Robert Murray Gilchrist (6 January 1867 – 1917) was an English novelist and author of regional interest books about the Peak District. He is best known today for his decadent and Gothic short fiction.

Biography

Gilchrist was born in Sheffield, England, the second son of Robert Murray Gilchrist and Isabella. He never married. He was educated at the Sheffield Royal Grammar School and later privately. He worked briefly for noted editor William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus".-Life and career:...

 (1849–1903) at National Observer (UK)

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...

(formerly The Scots Observer). He lived for much of his life in the North Derbyshire Village of Holmesfield, living with his mother and a male companion at Cartledge Hall. From 1893-97, he lived in a remote part of the Peak Country and some sources say he lived a few months in Paris, France. He began his writing career in 1890 with the publication of his first novel, Passion the Plaything. He contributed short stories to many periodicals, including The Temple Bar, Home Chimes and Yellow Book

Yellow Book

The Yellow Book, published in London from 1894 to 1897 by Elkin Mathews and John Lane, later by John Lane alone, and edited by the American Henry Harland, was a quarterly literary periodical that lent its name to the "Yellow" 1890s....

. A productive writer, he published 22 novels, six short story collections, four regional interest books and one play (posthumously). During World War I, he was noted for his charitable assistance to Belgian refugees, many of whom attended his funeral in 1917.

Crichton Porteous, a distinguished Derbyshire novelist, wrote the following in a 1950s edition of Derbyshire Life Magazine:

"I gave a talk at Chesterfield Library on 'Some Derbyshire~ Authors.' One was Robert Murray Gilchrist, who lived for 24 years at Cartledge Hall, Holmesfield. I spoke rather strongly about how Gilchrist had been neglected, because although he wrote almost always about Derbyshire and Derbyshire folk, neither Derby nor Chesterfield libraries had more than half-a-dozen of the thirty-two books that he wrote. Nor indeed had Sheffield or Nottingham libraries. In fact, I said that there did not seem to be a single complete set of Gilchrist's books in existence in the county; and that it was a shame that it should be so.
After the talk several persons came to me, among them Mr. Norman Dixon, English master at Dronfield Grammar School, who surprisingly said that he believed that there was a complete set at the school. He promised to look them up and let me know, with the sequel that eventually I visited the school, and saw the books (many of them autographed) on one of the top
shelves in the library. I looked through them. while some members of the Senior Form did some geography prep., and a good deal of talking that had nothing to do with prep., but was very interesting. However, I did manage to concentrate on the books enough to be able to confirm that they are a complete set, probably the only complete Gilchrist that there is, though Derby County library is now busy collecting. .
Naturally, I was inquisitive to know how the Grammar School got these books, and Mr. Dixon introduced me to the Head, and thus I learned that the books had only been in the school a short time-not much over twelve month~s-although Gilchrist had died back in 1917. The books had been left. to the Grammar School by Gilchrist's last surviving sister, Isobel, who died only in 1947, Why had she left them that way? Because, so I learned, her brother had expressed a wish before his death that Dronfield Grammar School should have them. "And why had he done that"? I asked, knowing that he had been born at Heeley, Sheffield, and been educated at Sheffield Grammar School.
Now even Mr. Millican, the Headmaster, could not answer that 'query, but he gave orders for old records to be looked up, to see if Robert Murray Gilchrist was mentioned, and while the records were being searched he got on the telephone to friends who might know. It was somewhat like being in a detective office, ringing up here and there to try to find clues to this mystery.
And then Mr. Millican ran the' truth down: Robert Murray Gilchrist for several years, until he died, had been a Governor of Dronfield Grammar School. So naturally, he wanted the school to have his books.
I never knew Gilchrist, but he appears to have been a fine fellow. Mr. Eden Phillpotts; the Devonshire novelist, in a letter to me a short time back said that Gilchrist was one of the most generous men he ever knew. He was tall, broad, long-striding, a great walker, very fond of the open hills. and dales. He must also have had much determination, for when he' left school he was apprenticed to a Sheffield cutler, but as soon as he was twenty-one and able to please himself he.threw that work up and announced that he was going to make his living by writing and nothing else.
He left home and went to live at Highcliffe Nook, near Eyam. ~ The house: is. high on the hills and looks right over Eyam village, Middleton Dale, Stoney Middleton, and the dale at Calver leading to Chatsworth. And up there Gilchrist set himself to become' an author. It isn't an easy thing to do. There are always disappointments, and Gilchrist must have had lots. But he stuck at his job, and soon got a publisher to take a book. This was Passion the Plaything. I had not seen it when I spoke at Chesterfield, but Mr. Dixon lent it from the Dronfield collection, and I was surprised by how well it was written. Gilchrist must have worked hard to be able to write in that way when he was .only twenty-two.

Gilchrist was a student of Balzac, and also greatly admired Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

. Many of Gilchrist's own novels tell of queer mysteries. Not far past Highc1iffe Nook a high, open moor spreads away to Great Hucklow, and Gilchrist must often have wandered there, because bleak' moorlands like it are repeatedly being described in his books, and these moorland places suit his mysteries. But although as he got older he wrote only novels, they were not his finest books. His best tales were short ones, often with a lot of Derbyshire dialect in them, tales of country folk who lived in and around an imaginary village called Milton, which was much like Eyam.
If you want to see how to make rich little pictures of Derbyshire in few words, read some of the tales in A Peakland Faggot, Nicholas and Mary, Natives of Milton, or Good-bye to Market. Yet Gilchrist was more than a clever word-painter of scenes, for he had wide sympathy and was. very fond of fun. There is one tale of a man who was tricked into eating a pickled tree-lizard thinking it was veal; another about a dancing monkey named Lady Golightly; another pathetic little story of a "gaffer" who made a won~derful carved-wood model of "all Milton Dale and Village true to nayture" - in fact, Gilchrist had the happiest knack of using the simplest happenings.
It is usually said that Englishmen cannot write really short short-stories, as a number of Frenchmen and Americans have done, but Gilchrist could. Arnold Bennett, Hugh Walpole, and H. G. Wells all thought a lot of his work, and in any really representative collection of the world's best short stories usually there is one or more of Gilchrist's."

Literary Work

English novelist and regional writer, Robert Murray Gilchrist never achieved the recognition his colleagues and many critics thought he deserved. His friend, Eden Phillpotts

Eden Phillpotts

Eden Phillpotts was an English author, poet and dramatist. He was born in India, educated in Plymouth, Devon, and worked as an insurance officer for 10 years before studying for the stage and eventually becoming a writer....

 wrote that "no record or estimate of the conte in English letters can be
complete without study of his contributions thereto." He dedicated his story collection, The Striking Hours to Gilchrist calling him "the master of the short story." Gilchrist's first story collection failed to draw much attention, and while he occasionally published short stories all of his life, including one, "The Crimson Weaver" in the celebrated magazine, Yellow Book, the bulk of his output was his twenty-two novels, in addition to his six story collections, a play and four regional guide books. He was friends with many noted writers including Eden Phillpotts, William Sharp

William Sharp

William Sharp may refer to:*William Sharp , English engraver*William Sharp , English-born lithographer and painter; lived in Boston, Massachusetts...

 (Fiona MacLeod) and Hugh Walpole

Hugh Walpole

Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE was an English novelist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large...

. He worked for noted editor and writer, William Ernest Henley, and he corresponded with Larner Sugden, Kineton Parkes and occasionally H.G. Wells.

Like his better-known contemporary, Vernon Lee

Vernon Lee

Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget . She is remembered today primarily for her supernatural fiction and her work on aesthetics. An early follower of Walter Pater, she also wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music, and travel.-Biography:She was born at Château...

, Victorian writer Gilchrist’s modern revival started with less than two dozen strange tales. Virtually forgotten until horror anthologist Hugh Lamb reprinted his stories in the 1970s, his work fills unique gaps in the realm of fin-de-siècle Gothic fiction, a space inhabited by Stevenson, Wilde, Stoker, Vernon Lee, Arthur Machen

Arthur Machen

Arthur Machen was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror...

, Eric Stenbock

Eric Stenbock

Count Eric Stanislaus Stenbock was a Baltic German poet and writer of macabre fantastic fiction.-Life:Stenbock was the count of Bogesund and the heir to an estate near Kolga in Estonia...

 and Richard Marsh

Richard Marsh

Richard Marsh may refer to:* Richard Marsh , the pseudonym of author Richard Heldman* Richard Marsh, Bishop of Durham , Lord Chancellor of England and Bishop of Durham* Richard Marsh , British Touring Car Championship racer...

. It reframes traditional Gothic sensationalism and spatial with refinement, subtlety and. using the large body of existing Gothic criticism and text, his position in the fin-de-siecle world can be delineated and the high values of his original work can be made visible.

Gilchrist’s first story collection, The Stone Dragon and Other Tragic Romances (1894) failed to draw much attention, and while he occasionally published short stories all his life, the bulk of his output was a score of novels, two plays and two travel guide books. His modern revival began in the mid-1970s when Hugh Lamb started a crusade to renew interest in the Sheffield writer. Lamb successively published five of his Gothic tales in his series of Victorian horror anthologies, prefacing each with remarks that Gilchrist was unjustly ignored. In 1998, the Charon Press reprinted the rare story collection, The Stone Dragon, followed by the larger Ash Tree Press collection, The Basilisk and Other Tales of Dread in 2003. Brian Stableford

Brian Stableford

Brian Michael Stableford is a British science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published as by Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford...

 selected three of his tales for The Dedalus Book of Decadence: Moral Ruins (1992). In the early part of this century, two articles about Gilchrist appeared in All Hallows, the Canadian-based journal of the Ghost Story Society

Ghost Story Society

The Ghost Story Society is a not-for-profit literary society whose members share an interest in supernatural fiction. Founded in Britain in 1988, it currently has an international membership and is administered by joint organizers Christopher Roden and Barbara Roden, owners of Ash-Tree Press, with...

. His regional interest book, The Dukeries was reprinted in 2001 and 2009.

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