Lower than Vermin
 1950 dustjacket | |
| Author | Dornford Yates |
|---|---|
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Ward Lock & Co[1] |
Publication date | 1950[1] |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 324[1] |
Lower than Vermin is a 1950 novel by the English author Dornford Yates (Cecil William Mercer). It was not a commercial success, dealing as it did with a vanished pre-war world of upper class characters that held little attraction to readers of the 1950s.
The title comes from a 1948 speech by Labour minister Aneurin Bevan in which he described the Conservative Party as "lower than vermin".[2]
Plot
[edit]The book deals with the history of a noble family from about the time of Victoria's Diamond Jubilee until after the Second World War, much of it related by the governess, Miss Carson.
Background
[edit]Mercer was very much not in sympathy with the new post-war order, and having received many letters from readers asking him to write again of the "old days" he once again returned to his preferred period with this novel.[2] He wrote to a correspondent, "What we used to call the nobility and gentry of England have been so monstrously misaligned and misrepresented for so long that I felt it was only right that some author of standing should present a true picture of them and their habits and manners before it was too late."[3]
Critical reception
[edit]Mercer's autobiographer AJ Smithers acknowledged "Mercer's mild obsession with the kind of people whom he ranked only a little lower than the angels."[3] He noted that the author's ideas had been formed well before 1914 and they were never mitigated. By the time Mercer was thirty he "had seen a good cross-section of the gentry of England and ... he preserved it like a fly in amber."[4]
The book was not a great success, appearing to a new generation of post-war readers to be a caricature completely divorced from present reality.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "British Library Item details". primocat.bl.uk. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
- ^ a b Smithers 1982, p. 212.
- ^ a b c Smithers 1982, p. 214.
- ^ Smithers 1982, p. 215.
Bibliography
[edit]- Smithers, AJ (1982). Dornford Yates. London: Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-27547-2.