A few months ago, while wandering around the used-book section at Amazon.com, I took note of a very cheap, out-of-print tome about London. Penned more than 60 years earlier, it was surely not up to date. The capital of England has changed a lot since 1950, but I looked closer if only because the customer reviews were so positive. The author, H.V. Morton, got warm accolades for his prose style and historical knowledge. A bit more research turned up quotes in which Morton was called the finest travel writer of his time.
Not only did I buy the book (In Search of London), I read every page and did my usual underlining, annotating and seeking of more information. I soon understood why Morton was held in such high regard. He deftly took me into a whole constellation of times and places in the history of London, including the first-century Roman conquest, Viking incursions, Henry VIII and his wives, Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, the Gordon Riots of 1780, Dickens, Trafalgar Square, the scaffold at Tyburn, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Thames River, Fleet Street, Mayfair, the Strand, Southwark, the Blitz of World War II and reconstruction efforts which began soon thereafter. Morton was a master of the set piece in which he stood, for example, at the foot of London Bridge and wondered/speculated/philosophized about the many events that have taken place there over the centuries. He wrote of Cockneys, fishmongers, washerwomen and scoundrels as well as kings, queens, aristocrats and archbishops.
Although Morton never graduated from college, he knew his history and had a flair for conveying it to the general reader. It’s easy to see why he was so enormously popular in Britain. He began with columns in various newspapers in Birmingham and London, which led directly to his books. A pioneering and prolific journalist, he pumped out nearly 50 books between 1925 and his death in 1979. Even before I had finished reading In Search of London, I bought In the Steps of the Master (1934) and A Traveler in Rome (1957). Both were superb. My understanding of and feel for the Holy Land and the "eternal city" have been considerably expanded thanks to Morton.
That is far from all. I Googled the man and learned that in 2003 a group of admirers had formed the H.V. Morton Society. Its stated purpose is to promote interest in, and provide a means for exchanging views about Morton’s life and work. Since there was no charge to join, I became the 220th member in December 2011. I receive "HVM" bulletins and have exchanged numerous letters with one of the Society’s founders, Peter Devenish of Perth, Australia. He and I have discussed the three above-cited Morton books and some aspects of the writer’s life.
I made another purchase from Amazon.com—a biography entitled In Search of H.V. Morton. Written by a Brit named Michael Bartholomew and published in 2004, it is based largely on Morton’s journal. His having compiled such a no-holds-barred journal seems foolish to me because he often comes across as smug and self-centered. Long after he had become famous and somewhat wealthy, he muttered cynically about the “book-writing racket.” He was a womanizer who drank a lot, but how unique is that among male heterosexual writers? Morton was, from a modern perspective, a racist, and his kind words about fascism and Nazism are troubling to even his most ardent supporters. Bartholomew castigated him for leaving home soon after the war to settle in South Africa; he did not want to pay high taxes, and he was alarmed—perhaps overly so—about the British empire coming to an end. Bartholomew viewed his emigration to South Africa as tacit endorsement of apartheid. Furthermore, the author pointed out Morton’s tendency to exaggerate about the things he did and places he went.
When I asked Devenish about these matters, he made no attempt to refute them. But he insisted they should not detract from Morton’s status as a truly great travel writer. Morton was from the upper-middle class, a man of his time, and thus should be cut some slack. I agree with this assessment, and to be completely honest I found it refreshing to read a man who made no attempt to filter his writings for the PC crowd. As far as that goes, he said a number of snarky things about Americans—we are a nation of mongrels, shallow and gauche, to boot. It's better not to generalize, but who knows? Maybe there was some basis for those comments.
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