автордың кітабын онлайн тегін оқу Jane Annie
Jane Annie by J. M Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle
Or, The Good Conduct Prize
A Comic Opera in Two Acts with music composed by Ernest Ford
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, was born in Kirriemuir, Angus the ninth of ten children on May 9th, 1860.
From early formative experiences, Barrie knew that he wished to follow a career as an author. His family wished otherwise and sought to persuade him to choose a profession, such as the ministry. The compromise was that he would attend university to study literature at the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with an M.A. on April 21st, 1882.
His first job was as a staff journalist for the Nottingham Journal. The London editor of the St. James's Gazette "liked that Scotch thing" in Barrie’s short stories about his mother’s early life. They also served as the basis for his first novels.
Barrie though was increasingly drawn to working in the theatre. His first play, a biography of Richard Savage, was only performed once and critically panned. Undaunted he immediately followed this with Ibsen's Ghost in 1891, a parody of Ibsen's plays Hedda Gabler and Ghosts.
Barrie's third play, Walker, London, in 1892 led to an introduction to his future wife, a young actress by the name of Mary Ansell. The two became friends, and she helped his family to care for him when he fell very ill in 1893 and 1894. Barrie proposed and they were married, in Kirriemuir, on July 9th, 1894. By some accounts the relationship was unconsummated and indeed the couple had no children.
The story of Peter Pan had begun to formulate when Barrie became acquainted with the Llewelyn Davis family in 1897, meeting George, Jack and baby Peter with their nanny in London's Kensington Gardens.
In 1901 and 1902, Barrie had back-to-back theatre successes with Quality Street and The Admirable Crichton.
The character of "Peter Pan" first appeared in The Little White Bird in 1902. This most famous and enduring of his works; Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up had its first stage performance on December 27th, 1904.
Peter Pan would overshadow everything written during his career. He continued to write for the rest of his life contributing many other fine and important works.
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, died of pneumonia on June 19th,1937 and was buried at Kirriemuir next to his parents and two of his siblings.
Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22nd May 1859 at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland. From 1876 - 1881 he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh following which he was employed as a doctor on the Greenland whaler Hope of Peterhead in 1880 and, after his graduation, as a ship's surgeon on the SS Mayumba during a voyage to the West African coast in 1881. Arriving in Portsmouth in June of that year with less than £10 (£700 today) to his name, he set up a medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea. The practice was initially not very successful. While waiting for patients, Conan Doyle again began writing stories and composed his first novel The Mystery of Cloomber. Although he continued to study and practice medicine his career was now firmly set as a writer. And thereafter great works continued to pour out of him.
Index of Contents
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
SCENE
ACTS
TIME
ACT I
SCENE. – First floor of the Ladies’ Seminary.
ACT II
SCENE.―A LADIES’ GOLF GREEN NEAR THE SEMINARY.
J. M. BARRIE – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY
J. M. BARRIE – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
A Proctor
Sim [Bulldog]
Greg [Bulldog]
Tom [a Press Student]
Jack [a Warrior]
Caddie [a Page]
Miss Sims [a Schoolmistress]
Jane Annie [a Good Girl]
Bab [a Bad Girl]
Milly [an Average Girl]
Rose [an Average Girl]
Meg [an Average Girl]
Maud [an Average Girl]
Schoolgirls, Press Students, and Lancers.
SCENE
Obviously laid round the corner from a certain English University Town.
ACTS
Jane Annie Comic Opera Act I.
First Floor of a Seminary for the Little Things that grow into Women.
Jane Annie Comic Opera Act II.
A Ladies’ Golf Green near the Seminary.
TIME
The Present.
One Night elapses between the Acts.
The Opera produced under the Stage Direction of Mr. Charles Harris and the Musical Direction of Mr. Francois Cellier.
ACT I
SCENE. – First floor of the Ladies’ Seminary.
The GIRLS are exchanging their last confidences for the night. Enter CADDIE with their candles.
CHORUS OF GIRLS
Good-night! Good-night!
The hour is late;
Though eyes are bright,
No longer wait!
Though clear the head,
Though wit may shine,
To bed! To bed!
It’s nearly nine!
[Dining-room clock strikes.
MILLY
Now the last faint tint has faded.
ALL
Good-night! Good-night!
MILLY
And the west in gloom is shaded.
ALL
Good-night! Good-night!
MILLY
See the moon her vigil keeping.
ALL
Good-night! Good-night!
MILLY
Torpor o’er the earth is creeping
ALL
Good-night! Good-night!
Drawing-room clock strikes.
ALL
Good-night! Good-night!
A-talking thus,
Though eyes are bright,
Is not for us.
The eve is past,
The shadows fall,
And so at last
Good-night to all.
[All retire except CADDIE, who is roused from a profound reverie by the mis-behaviour of the clock. He makes short work of it. Exit CADDIE
[There is a knock at the door, and the GIRLS reappear.
MEG
It was the front door!
MILLY
Who can be calling at such a fearsomely late hour as nine o’clock?
ROSE
Why doesn’t some one peep down the stairs.
[BAB runs downstairs.
MAUD
That bold Bab has gone. Miss Sims will catch her.
MILLY
Oh! I can see.
[Looks over staircase.]
ALL
Well?
MILLY
A man!
ROSE
At last!
MILLY
Bald!
ROSE
The wretch!
MILLY
He has two other men with him.
MEG
Two! Girls, let us go and do our hair this instant.
MILLY
They are shewn into Miss Sims’s private room. Ah!
MAUD
What?
MILLY
The door is shut.
ROSE
What a shame!
MEG
What is Bab doing all this time?
MILLY
She has her ear at the keyhole.
MAUD
Dear girl!
MILLY
She shakes her fist at the keyhole.
ALL
Why?
MILLY
I don’t know.
[BAB comes upstairs.
ROSE
Bab, why did you shake your fist at the keyhole?
BAB
Because it is stuffed with paper.
ALL
Oh!
BAB
Yes, stuffed. How mean of Miss Sims. She might surely have trusted to our honour not to look.
MILLY
Thank goodness, the holidays begin the day after to-morrow.
BAB
But a great deal may happen before to-morrow. Girls, can you keep a secret – a secret that will freeze your blood and curl you up and make you die of envy?
ALL
Yes, yes!
BAB
That little sneak Jane Annie is not here? [4]
MILLY
She has gone upstairs to bed.
BAB
You are sure?
ROSE
I’ll make sure.
[Runs upstairs and looks through keyhole.
It’s all right, girls! I can see her curling her eyelashes with a hairpin.
[GIRLS surround BAB.
BAB
Then, girls, what do you value most in the world?
MILLY
My curls.
MEG
My complexion.
ROSE
My diamond ring.
MAUD
My cousin Dick.
BAB
Well, Meg would be delighted her complexion fair to doff,
And Milly take her scissors and cut her tresses off,
And Rose with a careless “Take it” give up her diamond quick,
And Maud would soon surrender her rights in Cousin Dick,
To be me to-night!
MILLY
What is his name?
BAB
Jack.
MAUD
A lovely name! What are you and Jack to do?
JANE ANNIE steals downstairs.
BAB
This very night we have―
ALL
You have―?
BAB
Arranged to el―
ALL
To el―
[seeing JANE ANNIE.
Oh!
[JANE ANNIE comes forward. All turn their backs on her.
JANE ANNIE
What have you arranged to do to-night, Bab? What is it, Maud? tell me, Milly.
ROSE
You used to be the worst girl in the school, Jane Annie, and I believe you have become a sneak to win the good-conduct prize.
MILLY
When it is presented to her to-morrow, I shall hiss.
JANE ANNIE
What is your secret, Bab?
BAB
Oh, I should like to pinch you!
JANE ANNIE
Just because I am a good girl.
SONG.
JANE ANNIE
I’m not a sneak for praise or pelf,
But when they’re acting badly,
I want to make them like myself,
And so I tell tales gladly.
Just because I am a good girl.
ALL
She gives her reasons thus,
But it’s rather hard on us,
To suffer just because she is a good girl.
JANE ANNIE
I told Miss Sims they read in bed,
Although with guile they cloaked it,
And when her cane chair vanished,
I told her they had smoked it,
And all because I am a good girl.
ALL
And all because she is a good girl.
JANE ANNIE
Although misunderstood, I’m meek―
Bab, pinch me, pinch me well!
[BAB pinches her.
Thanks! Next I offer you my cheek.
[BAB slaps her.
Now, dear, I’ll go and tell.
And just because I am a good girl.
ALL
She gives her reasons thus,
But it’s rather hard on us,
To suffer just because she is a good girl.
JANE ANNIE
If I liked I could make Bab tell me her secret. Beware! I have a power by which, if I chose to use it, I can make any one do anything I like.
MILLY [scoffing]
Then why don’t you use it?
JANE ANNIE
Because I am a good girl.
[Exit JANE ANNIE downstairs.
ROSE
Do you think she has such a power?
MILLY
Of course not.
MEG
Still, Jane Annie could not tell a lie.
MILLY
You mistake. It was George Washington who could not tell a lie.
MEG
So it was. How stupid of me.
MAUD
Quick, Bab, your secret?
ALL
Yes – the secret!
BAB
Girls, this is my secret. Meg, watch! Jack is a soldier, and he loves me.
ALL
Oh!
BAB
But better still – I have two lovers.
MILLY
Do they hate each other?
BAB
Yes.
MILLY
Scrumptious!
BAB
And, oh girls! I have promised to elope with Jack to-night.
ALL
Oh!
[BAB sighs.
ROSE
But why do you sigh?
BAB
Ah, there is Tom, dear Tom! What is poor Tom to do?
ROSE
Then it is Tom you love?
BAB
Oh, I do not know which I love. Tom is so poor, and Jack is ready to take me now. Besides, I have promised.
MAUD
Then Jack has money?
BAB
He says he has a little.
MILLY
Only a little? Then what are you to live on?
BAB
Oh, we have worked that out very carefully. First of all he is to sell out. Then he has a friend who wrote a novel in six weeks and got £1,000 for it. Well, Jack has much more ability than his friend, so he is to adopt novel writing as a profession, and, as £1,000 in six weeks comes to £8,666 13s. 14d. a year, we shall be quite comfortable.
MILLY
I see you have left nothing to chance.
BAB
No.
ROSE
Where are you and Jack to meet?
BAB
All day I have been expecting a note to say if I am to meet him in the garden or on the tow path.
[MISS SIMS and JANE ANNIE come up the stairs listening.
MEG
H’st!
BAB [softly]
Girls, we are watched! I must deceive the eavesdroppers. [Aloud.] Girls, this is my secret about which you have asked me.
ALL
Ahem! Ahem!
SONG.
BAB
Bright-eyed Bab I used to be,
Now these eyes are lead;
Languor has come over me,
Hangs my little head.
Now my figure – once like this –
Droops like autumn berry;
Pity me, my secret is,
Me is sleepy very!
ENSEMBLE.
MISS SIMS and GIRLS
See her little drowsy head,
Droops like autumn berry;
Says she wants to go to bed,
She is sleepy, very!
JANE ANNIE
Does her naughty little head
Droop like autumn berry?
Says she wants to go to bed,
But I add a query?
BAB
Simple Bab is charged with art,
Watched by cruel parties;
Palpitates her ‘ittle heart,
‘Is where ‘ittle heart is!
Something Bab has planned to do,
Something will not keep;
Bab’s a drowsy girlie who
Has planned to – go to sleep.
ENSEMBLE.
MISS SIMS and GIRLS
Such a guileless little head
Secret could not keep;
Tuck her in her cosy bed,
And she’ll go to sleep.
JANE ANNIE
Though she be a drowsy head,
That is rather steep;
Would she go to sleep?
[Exeunt GIRLS slowly to refrain of “Good-night, Good-night!”
MISS SIMS [to JANE ANNIE]
This explanation of Bab’s seems quite satisfactory.
JANE ANNIE
Hum!
MISS SIMS
Bab, to bed.
BAB
Can’t I stay up for a little, Miss Sims, to entertain your guests?
MISS SIMS
Insolence! I shall see you to your room.
BAB
I can hear them coming upstairs.
JANE ANNIE
Do tell me who they are. I am not curious. I only want to know.
MISS SIMS
They are the Proctor and his Bulldogs.
[Exeunt MISS SIMS, BAB, and JANE ANNIE.
[Enter PROCTOR and BULLDOGS.
RECITATIVE.
PROCTOR
There was a time when we were not,
The name that this dark period got
Was Chaos.
It lay as ‘neath a ban,
Merely containing animals, vegetables, minerals,
Woman and the like, and man.
Said Nature, “I’ve no Proctor,”
This strange omission shocked her.
Too long she felt she’d waited;
She now enlarged her plan.
We Proctors were created,
And then the world began.
SONG
PROCTOR
I’ll tell to you what ’tis we do,
We stalk the undergrad.
When he perceives our velvet sleeves,
He runs away like mad.
Then follow we by deputy,
These men I now describe;
My bulldogs sound pull him to ground,
They never take a bribe.
In vain he tries to dodge their eyes,
Of all his haunts they’ve knowledge;
And soon I make our quarry quake
By crying, “Name and college!”
ALL
Name and college! Name and college!
PROCTOR
Caged lions may forget they’re tame,
The wife forget her baby’s name,
The trampled worm forget to turn,
The Scot to think of Bannockburn,
One poet in a score forget
The laureateship is open yet,
But none who of its gist have knowledge
Can e’er forget my “Name and college.”
In after years I fill with fears
All who’ve been undergrads;
The Cabinet, the Laureate,
Still run from me like lads.
To Parliament I one time went
The front bench to enlighten,
I thought I’d try to prove that I
Could still the members frighten.
So up I rose, and struck the pose,
And shouted, “Name and college!”
Oh, run did they from me that day,
When I cried “Name and college!”
ALL
Name and college! Name and college!
PROCTOR
Comedians may forget their part,
Librettists that it rhymes with heart;
Composers may themselves forget
When ragged rhymes they’re asked to set;
The Savoy opera singer e’en
Forget that on his head he’s been;
But none who of its gist have knowledge,
Can e’er forget my “Name and college.”
[Re-enter MISS SIMS. JANE ANNIE listens from balcony.
MISS SIMS
Dear friend, you have not yet told me the reason for this visit, and I cannot hope that you have called merely because of our old friendship.
PROCTOR
Our more than friendship.
[They sigh. BULLDOGS sigh, and PROCTOR glares at them.
GREG [rebelliously]
We have our feelings.
PROCTOR
But I object to your having feelings.
SIM [signing to GREG to control himself]
Then we haven’t.
PROCTOR
Are they still following me?
GREG and SIM [going to window]
They are gone!
PROCTOR
Ha!
MISS SIMS
What is it, dear friend?
PROCTOR
It is the penalty of greatness. You have heard that a Chair of New Journalism has been established at the University. There has been no peace for me since. The Press Students follow me, interview me, describe me. You see, honours can now be got in this department, and they are all anxious to take the first “first class” in journalism.
GREG
Besides, they feel that if they don’t hurry up, some lady student will take it before them.
MISS SIMS
It is a way that lady students have.
PROCTOR
But it was duty brought me here. I have private information that an undergraduate named Findlater – popularly known as Tom, is carrying on a–a–a–
GREG
A flirtation.
PROCTOR
A – a flirtation –
[He is reluctant to take the word from GREG, but can think of no other. GREG is triumphant.]
– with a certain – certain – one of these – ah! what do you call those little things that grow into women?
GREG
A girl.
PROCTOR [annoyed]
A – a – girl – in this seminary.
MISS SIMS
Impossible! Could it be Bab?
GREG
Bab was the name.
[PROCTOR glares at GREG, with whom SIM expostulates in dumb show.
JANE ANNIE [aside]
Tom! Tom! But I am sure the naughty word I heard her say was Jack!
[Exit JANE ANNIE.
PROCTOR
Tom is coming to serenade her from this hall window. Now I have come here to watch, and if he is guilty, to have him sent down. Ha! ha! conceive his discomfiture when he climbs up to this window and is met – not by his sweetheart – but my cry of –
GREG
Name and college.
SIM [quaking]
I don’t know what is to become of him! [To GREG.] Don’t be so dashed independent!
PROCTOR [fiercely]
Watch at the windows!
[BULLDOGS go to windows.
MISS SIMS
Dear friend, you must be mistaken.
PROCTOR
Mistaken? I am a Proctor. Besides, if you are so confident, you cannot complain of my putting the matter to the proof, and I propose watching here. Where can I hide?
MISS SIMS [pointing to clock]
Do you think you could get into this?
PROCTOR
The clock! Why not? I can just do it.
MISS SIMS
Good. And I shall watch downstairs, for I know that my school can triumphantly stand the test.
DUET. – MISS SIMS and PROCTOR.
MISS SIMS
Strictly tended plants are mine,
Breakfast early, bed at nine –
PROCTOR
Plants that need some watching.
MISS SIMS
Their regard for beauty slight is,
Mental charm their chief delight is –
PROCTOR
Mischief ever hatching.
MISS SIMS
Flirt’s a word at which they frown,
Man they know is but a noun –
PROCTOR
A noun they can’t decline.
MISS SIMS
Eyes they never use amiss,
When they take the air like this,
In a maiden line. [Business.]
PROCTOR
Yet I take this information
With some mental reservation,
And I think it most imprudent,
Thus to fire the callow student,
Or the young divine.
MISS SIMS
Helpful books they read – not Gyp,
But the courting scenes they skip –
PROCTOR
Or at least they say so.
MISS SIMS
If the heroine who charms
Sinks into her lover’s arms –
PROCTOR
They hope to be some day so.
MISS SIMS
No, their comment prim and terse is,
Namely “What a hard plight hers is!”
PROCTOR
Oh, this is quite too fine!
MISS SIMS
And mankind with scorn they view,
As they walk out two and two,
In a maiden line. [Business.]
ENSEMBLE.
MISS SIMS
Yet he takes my wise instructions
With considerable deductions;
For such sights are bad, I know
For the budding medico,
Or the young divine.
PROCTOR
Yet I take Miss Sims’ instructions
With considerable deductions;
For such sights are bad, I know
For the budding medico,
Or the young divine.
GREG
Thank you so much. What is that called?
MISS SIMS
It is a little thing of my own.
GREG
How delightful!
MISS SIMS
I am so glad you like it.
GREG
You sing with so much expression.
MISS SIMS
Do you really think so?
GREG
Won’t you favour us with another?
MISS SIMS
That is the only one I know.
GREG
How very charming!
[PROCTOR orders him back to window.
PROCTOR
Ah me! Neither of us has forgotten the days when we were lovers. What a pity we quarrelled!
MISS SIMS [questioningly]
I suppose we have quite outgrown that affection?
PROCTOR
Oh, quite.
[BULLDOGS at the window make signs as if they saw someone. Soft flute is heard outside.
Ah! he comes! It is Tom!
[PROCTOR gets into the clock, MISS SIMS assisting him. PROCTOR looking out.
How’s that?
MISS SIMS
Wonderful! If the face had hands you could pass for the clock any day. And here they are.
[Puts her spectacles on PROCTOR.
There! and now I shall watch downstairs.
PROCTOR
Hi! a moment. What have you set me at?
MISS SIMS
Ten past nine.
[Exit.]
PROCTOR
Now the minute hand is in my left eye and I can see nothing. I wish she had put me on half an hour.
GREG [coming down]
I beg to inform you, sir – he’s gone! Sim, where can the Proctor have vanished to?
SIM [coming down]
I am glad he isn’t here. What is to be done? We didn’t see what the Proctor expected us to see.
GREG
Is that our fault?
SIM
Hush! Of course it is, Greg. You will say we saw the undergraduate, eh, Greg?
PROCTOR [aside]
What?
GREG
But we didn’t. It was a soldier we saw.
PROCTOR [aside]
Eh?
SIM
Oh, what is to be done?
GREG
Tell him the truth.
SIM
Oh, Greg, don’t be so independent! Think of the time when you were a little child on your mother’s knee.
[GREG is much affected.
DUET – SIM and GREG.
SIM
When a bulldog I became,
Independence was my game,
But since my course I’m steering
By a rule that is more wise,
For I hear with other’s hearing,
And I see with other’s eyes.
GREG [derisively]
Tooral, looral―ly!
SIM
That’s a risky think to say.
GREG
It’s my platform, I reply.
SIM
Platforms, Greg, are cheap to-day.
GREG
Which nobody can deny. Man’s a man for a’ that, Sim.
SIM
For a what? say I, [
GREG
For a that.
SIM
A that? what’s that?
GREG [after reflecting]
Tooral, looral―ly!
BOTH
Up with caps and freedom hail!
Here’s the new election cry;
Man’s a man if born a male,
Tooral, looral, looral―ly!
GREG
Proc’s are spry, but I see through them!
I’m the man that will undo them!
With a wit like razors’ edges,
Twit them in the ‘Varsitee;
This the thin edge of the wedge is,
Spell them with a little p.
SIM [derisively]
Tooral, looral―ly!
GREG
Culture’s fudge – see how I flout it,
SIM
Culture doesn’t pay, that’s why;
GREG
We reformers do without it,
SIM
Which nobody can deny.
GREG
Mad you are, my friend, go to!
SIM
Go to where? say I,
GREG
The missing word I leave to you.
SIM [after reflecting]
Tooral, looral―ly!
BOTH
Up with caps and freedom hail!
Here’s the new election cry;
Man’s a man if born a male,
Tooral, looral, looral―ly!
DANCE.
[Boots are placed outside the doors at this point. The BULLDOGS look scared, and exeunt downstairs.
[Enter CADDIE
He collects boots in a laundress’s basket. The boots he loves are not among them. He is distressed. JANE ANNIE’s door opens and she puts out her boots. He is elated and goes for them. While he is getting them BAB’s arm appears outside her door, groping for her boots. As she doesn’t find then she comes out and looks for them. She sees basket, glides to it unseen by CADDIE, picks out her boots and exit with them. CADDIE returns with JANE ANNIE’s boots, fondling them. He sits down on basket and kisses them. Then he rises and tries to drop them among the others. This strikes him as sacrilege. He shakes his head, then ties the laces of JANE ANNIE’s boots together, slings them over his head, and exit, carrying basket.
PROCTOR
What is he up to? If I had only being going, I should be at the half-hour by this time, and then I could see with the left eye. Ten past nine! I little thought that the time would come when the grand ambition of my life would be to be nine-thirty. What is he doing upstairs? Hallo! a girl, and after some mischief. I wonder if I dare ask her to put me on twenty minutes. I feel very queer, as if I was turning into a real clock. I hope I sha’n’t strike.
[ROSE and MILLY come softly out of their rooms.
MILLY
I have been thinking so much of what Bab told us that I can’t go to bed.
ROSE
Nor I – Oh, Milly!
MILLY
What time is it, Rose?
ROSE [holding candle to clock]
Half-past nine.
PROCTOR [aside]
I wish it was!
ROSE [to MILLY]
What?
MILLY
I didn’t speak.
[Flute heard outside.
ROSE
Listen!
MILLY
Oh, Rose! I am all of a tremble; turn up the gas.
[BAB enters. Flute playing continues.
ROSE
It is he – Jack!
BAB [trembling]
No, that is Tom!
MILLY
The other one!
BAB
Milly, he must have heard that I am to elope with Jack and doubtless he has come here to shoot me.
MILLY
How romantic!
ROSE
How delightful!
PROCTOR
How out of tune!
MILLY
Perhaps he has only come to ask you to give him back his presents.
ROSE
How horrid of him to bother you when you don’t care for him.
BAB
I never said I didn’t care for him.
MILLY
Oh!
ROSE
I hear him climbing up the ivy.
MILLY
He is coming to the window.
BAB
If he and Jack meet they will fight. [To GIRLS.] Leave us.
[ROSE and MILLY exeunt. BAB hides. TOM enters from the window. He is very sad.
BALLAD.
TOM
It was the time of thistledown,
The corn we wandered through;
She plucked the lover’s thistledown,
As maids are wont to do.
She blew upon the thistledown,
“He loves, he loves me not!”
And from the loyal thistledown,
“He loves” the answer got.
She did not ask the thistledown
If her own love were true;
No need to ask the thistledown,
She thought – as maidens do.
But had she asked the thistledown,
This answer she’d have got,
“Your false breath stains the thistledown,
He loves, but you love not.”
BAB [coming down]
Tom!
[They embrace.
TOM
Then you do love me?
BAB [kissing him]
Oh no, this is only saying good-bye.
TOM
You fling me over?
BAB
Jack insists on it.
TOM
Have you forgotten that day on the river, when –
BAB
When you kissed my hand? Oh, Tom, but I have been on the river since then with Jack, and he―
TOM
Kissed your hand also?
BAB
No, he did not kiss my – hand.
[TOM takes something wrapped in paper from his pocket.
What is that?
TOM
The glove you gave me.
[Gives it to her.]
Give it to Jack.
[Hands her something else.
BAB
And what is this?
TOM
A hairpin. Give it to Jack. Good-bye!
BAB
Ah, Tom, you will soon forget me.
TOM
I am a man who loves but once, and then for aye.
BAB
You will be heart-broken about me all your life?
TOM
Till the grave close on me.
BAB
Dear Tom, you make me so happy. Now, kiss me passionately for the last time. You must see that it is not my fault.
[He is about to kiss her, then sadly lets her go.]
DUET. – TOM and BAB.
TOM
O eyes that spoke to me of truth,
Farewell, deceptive mirror!
BAB
Thus you describe them, yet forsooth,
You look into the mirror!
TOM
Sweet mouth that pouted for my kiss,
Farewell, sweet lying mouth!
BAB
The words you’re using are amiss,
Yet sweet you call my mouth!
TOM
O heart that throbbed a tale untrue,
Farewell, you falsely beat!
BAB
Although it may not beat for you,
The words you say are sweet.
TOM
False one, farewell, I harm you not;
To him depart, and scathless;
Be mine to bear my dreary lot,
Struck down by woman faithless.
For you, a jilt, my heart has bled,
My cup with grief you fill.
Ah, tell me, empty little head,
Why ’tis I love you still?
BAB
He loves me still, he loves me true,
He worships at my feet.
My heart may never beat for you,
And yet your words are sweet.
ENSEMBLE.
TOM – BAB
‘Tis so; yet joy be thine, Ah, how can joy be mine,
Though hopeless future mine, If hopeless fate is thine?
Farewell! Farewell!
BAB [aside]
Ah! am I sure that it is Jack whom I love best? And yet, my promise!
[JANE ANNIE steals downstairs.
BAB
Fly, Tom! It is Jane Annie, the sneak!
[TOM hurries to window where JANE ANNIE meets him. The PROCTOR comes stealthily out of clock.
PROCTOR
Name and college!
[TOM jumps through the window, PROCTOR seizes JANE ANNIE. BAB listens unseen.
JANE ANNIE
Unhand me! I am Jane Annie, the model girl of the school.
PROCTOR
You are Bab, the flirting-girl!
JANE ANNIE
You are mistaken, I―
PROCTOR
Mistaken! – I! Have I not told you that I am a Proctor?
JANE ANNIE
It was Bab who was flirting, and I came to warn you.
PROCTOR
Yes, it was Bab, and you are Bab. [Seeing BAB] Girl, what is the name of this chit?
BAB
That is Bab, sir, and my name is Jane Annie.
JANE ANNIE
Oh!
PROCTOR
Exactly! She has assumed your name.
BAB
Oh, Bab, how could you!
PROCTOR
I caught her in the act of eloping with an undergraduate through this window.
BAB
Naughty!
JANE ANNIE
You wicked little wretch! Sir, I am―
PROCTOR
You are about to be shut up in your bedroom for the night. Which is her room, Jane Annie?
JANE ANNIE
You―
BAB
In the attic there.
PROCTOR
Come!
[PROCTOR drags JANE ANNIE upstairs, and pushes her into her room.
BAB
I hope poor Tom didn’t hurt himself, though I believe he went away blaming me. Men are so unreasonable!
PROCTOR [coming down]
Well, Jane Annie, why don’t you go to bed?
A letter is thrown through the window.
PROCTOR
A letter! and through the window!
BAB [aside]
Oh, it is from Jack! We are ruined!
PROCTOR
It has no address. For whom can it be meant?
BAB
Oh, give it to me, sir?
PROCTOR
To you, child? Never! It is my duty to open it myself. [Opens and reads.] “Ten past nine. Ten past nine! I am waiting for you in the garden.” Ha! what plot is this that I have unearthed? Who is waiting in the garden, and for whom?
BAB [aside]
Oh, what shall I do? Ha! Have I not heard that Miss Sims and he were sweethearts? [To PROCTOR.] Can you not see?
PROCTOR
No, I can’t; and if I can’t, it’s perfectly certain that no one else can.
BAB
I know whom the letter is from.
PROCTOR
From whom, child?
BAB
It is from Miss Sims.
PROCTOR
From Dinah?
BAB
Precisely.
PROCTOR
And for whom is she waiting?
BAB
Why, for you, of course. Oh, sir, have pity upon this poor lady’s heart.
PROCTOR
Ha! “Ten past nine!” She means me! Of course it is addressed to me. “Ten past nine, I am waiting for you in the garden.” Excuse me, child!
[Exit.
BAB
Oh, Jack is outside, and I do trust they will not meet. It was my only chance. Now I must put on my hat and coat and slip out to join him.
[Exit into bedroom. JANE ANNIE comes downstairs.
JANE ANNIE
That little wretch Bab will find that ia m not so easily foiled. Let me see, I need darkness, because I am such a good girl.
[Turns down the lights.
Oh! who is this?
[Enter JACK in a cloak.
JACK
Bab, come!
[Sees JANE ANNIE and runs forward.
JANE ANNIE
I am not Bab!
JACK
Oh, Lord! the wrong one.
[Takes to his heels, dropping the cloak in his haste.
JANE ANNIE
What a superior young man! His cloak! [Puts it on.] In this light she might mistake me for him!
[Swaggers about in military fashion.]
Oh, I will lay such a beautiful trap for her!
[Retires to back of stage, and conceals herself by the curtain.
[Enter BAB, dressed for travelling, and with several packages.
BAB
Farewell, dear old school – the nicest school in the world to get away from! If I were only sure that I am not making a mistake! They say that there was a girl who eloped from here once, and that she was unhappy, and that her spirit still haunts these rooms. Tom, Tom! shall I take this final step which is to divide us? Oh! what is that?
VOICES IN THE AIR
Little maiden, pause and ponder,
Life is cruel, life is dreary.
Little feet, why should you wander
On to paths so rough and weary?
Ere you snap the final link,
Little maiden, pause and think!
BAB
Oh, I am so frightened. What shall I do?
[JANE ANNIE comes forward, enveloped in JACK’s cloak.
JANE ANNIE
Come!
BAB
Jack, I cannot!
JANE ANNIE
Quick!
BAB
Oh, Jack, be good to me! Do be careful of this packet. It is awfully, awfully important. It is my curling tongs.
[Gives packet.
The carriage is awaiting us, of course. That contains your letters Jack, and these are some little things – and take this bag. And now, darling, carry me down, for I am going to faint!
[She falls into JANE ANNIE’s arms, who lets the things fall, seizes her and screams. Ringing of bells, and general alarm. PRESS STUDENTS come rushing upstairs. MISS SIMS enters, all stare at JANE ANNIE holding BAB, who seems to have fainted from fright.
FINALE.
PRESS STUDENTS
Madam, do no think us rude in
On your privacy intrudin’;
We are Students Journalistic,
Keen on copy, plain or mystic,
Commonplace or transcendental,
Psychic, physical, or mental,
News we’ll have, and through you, madam,
For we’ll interview you, madam.
That’s so flat, nought could be flatter,
Tell us quickly, what’s the matter?
What’s the matter? What’s the matter?
[GIRLS run out of their rooms in various stages of deshabille.
GIRLS
Madam, when we heard this screaming,
Scarcely sure if we were dreaming,
Curiosity controlled us,
And we came as you behold us,
Trim or ruffled, tossed or dapper,
Clad in dressing gown or wrapper,
We are kneeling to you, madam,
News to get, and through you, madam.
Think not this is idle chatter,
But inform us what’s the matter?
What’s the matter? What’s the matter?
ENSEMBLE.
PRESS STUDENTS – GIRLS
News we’ll have, and We are kneeling to you,
through you, madam, etc. madam, etc.
MISS SIMS
Jane Annie, what is this? Bab, what were you doing in her arms?
BAB
Miss Sims, forgive me! I thought she was a gentleman.
MISS SIMS
Oh, infamous! To your rooms, all, this instant!
[Exeunt MISS SIMS, BAB, JANE ANNIE, and GIRLS.
PRESS STUDENTS [taking notes eagerly]
School aristocratic,
The scene most dramatic,
Plot unsystematic,
And very erratic,
Jane Annie ecstatic,
Her victory emphatic,
She won it by stealing
Down from the attic.
[Enter PROCTOR furiously.
PRESS STUDENTS
We’re glad to interview you,
To get a column through you,
And note what you may say.
See now how we will do him,
While we seem to interview him,
In our frank, new-fashioned way.
Are Proctors men of learning?
Do you spend more than you’re earning?
And how much do you owe?
Of women do you think much?
On occasion do you drink much?
PROCTOR
Emphatically, no!
PRESS STUDENTS [writing]
Proctors have no acumen,
And no respect for women.
PROCTOR
Yes, yes! I meant to say!
PRESS STUDENTS [writing]
In debt and boasts about it.
Love’s grog – can’t do without it.
Must have it night and day.
PROCTOR
My words you’re misconstruing,
That is not interviewing.
PRESS STUDENTS
Yes, this is interviewing,
In the frank, new-fashioned way.
PROCTOR
If you’ll suppress this fable,
I’ll tell you, if I’m able,
A recent incident.
[Aside]. Diverting their attention,
I’ll draw from my invention
Some singular event.
SOLO.
PROCTOR
There was once a man in a seaside town,
And his name it was – what was it?
I know it wasn’t Smith, and I’m sure it wasn’t Brown,
But it was – oh, Lor’, what was it?
I very much want to tell you all,
You’d love to know about it;
But just this point I can’t recall,
And as it’s immaterial,
We’d best go on without it.
A widow lived in the same hotel,
Her name it was – you know it!
He stole to her and whispered – well,
He whispered, well – Oh, blow it!
I very much want to tell you all,
You’d love to know about it;
But just this point I can’t recall,
And as it’s immaterial,
I’d best go on without it.
But when the lady heard this speech,
Down to the pier she flew then,
Threw up her arms, and with a screech,
She – she – Oh, dear! what did she do then?
I very much want to tell you all,
You’d love to know about it;
But just this point I don’t recall,
And as it’s most material,
I can’t go on without it.
[Enter SIM and GREG.
SIM
At last we’ve got him, sir.
PROCTOR [not heeding]
Away!
SIM
Him that dangled after her!
PROCTOR
Hurray! [addressing PRESS STUDENTS]. To catch an undergraduate I came.
SIM and GREG [perplexed]
Of this there’s question none,
He is an undergraduate,
In all respects but one.
That one to mention we forgot,
It’s odd to me and mate,
It’s this, that somehow he is not
An undergraduate!
[JACK steps forward, CADDIE holding him.
ALL
Why, evidently he is not
An undergraduate!
MILLY [from balcony]
Oh, sir, take care
Of one so fair
Let his complexion
Plead with you for him!
JACK
An officer I,
Strolling by,
Smoking a Henry Clay, [18]
These men I met,
They me beset
In a most unseemly way.
Of girls they spoke,
Which spoilt my smoke,
For the sex I do not care about.
I’ve not address’t
Them e’en in jest
Since ’85 – or there about.
They dragged me here,
By brute force sheer,
But this doth chiefly jar.
Your page, I find,
We left behind
Smoking my big cigar.
And therefore I
Your school defy,
Oh, I do not stand in awe of you;
For spoilt have they
My Henry Clay,
And I mean to have the law of you.
[Exit JACK
[Re-enter GIRLS.
PROCTOR
No I am trepanned and done brown.
PRESS STUDENTS
We hear you, and we’ve got it down.
[Enter MISS SIMS and JANE ANNIE.
MISS SIMS [to JANE ANNIE]
We owe all too you, it appears! So what can I do?
GIRLS
Box her ears!
JANE ANNIE
To be good I try hard,
GIRLS
Ain’t she meek?
JANE ANNIE
And I ask no reward,
GIRLS
Oh, the sneak!
JANE ANNIE
Yet if I should take
Something nice,
They may learn to forsake
Ways of vice.
PRESS STUDENTS
Stop a moment – “Forsake!”
“Ways of vice!”
JANE ANNIE
Now the good-conduct prize,
GIRLS
Oh, how mean!
JANE ANNIE
Seems good to my eyes,
GIRLS
Which are green!
JANE ANNIE
So if you agree
That I’m right,
Why not give it me
Well – to-night?
PRESS STUDENTS
Stop a moment – “Agree”
“To to-night.”
MISS SIMS
Dear pupils, see, to my bosom I fold her,
The prize shall be hers ere she’s five minutes older.
[Exeunt MISS SIMS, PROCTOR, BULLDOGS, and CADDIE.
JANE ANNIE
The girl who’s good, demure, correct,
Cannot preserve her self-respect,
And mine I would regain.
So having got the prize to-night,
To-morrow I, with all my might,
Will be an imp again!
Girls, I am naughty from this hour,
And six long months of wickedness,
By virtue of my magic power,
Into one day I will compress!
ALL
Jane Annie’s naughty from this hour,
But oh! what is this magic power?
[CADDIE sends PRESS STUDENTS away.
SONG.
JANE ANNIE
When I was a little piccaninny,
Only about so high,
I’d a baby’s bib and a baby’s pinny
And a queer little gimlet eye.
They couldn’t tell why that tiny eye
Would make them writhe and twist,
They found it so, but how could they know
That the babe was a hypnotist?
ALL
Now think of that! this tiny brat
Was a bit of a hypnotist!
JANE ANNIE
And as I grew my power grew too,
For we were one, you see,
And what I willed the folk would do
At a wave or a glance from me.
I could “suggest” what pleased me best,
And still can, when I list,
And Madam Card will find it hard
To beat this hypnotist!
ALL
Oh, think of it! This little chit
Is a mighty mesmerist!
DANCE.
[Enter MISS SIMS, BULLDOGS, PRESS STUDENTS, and CADDIE in procession. PAGE bearing prize. GIRLS become demure.
MISS SIMS
To Jane Annie this prize I present,
And in it I’ve writ this inscription―
“Awarded a hundred per cent.
For goodness of every description.”
[Presents prize.
MISS SIMS, BULLDOGS, and PAGE
Hail, oh hail to the modest maiden!
Hail, oh hail to the downcast eyes!
Now with all our plaudits laden,
See, she takes the well-earned prize.
Hail, Jane Annie, hail!
GIRLS
Hail, oh hail to the scheming maiden,
Hail, oh hail to the roguish eye!
Now she stands with honours laden,
They will know her by-and-bye.
Hail, Jane Annie, hail!
ENSEMBLE. MISS SIMS, BULLDOGS, etc.
Hail, oh hail to her we honour!
Hail, oh hail to the blushing cheek!
Place the laurel wreath upon her,
See her crowned, and good, and meek!
Hail, Jane Annie, hail!
GIRLS
Hail, oh hail to her they honour!
Hail to her unblushing cheek!
Place the laurel wreath upon her,
See her trying to look meek.
Hail, Jane Annie, hail!
CURTAIN.
ACT II
SCENE.―A LADIES’ GOLF GREEN NEAR THE SEMINARY.
River at back. BAB, a prisoner, is walking up and down in CADDIE’s charge.
SONG.
CADDIE
A page-boy am I
That young ladies decry,
Yes, yes, dears, you do, for I hear yer;
But it’s little you know
The volcanoes that glow
Inside of this little exterior.
Oh, you wouldn’t deride,
Could you step inside
Of this here pocket edition,
And, striking a light,
Perceive that this mite
Is on fire with a grand ambition.
BAB
But at present the buttons he’s wearing,
And he’s taking me out for an airing.
[Walks up and down.
CADDIE
My wife I shall choose
From the class called the Blues,
Whose theory is that they hates men,
Of birthplaces galore
I mean to have more
Than him wot’s the eminent statesman.
A peerage I’ll take
For my progeny’s sake,
To refuse it I think would be shabby,
And I ask poor and rich
To my funeral, which
Will be held in Westminster Abbey.
Oh, you wouldn’t deride, etc.
[Cries of “Fore! Fore!”
BAB
The girls are playing golf. [She holds up flag.]
CADDIE
Girls! Poor summer flies!
BAB
Do let me play, Caddie.
CADDIE
It’s agin the Missus’ orders. I’m your jailer, I am, and Miss Sims’s words were: “Give the wench a little exercise, but never leave her for a moment, or she will be eloping again; and if she does,” said she, “you just pull the big fire bell.”
BAB
But why not let me elope, Caddie? See, I go on my knees to you.
[Kneels.
CADDIE
Get up! Get up!
BAB [rising]
Cold, relentless! You have never loved!
CADDIE
Have I not? By gum!
BAB
You in love. With whom?
CADDIE [sadly]
It’s all over for ever, no more.
BAB
She jilted you?
CADDIE
Well, it came to the same thing, I jilted her.
BAB
Why?
CADDIE
I wanted a bigger one.
BAB
And have you got a bigger one?
CADDIE
I have.
BAB
Whom?
CADDIE [pointing off stage]
You see that agreeable circumference coming this way?
BAB
Yes.
CADDIE
Well, that’s my new one.
BAB
Jane Annie!
[BAB goes sadly up stage. A golf ball lands on green, CADDIE pockets it. Enter JANE ANNIE with golf club. She looks for her ball. CADDIE looks longingly at her and sighs aloud.
CADDIE
My charmer!
JANE ANNIE
Caddie, did you see my ball?
CADDIE
No, Miss, no balls have come this way.
JANE ANNIE
It is a strange thing that when you are acting as caddie nearly all our balls get lost.
CADDIE
Yes, Miss.
JANE ANNIE
And what is stranger still, those same lost balls are afterwards offered us for sale at your mother’s shop in the village.
CADDIE
Ah, it be a puzzling world, Miss.
JANE ANNIE [putting her hand in his pocket and producing ball]
Now it seems to me that this is my ball.
CADDIE
Extraordinary thing!
JANE ANNIE
How did it get there?
CADDIE
You must have played it into my pocket, Miss.
JANE ANNIE
Fibber! I feel sure that it fell dead just on the edge of the hole – here.
[Puts ball close to hall.
CADDIE
No, Miss, now that you mention the circumstance, I recollect that I picked it out of the bunker.
JANE ANNIE
Pooh! nonsense!
CADDIE
Is this fair, Miss?
JANE ANNIE
Of course it’s fair, so long as nobody sees me. Besides, I’m told they often do it at Felixstowe. Why, even Mr. Balf―
[CADDIE signs silence to her, pointing to private box as if fearful lest they should be overheard. Exit CADDIE.]
BAB
Sneak!
JANE ANNIE
Are you a prisoner, Bab?
BAB
Yes, thanks to you. I shall tell everybody how good you have been. [Sits down on rug.]
JANE ANNIE
How hateful of you to threaten to take away my character.
BAB
Goody! Goody! Goody!
JANE ANNIE [sitting down beside BAB]
I’m not really good.
BAB
Yes, you are. You sha’n’t sit on my rug. [Pulls it away.] Why, you promised last night to be dreadfully naughty to-day, so as to make up for your goodness of the past six months, and here you are as shamelessly good as ever.
JANE ANNIE
You do me an injustice. The fun is about to begin. Early this morning I hypnotized our dear mistress, and made her write the most dreadful letters. Just fancy, two of them were invitations to Tom and Jack to come and bring as many male friends with them as they could get together. She has not the least idea of what she has done, of course! Ha! ha!
BAB
But why have you done this?
JANE ANNIE
So that in the confusion Tom and Jack may carry off the girl of their heart.
BAB
But I can only marry one of them.
JANE ANNIE
Yes, but I can marry the other.
BAB
You! But I haven’t selected mine yet. That is my difficulty.
JANE ANNIE
No, but I have! That removes your difficulty.
BAB
You toad!
JANE ANNIE
The one I have chosen is Jack.
BAB
Jack! Does he know?
JANE ANNIE
No, I am keeping it a surprise for him.
BAB
I don’t believe a word you have said.
JANE ANNIE
You can have my aid if you will promise to take Tom and leave Jack for me. You can’t elope without my aid.
BAB
I shall.
JANE ANNIE
You sha’n’t!
BAB
Goody! Goody! Goody!
Cries of “Fore! Fore!” are heard, and a ball lands on the green.
JANE ANNIE
The girls.
BAB
Goody! Goody! Goody!
[GIRLS enter in golf costume. JANE ANNIE, ROSE, MEG, and MILLY are playing a foursome; the others are looking on. CADDIE accompanies them as caddie.
CHORUS OF GIRLS
To golf is staid for bashful maid,
So our schoolmistress thinks,
That’s why, ’tis said, Queen Mary played
On famed St. Andrew’s links.
BAB [holding up her club] : Niblick! }
JANE ANNIE [holding up her club]
Driver! }
MILLY [holding up her club] : Putter! }
MEG [holding up her club] : Brassy! }
BAB
One up!
JANE ANNIE
Two to play!
ALL
We play the game as that Scotch lassie,
Mary, used to play.
This verse is sung with spirit; the second dejectedly.
GIRLS
The game was gay in Mary’s day, Her foursomes were not lonely, Maybe ’cause they had not to play On greens for ladies only!
BAB [as before]
Niblicks!
JANE ANNIE [as before]
Drivers!
MILLY [as before]
Putters!
MEG [as before]
Brassies!
BAB
One up!
JANE ANNIE
Two to play!
GIRLS
For partners we have only lassies,
Which was not Mary’s way.
[MEG plays at hole and misses. CADDIE chuckles.
JANE ANNIE
You have flung away the hole.
[ROSE plays at hole and misses. CADDIE grins.
MILLY
Silly!
[ROSE weeps. MILLY plays into hole.]
Hurrah! Rose and I have done this hole in seventeen!
[Enter MISS SIMS.
MISS SIMS
Young ladies, as it is the last day of the term our rules may be a little relaxed.
MILLY
Oh, you dear kind thing!
MISS SIMS
Except in the case of Bab, who must remain a prisoner all day.
BAB
Oh! Oh! Oh!
MISS SIMS
So we shall admit some men to to-day’s festivities.
ALL
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
MISS SIMS
But not real men.
ROSE
Boys?
MILLY
Oh, I’m going to bed!
MISS SIMS
No, but half of you may be permitted for this day only to assume the character of men. It will be quite as amusing.
ALL [dismally]
Oh!
MISS SIMS
And very much safer.
MILLY [brightening]
Perhaps this game will provide an answer to a question in deportment which has often puzzled me. It is this. Suppose a gentleman were to put his arm round me, what would be the right thing for me to do?
ROSE
The right thing would be to scream.
MILLY
No. I think the right thing would be not to let on, so that he shouldn’t have the satisfaction of knowing that you noticed it.
BAB
I know what I should do if a man put his arm round me – I would stand still.
MISS SIMS
Shameless! And what would you do, Jane Annie?
JANE ANNIE
I would run to you, madam, for protection.
MISS SIMS [fondling her]
Dear Jane Annie! [To GIRLS.] Now go.
[Exeunt girls. BAB goes last in charge of CADDIE.
MISS SIMS
Now, Jane Annie, dear, there is something strange I want to speak to you about. You remember when you left me in the study this morning?
JANE ANNIE
Yes, Miss Sims.
MISS SIMS
Well, I must have dropped asleep immediately afterwards, and I had the oddest dreams.
JANE ANNIE [chuckles, but assumes an air of sympathy as MISS SIMS turns towards her]
Dreams, Miss Sims?
MISS SIMS
Oh, the strangest dreams! I seemed to be writing such a number of letters, but what they were about I cannot imagine.
JANE ANNIE
Of course it was all fancy!
MISS SIMS
But ten envelopes were missing when I woke.
JANE ANNIE
No!
MISS SIMS
And my fingers were quite inky. I do hope I have not done anything foolish in my sleep.
JANE ANNIE
I hope not.
MISS SIMS
Especially just now, while the Proctor is here.
JANE ANNIE
Why specially while he is here?
MISS SIMS
Ah, Jane Annie, he and I were once – [Sighs.]
JANE ANNIE
No, were you?
MISS SIMS
I assure you he often – [Sighs.]
JANE ANNIE
Did he? Where?
MISS SIMS
In the conservatory.
JANE ANNIE
Just where they do it to-day.
MISS SIMS
But, alas! he – [Sighs.]
JANE ANNIE
How horrid of him.
MISS SIMS
And so his presence here makes me think of early days when – [Sighs.]
JANE ANNIE
Naturally.
SONG.
MISS SIMS
A girl again I seem to be,
Though I’m an old schoolmistress grey;
Again a boy comes courting me,
Though he’s a hard-faced man to-day.
He calls me little golden-head,
I feel his kisses on my brow,
I still recall the words he said,
Though I’m an old schoolmistress now,
Youth dreams of what’s to be, I ween,
The future’s always far away;
But age must dream of what has been,
The past is always yesterday.
We meet, but he does not recall
The golden head, the love-lit eyes;
Our meetings and our partings all
To him are less than memories.
He twits the old schoolmistress prim,
Forgetful of his broken vow,
And that she owes it all to him
That she’s an old schoolmistress now.
Youth dreams of what’s to be, I ween, etc.
[MISS SIMS is retiring up stage. She returns excitedly.
MISS SIMS
There is a party of those impertinent Press Students coming sown the river, who look as if they intended to land upon our bank.
JANE ANNIE [in horror]
Oh, surely it cannot be.
[Aside with exultation.]
The result of letter number one.
MISS SIMS
Let us go and fetch Caddie to protect us.
[Exeunt MISS SIMS and JANE ANNIE. Song of Oarsmen heard in the distance and coming nearer.
BARCAROLLE
PRESS STUDENTS
Where the willows shade the river,
Where the leaning rushes quiver,
Where the water weeds are shining,
Some enfolding, some entwining,
There we go! Cheerily oh!
Eight like one we dip and feather!
Steadily now! Stroke and bow!
Pulling along and all together!
[They land, TOM among them.
[Enter MISS SIMS, JANE ANNIE, and CADDIE.
MISS SIMS [shrinking from them]
The wretches! [To CADDIE.] Order them to go at once, Caddie.
CADDIE [turning up his sleeves fiercely]
Come now, you had best go quietly.
TOM
What does this sprat mean?
CADDIE
Sprat! Summer flies! Now, look here, are you going quietly, or must I chuck the blooming lot of you into the river?
TOM
There is some mistake, madam – we came here by invitation.
CADDIE
Look here, I know that game.
MISS SIMS
Impossible! By whose invitation?
TOM [producing letter]
By yours – here is your letter.
[Hands it to her.
JANE ANNIE [aside]
Exquisite!
MISS SIMS [reading]
“Dear Mr. Tom, as I have seen you in the neighbourhood of my school more than once, I venture to ask whether you will do me the honour of attending a garden party which I am giving to my girls this afternoon. I want to show them a little life. Please bring a few of those pleasant Press Students, and be sure to come in cap and gown. It will be a free and easy affair. My girls join me in sending love, and I am yours sincerely, Dinah Sims.” Oh!
CADDIE [shocked]
Well, of all the – ! The old girl is coming out of her hegg at last.
[Exit.
MISS SIMS
Oh, Jane Annie, is it not dreadful? I could not have written such a letter.
JANE ANNIE
Well, it is certainly in your writing.
TOM [aside]
Now to look for Bab.
[Exit.
[Enter CADDIE.
CADDIE
If you please, ma’am, the man has come with the Scotch whisky.
MISS SIMS
Whisky! there is some mistake. I never ordered any.
CADDIE
Why, ma’am, you sent me this morning with a letter to the wine-merchant, ordering two dozen of whisky and one dozen of soda.
MISS SIMS
Oh, this is too much!
CADDIE
That’s what I thought, ma’am, too much whisky and not enough soda.
[Exit MISS SIMS.
1ST STUD
We were invited – and we’ll stay.
ALL
Certainly. [Sit down in a determined manner.]
CADDIE [to JANE ANNIE]
See here, Miss, I have knocked about a bit in my time, and it strikes me that you have been doing something fishy.
JANE ANNIE
Go away!
CADDIE
What’s more, I have the responsibility of this here seminary on my shoulders, and I’ll find out what you’ve been up to, and expose you, if you don’t –
JANE ANNIE
Don’t what?
CADDIE
If you don’t chuck us a kiss.
JANE ANNIE
There!
[Slaps his face.
CADDIE [puzzled]
See here now, is that flirting, or ain’t it?
JANE ANNIE
It “ain’t.”
CADDIE
Then drop it – and give us a kiss.
JANE ANNIE
Sha’n’t!
CADDIE
This is the last time of asking. You’ll never have such a chance again.
JANE ANNIE
There!
[Slaps him.
CADDIE
Summer flies! Now for revenge.
[Exit.
JANE ANNIE
It’s all very well to laugh, but he is quite capable of doing what he threatens, and so I – I think I had better give him a kiss.
[Exit after CADDIE.
[Cries of “Fore!” and two golf balls land on the putting green. The balls are followed by some of the GIRLS, who look self-consciously at the STUDENTS. The STUDENTS look very sheepish.
1ST STUD
Speak to them, Christopherson.
2ND STUD
Say something nice, Tippy.
3RD STUD
I can’t think of anything nice to say.
2ND STUD
Well, then, let us look nice.
[All simper.
MILLY
Are you men?
STUDENTS
Eh, what? We are. Oh, yes, certainly, certainly.
MILLY
So are we.
1ST STUD
Eh?
MILLY
You see, Miss Sims, our mistress, has invented a new game for us. Half of our number are to be men for to-day, and to entertain the other half.
2ND STUD
But where’s the other half?
MILLY
Oh, that was the difficulty. You see, we all wanted to be men, so there is no other half.
2ND STUD
You’re all men, then?
MILLY
Yes, and we don’t know what to do for girls.
3RD STUD
A gentlemen will do anything to oblige a lady, will not he, friends?
ALL
Certainly.
3RD STUD
Then, let us be girls.
MILLY
Delightful, and we’ll be students.
[The GIRLS put on the caps and gowns of the STUDENTS, and swagger about in a manly way. The STUDENTS look shy and mincing.
MILLY [to 1ST STUDENT]
Ah, ah, ah! What are these things you are carrying?
1ST STUD [consciously]
Ah, ah, ha! Kodaks.
MILLY
Ah – ah – no!
1ST STUD
Ah – ah – yes!
[They giggle and MILLY runs to ROSE.
MILLY
Rose, you can’t guess how I have been flirting with that dark one.
1ST STUD [to 2ND STUDENT]
I say, old man, I have been going the pace with little blue eyes.
ROSE
I haven’t felt so wicked since I ate twelve penny tarts at a sitting.
2ND STUD [to 1ST STUDENT]
He, he, he! my one asked me what time it was. Oh, what a lark!
MILLY [hysterically, swaggering]
Glass of beer, waiter – have a weed? How are you, old man? – Glass of beer – have a weed? – how are you, old man? Have a weed – glass of beer. Oh, Jenny, isn’t it splendid? Glass of beer – have a weed? –
MAUD
Control yourself, dear.
MILLY
I can’t! This cloak has gone to my head. Glass of beer―
[PROCTOR rushes in accompanied by BULLDOGS. He cries “Name and College!” The STUDENTS rush off, the GIRLS all turn their backs.
PROCTOR
Now, I’ve got you. There’s no mistake this time, at any rate.
[Takes out note-book.
Name and college, sir?
GIRLS
Smith of Olds, Jones of New, Brown of New, etc.
PROCTOR [pompously]
Now, Gentlemen of the Press, I have got you. For weeks you have followed me with your impertinent note-books and Kodaks. I shall gate the lot of you!
[They all rush off laughing, having taken off their caps, and reveal themselves as GIRLS.
PROCTOR
There now! I knew they were girls all the time.
SIM
Of course, if you say so that is sufficient.
GREG
Fudge!
PROCTOR
Hum! Well, perhaps I did make a mistake this time.
SIM
No, no.
PROCTOR
And that no one may say that there is one law for the humble Undergraduate and another for the great Proctor, I hereby fine myself one shilling.
SIM
There’s a sense of justice, Greg!
PROCTOR
And I shall pay it after my usual fashion.
SIM and GREG
Don’t!
PROCTOR
Namely by proxy. Come, my men, a sixpence each.
[They pay reluctantly.
GREG
Da – da – da –
SIM
Greg, forbear.
GREG
It seems to me that we do nine-tenths of the work and you get nine-tenths of the pay.
SIM
Oh, this dashed independence!
PROCTOR
Well, you can’t expect to get both the work and the pay. They never go together, even in our Government offices.
GREG
Then they should.
SIM
Greg, Greg! you are flying in the face of the law of England.
GREG
I say it’s a da – da – da –
SIM
Greg!
PROCTOR
This discussion is getting hot. Perhaps I had better clear the air with a song, the little thing that you two composed.
GREG
But we composed it about ourselves.
PROCTOR
It suits me better than you. But I am willing to pay for it.
SIM
There’s generosity.
PROCTOR
I will pay for it by prox –
SIM and GREG
You can have it for nothing.
PROCTOR
Thank you,
[The music for song is started, PROCTOR hesitates, yawns.
PROCTOR
No, it is too great a fag. You shall sing it for me instead.
GREG
At last!
SIM
Always considerate!
PROCTOR
But remember, you are to sing it about me – not about yourselves.
GREG
Da –
SIM
Hush!
TRIO.
BULLDOGS and PROCTOR
When I was a – when he was a little child
Only two or three,
All the household went quite wild
Out of love for – he.
Cooks and housemaids came to kiss,
Crowding for their duty,
And the reason for all of this,
Was our – my – his too – too – too –
His too fatal beauty.
When I was a – when he was a little man,
Only just of age,
Off to London then he ran,
And became the rage.
High and low they loved us so – him so,
And claimed him for their booty;
And the reason well I know,
Was our – was my – was his too – too – too –
His too – too fatal beauty.
DANCE.
[PROCTOR takes the applause meant for BULLDOGS and exit.
SIM
You can say it now, Greg.
GREG
—!
[BULLDOGS exeunt arm in arm, R.
[Enter OFFICERS and JACK.
MILITARY CHORUS. – JACK and OFFICERS.
OFFICERS
We are conscious that we slightly condescend,
JACK
Right turn!
OFFICERS
But we couldn’t go and disoblige a friend,
JACK
Left turn!
OFFICERS
Yet it’s infra dig., you see,
For such warriors as we
To come out to cakes and tea
At a school.
JACK
Stand at ease!
JACK
Now a midnight oyster supper would be nice,
OFFICERS
Very nice!
JACK
Or anything with just a touch of vice;
OFFICERS
Just a spice
JACK
But coming fresh, you know,
From slaughtering the foe,
It’s just a trifle slow
At a school!
OFFICERS
Mark time
OFFICERS
Now a midnight oyster supper would be nice,
JACK
Right turn!
OFFICERS
Or anything with just a touch of vice;
JACK
Left turn!
OFFICERS
But coming fresh, you know,
From slaughtering the foe,
It’s just a trifle slow
At a school!
JACK
Dress line!
JACK
Yet from the invitation it is clear,
OFFICERS
Quite clear!
JACK
There are maids whose leisure moments we may cheer;
OFFICERS
Hear! Hear!
JACK
So as a soldier brave
Is ever beauty’s slave,
We had a wash and shave,
And we’ve come!
OFFICERS
Yet from the invitation it is clear,
JACK
Left turn!
OFFICERS
There are maids whose leisure moments we may cheer;
JACK
Right turn!
OFFICERS
So as a soldier brave
Is ever beauty’s slave,
We had a wash and shave,
And we’ve come!
JACK
Stand at ease!
[Enter MISS SIMS and JANE ANNIE.
MISS SIMS
How dare you come here!
JACK
We come by invitation, madam. Haw!
MISS SIMS
Whose invitation?
JACK
Yours.
MISS SIMS
I invite you here! You are mad!
JACK
We had a letter from you.
MISS SIMS [distracted]
Oh, these letters!
[Talks aside to JANE ANNIE.
JACK [to 1ST OFFICER]
Never mind her. I want you all to flirt outrageously with the other girls, and while Miss Sims is trying to stop you I shall bolt with Bab. Do you think you could do that, old man?
[OFFICER Pulls his moustache confidently].
Ask the others.
[1ST OFFICER goes to other OFFICERS, who repeat business.
[Enter CADDIE.
CADDIE
Please, ma’am, the brass band is here.
MISS SIMS
Brass band!
CADDIE
Yes, ma’am, they say they had a letter from you. And the man has come with the bull-pups.
MISS SIMS
Oh, I am going mad!
CADDIE
Yes, ma’am.
MISS SIMS
Let us go and lock the gates.
[Exit excitedly.
JANE ANNIE [to CADDIE]
Do let me kiss you, Caddie!
CADDIE
Too late! Revenge!
JANE ANNIE
But you wanted me to do it five minutes ago.
CADDIE
I was a boy then.
[Exit.
[Enter some of the GIRLS from a boat.
JACK [to JANE ANNIE]
Do you know where my Bab is?
JANE ANNIE
Bother Bab!
JACK
Eh?
JANE ANNIE
I had such a nice dream about you, last night.
JACK
No, had you? Haw!
JANE ANNIE
Yes, I dreamt that you were to elope with me instead of with Bab.
JACK
Not if I know it.
JANE ANNIE
Perhaps you won’t know it at this time – but you’ll know it afterwards.
JACK [aside]
I dislike this girl very much.
JANE ANNIE [to GIRLS who are flirting with OFFICERS]
I have been left in charge to see that you all behave yourselves.
ROSE
Oh!
JANE ANNIE
You and I, Jack, will set them an example.
CONCERTED PIECE.
JANE ANNIE, JACK, GIRLS, OFFICERS, and STUDENTS.
JANE ANNIE
You and I, dear Jack, will show
A most excellent example.
JACK
Scarce can they in virtue grow,
If they take me for their sample.
JANE ANNIE
If you list to my advice,
Keep young men at a safe distance.
[She draws JACK’s arm round her waist.
JACK
This is strange, and yet it’s nice,
I shall offer no resistance.
ENSEMBLE.
GIRLS
In accord with her advice,
We shall keep you at distance
OFFICERS
This is strange, and yet it’s nice,
We shall offer no resistance.
[Drawing OFFICERS’ arms round.
ALL
We/They have learned her/my precept pat,
We/They mustn’t do that! We/They mustn’t do that!
And so, of course, the sequence is,
We/They mustn’t do this! We/They mustn’t do this!
JANE ANNIE
You and I will also show
A correct and sober bearing.
JACK
Though her words are cold as snow,
Yet her glance is most ensnaring.
JANE ANNIE
If you list to my advice,
You will never start off dancing.
[Dancing several steps.
JACK
Though she’s most severe on vice,
Yet her ways are most entrancing.
ENSEMBLE.
GIRLS
In accord with her advice,
We shall never start off dancing.
OFFICERS
Though she’s very hard on vice,
Yet her ways are most entrancing.
[All dance.
ALL
We/They have learned her/my precept pat, etc.
[Enter STUDENTS and other GIRLS.
OFFICERS
What’s the meaning of all this?
Who are these who disconcert us?
STUDENTS
Maidens this is much amiss,
Surely you would not desert us?
OFFICERS
Beardless boys, you’d better go,
Your time hasn’t come, we vow.
STUDENTS
Aged men, you’re most de trop,
Your time was, it’s over now.
CHORUS.
OFFICERS
Maidens, maidens, can you hesitate?
GIRLS
Hey, dear, we haven’t got an answer!
OFFICERS
Maidens, maidens, your reply we wait.
GIRLS
Hey, dear, the Student or the Lancer!
STUDENTS
Maidens, we are fresh from college,
Smile upon us, we implore you!
Think of all the varied knowledge
In these heads which bow before you.
[All bow.
OFFICERS
Maidens, with our martial bearing
And our spurs, we ought to suit you;
Think of all the deeds of daring
Done with hands which now salute you.
[All salute.
STUDENTS
Maidens, maidens, can you hesitate?
GIRLS
Hey, dear, the Student or the Lancer!
OFFICERS
Maidens, maidens, your reply we wait.
GIRLS
Hey, dear, this must be our answer!
[GIRLS cross over to STUDENTS.
STUDENTS
Maidens, you are wise in turning
Thus to those who most impress you;
You shall list to words of learning
From these lips which now caress you.
[Kiss them.
OFFICERS
Maidens, all their vows are idle.
Here to you our hands we proffer;
Fresh from sword-hilt and from bridle,
Here they are, and all on offer.
[Offer their hands.
STUDENTS
Maidens, maidens, do not hesitate.
GIRLS
Hey, dear, we gave you both our answer!
OFFICERS
Maidens, maidens, what shall be our fate.
GIRLS
Hey, dear, we much prefer the Lancer!
[GIRLS cross over and join OFFICERS. Music continues softly through following dialogue.
A STUD
But this is absurd! We are all very distinguished men, or shall be some day. And then we are journalists, and can describe your dresses in the papers.
GIRLS
Oh!
[Cross over to STUDENTS.
JACK
But we shave twice a day.
A STUD
Why, there is not of us who could not read Theocritus in the original.
JACK
But we are to give a dance next week.
MILLY
Oh, you dear things, how nice of you!
[Cross to OFFICERS.
[DANCE. All exeunt except JACK.
JACK
And now to find Bab.
[Enter TOM.
TOM
I can’t see my Bab anywhere. [Sees JACK] Hullo!
JACK
That fellow here!
TOM [shortly]
How are you?
JACK [shortly]
H’are you?
TOM [after a pause]
Very warm day.
JACK
Cold.
TOM
Cad!
JACK
What do you want here?
TOM
Private business.
JACK
Let us be plain with one another. How could you, a beggarly Press Student, support a wife?
TOM
How could you, a beggarly lieutenant?
JACK
But I am also a novelist – at least I’ve – I’ve bought a pound of sermon paper. Haw!
TOM
Well, I am also a dramatist. Why, I have a completed play in my pocket.
JACK
And a very good place for it too. Haw!
TOM
What is more, it has a strong literary flavour.
JACK
Don’t be afraid of that. They’ll knock it out in rehearsal. Haw!
TOM
Nonsense. It’s most original also.
JACK
That’ll damn it.
TOM
Originality damn a play! Why?
JACK
Because ours are a healthy-minded public, sir, and they won’t stand it. Haw!
TOM
It’s an Ibsenite play.
JACK
Then why not produce it at the Independent Theatre?
TOM
I did.
JACK
Well?
TOM
And it promised to be a great success; but, unfortunately, just when the leading man has to say, “What a noble apartment is this,” the nail came out and the apartment fell into the fireplace.
[Enter CADDIE and BAB. They walk back and forwards as before.
JACK [amazed]
Bab!
BAB
Oh, Jack! Oh, Tom!
CADDIE
Silence!
JACK
What does this mean?
BAB
I am a prisoner, he is giving me an airing.
CADDIE
Silence!
JACK [drawing his sword]
Promise not to interfere, or I shall run you through, by the bones of my ancestors!
CADDIE [aiming a catapult at him]
Advance another step and you are a dead man, so help my bob!
[JACK is discomfited, but TOM seizes CADDIE from behind, and they get him to the ground.
JACK
Promise!
CADDIE
I gives in! You have my word of honour! It’s your hole. [Mimicking JACK] Haw!
[Exit CADDIE followed by TOM.
JACK
My precious! The gates are locked, but we can cross the river.
BAB
I have been thinking that – I’m not sure whether it is you or Tom I prefer.
JACK
That is awkward.
BAB
Before I decide I want to ask you both two questions.
JACK
What are they?
BAB
First, why did my heart beat so violently last night?
JACK
It was because – because I am so worthy of its love. Haw!
BAB [aside]
H’m! Vanity!
JACK [aside]
Good answer I think. Hope I shall get round her wealthy papa as easily.
BAB
Second, will you still love me when I am old and wrinkled?
JACK [aside]
I question it. [Aloud.] Don’t talk of anything so unpleasant, dear. Let us try to think that we shall always be young and handsome.
BAB [aside]
I don’t like that answer.
JACK [aside]
I flatter myself I got out of that bunker very neatly.
[TOM re-enters.
BAB
Now go, while I ask Tom.
JACK [aside]
She’s mine! Haw! Haw!
[Exit.
DUET. – BAB and TOM.
BAB
Last night when we were forced to part
I heard a pit-a-pat
Upon the window of my heart―
Tom, tell me what was that?
Oh, tell me true,
For I’m a little maid,
Of all the world afraid.
TOM
‘Twas my heart which would entrance win,
‘Twas ‘neath the window hiding,
You raised the sash, and said “Come in,”
And there it’s now residing.
BAB
Tom, will your love grow cold to me
When silvered is my hair?
Or do you make believe that we
Shall aye be young and fair?
Oh, tell me true,
For I’m a little maid,
Of all the world afraid.
TOM
Eternal youth’s for no one here,
That secret’s to discover;
But when you’re old and grey, my dear,
I still will be your lover.
BOTH
I’ve/He’s told her/me true
This little maid
No longer is afraid.
Come joy or strife,
Come weal or woe,
Sunshine or stormy weather,
As man and wife
We’ll face the foe,
And face him thus together.
TOM
Oh, Bab – you will be my wife?
BAB
Yes, if you want me very, very much, Tom.
[Enter BULLDOGS and PROCTOR softly R. TOM sees them and flies L. BULLDOGS rush after him and exeunt.
BAB
Oh!
[Jumps into PROCTOR’s arms.
Saved!
PROCTOR
Caught, you mean.
BAB
No, saved.
PROCTOR
Eh, what? I don’t understand.
BAB
I was only going with him because he promised to take me to you.
PROCTOR
To me?
BAB
Oh, I feel so safe now that I have reached you – you are so solid and satisfying, like a great plum pudding, you know.
PROCTOR
You mean well, my child, I have no doubt; but you have an unfortunate way of expressing yourself.
[He puts arm round her. TOM rushes across stage and exit. He is followed by BULLDOGS. They stop when they see PROCTOR and BAB.
GREG
Hullo!
SIM
Ahem!
PROCTOR
What do you mean?
SIM
Beg pardon, but your arm you know – eh?
PROCTOR [fiercely]
What about my arm?
GREG
It is round – don’t you see?
PROCTOR
I do not.
GREG
Allow me.
[Takes PROCTOR’s arm off BAB.
PROCTOR
Oh, thanks!
BAB
Oh, there is Miss Sims! Save me, Mr. Proctor!
PROCTOR
In here, quick!
[Pushes BAB into arbour.
She is a nice girl. [To BULLDOGS.] Remember, you have not seen any girl here, if you are asked.
GREG
Not here! Why, she is in the arbour.
PROCTOR
There is no one in the arbour. What you see is – is an optical illusion. Furthermore, my orders to you are that you see no one in the arbour for the next half-hour, do you hear?
SIM
We – we hear.
PROCTOR [aside]
In half an hour I am sure I can convince Bab of the error of her ways. [Aloud.] And stop, if any one inquires for me, I am – I am – gathering flowers by the river’s brim. Do you – do you –
GREG
Twig?
PROCTOR
Yes, twig?
SIM and GREG
We twig.
PROCTOR
Good.
[Goes to BAB.
GREG
Now, Sim, do you give him up?
SIM [after a struggle]
No!
[Exeunt L., expostulating with each other.
BAB
I knew that you would save me.
PROCTOR
Yes, but you must me a good girl in future. You know it’s best in the long run.
BAB
Oh, how beautifully you talk!
PROCTOR
To be happy you must be good.
BAB
Yes, but to be awfully, dreadfully, excruciatingly happy, you must be naughty. But I am sure I should be good if Miss Sims would talk to me as you have done.
PROCTOR
Really! Do you mind my calling you Baby?
BAB
Not at all. May I call you Little One?
PROCTOR
Certainly. Do you know I feel a strange something creeping over me!
BAB
So do I.
PROCTOR
I like it!
BAB
So do I.
PROCTOR
Yum yum!
BAB
So do I.
DUET. – BAB and PROCTOR.
PROCTOR
I’m a man of erudition,
And a scorner of frivolities,
With loftiest ambition,
And most domineering qualities.
The rowdiest grow meeker
When I fix them with this eye;
But I feel I’m growing weaker,
And I don’t know why –
No I don’t – not I.
I’m growing quite gelatinous, and can’t guess why.
BAB
I’m just a little girlie,
Who still am in my teens, you know.
For love it’s much too early,
And I can’t guess what it means, you know.
But since I saw that simper,
And the twinkle of that eye,
I feel I’m growing limper,
And I can’t guess why –
No I can’t – not I.
I’m growing quite invertebrate, and can’t tell why.
PROCTOR
I’ve a will that’s adamantine,
And my nerve is quite unshakable,
My strength is elephantine,
And my spirit is unbreakable,
I cow the flippant cabby,
I can make the coster cry,
Yet I feel I’m growing flabby,
And I can’t tell why –
No I can’t – not I.
I’m growing quite blanc-mangeical, and can’t tell why.
BAB
I’m just a little dolly,
With an uneventful history,
They tell me love is jolly
But to me it’s still a mystery.
I love my playthings dearly,
And my dolls and apple pie,
But I’m feeling, oh, so queerly,
And I can’t tell why –
No I can’t – not I.
I’m growing quite gutta-perchical, and can’t tell why.
PROCTOR
I fancy that this weakness
May seem to you undignified.
BAB
Ah me, these words of meekness,
Now tell me what they signified?
BOTH. Your love can hide no longer,
It beckons from your eye;
We’re unquestionably stronger,
And we both know why.
Do you? So do I.
We are feeling dry-champagnified,
And both know why.
BAB
Oh, how nice-looking you are! You would look so pretty with this round your neck. [Puts her long boa round.] Now, it should come across your chest like that. [PROCTOR smiles indulgently]. Then round like this, and fasten so. [Ties it behind the chair and fastens it. Then laughs and claps her hands.]
PROCTOR [struggling to rise]
What is this? What do you mean?
BAB
Oh, he mustn’t make a noise.
[Puts a handkerchief round his mouth. PROCTOR glares horribly and frowns.
Ha! ha! ha!
[Goes up stage calling “Tom!” PROCTOR gurgles. The BULLDOGS enter and stand one on each side of the arbour.
GREG
There is no one in the arbour, Sim.
SIM
N – No.
[PROCTOR gurgles.
I thought –
GREG
So did I. But it’s only an optical illusion, Sim.
SIM
So it is, Greg. I wonder where the Proctor is?
GREG
He is gathering flowers by the river’s brim.
[BULLDOGS close arbour and retire.
[Enter TOM.
TOM
Now, darling, are you ready?
BAB
My own! [They embrace.]
[Enter JACK followed by JANE ANNIE.
JACK [aside]
I am sure she will choose me. Eh – ah – ho – what’s this?
BAB
Don’t you see?
JACK
I wish I didn’t. Haw!
BAB
Jane Annie, you promised to help me if I took Tom.
JANE ANNIE
And I shall.
JACK [aside]
That unpleasant girl again.
TOM
But what can you do?
JANE ANNIE
One of the letters I made Miss Sims write was to the livery stables, requesting that a carriage should be sent to the other side of the river at two o’clock today. It is there now.
TOM
Are you sure?
JANE ANNIE
Listen!
[She whistles – an answering whistle is heard.
See, there it is!
[A carriage is seen driving up.
BAB
Let us cross at once.
[JANE ANNIE signs to carriage to go on, and it goes out of sight.
CADDIE [entering]
You can’t get away. Ho! ho!
BAB
Why not?
CADDIE
Because I’ve locked the boat-house and hidden the key.
JACK
Good boy!
CADDIE
That’s a stimie for you.
TOM
Quick, the key!
CADDIE
Sha’n’t!
BAB
What’s to be done?
JANE ANNIE
Leave him to me.
[Hypnotizes CADDIE.
Now give me the key.
[CADDIE begins to undress.
JACK
What is he doing?
TOM
The key must be concealed about his person.
BAB
This is becoming improper.
TOM
Wait a moment. [To CADDIE.] Caddie, where is the key?
[CADDIE whispers to him. TOM whistles and whispers to JACK, who rubs his hands gleefully.
BAB
Tom, do something with him at once!
TOM [primly]
If Caddie will retire with me to some secluded spot for a few moments I shall return with the key.
[Exeunt TOM and CADDIE.
BAB
Good-bye, Jane Annie, dear.
JANE ANNIE
But I am coming with you.
BAB
You?
JANE ANNIE
Yes, and so is Jack.
JACK
Not I.
JANE ANNIE
Silly boy, yes, you are. Tom is eloping with Bab, and you are eloping with me.
JACK
I’ll see you far enough first.
JANE ANNIE
Isn’t he shy?
TOM [entering]
The key!
BAB
Jane Annie proposes that she and Jack should come with us.
TOM
But the carriage will seat only two.
JANE ANNIE
Well, that won’t matter.
BAB
Won’t it?
[JANE ANNIE chuckles.
Oh Tom! Jane Annie and I see no difficulty.
TOM
How?
[He and JACK chuckle.
Do you agree?
JACK
If you will exchange girls. Haw!
TOM
Never!
BAB
Come, Tom.
JANE ANNIE
Come, Jack, and make it a foursome.
JACK
This girl terrifies me. I’ll bolt.
[Exit.
JANE ANNIE
Come back. [To TOM] Don’t go without us.
[Exit.
BAB
Now let us fly at once.
TOM
Would it not be a little shabby?
BAB
Not in the least.
Bell begins to toll.
BAB
We are betrayed.
TOM
It is Jack – the villain – I see him.
BAB
Quick, we have time yet.
[They are going to the boat-house. CADDIE appears.
CADDIE
Back!
[They run L. Enter MISS SIMS, L.
MISS SIMS
Back!
[They run R. Enter JACK, R.
JACK
Back!
[The GIRLS, STUDENTS, and OFFICERS rush on.
MISS SIMS
Seize them!
[JACK seizes TOM, and CADDIE seizes BAB.
TOM
Infamous!
JANE ANNIE
It isn’t his hole yet!
[Hypnotizes MISS SIMS.
BAB
She is hypnotized!
ALL
Oh, wonderful!
JANE ANNIE
Now, see what I shall make her do.
SEXTET. – JANE ANNIE, MISS SIMS, BAB, PROCTOR, JACK, and TOM
JANE ANNIE
You’re now a sentimental maid,
The little god caressing,
Dear mistress, we can’t have it said
We went without your blessing.
[JANE ANNIE, BAB, TOM, and JACK kneel, JANE ANNIE forcing JACK to do so.
QUARTET
We’re kneeling, sentimental maid,
A-waiting for your blessing.
ALL
We hear with wonder what they’ve said,
But will she give her blessing?
MISS SIMS
I’m now a sentimental thing,
And hear with pride and joy,
The news, which you two darlings bring,
That each has found a boy.
Elope, my dears? Why, certainly,
‘Tis every schoolgirl’s mission,
And tell your parents you had my
Approval and permission.
ALL
Their conduct’s praised, we are amazed,
Miss Sims doth sympathize.
Now let us sing of this wonderful thing,
With a hyp-hyp-hypnotize!
[PROCTOR rushes in from arbour with seat tied to him.
PROCTOR
Stop! Though this Bab has used me ill―
BAB
Oh, how I wish I’d shot him!
PROCTOR
My triumph’s coming now –
TOM
Stand still!
[STUDENTS get Kodaks ready.
PROCTOR
Eh, what?
TOM
All ready?
[Click.
Got him.
[JANE ANNIE hypnotizes PROCTOR.
JANE ANNIE
You’re now a somewhat soft old boy,
Whate’er the consequences,
Be yours the privilege and joy
To pay all our expenses.
QUARTET
We’re kneeling, somewhat soft old boy,
Requesting our expenses.
ALL
Now is he such a soft old boy
That he’ll pay their expenses?
PROCTOR
I’m now a very soft old boy, [Hear, hear.]
Elopements are my passion,
So with delight without alloy
I’ll help you in this fashion.
It’s sometimes said that gold’s a curse. [No, no!]
And love the only candy,
But, Tom, to you I give my purse –
I think you’ll find it handy. [Cheers.]
ALL :
Tho’ love is honey, they’ve taken the money,
And he doth sympathize;
With this strange thing, his college will ring,
With a hyp-hyp-hypnotize!
[Dance. TOM and BAB go in boat.
JANE ANNIE [to MISS SIMS]
Now go and be a tea-pot. [To PROCTOR]. And you are an escape of gas.
JACK
I wish I was well out of this.
JANE ANNIE
Come, Jack.
JACK
I refuse.
JANE ANNIE [hypnotizes him]
You are my lover!
JACK
Darling!
[He goes to boat.
JANE ANNIE
I took that whole in two!
[JANE ANNIE joins the others in boat. All wave handkerchiefs.
PROCTOR
Hyp-hyp-hyp―
CHORUS
―notize!
MISS SIMS
Another!
CHORUS
Hyp-hyp-hypnotize!
PROCTOR
One more!
CHORUS
Hyp-hyp-hypnotize!
JANE ANNIE [from boat]
Now, old things, wake up!
[Exit boat. MISS SIMS and PROCTOR wake up.
[BULLDOGS enter excitedly.
MISS SIMS
What is this?
PROCTOR
Who is in that boat?
MILLY
It’s Bab and Jane Annie going away to be married.
MISS SIMS
What?
CADDIE [rushing on]
I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it! Man and boy I’ve been here eighteen months, and I never thought to see such goings on as this. I gives a month’s warning from to-day.
[The carriage is seen crossing.
MILLY
The carriage! There they go!
FINALE.
MILLY
The moral of this story is―
GIRLS
You mustn’t do this, you mustn’t do this;
MILLY
Or to express it still more pat―
GIRLS
You mustn’t do that, you mustn’t do that.
MISS SIMS
You’ve learned it now without a hitch―
MEN
We mustn’t do what, we mustn’t do which?
MISS SIMS
Well, you have learned it, have you not?
MEN
We mustn’t do which, we mustn’t do what?
PROCTOR
The moral I will now explain,
Just wait while I expound it;
It teaches that we ne’er again
Should try to – oh, confound it!
I very much want to tell you all―
You’d like to hear about it―
But just this point I can’t recall,
So, though it’s most material,
You’d best go home without it.
ALL
You’d best go home without it.
THE END
J. M. Barrie – A Short Biography
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, was born at 4 Brechin Road, in Kirriemuir, Angus to a conservative Calvinist family on May 9th, 1860.
Barrie was the ninth child of ten (two of whom died before he was born), and all of whom were schooled in at least the three ‘R’s’ in preparation for professional careers.
His body seemed reluctant to grow and indeed his final height was only a shade over 5’ 3” as noted in his 1934 passport.
When he was 6 years old, Barrie's elder brother, David, died shortly before his 14th birthday in an ice-skating accident.
The family were devastated. The young Barrie attempted to ease his mother’s pain, even going so far as to wearing David's clothes and whistling in the manner that he once did. One time, Barrie entered her room and heard her say, "Is that you?" "I thought it was the dead boy she was speaking to", wrote Barrie in his biographical account of his mother Margaret Ogilvy (1896) "and I said in a little lonely voice, 'No, it's no' him, it's just me.'"
Barrie's mother found comfort in the fact that her dead son would remain a boy forever, never to grow up and leave her. Barrie and his mother would entertain each other with stories from books such as Robinson Crusoe, works by fellow Scotsman Walter Scott, and The Pilgrim's Progress.
When he was 8, Barrie was sent to the Glasgow Academy in the care of his eldest siblings, Alexander and Mary Ann, who taught at the school. At 10, Barrie returned home to continue his education at the Forfar Academy. At 14, Barrie was sent to the Dumfries Academy, to again be under the tutelage of Alexander and Mary Ann.
Barrie was by now a voracious reader, very fond of the popular Penny Dreadfuls and the works of Robert Michael Ballantyne and James Fenimore Cooper. Whilst at Dumfries, he and his friends spent time in the gardens, playing pirates "in a sort of Odyssey that was long afterwards to become the play of Peter Pan". A drama club was formed and produced his first play, Bandelero the Bandit. This provoked a minor controversy following a scathing moral denunciation from a clergyman on the school's governing board.
From these early formative experiences, Barrie knew that he wished to follow a career as an author. His family wished otherwise and sought to persuade him to choose a profession, such as the ministry.
Sound advice from Alexander ensured a compromise: he would attend university, but study literature. He enrolled at the University of Edinburgh and whilst there, as a sideline, wrote drama reviews for the Edinburgh Evening Courant. He graduated with an M.A. on April 21st, 1882.
His first job was as a staff journalist for the Nottingham Journal. After 18 months, he returned to Kirriemuir.
However, a piece submitted to the St. James's Gazette, a London newspaper, using his mother's stories about the town where she grew up (renamed "Thrums") went well. The editor "liked that Scotch thing" and Barrie ended up writing a series of these stories. They also served as the basis for his first novels: Auld Licht Idylls (1888), A Window in Thrums (1890), and The Little Minister (1891).
The stories depicted the "Auld Lichts", a strict religious sect to which his grandfather had once belonged. Their popularity earned Barrie a reputation as a successful writer.
His private publication of Better Dead (1888) however, was a failure. His two "Tommy" novels, Sentimental Tommy (1896) and Tommy and Grizel (1900) did better.
Barrie though was increasingly drawn to working in the theatre. His first play, a biography of Richard Savage, written with H. B. Marriott Watson was, unfortunately, only performed once and critically panned. Undaunted he immediately followed this with Ibsen's Ghost (or Toole Up-to-Date) in 1891, a parody of Ibsen's plays Hedda Gabler and Ghosts.
Toole’s Theatre in London hosted the production of Ibsen's Ghost. Here it was seen by William Archer, the translator of Ibsen's works into English. Archer enjoyed the humour of the play and recommended it to his circle.
Barrie's third play, Walker, London, in 1892 led to an introduction, via his friend, Jerome K. Jerome, to his future wife, a young actress by the name of Mary Ansell. The two became friends, and she helped his family to care for him when he fell very ill in 1893 and 1894.
Barrie also authored Jane Annie, a comic opera for Richard D'Oyly Carte (1893), which unfortunately failed. As he was still very ill Barrie begged his friend Arthur Conan Doyle to revise and finish it for him.
His relationship with Mary continued to flourish and, after proposing, they were married, in Kirriemuir, on July 9th, 1894, shortly after Barrie had recovered from his long illness. Mary now retired from the stage.
The wedding was a small ceremony in his parents' home, in the Scottish tradition. By some accounts the relationship was unconsummated and indeed the couple had no children.
Barrie bought her a Saint Bernard puppy named Porthos, who played a part in the novel The Little White Bird. He used Ansell's given name for many characters in his novels.
In 1895, the Barries bought a house on Gloucester Road, in South Kensington. Barrie would take long walks in nearby Kensington Gardens, and, in 1900, the couple moved into a house directly opposite the gardens at 100, Bayswater Road. Mary had a talent for interior design. The downstairs was turned into two large reception rooms with painted panelling and a conservatory was added. That same year, Mary found Black Lake Cottage, in Farnham, Surrey, which became the couple's retreat from the city where Barrie could also entertain his cricketing and other friends.
In 1896, his agent Addison Bright asked Barrie to meet with the Broadway producer Charles Frohman, who subsequently became both his financial backer and a close friend. Frohman was responsible for producing the debut of Peter Pan in both England and the US, as well as Barrie's other plays.
Frohman was later to famously decline a lifeboat seat when the RMS Lusitania was torpedoed on the afternoon of May 7th, 1915, by a German U-boat, 11 miles off the southern coast of Ireland. Actress Rita Jolivet who was with Frohman on the ship and who survived the sinking recalled Frohman paraphrasing Peter Pan: 'Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure that life gives us.'
The story of Peter Pan had begun to formulate when Barrie became acquainted with the Llewelyn Davis family in 1897, meeting George, Jack and baby Peter with their nanny, Mary Hodgson, in London's Kensington Gardens. He entertained the boys regularly with his ability to wiggle his ears and eyebrows, and with his stories. He did not meet their mother, Sylvia, until a chance encounter at a dinner party in December. She told Barrie that Peter had been named after the title character in her father's novel, Peter Ibbetson.
Barrie became a regular visitor at the Davies household and was often a companion to Sylvia and her boys, despite the fact that both he and she were married to other people.
In 1901, he invited the Davies family to Black Lake Cottage, where he produced an album of captioned photographs of the boys acting out a pirate adventure, entitled The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island. Barrie had two copies made, one of which he gave to their father, Arthur, the other copy resides at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
In 1901 and 1902, Barrie had back-to-back theatre successes. Quality Street was about a respectable, responsible old maid who poses as her own flirtatious niece to try to win the attention of a former suitor returned from the war. The Admirable Crichton was a critically acclaimed social commentary, elaborately staged, about an aristocratic family and their household servants shipwrecked on a desert island. Under these difficult circumstances, a male household member seems better suited to taking on the responsibilities of leadership than the lord of the manor.
The character of "Peter Pan" first appeared in The Little White Bird. The novel was published in the UK in 1902, and serialised by Scribner’s Magazine in the US in the same year. This most famous and enduring of his works; Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up had its first stage performance on December 27th, 1904. This play introduced audiences to the name Wendy; it was inspired by a young girl named Margaret Henley who called Barrie "Friendy", but could not pronounce her ‘R’s’ very well. The scenes in Bloomsbury show the societal constraints of late Victorian and Edwardian middle class domestic reality, contrasted with Neverland, a world where morality is ambivalent. George Bernard Shaw described the play as "ostensibly a holiday entertainment for children but really a play for grown-up people".
Arthur Llewelyn Davies died in 1907, and "Uncle Jim" became even more involved with the Davies family, providing financial support to them. (His income from Peter Pan and other works was easily adequate to provide for their living expenses and education.) Following Sylvia's death in 1910, Barrie claimed that they had recently been engaged to be married. Her will indicated nothing to that effect, but did specify that he be trustee and guardian to the boys, along with her mother Emma, her brother Guy du Maurier and Arthur's brother Compton. It expressed her confidence in Barrie as the boys' caretaker and her wish for "the boys to treat him with absolute confidence & straightforwardness & to talk to him about everything." When copying the will informally for Sylvia's family a few months later, Barrie inserted himself elsewhere: Sylvia had written that she would like Mary Hodgson, the boys' nurse, to continue taking care of them, and for "Jenny" (referring to Hodgson's sister) to come and help her; Barrie instead wrote "Jimmy" (Sylvia's nickname for him). Barrie and Hodgson did not get along well, but served together as surrogate parents until the boys were grown.
In mid-1908, Mary began an affair with Gilbert Cannan (a man two decades younger and an associate of Barrie's in his anti-censorship activities). Their relationship also included a visit together to Black Lake Cottage, known only to the house staff. When Barrie learned of the affair in July 1909, he demanded that she end it. She refused. To avoid a scandal he offered a legal separation if she would agree not to see Cannan anymore. She again refused. Barrie sued for divorce on the grounds of infidelity and the divorce was granted in October 1909. Some of his friends knowing how painful the divorce was for him, wrote to a number of newspapers asking them not to publish anything about the events. In the event, only three newspapers did. Barrie however did continue to support Mary financially even after she married Cannan. He consented to giving her an annual allowance though it could only be received at a private dinner held on her and Barrie's wedding anniversary.
Barrie was increasingly involved in many social causes and also in the matter of censorship which he found distasteful. Together with a number of other leading playwrights, in both 1909 and 1911, they attempted to challenge the censorship of the theatre by the Lord Chamberlain.
In 1911, Barrie developed the Peter Pan play into the novel Peter and Wendy. (In April 1929, Barrie gave the copyright of the complete Peter Pan works to the Great Ormond Street Hospital).
The famous Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, was erected secretly overnight for May Morning in 1912. It was supposed to be modelled upon old photographs of Michael dressed as the character. However, the sculptor, Sir George Frampton, used a different child as a model, leaving Barrie disappointed with the result. "It doesn't show the devil in Peter", he said.
By now Barrie was very well established and was made a baronet by George V on June 14th, 1913
After the First World War, Barrie sometimes stayed at Stanway House near the village of Stanway in Gloucestershire. A devoted fan of cricket he paid for the pavilion at Stanway cricket ground and founded an amateur cricket team for his friends including such luminaries as H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, G. K. Chesterton, A. A. Milne, E. W. Hornung, Owen Seaman, and George Llewelyn Davies. The team went by the name of the Allahakbarries, under the mistaken belief that "Allah akbar" meant "Heaven help us" in Arabic (its actual meaning is "God is great").
Barrie had a long string of successes on the stage after Peter Pan, many of which discuss social concerns, as Barrie continued to integrate his work and his beliefs. Plays such as Dear Brutus (1917) and Mary Rose (1920), revisit the idea of the ageless child and parallel worlds. The Twelve Pound Look (1921) concerns a wife divorcing a peer and gaining an independent income.
In the 1922 New Year Honours list, Barrie was awarded the Order of Merit
His final play was The Boy David (1936), which dramatised the Biblical story of King Saul and the young David. Like the role of Peter Pan, David was played by a woman, Elisabeth Bergner, for whom Barrie wrote the play.
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, died of pneumonia on June 19th,1937 and was buried at Kirriemuir next to his parents and two of his siblings.
He left the bulk of his estate to his secretary Cynthia Asquith, the daughter in law of H. H. Asquith, the British Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916.
J.M. Barrie – A Concise Bibliography
Works (Chronological)
Better Dead (1887)
Auld Licht Idylls (1888)
When a Man's Single (1888)
A Window in Thrums (1889)
My Lady Nicotine (1890), republished in 1926 with the subtitle A Study in Smoke
The Little Minister (1891)
Richard Savage (1891)
Ibsen's Ghost (1891)
Walker, London (1892)
Jane Annie Opera, music by Ernest Ford, libretto by Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle (1893)
A Powerful Drug and Other Stories (1893)
A Tillyloss Scandal (1893)
Two of Them (1893)
A Lady's Shoe (1894)
Life in a Country Manse (1894)
Scotland's Lament: A Poem on the Death of Robert Louis Stevenson (1895)
Sentimental Tommy, The Story of His Boyhood (1896)
Margaret Ogilvy (1896)
Jess (1898)
Tommy and Grizel (1900)
The Wedding Guest (1900)
The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island (1901)
Quality Street (play) (1901)
The Admirable Crichton (play) (1902)
The Little White Bird, or Adventures in Kensington Gardens (1902)
Little Mary (1903)
Peter Pan (staged 1904)
Alice Sit-by-the-Fire (play) (1905)
Pantaloon (1905)
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906)
What Every Woman Knows (play) (1908)
When Wendy Grew Up – An Afterthought (1908)
Peter and Wendy (novel) (1911)
Half an Hour (play) (1913)
Half Hours (1914) includes: Pantaloon/The Twelve-Pound Look/Rosalind/The Will.
Der Tag (The Tragic Man) (Short play) (1914)
Charles Frohman: A Tribute (1915)
A Kiss for Cinderella (1916)
Shakespeare's Legacy (1916)
Dear Brutus (1917) (play)
Echoes of the War (1918) Four plays, includes: The New Word/The Old Lady Shows Her Medals (basis for the movie Seven Days Leave (1930) with Gary Cooper)/A Well-Remembered Voice/Barbara's Wedding.
A Kiss for Cinderella (play) (1920)
Mary Rose (1920)
The Twelve-Pound Look (1921)
The Author (1925)
Cricket (1926)
Shall We Join the Ladies? (1928) includes: Shall We Join the Ladies?/Half an Hour/Seven Women/Old Friends
Peter Pan (stage play published) (1928)
The Greenwood Hat (1930)
Farewell Miss Julie Logan (1932)
The Boy David (1936)
M'Connachie and J. M. B. (1938)
When Wendy Grew Up: An Afterthought (1957)
Story treatment for the film As You Like It (1936)
Arthur Conan Doyle – A Short Biography
The Scottish physician and writer Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle’s name is inseparable from the phenomenon of Sherlock Holmes, undoubtedly his greatest character and the eponymous meticulous, deductive and frankly genius hero of crime fiction. However, his prolific writing was in more than just the crime fiction genre; alongside the 56 short stories and 4 novels of Sherlock Holmes he explored science fiction and fantasy as well as plays, historical novels and poetry. Another of Conan Doyle’s notable characters is Professor Challenger, whose aggression and dominance serves as the antithesis of Holmes, and demonstrates Conan Doyle’s capacious imagination and dramatic skill. Returning to his name, it is worthy of note that there is uncertainty surrounding his surname; while he is often referred to as Conan Doyle, where Conan and Doyle are treated as a compound surname, the entry at his baptism records Arthur Ignatius Conan as first names, and Doyle as a solitary last. Indeed, his father’s name was simply Doyle. Moreover, the catalogues of the British Library and the Library of Congress insist of Doyle as his surname. Regardless, he began to refer to himself as Conan Doyle and his second wife would take this as her surname, so he will herein be referred to as Conan Doyle, in accordance with his apparent preference.
He was born in Edinburgh at 11 Picardy Place on 22nd May 1859 to his parents Charles Altamont Doyle, an Englishman of Irish descent, and Mary (née Foley), an Irishwoman, who had married in 1855. He had a brother named Innes. Charles was developing an alcohol dependence which would become incompatible with family life, and they dispersed in 1864 at which point the children were temporarily housed at various addresses across Edinburgh. They reunited in 1867, only to live together at 3 Sciennes place in a squalid tenement flat. Fortunately for the children, they had wealthy uncles who were willing to support them by paying for education and clothing. Accordingly at the age of nine Conan Doyle was sent to Hodder Place, Stonyhurst, a Roman Catholic Jesuit preparatory school. He was here for the two years between 1868 and 1870 at which point he went on to Stonyhurst College where he stayed until 1875 when he went for a year to Stella Matutina, Jesuit school in Feldkirch, Austria.
This school education set him up for a place at the University of Edinburgh, where he studied medicine between 1876 and 1881. Part of his course involved placements in Aston, (now a suburb of Birmingham, though at the time it was its own town), Sheffield and in Ruyton-XI-Towns, an unusually named village in Shropshire which acquired its numeral when, in the twelfth century, a castle was built there which became the focus of eleven small and disparate communities. It was during this study that he began writing short stories, with the successful submission of ‘The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe’ to Blackwood’s Magazine arguably his greatest literary achievement at the time. As well as this recognition, he saw his first published piece ‘The Mystery of the Sasassa Valley’, a story set in South Africa, printed on 6th September 1879 in Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, and only 17 days later his first non-fiction article was published in the British Medical Journal on 20th September, entitled ‘Gelsemium as poison’. Having finished his studies he took an appointment as a Doctor on the Greenland whaler Hope of Peterhead in 1880 and then, following his graduation, he assumed the role of ship’s surgeon on the SS Mayumba during its 1881 voyage to the West African coast.
1882 saw his move to Plymouth where he joined the medical practice of former classmate George Turnavine Budd, though they had a difficult professional relationship and Conan Doyle left shortly thereafter in order to set up his own independent practice. Having arrived in Portsmouth in June of that year and disembarked the SS Mayumba with a mere £10 (£700 today) to his name, he proceeded to establish his practice at 1 Bush Billas in Elm Grove, Southsea, a seaside town in the country of Hampshire. He was not met with initial success, and in order to pass the time between visits from patients he resumed his story writing. During this period he completed his first novel, The Mystery of Cloomber, though it was not published until 1888, and the unfinished Narrative of John Smith, which only recently saw publication in 2011. Alongside these longer works was the steady production of a portfolio of short stories which included ‘The Captain of the Pole-Star’ and ‘J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement’, both inspired by the time he spent at sea. Meanwhile, in 1885 he completed a doctorate on the subject of tabes dorsalis, the slow degradation and demyelination of the sensory neurons that carry afferent information. He also married Louisa Hawkins, who was the sister of one of his patients, that same year. However, two years after this marriage he met and fell in love with Jean Elizabeth Leckie, though he maintained a platonic relationship with her out of respect for and loyalty to his wife for whom he still had great affection.
Though he struggled to find a publisher for the stories he wrote in these stretches of inactivity, his literary career would take an historic turn in 1886 when, on 20th November, Ward Lock & Co offered Conan Doyle £25 for all rights to A Study In Scarlet. The first and one of the most famous of the Sherlock Holmes franchise, it introduced the public to a new, empirical and methodical mode of crime fiction, and indeed criminality itself, by the combination of a perspicacious, brilliantly observant and data-driven detective whose army doctor companion Watson provided further scientific support as well as a means of observing and narrating Holmes’s processes and adventures. The novel was a success; a letter from Robert Louis Stevenson who had acquired a copy of the novel in Samoa, wrote with “[his] compliments on your very ingenious very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, while noting the similarity between Holmes’s methods and a certain Joseph Bell, upon whom Holmes was based. Conan Doyle even wrote to Bell explaining so, and that “round the centre of deduction and inference and observation which I have heard you inculcate I have tried to build up a man”. It was met with positive reviews in The Scotsman and The Herald and this success encouraged Ward Lock & Co to commission a sequel, The Sign of Four, which appeared in Lippincott’s Magazine in February 1890, under agreement with the Ward Lock company. On 28th January 1889 his first child was born, Mary Louise, and three years later on 15th November 1892 they had a boy, Arthur Alleyne Kingsley, who became known only as Kingsley.
Now that he had a family to look after, he began to look more closely at the arrangement he had with his publishers and Conan Doyle soon began to feel that, as a new, inexperienced writer, he had been somewhat exploited by them, resolving to curtail his involvement with their business and instead beginning to write for the Strand Magazine from his home at 2 Wimpole Street. Meanwhile Conan Doyle was enjoying something of a sporting career, playing under the pseudonym A.C. Smith as goalkeeper for Portsmouth Association Football Club (though this club had no connection to present-day Portsmouth F.C, founded two years after Conan Doyle’s amateur side disbanded in 1896). He was also a keen cricketer and played ten first-class matches between 1899 and 1907 for the Marylebone Cricket Club, making a highest score with the bat of 43 against London County. As an occasional bowler he only took one wicket in these ten matches, though it was W.G. Grace’s stumps which he hit; a notable triumph of the right arm. His sporting interests extended to golf, for which he was elected captain of the Crowborough Beacon Golf Club in East Sussex for 1910. He once even visited Rudyard Kipling at his farm in America, bringing with him a set of golf clubs and giving his fellow famous writer an extended two-day lesson.
He went to Vienna to study ophthalmology in 1890 before returning to London and setting up a practice as an ophthalmologist, though he recorded in his autobiography that not a single patient ever crossed his doorway. This left him with more time for his writing, though by now he was beginning to feel somewhat exhausted by Holmes and wrote to his mother in 1891 “I think of slaying Holmes ... and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things.” This was met with an entreaty from his mother of “you won’t! You can’t! You mustn’t!” These “better things” were his historical novels such as The White Company (1891) and The Great Shadow (1892). Then, in defiance of his mother and the wishes of the general public, in December 1893 he wrote Holmes’s apparent death in the clutches of a high-consequence brawl with arch-nemesis Moriarty above the Reichenbach Falls in Germany. Both of their deaths seemed certain, and it seemed the end of the Sherlock Holmes phenomenon. He now had time to focus on other work, most notably his pamphlet justifying the United Kingdom’s involvement with the Boer War, an involvement for which they were frequently and heavily criticised. The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct was widely translated after its publication in 1902, and was based to a certain extent on the time he had spent as a volunteer doctor in the Langman Field Hospital at Bloemfontein between March and June 1900. It was this and his book The Great Boer War, written in 1900, which he considered the reasons for his knighthood in 1902 by King Edward VII, and he was subsequently appointed Deputy-Lieutenant of Surrey. In 1903 however, owing to the public demand of which he became increasingly aware after successive letters from fans pleading for the resurrection of their great hero, he seemingly brought Holmes back from the dead; in ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’, the first story for ten years, he reassures the reader that Holmes had merely arranged for his fall to appear fatal in order that his other enemies (particularly Colonel Sebastian Moran) might consider him dead also, whereas in reality he never falls at all. Fans were ecstatic and Conan Doyle continued to write Holmes stories.
His interest in politics piqued by the issues surrounding the Boer War, the interest he had in criminal justice which was so prominent in his crime fiction transferred to that of real-life and he became a fervent advocate of justice, investigating two closed cases of incorrect conviction. The first, in 1906, saw the shy half-British, half- Indian lawyer George Edalji exonerated for imprisonment for crimes of mutilation towards animals which he hadn’t committed. Though the police were convinced of their prosecution, the crimes continued even after he was imprisoned and Conan Doyle, analytical and methodical as his invention, proceeded to privately investigate the case and the outcome, Edalji’s acquittal, encouraged the establishment of the Court of Criminal Appeal in 1907. Meanwhile his wife Louisa had been suffering from tuberculosis and died on the 4th July, and Conan Doyle married Jean Elizabeth Leckie, the woman with whom he had fallen in love in 1897, the year after. The second case of injustice was some twenty years later, though pertaining to a crime committed in 1908 allegedly by one Oscar Slater, a German Jew and gambling-den operator convicted of bludgeoning an 82 year old woman to death. Conan Doyle noticed inconsistencies in the evidence which, combined with his general sense of unease about the case, motivated him to pay for the majority of Slater’s legal fees and eventually see him released in 1928.
He now had his first child with Jean, whom they named Denis Percy Stewart and was born on 17th March 1909, and then on 19th November 1910 they had Adrian Malcolm. Jean Lena Annette followed on 21st December 1912. Over the next few years there would be various deaths in his family. His first wife having already passed away, Kingsley was taken ill after complications of pneumonia following injury near the Somme in 1917. His two brothers-in-law also died, and after Kingsley’s condition worsened and he passed away on 28th October owing to the complications of his convalescence and his brother Innes, now Brigadier-General died of the same, Conan Doyle sank into a deep depression, eventually finding solace in Christian spiritualism. Despite the veracity of his writing, he was not free from misunderstanding. Convinced of the authenticity of five (now known to be) hoaxed photographs of fairies by ELsie Wright in June 1917, he wrote a book The Coming of the Fairies in 1921 exploring them and other supernatural phenomena, followed up in 1926 by The History of Spiritualism, a broader look at the particulars of the movement. Encouraging the Spiritualists’ National Union to modify their precepts, his turn to spiritualism was so strong that he wrote a Professor Challenger novel on the subject, entitled The Land of Mist, in 1926.
His friendship with Harry Houdini, another noted Spiritualist, led him to believe that Houdini was possessed of supernatural powers and that his feats were not tricks but proof of the supernatural. He expresses this view in The Edge of the Unknown (1930), and Houdini’s inability to convince Conan Doyle of the illusory nature of his feats led to a bitter and very public falling-out. Conan Doyle has been posthumously implicated in the Piltdown Man hoax (and even accused of being its perpetrator by Richard Milner), a discovery of fossilised hominid remains which fooled the scientific world for over 40 years. Milner posits that Conan Doyle’s motive was revenge on the scientific establishment for their debunking of Houdini, and that within The Lost World which was released the year the remains were found contains several hidden and encrypted clues indicating his involvement.
On 7th July 1930 Conan Doyle was discovered in the hall of Windlesham Manor, his house in Crowborough, East Sussex, clutching his chest. He died of a heart attack at the age of 71, and his last words, directed to his wife, were “you are wonderful”. As a Spiritualist, his burial brought controversy as there was debate as to where he should properly be buried. Eventually he was interred on 11th July in Windlesham rose garden, though he was later removed and buried with his wife in Minstead churchyard in the New Forest, Hampshire. The epitaph on that gravestone reads
Steel true
Blade straight
Arthur Conan Doyle
Knight
Patriot, Physician and man of letters
Arthur Conan Doyle - A Concise Bibliography
Periodical Publications
Title Published On Published In
"The Mystery of the Sasassa Valley" October 1879 Chambers's Journal
"Gelseminum as a poison" 20 September 1879 British Medical Journal
"The American's Tale" 1879 London Society
"The Gully of Bluemansdyke" 1881 London Society
"Bones" 1882 London Society
"My Friend the Murderer" 1882 London Society
"J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" January 1884 Cornhill Magazine
"Life and Death in the Blood" 1884 Good Wordse
"Crabbe's Practice" 1884 The Boy's Own Paper
"The Fate of the Evangeline" 1885 The Boy's Own Paper
"A Psychologist's Wife" 1885 Blackwood's Magazine
"A Midshipman's Story" December 1885 Cassell's Magazine
"Cyprian Overbeck Wells, or A Literary Mosaic" 1886 The Boy's Own Paper
"Uncle Jeremy's Household" 1887 The Boy's Own Paper
"The Stone of Boxman's Drift" 1887 The Boy's Own Paper
"An Exciting Christmas Eve" 1887 The Boy's Own Paper
"John Huxford's Hiatus" June 1888 Cornhill Magazine
"The Geographical Distribution of British Intellect" August 1888 The Nineteenth Century
"The Bravoes of Market Drayton" August 1889 Chambers's Journal
"The Ring of Thoth" January 1890 Cornhill Magazine
"The Surgeon of Gaster Fell" December 1890 Chambers's Journal
"The Duello in France" December 1890 Cornhill Magazine
"The White Company" Jan –Dec 1891 Cornhill Magazine
"The Voice of Science" March 1891 The Strand Magazine
"A Scandal in Bohemia" July 1891 The Strand Magazine
"The Red-Headed League" August 1891 The Strand Magazine
"A Case of Identity" September 1891 The Strand Magazine
"The Boscombe Valley Mystery" October 1891 The Strand Magazine
"The Five Orange Pips" November 1891 The Strand Magazine
"The Man with the Twisted Lip" December 1891 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" January 1892 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" February 1892 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" March 1892 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" April 1892 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet" May 1892 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" June 1892 The Strand Magazine
"A Day with Dr Conan Doyle" August 1892 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of Silver Blaze" December 1892 The Strand Magazine
"The Refugees" January – June 1893 Harper's Magazine
"The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" January 1893 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Yellow Face" February 1893 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk" March 1893 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Gloria Scott" April 1893 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual" May 1893 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Reigate Squire" June 1893 The Strand Magazine
"The Green Flag" June 1893 The Pall Mall Magazine
"The Adventure of the Crooked Man" July 1893 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Resident Patient" August 1893 The Strand Magazine
"Pennarby Mine" August 1893 The Pall Mall Magazine
"The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" September 1893 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Naval Treaty" Oct – Nov 1893 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Final Problem" December 1893 The Strand Magazine
"The Stark Munro Letters" 1894–1895 The Idler
"The Lord of Chateau Noir" July 1894 The Strand Magazine
"The Medal of Brigadier Gerard" December 1894 The Strand Magazine
"The Alpine Pass on Ski" December 1894 The Strand Magazine
"How the Brigadier Held the King" April 1895 The Strand Magazine
"How the King Held the Brigadier" May 1895 The Strand Magazine
"How the Brigadier Slew the Brothers of Ajaccio" June 1895 The Strand Magazine
"How the Brigadier Came to the Castle of Gloom" July 1895 The Strand Magazine
"How the Brigadier Took the Field Against the Marshal Millefleurs" Aug 1895 The Strand Magazine
"How the Brigadier was Tempted by the Devil" Sept 1895 The Strand Magazine
"How the Brigadier Played for a Kingdom" December 1895 The Strand Magazine
"Rodney Stone" Jan – Dec 1896 The Strand Magazine
"The Debut of Bombashi Joyce" January 1897 Punch
"The Life on a Greenland Whaler" January – June 1897 The Strand Magazine
"Uncle Barnac" January – March 1897 The Queen
"The Tragedy of the Korosko" May – December 1897 The Strand Magazine
"Cremona" January 1898 Cornhill Magazine
"The Groom's Story" April 1898 Cornhill Magazine
"The Story of the Beetle Hunter" June 1898 The Strand Magazine
"The Story of the Man With the Watches" July 1898 The Strand Magazine
"The Story of the Lost Special" August 1898 The Strand Magazine
"The Story of the Sealed Room" September 1898 The Strand Magazine
"The Story of the Black Doctor" October 1898 The Strand Magazine
"The Story of the Club-Footed Grocer" November 1898 The Strand Magazine
"The Story of the Brazilian Cat" December 1898 The Strand Magazine
"The Story of the Japanned Box" January 1899 The Strand Magazine
"The Story of the Jew's Breast-Plate" February 1899 The Strand Magazine
"The Story of B.24" March 1899 The Strand Magazine
"The Story of the Latin Tutor" April 1899 The Strand Magazine
"The Story of the Brown Hand" May 1899 The Strand Magazine
"The Croxley Master" Oct – Dec 1899 The Strand Magazine
"The Crime of the Brigadier" January 1900 The Strand Magazine
"Hilda Wade, 11" January 1900 The Strand Magazine
"Hilda Wade, 12" February 1900 The Strand Magazine
"Playing with Fire" March 1900 The Strand Magazine
"A Glimpse of the Army" September 1900 The Strand Magazine
"Some Military Lessons of the War" October 1900 Cornhill Magazine
"The Military Lessons of the War, a Rejoinder" January 1901 Cornhill Magazine
"The Holocaust of Manor Place" March 1901 The Strand Magazine
"The Love Affair of George Vincent Parker" April 1901 The Strand Magazine
"The Debatable Case of Mrs Emsley" May 1901 The Strand Magazine
"A British Commando" June 1901 The Strand Magazine
"The Hound of the Baskervilles" Aug 1901 – April 1902 The Strand Magazine
"How Brigadier Gerard Lost an Ear" August The Strand Magazine
"How the Brigadier Saved the Army" November 1902 The Strand Magazine
"How the Brigadier Rose to Minsk" December 1902 The Strand Magazine
"Brigadier Gerard at Waterloo" Jan – Feb 1903 The Strand Magazine
"The Brigadier in England" March 1903 The Strand Magazine
"How the Brigidier Joined the Hussars at Conflans" April 1903 The Strand Magazine
"How Etienne Gerard Said Goodbye to his Master" May 1903 The Strand Magazine
"The Leather Funnel" June 1903 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Empty House" October 1903 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Norwood Builder" November 1903 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Dancing Men" December 1903 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist" January 1904 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Priory School" February 1904 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of Black Peter" March 1904 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" April 1904 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Six Napoleons" May 1904 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Three Students" June 1904 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez" July 1904 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter" August 1904 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Abbey Grange" September 1904 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Second Stain" December 1904 The Strand Magazine
"The Great Brown-Pericord Motor" January 1905 The Pictorial Magazine
"Sir Nigel" Dec 1905 – Dec 1906 The Strand Magazine
"An Incusion into Diplomacy" June 1906 Cornhill Magazine
"Through the Magic Door" Nov 1906 – Oct 1907 Cassell's Magazine
"The Pot of Caviare" March 1908 The Strand Magazine
"The Silver Mirror" August 1908 The Strand Magazine
"The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles" Sept 1908 The Strand Magazine
"The Tiger of San Pedro" October 1908 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" December 1908 The Strand Magazine
"Shakespeare's Expostulation" March 1909 Cornhill Magazine
"Bendy's Sermon" April 1909 The Strand Magazine
"The Lord of Falcolnbridge" August 1909 The Strand Magazine
"Some Recollections of Sport" September 1909 The Strand Magazine
"The Homecoming" December 1909 The Strand Magazine
"The Terror of Blue John Gap" August 1910 The Strand Magazine
"The Marriage of the Brigadier" September 1910 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Devil's Foot" December 1910 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Red Circle" March – April 1911 The Strand Magazine
"The Giant Maximin" July 1911 The Literary Pageant
"One Crowded Hour" August 1911 The Strand Magazine
"What Reform is Needed?" September 1911 The Strand Magazine
"The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax" December 1911 The Strand Magazine
"The Lost World" April – Nov 1912 The Strand Magazine
"The Fall of Lord Barrymore" December 1912 The Strand Magazine
"The Poison Belt" March – July 1913 The Strand Magazine
"England and the Next War" 1913 The Fortnightly Review
"How it Happened" September 1913 The Strand Magazine
"The Horror of the Heights" November 1913 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Dying Detective December 1913 The Strand Magazine
"Essays Upon Phases of the Great War" 1914 The Fortnightly Review
"Danger!" July 1914 The Strand Magazine
"The Valley of Fear" Sept 1914 – May 1915 The Strand Magazine
"Western Wanderings" January – April 1915 Cornhill Magazine
"Sherlock Holmes Drawn by a Typewriter" August 1915 The Strand Magazine
"An Outing in War Time" October 1915 The Strand Magazine
"Stranger than Fiction" December 1915 The Strand Magazine
"The Prisoner's Defence" February 1916 The Strand Magazine
"The British Campaign in France" April – June 1917 The Strand Magazine
"Is Sir Oliver Lodge Right that the Dead Can Communicate?" July 1917 The Strand Magazine
"What Will England be Like in 1930?" August 1917 The Strand Magazine
"His Last Bow" September 1917 The Strand Magazine
"Some Personalia about Mr Sherlock Holmes" December 1917 The Strand Magazine
"Three of Them" April 1918 The Strand Magazine
"The Battle of the Somme" May – June 1918 The Strand Magazine
"Three of Them" July – August 1918 The Strand Magazine
"The British Campaign in France" Oct – Nov 1918 The Strand Magazine
"Three of Them" December 1918 The Strand Magazine
"The Battle of Cambrai" Jan – Feb 1919 The Strand Magazine
"Life After Death" March 1919 The Strand Magazine
"The Uncharted Coast" Dec 1919, Jan, May, Sept & Nov 1920 The Strand Magazine
"The Sideric Pendulum" August 1920 The Strand Magazine
"Faries Photographed" December 1920 The Strand Magazine
"The Evidence for Faries" March 1921 The Strand Magazine
"The Uncharted Coast" May 1921 The Strand Magazine
"Sherlock Holmes on the Film" July 1921 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone" October 1921 The Strand Magazine
"The Bully of Brocas" November 1921 The Strand Magazine
"The Nightmare Room" December 1921 The Strand Magazine
"The Problem of Thor Bridge" Feb – March 1922 The Strand Magazine
"The Lift" June 1922 The Strand Magazine
"Now, Then Smith!" July 1922 The Strand Magazine
"Sherlock Holmes in Real Life" September 1922 The Strand Magazine
"A Point of Contact" October 1922 The Story-Teller
"Billy's Bones" December 1922 The Strand Magazine
"The Centurion" December 1922 The Story-Teller
"The Cottingley Faries" February 1923 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Creeping Man" March 1923 The Strand Magazine
"Haunting Dreams" April 1923 The Strand Magazine
"The Forbidden Subject" August 1923 The Strand Magazine
"Memories and Adventures" Oct 1923 – July 1924 The Strand Magazine
"How Our Novelists Write Their Books" December 1924 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Three Garridebs" January 1925 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" Feb –March 1925 The Strand Magazine
"The Land of Mist" July 1925 – March 1926 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Three Gables" October 1926 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" November 1926 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" December 1926 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Retired Colourman" January 1927 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger" February 1927 The Strand Magazine
"The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place" April 1927 The Strand Magazine
"W.G. Grace—A Memory" July 1927 The Strand Magazine
"Houdini the Enigma" August – Sept 1927 The Strand Magazine
"The Maracot Deep" Oct 1927 – Feb 1928 The Strand Magazine
" When the World Screamed" April – May 1928 The Strand Magazine
"The Dreamers—Notes from a Strange Mail Bag" June 1928 The Strand Magazine
"The Story of Spedegue's Dropper" October 1928 The Strand Magazine
"The Disintegration Machine" January 1929 The Strand Magazine
"The Lord of the Dark Face" April – May 1929 The Strand Magazine
"The Death Voyage" October 1929 The Strand Magazine
Novels
A Study in Scarlet (1887)
Micah Clarke (1889)
The Mystery of Cloomber (1889)
The Sign of the Four (1890)
The Firm of Girdlestone (1890)
The White Company (1891)
The Doings of Raffles Haw (1891)
The Great Shadow (1892)
The Refugees (1893)
The Parasite (1894)
The Stark Munro Letters (1895)
Rodney Stone (1896)
Uncle Bernac (1897)
The Tragedy of the Korosko (1898)
A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus (1899)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
Sir Nigel (1906)
The Lost World (1912)
The Poison Belt (1913)
The Valley of Fear (1915)
The Land of Mist (1926)
The Maracot Deep (1929) Novel with three short stories
Short Story Collections
Mysteries and Adventures (1890)
The Captain of the Polestar and Other Tales (1890)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
The Gully of Bluemansdyke (1893)
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894)
Round the Red Lamp: Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life (1894)
The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard (1896)
The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport (1900)
The Adventures of Gerard (1903)
The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905)
Round the Fire Stories (1908)
The Last Galley (1911)
His Last Bow (1917)
Danger! and Other Stories (1918)
Three of Them (1923)
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927) ]
Stage works of Doyle
Jane Annie; or, The Good Conduct Prize (1893) Libretto to operetta, with J.M. Barrie; music by Ernest Ford
Foreign Policy (1893) Based on A Question of Diplomacy
The Story of Waterloo (1894) A one-act play written for Sir Henry Irving
Brothers (1899) Based on novel Halves by James Payn
Sherlock Holmes (1899) with William Gillette
A Duet (1902)
Brigadier Gerard (1906)
The Fires of Fate (1909)
The House of Temperley (1910)
A Pot of Caviare (1910)
The Speckled Band (1910)
The Crown Diamond (1921)
It's Time Something Happened (1925)
Exile: A Drama of Christmas Eve (1925)
The Journey
Poetry
Songs of Action (1898)
Songs of the Road (1911)
The Guards Came Through, and Other Poems (1919)
The Poems of Arthur Conan Doyle: Collected Edition (1922)
Non Fiction
The Great Boer War (1900)
The War in South Africa – Its Cause and Conduct (1902)
Through the Magic Door (1907)
The Crime of the Congo (1909)
The Case of Oscar Slater (1912)
The German War: Some Sidelights and Reflections (1914)
A Visit to Three Fronts (1916)
The British Campaign in France and Flanders 1916–20[a]
Memories and Adventures (1924)
Spiritualist and Paranormal Books
The New Revelation (1918)
The Vital Message (1919)
Verbatim Report of a Public Debate on 'The Truth of Spiritualism' between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph McCabe (1920)
The Wanderings of a Spiritualist (1921)
The Coming of the Fairies (1922)
The Case for Spirit Photography (1922)
Our American Adventure (1923)
Our Second American Adventure (1924)
The Spiritualist's Reader (1924)
The History of Spiritualism (1926)
Phineas Speaks (1927)
Our African Winter (1929)
The Edge of the Unknown (1930)
Pamphlets
A Full Report of a Lecture on Spiritualism Delivered by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the Connaught Hall, Worthing on Friday July 11th 1919 (1919) 11 pages
Our reply to the Cleric: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Lecture in Leicester, October 19th 1919 (1920) 16 pages
Spiritualism and Rationalism (1920) 32 pages
The Early Christian Church and Modern Spiritualism (1925) 12 pages
Psychic Experiences (1925) 12 pages
A Word of Warning (1928) 19 pages
What Does Spiritualism Actually Teach and Stand For? (1928) 16 pages
The Roman Catholic Church: A Rejoinder (1929) 72 pages
An Open Letter to Those of My Generation (1929) 12 pages
The New Revelation (1997) 32 pages
