So, just before last Christmas I (with invaluable help from Charlie Black) found the following stories by Charles Birkin - never reprinted after their first showing. Now these are not the all-out horrors he is known for - but some do have a sting in the tail and could easily be described as conte-cruel-lite.
Insult to Injury – The Bystander 06.05.1936
Enterprise – The Bystander 22.07.1936
Reprise – The Bystander 14.04.1937
Déjeuner – The Bystander 15.06.1938
Psychical Research – The Bystander 15.02.1939
Paul Saltpeter’s Party – The Tatler 12.07.1939
Faites Vos Jeux – The Tatler 22.11.1939
Happy Christmas – The Bystander 24.11.1939
Morning Shopping – The Bystander 13.12.1939
The Stricken Heart – The Sketch 24.01.1940
Point of View – The Bystander 06.03.1940
She Was That Sort of Lady – The Tatler 03.04.1940
Wrong Number – The Tatler 08.05.1940
I thought that there must be more out there, but apart from a reprint of Point of View in the Australian magazine The Home (also published in 1940) there was nothing. I then had a very, very small eureka! moment and started looking for short stories by 'Charles Lloyd', Birkin's only known pseudonym taken from his first and middle name. I found quite a few stories by a
Charles Lloyd-Jones. I then cross-checked with what I had found on philsp.
LLOYD-JONES, [Sir] CHARLES (1878-1958) (chron.)
The Liar and the Unicorn, (ss) The Cornhill Magazine Aug 1930
* The Duchess and the Diamond, (ss) The Cornhill Magazine Jul 1931
* Art, Craft and Tom Flaggon, (ar) The Cornhill Magazine May 1932
* Very High Spot, (ss) Britannia and Eve Aug 1946
* The Bailliére Ring, (ss) Britannia and Eve Oct 1946
*The Gentleman Under the Tree, (ss) Britannia and Eve Oct 1949
* Father Knows Best, (ss) Britannia and Eve Jul 1951
* The Christmas Tree, (ss) Britannia and Eve Dec 1952
I was a bit disheartened, but in all of the searching I did on Sir Charles, there was never any hyphen between the Lloyd and the Jones. So I decided to go down the rabbit hole.
Sir Charles was a noted Australian artist/painter and the following are pretty full-on biographies - and there are NO mentions of him writing anything other than small articles.
www.daao.org.au/bio/sir-charles-lloyd-jones/biography/ , and the following one written by family members:
www.davidjones.com/images/assetimages/pdf/information/Market%20Street%20Exhibition.pdf Now, we all know between 1936 and 1964 there was a bit of a gap in Birkin's horror output, with Devil's Spawn published in 1936 and his next collection not coming out until 1964 (The Kiss of Death). However, I've been able to prove that it wasn't the end of his writing career or being published. Of course WW2 and all that got in the way.
What makes thing a bit gloopy as fair as I'm concerned is that Birkin's sister's married name was Violet Hilda Margaret Blew-
Jones (Married 1918, died 1953). It wouldn't seem that much of a stretch to add his sister's surname onto his pre-existing pseudonym.
So, what about the stories themselves? Well, Britannia and Eve was a magazine published from the 1920s - 1950s and was a fashion, culture and home magazine that also published short stories.
I've read them, and I feel like they have the Birkin flair - but I'm also aware that I don't want to be reading too much into anything, because if I want the stories to be by Birkin, I'll convince myself enough that they ARE by him.
imgur.com/a/EWaSwwPNice to see that caterpillars raise their head - people will remember his story 'Child's Play' where they are mentioned.
Now the proof that it's neither Birkin or the artist, but could be someone different altogether. Charles Lloyd-Jones debut novel,
The House of the Goat, was published in 1926. Sadly cannot find a cover for it. Birkin, if he wrote it, would have been 19. His sister had her married name for 8 years by this point. Now, it's not unheard of for a 19 yr old to have a book published, I think the record for that goes to a 6 year old and Mary Shelley had Frankenstein published when she was 21.
There
are several other novels published under the Lloyd-Jones name, but they disappear in the 30s and Lloyd Jones doesn't come back until the 50s with a News of the World published
Great Dramas and Poems of the Bible.
Here's one of Lloyd-Jones' books from the 30s
imgur.com/a/IhACKPiSo yes, this could be me in headless chicken mode, but I'm just putting the information out there so others can either help or scoff. Mike Ashley thinks it's certainly interesting enough to chase - he's going to be going through his notes for something Charles told him 40 years ago that has piqued his interest, and I've sent an email off to Birkin's Estate to see if they have anything that may offer further clues.
So yes, the game's afoot!
Jx
