Francis Adams

BOOK REVIEWS Francis Adams Meg Tasker. "Struggle and Storm": The Life and Death of Francis Adams . Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001. xii + 259pp. $39.95 FRANCIS ADAMS (1862-1893) led an interesting life, insofar as we can learn anything about his life. Tasker has done her homework well in ferreting out sources of information regarding that life, which enveloped a meteoric literary career. Adams contracted tuberculosis (which caused the deaths of his father and younger brother while they were still young) at an early age, and so, for roughly a decade, an awareness of the near proximity of death spurred him to what might be construed as either foolhardy or heroic endeavors to regain or maintain his physical health and to push on with his work. Adams thus takes rank with others in his literary era, e.g., Beardsley, Dowson, Johnson, Davidson : promising young artists who came to untimely ends and whose great promise was, according to the opinions of many of their contemporaries , consequently left unfulfilled, whose reputations all faded, and whose stock has nonetheless risen in value, mostly after midpoint, during the twentieth century. Tasker has undertaken considerable research into the Adams canon, into biographical and critical materials, and she has produced several of these herself in shorter form before the present book appeared. Still she depends heavily on biographical accounts, one by Sydney Jephcott, a friend of Adams, published in 1954, the other, unpublished, by Helen Rossetti AngelÃ-, daughter of William Michael Rossetti, who also left reminiscences of Adams among his recollections of much and many from the late nineteenth-century cultural milieu and its artists. Angeli's account drew upon information from Edith, Adams's second wife, whose opinions were naturally not without personal biases. Such materials, along with memories of Adams recorded by Frank Harris, make essential some interesting sifting, to say the least. Nevertheless, Tasker has sifted well, for the most part, and she is therefore to be complimented for tackling a daunting task. To add zest to these circumstances, Adams himself wanted no biography, preferring to live on through his writings. Like George Meredith, John Davidson and Willa Cather, however, Adams has received biographical attention, along with critical notice, and what Tasker gives us will doubtless remain "standard" for a long time. She has obviously enjoyed her work on this project, such sympathy being a 115 ELT 47 : 1 2004 plus, and if one desires information about Francis Adams her book cannot be ignored, providing, as it does, the most extensive narrative of his life and literary career we have. Adams's writings can not be divorced from his free-spirited ("radical" to many in his own lifetime) political and social outlooks. His conduct within his two marriages might well furnish plots for current romance fiction. He wanted to gain firsthand insights into lives of persons and into cultural pursuits in his era, and he used his energies, even in the face of endangering his health, to conduct such investigations, then turn his findings and feelings into the printed word. His verse, critical essays, fiction, and newspaper columns attest his dedication. Adams's lasting reputation may revolve around his poems (published in collected form, 1887), his essays and fiction about Australia, his Essays in Modernity: Criticisms and Dialogue (1899), and his novel, A Child of the Age (1894). That the last two books were published by John Lane is indicative of Adams's "place" during the 1890s, when he was heralded as one of the daring young artists who served causes of disestablishing "Victorianism," in that term's negative implications, and paving the way for a dawning milennium of freedoms in religion, sexuality, marriage, working conditions, political concerns, and writers' issues. Other than this cluster of publications, Adams deserves greater attention for his novels about Australia, especially in light of present-day concern over colonial and postcolonial issues and because of occasional touches of homoeroticism, these last featured notably in John Jebb's End: Australian Bush Life (1891). Moreover, his New Woman novel, Lady Lovan, published posthumously and pseudonymously (1895), set in England, is an interesting contribution by a male author to this extremely popular topic during the 1890s. Several caveats must be...