When Godfrey Blount died in July 1937, he divided his estate
of £9,904 12s 11d between his nephew Charles Hubert Boulby Blount, MC Air
Commodore RAF and Arthur Charles Fifield, a retired publisher.
This seems slightly strange because whilst
having no children, Godfrey’s wife Ethel Blount did not die until 1942, I can
only assume that by leaving some of his estate to his nephew, Godfrey was in
fact providing for Ethel.
Godfrey’s good
friends Joseph King and Greville MacDonald did not die until 1943 and 1944
respectively.
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| Arthur C. Fifield, publisher of Godfrey Blount's Arbor Vitae |
So who was Arthur Fifield?
Blount had been publishing works with Arthur Fifield since 1899’s Arbor Vitae, so as a minimum they would
have known each other for 45 years.
Fifield was a follower of Tolstoy, and had worked for the
Free Age Press.
This was set up in 1900
by Vladimir Chertkov, a wealthy aristocrat from St Petersburg, and perhaps the
most prolific follower of Tolstoy, and his most devoted disciple.
"Since the autocracy considered Tolstoyism an enemy, Chertkov left for England in 1896." (
Wikipedia) But it also seems that Chertkov created problems in the Tolstoy family, some of which was dramaticized in the 2009 film 'The Last Station', a few clips of which are
here on The Guardian's website.
 |
Vladimir Chertkov with Tolstoy
from Wikipedia |
"Chertkov had a troubled relationship with most of the Tolstoy family, and tried actively to destroy the relationship between Tolstoy and his wife Sophia. Tolstoy's final flight, for example, is described as having been greatly influenced by Chertkov. Sophia was especially troubled by what she felt was his hypocritical philosophy: he decried wealth, but had his own fancy estate. His associates lay about her house and ate free and paid no rent and criticized her materialism, while she raised several children and ran the entire business side of Tolstoy's writing (at Tolstoy's wish), which provided a major source of income for Yasnaya Polyana and enabled their lifestyle.
"Additionally, Chertkov convinced Tolstoy to sign a secret will and give control of his works to Chertkov instead of Sophia. He then used this control to publish versions of Tolstoy's collected works as he wanted. He also criticized Sophia, discredited her diaries and her own writing, and played up his own relationship with the Count. Chertkov also fostered a positive relationship with the newly formed Soviet state, which he used to suppress Sophia's version of Tolstoy's life story and his relationship with her." (Wikipedia, ibid.)
Chertkov arrived in Croydon in 1897 at the
beginning of his eleven-year exile. He immediately began publishing banned
Tolstoyan materials in Russian, and also established the Free Age Press as an
outlet for cheap, uncopyrighted English translations of Tolstoy’s newer works,
on the model of his Posrednik publishing operation in Russia.
 |
Free Age Press Tolstoyian publication,
published by Arthur C. Fifield |
Early in 1900 he asked Arthur C. Fifield, a Brotherhood
Church member with whom he had frequently discussed the publication and
distribution of books, to manage the latter.
The Free Age Press at the time has 'Maldon Essex' as it's address, this is 4 miles away from Purleigh, where Chertkov was living in the Purleigh Colony, and Fifield was reported to be living 'just down the road'. The Free Age Press then consisted of Arthur Fifield and Chertkov, and a
few translators such as Aylmer Maude.
Fifield was an ‘assistant translator’, improving the English of Chertkov
and other Russians.
He also did all the
office work and made arrangements with printers.
‘I was publisher, manager, joint editor,
joint translator, publicity agent, advertising expert, warehouseman, porter,
packer, clerk, book-keeper, office boy and stamp licker, all in one,’ Fifield wrote.
The Free Age Press had two branches “the production of Russian language Tolstoyan materials and secondly the production of Tolstoy’s writing in cheap additions for an international English readership. These cheap pamphlets had considerable international reach and could be purchased as far afield as Shanghai and New York City. Tolstoy praised the publications price, presentation and accessibility to ‘English speaking working people; and through Chertkov maintained a ‘special relationship’ with the publishing enterprise. The Free Age Press was the best known and likely the most profitable Tolstoyan publishing enterprise, arguably due to the numerous members of the Tolstoyan movement who worked for the enterprise. Notably Arthur Fifield, a member of the Croydon Brotherhood Church, ensured the popularity of the publications in its initial years. Despite its success, Chertkov’s leadership alienated many of his Tolstoyan coworkers and publishing output diminished.” (https://tolstoyans.wordpress.com/tolstoyan-enterprises/publishing-enterprises/)
 |
| Free Age Press publications, 1900 |
“…Fifield worked with Free Age for only three years, from
early 1900 to the middle of 1902, in that time bringing out forty-three
publications. He left after a dispute
with Chertkov (the aristocrat quarrelled with practically all his associates)
and soon thereafter started his own publishing house, the Simple Life Press,
later using his own name, A.C.Fifield, Publisher. In this new form he produced many volumes of
Tolstoyan themes, including a few by Tolstoy himself. His books spanned the concerns of the London
Tolstoyans: works by and on Tolstoy himself, simplicity in living (the Simple
Life Series seems to have been his first set of publications, with over twenty
volumes), vegetarianism, protest against exploitation, and affirmations of the
hope of human brotherhood….Five of the twenty titles cited by Gandhi in his
Hind Swaraj were from Fifield. There were
two essays by Thoreau, ‘On the Duty of Civil Disobedience’ and ‘Life Without
Principle’ and Godfrey Blount’s A New Crusade, calling for simplicity in
lifestyle, the revival of traditional crafts, and the renewing of country life. The fourth was The Fallacy of Speed by Thomas
Taylor, a sweeping critique of modern civilization, questioning the presumed
benefits of improved transportation. …Eleven Fifield titles were found in
Gandhi’s ashram library, including Sayings of Tolstoy (1911), Crosby’s Tolstoy as
a Schoolmaster (1904), and Percy Reffern’s Tolstoy – a Study (1907). Salome Hocking (Mrs Fifield) was represented by her novel of Tolstoyan communities, Belinda the Backward; A
Romance of Modern Idealism (1905). Three
were by the vegetarian Henry D.Salt, including Animals’ Rights (1905).” ( Hunt, James D., An American Looks at Gandhi: Essays in Satyagraha, Civil Rights, and Peace, Bibliophile, South East Asia, 2005)
"...Charles W. Daniel (1871 – 1955) became the principal
organizer of the London Tolstoyan Society, in 1902, he began his own publishing
business and also distributed Free Age books, eventually supplanting Fifield as
the leading publisher of unorthodox books with a Tolstoyan ambience.” (ibid.)
From reading about Daniel it appears that my modern understanding
of the term ‘crank’ (my previous posts
The Haslemere Cranks) and it’s meaning at the time are not in alignment: “In
1904, he stated a monthly, first called
The
Crank, and later
The Open Road.
The first name was suggested by Mary Everest
Boole, one of its regular contributors.
‘A crank’, she said, ‘is a little thing that makes revolutions’.
 |
Arthur C. Fifield's wife, Salome Hocking,
published by Arthur C. Fifield |
Fifield married Salome Hocking. Alston (Alston, Charlotte,
Tolstoy and his Disciples: The History of a Radical International Movement,
I.B. Tauris, 2013) refers to her as “sometime manager of the Free Age Press”.
Fifield and Hocking married in 1894.
Hocking’s novel
Belinda the Backward: A Romance of Modern Idealism appears to have been heavily influenced by
her time at the Free Age Press and is based on working in a publishers printing
Russian literature for a Mr Kovelevsky (Chertkov) and other identifiable
characters.
Alston states that “Fifield
believed that his wife genuinely feared Chertkov, but she insisted that her
portrait of him was not malicious.”
The
Hockings appear to have been a literary family from Brannel, Cornwall, Salome’s
brother Joseph Hocking (1860-1937) was a Methodist minister who used fiction as
a means of conveying his Christian beliefs, and her brother Silas K. Hocking is
described in a similar fashion.
There
is further information on the Hockings in various publications including
Pulp Methodism: The Lives and Literature of
Silas, Joseph and Salome Hocking, Three Cornish Novelists (Kent, Alan M.,
Cornish Hillside Publications, 2002).
Fifield met Chertkov through the Brotherhood Church, but what was this? "The Croydon Brotherhood Church’s charismatic leader, John C.
Kenworthy, underwent a Tolstoyan conversion and thereafter preached a blend of
Christian Socialism and Tolstoyan anarchism. (It is still active today, see their website
here) By 1897, several followers had settled on a lot of land in Purleigh,
Essex; the agricultural commune underwent fast expansion. Among the sympathizers who settled locally,
Tolstoy’s disciple, the political exile Vladimir Chertkov…Although they donned
Norfolk jackets, flannel shorts, and smocks like Ashbee’s men, early Purleigh
and Whiteway settlers, rather than pursue silversmithing and cabinetry, worked
the land like Tolstoy among his peasantry at Yasnaya Polyana…At the height of
its popularity, Purleigh Colony inspired similar experiments outside Blackburn,
Sheffield, and Leeds. But the colonists’
decision to pledge nearly half of Purleigh’s capital to the transport to Canada
of a refugee Russian pacificst sect, the Doukhobors, precipitated the ultimate financial collapse
of Purleigh in 1900. Internal dissension
had already spurred a splinter group to break away and found Whiteway Colony in
the Cotswolds in 1898…
"The English Tolstoyan life vividly recounted in one novel
produced by an ally and associate, Salome Hocking, who, with her spouse,
Arthur C. Fifield, had deliberately settled down the road from Purleigh
Colony.
“One hesitates to call the novel a satire, because it does
not parody crankish behaviour. …Belinda enumerates her physical discomforts
there. The fire from the insufficient
wood stove leaves everything they eat and drink tasting of smoke, and the floor
and ceiling beams of the cottage are black with it. The windows are badly fitted, so she tries to
stifle the drafts by placing her comb and brush against the gaps around the
window frames. There is a shortage of
linen and space, so she sleeps on a mattress on the floor of the front room
with a carriage rug and her coat as additional blankets. As the cottage is without cupboards or
wardrobes, she is promised a few nails on which to hang her dresses. Most of all, it is the dark bread, baked from
the grain that they have grown and harvest, that offends her, it is inedible,
hard, saltless, and dry; and it constitutes much of the two-meal-a-day diet at
the colony.
 |
Salome Hocking,
from Salome Hocking: A Cornish Woman Writer, Goodman, Gemma,
Women of Cornwall Monograph Series, The Hypatia Trust, 2004 |
“What is interesting is that long after she has settled in and
experienced a winter in the colony, Belinda reflects on the necessity of crafts
as a means of sustaining both happiness and the fabric of the commune. Most of those who remain at the colony are,
like, her, bookish and city-bred. But
she observes that “genuine” country people excel at skills of carpentry and
shoe mending and that the winter is when farmers repair gates and doors and
harnesses and replace hinges and fastenings.
She argues that the colonist has to be as handy as a sailor and “be able
to knock up a shed, make a table and bench, and, if possible, a chair for
himself”. “For a colony to be successful
some handicraft should be allied to agriculture” Notice, however, that while she uses the term
handicraft, there is no goal here of selling one’s work or converting others’
tastes to more Aesthetic designs. In
this Tolstoyian environment, one aims for self-sufficiency rather than market
success.” (Maltz, Diana, Living by Design: C.R. Ashbee’s Build of Handicraft
and Two English Tolstoyan Communities, 1897-1907, Victorian Literature and
Culture, Vol. 39, No.2 (2011) pp.409-426)
Sadly, the most famous mention of Arthur C. Fifield is his
rejection letter to Gertrude Stein in 1912.
The best explanation of this event (online) states “In 1912, Gerturude
Stein sent a manuscript to London-based publisher Arthur C. Fifield. The modernist author, known for her
avant-garde and at times impenetrable prose, had sent what would later be The Making of Americans: Being a History of
a Family’s Progress, published in 1925.
The novel is one of Stein’s more challenging works, using present
particple, limited vocabulary, and a lot of repitition. It was this last feature that Fifield drew
upon to craft his rejection letter (19 April 1912):
“Dear Madam
I am only one, only one, only one. Only one being, one at the same time. Not two, not three, only one. Only one life to live, only sixty minutes in
one hour. Only one pair of eyes. Only one brain. Only one being. Being only one, having only one pair of eyes,
having only one time, having only one life, I cannot read your M.S. three or
four times. Not even one time. Only one look, only one look is enough. Hardly one copy would sell here. Hardly one.
Hardly one.
Many thanks. I am
returning the M.S. by registered post. Only
one M.S. by one post.” (http://mentalfloss.com/article/65717/read-publishers-rejection-letter-gertrude-stein)
