
A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities: a tale of Revolution, alienation, and knitting. Sally
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Nov
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Dec
02
By comparison with other
Victorian adventure yarns, Moonfleet is an unfairly neglected classic
tale. It has many elements found in the more famous Treasure Island by
Robert Louis Stevenson. There are rascally seafaring folk, a hidden treasure, a
shipwreck and the central character is a young boy.
Moonfleet, published in 1898, was written by
John Meade Falkner (1858 – 1932). Remarkably Falkner only published three works
of fiction, but each was highly successful. The Lost Stradivarius (1895)
is an excellent atmospheric ghost story very much in the style of M. R. James,
and The Nebuly Coat (1903) is a tale of mystery and murder in a quiet
cathedral town. Actually, Meade wrote a fourth novel but he left the completed
manuscript on a train and he never recovered it. Writing was, for Meade, more
of a hobby than a professional pursuit. His main focus in life was as a
businessman and at this he was extremely successful. He became chairman of the
arms manufacturer Armstrong Whitworth during World War I. Nevertheless, it
cannot be denied that he was a talented author and Moonfleet, a thrilling novel
of eighteenth-century Dorset smugglers, is Meade’s masterpiece. Featuring a
youthful hero, the novel has tended to be regarded purely as a children’s book
but like Stevenson’s rousing tales such as Treasure Island and Kidnapped,
which have an appeal for all ages, are strong on character and action and the
same could be said of Moonfleet.
The novel is tense and atmospheric from its opening pages set in a cemetery, which, combined with vivid descriptions of a dying and neglected village, sets the tone of the narrative from the outset and is an omen of the dark events to come.
Moonfleet is the name of
the village where the young orphan John Trenchard lives with his aunt, a strict
and humourless individual who barely tolerates his presence. Falkner used the
local geography of Dorset, including Carisbroke Castle, only changing some of
the place names. The titular village is based on East Fleet, close to Chesil
Beach. In the novel, local legend tells of the notorious pirate John
‘Blackbeard’ Mohune who is buried in the family crypt in the churchyard. He is
reputed to have stolen a diamond from King Charles I and hidden it. John
discovers a sinkhole by the crypt, which leads down to an underground passage.
He investigates and finds himself in a subterranean chamber with coffins on
shelves and casks on the floor. He realizes that his friends in the village are
smugglers, and this is their hiding place. Another more startling discovery is
the coffin of Blackbeard himself and a locket around his neck which holds a
piece of paper with verses from the Bible, which John suspects contains a clue
to the secret location of the precious diamond. And so, as the mystery grows so
do John’s adventures for as well as his search for the treasure, he also
becomes involved with the smugglers and their conflict with the revenue men. As
the novel unfolds, these two interwoven themes resolve into a third and richer
one, with the friendship and suffering of both Trenchard and his friend Elzivir
Bock, the taciturn landlord of the Mohune Arms who takes on the role of father
figure to the young John. This inn is nicknamed Why Not? – a pun on the Mohune
coat of arms which represent the shape of the letter’ Y’.
The events are related
in the first person, a technique that reveals Meade’s skill in characterization
for he is able to capture the maturation of John Trenchard and his development
from naïve youth to a guilt ridden and almost damaged adulthood. The psychological
accuracy of this journey is one of the star elements of the book.
Strangely, filmmakers were
slow to tackle this novel but in the 1950s there was a rash of pirate films
from the Hollywood studios and MGM added Moonfleet to this swashbuckling
bandwagon. The producer, John Houseman, observed later: ‘It was a grim story, a
realistic adventure story about pirates and a little boy who accidentally got himself
involved with them. There was no sex. But then we began to have fun with it and
embroider it.’ And embroider the story they did. While a handful of scenes from
the book survived, major changes were made to the plot including the
introduction of a new major character, a rogue gentleman, Jeremy Fox (played by
Stewart Granger) who acted as a mentor to the young hero, renamed Jon Muhone,
played by Jon Whiteley who was only nine years old at the time. The film was
directed by Fritz Lang, the celebrated German auteur, who was usually
associated with grim film noir vehicles. He certainly seems to have been out of
his comfort zone with Moonfleet and the film was a critical flop and a
box office disaster.
The BBC adapted the
novel as a television serial under the title Smuggler’s Bay in 1964. The
most recent manifestation of Meade’s story was in 2016 when Sky1 filmed a two-part
TV adaptation starring Ray Winstone as Elzivir Block and Anuerin Barnard as
John Trenchard. While more of the plot of the book remains than in the 1955
movie, it still bears little relation to the original. It would seem that the
structure of the novel with its cunning blend of juvenile adventure tropes with
the more adult themes and authentic historical elements are difficult to meld together
on the screen into a satisfactory whole.
In the end, it may well be that Meade created a work of fiction that is
best consumed in book form rather than in an adulterated dramatized version.
Main image from the Fritz Lang film adaptation of 1955. Credit: TCD/Prod.DB / Alamy Stock Photo
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