Priestley .:. The Good Companions

Priestley, John Boynton,
The Good Companions. 3. Auflage. London: Heinemann, 1932. xvi, 646 Seiten. Leinen mit Kopfgoldschnitt und Lesebändchen. 762 g

---

* Gebräunt, Notiz auf Seite V.
Bestell-Nr.157090

---

Priestley | Englische Literatur

---

CONTENTS

Book One
I. MR. OAKROYD LEAVES HOME 1
II. MISS TRANT TAKES A HOLIDAY 40
III. INIGO JOLLIFANT QVOTES SHA RESPEARE AND DEPARTS IN THE NIGHT 72
IV. MR. OAKROYD ON T'ROAD 106
V. MISS TRANT IS ALMOST A SECOND COLUMBUS 156
VI. INIGO MEETS A MEMBER OF THE PROFESSION AND TURNS PIANIST 200

Book Two
I. IN WHICH THEY ALL BECOME "GOOD COMPANIONS" 249
II VERY SHORT, AND DEVOTED TO REHEARSALS 285
III. IN WHICH COLONEL TRANT'S DAUGHTER GOES INTO ACTION, STICKS TO HER GUNS, AND MAY BE CONSIDERED VJCTORIOUS 299
IV. MR. OAKROYD PLAYS "THE HUNTED MAN" FOR A SHORT SEASON 336
V. INIGO JUMPS OUT OF A TRAIN AND FINDS HIMSELF IN LOVE 371
VI. THE BLACK WEEK 400
VII. ALL STOLEN FROM THE MAIL BAG 442

Book Three
I. A WIND IN THE TRIANGLE 463
II. A CHAPTER OF ENCOUNTERS 493
III. INIGO IN WONDERLAND 528
lV. A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE 554
V. LONG, AND FULL OF SALVAGE WORK 577
VI. MR. OAKROYD GOES HOME 619

Epilogue
BEING A MERE POSTSCRIPT ADDRESSED TO THOSE WHO INSIST UPON HAVING ALL THE LATEST NEWS 643

---

INTRODUCTION When I began writing The Good Companions, I was not, strictly speaking, a professional novelist. It is true that I had already written two novels and collaborated in a third, and of course I had received money for them, writing being my trade. Nevertheless, I could then have been more aptly described as a professional essayist and critic who turned to fiction to enjoy himself. This fact seems to me worth stressing. Now that The Good Companions has been fortunate enough to become one of the favourite novels of this period, it is easy to say — as I have no doubt many bookmen have said — that it is obviously a work calculated to appeal to a large public. This is merely being wise after the event. There was a time when The Good Companions was a bold — perhaps a rash — experiment. It was a very long novel, and there was nothing to suggest that long novels might be very popular. It was a picaresque novel, and picaresque novels were not in fashion. Much of it dealt with theatrical life, and, surprising as it may seem to many readers, most publishers are very dubious about novels with a theatrical background. Thus the book was not a plum dropped into mouth of my publishers: they needed faith and courage to bring it out at all. It did not need faith and courage to write it because I wrote it primarily to please myself. It was a huge and gorgeous piece of self-indulgence on my part. (And I cannot imagine writing these long novels in any other spirit: otherwise they would be such an irksome task.) Naturally I wanted all the praise and the money for it that could come my way, but nevertheless when I had finished it — which I did, after working day and night, during that great frost of February 1929, when Hampstead seemed to be a peak in Greenland — I could say quite honestly: Well, whether anybody else enjoys this story or not, I've enjoyed it.
The idea, in various vague shapes, had been haunting me for some years. There seemed to me to be a picaresque England, the England of main roads and side lanes, decaying provincial towns and dingy lodgings, fairs and entertainments in assembly rooms, that still flourished in all its comedy and pathos. (I am not sure that there is not more of it now than there was thirty or fifty years ago, simply because the motor car has brought back the road and the roadside inn.) I felt that a habit of wandering into odd corners and of talking to odd folk in those corners had given me more than a glimpse of this England; and I did not see why this picaresque aspect of our life should be almost completely ignored by contemporary novelists. Thus I had from the first an idea of the background of my story. Then I was also haunted by the notion of three main characters, very different in social standing and outlook, all running away and then being brought together by the chances of the road. The plan of the travelling concert party came later, and when it did come it presented certain difficulties. The trouble was, I knew hardly anything about the theatrical world, though I have always found it hard to persuade some of my theatrical readers of the truth of this. And neither the time nor the opportunity to acquire this knowledge at all thoroughly presented itself. I went to one or two pierrot shows; I talked perhaps for half an hour to one or two actors I happened to meet; I bought a few copies of theatrical papers; and on this small and shaky foundation I set to work, guessing and inventing as I went along and very artfully steering clear of nearly all technicalities. Thus, Inigo's adventures with the music publisher and the revue producer in London were all pure invention, based on no actual experience at all; and I have been amused to discover since, now that I have penetrated into these regions, how lucky I was in my guesses. Incidentally, I have met real Susies and Inigos since, young people whose leap to fortune and fame has been quite as sudden and dramatic as that of my two characters.
That is one reason why I resent this novel being described, as it sometimes has been described, as a sort of fairy tale. It is, of course, largely a novel of escape, conceived in the spirit of comedy. For this I make no apology, though some austere critics of modern fiction would seem to think an apology necessary. I consider myself as much at liberty to write in a comic or tragic or tragicomic vein, just as I please, as my masters — let us say, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Fielding, Scott, Dickens — were in their day. I have never heard of any critic in his senses who thought Shakespeare was to be blamed for writing the happy comedies of As You Like It and Twelfth Night; and even yet it is not general to regard The Pickwick Papers, for example, as a sin against the light. I dislike novelists who try to win popularity — or to retain it — by writing out of a sort of mechanical cheerfulness and optimism; but I equally dislike a determined gloom and pessimism, which happen to be more fashionable now in literary circles. A novel is not necessarily a good work of art because it ends miserably and has a bitter flavour, and a novel that moves briskly and cheerfully towards a happy conclusion is not necessarily unworthy of the attention of serious students of fiction. I will admit that this is largely a novel of happy escape, but I will not admit that it is at all a deliberate falsification of life. It seems to me to present a real England of today, but an England discovered chiefly in a holiday mood.
People are always asking me if any of the characters are portraits of real persons. Actually, there is only one portrait in the book; and that is Joby Jackson, with whose prototype I once travelled from Banbury to Sheffield, for he had been to St. Giles' Fair at Oxford and was on his way to Doncaster races. All the others are imaginary characters, though I took one or two hints from old acquaintances in the West Riding for the character of Jess Oakroyd, who is really the hero of the story. When I was a boy in the West Riding there were dozens of Jess Oakroyds there and though there have been many changes since then I cannot believe that these admirable fellows have all disappeared. If they have I trust they have all found happiness either "on t'road" or with their adored daughters in Canada. If this is a fairy tale then it is Jess Oakroyd's, and it seems to me high time that the Jess Oakroyds had one. And if only a few thousand people have had of will have half the fun reading this story that I had in writing it I shall be more than satisfied: I shall bless the luck.
J. B. PRIESTLEY.
Gatton, Sept. 1st, 1931.

---