Apart from its soporific qualities, I really don't know what possessed me to read this book! I was browsing at the library when my eye fell upon the spines of the Herries Chronicles, each one of them 4cm wide — which meant that the author's name was in very large font and I recognised it as Hugh Walpole, the author so wickedly lampooned in Somerset Maugham's Cakes and Ale (which I'd read recently courtesy of the 1930s Club). So it's not as if I didn't know what I was in for, all 736 pages of it... Yet the book was widely praised. Walpole was a best-selling author in his day (and he was astonishingly prolific).

For me, the problem is that the characterisation is set in stone. Francis Herries is proud, violent, impetuous and spectacularly stubborn when he's young, and he's just the same when he's old. He takes offence at his brother's criticism of his decision to live in Borrowdale and never crosses the threshold again. The love of his life, Mirabell is devastated by the death of her gorgeous young lover Harry, and she never gets over it. David, Frances Herries' son (by his long suffering but *surprise!* devoted wife Margaret who conveniently dies when she's in the way of the plot), takes a childhood dislike to a cousin and is still nursing this grudge in his forties, to the dismay of his wife who *surprise!* gently rebukes him for it and *surprise!* he takes no notice. Nobody changes, nobody grows in maturity or wisdom.

The setting is the Lake District, so there are dramatic views and dreary fogs, and the story begins with the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745 which probably meant a lot more to British readers of the 1930s than it does to those of us with a weak grasp of British history and its succession squabbles.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/11/29/rogue-herries-the-herries-chronicles-1-by-hu... ( )

This is the first novel in the Herries Chronicles, a series of novels set in the Lake District, which I have read during my first week on holiday there, after reading the two sequels shortly beforehand. This one has a more organic feel than the prequels, as it follows in the main the life of the title character, Francis Herries (grandson to the Robert of Katherine Christian), and that of his son David. Set entirely in the Lake District and very nearby (occasional episodes in Penrith/Carlisle), it also brings across a love and huge feeling for the ebb and flow of life in the area during the 18th century, and for the beauty and wildness of the countryside. Numerous other members of the wider Herries clan make usually brief appearances, and there are very memorable female characters, in particular David's wife Sarah, and Mirabell, with whom Francis becomes obsessed and eventually marries. I came to care for the futures of these well-drawn characters. Wider historical events only rarely impinge on their lives, except in the case of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion

As I said, the novel brings across very clearly the character of the Lake District as a region, as well as that of its inhabitants. Though it has been unusually dry during my holiday so far, as it has been everywhere, the novel contains a very evocative description of the more usual rainy conditions here:

"It was rain of a relentless, determined, soaking, penetrating kind. No other rain anywhere, at least in the British Isles (which have a prerogative of many sorts of rain), falls with so determined a fanatical obstinacy as does this rain. It is not that the sky in any deliberate mood decides to empty itself. It is rain that has but little connection either with earth or with sky, but rather has a life of its own, stern, remorseless and kindly. It falls in sheets of steely straightness, and through it is the rhythm of the beating hammer".

This is a beautifully written novel and I shall certainly read the following three volumes, though I will give the series a rest for now, having read three of them in a short space of time. ( )

Rogue Herries, the first volume of a four-volume chronicle, describing a family saga from the early 18th till the early 20th century, is a novel painted on a large canvas. The main character of volume one is Francis Herris, nicknamed "Rogue Herries" because of his capricious and cruel nature. He is not as dark as Heathcliff, but at least as wild. The book starts with Herries and his family moving to the rugged landscape of the Lake District, where they move into a house in Borrowdale. The household consist of Francis Herries, his first wife Margaret, his two children, David and Deborah, and his house-keeper and mistress Alice Press, and valet Benjamin. Bringing The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy to mind, Herries sells Alice at a fair, after she has insulted his wife Margaret. But despite his rugged nature, Francis has a kind heart. This, however, rarely shows, and because of his wild behaviour Herries is misunderstood and feared by the villagers. For example, one day he witnesses a witch trial. He retrieves the body of the old village woman and buries her on his estate, which convinces the villagers that Herries has a pact with the devil, or is a devil himself. However, on another day he gives his cape to a beggar woman, and an amulet to her child on the road. This chance meeting and act of kindness determines the whole further development of the story and shapes Herries destiny.

Years later, he sees the mother and her daughter again at a Christmas party in a barn. The daughter has grown up, and Herries is struck by her flaming red hair. However, they disappear in the wink of an eye. The next time he sees her, another few years later, is during the Jacobite rising of 1745. In a tavern, Herries observes her in the company of her lover. Incidentally, Herries finds himself in the battle side-bu-side with Mirabell's lover and witnesses his death.

Francis Herries has by now realized that he is in love with this young girl, who is at least 30 years younger than he is. After the skirmishes are over, he roams the countryside to look for Mirabell, and eventually finds her in a very decrepit state living in a cave. He proposes to her, but she rejects him. He then pledges to wait for her until she comes to him.

Many years later, she turns up on his door step, and they marry. However, Mirabell cannot bring herself to say she loves Herries, and this leads to a growing tension, with a climax of Mirabell fleeing from Herries. For years, he keeps looking for her, all over the country, until one day he finds her again, by chance. She is an actress in a traveling troupe. She breaks her promise to meet him after the performance. Yet years later, Mirabell returns to him, and by now, out of her own volition, says she has come to love Herries, just as Francis had always hoped it would be. He had to wait all his life for it.

Along the main story, David Herries grows up, meets his wife Sarah, whom he abducts from the home of her uncle, and marries. He sets op in a modern estate not far from Herries. Deborah, falling short of becoming an old spinster, eventually marries a parson.

The weakest point of the novel seemed the opening chapter, but soon after that it developed into a very gripping, fascinating story. There are beautiful, detailed descriptions of the natural scene in the Lake District, the old life-style of village life in Olde England, and exquisite descriptions of detail, light etc.

Along the main story, a large number of side characters are introduced, family members of Herries who play a role in this and following volumes. Some other characters have familiar sounding names for people with some knowledge of British history, e.g. Peel, but only vague suggestions are made to the role of these characters in, supposedly, subsequent volumes.

Hugh Walpole is a now largely forgotten English novelist, born in Auckland, New Zealand, who was a best-selling author during the first three decades of the twentieth century. The Herries chronicle in four volumes was reissued by the London publisher Frances Lincoln in 2008.

His work certainly deserves wider readership. ( )