Forrest Reid

Life
1876-1947; b. 24 June, 20 Mount Charles, Belfast, youngest of 12 children, of whom 6 survived; son of Robert Reid, shipping merchant, by his second wife, descended from Katherine Parr; Reid elder had to recommence his business; d. 1881, leaving his widow badly off; children raised on thin diet; Forrest resentful of mother, becomes strongly attached to his nurse, Emma Homes of Bootle; ed. Hardy’s Prep. School, 1886; Belf. Acad. Inst., 1888; Intermediate, 1891; period of dejection, ending in attempted suicide by laudanum; apprenticed to Musgrave's tea company, 1893; becomes friends with Andrew Musgrave, an apprentice charged to his care; experiences happy infatuation; and Cambridge after a stint as a tea-merchant apprentice; after university, he lived inconspicuously in Belfast, but influenced and encouraged young writers such as Robert Greacen and Stephen Gilbert. Himself encouraged by EM Forster at Cambridge, a homosexual writer, of marked reticence, and a stylist; novels, The Kingdom of Twilight (1904), centred on Willie Trevellyan, a poet and lover of the Greek ideal, and beginning in his own childhood, followed by his marriage the beautiful Hester Urquhart, with whom he has a son Prosper before she leaves him with the boy - who later dies of pneumonia after they have spent some time together; sent novel to Henry James and received kindly letter noting ‘elements of beauty and sincerity that remain with me’; entered Cambridge at the age of 30, 1905, but found it ‘a rather blank interlude’, though becoming acquainted with E. M. Forster; Reid returned to Belfast and moved to Ravenhill Rd.,and later Fitzwilliam Avenue; The Garden God (1905), concerning the Platonic friendship of two boys, Graham Iddlesleigh and Harold Brocklehurst, in which Harold is tragically killed in a horse-accident, leaving Graham to grow old, remembering; The Bracknels (1911), concerning a sensitive young man for whom the doctor recommends the company of a Cabridge tutor, Rusk (who is the narrator), and whose father dies after a confrontation in which the son threatens to blackmail him because of the favoritism he has shown towards John Brooke, another young man working for the family firm though actually the elder Bracknel’s illegitimate son; all resulting in the suicide of Denis Bracknel with an apprehension of futility and evil; Following Darkness (1912; later rewritten as Peter Waring), a story of Peter Waring’s first love, set in Newcastle, Co. Down, and in Belfast where the boy is sent to school, staying with his aunts, where he quarrels with his boorish cousin George, though forming a friendship at a school with Owen Gill, who visits him on his return to Newcastle, where he also meets the ‘cruel’ Katherine Dale, with whom he falls unrequitedly in love; The Gentle Lover (1913), fictionalised account of his own travels in Beglium, France and Italy,and centred on Benedict Allingham, an expatriate Irish bachelor who has lived in American for thirty years, and and has ambitions of being a painter, and who loses Sylvie Grimshaw to the supercilious clergyman Mr. Halvard; Forster visits Belfast,1913; At the Door of the Gate (1915), centred on Richard Seawright, ‘a youthful Greek divinity’ in a family of ne’er-do-wells at Blenheim Gardens in Belfast, who is forced to work at a tead-merchats, and forms a relationship with Rose Jackson, whom he is forced to marry, ending in her suicide after the birth of a son and the end of the marriage, after which the son dies of pneumonia due to his paternal uncle Martin’s carelessness, leading to a fight in which Richard pushes his brother over a cliff to his death; visited ‘AE’ Russell in Dublin, Dec. 1915; established friendship with novelist Stephen Gilbert; meets Kenneth Hamilton, 13-yr. old boy, for whom he produces Kenneth’s Magazine of stories, poems, &c. in an exercise book format, 1916; The Spring Song (1916), dealing with Griffin (‘Grif’) Weston, a sensitive English visitor in Ballinderry, lured nto the woods by a flute-palying Mr. Bradley, who persuades him that a dead child is trying to contact him from beyond the grave, causing the boy to experience an illness, from which he recovers, however; Hamilton joins merchant Navy and settled in Australia; maintains correspondence, gradually decreasing until news of his death reaches Reid with returned unopened mail; committed himself increasingly to writing out of the consciousness of boyhood; A Garden by the Sea (1918), in which a middle-aged man returns to a house he loved in childhood; The Pirates of the Spring (1919), originally written as "Beach Traill", deals with the adolescent friendship of Traill, Evan Hayes, Miles Oulton, and Palmer Dorset, all attending Osborne School, based on the ‘Inst.’, and narrating the attempts to prevent Mr. Oulton’s marriage to Mrs.Traill, and school-matters relating to the bully Cantillon, and includes a helpful Jesuit Fr O’Brien who advises the boys, documenting some anti-Catholic attitudes; Reid occupies rented rooms on Dublin Road to 1924; Pender Among the Residents (1922), a love-story involving ghostly revenants and some letters in which an illicit love-affair is revealed and a murder, it secured him recognition in American as a writer on ‘occult themes’; winner of Norfolk County Croquet Club Challenge Cup, 1922, 1925; invited totour Australia for Britain; Demophn: a Traveller’s Tale (1922), moved to 2-bedroom house at 13 Ormiston Crescent, Knock, E. Belfast, 1924; later works inc. critical study of Walter de la Mare (1929); the trilogy, being the ‘reverse of a sequel’, dealing with the life of Tom Barber at 15, 13, and 11, consisting of Uncle Stephen (1931), originally conceived as ‘My Uncle’s a Magician’, The Retreat (1936), taking its title and epigraph from a poem of Henry Vaughan; and Peter Waring (1937, formerly Following Darkness, 1912); Young Tom (1944), in which Tom falls in love with Jame Arthur; also Denis Bracknel (1947), a revision of The Bracknels (1911), without the final account of Rusk’s feelings; autobiographies, Apostate (1926); Private Road (1940); critical study of W. B. Yeats (1915, rep. US 1982); some of his manuscripts are held in the Belfast Central Library Irish Collection; described his fiction as ‘an attempt to get back to my mysterious garden’; stamp collector; d. Warrenpoint, 4 Jan., and bur. Dundonald Cemetry; his collection of illustrations, housed in the Ashmolean Mus., Oxford, was put on dispaly in March 1998. NCBE IF OCEL DIB DIW DIL ORM FDA DUB OCIL

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Works
Poetry, Greek Authors: Poems from the Greek Anthology, translated by Forrest Reid (London: Faber 1943). Fiction (novels), The Kingdom of Twilight (London: Unwin 1904); The Garden God: A Tale of Two Boys (London: David Nutt 1905); The Bracknels: A Family Chronicle (London: Edward Arnold 1911), revised as Denis Bracknel (London: Faber & Faber 1947); Following Darkness (London: Edward Arnold 1912), The Gentle Lover: A Comedy of Middle Age (London: Arnold 1913); At the Door of the Gate (London: Arnold 1915); The Spring Song (London: Arnold 1916); Pirates of the Spring (Dublin: Talbot 1919; Boston & NY: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1920) [ded. to R. J. Wright], 356pp., and Do. [facs. of US edn.] (Scolar Press 1971); Pender among the Residents (London: Collins 1922); Demophon: A Traveller’s Tale (London: Collins 1927); Uncle Stephen (London: Faber & Faber 1931), and rep. edn. (London: Gay Men’s Press 1988); Brian Westby (London: Faber & Faber 1934); The Retreat, or The Machinations of Henry (London: Faber & Faber 1936) [poem of that title as epigraph], rep. edn.,. intro. by John McRae (London: Gay Men’s Press 1989); Peter Waring [rev. version of Following Darkness] (London: Faber & Faber 1937) [ded. E. M. Foster, ‘now as then’]; Do. [another edn.] (London: Readers’ Union; Faber & Faber 1939], 374pp.; Private Road (London: Faber & Faber 1940); Young Tom, or Very Mixed Company (London: Faber & Faber 1944), 169pp.; Do., new edn. (1956), and rep. edn. (London: Gay Men’s Press 1992).

Short fiction (Stories & sketches), A Garden by the Sea (Dublin: Talbot; London: Unwin 1918). Autobiography, Apostate (London: Constable 1926; Faber & Faber 1947); Private Road (London: Faber 1940).

Reprint edns. , The Garden God: A Tale of Two Boys ([London:] Brilliance Bks. 1986, 1993); Peter Waring (Belfast, Blackstaff 1976); Uncle Stephen (London: Gay Men’s Press 1988); The Retreat; or, The Machinations of Henry (London: Gay Men’s Press 1988) [0 85448 055 8]; Young Tom; or, Very Mixed Company (London: Gay Men’s Press 11992) [0 7136 3609 2]. See also Brian Taylor, ed. & intro., The Suppressed Dedication and Envoy of ‘The Garden God’ (London: D’Arch Smith [1976]), 6pp.

Criticism, W B Yeats: A Critical Study (London: Martin Secker 1915); Illustrators of the Sixties (London: Faber & Gwyer 1928); Walter de la Mare: A Critical Study (London: Faber & Faber 1929); Retrospective Adventurers (London: Faber 1941), and Do., rep. edn. (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing 1998), 128pp.; Notes and Impressions (Newcastle Co. Down: Mourne Press 1942) [inc. ‘Shakespeare’s Lyric Plays’]; The Milk of Paradise, Some Thoughts on Poetry (London: Faber 1946).

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Criticism
E. M. Forster, Abinger Harvest (London: Arnold 1936).

John Boyd on Forrest Reid, in David Marcus and Terence Smith, eds., Irish Writing, No. 4 (April 1948), pp.72-77.

E.M. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy (London: Arnold 1951) [q.p.].

George Buchanan, ‘The Novels of Forrest Reid’, Dublin Magazine, XXVII, 1 (Jan.-March 1952), pp.23-32.

Russell Burlingham, Forrest Reid: A Portrait and a Study, with an introduction by Walter de la Mare (London: Faber 1953).

John Cronin, ‘Ulster's Alarming Novels’, Éire-Ireland, 4, 4 (Winter 1969), pp.27-34.

J. W. Foster, Forces and Themes in Ulster Fiction (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1974), pp.139-48; 197-211 et passim.

Mary Bryan, Forrest Reid (NY: Twayne 1976).

John Boyd and Stephen Gilbert, eds., ‘Forrest Reid Number’, Threshold, No. 28 (1977) [var. 1976].

George Buchanan, review of Forrest Reid, Peter Waring, in The Honest Ulsterman No. 56 [1976], p.132.

Brian Taylor, The Green Avenue: Life and Writings of Forrest Reid, 1875-1947 (Cambridge UP 1980).

John McRae, ‘Introduction’, The Retreat (London: Gay Men’s Press 1989).

Colin Cruise, ‘Error and Eros: The Fiction of Forrest Reid as a Defence of Homosexuality’ in Éibhear Walshe, ed., Sex, Nation and Dissent in Irish Writing (Cork UP 1997), pp.60-86.

Brian Taylor & Paul Goodman, eds., Retrospective Adventures: Forrest Reid, Author and Collector (Aldershot: Ashgate 1998).

John Boyd, The Middle of My Journey (Belfast: Blackstaff 1990), p.64f.

Klaus-Gunnar Schneider, Impossible Perspective: the Influence of Sexual Politics and Identity on Readings of Forrest Reid’s Fiction (Belfast: QUB 1994).

Paul Goldman and Brian Taylor, eds., Retrospective Adventures: Forrest Reid, Author and Collector (Aldershot: Scolar Press 1998), 112pp.

Robert Greacen, ‘A Garden by the Sea - Forrest Reid 1875-1947’, in Honest Ulsterman, (Spring 1999), pp.87-102.

J. W. Foster, Forces and Themes in Ulster Fiction (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1974), pp.139-48; 197-211, for commentary on Apostate, At the Door of the Gate, The Bracknels, Brian Westby, Denis Bracknel, Following Darkness, The Garden God, The Kingdom of Twilight, Peter Waring, Private Road, The Retreat, Uncle Stephen, and Young Tom]. Also, Irish Book Lover (Vols. 3, 4, 6, 11 & 24).

Robert Greacen, Rooted in Ulster (Belfast: Lagan Press 2001), 130pp.

J. W. Foster, Forces and Themes in Ulster Fiction, 1974, p.208.)

John McRae, Introduction, The Retreat (London; GMP 1989), ibid., p.3.

Eamonn Hughes, ‘Ulster of the Senses’, an essay on Reid’s autobiographies, in Fortnight 306 (May 1992), pp.10-11].

Klaus-Gunnar Schneider, Impossible Perspective: the Influence of Sexual Politics and Identity on Readings of Forrest Reid’s Fiction (Belfast: QUB 1994), p.3.

Fred Johnston, review of Even Without Irene (new edn. Lagan Press 1995), in Books Ireland (Sept. 1995), p.201.

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Notes
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), cites The Kingdom of Twilight (T. Fisher Unwin First Novel library 1904); The Garden God (1905), The Spring Song; The Gentle Lover (1913); and a critical study of Yeats; and lists The Bracknels (1911), a harsh father, wilful elder son, and morbid dreamy younger, ‘the victim of delusions, engaging in strange pagan worship’[Brown]; Following Darkness (Arnold 1912), soul study in form of autobiography; At the Door of the Gate (Arnold 1915), unfolding of a young man’s abnormal, morbid mind; A Garden by the Sea (Talbot 1918), 12 stories and sketches; all the foregoing noted for style. IF2 adds Pirates of the Spring (Talbot 1919), adolescent schoolboys; Pender Among the Residents (Collins 1922), Ballycastle Protestants - dull people all - and an eerie experience; Uncle Stephen (Faber 1931), opening with the death of Tom’s father, and ending with Tom and Uncle Stephen setting out on travels; Brian Westby (Faber 1934), a middle-aged author meets his son of a previous marriage and a relationship consisting mostly in talk ensues; The Retreat (Faber 1936), summer in the life of Tom Barber, sensitive and introvert; Peter Waring (1937), autobiographical form, ‘religious difficulties and doubts ... harmless adolescent loves’[Brown - but see FDA et. al.]; Private Road (Faber), ‘I never believed in any formal religion’[author], and long interview with AE; Young Tom (Faber 1944), small boy and his family world, the first [sic] of a trilogy about Tom; Denis Bracknel (Faber 1947), rev. version of The Bracknels, with an overbearing father, a mild-mannered wife, and sons sensitive and brutal by turns, as well as some daughters, one in love with the tutor Rusk.

Frank Ormsby, ed., Northern Windows, an anthology of Ulster autobiography (Blackstaff 1987), incls. extract from Apostate (1926 ed.), here pp.31-45.

Robert Hogan, ed., Dictionary of Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1979), identifies him as a friend and influence for Stephen Gilbert [263]; as a contributor to The Irish Review (1911-15) ed. Thomas MacDonagh, et al. [308]; as commenting on Seamus O’Kelly that ‘the effect of his finest stories is infinitely richer than the sum of their recorded happenings’ in Retrospective Adventures (1942) [533]. The biographical entry makes much of his father’s non-conformist traditions both in their influence and in the reaction they inspired; and quotes the opening of Apostate (1926), ‘The primary impulse of the artist springs, I fancy, from discontent, and his art is a kind of crying for Elysium’ [as infra]; also from Private Road (1940), I could get along swimmingly until I reached my King Charles’s head - the point where a boy becomes a man. There something seemed to happen, my inspiration was cut off, my interest flagged, so all became a labour, and not a labour of love.’ Incurred the displeasure of Henry James, to whom he dedicated The Garden God (1905), the story of a love between two boys, a rift described in Private Road. At the Door of the Gate (1945) describes squalor of working-class Belfast. The Tom Barber trilogy: Uncle Stephen (1931); The Retreat (1936), and Young Tom (1944), the latter winning the James Tait Mem. Prize. DIL adds to common bibliography, The Milk of Paradise, Some Thoughts on Poetry (Faber 1946), and confirms NTRY Burlingham (1953).

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2; selects from Peter Waring (1937), chaps. 31-36 [1088-93]; 1218-19, BIOG, b. Belfast, of protestant mercantile family with mixed fortunes in shipping; apprenticed to tea trade; ed. Cambridge, encouraged by E. M. Foster; returned to Belfast and lived inconspicuously. REMS, Peter Waring, radical revision of Following Darkness (1912), Bildungsroman of Protestant experience in Belfast, compared to Joyce’s Portrait; Peter unhappy with his unsympathetic parent, a cold schoolmaster in Newcastle, Co. Down, but happier with his dog Remus and when visiting motherly Mrs Carroll in big house Derryvaghy; stays during school term with relations the McAllisters, and reacts against his course cousin George. [1088-93]. Also FDA3 480, 937.

Library of Herbert Bell, Belfast, holds The Bracknels (London 1911); Pirates of the Spring (London 1919); Pender Among The Residents (London 1922); Apostate (London MCMXXVI [1926]); Demophon (London MCMXXVII [1928]).Retrospective Adventures (London 1941); Denis Bracknel (London 1947); Private Road (London MCMXL [1940]); Notes and Impressions (Newcastle MCMXLII [1942]); Milk of Paradise (London MCMXLVI [1946]).

Belfast Public Library holds At the Door of the Gate (1915); The Bracknels [sic] (1911); Brian Westby (1934); Demophon (1927); Denis Bracknel (1947); Following Darkness, autobiography of Peter Waring (1912, 1924); A Garden by the Sea (1918); The Garden God (1905); The Gentle Lover (1913); Illustrators of the Sixties [1928]; The Kingdom of Twilight (1904, 1922); Milk of Paradise (1946); Notes and Impressions (1942); Peter Waring (1937); Pirates of the Spring (1919); Poems from the Greek Anthology (1943); Private Road (1940); The Retreat (1953); Retrospective Adventures (1941); The Spring Song (1916); Uncle Stephen (1931); Walter de la Mare (1929); W. B. Yeats (1915); Young Tom (1950).

Books in Print (1994), The Garden God, A Tale of Two Boys (London: David Nutt 1905; Brilliance Bks. 1986, 1993); Following Darkness (London: Arnold 1912), revised as Peter Waring (London: Faber 1937; Belfast, Blackstaff 1976); Uncle Stephen (London: Faber 1931; Gay Men’s Press 1988; The Retreat; or The Machinations of Henry (London: Faber 1936; Gay Men’s Press 1988); Young Tom; or, Very Mixed Company (London: Faber 1944; Gay Men’s Press 1992).

Joyce held a copy of Following Darkness (London: Edward Arnold 1912), stamped "J.J.", in his Trieste Library. (See Richard Ellmann, The Consciousness of James Joyce, Faber, p.125 [Appendix].

Mary Bryan note the fusion of ‘the Celtic realisation of the unseen world near at hand and the Greek belief in inevitable fate.’ (Forrest Reid, Twayne, 1976, p.35.)

Publisher’s list appended to The Wayward Man (1927), incls. notice of Demophon: ‘This is a little odyssey of ancient Greece, a tale of enchanted seas and islands, whre all the world was young; a romance of wonder and adventure, of Gods and men and beasts, of the strange and familiar.’

Pirates of the Spring (Dublin: Talbot/London: TF Unwin 1919), 356pp., has an unascribed epigraph, ‘But as the boy, the pirate of the spring, / From the green [?dawn] a living linnet takes / Our natural verse recapture.’

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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)