With great sadness, The Gladstone Times wishes to announce the passing of famous writer Edgar Vautrine.
Edgar Vautrine was born in Leeds in 1915 and worked as a labourer for much of his life. He fought in the Second World War as an infantryman and was sent home after sustaining a gunshot wound to the leg, which gave him a permanent limp. He wrote privately, never attempting to publish his work, before a chance encounter with a Bloomsbury proofreader in 1950 and the subsequent publication of his masterwork Profit’s Paradise brought him international fame.
Many of his works exuded a quiet sadness, most often connected to the unfortunate fates of his characters, many of whom were reflections of the people Edgar met during his life – labourers, widows, returned soldiers, debtors, poor children, and the infirm. Yet he was no stranger to the affluent: an almost equal number of his characters are rich and powerful. Whether its fruits were kind or cruel, Edgar represented the world simply, fairly, and accurately, with a superhuman capacity for sympathy and a style that was subtle, yet emotionally powerful.
He portrayed all people with a quiet dignity, and his writing affords his characters more respect, in many cases, than they afford themselves. In this way, Edgar’s work can be seen as a true portrait of reality – not truth as such, but truth as it is in stories, where reality is condensed into a hyper-real form, filtered through the mind of an artist, and revealed to the world as a shocking vision of life.
Among his most famous works are the novels Profit’s Paradise, Cheap Spells and Glower and the Glory, and the free-verse poetry collection Moon Rocks. Profit’s Paradise was a Dickensian wander through a ravaged post-war Britain, and established Vautrine’s reputation as a modern literary superstar alongside Joyce, Eliot, Pound, and Woolf.
After its publication, Vautrine was freed from his life of labour and continued to write, now surrounded by intelligentsia and hangers-on. But his manner never changed; he never compromised who he was.
His friends and family valued him as an honest man, one unwilling to hide the truth even when it was ugly, but always willing to deliver it in a gentle and occasionally humorous manner. While he was often quite reserved in person, especially among strangers, this was due to no lack of emotion. Indeed, his collected Letters 1939 – 1960 show he was quite capable of expressing anger, when necessary. The Letters reveal many sides to Edgar that few knew about, save his family and close friends.
Edgar’s funeral will be held in the Church of St Trebonius, Leeds, at 9am on the 2nd of February. Public attendance is encouraged.
We close his obituary with a fitting quotation from Moon Rocks:
Think of all the chances
Incipient
Time the thief enhances,
Life repents –
Quite without resistance
The soul is bled
And in the final instance
All is said.
Edgar is remembered by his sons, Davide and Gaston, and daughter Rosella.
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