Mr. Meeson's Will [Hardcover]

H. Rider Haggard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2004

Everybody who has any connection with Birmingham will be acquainted with the vast publishing establishment still known by the short title of ¿Meeson¿s ¿ which is perhaps the most remarkable institution of the sort in Europe.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 184 pages
• Publisher: IndyPublish.com (September 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 141429736X
• ISBN-13: 978-1414297361
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A LESSER BUT STILL MIGHTY FUN HAGGARD, May 21, 2003

By 

s.ferber (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mr. Meeson's Will (Paperback)

"Mr. Meeson's Will" was first printed in book form in October 1888, after having first appeared earlier that year in "The Illustrated London News." It was H. Rider Haggard's 11th novel (out of 58), and one in which his experiences as both a writer and aspiring lawyer were given vent. The novel is at once a tale of adventure, a critique of the publishing industry in late 19th century England, and a satire on the English legal system. In the book's first half, Augusta Smithers--our heroine and a successful author, who has unwittingly entered into an unfair contract with Meeson's publishing firm--takes passage on board a steamship bound for New Zealand, where she hopes to make a fresh start. Her enemy, Mr. Meeson himself, is on board the same boat, coincidentally, and when the ship sinks after a catastrophic collision with a whaler (in a disaster scene that predates a similar, fictional shipwreck in Haggard's 1905 novel, "The Spirit of Bambatse," not to mention the real-life Titanic disaster of 1912), Augusta, Meeson and several others are washed up on one of the lonely Kerguelen Islands, in the south Indian Ocean. Before his death, Meeson decides to alter his will and, having no other means of doing so, has that testament tattooed upon Augusta's back! This sets up the story for the book's second half, in which a huge court battle takes place regarding the validity of this document. What might have turned out to be a dry exposition of legal procedures in another author's hands is handled quite entertainingly by H. Rider, and the result is a book of adventure in the first half--the shipwreck and marooning scenes are especially fun--and interesting court battles in the second. Haggard must have greatly enjoyed exposing the unfair practices of the publishing system that had tried to cheat him during his early career, much as Meeson & Co. had cheated Augusta. The book, though a lesser title in Haggard's bibliography--and probably a seldom-read one today, at least as compared to such other Haggard titles as "King Solomon's Mines" and "She"--offers ample entertainment value for the modern-day reader, and I do unreservedly recommend it. This book was, by the way, made into a film starring Lon Chaney in 1916, and called "The Grasp of Greed." If it's half as good as its source novel, I would love to see it one day.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Story; Shoddy Edition, August 29, 2005

By 

littleholzer, PhD (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mr. Meeson's Will (Paperback)

Sadly, the inordinate amount of typos in the Betancourt/Wildside edition of Haggard's obscure novel make the reading experience nearly unbearable (and I do not mean to indicate the obsolete grammar and punctuation of nineteenth century written English or Haggard's rough renderings of lower class English dialects). The only reason I am suffering through it is because I am writing a dissertation chapter on the text. I have some access to a first edition in my university library's Special Collections, so I know for a fact that the numerous mistakes, misspellings, and inconsistencies do not exist in the original illustrated book (circa 1888). (The Wildside edition also, sadly, excludes these illustrations, which truly were something!) While I remain sympathetic and supportive of the avowed mission of Wildside Press to bring "lost Haggard books back into print," I venture to state that Betancourt could and probably should have employed a careful copy editor to perform a thorough proofreading!

Some of the more frustrating examples from the 2001 Betancourt edition:

1. "It was on a Tuesday evening that a mightly steamed majestically out of the mouth of the Thames" (40)

2. "In a very few seconds it was dune" (60)

3. "Eustace stared at the broad fine of letters, which, with the signatures written underneath, might mean [...]" (116)

4. "the infant form the City" (176)

5. "Notice of appeal, I except" (176) [I think it was supposed to be "I expect"!]

6. Finally, in the editor's Introduction to the text, Haggard's most well known character Allan Quatermain's name is misspelled twice, as Quaterman.