The Drunkard — Background and Themes

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In Category - Fantasy Juvenile Worlds

Authors: Thorne, Guy, 1875-1923 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2012 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Temperance -- Fiction; Alcoholics -- Great Britain -- Fiction; Alcoholism -- Great Britain -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 126,345

Reading time 550 min

Text sections 15

The Drunkard — Background and Themes can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 126,345 words, 9 hr 10 min estimated reading time, and 15 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 14.2 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Temperance -- Fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #41139

Guy Thorne's novel traces a man's descent into alcoholism through shifting scenes and psychological fragmentation, using recurring imagery of light and shadow to mirror the protagonist's internal conflict between his true self and a destructive 'other self.'

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Edition quality

File: pg41139

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Note: Images of the original pages are available through the the Google Books Library Project. See http://www.google.com/books?id=w7IWAAAAYAAJ

AUTHOR OF "WHEN IT WAS DARK," "FIRST IT WAS ORDAINED," "MADE IN HIS IMAGE," ETC., ETC.

New York STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY 1912

Published January, 1912

Transcriber's Note: Inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation have been retained as printed. The cover of this ebook was created by the transcriber and is hereby placed in the public domain.

TO LOUIS TRACY, ESQUIRE

It is more than a year ago now that I asked you to accept the dedication of this story. It was on an evening when I was staying with you at your Yorkshire house and we had just come in from shooting.

But I discussed the tale with you long before that. It was either--as well as I can remember--at my place in the Isle of Wight, or when we were all together in the Italian Alps. I like to think that it was at that time I first asked your opinion and advice about this book upon which I have laboured so long.

One night comes back to me very vividly--yes, that surely was the night. Dinner was over. We were sitting in front of the brilliantly lit hotel with coffee and cigarettes. You had met all my kind Italian friends. Our wives were sitting together at one little table with Signora Maerdi and Madame Riva Monico--to whom be greeting! My father was at ours, and happy as a boy for all his white beard and skull-cap of black velvet.

Your son, Dick, was dancing with the Italian girls in the bright salon behind us, and the piano music tinkled out into the hot night. The Alpine woods of ilex and pine rose up in the moonlight to where the snow-capped mountains of St. Gothard hung glistening silver-green.

I ask you to take this book as a memorial of a happy, uninterrupted and dignified friendship, not less valuable and gracious because your wife and mine are friends also.

_Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico!_

Yours ever sincerely,

The sixth chapter in the third book of this story can hardly be called fiction. The notes upon which it is founded were placed in my possession by a brilliant man of letters some short time before he died. Serious students of the psychology of the Inebriate may use the document certain that it is genuine.

I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to the illuminating study in heredity of Dr. Archdall Reed, M.B., C.M., F.R.S.E. His book "Alcoholism" ought to be read by every temperance reformer in Europe and America.

"The Drink Problem," a book published by Messrs. Methuen and written in concert by the greatest experts on the subject of Inebriety, has been most helpful. I have not needed technical help to make my story, but I have found that it gives ample corroboration of protracted investigation and study.

My thanks are due to Mr. John Theodore Tussaud for assistance in the writing of chapter four, book three.

Lastly, I should be ungrateful indeed, if I did not put down my sincere thanks to my secretary Miss Ethel Paczensky for all she has done for me during the making of this tale. The mere careful typewriting, revision and arrangement of a long story which is to be published in America and Europe, requires considerable skill. The fact that the loyal help and sympathy of a young and acute mind have been so devotedly at my service, merits more thanks and acknowledgment than can be easily conveyed in a foreword.

PART I A BOOK OF POEMS ARRIVES FOR DR. MORTON SIMS 3

PART II THE MURDERER 14

I UNDER THE WAGGON-ROOF. A DINNER IN BRYANSTONE SQUARE 37

II GRAVELY UNFORTUNATE OCCURRENCE IN MRS. AMBERLEY'S DRAWING ROOM 58

III SHAME IN "THE ROARING GALLANT TOWN" 76

IV LOTHIAN GOES TO THE LIBRARY OF PURE LITERATURE 103

V "FOR THE FIRST TIME, HE WAS GOING TO HAVE A GIRL FRIEND" 121

I VIGNETTE OF EARLY MORNING. "GILBERT IS COMING HOME!" 145

II AN EXHIBITION OF DOCTOR MORTON SIMS AND DOCTOR MEDLEY, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF HOW LOTHIAN RETURNED TO MORTLAND ROYAL 165

III PSYCHOLOGY OF THE INEBRIATE, AND THE LETTER OF JEWELLED WORDS 204

IV DICKSON INGWORTH UNDER THE MICROSCOPE 237

V A QUARREL IN THE "MOST SELECT LOUNGE IN THE COUNTY" 246

VI AN _OMNES_ EXEUNT FROM MORTLAND ROYAL 269

FRUIT OF THE DEAD SEA

I THE GIRLS IN THE FOURTH STORY FLAT 283

II OVER THE RUBICON 295

IV THE CHAMBER OF HORRORS 330

V THE NIGHT JOURNEY FROM NICE WHEN MRS. DALY SPEAKS WORDS OF FIRE 353

VI GILBERT LOTHIAN'S DIARY 367

VII INGWORTH REDUX: TOFTREES COMPLACENS 394

VIII THE AMNESIC DREAM-PHASE 409

IX A STARTLING EXPERIENCE FOR "WOG" 436

WHAT OCCURRED AT THE EDWARD HALL IN KINGSWAY 453

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The Drunkard opens not with its protagonist, but with a dedication and foreword that frame the narrative as both personal and clinical. Guy Thorne addresses his friend Louis Tracy, recalling evenings in Yorkshire and the Italian Alps, and acknowledges debts to temperance studies and a genuine document on inebriate psychology. This dual framing—intimate yet scientific—sets the stage for a novel that moves between drawing-room conversation and the interior landscape of addiction.

The excerpt from Chapter V reveals a key structural device: the protagonist Gilbert Lothian is overtaken by a “new Ego,” an “adroit devil” that supplants his real self. The narrative shifts abruptly from Lothian’s genuine laughter to cunning manipulation, signaled by the phrase “the other Self, the new Ego, suddenly became awake and dominant.” This psychological split is rendered through swift changes in tone and action, as when Lothian’s arm-through-arm friendliness masks a calculating mind.

Recurring Images of Light and Shadow

Throughout the excerpt, Thorne uses light and darkness to mark shifts in Lothian’s state. The dedication recalls “the brilliantly lit hotel” and “moonlight” on Alpine peaks, but the narrative soon moves to the “long passage” leading to a “saloon-lounge.” When the new Ego takes hold, the imagery turns predatory: Ingworth’s rancour “bloomed like some poisonous and swift-growing fungus,” and Lothian’s compliment is swallowed “as a trout gulps a fly.” These organic, often nocturnal images contrast with the earlier brightness, suggesting that alcoholism is not a single fall but a series of alternating illuminations and shadows.

Movement Between Scenes as Psychological Marker

The novel’s structure relies on rapid scene changes that mirror Lothian’s mental volatility. In the excerpt, a dog-cart ride from a country town to the George Hotel becomes a stage for psychological drama. The journey itself—rattling into the market square, turning under an archway—is described in concrete detail, but the real movement is internal: Lothian’s voice is “lost in the long passage” as he leads Ingworth to the bar. Thorne often elides physical transitions, jumping from stable yard to saloon-lounge without pause, so that setting becomes an extension of the protagonist’s fractured consciousness.

Dialogue as a Tool of Deception

Conversation in the excerpt is layered with subtext. Lothian’s initial praise of Toftrees is “large” and generous, but Ingworth’s envy twists it into a weapon. When Ingworth reports that Toftrees “has got his knife into you,” Lothian laughs—a laugh that is “perfectly genuine” until the new Ego awakens. Thereafter, his speech becomes calculated: “Thanks awfully, old chap” and “You’re a topping whip” are delivered with a “mental grin.” Thorne uses dialogue to show how addiction corrupts social bonds, turning friendly banter into a trap.

The Foreword’s Promise of Authenticity

Thorne’s foreword insists that the sixth chapter of Book Three is “hardly fiction,” based on notes from a deceased man of letters. This claim of documentary truth is unusual for a novel and invites readers to treat the psychological portrait as clinical evidence. The author also cites Dr. Archdall Reed’s “Alcoholism” and the collaborative “The Drink Problem,” grounding the story in contemporary temperance science. While the excerpt does not reveal how this chapter functions, the foreword suggests that Thorne aims to blend melodrama with case study, a hybrid structure that rewards attention to shifts between narrative and exposition.

Readers attentive to the novel’s structure will notice how Thorne uses setting and dialogue to externalize internal conflict. The movement from Alpine moonlight to a country inn’s passage is not merely scenic but symptomatic. As you read, watch for moments when the “other Self” takes over—often signaled by a sudden change in voice or a predatory image. The foreword’s hint of a genuine document also invites scrutiny of how Thorne weaves fact into fiction, particularly in the later books.

That light-and-shadow pulling in The Drunkard stayed with me long after, that sense of a second self waiting inside. It reminded me of how quietly Studies in Wives — A Closer Reading watches people slip into roles they never chose. There’s something tender in seeing that struggle, without ever naming it as a lesson.