Eden Phillpotts

Eden Phillpotts (born November 4, 1862 in Mount Abu , Rajasthan , India , † December 29, 1960 in Broad Clyst near Exeter ) was an English writer.

Life

Phillpotts was the eldest son of Army officer Henry Phillpotts (1828-1865) and his wife Adelaide Matilda Waters (1843-1921). When his father died in 1865, his mother returned to England with him and his sister and settled with relatives in South West England .

Phillpotts attended the Mannamead School in Plymouth . At the age of 17 he left his mother in 1879 to go to London. There he found a job as a clerk at Sun Insurance Company , where he would work for the next ten years. At the same time, he attended drama school for two years, but then gave up his plan to become an actor and devoted himself only to writing. During this time, he only had the night hours for his literary ambitions until his success as a writer gave his life the hoped-for turnaround.

Despite his success, Phillpotts did not give up his job until 1890/91 and became editor of the newly founded magazine Black & White . On November 18, 1893, he married Emily Topham († 1928) and had two children with her: the future writer Adelaide Ross (1896-1993) and Henry.

In 1899 Phillpotts went to Devon with his family and settled in Torquay ; there he became a neighbor of the writer Agatha Christie . When his wife died, he married Lucy Robina Joyce († 1968) after the obligatory year of mourning in 1929. With her he settled in Broad Clyst that same year, where he lived until the end of his life.

Eden Phillpotts died on December 29, 1960 at the age of 98 and, following his last wish, his ashes were scattered over Dartmoor .

reception

Philpotts was one of the most prolific and multifaceted writers in Devon. His "Dartmoor Cycle" spanned the entire region and was published in 18 novels. The first in the series was Children of the Mist (1898), and it concluded with Children of Men (1923). The most famous is probably the tragic story The Secret Woman (1905).

One of his novels, Widecombe Fair , inspired by the annual market in the village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor , was the model for his comedy The Farmer's Wife . This play was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1927 under the title The Farmer's Wife .

In addition to his novels, his work also includes poems, short stories and plays. He published some of his crime novels under the pseudonym Harrington Hext . Several pieces were also written in collaboration with Arnold Bennett and Jerome K. Jerome ; daughter Adelaide is also an important collaborator and arranger of his pieces.

Philpotts was an early patron and friend of Agatha Christie , who valued his work very much and visited him regularly; Christie dedicated the novel " Das Haus an der Düne " ("Peril at End House") to him. He wrote numerous works of various literary importance, including crime and social novels as well as homeland novels with excellent descriptions of the landscape of the Dartmoor region, as well as essays and children's books as well as lyrical and dramatic works.

Works (selection)

• From the angle of 88 . Hutchinson, London 1951.
• The farmer's wife .
• Widecombe fair .
• The things at their heels .
• The red redmaynes .
• The monster .
• The clue of the stars .
• The Captain'S Curio .

literature

• Meyer's Encyclopedia , Volume 18 . Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim 1973, p. 581.
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Vol. 44 . OUP, London 2004, pp. 161-162, ISBN 0-19-861394-6 .
• Glen Cavaliero: The cult of the primitive. Eden Phillpott, John Trevena . In: Ders .: The rural tradition in the English novel 1900–1939 . Macmillan, London 1978, ISBN 0-333-21800-0 .
• Kenneth F. Day: Eden Phillpotts on Dartmoor . David & Charles, Newton Abbot 1981, ISBN 0-7153-8118-0 .
• Dorothy Eagle (Ed.): The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to Great Britain and England . 2nd ed. BCA and Oxford University Press, London 1992, p. 63, ISBN 0-19-212988-0 .
• Waveney Girvan (Ed.): Eden Phillpotts. An assessment and a tribute . Hutchinson, London 1953.
• Emilie Gottschalk: The "Dartmoor" cycle by Eden Phillpotts . Trute Verlag, Quakenbrück 1935 (plus dissertation, University of Freiburg / B. 1935).
• Charles W. Meadowcroft: The place of Eden Phillpotts in English Peasant Drama . Dissertation, University of Philadelphia 1924.
• Adelaide Ross: Reverie. An autobiography . Hale, London 1981, ISBN 0-7091-8822-6 .
• William H. Wright: West Country Poets. Their Lives and Works . Elliot Stock, London 1896, pp. 48-51.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Today Plymouth College

Web links

• Literature by and about Eden Phillpotts in the catalog of the German National Library
• Eden Phillpotts in Literary Worlds