"Lost Empires" by J.B. Priestley

Published sixty years ago this summer, this novel is the most well known of JB’s later efforts and a book which spawned a lavish Granada TV adaptation starring a very young Colin Firth in 1986. I love Priestley’s novels, largely because they are both defiantly middlebrow and optimistic, while also being a rattling good read. Hugely popular in his day, like so many of his contemporaries Priestley has fallen right out of fashion these days – all the more reason to read him in my book.

This one lacks some of the charm of his earlier books and is notable for being post-Lady Chatterley trial and hence much more frank about sexual matters. It is set in 1913-14 just before the outbreak of the First World War in which Priestley himself fought as a young man. The title is though not so much about the political empires that the war hastened an end to, but more humbly about music halls whose end was about to be precipitated by the advent of cinema.

The central character is a twenty-year old man called Richard Herncastle (Dick), a would-be painter, who is taken up by his eccentric uncle after his parents have died. Uncle Nick works as a conjuror / illusionist / magician touring the country with a bunch of other entertainers all of whom seem to dislike one another but share an agent and move as an ensemble from town to town along with their sets, costumes and petty rivalries. They are quite a louche lot and among their number are several women who Dick gets entangled with in various ways.

The strongest, most enjoyable and most original passages are those which involve Nick and Dick employing their skills as illusionists to help people ‘disappear’ and ‘escape’ in the real world.

It is all a bit dated in its style, but evokes its time and place very effectively and has a character-driven narrative that knocks along nicely enough. An enjoyable, light summer read.