The Postcard
A postcard bearing no publisher's name that was posted in Great Yarmouth on Thursday the 8th. September 1910. The card was sent to:
Miss L. Boult,
8, Trafalgar Road,
Local.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Thought you might like this
card.
'Undesirable Governess' is
by F. Marion Crawford. It is
rather a nice tale - I like the
first half immensely.
Those two girls - their
mischief was lovely. The
rest of the book is much
tamer but I hope you like it.
Best love to both.
I hope my visit did not spoil
Libbie's night.
J. W."
Francis Marion Crawford
Francis Marion Crawford, who was born on the 2nd. August 1854, was an American writer noted for his many novels, especially those set in Italy, and for his classic weird and fantastical stories.
The Undesirable Governess was Francis' final novel, and was published posthumously in 1910.
Readers who are tired of girls in period pieces who "rebel" by complaining about their corsets and perhaps climbing the occasional tree will enjoy The Undesirable Governess.
Evelyn and Gwendolyn Follitt are absolutely feral: they poach the hares and trout from their estate, and trade them to the mailman on the sly for chocolates.
They catapult stones at passing horse riders, steal their father's gun and their brother's horses, lock the chauffeur in the closet so that they can steal their mother's new car to rampage across the moors at the breakneck speed of 25mph, and whenever unsupervised:
"They left undone the things which
they ought to have been done, and
did a variety of other things instead."
Their parents' only hope to get them under control is a governess, but that profession is so inexplicably teeming with violet-eyed dainty ingenues that Lady Jane, concerned with protecting her sons (and husband) from falling in love with these penniless paragons of charm and virtue, keeps firing them. Her latest ad reads:
'Governess Wanted, to take charge of two
girls of 14 and 15 respectively; family residing
in Yorkshire and London.
Must have first-rate degree and references.
Charm of manner, symmetry of form, and
brilliancy of conversation especially not
desired, as husband and three grown-up
sons much at home.'
When Ellen Scott limps through the door with a blotchy face, baggy figure, flat voice, and impeccable references, Lady Jane thinks that her problems are solved. But like a homemade hot air balloon during a thunderstorm, the future is unpredictable.
-- Francis Marion Crawford - The Early Years
Crawford was born in Bagni di Lucca, in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. He was the only son of the American sculptor Thomas Crawford and Louisa Cutler Ward.
After his father's death in 1857, his mother remarried to Luther Terry, with whom she had Crawford's half-sister, Margaret Ward Terry, who later became the wife of Winthrop Astor Chanler.
Francis studied successively at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire; Cambridge University; the University of Heidelberg; and the University of Rome.
In 1879, he went to India, where he studied Sanskrit and edited in Allahabad The Indian Herald.
Returning to America in February 1881, he continued to study Sanskrit at Harvard University for a year, and for two years contributed to various periodicals, mainly The Critic.
Early in 1882, he established his lifelong close friendship with Isabella Stewart Gardner.
During this period Francis lived most of the time in Boston at his aunt Julia Ward Howe's house and in the company of his uncle, Sam Ward.
His family was concerned about his financial prospects. His mother had hoped he could train in Boston for a career as an operatic baritone based on his private renditions of Schubert lieder.
However in January 1882, George Henschel, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, assessed his prospects and determined that:
"Crawford will never be able
to sing in perfect tune".
Francis' uncle Sam Ward suggested that he try writing about his years in India, and helped him develop contacts with New York publishers.
-- Francis Marion Crawford's Career
In December 1882 Francis produced his first novel, Mr Isaacs, a sketch of modern Anglo-Indian life mingled with a touch of Oriental mystery. It had an immediate success, and Dr. Claudius (1883) followed promptly.
In May 1883, Francis returned to Italy, where he made his permanent home. He lived at the historic Hotel Cocumella in Sorrento during 1885 and settled permanently in Sant'Agnello, where in the fall he bought the Villa Renzi that became Villa Crawford.
More than half his novels are set in Italy. Francis wrote three long historical studies of Italy, and was well advanced with a history of Rome in the Middle Ages when he died.
This may explain why Marion Crawford's books stand apart from any distinctively American current in literature.
Year by year Crawford published a number of successful novels. However his 1896 novel Adam Johnstone's Son was thought by the late nineteenth century English novelist George Gissing to be:
"Rubbish".
Late in the 1890's, Crawford began to write his historical works. These are:
-- Ave Roma Immortalis (1898)
-- Rulers of the South (1900), renamed Southern Italy and Sicily and The Rulers of the South in 1905 for the American market
-- Gleanings from Venetian History (1905) with the American title Salvae Venetia, reissued in 1909 as Venice; the Place and the People.
In these, his intimate knowledge of local Italian history combines with the romanticist's imaginative faculty to excellent effect. His shorter book Constantinople (1895) belongs to this category.
After most of his fictional works had been published, most readers came to think that he was a gifted narrator; his books of fiction, full of historic vitality and dramatic characterization, became widely popular.
In The Novel: What It Is (1893), he defended his literary approach, conceived as a combination of romanticism and realism, defining the art form in terms of its marketplace and audience.
Francis wrote:
"The novel is a marketable commodity and
an intellectual artistic luxury that must amuse,
indeed, but should amuse reasonably, from
an intellectual point of view. . . . Its intention
is to amuse and please, and certainly not to
teach and preach; but in order to amuse, well
it must be a finely-balanced creation. . . ."
The Saracinesca series is perhaps known to be his best work, with the third in the series, Don Orsino (1892) set against the background of a real estate bubble, told with effective concision.
The second volume is Sant'Ilario [Hilary] (1889).
A fourth book in the series, Corleone (1897), was the first major treatment of the Mafia in literature, and used the now-familiar but then-original device of a priest unable to testify to a crime because of the Seal of the Confessional.
The novel is not one of his major works, having failed to live up to the standard set by the books earlier in the series.
Crawford ended Rulers of the South (1900) with a chapter about the Sicilian Mafia.
Crawford himself was fondest of Khaled: A Tale of Arabia (1891), a story of a genie (genius is Crawford's word) who becomes human, which was reprinted (1971) in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.
A Cigarette-Maker's Romance (1890) was dramatized, and had considerable popularity on the stage as well as in its novel form; and in 1902 an original play from his pen, Francesca da Rimini, was produced in Paris by his friend Sarah Bernhardt.
Crawford's best known dramatization was that of The White Sister (1909). Its main actress was Viola Allen, whose first film was the 1915 film of the novel; it was filmed again in 1923 and 1933.
In the Palace of the King (1900) was filmed in 1915 and 1923; Mr. Isaacs (1882) was filmed in 1931 as Son of India.
Several of Francis' short stories, such as "The Upper Berth" (1886), "For the Blood Is the Life" (1905, a vampiress tale), "The Dead Smile" (1899), and "The Screaming Skull" (1908), are often-anthologized classics of the horror genre.
An essay on Crawford's weird tales can be found in S. T. Joshi's The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004); there are many other essays and introductions.
The collected weird stories were posthumously published in 1911 as Wandering Ghosts in the U.S. and as Uncanny Tales in the UK, both without the long-forgotten "The King's Messenger" (1907).
The present definitive edition is that edited by Richard Dalby as Uncanny Tales and published by the Tartarus Press (1997; 2008).
Crawford's novella Man Overboard! (1903) is often overlooked, but belongs with his supernatural works.
-- Francis Marion Crawford's Personal Life
In 1880, Crawford converted to Roman Catholicism. In October 1884 he married Elizabeth Berdan, the daughter of the American Civil War Union General Hiram Berdan.
They had two sons and two daughters, Eleanor, Harold, Clara and Bertram.
-- The Death of Francis Marion Crawford
Crawford died at the age of 54 at Sorrento on Good Friday the 9th. April 1909 at Villa Crawford, Sant'Agnello of a heart attack.
It was the result of a severe lung injury sustained ten years previously, caused by inhalation of toxic gases at a glass-smelting works in Colorado, which happened during his American lecture tour in the winter of 1897–1898.
He was gathering technical information for his historical novel Marietta (1901), that describes glass-making in late medieval Venice.
After his death, Francis' widow sued for breach of contract related to the production of Crawford's novels into film.
-- Francis Marion Crawford's Legacy and Influence
In his 1929 article "Some Remarks on Ghost Stories" M. R. James praised Crawford's supernatural fiction. James stated that:
"Marion Crawford and his horrid story
of 'The Upper Berth', which (with 'The
Screaming Skull' some distance behind)
is the best in his collection of Uncanny
Tales, and stands high among ghost
stories in general."
H. Russell Wakefield, in an essay on ghost stories, called Crawford's 'The Upper Berth'
"The very best one of such stories."
Norman Douglas credits Crawford's financial success as instrumental in encouraging himself to write (although he remained critical of Crawford's habit of inserting first-person editorial comments into his fiction).
The F. Marion Crawford Memorial Society was founded in 1975 and published the literary review The Romantist from 1977 until 1997.
In 1997 the Centro Studi e Ricerche Francis Marion Crawford was founded at Sant'Agnello di Sorrento. It is formally associated with the FMC Memorial Society, and continues The Romantist in its annual review Genius Loci (1997–).
In early May 1988 at Sant'Agnello, a Conference was held to commemorate Crawford. It was organized by the Comune di Sant' Agnello di Sorrento and the Istituto Universitario Orientale (Naples).
Its "Acta" were published in English and Italian as Il Magnifico Crawford. Scrittore per Mestiere / The Magnificent Crawford. Writer by Trade (1990), edited by Gordon Poole.
In mid-May 2009 the Centro Studi e Ricerche Francis Marion Crawford and the Comune di Sant' Agnello organized another Conference – Francis Marion Crawford; 100 Anni Dopo – to remember Crawford on the centenary of his death.
There is a major street in the Italian town of Sant'Agnello di Sorrento (the town where he died) named after him, the Corso Marion Crawford.
There is a historical marker on the house where Crawford was born, in Bagni di Lucca. Villa Crawford was donated many years ago by Crawford's daughters Lady Eleanor Rocca-Crawford and Mother Clare Marion-Crawford to the Salesian Sisters, who operate it today as a high school for girls.
In San Nicola Arcella, in the province of Cosenza, the Saracen tower where Francis Marion Crawford stayed in the summer is remembered as Torre Crawford.
In 2020, the writer Andrea Carlo Cappi with Matteo Fazzolari and Cosimo Gentile, created the literary prize for short story "Torre Crawford", whose annual theme is taken from a short story by Francis Marion Crawford (the theme of the first edition was "For the blood is the life").
A New Subway Link
So what else happened on the day that the card wasposted?
Well, on the 8th. September 1910, Manhattan and Long Island were linked by subway as the East River Tunnels opened at ten minutes after midnight.
A Deadly Battleship Accident
Also on that day, three coal passers were killed in a steam accident aboard the battleship USS North Dakota (BB-29).
Six other crewmembers each received the Medal of Honor for their heroism during the incident.
A coal passer is an individual who brings coal from a ship's bunkers to furnaces and removes ashes.
