Henry Brereton Marriott Watson
Encyclopedia
Henry Brereton Marriott Watson (20 December 1863 – 30 October 1921), known by his pen name
H.B. Marriott Watson, was an Australian-born British novelist, journalist, playwright, and short-story writer. He worked for the St. James Gazette, was assistant editor of the Black and White and Pall Mall Gazette
, and staff member on W.E. Henley's National Observer
.
Marriott Watson was a popular author during his lifetime, best known for his swashbuckling, historical
and romance fiction
, and had over forty novels published between 1888 and 1919; these included seventeen short story collections and one collection of essays. He was a longtime resident of New Zealand
, living there from 1872 to 1885, and often used his childhood home as the setting for many of his novels.
He and his common law wife
, English poet Rosamund Marriott Watson
, were well-known in Britain's literary circles and were associated with many fellow writers of the period including J.M. Barrie, Stephen Crane
, Thomas Hardy
, Henry James
and H.G. Wells among others. Their first and only son, Richard Marriott Watson, was also a noted poet and one of many sons of literary figures killed during the First World War.
Although now largely forgotten, Marriott Watson was also one of the most prolific Gothic horror writers of the Victorian era
. His vampire novel
The Stone Chamber (1898) was published only a year after Bram Stoker
's Dracula
and many other stories were published in various books of short stores such as Diogenes of London (1893) and The Heart of Miranda (1898).
, Melbourne
, Australia
to Henry Crocker Watson and Annie McDonald Wright. His father was an Anglican priest and spent nine years traveling with him as he took up various ministries throughout Victoria
. He and his family moved to New Zealand
in 1872 when his father accepted a position at St John's in Christchurch
. Marriott Watson spent much of his childhood there and would later use it as a setting for many of his novels.
Educated at Christ Church Grammar School
and Canterbury College
, Marriott Watson left for England in 1885 to become a journalist. He later worked for the St. James Gazette, was an assistant editor for both the Black and White and the Pall Mall Gazette
and was a staff member of the National Observer
under W.E. Henley. It was while working for the National Observer that Marriott introduced Henley to H.G. Wells. While an editor, he gained a considerable number of publishing and literary contacts. A member of the Savile Club
, he was invited by fellow editor Frank Harris
to meet with members of The Saturday Review
such as Mrs. Roy Devereux, Harold Frederic
and Bernard Shaw
when they had their weekly lunch meetings at the famed Cafe Royal
e. The publication was one of the first to review his first novel, Marahuna (1888), which helped to encourage his career as a professional writer. He also co-wrote a stage production of Richard Savage
with J. M. Barrie
which premiered at London's Criterion Theatre
in 1891.
In 1894, the English poet Rosamund Tomson
left her husband, artist Arthur Graham Tomson, and eloped with Marriott Watson; their first and only son Richard was born on 6 October 1895. This resulted in a scandal, one which included the sudden changing of her established pen name from Graham R. Tomson to Rosamund Marriott Watson to honor her third husband, and cancelling a then forthcoming volume of poems. Her career subsequently suffered as many publishers avoided working with her in future. Rosamund and Arthur Tomson officially divorced two years later and for the rest of her life she remained with Marriott Watson as his common law wife
.
Marriott Watson continued writing novels throughout the 1890s. Many of these were swashbuckling, historical
and romance fiction
, however he also tried his hand at writing supernatural
and Gothic horror stories during this period. They were published in the form of short stories and published in Diogenes of London (1893) and The Heart of Miranda (1898), however one of his most memorable was the vampire story
The Stone Chamber published only a year after Bram Stoker
's Dracula
.
After the death of writer Stephen Crane
in 1900, his companion Cora
asked that Marriott Watson complete his unfinished novel The O'Ruddy, but he declined the offer. He had been a longtime friend and collaborator with Crane, having been the first to review his novel The Red Badge of Courage
five years before with what was considered to have been one of the earliest and most influential of its English reviews. Marriott Watson had also made a cryptographic contribution to Crane's story The Ghost (1899), and the character of Miranda was partially influenced by Marriott Watson's own Heart of Miranda.
When Rosamund died in 1911, Marriott Watson tried to keep her work alive in the literary world; his novel Rosalind in Arden (1913) contained many references to her poetry. He also published an account of alleged contact with her, via a seance
with a medium
, and later converted to spiritualism
. Their only son Richard, an officer serving with the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles
, was killed on 24 March 1918, during the retreat from St. Quentin. He reportedly never recovered from the loss, becoming a heavy drinker
in his final years, and died from cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 57.
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
H.B. Marriott Watson, was an Australian-born British novelist, journalist, playwright, and short-story writer. He worked for the St. James Gazette, was assistant editor of the Black and White and Pall Mall Gazette
Pall Mall Gazette
The Pall Mall Gazette was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood...
, and staff member on W.E. Henley's National Observer
National Observer (UK)
The National Observer was a British newspaper published from 1888-1897.The publication began as the Scots Observer, until its location was moved from Edinburgh to London in 1889, after which it was renamed the National Observer. The paper was considered conservative in its political outlook. One of...
.
Marriott Watson was a popular author during his lifetime, best known for his swashbuckling, historical
Historical fiction
Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...
and romance fiction
Romance novel
The romance novel is a literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. Novels in this genre place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Through the late...
, and had over forty novels published between 1888 and 1919; these included seventeen short story collections and one collection of essays. He was a longtime resident of New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, living there from 1872 to 1885, and often used his childhood home as the setting for many of his novels.
He and his common law wife
Common Law Wife
"Common Law Wife" is a song by the funk band Parliament. Recorded in 1972, it was released as a bonus track on the 2003 reissue of the album Chocolate City...
, English poet Rosamund Marriott Watson
Rosamund Marriott Watson
Rosamund Marriott Watson was a Victorian poet and critic who wrote under the pseudonym of Graham R. Tomson. Her poems, which presaged modernism, are informed by aestheticism and occasionally avant-garde sensibilities. Watson's personal life was fraught with scandal, she left first husband George...
, were well-known in Britain's literary circles and were associated with many fellow writers of the period including J.M. Barrie, Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism...
, Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
, Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
and H.G. Wells among others. Their first and only son, Richard Marriott Watson, was also a noted poet and one of many sons of literary figures killed during the First World War.
Although now largely forgotten, Marriott Watson was also one of the most prolific Gothic horror writers of the Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
. His vampire novel
Vampire fiction
Vampire literature covers the spectrum of literary work concerned principally with the subject of vampires. The literary vampire first appeared in 18th century poetry, before becoming one of the stock figures of gothic fiction with the publication of Polidori's The Vampyre , which was inspired by...
The Stone Chamber (1898) was published only a year after Bram Stoker
Bram Stoker
Abraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula...
's Dracula
Dracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
and many other stories were published in various books of short stores such as Diogenes of London (1893) and The Heart of Miranda (1898).
Biography
Henry Brereton Marriott Watson was born in CaulfieldCaulfield, Victoria
Caulfield is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 12 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Glen Eira...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
to Henry Crocker Watson and Annie McDonald Wright. His father was an Anglican priest and spent nine years traveling with him as he took up various ministries throughout Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
. He and his family moved to New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
in 1872 when his father accepted a position at St John's in Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...
. Marriott Watson spent much of his childhood there and would later use it as a setting for many of his novels.
Educated at Christ Church Grammar School
Christ Church Grammar School
Christ Church Grammar School is an independent, Anglican day and boarding school for boys from Pre-Primary to Year 12. Located in Perth, Western Australia, the school overlooks the Swan River at Freshwater Bay in Claremont....
and Canterbury College
Canterbury College
Canterbury College can mean any one of a number of educational institutions:*Canterbury College, Oxford, a former college of the University of Oxford*University of Canterbury, formerly known as Canterbury College, in New Zealand...
, Marriott Watson left for England in 1885 to become a journalist. He later worked for the St. James Gazette, was an assistant editor for both the Black and White and the Pall Mall Gazette
Pall Mall Gazette
The Pall Mall Gazette was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood...
and was a staff member of the National Observer
National Observer (UK)
The National Observer was a British newspaper published from 1888-1897.The publication began as the Scots Observer, until its location was moved from Edinburgh to London in 1889, after which it was renamed the National Observer. The paper was considered conservative in its political outlook. One of...
under W.E. Henley. It was while working for the National Observer that Marriott introduced Henley to H.G. Wells. While an editor, he gained a considerable number of publishing and literary contacts. A member of the Savile Club
Savile Club
The Savile Club was founded in 1868 for the purpose of conversation and good company. Though located somewhat out of the way from the main centre of London's gentlemen's clubs, closer to the residences of Mayfair than the clubs of Pall Mall and St James's Street, it still contained some prominent...
, he was invited by fellow editor Frank Harris
Frank Harris
Frank Harris was a Irish-born, naturalized-American author, editor, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day...
to meet with members of The Saturday Review
Saturday Review (London)
The Saturday Review of politics, literature, science, and art was a London weekly newspaper established by A. J. B. Beresford Hope in 1855....
such as Mrs. Roy Devereux, Harold Frederic
Harold Frederic
Harold Frederic was an American journalist and novelist.-Biography:...
and 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...
when they had their weekly lunch meetings at the famed Cafe Royal
Café Royal
The Café Royal was a restaurant and meeting place on 68 Regent Street in London's Piccadilly.-History:The establishment was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with...
e. The publication was one of the first to review his first novel, Marahuna (1888), which helped to encourage his career as a professional writer. He also co-wrote a stage production of Richard Savage
Richard Savage
Richard Savage was an English poet. He is best known as the subject of Samuel Johnson's Life of Savage , on which is based one of the most elaborate of Johnson's Lives of the English Poets....
with J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
which premiered at London's Criterion Theatre
Criterion Theatre
The Criterion Theatre is a West End theatre situated on Piccadilly Circus in the City of Westminster, and is a Grade II* listed building. It has an official capacity of 588.-Building the theatre:...
in 1891.
In 1894, the English poet Rosamund Tomson
Rosamund Marriott Watson
Rosamund Marriott Watson was a Victorian poet and critic who wrote under the pseudonym of Graham R. Tomson. Her poems, which presaged modernism, are informed by aestheticism and occasionally avant-garde sensibilities. Watson's personal life was fraught with scandal, she left first husband George...
left her husband, artist Arthur Graham Tomson, and eloped with Marriott Watson; their first and only son Richard was born on 6 October 1895. This resulted in a scandal, one which included the sudden changing of her established pen name from Graham R. Tomson to Rosamund Marriott Watson to honor her third husband, and cancelling a then forthcoming volume of poems. Her career subsequently suffered as many publishers avoided working with her in future. Rosamund and Arthur Tomson officially divorced two years later and for the rest of her life she remained with Marriott Watson as his common law wife
Common Law Wife
"Common Law Wife" is a song by the funk band Parliament. Recorded in 1972, it was released as a bonus track on the 2003 reissue of the album Chocolate City...
.
Marriott Watson continued writing novels throughout the 1890s. Many of these were swashbuckling, historical
Historical fiction
Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...
and romance fiction
Romance novel
The romance novel is a literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. Novels in this genre place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Through the late...
, however he also tried his hand at writing supernatural
Supernatural fiction
Supernatural fiction is a literary genre exploiting or requiring as plot devices or themes some contradictions of the commonplace natural world and materialist assumptions about it....
and Gothic horror stories during this period. They were published in the form of short stories and published in Diogenes of London (1893) and The Heart of Miranda (1898), however one of his most memorable was the vampire story
Vampire fiction
Vampire literature covers the spectrum of literary work concerned principally with the subject of vampires. The literary vampire first appeared in 18th century poetry, before becoming one of the stock figures of gothic fiction with the publication of Polidori's The Vampyre , which was inspired by...
The Stone Chamber published only a year after Bram Stoker
Bram Stoker
Abraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula...
's Dracula
Dracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
.
After the death of writer Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism...
in 1900, his companion Cora
Cora Crane
Cora Crane was an American writer, journalist and brothel owner. She was married to Captain Donald William Stewart, one of the key figures in the War of the Golden Stool between the British and the Ashanti, but she is best known as the common-law wife of writer Stephen Crane until his death in...
asked that Marriott Watson complete his unfinished novel The O'Ruddy, but he declined the offer. He had been a longtime friend and collaborator with Crane, having been the first to review his novel The Red Badge of Courage
The Red Badge of Courage
The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel by American author Stephen Crane . Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound—a "red badge of courage"—to...
five years before with what was considered to have been one of the earliest and most influential of its English reviews. Marriott Watson had also made a cryptographic contribution to Crane's story The Ghost (1899), and the character of Miranda was partially influenced by Marriott Watson's own Heart of Miranda.
When Rosamund died in 1911, Marriott Watson tried to keep her work alive in the literary world; his novel Rosalind in Arden (1913) contained many references to her poetry. He also published an account of alleged contact with her, via a seance
Séance
A séance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat," "session" or "sitting," from the Old French "seoir," "to sit." In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma"...
with a medium
Mediumship
Mediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...
, and later converted to spiritualism
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...
. Their only son Richard, an officer serving with the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles
Royal Ulster Rifles
The Royal Ulster Rifles was a British Army infantry regiment. It saw service in the Second Boer War, Great War, the Second World War and the Korean War, before being amalgamated into the Royal Irish Rangers in 1968.-History:...
, was killed on 24 March 1918, during the retreat from St. Quentin. He reportedly never recovered from the loss, becoming a heavy drinker
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
in his final years, and died from cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 57.
External links
- Works by Henry Brereton Marriott Watson at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(scanned books) - Henry Brereton Marriott Watson (H.B. Marriott Watson) by Reg Watson
- HB Marriott-Watson at FantasticFiction.co.uk
- H.B. Marriott-Watson at The Supernatural Fiction Database
- H.B. Marriott-Watson at The Literary Gothic