by John Trevena
"It
would be difficult to find a novel more unusual or more original.
That it is beautifully written, full of poetic passages, and contains
many fascinating descriptions [...] will be regarded as a matter of
course by those who have read any of [his] preceding books, and
therefore know that John Trevena is unquestionably one of the most
notable of living writers." - New
York Times,
Jan. 10, 1915
"The
construction of the book is very artistic and is difficult to
accomplish, but apart from its structural merits 'Sleeping Waters'
has high value. [...] Our admiration for this author has been
expressed over and over again. There is grasp and reach and power in
[his] books [...] and they are books that place their author among
the foremost of the English novelists." - Los
Angeles Times,
Feb. 21, 1915
"The
story is magnificently told. . . . The vividness and monstrosity of
the characters remind one of the Brontės." - Chicago
Tribune,
Jan. 13, 1915
"Sleeping
Waters is
a unique novel, and it discloses still further and more emphatically
the genius of John Trevena." - Boston
Transcript,
Jan. 13, 1915
Father
John Anger is worn down from a hard life as a Catholic priest
ministering to the poor of London's slums. He travels to a remote
village in Dartmoor seeking to recover his health by means of the
salubrious air and medicinal waters, and he anticipates a long and
tedious convalescence in the sleepy place. But Anger soon finds that
despite the village's rustic appearance, it holds as much drama and
tragedy as even London. Curgenven, a humpbacked dwarf and scheming
attorney, has a diabolical plot to steal the ignorant villagers' land
and resell it at a huge profit. Anger resolves to thwart the lawyer's
plan, but he is not prepared for the dangerous secrets he will
uncover, or the violent climax that his interference will provoke. .
. .
Ernest
G. Henham (1870-1946) published melodramatic popular novels as a
young man before moving to Dartmoor for his health and reinventing
himself as "John Trevena." Trevena was regarded as one of
the finest novelists of his time, but today he has fallen into total
neglect, and his books are all but unobtainable. This 100th
anniversary edition of Sleeping
Waters (1913)
includes a new introduction by Prof. Gerald Monsman, who argues for
reconsideration of Trevena as an important Edwardian writer and
regional novelist as significant as Thomas Hardy.