The Moral Alphabet is a whimsical romp from A-Z which has delighted children and adults since its publication in 1899. Written by Hilaire Belloc, the anglo-French writer, Peter Harrington has acquired a copy originally belonging to much-lauded Great War poet Rupert Brooke.
Brooke was an ardent fan of the work of Belloc, and his influence upon Brooke was profound although not often acknowledged. As early as 1906, Brooke wrote to his mentor St. John Lucas expressing his distaste for Belloc’s book Hills and Sea: “We are having read to us Belloc’s new book. I had expected something like ‘The Path to Rome,’ and was therefore disappointed. So far as we have got – about half way – it is historical, descriptive, quite interesting, the expression of an unusual view. But it is not Belloc. I miss that grave and fantastic irresponsibility; it is a clever book which might have been written by any of several men; I wanted one that only one could have made.”
A year later, Belloc travelled to Cambridge to give a reading at Pembroke College. It was there that Brooke was able to meet the writer he so admired for the first time. The pair spent the evening together, and as he told to his friend Francis John MacCunn, he walked the “wonderfully drunk” Belloc home. Brooke lunched with Belloc the following day, and two days later wrote to his mother how that afternoon he had ,“met him again in the street and, finding he was still hazy as to the best way to his house, walked there with him again. So altogether I feel rather pleased with myself!”.
Brooke’s biographer Nigel Jones has observed how Belloc’s brazenly vivacious alcoholism made quite an impression on Brooke. Jones also notes that in early 1909 they met again, after Brooke invited Belloc to dine with him and the Cambridge Apostles at his rooms in King’s College. Shortly before Christmas 1914, Brooke was stationed with his battalion in Dorset; not long before his death, he wrote to the French painter Jacques Raverat “I love no women and very few men: only Mr Belloc.”
Belloc was a strong literary personality of the Edwardian period, well-known for his love of beer and wine, male companionship, and outdoor pursuits such as walking and sailing. It was in 1896 that Belloc began to write his comical and satirical pieces which his audience found so enjoyable, and of which Moral Alphabet is a prime example. This is a thoroughly charming association copy.
