George Lewis Becke

George Lewis Becke , occasionally George Louis Becke (born June 18, 1855 in Port Macquarie , New South Wales , † February 18, 1913 in Sydney ) was an Australian writer with English roots.

Life

Becke was the youngest son (of six children) of the employee Frederick Becke and his wife Caroline Mathilde Beilby. His parents were English who had emigrated to Australia with their families. In 1867 the Becke family settled in Hunters Hill, a suburb of Sydney, and George Lewis completed his schooling at Fort Street High School .

Becke left school in 1869 at the age of 14 and went to San Francisco with his brother Vernon , where he stayed for almost two years. In 1871 he snuck on a ship and came to Samoa as a stowaway . In Apia he worked as an accountant for the McFarlane family until the beginning of 1873 and through this work he also got to know a wide variety of people.

At the turn of the year 1873/74 Becke sailed the ketch “EA Williams” to Mili ( Ratak chain ) and sold it there in mid-January to William Hayes , a seedy US captain who was subject to the slave trade (→ Blackbirding ). The "Leonora", on which Becke wanted to return as a passenger, was destroyed on March 15, 1874 during a storm in the port of Lelu ( Kosrae ) and the passengers were only rescued by the "HMS Rosario" ( Royal Navy ) in October of the same year become.

Back in Brisbane , Becke was accused of piracy because of his business relationships with Hayes , charged, but acquitted after a lengthy trial. He then got infected by the gold rush on the Palmer River in Queensland and worked for some time in the trading post there. Between 1878 and 1879 he made his living as a clerk at a bank in Townsville .

From April 1880, Becke represented the English company John S. de Wolf & Co. in Nanumanga ( Ellice Islands ) . When the town was destroyed by a hurricane at the turn of the year 1880/81 , Becke settled in Nukufetau and opened there in February 1881 own company. There he also married Nelea Tikena. He lost all of his fortune in a shipwreck near Beru ( Gilbert Islands ) in the autumn of the same year.

Becke went to New Britain ( Bismarck Archipelago ) and worked there again as an employee of a trading station. In November 1882 he moved to Majuro ( Marshall Islands ), where he is now a dealer in Hernsheim & Co was employed. In the fall of 1885 he returned to his hometown and married Elizabeth Maunsell on February 10, 1886. With her he had a daughter, Nora (* 1888).

In January 1892 Becke moved to Sydney with his wife. He got to know the publisher of the weekly magazine The Bulletin , JF Archibald, and in the same year he was persuaded by this friend and another, the researcher Ernest Favenc , to publish his experiences in regular sketches and stories. Becke celebrated his successful debut as an author on May 6, 1893 with his story Tis in the Blood .

In early 1896, Becke separated from his wife and traveled to London ; he did not return to Sydney until the summer of 1909. With his companion, Fanny Sabina Long (1871-1959), he lived first in London and later in Eastbourne . He had two daughters with Long. During this time Becke also drove to and through France and stayed for a long time in Normandy .

After returning to Australia, Becke settled down in Sydney again and worked as a freelance writer. At the age of 57 years George Lewis Becke succumbed to his on February 18, 1913 of cancer and found his final resting place in the Waverley Cemetery Bronte (Sydney).

reception

With his debut on May 6, 1893, Becke found writing relatively late. In his first short stories there are still weaknesses in autobiographical narratives, which were soon overcome. Contemporary literary criticism placed him close to Joseph Conrad and Robert Louis Stevenson . Becke wrote some of his short stories and stories together with Walter J. Jeffrey (1861–1922).

Works (selection)

Sole authorship

Letters

• Nicholas Thomas (Ed.): Bad colonists. The South Sea letters of Vernon Lee Walker and Louis Becke . University Press, Durham 1999, ISBN 0-8223-2257-9 .

Short stories

• Pacific Tales . Fisher Unwin, London 1925 (EA London 1897)
• Wild life in the Southern Sea . 2nd edition. Fisher Unwin, London 1897
• South seas. Stories from Oceania . Publishing house Die Brigantine, Hamburg 1969.
• Yorke, the adventurer and other stories . Fisher Unwin, London 1901.
• Under tropic skies . Books for Libraries Press, Freeport 1970, ISBN 0-8369-3379-6 (reprint of London 1905 edition).
• Chinkie's flat and other stories . Fisher Unwin, London 1904.
• Breachley. Black sheep . Fisher Uniwin, London 1902.
• Rodman, the boat-steerer and other stories . Books for Libraries, Freeport 1970, ISBN 0-8369-3573-X (reprint of the London 1924 edition).
• Ridan, the devil and other stories . Fisher Unwin, London 1899.
• Helen Adair . Fisher Unwin, London 1924 (reprint of the London 1901 edition).
• The strange adventure of James Shervinton and other stories . Fisher Unwin, London 1902.

Together with Walter J. Jeffrey

• The Tapu of Banderah and other stories . Pearson Books, London 1901.
• The mutineer. A romance of Pitcairn Island . Fisher Unwin, London 1898.
• A first fleet family. A hitherto unpublished narrative of certain remarkable adventures compiled from the papers of Sergeant William Dew of the Marines . MacMillan, New York 1896.
• Admiral Phillip . The founding of New South Wales . Fisher Unwin, London 1899.
• The mystery of the Laughlin Isles . Fisher Unwin, London 1896.
• The naval pioneers of Australia . John Murray Books, London 1899.

literature

• Jakob Anderhandt: Last pirates . In: Ders .: Eduard Hernsheim, the South Seas and a lot of money. Biography (MV Science). Verlag Monsenstein & Vannerdat, Münster 2012 (2 vols.)
  • Volume 1: 2012, ISBN 978-3-86991-626-2 (Die Südsee-Bibliothek; Vol. 1), pp. 181-196.
  • Volume 2: 2012, ISBN 978-3-86991-627-9 (Die Südsee-Bibliothek; Vol. 2).
• R. Spencer Browne: A journalist's memories. 1877-1923 . Read Press, Brisbane 1927 (based on some of Browne's articles in the Brisbane Courier ).
• Arthur G. Day: Louis Becke ( Twayne's World Authors Series ; Vol. 9). Twayne Publ., New York 1966.
• Sally O'Neill: Becke, George Lewis (Louis) . In: Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 7 . University Press, Melbourne 1979, pp. 238-239.
• Nicholas Thomas and Richard Eves: Bad Colonists. The South Seas Letters of Vernon Lee Walker and Louis Becke . Duke University Press, Durham 1999, ISBN 0-8223-2222-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jakob Anderhandt: Eduard Hernsheim, the South Seas and a lot of money. Biography, Vol. 2 , pp. 71 and 588 f.