William Adams' Sacred Allegories

Jessica Amanda Salmonson

   

I found an attractive 1903 one-volume Longmans Green edition of William Adams' Sacred Allegories, but did not know what year it was originally published. The many engravings that graced the pages suggested early to mid Victorian (one of these illustrations, for The Distant Hills, was adapted for the present review's page). The style of the four fantasy tales was even more old-fashioned. I later discovered the collection first appeared from the London publisher Rivingtons in 1856, & had several editions along the years though these seem all a bit scarce now.

These four allegories can also be found as separate slim books issued by Longmans Green, individually titled The Shadow of the Cross, The Distant Hills, The Old Man's Home and The King's Messenger. If some perversity sends you in quest of these, you should be looking in sections of old Christian books.

I've no idea why I like books like this. None of the four long novelettes would look quite proper in an anthology of fantasy today, & the book demands to be appreciated on its own quaint & antiquated terms. Reverand Adams' stories are so didactic in their treatment of the afterlife, the spiritual world, & morality that it's difficult to embrace them outside the context of ministry, & I suspect even deeply Christian readers would find them just a bit too much.

The tales run exactly parallel to the sorts of old Theosophical novels which typically have some angelic being lead a narrator on an otherworld journey of occult discovery. In The Distant Hills, for example, two sisters lost in the woods -- & "lost in the woods" is just the most obvious of a persistant allegorical language that becomes surreal in the passages that are less obvious -- & are saved by a Christlike figure who takes them on a mystical journey of moral & religious discovery conveyed in the form of a fantastical landscape.

Between each chapter is a series of questions-&-answers which I blessedly skipped on my first reading, as everything is over-explained & undermines the occasional passages that have a musty beauty akin to old black & white engravings such as are unutterably not modern but are lovely relics of another time. But when the between-chapter Q & A bits ask such simpleminded questions as "What is the sun" & answers it "Jesus Christ," the original effect of a mystical passage about the sun is spoilt. Still, whether praised on its own terms, or condemned as a relic that can drum up very little modern interest, when such books are punctuated with fantastical engravings, these are to be treasured whether or not the reader can stomach the sermons attached.

The fourth tale The King's Messenger is given a nearly medieval setting & reads more like a Christian fairy tale than a sermon tricked out in fantasy garb & thus has some merits apart from preaching. It is a precursor to some extent to C. S. Lewis's Narnia books -- or more closely resembling Harold Bell Wright's The Uncrowned King (1910), a finer example of this sort of allegorizing.

Taken as a whole, in a very pretty little edition, I suspect Sacred Allegories would delight anyone who stumbled on it during a journey to a used book store. It may well be a valuable book but it just strikes me as something more easily appreciated if found at random & brought home, as opposed to being purchased at a premium price from a fantasy specialist (or I suppose a religious specialist). If I had for stock a matching set of the four novelettes as separately issued, in fine condition, I doubt I'd price them less than $100 & regard that as "cheap" averaging a scant $25 per beautifully designed book. Yet I wouldn't expect a lot of people to find $100 worth of joy in being preached at; but if you, like I did, found the one-volume version inexpensively, it'd be a fascinating little treasure worthy of a permanent spot in one's library.

   

copyright © 2000 by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, all rights reserved

   

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