I meant this post to be about a character – Joseph Bindle -but it is turning into a piece about his creator. Previously, I have posted about the nineteenth century adventures of Mrs Brown used by her creator as a voice of working-class life and commentator on current events.
We are jumping forward to the twentieth century and a character in some ways similar used by his author to narrate the stories and experiences of working-class families. But this hero, Joseph Bindle, has more depth and resolution- a character reminiscent of Dickens with a warmth reminiscent of Sam Weller.
Joseph Bindle and his wife were the creations of a sadly short-lived writer and publisher Herbert Jenkins (1876-1923). In another nineteenth century touch Herbert Jenkins was both publisher and writer and he seemed to have had a good eye for new talent and for judging the mood of readers in his own fiction.
Herbert Jenkins published the early novel of P.G.Wodehouse beginning with ‘Piccadilly Jim’ in 1918 as well of those of the so-called ‘Navvy Poet’ Patrick MacGill (1889-1963).
The Bindles made their first appearance in 1916 though ‘The Bindles on the Rocks’ dates from the 1920s and has a genuine heart and concern for the difficult economic times many were experiencing.
More on Herbert Jenkins and the Bindles next time.
The Solitary Reader 