The only friend mentioned is the loyal Guy Innes who also owns a large and expensive Bentley and whom Aunt Mildred calls ‘that rather unpleasant friend of yours’ (121). Guy has ‘difficulties’ with his own family who are ‘a little disapproving’ when Edward comes to stay with Guy (127).
When The Murder of My Aunt was published it received a lot of praise and it was this success that enabled Hull to give up work and become a writer. Most critics agreed that Edward is not a particularly likeable or sympathetic character, he is obnoxious, self-opinionated and thinks he has outsmarted everyone when in fact he is seen as a buffoon, but most also see him as engaging and the plot as amusing.
So, did Edward murder Aunt Mildred? Ah, there is a twist at the end that I will not reveal.
[1] Slide, Anthony (2003). Lost Gay Novels: A Reference Guide to Fifty Works from the First Half of the Twentieth Century (1st ed.). Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press. ISBN 1-56023-413-X.
[2] Edwards, Martin Introduction to The Murder of My Aunt, (London: Faber & Faber, 2018)