''Abinger Harvest'' is a 1936 non-fiction book by English author
E.M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly '' A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stor ...
.
The book is a mixture of autobiographical writing and literary criticism, along with essays and poems written by Forster as a freelancer spanning back to 1903.
This, alongside ''
Two Cheers for Democracy
''Two Cheers for Democracy'' is the second collection of essays by E. M. Forster, published in 1951, and incorporating material from 1936 onwards. The humorous title is not directly connected with the essays themselves and, according to the prefac ...
'', was one of two collections of essays published during Forster's lifetime.
Background
Starting in August 1934, Forster began assembling a collection of his essays with the support of
William Plomer
William Charles Franklyn Plomer (10 December 1903 – 20 September 1973) was a South African and British novelist, poet and literary editor. He also wrote a series of librettos for Benjamin Britten. He wrote some of his poetry under the pseud ...
. Some of the writing was taken from as far back as
his time in Egypt and focused on, among other things,
Englishness.
Forster had faced opposition to the name ''Abinger Harvest'' and said that people "made a face like a shrew mouse" upon hearing the title.
Contents
The book is divided into four sections and an article on a country pageant:
* "The Present"
The essays in this section focuses on contemporary society, post-war culture and England and Englishness.
* "Books"
* "The Past"
* The East"
* "The Abinger Pagaent"
Abinger Hammer
Abinger Hammer is a village in the Vale of Holmesdale, located on the A25 in Surrey, England. The village is located within the Surrey Hills AONB, approximately midway between the market towns of Dorking and Guildford. The village is named af ...
is a small village in the
Vale of Holmesdale
Holmesdale, also known as the Vale of Holmesdale, is a valley in South-East England
South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of ...
that had been connected to the Forsters for many decades. The work received a muted and divided response:
Q. D. Leavis arguing in
Scrutiny
Scrutiny (French: ''scrutin''; Late Latin: ''scrutinium''; from ''scrutari'', meaning "those who search through piles of rubbish in the hope of finding something of value" and originally from the Latin "scruta," meaning "broken things, rags, or ...
that “it is a disappointing book”, but
John Crowe Ransom
John Crowe Ransom (April 30, 1888 – July 3, 1974) was an American educator, scholar, literary critic, poet, essayist and editor. He is considered to be a founder of the New Criticism school of literary criticism. As a faculty member at Kenyon ...
in
The Yale Review
''The Yale Review'' is the oldest literary journal in the United States. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
It was founded in 1819 as ''The Christian Spectator'' to support Evangelicalism. Over time it began to publish more on hi ...
dubbing it “one of the notable literary miscellanies of our time”.
Libel action: "A Flood in the Office"
The first edition included an article reviewing a pamphlet by engineer
William Willcocks
Sir William Willcocks (27 September 1852 in India – 28 July 1932 in Cairo, Egypt) was a British civil engineer during the high point of the British Empire. He was an irrigation engineer who proposed and built the first Aswan Dam, the scal ...
titled "A Flood in the Office".
Willcocks' pamphlet disparaged
Murdoch Macdonald's views on treatment of the
Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered ...
and Murdoch subsequently won a libel case against Willcocks for the publication.
Forster's review heavily favoured Willcock's interpretation.
By reprinting the review, Forster had restated the libel. This caused Murdoch to pursue Forster for damages.
Forster and his publisher ultimately had to pay £500 and costs, the withdraw the article from ''Abinger Harvest'' and issue an apology in court.
Unsold copies of the book were re-issued with the pages containing "A Flood in the Office" removed.
This resulted in 1936 re-issued copies of ''Abinger Harvest'' to list "A Flood in the Office" in its table of contents without actually containing the article.
The incident made Forster concerned about potential libellous content in his work on
T. E. Lawrence
Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918 ...
. He even unsuccessfully reached out to Lawrence's estate to gain assurances he would not be sued.
References
{{Reflist
Books by E. M. Forster