Henry Arthur Jones
Encyclopedia
Henry Arthur Jones was an English dramatist.
, Buckinghamshire
to Silvanus Jones, a farmer. He began to earn his living early, his spare time being given to literary pursuits. He was twenty-seven before his first piece, Only Round the Corner, was produced at the Exeter Theatre, but within four years of his debut as a dramatist he scored a great success with The Silver King
(November 1882), written with Henry Herman, a melodrama produced by Wilson Barrett
at the Princess's Theatre, London
. Its financial success enabled the author to write a play "to please himself."
Saints and Sinners (1884), which ran for two hundred nights, placed on the stage a picture of middle-class life and religion in a country town, and the introduction of the religious element raised considerable outcry. The author defended himself in an article published in the Nineteenth century (January 1885), taking for his starting-point a quotation from the preface to Molière
's Tartuffe
.
His next serious piece was The Middleman (1889), followed by Judah (1890), both powerful plays, which established his reputation.
A uniform edition of his plays began to be issued in 1891; and his views of dramatic art were expressed from time to time in lectures and essays, collected in 1895 as The Renaissance of the English Drama.
One such work was
My Dear Wells: a Manual for Haters of England (1921), a collection of open letters to H.G. Wells originally published in the New York Times. A sample of this work: "You unreservedly condemn and ridicule the cardinal Marxian doctrines. In this matter I congratulate you upon being in the company of thinkers of a higher cast than your usual associates and disciples. You tell us that although Marxian communism is stupidly, blindly wrong and mischievous, you have an admiration and friendship for the men who have imposed it upon the Russian people to the infinite misery and impoverishment of the land."
Wells repeatedly declined to respond, as in this letter to the New York Times, in 1921: "I do not believe that Mr. Jones has ever read a line that I have written. But he goes on unquenchably, a sort of endless hooting. I would as soon argue with some tiresome, remote and inattentive foghorn"; and later, in 1926, in the preface to Mr Belloc Objects: "For years I have failed to respond to Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, who long ago invented a set of opinions for me and invited me to defend them with an enviable persistence and vigour. Occasionally I may have corrected some too gross public mis-statement about me -- too often I fear with the acerbity of the inexperienced."
Another sample of Henry Arthur Jones political writing is his response to George Bernard Shaw
's anti-war manifesto Common Sense About the War: "The hag Sedition was your mother, and Perversity begot you. Mischief was your midwife and Misrule your nurse, and Unreason brought you up at her feet - no other ancestry and rearing had you, you freakish homunculus, germinated outside of lawful procreation."
"Puzzling Fiction of a Scattered Mind" by Angus Miquel Jenkins
"Henry Arthur Jones, Dramatist: Self-Revealed," an interview by Archibald Henderson, from the Autumn 1925 issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review
. "The first rule is not to write like Henry Arthur Jones; the second and third rules are the same."
Biography
Jones was born at GranboroughGranborough
Granborough is a village and civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located about five miles north of Waddesdon, seven miles south east of Buckingham. The nearest town is Winslow....
, Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
to Silvanus Jones, a farmer. He began to earn his living early, his spare time being given to literary pursuits. He was twenty-seven before his first piece, Only Round the Corner, was produced at the Exeter Theatre, but within four years of his debut as a dramatist he scored a great success with The Silver King
The Silver King (play)
The Silver King is an 1882 melodramatic play, by Henry Arthur Jones and Henry Herman....
(November 1882), written with Henry Herman, a melodrama produced by Wilson Barrett
Wilson Barrett
Wilson Barrett was an English manager, actor, and playwright.With his company, Barrett is credited with attracting the largest crowds of English theatregoers ever because of his success with melodrama, an instance being his production of The Silver King at the Princess's Theatre of London.The...
at the Princess's Theatre, London
Princess's Theatre, London
The Princess's Theatre or Princess Theatre was a theatre in Oxford Street, London. The building opened in 1828 as the "Queen's Bazaar" and housed a diorama by Clarkson Stanfield and David Roberts. It was converted into a theatre and opened in 1836 as the Princess's Theatre, named for then Princess...
. Its financial success enabled the author to write a play "to please himself."
Saints and Sinners (1884), which ran for two hundred nights, placed on the stage a picture of middle-class life and religion in a country town, and the introduction of the religious element raised considerable outcry. The author defended himself in an article published in the Nineteenth century (January 1885), taking for his starting-point a quotation from the preface to Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
's Tartuffe
Tartuffe
Tartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...
.
His next serious piece was The Middleman (1889), followed by Judah (1890), both powerful plays, which established his reputation.
Later plays
- The Dancing Girl (1891),
- The Crusaders (1891),
- The Bauble ShopThe Bauble ShopThe Bauble Shop is a play by Henry Arthur Jones. It is about modern London life. It opened at the Criterion Theatre in the West End in 1893. It was featured on Broadway in 1894 and starred Maude Adams.Act 1: At Lord Clivebrook's, St...
(1892?), - The Tempter (1893),
- The Masqueraders (1894),
- The Case of Rebellious Susan (1894, revived at the Orange Tree TheatreOrange Tree TheatreThe Orange Tree Theatre is a 172-seat theatre at 1 Clarence Street, Richmond in south west London, built specifically as a theatre in the round....
1994), - The Triumph of the Philistines (1895),
- Michael and his Lost Angel (1896),
- The Rogue's Comedy (1896),
- The Physician (1897),
- The LiarsThe Liars (play)The Liars is an English play by Henry Arthur Jones that was first performed in London in 1897.-Summary:Lady Jessica Nepean is fond of flirtation, not so much because she is dissatisfied with her husband, Gilbert, as because it flatters her vanity to keep other men dangling just on the edge of...
(1897), - Carnac Sahib (1899),
- The Manoeuvres of Jane (1899),
- The Lackeys' Carnival (1900),
- Mrs Dane's DefenceMrs Dane's DefenceMrs. Dane's Defence is a society play in four acts by the British playwright Henry Arthur Jones.-First Performance:...
(1900), - The Princess's Nose (1902),
- Chance the Idol (1902),
- Whitewashing Julia (1903),
- Joseph Entangled (1904),
- The Chevalier (1904)
- Mary Goes First (Playhouse, London 1913, New York 1914, revived at the Orange Tree Theatre 2008)
A uniform edition of his plays began to be issued in 1891; and his views of dramatic art were expressed from time to time in lectures and essays, collected in 1895 as The Renaissance of the English Drama.
Political Writings
Later in his life Henry Arthur Jones wrote a series of non-fiction articles "arguing from the right against H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw".One such work was
My Dear Wells: a Manual for Haters of England (1921), a collection of open letters to H.G. Wells originally published in the New York Times. A sample of this work: "You unreservedly condemn and ridicule the cardinal Marxian doctrines. In this matter I congratulate you upon being in the company of thinkers of a higher cast than your usual associates and disciples. You tell us that although Marxian communism is stupidly, blindly wrong and mischievous, you have an admiration and friendship for the men who have imposed it upon the Russian people to the infinite misery and impoverishment of the land."
Wells repeatedly declined to respond, as in this letter to the New York Times, in 1921: "I do not believe that Mr. Jones has ever read a line that I have written. But he goes on unquenchably, a sort of endless hooting. I would as soon argue with some tiresome, remote and inattentive foghorn"; and later, in 1926, in the preface to Mr Belloc Objects: "For years I have failed to respond to Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, who long ago invented a set of opinions for me and invited me to defend them with an enviable persistence and vigour. Occasionally I may have corrected some too gross public mis-statement about me -- too often I fear with the acerbity of the inexperienced."
Another sample of Henry Arthur Jones political writing is his response to George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's anti-war manifesto Common Sense About the War: "The hag Sedition was your mother, and Perversity begot you. Mischief was your midwife and Misrule your nurse, and Unreason brought you up at her feet - no other ancestry and rearing had you, you freakish homunculus, germinated outside of lawful procreation."
Further reading
"Taking The Curtain Call: The Life and Letters of Henry Arthur Jones" by Doris Arthur Jones"Puzzling Fiction of a Scattered Mind" by Angus Miquel Jenkins
"Henry Arthur Jones, Dramatist: Self-Revealed," an interview by Archibald Henderson, from the Autumn 1925 issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review
Trivia
"There are three rules for writing plays," said Oscar WildeOscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
. "The first rule is not to write like Henry Arthur Jones; the second and third rules are the same."