The Four Feathers

The Four Feathers is a 1902 adventure novel by British writer A. E.

W. Mason that has inspired many films of the same title. In December The Four Feathers
1901, Cornhill Magazine announced the title as one of two new serial
stories to be published in the forthcoming year.[1] Against the
background of the Mahdist War, young Feversham disgraces himself
by quitting the army, which others perceive as cowardice, symbolized
by the four white feathers they give him. He redeems himself with
acts of great courage and wins back the heart of the woman he
loves.[2]

Contents
Plot summary
Film, TV and theatrical adaptations
References
External links

Plot summary
Front cover of the first edition (UK)
The novel tells the story of a British officer, Harry Feversham, who Author A. E. W. Mason
resigns from his commission in the Royal North Surrey Regiment just
Language English
before Lord Wolseley's 1882 expedition to Egypt to suppress the
rising of Colonel Ahmed Orabi. He is censured for cowardice by Publisher Macmillan
three of his comrades—Captain Trench and Lieutenants Castleton and Publication 1902
Willoughby—signified by their delivery of three white feathers to date
him. His fiancée, Ethne Eustace, breaks off their engagement and also
OCLC 848975 (https://www.
gives him a white feather. His best friend in the regiment, Captain
worldcat.org/oclc/848
Durrance, becomes a rival for Ethne.
975)
Harry talks with Lieutenant Sutch, a friend of his late father who is an
imposing retired general. He questions his own motives, but says he will redeem himself by acts that will
convince his critics to take back the feathers. He travels on his own to Egypt and Sudan, where in 1882
Muhammad Ahmed proclaimed himself the Mahdi (Guided One) and raised a Holy War. On 26 January 1885,
his Dervish forces captured Khartoum and killed its British governor, General Charles George Gordon. Most
of the action over the next six years takes place in the eastern Sudan, where the British and Egyptians held
Suakin. Durrance is blinded by sunstroke and invalided. Castleton is reportedly killed at Tamai, where a
British square is briefly broken by a Mahdi attack.

Harry's first success comes when he recovers lost letters of Gordon. He is aided by a Sudanese Arab, Abou
Fatma. Later, disguised as a mad Greek musician, Harry gets imprisoned in Omdurman, where he rescues
Captain Trench, who had been captured on a reconnaissance mission. They escape.
Learning of his actions, Willoughby and Trench give Ethne the feathers they had taken back from Harry. He
returns to England, and sees Ethne for what he thinks is one last time, as she has decided to devote herself to
the blind Durrance. But Durrance tells her his blindness is curable (a white lie) and frees her for Harry. Ethne
and Harry wed, and Durrance travels to "the East" as a civilian.

Film, TV and theatrical adaptations

This novel's story has been adapted as films several times, with all films retaining much of the same
storyline.[3]

In the 1929 silent version, a square of Highlanders is broken, but saved by Feversham and the Egyptian
garrison of a besieged fort. Set in the 1880s, its great moment comes when wild hippos in a river attack the
Dervishes pursuing Feversham.

The films each feature a British square broken in a dramatic battle sequence. This is only mentioned in the
novel, in a battle in which the square recovered. The various film versions differ in the precise historical
context.

The 2002 version starring Heath Ledger is set during the 1884–85 campaign. The British infantry square was
broken in the battle of Abu Klea and the British are forced to retreat. Critics complained that the film did not
explore the characters sufficiently, and had historical inaccuracies in uniform dress. The central battle is more
accurately treated in the film Khartoum (1966). The enemy forces, Islamic rebels called Dervishes, or The
Mahdi, are the same, as are the geographic settings of Britain, Egypt and the Sudan.

The various film versions are as follows:

Year Title Country Director Notes
1915 Four Feathers USA J. Searle Dawley Black-and-white, silent
The Four Roger Livesey appeared in a minor role. Black-and-
1921 UK René Plaissetty
Feathers white, silent.
Merian C. Cooper
The Four Lothar Mendes Richard Arlen, Fay Wray, Clive Brook. Black-and-white,
1929 US
Feathers Ernest B. silent.
Schoedsack
Starring Ralph Richardson, John Clements, C. Aubrey
The Four Smith, June Duprez. Considered by many to be the
1939 UK Zoltan Korda
Feathers best of the film versions,[4][5][6] this was lavishly filmed
in colour in many of the real African locations.
Starring Anthony Steel, James Robertson Justice, Ian
Carmichael, Ronald Lewis, Michael Hordern. A low-
budget remake in cinemascope, using much of the
Storm Over Terence Young,
1955 UK location footage shot for the 1939 version of The Four
the Nile Zoltan Korda
Feathers, and exactly the same script – one of the few
instances in which this was done (see Shot-for-shot for
other examples).
Starring Robert Powell, Simon Ward, Beau Bridges and
Jane Seymour. Completely remade for a new
generation (though several scenes have been inserted
from the 1939 version (e.g. the troops boarding the
The Four train in London, a panorama featuring dhows on the
1978 UK Don Sharp
Feathers Nile, the British Army on parade) with a great deal of
skill. The integration of these excerpts is far from
obvious to those who have not seen the 1939 version).
The classic tale retains its imperial stiff upper lip and
Boys Own style of adventure heroics.
Starring Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley, and Kate Hudson.
Made by an Indian director, this version takes a
revisionist stance on the original novel's themes of
masculinity, empire and the clash of Western and
The Four Islamic civilisations. Unlike earlier versions, this one
2002 US Shekhar Kapur
Feathers bases its big battle scene on the 1885 Battle of Abu
Klea (thirteen years before Omdurman). The British
soldiers also wear their iconic scarlet tunics when they
had already changed to wearing khaki. The film depicts
a British loss at Abu Klea, instead of a victory.

References
1. Classified Ad 5, The Observer; 22 December 1901
2. Books & Bookmen, The Manchester Guardian; 2 April 1914
3. John C. Tibbetts, and James M. Welsh, eds. The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film (2nd ed.
2005) pp 136–159.
4. Michael Sragow (11 October 2011). "The Four Feathers: Breaking the British Square" (http://w
ww.criterion.com/current/posts/2013-the-four-feathers-breaking-the-british-square). The
Criterion Collection. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
5. Dennis Schwartz (2 November 2011). "Four Feathers, The" (http://homepages.sover.net/~ozus/
fourfeathers1939.htm). Retrieved 5 September 2013.
6. "The Four Feathers" (http://www.timeout.com/london/film/the-four-feathers-1939). Time Out.
Retrieved 5 September 2013.
External links
The Four Feathers (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18883) at Project Gutenberg
The Four Feathers (https://librivox.org/search?title=The+Four+Feathers&author=MASON&re
ader=&keywords=&genre_id=0&status=all&project_type=either&recorded_language=&sort_or
der=catalog_date&search_page=1&search_form=advanced) public domain audiobook at
LibriVox
The Four Feathers (https://archive.org/details/fourfeathers00masouoft)—1903 edition at Internet
Archive (https://archive.org/details/texts)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Four_Feathers&oldid=996467201"

This page was last edited on 26 December 2020, at 19:56 (UTC).

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this
site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.