Reggie Turner, Forgotten Edwardian Novelist

The twelve novels Reginald Turner (1869–1938) published between 1901 and 1911 are among the least known of the Edwardian years, an era rich in forgettable fiction. Thousands of other novels were commercial or artistic failures during the years Reggie struggled to make his mark in fiction, and they are now equally rare. Why then the unique value of a Turner book? Primarily because of their association interest, for he was a member of the Oscar Wilde circle, and at his bedside when Oscar died; and he later became a part of the flourishing English expatriate colony in Florence, and a friend of Somerset Maugham, Norman Douglas, and D. H. Lawrence, who fictionalized him in two of his own novels. Turner's novels also have an interest in themselves, as they look back upon the fading late-Victorian world Reggie could only view from self-exile.