Hubert Crackanthorpe
Hubert Crackanthorpe, originally named Hubert Montague Cookson, was a British writer born in London in 1870. He came from a well-established family with roots in Westmorland, England, and was educated at Eton College before pursuing art studies in France. However, he found greater success in writing, contributing to literary journals like The Albermarle and publishing his first collection of short stories, *Wreckage: Seven Studies*, in 1893. Crackanthorpe's work is often associated with the Decadent movement of the 1890s, alongside notable contemporaries such as Aubrey Beardsley and Ernest Dowson. His writing tackled complex themes including social degradation and adultery, utilizing innovative characterization techniques influenced by Henry James. Despite his initial popularity, personal struggles, including a tumultuous marriage and his untimely death in the River Seine, led to a decline in his recognition by the 1920s. Recently, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in his contributions to late Victorian literature, reinvigorating discussions around his artistic legacy.
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Subject Terms
Hubert Crackanthorpe
Writer
- Born: May 12, 1870
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: December 24, 1896
- Place of death: France
Biography
Hubert Crackanthorpe was actually born Hubert Montague Cookson. His name was changed later, in 1888, to facilitate his father’s legacy. The latter, Montague Hughes Cookson, came from an old family, whose seat was at Newbiggin Hall in Westmorland, in the northwest of England. However, Hubert was born in London in 1870, where his well-off father had an established legal career and was involved in various business ventures, including a stake in The Albermarle, a society journal. His father was also a published writer, as was his mother, Blanche Elizabeth Holt, the family following a number of artistic and intellectual interests.
Hubert was educated at Eton College, England’s leading private school, from 1883 to 1888. He then spent a year in France before studying art with Selwyn Image. However, he soon proved more successful as a writer, submitting a review of Henry James and an interview with Émile Zola to The Albermarle in 1892, at the same time submitting to the journal a short story titled “He Wins Who Loses.” From then on, a series of short stories emerged, published the next year as Wreckage: Seven Studies to good reviews. In the same year, he married Leila Macdonald, a writer from a wealthy background, and they moved to France.
Two further volumes of short stories and essays followed: in 1895 Sentimental Studies and a Set of Village Tales, to more mixed reviews; and in 1896, Vignettes: A Miniature Journal of Whim and Sentiment, a collection of periodical essays, many first published in The Speaker and Saturday Review. By this time, his marriage was disintegrating. Leila had a miscarriage largely due to the venereal disease she had been infected with by Hubert. She left for Italy. Both partners had affairs, and each returned to Paris. Soon afterwards, Hubert’s body was found in the River Seine, it being unclear whether it was suicide or accidental drowning in the high flooding at the end of the year. After his death, a final collection of three short stories was published as Last Studies (1897). A play, The Light Sovereign, appeared in 1917.
Crackanthorpe is often included in a group of young writers of the 1890’s called the Decadents, whose main literary journal was The Yellow Book. It is true some of Crackanthorpe’s stories did appear there, together with the contributions of Aubrey Beardsley, Ernest Dowson, Arthur Symons, Arthur O’Shaughnessey, and Lionel Johnson. However, the influence of Henry James is equally as strong, as his stories began to explore more realistic themes, though often with a supernatural touch, as in “A Feilside Tragedy.” Indeed, as a contemporary of E. M. Forster, he is often seen as pre-Bloomsbury, anticipating some of the modernist prose of Virginia Woolf. He also treated topics the late Victorians found difficult: social degradation, adultery, and the fallen woman.
In Sentimental Studies, for example, he employed new techniques of characterization. In Vignettes, he also tried his hand at prose poetry, as did Symons and Dowson, inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s “vignettes” of Paris. It has been suggested a new sense of the poetry of urban life was inspired by late-Victorian London. The story “Anthony Garstin’s Courtship,” written in 1896 and collected in Last Studies, is probably his best known, appearing in several recent anthologies. Despite Henry James’s introduction to the Collected Stories, (reissued in 1969), Crackanthorpe was largely forgotten by the 1920’s. Only recently has a renewed interest in late Victorian literature, with such journals as that published by The 1890’s Society, meant that Crackanthorpe’s oeuvre is being once again reprinted.