In discussing the two publishers Greening & Co. and Ernest Benn in recent posts, memories of Arthur Machen were aroused. Arthur Machen was a "reader" for Ernest Benn in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and upon being let go of this position at age 70, Benn commissioned a short novel from him for 50 pounds. Machen was not a young man, and yet he managed to finish the novel called The Green Round for this rather lukewarm-hearted commission and it was eventually published in 1933. Benn wanted it for his Ninepenny Novelist series. In a letter to his friend Colin Summerford, Machen wrote: "Poor Uncle Ernest. What he will say to The Green Round, I do not know. Gollancz told me that Sir Ernest was a man absolutely without religion; but I trust that this is not the case. He will want consolation." (quoted on page 149 of Arthur Machen: a Biography by Aidan Reynolds and William Charlton). The book did not sell well. This was not unusual for Machen. For another commission for The Faith Press, he wrote The Great Return which was published in 1915. This too did not sell at all well. A few years later, Machen was browsing in a bookshop and came across a large dusty stack of the title. Reynolds and Charlton in their biography relate that: "The bookseller had not sold one for a long time, but when Machen told him who he was, he had not the heart to charge him for a copy." (ibid., p. 116).The trial of Oscar Wilde created a backlash among publishers towards any type of literature which could possibly be considered decadent, and though Machen's works were not, he suffered from this reluctance, making the last half-decade of the 1890s a rather challenging period. Machen eventually tried his hand as an actor. He made his debut in 1901 and became a strolling player with Sir Frank Benson's company. An interesting crossover, writing to acting. Arthur Greening, the publisher, had been involved with light theatre, variety, musicals, and he switched over to publishing. I have yet to find if Machen ever met Greening but I rather doubt they would have gotten along. Different fish altogether. The only connection I have found so far, is the journalist and hack writer, T. W. H. Crossland who was involved with Greening and edited an edition of Hudibras for the publisher. Crossland reviewed books for various periodicals, and was a rather malicious enemy of Machen. He always referred to him as "MacHen". Like anyone involved with the theatre, there are stories and anecdotes galore. Arthur Machen had his store as well. Reynolds and Charlton quote from O. B. Clarence's autobiography No Complaints, where he describes Machen's initial steps as a strolling player: "It pleased him [Machen] later on to make one of the crowd in several of the productions. I remember him among the rioters in Coriolanus. We were all brandishing clubs and shouting ourselves hoarse--'Down with him. Traitor', etc., and there at the back stood Machen muttering softly in mild disapproval of Coriolanus--'Down with him. Traitor. Oh, yes, distinctly traitor, oh impossible fellow.' Before long, however, he was shouting with the best." (ibid., p. 84).Machen seems to have found his footing--and possessed natural talent--for in 1907 playing Sir Daniel Ridgeley in Pinero's His House in Order, in such small venues as Market Driffield, Hexham, and Ledbury, he was quite a comic turn. Reynolds and Charlton write: "Whenever Machen appeared, there were howls of mirth--'by the end of the show there was an old fellow in the front row who was reduced to nothing but a rattle and a wheeze and an agony in the region of the ribs'. There must have lived about Ledbury then a dreary long-winded, long-bearded bore ejecting moral sentiments in a pompous voice. Years later members of the company were still calling Machen 'The Ledbury Pet.' " (ibid., p.93).
Greening & Co., Ltd. Books by this British publisher are probably a bit thin on the ground here in Canada, though most libraries and book dealers have probably handled them from time to time. I only have one copy, an imprint in their Lotus Library Series, The Kreutzer Sonata by Count Tolstoy, a revised translation by Ivan Lepinski, and published in 1911, a late issue from this publisher whose first issue was published in 1897. It is pleasantly bound in purple cloth with blindstamp designs of stylised lotus flowers. The title page sports a decorative border including their device, a stylised lotus blossom pictured here. The initials at the bottom right hand corner of the decorative border are W. G. M. which belong to W. G. Mein who I have to presume was the artist of the device itself. I came across Mein's name listed as the illustrator of a volume I mention below from a Greening & Co. catalogue from 1908. The Lotus Library consisted of works by de Musset, Louys, Gaboriau, Gautier, de Maupassant, Daudet, and Zola among others. Not knowing the history of this publisher, I began some light research and I started to form an idea of their place in the London publishing industry of the turn of the last century. Their advertisements at the back of many of their volumes reveal quite a bit: Popular Shilling Editions of L. T. Meade, Marie Corelli and Baroness Orczy among others; series such as Popular Fiction, Half-Crown Novels, Cheaper Fiction, and Popular Sixpennies. They also issued a series called the Masterpiece Library with books by the likes of Dumas, Beckford and Prosper Merimeé. Then there was their English Writers of To-day series with books on Algernon Charles Swinburne, Brett Harte, George Meredith, Hall Caine, Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Wing Pinero, and the above mentioned Lotus Library series. There was a book by Dan Leno and a book about Harry Lauder with advertisements for Lipton's Teas and Bovril. A few titles in their Court Series of French Memoirs including Recollections of Léonard: Hairdresser to Queen Marie Antoinette which sounds like a work of fiction but is evidently a true memoir.
Popular fiction titles by truly forgotten popular authors of the day included some interesting ones: The Pottle Papers; A Modern Christmas Carol (A "Dickensy" Story); Seven Nights with Satin; The Dupe; An Act of Impulse; A Doctor in Corduroy; A Suburban Scandal; The Loafer; The Cigarette Smoker; A Romance in Radium; The Weaver's Shuttle; The Woman in Black; Mad? (An Exciting Story of Predestination); The Tragedy of the Lady Palmist; The Puppets' Dallying; In the World of Mimes.
There was an emphasis on the theatrical arts--even with much of the fiction--and a hint of the Yellow Book in their offerings, an afterglow of the aesthetic and decadent movements, which made me think the owner may have had an interest, or a past, in the theatre. One example being their book, Oscar Wilde, the Story of an Unhappy Friendship by Robert H. Sherard, (1905) a reprint of a book that was originally privately printed in 1902 and well-known for being the first biography of Wilde after his death in 1900. Another book on the theatrical side is Some Notable Hamlets of the Present Time by Clement Scott, with an appreciation of Mr. Clement Scott by L. Arthur Greening, and The Art of Elocution and Public Speaking by Ross Ferguson, with an introduction by George Alexander, and dedicated by permission to Miss Ellen Terry.
They also published various choices of literature such as Hudibras by Samuel Butler. This edition, with an introductory note by T. W. H. Crossland was issued with 12 illustrations after Hogarth and available in either Foolscap 8vo cloth, top-edge gilt, with bookmark, 2s. net, or in Leather, top-edge gilt, with bookmark at 3s. net. The Bookseller had this to say about it: "a most interesting reprint of Butler's celebrated poem in a form which strikes us as being entirely appropriate. The size of page, type and margin are both delightful to the eye of a booklover, and pleasantly reminiscent of the little volumes of the 17th century. While the fine paper, and the dozen excellent reproductions of Hogarth's well-known plays, the portrait of Butler himself, and the neat, artistic binding, make it, in its way, a miniature Edition de Luxe." Their range in production went from very cheap popular editions which probably disintegrated with use in the library systems, to the finer quality productions such as this Hudibras or another book by that C. Ranger Gull, The Adventures of Ulyssess, the Wanderer: an Old Story, Retold. Illustrated by W. G.Mein and issued in an edition de luxe, demy 8vo, printed on antique handmade paper, and bound in Half Japanese vellum, cloth sides, gilt lettered, gilt top; limited to 110 copies signed by the author, 5s. net.
The Scarlet Pimpernel, the novel that Baroness Orczy had been trying to publish for a few years, was first issued by Greening & Co., Ltd. in 1905 after the play based on the novel had become popular with the theatre going public. Although Greening & Co. published a number of Orczy titles, Hodder & Stoughton later bought the rights to the novel The Scarlet Pimpernel from them.
I was delighted to finally come across an interesting account of L. Arthur Greening written by Cecily Close. Greening's rather peculiar history and the story behind his name makes for interesting reading. Though he had a fairly long and varied career--ending up in Australia--I imagine that it was those early years of the 1890s and the first decade of the next century that "Greening" truly felt he was in the very beating heart of life. I can imagine him in his old age, a pipe in hand, warm embers on the way to a cold dottle, quoting lines of verse from Sir Walter Scott's novel Old Mortality--lines quoted as anonymous but written by Thomas Osbert Mordaunt:
Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
Throughout the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
In discussing the two publishers Greening & Co. and Ernest Benn in recent posts, memories of Arthur Machen were aroused. Arthur Machen was a "reader" for Ernest Benn in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and upon being let go of this position at age 70, Benn commissioned a short novel from him for 50 pounds. Machen was not a young man, and yet he managed to finish the novel called The Green Round for this rather lukewarm-hearted commission and it was eventually published in 1933. Benn wanted it for his Ninepenny Novelist series. In a letter to his friend Colin Summerford, Machen wrote: 
