Horace Newte

Horace Wykeham Can Newte, English novelist, playwright, and columnist, was born at Melksham, Wiltshire in 1870. The family moving to London, he was educated at Christ's Hospital and had his first play performed in 1889.

Newte's novels (to writing which he turned at about the age of 25) were very popular in their day, especially among young women. Of the 30 or so published works, perhaps the best known are the dystopia The Master Beast (1907), and the romance A Young Lady, a study in selectness (1913). Some have singular plots, such as The Home of the Seven Devils (also 1913), about a Catholic friar, who is required by his Order to renounce his vows. One of his books (Sparrows) was made into an early film (Vogelvrij) in the Netherlands. His last play, A Stroke of Business, jointly written with his Loughton neighbour and friend, Arthur Morrison, was performed in 1907.

Newte concentrated on journalism in the years after 1922, when his last novel (Whither) was published, becoming a columnist for the Daily Mirror and various provincial newspapers. His articles specialised in railing against the numerous aspects of contemporary life of which he disapproved.

In 1898, he had married Vera Rasch; they moved to Essex living in various ancient houses, including Moat Farm Upminster Common, and Alderton Hall Loughton. The couple divorced in 1916, and thereafter Horace lived in hotels. They had one child, a daughter, who died in infancy. Horace Newte died in Surrey on Christmas Day 1949.

Although Newte attracted an obituary in The Times on 31 December 1949, he was subsequently largely forgotten except by specialists in the field of Edwardian popular novels. A major study is understood [2016] to be pending publication.

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