Leonard Merrick: A Forgotten Novelist's Novelist (review)

At a dinner party in 1925, long after the publication of his first novel, Mr. Bazalgette's Agent (1888), a guest asked Leonard Merrick its title. In response, Merrick quipped, "It's a terrible book. It's the worst thing I ever wrote. I bought them all up and destroyed them. You can't find any. No. I will not tell you the title" (qtd. in Baker and Shumaker 26). Surprising? Perhaps, but this incident is telling in its allusion to the challenge of undertaking a study of someone like Merrick, whose work elicited an array of contemporary responses, including those by Merrick.

In Leonard Merrick: A Forgotten Novelist's Novelist, William Baker and Jeanette Roberts Shumaker begin by describing a problem of literary history. During his lifetime Merrick was both prolific and well known. His books were reviewed or reprinted with introductions by prominent writers including Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, J. M. Barrie, H. G. Wells, and G. K. Chesterton. Despite such endorsements, however, as Baker and Shumaker note, Merrick's "life and work have fallen from the critical radar" (13). The reasons for his absence may have something to do with Merrick's proclivity for destroying his publications. Yet other factors were also at work. Baker and Shumaker approach Merrick's literary career not to discern why he has been forgotten, but to provide "the first comprehensive full-length account of LM's work" (13). To this end, they are extremely successful; this study will be helpful to anyone interested in Merrick's place in or relationship to late-Victorian literary history, Anglo-Jewish literature, print culture and the rise of the film industry, imperialism and literature, and literature about writers and the publishing world. Baker and Shumaker's thorough account will make possible future studies of Merrick's writing, legacy, and subsequent disappearance from the field of literary studies.

This study begins by tracing Merrick's early novels and concludes with his screenplays for the motion picture industry. Baker and Shumaker include an introduction, seven chapters organized by genre, a conclusion, and an exceptionally detailed bibliography containing primary and secondary works. The seven middle chapters focus on chronological groups, such as "Early Novels" or "Short Stories I" and "Short Stories II." Given his status as a forgotten novelist, the authors wisely begin each discussion with a detailed plot synopsis of the text.

Baker and Shumaker make a persuasive case for revisiting Merrick on the grounds that he is engaged with the very same debates about gender and racial inequality, artists' struggles, and imperialism as other writers of his age. They read Mr. Bazalgette's Agent, for example, as a novel about the fallen woman figure, noting, "Like Hardy … LM makes readers question and debate conventional definitions of female virtue and vice" (19). They add, a "weakness of Bazalgette is that the novel shows no awareness of the moral dilemma underlying the colonizing of South Africa. [One character named] Jack blithely makes a racist reference to the black worker who finds a large diamond for him, the first diamond that Jack sells" (26). Although Baker and Shumaker attend to many important features of Merrick's work, at times they overwhelm discussions of his originality with their emphasis on his affinity with other writers. We are left wondering, does Merrick's work stand out in any way? Or does it merely fit in? If the latter, what contributions does Merrick make to literary history?

Baker and Shumaker include several fascinating discussions of Merrick's Anglo-Jewish identity alongside one of his most important novels, Violet Moses (1891), which includes depictions of Jewish characters living in late-century London. While their discussion addresses the racial tensions surrounding this novel, it would have benefited from a fuller consideration of the psychological or discursive challenges faced by Anglo-Jewish writers like Merrick. For example, the authors interpret characters' actions transparently or as manifestations of Merrick's personal insecurities...