Gleig, Charles
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1862-1945) UK author active until at least 1927, most frequently the author of Young Adult tales set in various departments of the navy, which (for their era) are unusually attentive to the condition of working soldiers. This solicitude is articulated in The "Bogus Surveyor"; Or, a Short History of a Peculiar People (1894 chap) as by Whitewash, the Surveyor's Friend, which details the plight of sailors in the Nautical Survey Service, and in his sf novel, When All Men Starve: Showing How England Hazarded her Naval Supremacy, and the Horrors Which Followed her Interruption of her Food Supply (dated 1898 but 1897), an Invasion tale of unusual grimness. By the turn of the twentieth century, Britain has lost its influence in Africa due to foolish policies, and the government has fallen after a successful boycott by Germany and France and other countries has begun to starve London. Thousands of policemen are killed in a vast riot at Wimbledon (South London), and anarchy "rules" for a while; but Gleig (unusually) does not use this disarray to excoriate the working classes. The later pages of the tale are additionally given room to breathe through the utterances of an MP named Mr Lampooner, whose sarcasms help open the way to the revolutionary forces. [JC]
Charles Henry Alfred Gleig
born London: June 1862
died Freshwater, Isle of Wight: 26 June 1945
works
- The "Bogus Surveyor"; Or, a Short History of a Peculiar People (Devonport, Devon: A H Swiss, 1894) as by Whitewash, the Surveyor's Friend [nonfiction: chap: pb/]
- When All Men Starve: Showing How England Hazarded her Naval Supremacy, and the Horrors Which Followed her Interruption of her Food Supply (London: John Lane The Bodley Head, 1897) [the volume is dated 1898: hb/]
- The Rogue's Paradise: an Extravaganza (London: J Bowden, 1898) with Edwin Pugh [hb/]
links
previous versions of this entry