This weekend – in between fending off attempts by the regulars to drown me in blackberries – I have been on the look-out for curious books that Mr Summers won’t notice the absence of. I think I’ve turned up the perfect candidate in Hamlet & the Pirates (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1950). It sounds like it should be a young adult novel, but it isn’t – it’s a light academic work by D.S Savage, as indicated by the book’s subtitle: ‘An Exercise in Literary Detection‘.
Savage’s investigation centres on a throwaway comment of Hamlet’s to Horatio in Act IV Sc.VI. In this letter to his friend, Hamlet casually mentions that he had been temporarily imprisoned by ‘a pirate of very warlike appointment’, but that it’s all OK and there’s nothing to worry about, because they looked after him on the understanding that the Prince himself would do them a ‘good turn’. That’s the last anyone hears of the pirate incident, and let’s face it, since by this point Hamlet’s either been doing a good impression of being a madman or has actually been a madman, according to your reading of the play, the whole incident could easily be the manipulations of a desperate mind or the imaginings of a mad one. But to Savage, the addition of the ‘piracy paragraphs’ is less to do with Hamlet the character than it is to do with Hamlet the play. His argument is that the mention of pirates was added into a later Quarto by Shakespeare himself as a comment on the piracy of his work, which the author maintains was happening at the same time. I like the idea.
Derek Savage himself was an interesting character. Born in 1917, he became a pacifist aged 13, when a leg injury led to him spending a lot of time in a hospital that more usually catered for soldiers who had been severely wounded in WW1. Such was his conviction that when WW2 broke out, Savage successfully argued before a tribunal that he be released from conscription on the grounds of Conscientious Objection. His obituary mentions that though he won his argument, he also garnered the customary thoughtless persecutions accorded CO’s. Savage later became General secretary of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship. He wrote throughout his life, both poetry and critical prose, including the more widely-acclaimed The Withered Branch, a collection of essays on the modern novel that was also published by Eyre & Spottiswoode in 1950. However, in the biographical note included in Hamlet & the Pirates, there is a mention that this briefer book grew out of an exhaustive study of the play that the author was conducting for his ‘major work’, The Underground Man. I can’t find any reference to this ever having been published. Savage died in 2007, aged 90.
The copy of the book we have here is a first, in very good condition. It has its original unclipped dust jacket – a little rubbed at the corners, and slightly age-worn, but otherwise clean with no sun fading. No internal foxing. I think, including postage anywhere in the UK, I shall offer it for £10. Pictures (click for enlargement):
Drop me a message if your interest is piqued.
If you’re wondering why I was being threatened with soft fruit and how I avoided death, you can investigate the dark belly of Bronze & Kingfisher here… Although, on second thoughts, you’d better wait until later, as it looks as if I don’t have time to post it at the moment. There’s a man standing outside the door who looks suspiciously as if he could be a customer, and Mr Summers is off on his morning rounds. Don’t worry, I’m sure I can deal with the unexpectedness of this situation if I really put my mind to it.
~ Annie
