Articles in Other Journals

Here are nine more articles written by Savery. They are in alphabetical order by title. None of the journals is listed more than once.

OTHER JOURNALS

Autobiographical Sketch . Photo by Howard's, Ipswich. London: The H. W. Wilson Company, 950-972 University Avenue, New York 52, N. Y. 1951 , pp 265-266 in "The Junior Book of Authors," Second Edition, Revised, Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft (ed.). [First Edition, 1934]

The Savery sketch is not in the first edition. Subsequent editions of the "Junior Book" series, of which there were ten by 2008, were devoted to new authors, but Savery's name is in the cumulative index of each with a reference to the 1951 edition, now designated the 'first edition,' because it is the first of a new series.

The sketch is short. Thirty-one of sixty-six lines are used to thank those, almost certainly deceased, who gave her books when she was a child. Another twelve lines recall her earliest childhood. Except to mention that she is "always writing," she does not refer to her successful career.

The authors were asked to address their sketches to the children who read their books, and Savery has done just that.

Church Uninteresting? : But it wouldn't agree . Cannon Hill: THE WINDOW, No. 215, H. A. Bland, ed., "Strawberry Bank," Cannon Hill, Lancaster. November 1963 , pp i-ii. Printed by Provincial Newspapers Ltd., Northgate, Blackburn. Published as a 16-page insert in REYDON PARISH MAGAZINE, No. 119, Reydon Vicarage, Southwold.

It appears that THE WINDOW had a wide circulation as an insert in parish magazines, but no separate existence.

When a County guide-book declared that Savery's home church, St. Margaret's in Reydon, was "uninteresting," its Vicar, John A. Fitch, decided to do something about it and persuaded the the local councils to authorize an exhibition: "Our Parish, Past and Present." A letter from Canon Fitch told me that a great part of the work that followed was done by Savery; however, he did not recall Church Uninteresting?

The Exhibition was so great a success that the author of the offending guide-book came back to lecture the Parish about their own history and promised to excise the word "uninteresting" from his description. Savery does not mention her own part in the exhibition, but she does provide an amusing and informative account of its contents, which included details of ancient benevolences, pictures and psalters, a fragment of canvas from Nelson's VICTORY, bits of bombs, and photographs of French balloonists who were blown across the Channel to Suffolk in a 1909 storm.

East Anglian Composer. Ipswich: EAST ANGLIAN MAGAZINE, 18(8), 6 Great Colman Street, Ipswich. June 1959 , pp 453-455.

Around 1959 Savery wrote at least three tributes to Alfred R. Gaul, her music teacher at the King Edward VI High School for Girls. cf. Mr. Gaul's Party under THE TIMES and Mr. Gaul under THE PHŒNIX, below. The East Anglian piece includes a photograph and describes Gaul, the boy singer, before going on to his career as a prolific composer. In uncharacteristic schoolgirl prose and a quotation from his memorial marker, Savery regretted that

The iniquity of oblivion has blindly scattered her poppy over the name of the Victorian composer who was... 'an excellent musician of the school of Mendelssohn, a clever contrapuntist, and a master of lucid and melodious polyphony'.

Savery has no illusions about Gaul's genius, honoring him for his life and his dedication rather than for his style which was 'outmoded far back in the composer's lifetime.' Only great teachers are remembered so fondly after forty-five years!

I Too Was a Reward-Book Writer by " In Deepest Suffolk ." London: LIFE OF FAITH, No. 4264, 1 Bath Street, London, EC1V 9OA. Aug. 14, 1976 , p 5.

When A. Morgan Derham wrote I Was a Reward-Book Writer attacking reward-books and, by extension, their authors, Savery rose in defense. She began by lamenting the difficulties such authors faced and mentioning, without emphasis, that the financial rewards were small. She was saddened to find her life-work dismissed as 'evangelical ephemera' and thought it strange that children who watched television daily could be corrupted by a reward-book. Her concluding paragraph summarizes her position nicely:

We reward-book writers make no claim to be authors of the first rank; but we do believe that our books, far from presenting children with 'stumbling blocks' and the Almighty with 'problems,' can, if they are written sincerely, prayerfully and carefully, be of some small use in a glorious service. God does not scorn humble instruments.

Because the paper is so large, I have only reproduced half of it. Savery's title is listed under Contents.

Mr. Gaul . THE PHŒNIX, King Edward VI's High School for Girls. 1959?

When Savery contributed a true copy of her work diary to the University of Oregon in 1973, she wrote out and appended this appreciation of her school music master. Her note at the beginning indicates that the editor of THE PHŒNIX requested it following publication of Mr. Gaul's Party in THE TIMES and East Anglian Composer in the EAST ANGLIAN MAGAZINE, above.

Savery recalls how she and other girls looked through antique shops for a particular snuff box coveted by Mr, Gaul, his pleasure in seeing his class in pinafores, and the transparent Christianity "that ran like a gold thread through the warp and woof of his life."

I have not seen this issue of THE PHŒNIX.

Papa and Mama: The Victorian Parent in His Meridian Splendour . Edinburgh: THE SCOTTISH EDUCATIONAL JOURNAL, 46-48 Moray Place, Edinburgh, 3. 1932 .

This is not the same article as another on the same subject in METHODIST MAGAZINE , Charles Writes His Life ; however, Charlie's autobiography is very short, and many of the same quotations are used. Like Charlie's Life , the essay is very readable. I read the article in the British Library Newspaper collection.

Review of 'The Oxford Book of Poetry - 1919.' Oxford: THE FRITILLARY, Joint Organ of the Women's Colleges. Mar. 1920 , pp 219-220.

When Savery was 'in college' at Somerville, she submitted this article and a poem, Mike and Dicky , to THE FRITILLARY, but the issue in which they were published is not in the British Library, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, or the library of any of the individual women's colleges. Her literary heir, Mrs. E. C. W. Hummerstone, kindly lent me hers for this annotation.

Savery's review is incisive and specific, faulting the poetry for prolixity, juvenile self-satisfaction, feverishness, and unrest. She adds

The melancholy outlook of youth, descending at times to an almost ultra-Byronic gloom, is well represented.

Not insistently negative, Savery praises three poems for, in turn, delicate grace, dreamlike atmosphere, and important truth.

I have not seen these poems.

Sea Magic . Illus. unnamed. Belfast: FORWARD Sandes Soldiers and Airmen's Centres. May 1945 , pp 58-59.

This article is an appreciation of Frank Bullen, but it is quite different from Piper of the Sea , cf. METHODIST MAGAZINE . Yet Savery continues to use the Pied Piper in describing how Bullen leads us into the lives of the creatures of the sea and the men who work the ships upon it. Both the Sandes Centres and the METHODIST MAGAZINE exist to evangelize, and after a hundred lines of deep-sea mystery, we are reminded in the last two dozen that Bullen found Christ in a seaport and brought him ashore with him when he retired from sailing. Savery recommends Bullen highly, and so do I.

Through the Bright Silences. Illus. Audrey Teather. Toronto: THE CANADIAN GIRL, The United Church Publishing House and Baptist Publications Committee of Canada, 299 Queen Street West, Toronto 2 B, Ontario. Mar. 21, 1954 , pp 92-93.

The publisher and the address above are from the Feb. 2, 1958, issue. There may have been a change in four years. The Pratt Library at Victoria University has THE CANADIAN GIRL in their archives, and they were kind enough to email me a copy of this article in PDF format through the Inter-Library Loan program.

This is a lively account of the life of Mary Anning, who is listed in Webster's Biographical Dictionary as 'an English collector of natural curiosities.' Specifically, she dug up, squirreled away, and sold dinosaurs, including the first complete Ichthyosaurus. Savery makes a good case for Anning's credentials several decades in advance of the feminists who have applauded her more recently.

One is reminded of Mary Anning when reading the chapters of The Memoirs of Jack Chelwood in which Jack is put to hard labor digging 'dragons' out of a cliffside, and I do not think the similarities are accidental.

"Nobody ever called her a scientist," observes Savery, citing Anning's rudimentary education. Another reason is that she died in 1847, only seven years after the word 'scientist' was coined. In those days, if you weren't something specific, such as a geologist, you were a 'natural philosopher,' a title that survives today in 'Doctor of Philosophy.'

Text of this web site © 2010-2024 by Eric Schonblom. Updated 28 July 2024. The unpublished works of Constance Savery are reproduced with the permission of her literary heir and copyright owner, J.D. Hummerstone. Book and magazine covers are reproduced with low resolution out of respect for their copyright owners, the publishers and their artists.