Translation of a Savage The Complete by Gilbert Parker

INTRODUCTION

TheTranslation of a Savage was written in the early autumn of 1893, atHampstead Heath, where for over twenty years I have gone, now and then,when I wished to be in an atmosphere conducive to composition. Hampstead is one of the parts of London which has as yet been scarcelyinvaded by the lodging-house keeper. It is very difficult to getapartments at Hampstead; it is essentially a residential place; and,like Chelsea, has literary and artistic character all its own. Ithink I have seen more people carrying books in their hands atHampstead than in any other spot in England; and there it was, perchedabove London, with eyes looking towards the Atlantic over the leaguesof land and the thousand leagues of sea, that I wrote ‘The Translationof a Savage’. It was written, as it were, in one concentratedeffort, a ceaseless writing. It was, in effect, what the DailyChronicle said of ‘When Valmond Came to Pontiac’, a tour deforce. It belonged to a genre which compelled me to dispose of athing in one continuous effort, or the impulse, impetus, and fulness ofmovement was gone. The writing of a book of the kind admitted ofno invasion from extraneous sources, and that was why, while writing’The Translation of a Savage’ at Hampstead, my letters were onlydelivered to me once a week. I saw no friends, for no one knewwhere I was; but I walked the heights, I practised with my golf clubson the Heath, and I sat in the early autumn evenings looking out atLondon in that agony of energy which its myriad livesrepresented. It was a good time.

The story had a basis offact; the main incident was true. It happened, however, inMichigan rather than in Canada; but I placed the incident in Canadawhere it was just as true to the life. I was living inHertfordshire at the time of writing the story, and that is why theEnglish scenes were worked out in Hertfordshire and in London. When I had finished the tale, there came over me suddenly a kind offeeling that the incident was too bold and maybe too crude to bebelieved, and I was almost tempted to consign it to the flames; but theeditor of ‘The English Illustrated Magazine’, Sir C. Kinloch-Cooke,took a wholly different view, and eagerly published it. Thejudgment of the press was favourable,?highly so?and I was as muchsurprised as pleased when Mr. George Moore, in the Hogarth Club onenight, in 1894, said to me: “There is a really remarkable play inthat book of yours, ‘The Translation, of a Savage’.”

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