(Buried deep in the reaches of vast antiquity lie the anci...)
Buried deep in the reaches of vast antiquity lie the ancient customs, the vicious "games," the laws of the privileged lord and his enslaved minions. Sarban's preoccupation with the remote brooding past which, in certain circumstances, refuses to die, but jealously invades the present through the life and sanity of just such a healthy young animal as the heroine of Ringstones.
(The legendary 1952 dystopian/alternative history novel ab...)
The legendary 1952 dystopian/alternative history novel about British naval lieutenant Alan Querdillon, who becomes a POW during the Battle of Crete during World War II, and awakens in a Nazi-controlled world 102 years after the war. He is hunted by a "Reichsforester" and takes refuge with genetically mutilated "undesirables" - one of the first fictional descriptions of genetic manipulation.
(The story of a young girl caught in the dreadful fascinat...)
The story of a young girl caught in the dreadful fascination of willing slavery, the agony of a conscious victim who cannot escape the mordant mastery of an egomaniac practicing unknown horrors.
(Sarban's three books from the 1950s, "Ringstones and Othe...)
Sarban's three books from the 1950s, "Ringstones and Other Curious Tales", "The Sound of His Horn and The Doll Maker" and "Other Tales of the Uncanny", are highly prized by admirers and collectors of his beautifully-crafted, impossibly hard to find strange stories. The posthumous publication of this fourth book of newly-discovered tales, "The Sacrifice and Other Stories", will, therefore, be of great interest to devotees of classic twentieth-century horror fiction.
Sarban is the pen name of John William Wall. The pseudonym "Sarban" means "Caravan-driver" in Persian. Wall was a British diplomat and writer. His writing was undertaken during a short period between 1947 and 1951, after which time he found himself without the opportunity or inclination to continue.
Background
John William Wall was born on November 6, 1910, in Mexborough, York, United Kingdom. His father was George William Wall, a passenger guard on the Great Central Railway, and his mother was Maria Ellen Moffatt. He was the youngest of five surviving children. Mexborough was then a small town, and Wall was able in his early and teenage years to get out on foot into the surrounding farmland, waste marshland, and woods.
Education
Although John Wall’s roots were decidedly amongst the respectable working class, he was a clever boy. From the local Elementary School he gained, in September 1922, a scholarship to Mexborough School, and from there, in October 1930, he won a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge to read English. He obtained the cheapest rooms that he could find, on a staircase in the oldest part of the buildings.
John Wall's first Diplomatic Service post was as Probationer Vice-Consul at Beirut. In succeeding years he was stationed at Jedda, Tabriz, Isfahan, and Casablanca. He was later Counsellor at the British Middle East Office in Cairo until 1952. His daughter does not believe that Wall ever achieved the position that he thought was his due, although his career was steady and obviously well-regarded. Once again he would have been conscious that his background was not that of most Foreign Office officials.
In the last months of 1947 Wall wrote two short stories, “Ringstones” and “A Christmas Story”, and early in 1948, he showed the typescripts to Eleanor Alexander (née Riesle).
From February to June 1948 Wall wrote the three other short stories published with “Ringstones”. Peter Davies liked these but said that he should write a novel because short stories didn’t sell so well. The attempt was The Discovery of Heretics, completed, but rejected twice by Davies. On turning down the novel for the first time, in February 1950, Peter Davies agreed to publish the short stories. The heroine of The Discovery of Heretics was called Jocelyn, the name Wall later gave to his only daughter.
In Cairo in the summer of 1950 Wall wrote The Sound of His Horn and “The Doll Maker”, before returning to England in November 1950. The family spent January of 1951 in and around Dorset. While staying at the Swan Hotel in Wootton-under-Edge Wall wrote “A House of Call”.
In February 1951 Ringstones was published, and the Walls returned to Egypt in March. The reviews were generally very approving. The Sound of his Horn was published in 1952. Wall himself said that the book received about a dozen mixed notices in the press and that sales were poor. However, the reviews seem to have been very positive, with most noting that he had successfully carried off an original idea which would have failed in the hands of a less gifted writer.
The September 1953 publication of The Doll Maker was less well received and reviews were this time more mixed. Wall claimed that after 1951 he had no time for writing and that when he did find the time, he had lost interest. This is now known not to have been true. Wall wrote a long novel entitled The Gynarchs in 1965, partly revised the following year. Another story was begun in March 1972, although left unfinished. A further typescript exists, probably dating from the 1940s or 50s, of an un-named novel on which he collaborated via Diplomatic bag with Ted Wiltshire, an old friend.
Wall rewrote his manuscripts several times to make sure that they were flawless, and he was obviously something of a pedant. He kept a file entitled “Their English”, in which he noted mistakes made by newspapers, radio and television presenters. For example, someone had said “Harps back to” rather than “Harks back to”, and this is carefully noted and the error pedantically explained. The language was important to Wall, and he was fluent in many tongues, including various Arabic dialects. Another unpublished novel exists written in a code of his own devising, which is partly a form of shorthand and partly Arabic. Entitled Sysgol, it’s contents have yet to be rendered readable.
Wall retired from the position of Consular General in Egypt in 1966 but continued to work for the Foreign Office, at first in a teaching position in London. In 1970 he took a position in Cheltenham and stayed there for six and a half years, at the end of which time he retired to Monmouthshire. John Wall died in 1989, aged 79. His ashes were scattered under a tree in the Fellows’ Garden at Jesus College, Cambridge.
Wall appears to have taken refuge in his writing, and his daughter Jocelyn has suggested that he had something of a Jekyll and Hyde personality. There does seem to be an outer and inner man; John William Wall and “Sarban”. The former was known by friends, family, and colleagues as a conventional diplomat. The latter is a man who can only be guessed at by the readers of his stories.
Interests
Writers
James Elroy Flecker, Arthur Machen, Walter de la Mare
Connections
John Wall married Eleanor Alexander (née Riesle). They had first met in 1946, and they married on January 20th, 1950. Wall’s lack of self-confidence meant that Eleanor was the dominant force in their marriage. Their daughter, Jocelyn, recalls her father as sociable in a small circle of friends, but reliant on his outgoing wife to play hostess at larger social functions. Although Wall’s name is written on the fly-leaf of the books he owned, it is inscribed in his wife’s handwriting. It was not a happy marriage. An unfinished novel presents us with a hero whom it is tempting to identify with the author. Its central character is divorced from a wife who had loved him (the Wall’s arranged a legal separation in 1971), and for whom he had felt tenderness, but whom he should never have married as he was not able to meet her expectations of his career or social life.
Father:
George William Wall
Mother:
Maria Ellen Moffatt
Wife:
Eleanor Alexander Riesle
Daughter:
Jocelyn Wall
References
Contemporary Authors, Vol. 166
This volume of Contemporary Authors contains biographical information on approximately 300 modern writers.