Howard Overing Sturgis (1855-1920) was born in London to a rich and well-connected New England merchant family. Russell Sturgis, Howard's father, was a partner at Barings Bank in London, where he and his wife, Julia, were noted figures in society, entertaining such guests as Henry Adams, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Henry James, who became an intimate friend and mentor to Howard. Sturgis was a delicate child, closely attached to his mother, and fond of such girlish hobbies as needlepoint and knitting, which he continued to practice throughout his life. He attended Eton and Cambridge, and, after the death of his parents, purchased a house in the country, Queen's Acre, called Qu'acre, where Howdie (as Sturgis was known to his intimates) and his presumed lover William Haynes-Smith (called "the Babe") frequently and happily entertained a wide circle of friends, among them James and Edith Wharton. In 1891 Sturgis published his first novel, Tim: A Story of School Life, based on his unhappy days at Eton, which was followed, in 1895, by All That Was Possible, an epistolary novel written from the perspective of a retired actress. Both books went into several printings. Nearly ten years passed before Sturgis published his masterpiece, Belchamber, which was successful neither with the public nor with his friends. He was not to write again. »

Edmund White has written biographies of Jean Genet, Marcel Proust, and Arthur Rimbaud. He has also written several novels, travel books, and a memoir. He teaches writing at Princeton and lives in New York City. »

E. M. Forster (1879—1970) was a novelist, short-story writer, and critic born in London. His most famous works include Howard's End, A Passage to India, and A Room with a View. »

Belchamber

By Howard Sturgis
Introduction by Edmund White
Afterword by E.M. Forster

Charles Edwin William Augustus Chambers—Marquis and Earl of Belchamber, Viscount Charmington, and Baron St. Edmunds and Chambers—known familiarly as Sainty, is the scion of an ancient English aristocratic family. Behind him stretches a rogues' gallery of picturesque upper-crust scoundrels. But he is uninterested in riding to hounds or drinking or whoring in the great tradition of his forebears, and though he admires his tough-minded puritanical Scottish mother, he lacks her unrelenting moral self-assurance. Sainty is instead a sensitive soul, physically delicate, sexually timid, intellectually inclined, utterly honest, and thoroughly decent, but constitutionally incapable of asserting himself. When it comes to assuming the responsibilities of his inheritance, to managing his feckless younger brother Albert or fathoming his sly cousin Clyde, and, above all, to the essential business of marrying and continuing the family line, Sainty hasn't a prayer.

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Reviews

One of the unique novels of the nineteen hundreds. . . praised by Henry James and Edith Wharton, and. . . hailed by E. M. Forster.
— Los Angeles Times

Belchamber is a story about moral choices. With an intriguing cast of unreliable characters, it poses questions about good and bad behaviour and demonstrates effectively that virtue is rarely its own reward.
— Anita Brookner

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Format: Paperback
Retail Price: $15.95
Price: $11.96 (25% off)


Mar 4, 2008
368 pages
ISBN: 1590172663
9781590172667
Literature in English
NYRB Classics

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