Sound and Modernity in the Literature of London, 1880-1918 PDF
Preview Sound and Modernity in the Literature of London, 1880-1918
PATRICIA PYE Sound and Modernity in the Literature of London 1880-1918 Sound and Modernity in the Literature of London, 1880–1918 Patricia Pye Sound and Modernity in the Literature of London, 1880–1918 Patricia Pye Buckinghamshire New University Uxbridge, UK ISBN 978-1-137-54016-4 ISBN 978-1-137-54017-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-54017-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939113 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: © Hilary Morgan / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom In memory of Elsie Pye (1924–2015) A cknowledgements This book evolved from a Ph.D. thesis, ‘Sound and Modernity in Conrad’s London fiction’ (2013), so first I am indebted to my super- visor, Prof. Robert Hampson of Royal Holloway College, University of London, for his enthusiasm and support throughout. Our discussions about sound and modernity stimulated many of the ideas for this book. I am also grateful to Prof. Tim Middleton of Bucks New University and Prof. Matt Rubery of Queen Mary College, University of London, for their comments on the original thesis, and for their encouragement to continue with the project. My thanks are also due to James Denny and Dr Hugh Epstein for commenting on individual chapters, and to Palgrave Macmillan’s anony- mous reader for many helpful suggestions on an early draft. The support of Ben Doyle, Paula Kennedy, and Tomas René at Palgrave is also much appreciated. The help of archive staff has been invaluable, and I would especially like to thank Ian Rawes, formerly of the British Library Sound Archive, for information about sound recordings. I have benefited from the opportunity to present early drafts of mate- rial at conferences, including those of the Joseph Conrad Society, the London Literary Society, and the Londonicity symposium. Chapter 1 includes an adapted version of my article ‘Hearing the News in The Secret Agent’, which first appeared in The Conradian (34.2 (2009): 51–63). The book also includes some material from an earlier article, ‘A City that “disliked to be disturbed”: London’s Soundscape in The Secret Agent’ (The Conradian 32.1 (2007): 21–35), and from ‘The Silent City: vii viii ACKNOWLEDgEMENTS Literary Impressions of the Late-Victorian Soundscape’ (London Reader 2, essays from the Londonicity symposium (2012), 120–131). Finally, I should like to record my gratitude to my parents for their encouragement and support, and for all the childhood trips to London, which first stimulated my interest in the city. c ontents Part I Sound and Time 1 Waiting for the Sound: Noise, Time, and the News 3 Part II Sound and Social Progress 2 Speakers, Listeners, and the Power of the Platform 41 Part III Sound and Popular Culture 3 ‘Can’t It Be Stopped?’—London and the Popular Tone 73 Part IV Sound and Space 4 Silence, the Suburbs, and Life ‘Beyond the City’ 105 ix x CONTENTS Conclusion 145 Bibliography 155 Index 171 I ntroductIon In the course of his nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect with which the footfalls of a single person, while he is still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city. (Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 1886) The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ. (Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891) The murmur of town life, the subdued rumble of wheels in the two invis- ible streets to the right and left, came through the curve of the sordid lane to his ears with a precious familiarity and an appealing sweetness. (Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent, 1907)1 These impressions all allude to a similar audition of London. The city hums, roars dimly, murmurs, rumbles: such terms suggest an urban soundscape in which, as Stephen Crane describes in ‘London Impressions’ (1897), there was a great mass of humanity, of ‘closely gathered thousands’.2 For Crane, this produces the eerie effect of a ‘low drone, perhaps, a humming contributed to inevitably by the closely gath- ered thousands’ which, he concludes, is actually more like a ‘silence’.3 While the British Library’s ‘Sound Map’ and the ‘London Sound Survey’ will provide a record of our twenty-first century soundscape for future generations, no such record exists for the late Victorian and early Edwardian era.4 However, we do have the impressions of the period’s writers, who heard the modern city as its soundscape transformed.5 Two modern re-creations of London’s street sounds in the British Library’s xi
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