By the death of Talbot B. Reed the boys of the English-speaking world
have lost one of their best friends. For fourteen years he has
contributed to their pleasure, and in the little library of boys' books
which left his pen he has done as much as any writer of our day to raise
the standard of boys' literature. His books are alike removed from the
old-fashioned and familiar class of boys' stories, which, meaning well,
generally baffled their own purpose by attempting to administer morality
and doctrine on what Reed called the "powder-in-jam" principle--a
process apt to spoil the jam, yet make "the powder" no less nauseous;
or, on the other hand, the class of book that dealt in thrilling
adventure of the blood-curdling and "penny dreadful" order. With
neither of these types have Talbot Reed's boys' books any kinship. His
boys are of flesh and blood, such as fill our public schools, such as
brighten or "make hay" of the peace of our homes. He had the rare art
of hitting off boy-nature, with just that spice of wickedness in it
without which a boy is not a boy. His heroes have always the charm of
bounding, youthful energy, and youth's invincible hopefulness, and the
constant flow of good spirits which have made the boys of all time
perennially interesting.
The secret of Reed's success in this direction was that all through
life, as every one who had the privilege of knowing him can testify, he
possessed in himself the healthy freshness of heart of boyhood. He
sympathised with the troubles and joys, he understood the temptations,
and fathomed the motives that sway and mould boy-character; he had the
power of depicting that side of life with infinite humour and pathos,
possible only to one who could place himself sympathetically at the
boys' stand-point in life. Hence the wholesomeness of tone and the
breezy freshness of his work. His boy-heroes are neither prigs nor
milk-sops, but in their strength and weakness they are the stuff which
ultimately makes our best citizens and fathers; they are the boys who,
later in life, with healthy minds in healthy bodies, have made the
British Empire what it is.
A special and pathetic interest attaches to this story of "Kilgorman,"
the last that left Talbot Reed's pen. It was undertaken while he was
yet in the prime of his strength and vigour. The illness which
ultimately, alas, ended fatally had already laid hold on him ere he had
well begun the book. In intervals of ease during his last illness he
worked at it, sometimes in bed, sometimes in his armchair: it is
pleasant to think that he so enjoyed the work that its production eased
and soothed many a weary hour for him, and certainly never was other
than a recreation to him.
The pen dropped from his hand ere he had quite completed the work, yet,
as the book stands here, it is much as he meant to leave it. The
figures of Barry Gallagher, and Tim, and the charming Kit will take
their places in the delightful gallery of his young people, and their
adventures by land and by sea will be followed with an increased
interest that they are the last that can come from his brilliant pen.
Talbot Reed came of a right good English stock, both on his father's and
his mother's side. His grandfather, Dr Andrew Reed, a Nonconformist
minister of note in his day, left his mark in some of the soundest
philanthropic undertakings of the century. His thoughtfulness and self-
sacrificing energy have lightened the sufferings and soothed the old age
of many thousands. He was one of the founders of the London, Reedham,
and Infant Orphan Asylums, the Earlswood Asylum for Idiots, and the
Royal Hospital for Incurables. His son, Sir Charles Reed, and
grandsons, have done yeoman service in carrying on to the present day
the noble work begun by him.
Talbot was the third son of the late Sir Charles Reed, Member of
Parliament for Hackney, and latterly for Saint Ives (Cornwall). His
mother, Lady Reed, was the youngest daughter of Mr Edward Baines,
Member of Parliament for Leeds. She was a lady of saintly life, of
infinite gentleness and sweetness of heart, with extraordinary strength
and refinement of mind, reverenced and loved by her sons and daughters,
and by none more than by Talbot Reed, who bore a strong resemblance to
her alike in disposition and in physical appearance.
The service that Sir Charles Reed did for his generation, both in
Parliament and as Chairman of the London School Board, and in connection
with many of the religious and philanthropic movements of his time, are
too well known to be recapitulated here.
Talbot B. Reed was born on the 3rd of April 1852, at Hackney. His
first schoolmaster was Mr Anderton of Priory House School, Upper
Clapton, under whose care he remained until he was thirteen years of
age. He retained through life a feeling of warm affection to Mr
Anderton, who thoroughly prepared him for the more serious work ahead of
him. Only a year or two ago, Reed was one of the most active of Mr
Anderton's old pupils in organising a dinner in honour of his former
master.
In 1865 Talbot was entered at the City of London School, then located in
Milk Street, Cheapside, under the headship of Dr Abbot, where he spent
four happy and industrious years of his boyhood. He is described by Mr
Vardy, a school-comrade, in the course of a recent interesting article
by the Editor of the _Boy's Own Paper_, as being at this period "a
handsome boy, strong and well proportioned, with a frank open face,
black hair, and lively dark eyes, fresh complexion, full of life and
vigour, and with a clear ringing voice ... He was audacious with that
charming audacity that suits some boys. On one occasion he had very
calmly absented himself from the class-room during a temporary
engagement by the French master, who, having returned before he was
expected, and while Reed was away, demanded by what leave he had left
the class-room. Reed replied with (as he would probably have expressed
it) 'awful cheek,' 'If you please, sir, I took "French" leave!'"
Reed was popular at school both with masters and boys. His initials,
"T.B.," soon became changed familiarly into "Tib," by which endearing
nickname Mr Vardy says he was known to the last by the comrades of his
school-days.
It is interesting, in the light of the prominence which in all his
school stories he properly gave to out-of-door sports and athletic
exercises, to have it, on the authority of his old school-fellow, that
he excelled in all manly exercises. He was a first-rate football-
player, and a good all-round cricketer; he was an excellent oar, and a
fairly good swimmer; and until the last few months of his life no man
could enjoy with more zest a game of quoits, or tennis, or a day devoted
to the royal game of golf. In the early days of his manhood, with
characteristic unselfishness, he risked his own life on one occasion by
leaping from a rock into the sea, on the wild north Irish coast, to
bring safely ashore his cousin (and life-long friend, Mr Talbot Baines,
the distinguished editor of the _Leeds Mercury_), who has told me that
he would, without Reed's prompt and plucky aid, inevitably have been
drowned.
The large contribution he made to literature in later days amply serves
to prove that the more serious studies of school were never neglected
for his devotion to sport. He seldom missed the old boys' annual dinner
of the City of London School. In proposing a toast at a recent dinner,
he reminded Mr Asquith, M.P. (a school-fellow of Reed's) that at the
school debating society they had "led off" on separate sides in a wordy
battle on the red-hot controversy of "Queen Elizabeth versus Queen
Mary." Every boy who has read "Sir Ludar" will remember that the hero
of that charming story and Humphrey Dexter fall to blows on the same
dangerous subject.
I cannot find that in his masterly pictures of public school life he
drew much from his experiences at the City of London School, except,
perhaps, in a few details, such as the rivalry which he describes so
vividly as existing between the fifth and sixth forms in his delightful
book, "The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's." In Reed's day there was no
such "set" among the juniors at the City of London School as the
"guinea-pigs" and "tadpoles," who play so important a part in the story;
but in a room devoted to the juniors, known as the "horse-shoe," in the
old school buildings in Milk Street, many of the pranks and battles of
the "guinea-pigs" and "tadpoles" were played and fought.
In 1869, at the age of seventeen, Reed left school, and joined his
father and elder brother Andrew in the great firm of type-founders in
Fann Street. He threw himself with strenuous application into the new
work, maintaining at the same time with equal keenness his interest in
football, wishing nothing better than a fierce game--"three hacks on one
leg, and four on the other," as he said, and glorying in his wounds.
The same strenuous energy applied to his reading at this period. A
friend tells me that in a letter about this time he speaks of devouring
"five of Scott's novels in a month, resulting in parental remonstrance;
history; and a Greek play, in which he is not so 'rusty' as he feared."
In Fann Street his practical business energies found free play, although
the bias of his mind undoubtedly lay towards literature rather than
commerce; but for nearly a quarter of a century he devoted himself to
this work with a degree of success that was to be expected of his
talents, the conscientious uprightness of his character, and his
unceasing industry. At the death of Sir Charles Reed, and of his
brother Andrew, Talbot became the managing director of the Type-foundry,
and held that position to the time of his death.
Reed had not long left school when his creative literary instincts began
to assert themselves. His apprenticeship in literature may be said to
have been served in the editing of an exceedingly clever family
magazine, called _The Earlsmead Chronicle_, which circulated in the
family and among friends.
His earliest printed effort appeared in 1875, in a little magazine for
young people, called _The Morning of Life_ (published in America by
Messrs. Thomas Nelson and Sons. It is, by the way, a noteworthy
coincidence that his first and last printed work should have been issued
by this house). His contribution to _The Morning of Life_ was an
account in two parts of a boating expedition on the Thames, entitled
"Camping Out." It has in it the promise of the freshness and vigour
that were in such abundant degree characteristic of all his later
descriptions of boy life.
It was in the pages of the _Boy's Own Paper_ that Reed found his
_metier_. Its editor writes: "From the very first number of the paper
Mr Reed has been so closely and continuously identified with it, that
his removal creates a void it will be impossible to fill." Any one
looking through the volumes of this most admirably-conducted boys' paper
will see that Talbot Reed's work is indeed the backbone of it. In
Number One, Volume One, the first article, "My First Football Match," is
by him; and during that year (1879) and the following years he wrote
vivid descriptions of cricket-matches, boat-races; "A Boating Adventure
at Parkhurst;" "The Troubles of a Dawdler;" and a series of papers on
"Boys in English History." There was also a series of clever sketches
of boy life, called "Boys we have Known," "The Sneak," "The Sulky Boy,"
"The Boy who is never Wrong," etcetera.
These short flights led the way, and prepared him for the longer and
stronger flights that were to follow. In 1880 his first boys' book
began to appear in the _Boy's Own Paper_, entitled "The Adventures of a
Three-Guinea Watch." Charlie Newcome, the youthful hero, is a charming
creation, tenderly and pathetically painted, and the story abounds in
thrilling incident, and in that freshness of humour which appears more
or less in all the Public School Stories. In the following year came a
story of much greater power, "The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's," by
many boys considered the best of all his stories. It deserves to take
its place on the shelf beside "Tom Brown's Schooldays." Indeed, a
youthful enthusiast who had been reading "The Fifth Form" and "Tom
Brown" about the same time, confided to me that while in the latter book
he had learned to know and love one fine type of boy, in the former he
learned to know and to love a whole school. The two brothers, Stephen
and Oliver Greenfield, and Wraysford, and Pembury, and Loman stand out
with strong personality and distinctness; and especially admirable is
the art with which is depicted the gradual decadence of character in
Loman, step by step, entangled in a maze of lies, and degraded by vice
until self-respect is nigh crushed out.
"The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's" was followed in 1882 by "My Friend
Smith;" in 1883 came "The Willoughby Captains" (by many considered his
best work); 1885 saw "Reginald Cruden;" and in the same year appeared
"Follow My Leader." This story--an excellent example of Reed's peculiar
power and originality in depicting school life--he wrote in three
months; a feat the full significance of which is best known to those who
were aware how full his mind and his hands were at that time of other
pressing work. Yet the book shows no marks of undue haste.
In 1886 came "A Dog with a Bad Name," followed in 1887 by "The Master of
the Shell." In 1889 Reed made a new and successful departure in "Sir
Ludar: A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess." Here he broke away
from school life, and carried his youthful readers back to the
Elizabethans and the glorious incident of the Armada. There is a fine
"go" and "swing" in the style of this story which recalls Kingsley to us
at his best.
Following hard on "Sir Ludar" came in the same year (1889) "Roger
Ingleton, Minor," a story dealing with young men rather than boys,
although Tom Oliphant, a delightful boy, and Jill Oliphant, his sister,
take their places among the most lovable of his youthful creations.
In "The Cock-house at Fellsgarth" (1891), and in "Dick, Tom, and Harry"
(1892), Reed returned to school life for the materials of his plots, and
in these fully maintained his reputation. In addition to these stories,
most of which have appeared, or are about to appear, in volume form, he
contributed many short stories and sketches to the Christmas and Summer
numbers of the _Boy's Own_. These are also, I am glad to learn, being
collected for publication in volume form.
In "Kilgorman," the last of the series of boys' books from his gifted
hand, as in "Sir Ludar," he displays a fine historic sense--a capacity
of living back to other times and picturing the people of another
generation. Much of the scene of "Kilgorman" and of "Sir Ludar" is laid
in Ireland--in the north and north-western corners of it--of all the
localities in the United Kingdom perhaps the dearest to Reed's heart.
To him, in more senses than one, Ireland was a land of romance. The
happiest associations of his life were there. There he wooed and won
his wife, the daughter of Mr Greer, M.P. for the County of Londonderry;
and he and she loved to return with ever new pleasure to inhale the pure
air of Castle-rock or Ballycastle, or to enjoy the quiet of a lonely
little resting-place in Donegal, on the banks of Lough Swilly, to
recuperate after a year's hard work in London. It was something to see
the sunshine on Reed's beautiful face when the time approached for his
visit to the "Emerald Isle." When he was sore stricken in the last
illness, he longed with a great longing to return, and did return, to
Ireland, hoping and believing that what English air had failed to do
might come to pass there. Three weeks before his death he writes to me
from Ballycastle, County Antrim: "I wish you could see this place to-day
bathed in sunlight, Rathlin Island in the offing, Fair Head with its
stately profile straight across the bay, and beyond, in blue and grey,
the lonely coast of Cantire, backed by Goatfell and the lovely hills of
Argyle." He loved Ireland.
But for himself and for his family there were in Ireland associations of
sadness that made the place sacred to him. His young and beloved
brother Kenneth, with a comrade and kinsman, W.J. Anderson, in 1879
started on a canoe trip in Ireland, intending to explore the whole
course of the Shannon and the Blackwater, together with the connecting
links of lake and sea. In a gale of wind on Lough Allen--known as the
"wicked Lough"--the canoes were both upset, and the two young men were
drowned.
The shock in the family circle can be imagined. It was the beginning of
many sorrows. Two years later, in 1881, Sir Charles Reed died; and in
1883 the family was again plunged into grief by the sad death of
Talbot's eldest brother ("my 'father confessor' in all times of
trouble," Talbot used to say of him), the Reverend Charles Edward Reed,
who was accidentally killed by a fall over a precipice while he was on a
walking expedition in Switzerland. Lady Reed, it may be here said, died
in June 1891.
While most people will think that Talbot Reed's boys' books are his best
bequest to literature, he considered them of less importance in the work
of his life than his book entitled "A History of the Old English Letter
Foundries; with Notes Historical and Bibliographical on the Rise and
Progress of English Typography" (Elliot Stock, 1887), the preparation of
which cost him ten years of research and labour. His boys' books were
the spontaneous utterance of his joyous nature, and their production he
regarded in the light of a recreation amid the more serious affairs of
life. He had an ambition, which the results of his labour fully
justified, to be regarded as an authority on Typography. I can remember
his amusement, and perhaps annoyance, when he had gone down to a
Yorkshire town to deliver a lecture on some typographical subject, to
find that the walls and hoardings of the town were decorated with
posters, announcing the lecture as by "Talbot B. Reed, author of 'A Dog
with a Bad Name!'"
But all scholars and book-lovers will regard this work of his on "The
History of the Old English Letter Foundries" as being of supreme value.
In it, as he himself says, he tells the story of the fifteenth century
heroes of the punch and matrix and mould, who made English printing an
art ere yet the tyranny of an age of machinery was established.
Whatever Talbot Reed's pen touched it adorned, and in the light of his
mind what seemed dry and dusty corners of literary history became alive
with living human interest.
Besides this great work, he edited the book left unfinished by his
friend Mr Blades, entitled "The Pentateuch of Printing," to which he
added a biographical memoir of Mr Blades.
All that related to the craft of printing was profoundly interesting to
Reed, whether viewed from the practical, or the historic, or the
artistic side. His types were to him no mere articles of commerce, they
were objects of beauty; to him the craft possessed the fascination of
having a great history, and the legitimate pride of having played a
great part in the world.
Reed delivered more than one admirable public lecture on subjects
related to the art of printing. One he delivered at the Society of
Arts, on "Fashions in Printing" (for which he received one of the
Society's silver medals), and another on "Baskerville," the interesting
type-founder and printer of Birmingham in the last century, to whom a
chapter of "The History" is devoted.
Only two years before his death Reed was one of a small band of book-
lovers who founded the Bibliographical Society, a body which aims at
making easier, by the organising of literature, the labours of literary
men, librarians, and students generally. From its start he undertook,
in the midst of many pressing personal duties, the arduous task of
honorary secretaryship of the young society--an office which he regarded
as one of great honour and usefulness, but which entailed upon him, at a
time when his health could ill bear the strain, hard organising and
clerical work, cheerfully undertaken, and continued until a few weeks
before his death. The first two published Parts of the Transactions of
the Bibliographical Society, edited by him, are models of what such work
ought to be.
Reed was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and for many years was
an active member of the Library Association. His own library of books
bearing on Typography, Bibliography, and many a kindred subject, the
harvest of many years' collecting, is unique. It was a pleasure to see
the expression of Reed's face when he came upon a new book really after
his mind, or, still better, an old book, "Anything fifteenth century or
early sixteenth," he used to say; any relic or scrap from Caxton's or De
Worde's Press; any specimen of a "truant type" on the page of an early
book; or a Caslon, or a Baskerville in good condition; or one of the
beauties from Mr Morris's modern Press. Charles Lamb himself could not
have looked more radiant or more happy in the sense of possession.
Reed laboured successfully also in another department of literature--in
journalism. For many years he wrote a non-political leading article
each week for the _Leeds Mercury_. His wide culture, his quiet humour,
and light, graceful touch, were qualities that gave to his journalistic
work far more than an ephemeral value. In politics Reed was a life-long
Liberal; he utterly disapproved, however, of Mr Gladstone's latter-day
policy in Ireland. Reed was a member of the Reform Club and of the
Savile Club.
In these notes I have written rather of Reed's work than of the man
himself. This is as he would have had it. There was in him a magnetic
charm that attracted all who came near him, and which bound his friends
to him as by "hooks of steel." Erect and manly in bearing, he stepped
along, never apparently in a hurry, never dawdling. One had only to
look in his beautiful face, the bright kind eyes, the high wide brow,
and to come under the spell of his winning smile, to obtain a glimpse of
the noble soul within.
A calm, strong nature his, facing the world, with all its contingencies,
bravely and with constant buoyant cheerfulness. He walked through life
with eyes and heart wide open to the joy of the world, brightening and
lightening it for others as he went. He was always ready to stretch out
a helping hand to the weak and falling ones who came across his path.
Never merely an optimist, he yet lived and died in the full, simple
faith that--
"God's in his heaven,
All's right with the world."
Socially, Reed was the life and soul of any party of friends. There
were certain American student-songs which he was wont to sing with a
quiet and inimitable drollery, very refreshing to hear, and which those
who heard them are not likely readily to forget. His love of music was
part of his nature. His reposeful, wooing touch on the piano or organ,
either when he was extemporising or when he interpreted one of the
masters, expressed the inner working of his own gentle spirit. Whether
in his own family, or among friends, or in the midst of his Foundry
workmen, he was universally beloved.
A true, loyal, and friendly spirit like his was sure to have "troops of
friends." To three friends in Highgate he wrote, during his last sad
visit to Ireland, the following beautiful letter. Mrs Reed was at the
moment detained in Highgate, nursing their eldest boy, who was ill.
"Westoncrofts, Ballymoney, _October 6, 1893_.
"Talbot, the exile, unto the faithful assembled at the hour of evening
service at H---; to H--- the beloved banker, and S--- our brother, and
H--- our joyous counsellor, and all and sundry, greeting: peace be with
you! Know, brethren, that I am with you in the spirit; neither is there
any chair in which I would not sit, nor pipe I would not smoke, nor
drink I would not drink, so as I might be one with you, and hear your
voices. In good sooth, I would travel far to catch the wisdom that
droppeth from the lips of H---, or sit among the philosophers with S---,
or laugh with the great laugh of H---. I would do all this, and more
also, could I make one with you around the familiar hearth.
"Yet know, brethren, that I shall come presently, and strictly demand an
account of what is said and done, what mighty problems are solved, what
joys are discovered, what tribulations are endured, in my absence.
"Meanwhile, I would have you to know that I am here, not without my
teachers, for I read daily in the great missal of Nature, writ by the
scribe Autumn in letters of crimson and gold; also in the trim pages of
the gathered fields, with borders of wood-cut; also in the ample folios
of ocean, with its wide margins of surf and sand. These be my masters,
set forth in a print not hard to read, yet not so easy, methinks, as the
faces of friends. Perchance when _she_ cometh, in whose light I
interpret many things, I shall have rest to learn more therefrom; for
now I am as a sail without wind, or a horn without his blower, or a
stone without his sling.
"Yet am I not here to no purpose. There is a certain coy nymph,
'Health' by name, who is reported in these parts--her I am charged to
seek. Where she hides 'twere hard to say; whether on the hill-side,
golden with bracken, or in the spray of the sea, or on the bluff
headland, or by the breezy links--in all these I seek her. Sometimes I
spy her afar off; but the wanton comes and goes. Yet I am persuaded I
shall presently find her, and bring her home rejoicing to them that sent
me.
"Finally, brethren, I pray you, have me often in your remembrance, and
report to me such things as concern our common welfare, for I desire
ardently to hear of you.
"Farewell, from one who loves you and counts himself your brother.
"T.B. Reed."
Alas! "the coy nymph, 'Health' by name," was never found. Within a week
or two of the despatch of this letter, he became so much worse that he
was advised by the Belfast doctors to return at once to London. He
suffered from a hopeless internal malady, which he bore with heroic
patience.
At Highgate, on 28th November 1893, he passed peacefully away.
It was given to him in his short life--for he condensed into the span of
forty-two years the literary labours of a long life--to materially add
by his charming boys' books to the happiness of the youth of his
generation. It was given to him also by his labour and research to make
a solid contribution to the learning of his time. He has enriched many
lives by his friendship, and by the example of his unceasing
thoughtfulness for the welfare of others. To all who had the
inestimable privilege of knowing Talbot Reed, there will be the
remembrance of a man "matchless for gentleness, honesty, and courage,"--
the very ideal of a chivalrous English gentleman.
John Sime.
Highgate, London, _February 1894_.