Harold Begbie

Edward Harold Begbie (1871 – 8 October 1929), also known as Harold Begbie, was an English journalist and the author of nearly 50 books and poems. Besides studies of the Christian religion, he wrote numerous other books, including political satire, comedy, fiction, science fiction, plays and poetry. He died in London on 8 October 1929.

Early career

Begbie was born in 1871, the fifth son of Mars Hamilton Begbie, rector of

At the outbreak of World War I Begbie wrote a number of recruiting poems and visited America on behalf of his paper.

Religious views

Begbie had a strong religious bent: he was involved in the

In the preface to the American edition of his book The Glass of Fashion (1921), Begbie attacked Darwinism. However, he was not anti-evolution. In his book The Proof of God (1914), he endorsed theistic evolution.^[5]

Begbie strongly defended the reality of the alleged apparition of the Angels of Mons and attacked Arthur Machen for claiming they derived from his story "The Bowmen". Begbie printed numerous accounts of the "Angels" in his book On the Side of the Angels (1915) but these are generally anonymous, second-hand or otherwise unverifiable. However, war regulations prevented naming of military personnel. ^{[citation needed]}

Political views

In 1902 and 1903, Begbie, together with

By 1916, dismayed by the attacks being made on

Before the First World War Begbie was an outspoken Liberal social reformist, but he moved rapidly to the right in the post-war period. In a series of books written under the pseudonym "Gentleman with a Duster", he denounced sexually suggestive literature (such as the early plays of Noël Coward), lamented the precarious economic state of the middle classes and the prospective disintegration of the British Empire, and called for a strong hand against left-wing subversives even if this meant restricting some traditional British liberties.

Works

Besides the "Gentleman with a Duster" books, Begbie wrote Broken Earthware, Other Sheep, In the Hands of the Potter, and Life of General Booth, a book about William Booth.^[1] He also wrote a novel, The Great World, which was published in September 1925 by Mills & Boon and acted as ghostwriter for the memoir of the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton.

• The Political Struwwelpeter, 1898
• The Story of Baden-Powell: 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps', 1900
• Bundy in the Greenwood, 1902
• ISBN 978-1-904808-49-7
  )
• ISBN 978-1-904808-50-3
  )
• On the Side of the Angels, 1915[6]
• The life of William Booth, the Founder of the
  Salvation Army
  , 1920
• The Bed-Book of Happiness, 1914
• The Proof of God, 1914
• The Vindication of Great Britain, 1916
• Twice Born Men: A Clinic in Regeneration (A Footnote in Narrative to Professor William James's 'Varieties of Religious Experience'), 1909
• The Mirrors of Downing Street: Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster, 1921
• The Glass Of Fashion: Some Social Reflections by A Gentleman With A Duster, 1921 (G. P. Putnam's Sons)
• Shackleton: A Memoir, 1922 (Mills & Boon)
• Painted Windows: Studies in Religious Personality, 1922
• Seven Ages: A Brief Narrative of the Pilgrimage of the Human Mind as It Has Affected the English Speaking World, by a Gentleman with a Duster, 1923^[7]
• The Laslett Affair,^[8] 1928
• Everychild: A Christmas Morality published by James Clarke & Co; 13 & 14 Fleet Street, London, E.C. (no date given)

References

1. ^
   OCLC 1091880941
   .
2. ^ John Hammerton(1946) Child of Wonder: An Intimate Biography of Arthur Mee
3. ^ Michael Tracy (2008), The World of the Edwardian Child, as seen in Arthur Mee's "Children's Encyclopædia", 1908–1910. [1] Archived 26 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine
4. ^ Reprint of Harold Begbie The Lady Next Door (University College Dublin Press, 2006) with introduction by Patrick Maume.
5. ^ Branch, Glenn. "A Gentleman with a Duster, Part 1". NCSE. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
6. ^ "OnTheSideOfTheAngelsWithIntroduction.pdf".
7. ^ Halkett, Samuel (1 January 1926). "Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature" – via Google Books.
8. ^ "The Laslett Affair".

External links

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Edward Harold Begbie

• Works by Harold Begbie at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Edward Harold Begbie at Faded Page (Canada)
• Works by or about Harold Begbie at Internet Archive
• The Struwwelpeter Alphabet with verse by Harold Begbie available as full text and zoomable page images in the
  Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature