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The Making of Barbara
Pym
Oxford, the War Years,
and Post-war Austerity
Emily Stockard
The Making of Barbara Pym
 Emily Stockard

The Making
of Barbara Pym
Oxford, the War Years, and Post-war Austerity
Emily Stockard
Department of English
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, FL, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-83867-6    ISBN 978-3-030-83868-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83868-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
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Dedicated to John and Atticus
 Acknowledgments

More than twenty years have passed since I read my first Barbara Pym
novel, a secondhand copy of A Glass of Blessings, at the suggestion of Don
Adams, then a new friend and colleague in the Department of English at
Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Thence followed more years of reading
and rereading, with increasing avidity, all of Pym’s published works, her
diaries and letters in A Very Private Eye, and Hazel Holt’s biography, A Lot
to Ask. When my husband suggested that, given my accumulated knowl-
edge and unstinting interest, I should write a book on Pym, such a thing
seemed far-fetched. Yet it immediately began taking shape in my head, and
I found myself working out passages during long walks. As I very gradu-
ally began to write, hardly believing that I would ever finish, I joined the
Barbara Pym Society and was invited to present my work to an audience
with whom I felt an immediate kinship. There I found others who, like
me, found in Pym an ongoing source of nourishment. Although they did
not know it, members of the Society, with their welcome, gave me encour-
agement and support to keep writing. As I did so, the natural next step
was archival work. Researchers among the Pym Society members provided
examples for such an undertaking, and the FAU Department of English
and the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters provided the
funds for me to spend time in the archives, during what would be the most
enjoyable aspect of this process. Like clockwork, the Bodleian librarians in
the Weston Reading Rooms exchanged my green request slips for boxes
full of manuscripts, diaries, journals, notebooks, and letters, and even
insisted on tracking down an elusive manuscript finally found awaiting
repair to its disintegrating spine. The final stretch to the completion of my

vii
viii Acknowledgments

book took place during a sabbatical (courtesy of my Department and

College) that coincided with the onset of the global pandemic. During the
months of seclusion that followed, it was the scrupulous and tireless edito-
rial work of my husband, John Leeds, and his insistence that I never flag
or lose heart that pushed me over the finish line. This book would not
exist otherwise. My final thanks go to Hazel Holt, for granting us all
access to more of Pym’s writing than we would otherwise have, and to
Tom Holt for kindly granting me, in particular, access to and permission
to publish findings from Pym’s archives. My final acknowledgment goes to
the example provided by Barbara Pym, whose perseverance in writing her
novels was so often an act of faith.

Some material from Chapters 5 and 6 appeared originally in Stockard, Emily. 2019.
“The Austere Comforts of Barbara Pym.” Essays in Criticism (69)2: 203–223.
 Contents

1 Introduction  1

2 Elements of Continuity: Youth and the Oxford Years 15

3 The War Years: Surprising Continuities 71

4 Crampton Hodnet: The Continuous Cycle119

5 Some Tame Gazelle: Continuity and Contentment143

6 Excellent Women: A Continuous Role165

7 Jane and Prudence: The End of Austerity199

Afterword221

Index225

ix
 About the Author

Emily Stockard is Associate Professor of English at Florida Atlantic

University, where she teaches primarily on the Davie Campus. Subsequent
to taking her BA, MA, and PhD from the University of North Carolina-­
Chapel Hill, she has taught classes in British literature, from Chaucer to
the eighteenth century. She has published on the poetry and drama of
Shakespeare and other writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
her area of specialization. Most recently she has published essays on the
mid-century British novelist and journal writer Denton Welch, and on
Barbara Pym.

xi
 Abbreviations

In chapters devoted to analysis of a specific novel, I will supply only parenthetical

page numbers when quoting the novel in question; I will not supply abbreviations
of that novel’s title. Otherwise, as necessary, I will cite page numbers and titles of
Pym’s works using abbreviations as indicated in the list below.
All cited pages numbers are keyed to the texts of Pym’s novels published by
E. P. Dutton:

CH Crampton Hodnet
EW Excellent Women
GF Gervase and Flora
HFN Home Front Novel
JP Jane and Prudence
LTA Less Than Angels
SDD The Sweet Dove Died
STG Some Tame Gazelle
SVS So Very Secret

All parenthetical citations of manuscripts from the Catalogue of the papers of

Barbara Mary Crampton Pym, held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, will be indi-
cated by the abbreviation “MS Pym,” followed by the manuscript number (shelf
mark) and relevant page numbers assigned by the Bodleian, including indications
“r” for recto (right side of page), “v” for verso (reverse of page), or “fol.” for folio.

xiii
 Chronology

1913: June 2 born in Oswestry, Shropshire

1925 student at Liverpool College, Huyton (age 12)
1929 reads Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
1929: August begins novel “Young Men in Fancy Dress” (finishes
April 1930)
1931 enters St. Hilda’s College, Oxford (age 18)
1932: January begins Oxford diaries
1932: April meets Rupert Gleadow
1933: January first sees Henry Harvey and begins “Lorenzo” saga
1933: May 10 first evening with Harvey, at the Trout in Oxford
1934: January begins visits to Harvey and Robert Liddell at their Banbury
Road flat
1934: April meets Friedbert Gluck in Cologne
1934: June/July graduates from Oxford with a second-class degree (age 21)
1934: July begins Some Tame Gazelle
1935: December Chatto & Windus rejects Some Tame Gazelle
1936: January Gollancz rejects Some Tame Gazelle
1936: May starts a new novel (probably “Adam and Cassandra,” edited
by Hazel Holt for posthumous publication as Civil to
Strangers in 1987)
1936: September Cape rejects Some Tame Gazelle
1937: December meets Julian Amery in Oxford; Harvey marries Elsie
Godenhjelm; begins Gervase and Flora (edited by Hazel
Holt for posthumous publication in 1987)
1938: March with Amery in Oxford; he leaves for Spain; begins writing
“The Lumber Room”
1938: May/June in Dresden and Prague with Gluck (last meeting)

xv
xvi Chronology

1938: August in Katowice, Poland, as tutor for the Dr. Michal

Alberg family
1938: September returns from Poland
1938: October in London with sister Hilary, writing a novel
(probably “The Lumber Room”); meets
Jonathan Cape (age 25)
1939: July 4 visits the Amerys’ house in Eaton Square and
meets Mrs. Amery
1939: August moves back to Oswestry to assist with wartime
preparations
1939: September 3 Chamberlain’s declaration of war
1939: October begins Home Front Novel (edited by Hazel Holt
for posthumous publication in 1987); writes
“Goodbye Balkan Capital” (published
posthumously in 1987)
1940 does home front volunteer work with the ARP
(Air Raid Precautions) and at Park Hall, a
military training camp
1940: April prepares second draft of Crampton Hodnet
(edited by Hazel Holt for posthumous
publication in 1985); boxes up Amery “relics”
1940: June begins “Something to Remember”; Curtis
Brown rejects revised Some Tame Gazelle
1941: September begins writing So Very Secret
1941: November finishes draft of So Very Secret (edited by Hazel
Holt for posthumous publication in 1987)
1941: December moves to Clifton, Bristol, to work in the
Censorship; lives with Honor Wyatt and Hilary
at the Coppice
1942: October 28 begins relationship with Gordon Glover (they
part in late December)
1943: March joins Women’s Royal Navy Service (WRNS)
(age 29)
1943: July travels to Nore Training Depot, Rochester
1944: March stationed at Southampton
1944: September posted to Naples
1945: May 8 war ends in Europe
1945: May 31 travels home on compassionate leave
1945: September 10 mother dies
1945: November/December awaits demobilization in London; moves with
Hilary to 108 Cambridge Street, Pimlico
 Chronology  xvii

1946: February takes editorial job with International African Institute (IAI)
(age 32)
1949: July moves with Hilary to 47 Nassau Road, Barnes, a
London suburb
1950: May Some Tame Gazelle published by Cape (age 36)
1950 Hazel Holt takes a position at IAI
1952 meets Robert Smith; Excellent Women published by Cape
1953 Jane and Prudence published by Cape
1955 Less Than Angels published by Cape
1958 A Glass of Blessings published by Cape
1960: January moves with Hilary to 40 Brooksville Avenue, Queen’s
Park, London
1961: February No Fond Return of Love published by Cape; correspondence
with Philip Larkin begins (age 47)
1962: August meets antique dealer Richard Roberts (nicknamed
“Skipper”)
1963: March Cape (under new director, Tom Maschler) rejects An
Unsuitable Attachment (edited by Hazel Holt for
posthumous publication in 1982) (age 49)
1964: May first visit to Liddell in Athens
1967: August completes draft of The Sweet Dove Died (early version)
1970: January Macmillan rejects The Sweet Dove Died; has begun drafting
An Academic Question (edited by Hazel Holt for
posthumous publication in 1986)
1971: April undergoes breast cancer surgery (age 57)
1971: October “How pleasant to know Miss Pym,” by Robert Smith,
published in Ariel
1972 Hilary, retired, buys Barn Cottage in Finstock, Oxfordshire;
Pym travels between Finstock and London, living part time
at 32 Balcombe Street, London
1973: October at work on Quartet in Autumn
1974: April suffers stroke (age 60)
1974: July retires from IAI and moves to Finstock permanently
(age 61)
1975: April 23 first meeting with Philip Larkin, in Oxford at the
Randolph Hotel
1977: January 21 named most underrated British author of the century by
both Larkin and Lord David Cecil in Times Literary
Supplement
1977: September Quartet in Autumn published by Macmillan (age 64)
1977: October “Tea with Miss Pym” (with Cecil) on BBC 2 Book
Programme; Quartet in Autumn on Booker Prize shortlist
xviii Chronology

1977: November attends Booker Prize night

1978: July The Sweet Dove Died published by Macmillan; guest on radio
show Desert Island Discs
1979: January diagnosed with cancer recurrence
1979: February completes first draft of A Few Green Leaves (published
posthumously in 1980)
1980: January 11 dies in hospice at Michael Sobell House, Oxford (age 66)
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

“To make my (literary) soup I don’t need cream and eggs and rare shell
fish, but just this old cod’s head, the discarded outer leaves of a cabbage,
water and seasoning.”1 So Barbara Pym described her creative method in
a notebook entry of February 1962, after having published six novels dur-
ing the years 1950–1961. The substance of Pym’s “literary soup” had
been a long time in the making. As her culinary-inspired list of the ingre-
dients that make up her “soup” suggests, Pym’s outlook as a writer was
shaped by and reflective of change, the changes that Britain underwent
during wartime and that were keenly felt during the period of post-war
austerity. A close look at her earliest novels, both published and unpub-
lished, together with pertinent biographical material from those years,
reveals that from the start Pym took change as her fundamental concern.2

1
MS Pym 56, 3r–3v. Citations that appear in this form refer to the manuscript number
(shelf mark) assigned by the Bodleian Library, followed by the assigned page number(s). The
“r” designation attached to a page number is an abbreviation for “recto,” the right side of a
page, and “v” refers to “verso,” the reverse side of a page. For archived material consisting
of single sheets of paper (letters, for example), the abbreviation “fol.” (“folio”) will be used,
followed by page numbers.
2
Important previous studies of Pym have given attention to her portrayal of change but in
limited ways. Katherine Ackley devotes one chapter of a book-length study to Pym’s various
portrayals of her characters’ views of change, asserting that “Pym became increasingly inter-
ested in the subject over the several decades she was writing” (Ackley 1989: 144). In a book
that also looks at Virginia Woolf and Christine Brooke-Rose, Judy Little, taking a Bakhtinian

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
E. Stockard, The Making of Barbara Pym,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83868-3_1
2 E. STOCKARD

The roots of this essential interest, and the complex perspectives that she
brought to bear on it, can be traced back to her pre-war writing; subse-
quently, she honed a more nuanced view in her wartime writing. My pur-
pose here is to show that the perspective Pym develops is far from the one
often assumed in studies of her work, a view of her set out first and most
extremely by long-time friend, novelist, and critic Robert Liddell, who
bluntly pronounced in a letter to Pym, “Like yourself I detest change”
(Holt 1990: 198).3 Pym certainly had a traditionalist bent. As shown very
clearly in her journals and diaries of these early years, she commemorated
her past in a ritualized fashion. But this tendency to look back at the past
with nostalgic fondness is balanced by both an enjoyment of the present,
clearly evident in her personal writing and her novels, and a forward-­
looking anticipation, a stance emphasized in her novels’ conclusions. Pym
achieved the coexistence of these seemingly contrasting but very charac-
teristic impulses by adherence to what I will call the principle of continuity.
The principle of continuity entails both treasuring the past and looking
ahead to future possibilities in a way that establishes a link between past,

approach, focuses on the change (renewal) that is available to the “experimental self” that
Pym constructs for certain of her characters by the intermingling of three discourses: that of
the ordinary (which includes the domestic and the trivial), of Christianity (particularly
“Anglo-Catholicism” and its sacramental view of the ordinary), and of English literature
(Little 1996: 76–121).
3
In Pym’s “canon,” as Liddell refers to the novels published prior to her rejection in 1963,
he identifies “a faint, ungrudging nostalgia for ‘better days’ in the past.” His reflection that
“alas, the 1950s which [her novels] depict can now be felt in some ways as ‘better days’”
exemplifies his view that the world is always “worsening,” a view that he assumes Pym to have
shared (Liddell 1989: 36–37). Similarly, according to Charles Burkhart, Pym’s “historical
outlook was that worse times still succeed the former. … The dreariness, the calamity of his-
tory was nonetheless the material for comedy” (Burkhart 1987: 23). And again, in Ackley,
“Time and again, Pym contrasts the way things are with the way they used to be. More often
the old times are viewed as having been better—or at least simpler—than the way things are
today” (Ackley 1989: 157). Even more emphatically, Michael Cotsell finds in Pym’s wartime
fiction “an attachment to an ideal past social order, and a detachment from its present repre-
sentatives” and argues that she found “images of [her class’s] allegiance in relics of the
Victorian age” (Cotsell 1989: 37, 44). By contrast to my argument for her emphasis on
continuity, Cotsell sees Pym as “in her direct way, the chronicler of the end of a phase of her
civilization, of the home view of the end of Empire” (Cotsell 1989: 44). But his discussions
of the novels do not pursue this argument in any detail. While giving a more balanced analy-
sis, Orna Raz, in a final book chapter, nevertheless identifies Pym’s negative view of cultural
change with that voiced by some of her primary characters, one of whom Raz quotes in the
chapter’s title: “‘Change is a Bad Thing’: On Pym’s Social Commentary” (Raz 2007:
187–193).
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

present, and future. As such, continuity accommodates and even requires

change rather than resisting it. Without change, continuity is mere stasis,
and without continuity, change yields only disorder, two negative possi-
bilities that Pym will explore in her fiction.
Moreover, Pym sought to establish the importance of change, under-
stood as occurring within the context of continuity, in multiple realms—
both in her personal life and in her fictional world, and, in her fiction, at
the levels of both character and culture. As is clear from her diaries, Pym
loved and nurtured her own memories; what is equally clear but not
equally recognized is that, early on, she harbored no desire to return to
the past or to live in a bygone world. She wrote, for example, in her war-
time journal, “My childhood, my innocent childhood, it is all gone … I do
not want it back” (MS Pym 146, 26r).4 In her fiction, Pym applied more
generally this view that one cannot return to an earlier, presumably prefer-
able time, extending this principle to include a cultural perspective. As a
nation, England, especially post-war England, should not look back or
wish to return to an idealized time in its history. Yet understanding how
strong the desire to do so could be, Pym provides multiple perspectives on
change; as early as her wartime fiction, she identified ways by which ele-
ments from the past have, in sometimes surprising ways, an ongoing pres-
ence. The conclusions to her books bear out this pattern, consistently
pointing to future possibilities rather than to finalities. These suggested
future possibilities emphasize the open-ended rather than backward-­
looking quality of her characters’ lives while at the same time maintaining
continuity of character and narrative arc.5 Later, toward the end of her life
and career, such a stance toward the necessity of change, which had never
been a simply sanguine one, was increasingly hard-fought, as her journals
give evidence. Nevertheless, she persisted in it, portraying fictionally, in
quite harsh terms, the consequences for one who refuses to accept a con-
tinuous, which is to say continuously changing, life.
Pym’s portrayal of change, understood according to the principle of
continuity, is closely related to her early established and long-standing but

4
Pym is alluding to lines from Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.
5
Pym’s understanding of change within the context of continuity distinguishes her literary
response from the more truly conservative, even reactionary responses to the altered condi-
tions of post-war England that David Pryce-Jones calls the “three points of a defensive post-
war bastion.” They are the “outrage” of novelist Angela Thirkell, the “resigned melancholy”
of dramatist Christopher Fry, and the defiant “need to carry on at all costs” stance of
T. S. Eliot (Pryce-Jones 1963: 225–226).
4 E. STOCKARD

underappreciated interest in social roles, a method by which she would

often define her characters. The title of her first (unpublished) novel,
“Young Men in Fancy Dress,” gives a heavy hint that by 16 years of age
Pym was intrigued by the idea of role-playing. Young men who want to
become artists begin by literally dressing the part. In her mature works,
the emphasis on one’s social role, the “excellent woman,” for example, is
portrayed as being unsatisfying and restrictive when its fulfillment is mis-
understood as requiring stasis. But in Pym’s fiction, characters’ social roles
also provide the means for accommodating change in a continuous fash-
ion. Because the changes that her primary characters undergo are carried
out within the context of their social roles, such change is not radical; it
broadens rather than breaks the parameters of a particular role, thus main-
taining a connection to an earlier form. To add emphasis to this principle
of continuity as it is carried out in a character’s narrative arc, Pym peoples
her fiction with negative examples—those who would impede the contin-
uous form of change in another’s life or who themselves embody stasis
rather than the kind of alteration that might occur within the context of a
continuous life. The presence of these examples of static or unchanging
lives sharpens the implicit argument that continuity does not consist in
remaining the same; change, not stasis, is the necessary component of
continuity, linking what one was to what one could be.
My study, with its focus on the idea of continuity, established early on
as the guiding principle in Pym’s conduct of her own life and in the devel-
opment of her writing, makes no overt attempt to relate her to any par-
ticular literary school. The difficulty of doing so is exemplified, perhaps
unintentionally, by Michael Cotsell, who locates in Pym’s juvenile effort,
“Young Men in Fancy Dress,” the beginning of her vexed relationship
with modernism. He judges that “Pym can usefully be described as a post-­
modernist,” but goes on to maintain that “By choosing to exclude mod-
ernism, she confines her fictional world to English social comedy.”
Nevertheless, in Pym’s first published novel, Some Tame Gazelle, Cotsell
finds “a humorous and perceptive reworking of [modernism’s] assump-
tions and practices” along with elements that lead him to hedge his bets:
“it might be said that Pym constitutes a post-modernist art, but what it
accepts from modernism must also be recognised” (Cotsell 1989: 13, 19,
24). As these multiple classifications of Pym’s fiction by a single critic sug-
gest might be the case, many book-length studies situate her work in a
variety of literary contexts. When taken together, this variety indicates that
her relation to the literary tradition exemplifies the very principle of
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

continuity that she was concerned to establish in her writing. Pym wrote
novels in which she loosely assimilated the framework of the comic genre
to her own purposes, thus maintaining, exactly because of her singularity,
the literary continuity implied by her frequently noted relationship to Jane
Austen.6 The slightly satiric ingredient in all her works also connects them
to the novel of manners—in her case the manners of the very clearly iden-
tifiable “Pym world” that she is credited with creating.7 This fictional
world, which she established very early, is peopled by recurring types:
unmarried women (“spinsters”), selfless “excellent women” devoted to
church work and to helping others, clergymen (sometimes celibate), and
academics in either anthropological or literary fields. The counterpart to
the “excellent woman,” the “Pym man,” is obliviously self-centered, often
reticent, but beloved even so by the women in his life.
Clearly Pym places these figures within a recognizable genre, and just
as clearly she alters that genre in significant ways that are distinctive to her
fiction—the very definition of continuity with respect to a literary tradi-
tion.8 So important is this distinctive experience of reading Pym’s books
that it has been set forth as the important question for Pym scholars to
address, thus tending to render moot the question of her literary catego-
rization.9 It is not surprising that those undertaking an analysis of an

6
For discussions of what has become a critical truism regarding Pym’s relation to Austen,
see, for example, Jane Nardin (scattered references in Nardin 1985), Liddell (1989: 27–37),
and Cotsell (1989: 142–145). Pym did look to Austen as a guide. “Read some of Jane
Austen’s last chapters and find out how she manages all the loose ends” she tells herself (Holt
and Pym 1984: 188). And, much later, she touches the dust on Austen’s desk for inspiration
(“Oh that some of her genius might rub off on me!”) (Holt and Pym 1984: 250). For Pym’s
view of Austen’s influence on her, see “Finding a Voice” (Pym 1988: 377–385).
7
For a characterization of the “Pym world,” see Philip Larkin’s appreciation of her novels
subsequent to the 1977 “rediscovery” (Larkin 1984: 240–244). See also Liddell’s discussion
of “Pymdom” (Liddell 1989: 29), and that of Penelope Lively (1987: 45–49). In an essay
published in the same volume as Lively’s, John Bayley invokes this idea of a Pym world, ask-
ing in his title, “Where, Exactly, is the Pym World?” (Bayley 1987: 50–57). Janet Rossen’s
book-length study takes as its title The World of Barbara Pym (Rossen 1987).
8
For books that place Pym’s novels in relation to a genre, see Mason Cooley (1990),
Annette Weld (1992), Ellen M. Tsagaris (1998), and Barbara Kowalik (2002).
9
John Bayley demands this approach to Pym’s novels in “Where, Exactly, is the Pym
World?” (Bayley 1987). Deborah Donato has risen to Bayley’s challenge in an illuminating
study of Pym’s prose, where, drawing from four novels, she tracks the impression that Pym’s
writing makes on the reader. In doing so, Donato identifies what she calls “the Pym real”—a
relaxed and nonjudgmental understanding that Pym’s prose invites and allows the reader to
experience. Further, Donato demonstrates by example how the experience of reading Pym’s
6 E. STOCKARD

author’s work would focus on her difference from others, and if scholarly
efforts are any indication, Pym seems to have been particularly capable of
writing novels that elude attempts to label them. Some, even so, have
sought to fix her place within the novelistic tradition. But, much like the
attempts made by characters in Pym’s novels to fix the identities of others,
efforts that seek to contain or to fix Pym’s literary identity have been
unsatisfactory. She has been seen, variously, as assuming the mantle of Jane
Austen, as a modernist, and as a post-modernist.10 And she has been
described as exemplifying all of these at once, as employing a fictional
method that overlaps the various narrative strategies associated with classic
realism, with modernism, and with post-modernism (Donato 2005: 56).
To put the issue in terms relevant to the content of Pym’s writing, this
amalgam, acknowledged in the totality of Pym scholarship, exemplifies
continuity in artistic method. That is, she has been recognized generally as
a novelist who reaches back to older forms of narrative and weaves them
inextricably together with strands of newer forms—a formulation no less
true for its being obvious.
Rather than placing Pym in a literary school or genre, as has often been
done, I offer instead a thematic analysis of her early novels that is both
supplemented and complemented by frequent references to the content of
her more personal writings. The study that most closely shares my focus
on Pym’s early years, Barbara Pym: A Critical Biography, as psychoana-
lytic rather than thematic, takes a very different approach. Anne Wyatt-­
Brown (1992) gives an analysis, bordering on the Freudian, of Pym’s early
writing as it reveals fundamental psychic patterns grounded in the circum-
stances of Pym’s childhood. On the assumption that the act of writing is a
form of therapy, she focuses on the particular ways that Pym’s creative
work, by filling a need in her psychic life, reveals suppressed elements of
that life.11 Quite distinct from mine, such psychologically oriented

novels differs fundamentally from reading novels by some of her female contemporaries
(Donato 2005).
10
Margaret Diane Stetz, for example, finds similarities between Virginia Woolf and Pym
that show Pym’s alignment with the interests of modernists, rather than with a novelist like
Austen (Stetz 1985). Little’s reading of Pym’s novels, as exhibiting the dialogic understand-
ing of human identity expounded by Mikhail Bakhtin, positions her novels as post-modern
in character (Little 1989).
11
Subsequent notes will provide more details of Wyatt-Brown’s specific analyses. In a less
strictly psychoanalytical study, but one also focused on the act of writing as an avenue for
expressing one’s personal life, Orphia Jane Allen argues that Pym “used the novels, at least
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 one pace
forward.
even
numbers
one pace
step back.
—march.

number The odd numbers, with the exception of

one stand Number One, will turn to the right, the even
fast. numbers to the left.
ranks,
right and
left—
turn.

The whole will step off, the even numbers

wheeling round to the right and following the left
hand man of the odd numbers. No. 3 will form up
form two paces in rear of No. 1; No. 5 on the left of No.
company. 1; No. 7 in rear of No. 5; No. 9 on the left of No.
quick 5, and so on. The leading men of the even
march. numbers will always form in the rear rank and the
next man in the front rank. As the men arrive in
their places they will turn to the left, order arms,
and take up their dressing.

186. A Company in line saluting.[10]

fix— On the command present arms, the company
bayonets. commander will recover his sword with the first
slope— motion of the rifles, and at the third motion his
arms. sword will be smartly lowered to the salute, point
general to be twelve inches from the ground and directed
salute. to the front, edge to the left; the arm to be straight,
present hand just behind the thigh, the thumb flat on the
—arms. handle of the sword. The supernumerary rank and
 outer section commanders present arms with the
men.

The company commander will recover his

slope— sword with the first, carry with the second motion
arms. of the rifles. Swords will be sloped when the men
order arms.
Arms will then be ordered and bayonets unfixed.

187. A Company marching past.

For this practice the company will be formed as a company in line;
arms will be at the Order.
Four points, numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4 (Plate VIII), will be placed
marking the angles of an oblong, of which the long sides will be one
hundred paces in length, and the short sides forty.
The company will be in the centre of one of the long sides; the
side opposite to the saluting base.
A point, termed the saluting point, will be placed ten paces outside
the centre of the saluting base, turned towards the company; and a
point, lettered “A,” turned in like manner, on the saluting base, at ten
paces to the left of the saluting point. As a rule all these points
should be marked by camp colours.
 PLATE VIII.

A Company Marching Past.

fix— The company will step off, and will change
bayonets. direction to the left round the first point.
slope—
arms.
march
past.
form—
fours,
right. by
the left,
quick—
march,
left—
wheel.

company When the right of the company arrives on the

—halt, saluting base, the commander will order it to halt,
left left turn, and right dress, when it will be
turn. dressed by the right section commander.
right—
dress,
eyes—
front.

The commander, posted as in line, i.e., three

paces in front of the centre of the company, will
then give the command by the right, quick—
march. On reaching the point “A” he will give
eyes—right, upon which all, except the right
section commander, will turn their heads and eyes
by the well to the right, looking the inspecting officer in
right, the face, and the commander will salute in four
quick— paces, thus:—The sword is raised by extending
march. the arm to the right, and by a circular motion
eyes— brought to the Recover; then continuing the
right. motion to the right shoulder, from whence the
sword is lowered to the same position as for the
salute when the men present arms. These four
motions are to be combined into one easy
movement, the salute being completed in four
paces. The head will be turned towards the
reviewing officer.

When the company is ten paces beyond the

saluting point the commander will give eyes—
eyes— front upon which all will turn their heads and
front. eyes to the front, and the commander will Recover
his sword, make a pause of a pace, and then
come to the Carry.
 Officers will never salute more than once in marching past, except
when practising the salute.
The company, if required to resume its position on the original
alignment, will be moved there from the second or third point in any
convenient formation.

Reviews.
188. Formations to be practised.
Battalions that do not execute the formations for savage warfare
will, before taking part in reviews, practise forming line from quarter
column, S. 109 (1), quarter column from line, S. 112 (1), also
advancing in line, S. 110.

189. The Colours.

1. On all ceremonial parades the following rules as to the carrying
of Colours will be observed. When at the halt, Colours will never be
sloped; they will be carried at the Carry or the Order, according as
the troops are at the Slope or the Order.
When on the move Colours will always be carried at the Slope,
except when on the saluting base, when advancing in review order,
and when marching in slow time down the ranks whilst trooping the
Colour, they will then be at the Carry.
At the Carry the Colour staff will be carried perpendicularly in the
belt, which will be worn over the left shoulder; the corner of the
Colour will be held in the right hand, which will also grasp the staff
level with the forehead.
When at the Order the Colours will then be placed perpendicularly
on the ground at the right side.
2. The Colours will be let fly:—
As the caution is given for a Royal or general salute, and in marching
past on reaching point “A.”
The Colours will be lowered:—
 To those entitled to the compliment, as the men present arms. (See K.
R. 45.)
3. Mounted officers, with swords drawn, in passing uncased
Colours, will remain at the Carry, turning the head, and glancing
towards the Colours until they have passed them. If at the Slope they
will Carry while passing the Colours, returning afterwards to the
Slope. Officers whose swords are not drawn will salute the Colours
with the right hand. Cased Colours will not be saluted.

190. Review of a battalion.

1. Formation.—The battalion will be drawn up in line as in Plate
IX; bayonets will be fixed and arms sloped.
When the colonel of the regiment is present he will be ten paces
in front of the officer commanding the battalion. Should the colonel-
in-chief be also present, he will be ten paces in front of the former.

2. Receiving the reviewing officer.

When the reviewing officer reaches a point about
sixty paces in advance of the centre of the battalion,
he will be received with a salute, the men
general
presenting arms, the band playing the first part of a
salute.
slow march, and the drums beating. Mounted
present
officers will salute in the same manner and time as
—arms.
the company commanders, except that at the
Salute the blade of the sword will be kept in line
with the knee, hand directly under the shoulder.

slope—
arms.
 PLATE IX.

A Battalion in Line.
 A Battalion in Column.

3. Receiving the Sovereign, or a Royal Personage.

royal As in preceding paragraph (see also S. 189),
salute. but the band will play the National Anthem, or
present— the first six bars of it (see K. R. 45).
arms.

slope—
arms.
 4. Inspection in line.
The reviewing officer, accompanied by the commanding officer of
the battalion, who will ride on the side further from the troops, will
then pass down the line from right to left, returning along the rear,
the men standing with sloped arms.
The band will play a march until he returns to the right of the line.
The reviewing officer will then give orders for the march past.

5. Inspection in column. (Plate X.)

When a battalion is reviewed in column, the reviewing officer will
be received as in S. 190 (2) or (3); he will then inspect the companys
in column, each company commander receiving him with a salute,
and following him during the inspection of his company, the men
standing with sloped arms and bayonets fixed. After the inspection of
the company, the commander will unfix bayonets and stand at ease.

191. Battalion marching past.

1. Points will be placed on the principles described in S. 187; the
points marking the saluting base will be covered in a line at a
convenient distance from the saluting point.
2. In Column.—Bayonets having been fixed, and quarter column
by the right having been formed on No. 1, the battalion will move to
the right in fours; on reaching the first point it will wheel a quarter
circle to the left, moving on as soon as the change is completed; it
will be halted and turned to the left on the saluting base by the
commanding officer. The right section commanders will turn about
and be covered by the adjutant, and on the commanding officer’s
order battalion, right—dress, they will dress their companies,
and give the word Eyes—Front.
advance in
The commanding officer will give the caution
column by
to advance in column.
the right.

No. 1. By The commander of No. 1 will then march it

 the Right, off, the remaining companies following in
Quick— succession at company distance, and acting as
March. in S. 187.
3. In quarter column.—If the battalion be required to march past in
quarter column, the leading company will be halted when it has
moved to forty-five paces beyond the third point. Quarter column will
be formed by order of the second in command, who will superintend
the covering.
The column will change ranks, order arms, and on the command
left dress, the directing section commanders will step back two
paces, aligning themselves with the rear rank, and the company
commanders will take post on the left of the front rank, and the
companies will dress by the left.
The battalion will then be ordered to slope arms and march past in
quarter column. The commanding officer will give the word eyes—
left when at ten paces from the saluting point, and eyes—front
when the rear company has passed the inspecting officer. Company
commanders will not look to the left.
If required to resume its position on the original alignment, the
battalion will be moved there from the second or third point in the
most convenient and quickest formation. As the battalion moves off
the saluting base, company commanders and section commanders
will resume their respective posts in quarter column.
4. Mounted Officers.—When marching past the inspecting officer,
the Commanding officer will be ten paces in front of the centre
section of the leading company nearer the saluting base, the second
in command in front of the other centre section in line with the
commanding officer. If the colonel of the regiment be present he will
be twenty paces in front of the centre of the leading company.
Should the colonel-in-chief be also present, he will be ten paces in
front of the colonel. The adjutant will follow ten paces behind the
centre of the rear company, if a third field officer is present he will be
ten paces behind the second section of the rear company, and the
adjutant ten paces in rear of the third section. All mounted officers
will commence their salute when they arrive at point “A.” The
commanding officer, after he has saluted, will move out and place
himself on the right of the inspecting officer, and remain there till the
battalion has passed; the second in command assuming command.
5. Mounted officers salute in marching past.—The salute will be
performed in four slow motions as follows:—
First: Carry the sword direct to the right to the full extent of the
arm, hand as high as the shoulder, back of the hand to the rear,
blade perpendicular.
Second: Bring the sword by a circular motion to the Recover,
keeping the elbow as high as the shoulder.
Third: Still keeping the elbow the height of the shoulder, bring the
hilt to the right shoulder, hand as high as the elbow; during this
motion let the finger nails come in line with the edge of the sword.
Fourth: Lower the sword to the front to the full extent of the arm,
the blade in line with the knee, edge to the left, thumb extended in
the direction of the point, hand directly under the shoulder.
The above four motions should be gradually and slowly combined
into one easy movement.
The head should be turned well towards the reviewing officer
whilst passing him, and ten paces beyond that officer, the sword is
Recovered, carrying it well to the front in doing so, and then brought
to the Carry.
When the sword is at the Carry, the position is with the hilt resting
on the right thigh, the blade perpendicular, the wrist rounded so as to
incline the edge slightly to the left, the grasp of the lower fingers
slightly relaxed, the little finger in rear of the hilt.
6. Officers to salute once only.—Officers, whether mounted or
dismounted, will salute only on the first occasion of marching past;
mounted officers only will salute when marching past in quarter
column.
7. Battalion staff officers.—The staff officers, excepting the
adjutant, do not march past, and will place themselves in rear of the
saluting point; but the assistant adjutant will march past with the
company to which he belongs.
8. Warrant officers and staff serjeants.—The serjeant-major will be
two paces in column, and one pace in quarter column, in rear of the
centre of the colour party; the staff serjeants will not be required to
march past. The bandmaster and serjeant drummer (carrying his
staff at the Trail, as he passes the saluting point), will salute with the
outer hand on the first occasion of marching past.
9. Drums and band.—For marching past, the band and drums (or
bugles) will move up to fifty paces in advance of the leading
company, both formed in two or more ranks. The band will
commence playing as soon as the leading company advances on
the saluting base. When it arrives in front of the saluting point it will
turn to the left, change direction to the right, and halt and turn to the
right opposite to the saluting point, continuing to play until the rear of
the battalion has passed. The band master will face the saluting
point.
10. In marching past signallers, who will be in the supernumerary
rank of their companies, will carry their flags at the Trail and their
rifles slung.
11. Machine guns, cyclist sections, and stretcher bearers will
march past five paces in rear of the battalion. Cyclist section nearest
the saluting base and on foot on the left of their cycles. Machine
guns in the centre, stretcher bearers on the outer flank. Should there
be more than one section, cyclists will march past in column of
sections ten paces behind the machine guns, &c.
12. Regimental transport.—Will march past twenty paces in rear
of the battalion, carts nearest the saluting base, mules in centre,
transport wagons on the outer flank.

192. A battalion advancing in review order.

If required, the battalion will be formed in line with bayonets fixed
and arms sloped, and on the command advance in review order,
quick—march, it will advance by the centre, the band and drums
playing till within thirty paces of the inspecting officer, when it will be
halted and ordered to salute in the same manner as when receiving
him; after which it will be directed to order arms, and will wait for
orders (see also S.] 189).

193. Review of a Brigade.

1. Formation.—The brigade may be formed with battalions in line
at any ordered interval, and proceed in the same manner as a single
battalion, or, in line of quarter columns, as in Plate XI, at any ordered
interval with bayonets fixed.
2. Receiving the reviewing officer in line of quarter columns.—
On the word March from their commanders,
officers colours will be brought to the Slope, the officers of
and each battalion will slope swords and will place
colours themselves three paces in front of the front rank of
will the leading company, sized from flanks to centre, at
take equal distances from each other, Colours in the
post in centre; officers of right companies moving out by
review the right flank, and of left companies by the left
order. flank, Colours by the directing flank. The second in
Officers command will be on their right, and the adjutant
and (and third field officer) on their left. The line of
Colours. officers will be dressed by the second in command
—Quick of the right battalion of the brigade. The
—March. commanding officer will be ten paces in front of the
leading company.
The brigadier will place himself forty paces in front of the centre of
his brigade; the brigade staff will be ten paces in rear of the
brigadier, the brigade major ten paces on the right, the a.d.c. or
orderly officer ten paces on the left.
As the reviewing officer approaches, the infantry will slope arms,
and he will be saluted, the men presenting arms the officers saluting,
Colours flying, and the bands playing. After the salute the infantry
will be ordered to slope arms, and the inspecting officer will go down
the line, accompanied by the brigadier on his outer hand.
officers and On the word Post, the officers of each
colours will take battalion will turn outwards from the
post. Officers and centre, the officers carrying the Colours
Colours take Post. turning to the directing flank, and on the
Quick —March. word March, the whole will move to their
places.

3. Inspection of a Brigade in line.

When troops are drawn up in line for review by an officer superior
to the brigadier, after the salute has been given, the brigadier,
accompanied by his staff, will post himself on that flank of his
command to which the inspecting officer repairs; he will receive him
and accompany him to the limit of his command; the brigade staff,
while passing down the line, will precede the brigadier by two horses’
length.

4. Drums and band.

When drums and bands are massed they will each be in four
ranks.
 PLATE XI.

Review of a Brigade.

194. A Brigade marching past.

1. Points will be placed on the principles prescribed for a battalion,
and the brigade will march past as the general officer commanding
may direct.
In column, from line of quarter columns.—On the
march caution from the brigadier, commanding officers will
past. order their battalions to form fours to the right, and
they will move off on his signal.
Each battalion in succession, when it reaches the first point, will
wheel to the left at the double by order of its commander, moving
forward and changing the time when it has advanced sufficiently not
to check the battalion in rear; when the leading battalion reaches the
saluting base, it will be halted, turned to the left, and dressed by the
right. The remaining battalions will form mass in rear of the leading
battalion, moving by the shortest lines.
The march past will be performed on the principles described in S.
191 (2).
2. In double companies.—When a brigade drawn up in line of
quarter columns is to march past in double companies, the following
method will be adopted:—The battalions will move to the right in
fours, and wheel to the left at the double, in succession, as they
reach the first point, receiving the word forward followed by quick
—march, when that pace will not check the battalion in rear. When
about half way to the second point, the first battalion will form double
companies, thus:—The commanding officer having given the
command quarter column of double companies, left
companies, mark time, left—incline, the left companies will mark
time, and the right companies will close when clear to quarter
column on No. 1, the left companies receiving the word Forward,
Right—Incline from their commanders so as to join the right. The
remaining battalions having formed double companies will move into
mass.
Each battalion will march past as directed for a battalion in
column, the word of command to each double company being given
by the company commander on the right. The double companies will
march off at company distance.
When the rear double company is twenty-five paces beyond the
saluting point the second in command will give the words left
companies, mark—time, right—incline, double, the officers
commanding those companies giving Left Incline, Quick—March By
the Right, when in column. The column will then be closed on the
march to quarter column; and the brigade will be closed to mass on
the leading battalion, which will have changed ranks, ordered arms
and dressed; each of the remaining battalions will act in like manner.
If the brigade is to return in mass, sufficient distance will be allowed
for the rear company of the rear battalion to reach the third point.
In mass of quarter columns.—If required, the brigade may then
return in mass.
When marching past in column or in column of double companies,
or in mass, thirty paces’ distance will be preserved between
battalions, &c., such distance to be reckoned from the last item of a
preceding battalion to the head of the commanding officer’s horse of
a following one.
In line of quarter columns.—The brigade may be formed into line
of quarter columns, with intervals of eight paces between battalions,
as follows: The leading battalion will advance till its rear company
reaches the required point on the saluting base, it will then be
ordered to halt, change ranks, order arms, and dress. As the rear of
each succeeding battalion arrives at twenty-five paces beyond the
saluting point, it will be moved by the diagonal march to its position
on the outer flank of the leading battalion in the new alignment.
Great care must be taken that the line of quarter columns is
dressed exactly at right angles to the saluting base before moving
off; the commanders of companies of the outer battalions looking
inwards and dressing on the corresponding companies of the
battalion nearest the saluting base.
In a brigade composed of battalions with an unequal number of
companies, the rear companies and Colour parties of the weaker
battalions are to be aligned with the rear companies and Colour
parties of the stronger.
Commanding officers will be ten paces in front of the centre of
their leading companies, all other mounted officers ten paces in rear
of their respective battalions, the whole dressing by the directing
flank.
In this march past the brigadier will give the executive word to
move off, i.e., brigade, by the—, quick—march.
3. Supply column, field hospital and bearer company will not
march past in mass or line of quarter columns.
 4. Brigadiers, staffs &c.—When a brigade marches past an
inspecting officer superior to the brigadier, the latter officer
(accompanied by his aide-de-camp or orderly officer) will fall out
after saluting, and will place himself on the right of the inspecting
officer.
The brigadier will be twenty paces in front of the mounted officers
of the leading battalion, or in line of quarter columns in front of the
centre of the brigade, preceded at a distance of ten paces by his
staff, who will be in line; ten paces apart, the brigade major next the
saluting base.
5. Drums and bands, &c.—Before marching past, the massed
drums and bands will move to the head of the brigade.
When marching past in column, or in column of double
companies, the massed drums and bands preceding the brigade
staff will, on arriving in front of the saluting point, form opposite to it,
and play till the rear of the brigade has passed. They must be moved
off at such a distance in front of the brigade staff as will allow of their
clearing the front when opposite the saluting point, without checking
the mounted officers following them.
When marching past in mass, the massed drums and bands will
advance on the outer flank of the mass parallel with the leading
company, halting opposite the saluting point; they will play the mass
past, and move on again opposite the centre of the rear battalion.
The wagons and machine guns will be massed twenty paces in rear
of the rear battalion, machine guns nearer the saluting base. Mules,
cyclists, and stretcher bearers will not be massed.
When marching past in line of quarter columns, the massed
drums and bands will be in front of the centre of the brigade,
preceding the brigade staff by ten paces. In marching past in this
formation, drums and bands will move straight on, the bands ceasing
to play when the rear of the brigade has passed the saluting point.
The machine guns will be massed twenty paces in rear of the
battalion nearest the saluting base. Wagons, mules, cyclist and
stretcher bearers will not be massed.
 195. A brigade advancing in review order.
If required to advance in review order by the inspecting officer,
battalions may be formed in line of quarter columns at any interval,
arms at the Slope, and the officers and Colours in front, as described
in S. 193 (2).
The line of quarter columns will then advance, the bands and
drums playing, and when at a convenient distance from the
reviewing officer it will be halted and ordered to salute, after which it
will be directed to order arms, and will wait for orders.
Supply columns, field hospitals, and bearer-companies will not
advance in review order.

196. Review of a division.

1. Formation.—A division may be formed up for review as in Plate
XII, and proceed as described in S. 193.
 PLATE XII.

Review of a Division.
2. Position of the general, the staff, &c.—The general will be in
front of the centre of his division, thirty paces from the brigadiers; the
brigadiers being posted as in S. 193 (2); and officers commanding
artillery and engineers at similar distances in front of their
commands; the divisional staff will be drawn up in three lines, ten
paces in rear of the general officer commanding the division,
distances and intervals ten paces, thus:—
g.o.c.
a.d.c.
d.a.a. and officer,
q.m.g. general staff.