Hussingtree, Martin
Entry updated 28 October 2024. Tagged: Author.
Pseudonym of UK politician, journalist and author Oliver Ridsdale Baldwin (1899-1958), a Labour Member of Parliament 1929-1931 and 1945-1947; son of the British politician Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), Labour prime minister 1935-1937; his pseudonym is taken from Martin Hussingtree, a small village in Worcestershire not far from the Baldwin family ironworks factory in Wilden. Baldwin's experiences during active service in World War One were devastating, avowedly created a socialist out of him, and almost certainly shaped his Scientific Romance Konyetz (1924) (the title means "end" or "termination" in Russian): after describing social upheavals and a brief Labour government, the tale depicts a "Jewish-Bolshevik" Invasion of Britain, which leads to a worldwide Future War, accompanied by a savage Pandemic and, it may be, as indeed the title adjures, the End of the World. Aïssa: Being the Life of Aïssa Ben Yusuf of El Naseerta Otherwise Known as Jesus of Nazareth (1935) is a fantasy moderately subversive of the Christian Religion. [JC]
Oliver Ridsdale Baldwin, second Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, Viscount Corvedale
born London: 1899
died England: 10 August 1958
works
- Konyetz (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1924) [hb/]
- The Coming of Aïssa: Being the Life of Aïssa Ben Yusuf of El Naseerta Otherwise Known as Jesus of Nazareth (London: Grayson and Grayson, 1935) [hb/]
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