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109 Pages·2014·3.58 MB·English

RULES ADOPTED BY THE BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HANAll
HAY 21. 1948 VITH REGARD TO THE REPRODUCTION OF MASTERS THESES
ia> No person or corporation may publish or reproduce in any manner, without
the consent of the Board of Repents, a thesis which has been submitted to the
University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree,
tbj ho individual or corporation or other organization may publish quotations
or excerpts from a graduate thesis without the consent of the author and of
the University.
LQOIS BSCKEi A STUDY
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISIOH OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF HAHAll IS PARTIAL FULFILLUEHT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
AUGUST 1957
By
Margaret Anne Ingraa
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^ TABLE OF CGMTENTS
PREFACE............................................................1
FRONTISPIECE! LOUIS BSCJiE.............................. After page ill
CHAPTER I. LOUIS BECKE, THE MAN
The Tine and Place . . . . 1
His Life.................................... 4
Hoj&e Tie« ..................................... i
The First Voyage........... ....................6
Pacific Odyssey ........... . . . . . . . 7
Retrospect . . . . . . 14
CHAPTER II. HIS WORKS
Classification . . . . . . ......................... 21
Chronological Description .......................... 22
Develop« nt of Autobiographical Tendency . . . . . . . 59
Chronological Description Continued........... 42
Conclusion ........ ............. ................. 60
CHAPTER III. KI3 CRAFTSMANSHIP
The Scene . . . . . . ................ . . . . . . . . 6 2
The Thanes . . . . . . . . . ........................ 68
The Plots................. 72
The Characters .................................82
Conclusion..........................................95
CHAPTER IV. mS VALUS
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources..................................... 99
Secondary Sources ........................ 101
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PREFACE
In making this study of Louis Becke, Australian author of talas
set principally in the Pacific Islands, I was dependent to a great ex­
tent on his works themselves. Very little secondary material was avail­
able: three magazine articles, five brief prefaces in collections of his
tales, sketchy or chance allusions in three or four other books — these
were my secondary references during the writing of most of this paper.
With such a paucity of critical material, it was impossible to support
my opinions or deductions invariably by reference to an authority. I have
tried to avoid broad statements and to give ample supporting evidence from
the works themselves, hut I felt that constant repetition of qualifying
phrases such as "probably,■ "in my opinion," etc, would only vitiate the
strength of the deductions thus made and supported. It is to be under­
stood throughout the paper, then, that unless reference to an authority
is cited, the opinions advanced and the statements made are my own.
While the second and third chapters of this thesis were still in
rough draft, and while the first chapter, on Backs'a life, was still in
outline, further information, biographical and critical, arrived from
Australia. For this I an deeply indebted to Miss Ida Lee son, the Librar­
ian, and to the Board of Trustees of the Mitchell Library of Sydney. My
letters of inquiry to .the Bon. Bertram Sydney Stevens, Premier and Colo­
nial Treasurer of Sew South Wales, (whom 1 supposed to be the Bertram
Stevens of The Lone Band, said to have been Backe's literary exacu tor1),
to Mr. Ernest R. Pitt of the Melbourne Public Library, and to Miss Lesson,
brought full and helpful response; and upon ay application the Board of
Trustees of the Public Library of Mew South Wales granted permission to
have copies made for my use of certain early letters from Becks to his

T.
J. C. "Australasian Literature," The Ration, XCVII, (July 10, 1915), 50.
ii
■other, newspaper interviews, and agreements between Becke and his pub­
lishers, all housed in the Itttchell Library, tt.es Leeson must have spent
«oh tine and careful thought in selecting the naterial which fitted ny
description of needs. It is difficult to express ny gratitude adequately •
for the courtesy and co-operative spirit shows hy tha .Tor Hr. Ttevorjs
and these people of the Public Library ays ten of Australia.
The copied naterial, referred to throughout the paper as "Typescript,"
did not necessitate changing, except in a few minor points, either the plan
or the text of this paper. It was gratifying, however, to find certain
deductions substantiated by evidence outside the works of Beoke themeelves,
especially *hen, as in tho discussion of the part played by Bscxe and
Jeffery respectively in their collaborations, the internal evidence was
somewhat thin.2 The biographical information was of great interest —
especially Beoke*s letters to his mother, written, most of then, during
hie stay on Nanomaga in 1880-1881. Unfortunately this splendid record
covers only a year or two; for the mast part authentic dates and means of
securing an accurate chronicle of his life are unavailable now.
The Earl of Pembroke included n brief biographical sketch In his
Introduction to Becks's _§y Beef and palm, and most subsequent writers have
baaed their comments on hie work. It is merely an account of Becks'•
various ventures and activities, incomplete, lacking sufficient dates to
make it an adequate framework on which to build with material gleaned from
his stories. Furthermore, it is bassd almost entirely upon a letter which
Beoke wrote to Pembroke, evidently at the time when the latter was about
to prepare his Introduction to Becks's first collection of tales. Pembroke
used most of this material aB Beats presented it, much of it word for word,
merely changing it from the first to the third person.
Tl Chapter II, 37, 47.
ill
These autobiographical notes are so* in the Mitchell Library of
Sydney, and a copy of then is in the University of Hawaii Library. They
are written in Becks»s casual, unanalytical style, and night easily be
erroneous in chronology, particularly since the conflicting dates he gives
in nany of his stories suggest that he fell into the island habit of let­
ting tine slip unnoticed through his fingers.

CHAPTER I
LOUIS BECKJS, THE HAH
The Time and Place
To orient George Louis Backs in point of tine with better known
figures of the literary world, one has only to remember that he was al­
most the exact contemporary of Joseph Conrad. Conrad was bora Dec saber 6,
1857) Be eke, according to the best authorities available, June 18, 1855,1
although June 17, 1857^ and the year 1348" are also given as the date of
his birth. The year 1865 M e n to fit with autobiographic accounts of his
life, however, and so is probably the correct date. These authors' first
I iff
publications, Conrad's Alnayer's Polly and Becks's Beef and Pain, ware
published the sane year, 1894, fay the sane publisher, T. Fisher Unwin of
London. While Conrad was writing novels of the eastern islands of the
China Sea, Becks was producing volume after volume filled with tales of
Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. His Pacific Tales. Edward Barry.
and The Strange Adventure of James Shervinton were contemporary publica­
tions with Conrad's The Bigger of the Marcia bus. Lord Jim, and Youth.
Conrad died in 1924, Becke eleven years earlier, in 1915.
fr
Becke preceded Stevenson fay about twenty years as resident, or ra­
ther as wanderer, among the Pacific Islands, for he left his Australian
home, according to his own account, in March, 1869, when about fourteen
years old, touched at Burutu in the Tubual Group on his way out to
California, and by 1870 was already started on his career as business man
(ha varied his occupations) in the South Sea Islands.4 Stevenson began
the tour which was to end in voluntary exile in 1888, but his South Sea
TI George Msckanesa, Introduction, Tales of the South Seas, by Louis Becke, vii.
2. Publisher's Bote, Bully Bayes. Buccaneer, fay Louis Becke.
5. "South Sea Hovelist," Wellington Dominion,(Sept. 9, 1908), Typescript.
4. Autobiographic Hotea, Typescript
The Adventures of Louis Blake, 2, 17, 89 ff.
stories and A Footnote to History preceded Beene's publications, for
Stevenson died the year By H»>f and Palm mas published. It is interesting
to note, however, that although Stevenson's The Ebb Tide was published in
1894, a year before the appearance of Becke *s collection entitled The Sbb-
of the Tide, Becke disdained any indebtedness to Stevenson for the
title of his book. In a letter to the Editor of the Standard, written in
London in 1897, Becke said:
Sir -
In his kindly criticiea of a book of nine entitled "Pacific Tales"
your Scviewer says, "If there had never been a Hebert Louis Stevenson,
never an Attw&ter nor a Huish, the public would probably have paid
much less attention to kin" (myself) "than he deserves. This is not
saying that Mr. Becke is in any direct sense indebted to Stevenson,
save, perhaps, for the title of one of his volumes."
The volume of mine to which your Reviewer refers is "At the Ebbing
of the Tide," a collection of stories which was published by Mr.
Fisher Unwin two years ago. I sent them to hiw from Australia, »«i
said in the accompanying letter, "Use your on judgment as to the
title of the book." Mr. Unwin chose as a title "The Ebbing of the
Tide," which was the title of one of the stories in the volume) and
this story, under that title was written by me and published by the
Sydney Bulletin two years before Mr. Stevenson's story of "The Ebb
Tide" appeared, either serially or in book form. Mr. Unwin will
corroborate this, as cell as the Editor of the Bulletin.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
Louis Becke.
Historically, the years which Becke passed among the islands were
fraught with interest. He was in Samoa during the rebellion against the
native king Malletoa, Incited by the Germans and opposed, not entirely un­
selfishly, by the English and Americans, of which Stevenson has given a
vivid account in A Footnote to History. A number of his stories tell of
his experiences there,® probably during 1875 ami 1874, for he often speaks
of the power of Stelaberger, whose influence was high from *75 to '75.'
Beoke'a sympathies, like Stevenson's, were with Malletoa, or Laupepa, al-
” tetter from Becke to Editor of Standard. (Bov. 16, 1897), Typescript.
0. Book and Pool, "The Tanlfa of Samoa;" Botes from My South Sea Log.
"3? Order of the King;" The Call of the South,"To Bari, Outlaw," "The
Pit of Maota,” "A Bight Run Across Fag aloe Bay.”
7, Sylvia Masteraan, The Origins of International Rivalry in Samoa,1845-
-5-
though he regained neutral and friendly with the natiVBg of both parties.
At least, go ha claimed,'"' although his frequent tales of gun-running and
selling iras to the loyal forces, good business though this practice was,
could hardly win hin the title of an absolute neutral.
Becks also had the unquestionable privilege — to a lover of adven­
ture — of intimate acquaintance with one of the last of the buccaneers,
Captain William Henry Hayes, an American by birth, and better known as
Bully Hayes, notorious adventurer and rover in the South and China Seas
9
between 1850 and 1877. As every reader of his tales well knows, Becks
sailed with Hayes aboard the famed Leonora as supercargo. In March, 1874,1
(Becke usually gives this date, although in one of his stories he puts it
1 ^ V A
a year earlier, and in a letter to his mother he makes it a year later, )
as the trim little clipper brig lay at anchor in Utwe Harbor at Kusaie
(Strong's IslandV a heavy squall bore down upon her, and drove her on a
coral mushroom, where she broke up in less than half an hour. Toung Becke
evidently kept his head and his courage — we have it on authority other
i* i
than his own — remaining with the ship until Hayes himself left her, af­
ter sanding all the passengers and crew, as wall as the natives aboard,
ashore. At the last moment, when he might have thought only of his own
skin, he remembered Lmlla, the young native girl who was much attached to
him, and who had been injured in trying to help him save some trads goods
and papers. He dashed below to get her, and by saving her life saved his
own, for a moment later, as they were swept over the side, he was stunned
by a blow from some wreckage, and would have drownod had she not dragged
him to the boat.1
The Call of the South. "A Might Run Across Fagaloa Bay," 248.
9. Basil Lubbock, Bally Hayes, 19, 509.
10. Ibid, 276.
11. Beath Austral Skies, "Jack Shark," 258.
12. Letter from Becke to his Mother, (Sept. 24, 1881), Typescript.
13. Basil Lubbock, Bully Bayes, 266-275.