31-403: The Young Visiters or Mister Salteena's Plan is a 1919 novel by English writer Daisy Ashford (1881–1972). She wrote it in 1890 when she was nine years old and part of its appeal lies in its juvenile innocence, and its unconventional grammar and spelling. A great success, it sold around half a million copies during the twentieth century and has been adapted for film, television, and as both
62-589: A Young Girl by Alicen White , Martha D Coe and Peter Colonna, was written in 1960. Whilst it received the author’s blessing, they ultimately failed to find a producer. A musical by Michael Ashton and Ian Kellam based on the book was produced in 1968. A feature-length film was made in 1984 starring Tracey Ullman and John Standing . A television film version was made by the BBC in 2003 starring Jim Broadbent as Alfred Salteena, Lyndsey Marshal as Ethel Monticue and Hugh Laurie as Lord Bernard Clark. The screenplay
93-656: A flower-growing business near Norwich and later the King's Arms Hotel in Reepham for a year. Devlin died in 1956. She died on 15 January 1972 in Norwich , England, and was buried at Earlham Road Cemetery there. Edmund Wilson referred to the novel This Side of Paradise by his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald as "a classic in a class with The Young Visiters ", a way of deeming the style childish or naïve. Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972)
124-507: A play, A Woman's Crime ; and one other short novel, The Hangman's Daughter , which she considered to be her best work. Some stories written by Ashford are lost. She stopped writing during her teens. In 1896 the family moved to the Wallands area of Lewes, and in 1904 she moved with her family to Bexhill , and then to London where she worked as a secretary. She ran a canteen in Dover during
155-624: A rather naive style. Elizabeth MacKintosh writing as Josephine Tey mentions the book in her novel Miss Pym Disposes (1947) as a book "that makes everyone smile". Margaret MacMillan in her history of the Paris Peace Conference "Paris 1919; Six Months That Changed The World" mentions in passing (page 73) that "The Young Visiters", "a comic novel written by a child", was "the most popular book of 1919". Daisy Ashford Margaret Mary Julia Devlin (née Ashford ; 3 April 1881 – 15 January 1972), known as Daisy Ashford ,
186-479: A reception hosted by the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII ), introducing Salteena as Lord Hyssops. The Prince is impressed, and promises to assist the trembling and overjoyed Salteena. Bernard and Ethel fall in love and marry. Devastated by these events, Salteena marries a maid-in-waiting at Buckingham Palace. Lord Clincham also marries, but not very happily. Ashford wrote the novel in an exercise book at
217-659: A result of competitive militarization against the Soviet Union , the civil liberties of Americans were being paradoxically infringed under the guise of defense from Communism. For those reasons, Wilson also opposed involvement in the Vietnam War . Selected by John F. Kennedy to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom , Wilson, in absentia, was officially awarded the medal on December 6, 1963, by President Lyndon Johnson . However, Wilson's view of Johnson
248-407: A stage play and a musical. Alfred Salteena, an "elderly man of 42", has invited 17-year-old Ethel Monticue to stay with him. They receive an invitation to visit Alfred's friend, Bernard Clark, which they readily accept. Bernard is "inclined to be rich". Shortly after their arrival, Ethel and Bernard become attracted to each other. Alfred seeks Bernard's advice on how to become a gentleman . Bernard
279-543: Is also well known for his heavy criticism of J. R. R. Tolkien 's The Lord of the Rings , which he referred to as "juvenile trash", saying "Dr. Tolkien has little skill at narrative and no instinct for literary form." He had earlier dismissed the work of W. Somerset Maugham in vehement terms (without, as he later boasted, having troubled to read the novels generally regarded as Maugham's finest, Of Human Bondage , Cakes and Ale and The Razor's Edge ). In 1964, Wilson
310-575: Is doubtful that this can be managed, but writes an introduction to his friend the Earl of Clincham. Alfred excitedly rushes off to London to visit the Earl, leaving Ethel alone and unchaperoned with Bernard. Lord Clincham lives, as many other aristocrats do, in "compartements" at the Crystal Palace . He agrees to assist Alfred and instals him in a subterranean "compartement", along with other "apprentice gentlemen". He invites Alfred to accompany him to
341-661: The Coal War in Harlan County , with Mary Heaton Vorse and Malcolm Cowley he was run out of Kentucky by nightriders. In 1932, Wilson pledged his support to the Communist Party USA 's candidate for president, William Z. Foster , signing a manifesto in support of CPUSA policies; however, Wilson did not identify personally as a communist. In his book To the Finland Station (1940), Wilson traced
SECTION 10
#1732786566181372-658: The Dewey Commission that set out to fairly evaluate the charges that led to the exile of Leon Trotsky . He wrote plays, poems, and novels, but his greatest influence was literary criticism. Axel's Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870–1930 (1931) was a sweeping survey of Symbolism . It covered Arthur Rimbaud , Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (author of Axël ), W. B. Yeats , Paul Valéry , T. S. Eliot , Marcel Proust , James Joyce , and Gertrude Stein . In 1931, monitoring
403-660: The First World War . His family's summer home at Talcottville, New York , known as Edmund Wilson House , was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Wilson was the managing editor of Vanity Fair in 1920 and 1921, and later served as associate editor of The New Republic and as a book reviewer for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books . His works influenced novelists Upton Sinclair , John Dos Passos , Sinclair Lewis , Floyd Dell , and Theodore Dreiser . He served on
434-545: The First World War. When published in 1919, The Young Visiters was an immediate success, and several of her other stories were published in 1920. Ashford bought a farm on the proceeds of The Young Visiters and once observed, “I like fresh air — and royalties.” She did not write in later years, although in old age she did begin an autobiography which she later destroyed. In 1920, at the age of 38, Ashford married James Devlin with whom she had four children. They ran
465-632: The Iroquois (1960), and the American Civil War in Patriotic Gore (1962)." Wilson also authored a novel, I Thought of Daisy (1929) and a collection of short stories, Memoirs of Hecate County (1946). He was a friend of many notable figures, including F. Scott Fitzgerald , Ernest Hemingway , John Dos Passos and Vladimir Nabokov . His dream for a Library of America series of national classic works came to fruition through
496-778: The age of 44) from a heart attack in December 1940, Wilson edited two books by Fitzgerald ( The Last Tycoon and The Crack-Up ) for posthumous publication, donating his editorial services to help Fitzgerald's family. Wilson was also a friend of Nabokov, with whom he corresponded extensively and whose writing he introduced to Western audiences. However, their friendship was marred by Wilson's cool reaction to Nabokov's Lolita and irretrievably damaged by Wilson's public criticism of what he considered Nabokov's eccentric translation of Pushkin 's Eugene Onegin . Wilson had multiple marriages and affairs. He wrote many letters to Anaïs Nin , criticizing her for her surrealistic style, because it
527-500: The age of nine in 1890. Full of spelling mistakes, each chapter was written as a single paragraph. Many years later, in 1917 and aged 36, Ashford rediscovered her manuscript languishing in a drawer, and lent it to Margaret Mackenzie, a friend who was recovering from influenza. It passed through several other hands before it reached Frank Swinnerton , a novelist who was also a reader for the publishers Chatto and Windus . Largely due to Swinnerton's enthusiasm for this piece of juvenilia ,
558-730: The book was published almost exactly as it had been written. J. M. Barrie , the creator of Peter Pan , agreed to write a preface. The original manuscript of The Young Visiters is held in the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library . The book was so successful that it had been reprinted 19 times by 1936. After its publication, rumours soon started that the book was in fact an elaborate literary hoax and that it had been written by J. M. Barrie himself. These rumours persisted for years. A stage play of The Young Visiters by Mrs George Norman and Margaret Mackenzie
589-649: The course of European socialism, from the 1824 discovery by Jules Michelet of the ideas of Vico to the 1917 arrival of Vladimir Lenin at the Finland Station of Saint Petersburg to lead the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution . In an essay on the work of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft , "Tales of the Marvellous and the Ridiculous", Wilson condemned Lovecraft's tales as "hackwork". Wilson
620-465: The editor-in-chief of the school's literary magazine , The Record . From 1912 to 1916, he was educated at Princeton University , where his friends included F. Scott Fitzgerald and war poet John Allan Wyeth . Wilson began his professional writing career as a reporter for the New York Sun , and served in the army with Base Hospital 36 from Detroit, Michigan, and later as a translator during
651-691: The efforts of Jason Epstein after Wilson's death. He was a two-time winner of the National Book Award and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. He died in 1972 at age 77. Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey . His parents were Edmund Wilson Sr. , a lawyer who served as New Jersey Attorney General , and Helen Mather (née Kimball). Wilson attended The Hill School , a college preparatory boarding school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania , graduating in 1912. At Hill, Wilson served as
SECTION 20
#1732786566181682-492: The eldest of three daughters born to Emma Georgina Walker and William Henry Roxburgh Ashford. She was largely educated at home with her sisters Maria Veronica 'Vera' (born 1882) and Angela Mary 'Angie' (born 1884). At the age of four Daisy dictated her first story, The Life of Father McSwiney , to her father; it was published in 1983. From 1889 to 1896 she and her family lived at 44 St Anne's Crescent, Lewes , where she wrote The Young Visiters . She wrote several other stories;
713-583: Was also an outspoken critic of US Cold War policies. He refused to pay his federal income tax from 1946 to 1955 and was later investigated by the Internal Revenue Service . After a settlement, Wilson received a $ 25,000 fine, rather than the original $ 69,000 sought by the IRS. He received no jail time. In his book The Cold War and the Income Tax: A Protest (1963), Wilson argued that as
744-873: Was an American writer, literary critic and journalist. He is widely regarded as one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century. Wilson began his career as a journalist, writing for publications such as Vanity Fair and The New Yorker . He helped to edit The New Republic , served as chief book critic for The New Yorker , and was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books . His notable works include Axel's Castle (1931), described by Joyce Carol Oates as "a groundbreaking study of modern literature." Oates writes that Wilson "encroached fearlessly on areas reserved for academic 'experts': early Christianity in The Dead Sea Scrolls (1955), native American civilization in Apologies to
775-487: Was an English writer who is most famous for writing The Young Visiters , a novella concerning the upper class society of late 19th century England, when she was just nine years old. The novella was published in 1919, preserving her juvenile spelling and punctuation. She wrote the title as "Viseters" in her manuscript, but it was published as "Visiters". Daisy Ashford was born on 3 April 1881 in Petersham , Surrey,
806-668: Was awarded The Edward MacDowell Medal by The MacDowell Colony for outstanding contributions to American culture. Wilson lobbied for the creation of a series of classic U.S. literature similar to France's Bibliothèque de la Pléiade . In 1982, ten years after his death, The Library of America series was launched. Wilson's writing was included in the Library of America in two volumes published in 2007. Wilson's critical works helped foster public appreciation for several novelists: Ernest Hemingway , John Dos Passos , William Faulkner , F. Scott Fitzgerald , and Vladimir Nabokov . He
837-530: Was decidedly negative. Historian Eric F. Goldman writes in his memoir The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson that when Goldman, on behalf of Johnson, invited Wilson to read from his writings at a White House Festival of the Arts in 1965, "Wilson declined with a brusqueness that I never experienced before or after in the case of an invitation in the name of the President and First Lady." For the academic year 1964–65, he
868-569: Was first performed in London in 1920 and transferred shortly afterwards to New York. The New York production, at the Thirty-Ninth Street Theatre, received generally good reviews. One reviewer stated that The Young Visiters ... has been turned into a play by the simple use of a pair of shears and a pot of paste. Probably no novel was ever so reverently dramatized since the world began. A two-act musical comedy version, Quite
899-455: Was instrumental in establishing the modern evaluation of the works of Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling . Wilson was a friend of the novelist and playwright Susan Glaspell as well as the philosopher Isaiah Berlin . He attended Princeton with Fitzgerald, a year-and-a-half his junior. In 1936 in the "Crack-Up" essays , Fitzgerald referred to Wilson as his "intellectual conscience ... [f]or twenty years". After Fitzgerald's early death (at
930-418: Was opposed to the realism that was then deemed correct writing, and he ended by asking for her hand — "I would love to be married to you, and I would teach you to write" — which she took as an insult. Except for a brief falling-out following the publication of I Thought of Daisy , in which Wilson portrayed Edna St. Vincent Millay as Rita Cavanaugh, Wilson and Millay remained friends throughout life. Wilson
961-417: Was written by Patrick Barlow and it was directed by David Yates . Evelyn Waugh mentions the book in his novel A Handful of Dust (1934) as part of the childhood reading of his hero Tony Last. The critic Edmund Wilson referred to the novel This Side of Paradise (1920) by his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald as "a classic in a class with The Young Visiters ", meaning that Fitzgerald's book had