J. I. M. Stewart Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Hermione Lee

Critical Essay by Hermione Lee

[To turn] to the prim, crusty, Ciceronian rectitude of J.I.M. Stewart's four long stories [in 'Our England Is a Garden'] is to seem to travel sharply backwards in time and downwards in temperature. So jocularly urbane is the archaic narrative, so blandly resting on Edwardian class assumptions, that at times it seems almost to be parodying itself.

Mr Stewart is ironic at the expense of those who live in the past, and his stories—about the downfall of a stately home, the humiliation of elderly academics—show the inevitable enfeebling of traditions. But he has not himself given up to what he calls 'classlessness.'

The stories have, as is to be expected, efficient amusing twists, and they 'do' the vanishing classes expertly: aristocratic landowners (being replaced by cooks' sons), real scholars (being replaced by 'the miserable race of periodical reviewers.') But they are chilling and disdainful pieces, not greatly interested in human...
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