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1879-1931
Minor novelist and writer of stories for boys who was educated at Shrewsbury School and University College, Oxford. In addition to his interest in writing, Desmond Coke also became a notable collector. War injuries meant that he was invalided out of active service in 1917 and at the invitation of Lex Devine, the founder of Clayesmore School, joined the staff at his school, which was, by then, located in Iwerne Minster House, Dorset. Among his pupils at the school was Edward Ardizzone (1900-1979), destined to become a well-known book illustrator, who eagerly sought his teacher's opinions on art and the approval of his early work.
Desmond Coke wrote under his own name and also used the pseudonym of Belinda Blinders. His best known work remains The bending of a twig (1906) which was intended as a parody of the traditional school story. It tells of the experiences of its hero, Lycidas Marsh, at Shrewsbury School and is based on memories of his own school days there. His preface, entitled "By way of explanation", is as follows:-
Books have no more right to sub-titles than to prefaces. If this book had a sub-title it would run, not "A Story of Shrewsbury Life" but "A Story and a Criticism." Its modest aim is, in fact, to level destructive satire at the conventional school story, and on its ruins to erect a structure rather nearer to real life.
With this last end in view, it seemed to me wiser to take as background a school which I both knew and loved: and having taken it, to call it Shrewsbury, not Harbury or Shrewsrow. At the same time, all its persons are imagined.
It may seem to abstract criticism that the change of tone between the First Part and the Third is an artistic blunder: and I may perhaps be allowed (having once braved a preface) to point out that it is at least based on a theory, and is intended to show the change from the new boy's irresponsibility to the monitor's fresh sense of duty. No story, it seems to me, which is consistently gay or doggedly grave throughout, can possibly describe school life.
Desmond Coke dedicated Youth, youth...! (1919) to Lex Devine and recalled how they started corresponding following the publication of his The bending of a twig.
As Belinda Blinders, Desmond Coke wrote an amusing parody of the book The history of Sandford and Merton (1783) by Thomas Day which he entitled Sandford of Merton (1903).
The following novels and stories are available in the West Midlands Creative Literature Collection:-
The bending of a twig (1906)
The call (1907)
The comedy of age (1906)
The cure (1912)
Helena Brett's career (1913)
The pedestal (1908)
Other works by the author include:-
Beauty for ashes (1910)
The chaps of Harton (1913)
The golden key (1909)
Half-way (1927)
The house prefect (1907)
The monkey tree (1929)
The nouveau poor (1921)
Pamela herself (1922)
The school across the road (1909)
Sandford of Merton (1903)
Stanton (1931)
Wilson's (1911)
The worm (1927)
The worst house at Sherborough (1913)
Youth, youth . . . ! (1919)
One hour of life (1918)
The art of silhouette (1913)
Confessions of an incurable collector (1928)
You can download or read online the complete text of two of Desmond Coke's novels from this website:
The bending of a twig (367Kb)
The worst house at Sherborough (385Kb)
Helena Brett's career is available from Project Gutenberg.
Page created 22 January 2002 and last
updated 27 July 2010
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