Sequels
The novel had several sequels, which continue until Michael Fane's marriage: * 1917 – '' Guy and Pauline'' (published in the United States as ''Plashers Mead'') * 1918 – '' The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett'' (made into the 1935 romantic comedy film '' Sylvia Scarlett'', starring Katharine Hepburn andAdaptations
The book was turned into a 1922 silent film, '' Sinister Street'', directed byReception
George Orwell enjoyed the book illicitly as a prep school boy at St Cyprian's School inIt was not surprising that ''Sinister Street'' should so rivet young Eric. Its hero, Michael Fane, is studying Classics at a prep school, and moves with his mother from the countryside to Kensington (close to where Orwell's Aunt Nellie lived). He spends holidays inConnolly also wrote critically of the book in the first section of ''Enemies of Promise'', stating:Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...(as Orwell's family did), visits Bournemouth (where Orwell's Uncle Charlie lived), and meets a girl from an Anglo-Indian family whose father is away inBurma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai .... He visitsEastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the la ...and thinks what a lovely place. (Hollow laughter from Blair and Connolly, no doubt). Fane envies a wild looking, unkempt boy he sees wandering down Kensington High Street and longs to be "a raggle-taggle wanderer".
Nineteen fourteen was also the year of an important bad book ''Sinister Street''. It is a work of inflation, important because it is the first of a long line of bad books, the novels of adolescence, autobiographical, romantic, which squandered the vocabulary of love and literary appreciation and played into the hands of the Levellers and Literary Puritans.
There is no book on Oxford like it. It gives you the actual Oxford experience. What Mackenzie has miraculously done is to make you feel what each term was like.
References
* Linklater, Andro ''Compton Mackenzie: A Life'' The Hogarth Press (1992, London)External links
* {{Compton Mackenzie 1913 British novels 1914 British novels Novels by Compton Mackenzie British bildungsromans Scottish bildungsromans Martin Secker books British novels adapted into films