Roy Horniman (born Robert Horniman; 31 July 1868 – 11 October 1930) was a prolific British playwright and novelist, most prominently active during the Edwardian era. He published many short stories and novels and wrote original plays, as well as dramatic adaptations of novels and plays by other authors. After World War I, he extended his writing to film screenplays. Horniman was a vegetarian and a nature curist. He was devoted to the cause of animal welfare, in particular the protection and care of working horses, and was opposed to vivisection.
Horniman's 1907 novel, Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal, was used as the basis of the screenplay of the highly-regarded 1949 black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets and inspired the 2013 Broadway musical A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder.
Early life Robert Horniman was born on 31 July 1868 at Southsea, near Portsmouth in Hampshire, the eldest son of William Horniman and Sarah Esther (née Foster).Family records, Ancestry.com.Robert Horniman, July to September 1868, Civil Registration Birth Index, District of Portsea. His father was an English naval officer and paymaster-in-chief of the British Royal Navy. Robert was educated at Bruges in Belgium and at Southsea Grammar School."Horniman, Roy", Who's Who 1922, London: A. & C. Black, p. 1335."Mr. Roy Horniman" (obituary), The Times, 13 October 1930, p. 14.
When he was aged thirteen, Horniman wrote a novel that was confiscated by his mother."The Many-sided Mr. Horniman", The Book News Monthly, Vol. 26 Issue 3, November 1907, p. 215.
Career Playwright and novelist After he left school, Horniman briefly worked in an office. In 1887 he embarked on an acting career calling himself 'Roy' Horniman, a name he retained throughout his life and professional career as an actor, writer and dramatist.
As an actor, Horniman played in a number of dramatic productions in various West End theatres."Roy Horniman", Notable Londoners, an Illustrated Who's Who of Professional and Business Men (1922), London: London Publishing Agency, p. 174; accessed 22 November 2024. He was a cast member in the following stage productions: Echo at the Trafalgar Square Theatre (April 1893), The Super at the Criterion Theatre (May 1894), Romeo and Juliet at the Prince of Wales' Theatre (May 1896), Uncle Thatcher at the Court Theatre (June and July 1896), The Littlest Girl at the Court Theatre (July 1896) and Number One Round the Corner at the Court Theatre (October to December 1896).Wearing, J. P. (1976). The London Stage 1890–1899: A Calendar of Plays and Players, Vol. I: 1890–1896, Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, pp. 187, 302, 399, 565, 571, 589 and 608. Horniman was also a cast member in Shakespeare's Hamlet at the Lyceum Theatre in late 1897 and late 1898 and the successful original London production of the musical comedy Florodora at the Lyric Theatre from late 1899 to March 1901.Wearing, J. P. (1976). The London Stage 1890–1899: A Calendar of Plays and Players, Vol. II: 1897–1899, Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, pp. 687, 770 and 838."The Florodora Flurry", The Green Room Book, July 1912, pp. 102–110.
Horniman was described as "a wealthy bachelor and admirer of Oscar Wilde" and "a lesser follower of Wilde in his Dorian Gray mode". Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in 1891."Israel Rank by Roy Horniman" (1907) in Edwards, Martin (2017). The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, Scottsdale, Arizona: Poisoned Pen Press, pp. 20–21.Taylor, John Russell (1984). "Introduction", Robert Hamer (1949), Kind Hearts and Coronets, Lorrimer Publishing, pp. 5–6. Horniman was described by a contemporary as "a well-to-do bachelor who knew what did and what did not suit him, marriage being in the latter category, the social round in the former".
During the 1890s Horniman established himself as a writer, initially contributing short stories to literary magazines. By the end of the decade he had one of his plays produced in a West End theatre. Horniman's play, Judy, was produced at the Prince of Wales' Theatre in May 1899.Parker, John (ed.) (1925)."Horniman, Roy", Who's Who in the Theatre: A Biographical Record of the Contemporary Stage (5th edition), Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, p. 466.
Horniman's first novel The Sin of Atlantis, published in 1900, had an occultist theme involving past lives and the submerged continent of Atlantis. A reviewer writing in The Athenæum described Horniman's English as "occasionally slipshod", adding: "but he has ingenuity and imagination, and from most unpromising material has produced a readable story"."The Sin of Atlantis", The Athenæum, 18 August 1900, p. 211.
In January 1903 a three-act play called John Lester, Parson was produced in matinee performances at the Lyric Theatre in London's West End. The play was written by 'Knight Rider' and 'Layton Foster', pseudonyms of Archibald Keen and Roy Horniman.Kerr, Fred (1930). Recollections of a Defective Memory, London: Thornton Butterworth Ltd., pp. 137–138.Lyric, The Era Almanack and Annual 1903, p.54. The production of Lady Flirt, Horniman's adaptation of the French language Madame Flirt by Paul Gavault and Georges Berr, opened in May 1904 at the Haymarket Theatre in London.Maude, Cyril (1927). Behind the Scenes with Cyril Maude, London: John Murray, pp. 141–142.
Two novels by Horniman were published by T. Fisher Unwin in 1903, The Living Buddha and That Fast Miss Blount. His novel Bellamy the Magnificent was published in 1904 by Chatto & Windus, which a reviewer described as "extremely diverting, and an easy popularity may safely be predicted for it".Bellamy the Magnificent, The Bookman, July 1905, p. 136.
Horniman was devoted to various causes, including anti-vivisection.Papers of Roy Horniman, Archives Hub website, Jisc; accessed 22 November 2024. He was also a vegetarian and a crusader against censorship. He was closely associated with several charities, especially in the field of animal welfare. Horniman served as chairman of Our Dumb Friends' League and the Committee for the Suppression of Cruelty to Performing Animals. Our Dumb Friends League was founded in May 1897 to care for working horses on the streets of London.
In 1907 Horniman was described as "a vegetarian, a nature curist, a Theosophist [and] a public singer". At about that stage he was also the joint-proprietor of The Ladies' Review. Horniman was the founder and part-owner with Kate Emil Behnke of the 'Broadlands Nature Cure Sanatorium' at Medstead in Hampshire, the first 'nature-cure' establishment in England.Behnke, Kate Emil. "The Nature Cure", L. Lind-Af-Hageby (ed.) (1909), The Animals' Cause (papers contributed to the International Anti-Vivisection and Animal Protection Congress 6-10 July 1909), pp. 164–171."Broadlands Nature Cure", The Times, 3 September 1914, p. 13.
In 1907 Horniman's novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal was published by Chatto & Windus. The plot of the novel, described as "self-consciously decadent", was summarised as "the despised offspring of an aristocratic lady who married beneath her, wreaking his revenge by murdering his way coldbloodedly through his entire family to fortune and a title". The novel's protagonist justifies his actions by taking on the role of "a Nietzschean superman above mere human morality". Two other of Horniman's novels were published in 1907: A Nonconformist Parson and Lord Cammarleigh's Secret: A Fairy Story of To-Day."Sisley's Half-Crown Novels", The Athenæum, 4 May 1907, p. 524.[https://archive.org/details/sim_saturday-review-uk_the-saturday-review_1907-10-26_104_2713/page/518/mode/2up "Novels", The Saturday Review, 26 October 1907, p. 519.
A four-act play written by Horniman, The Education of Elizabeth, described as a "blend of domestic melodrama and comedy", was produced in October 1907 at the Apollo Theatre."Literary, Dramatic, and Musical Notes", The Author, 1 November 1907, p. 42."The Playhouses", The Illustrated London News, 26 October 1907, p. 616. The Walk, a duologue by Horniman, was produced at the Apollo in January 1908, followed by Thumbs Down, another of his plays. "New Plays and Important Revivals", The Era Annual 1909, p. 99.Meredith, Mark (ed.) (1921). "Horniman, Roy", The Literary Year-Book for the Year 1921, London: George Routledge & Sons Ltd., p. 199."Literary, Dramatic, and Musical Notes", The Author, 2 December 1907, pp. 71–72. At the Garrick Theatre in September 1908 the melodramatic play Idols was produced, an adaptation by Horniman of W. J. Locke's novel of the same name.The Playhouses, The Illustrated London News, 12 September 1908, p. 384. Horniman's Bellamy the Magnificent, a five-act play described as a "social extravaganza" (and based on his 1904 novel of the same name), was produced by Sir Charles Wyndham at the New Theatre in October 1908."he Playhouses", The Illustrated London News, 10 October 1908, p. 490. 1908 had been a successful year for Horniman, Two of his original plays and one adaptation were produced in London, prompting one writer for The Tatler to describe Horniman as a "talented dramatist" and compare "the prodigality of his talents" to those of Somerset Maugham."Gossip from the Green World", The Tatler, 13 January 1909, p. 46.
Horniman rented and managed the Criterion Theatre in London's West End, possibly in the period 1913 and 1914 when two of his plays were produced at the theatre. Billy's Fortune, written by Horniman, opened in January 1913 at the Criterion."The Playhouses", The Illustrated London News, 25 January 1913, p. 110. One reviewer wrote: "While there is nothing startlingly original in the plot, it is cleverly treated, and the play forms a capital entertainment"."Billy's Fortune", The Playgoer and Society Illustrated, Vol. VII No. 41, January 1913, pp. 133–134. In June 1914 The Blue Mouse, an adaptation by Horniman of a German play by Alex. Engel and Julian Horst, was produced at the Criterion Theatre.Barnard, Alfred (ed). The Era Annual 1915 & 1916, p. 133.
The war years During the first years of World War I Horniman was treasurer of the Blue Cross Fund."Our Dumb Friends' League", The Times, 22 August 1914, p. 1."Remembering the animals of the First World War", Blue Cross; accessed 23 November 2024. In 1915 Horniman visited a Blue Cross hospital in France treating injured horses, reporting that the majority of cases were "deep and painful saddle cuts", with sabre and bullet wounds in the minority."The Uncomplaining", Our Dumb Animals (Boston), July 1915, Vol. 48 No. 2, p. 17. Horniman was chairman of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Tobacco Fund, a body that organised to send tobacco to British armed forces.
In the early years of the war Horniman was "prompted by a distaste for profiteering" by private railway companies to write How to Make the Railways Pay for the War, a book that ran to three editions.
The Mystery of John Wake, a drama in three acts written by Horniman and Lechmere Worrall, was produced in April 1916 at the Gaiety Theatre in Hastings, on England's south coast.Carson, Lionel (ed.) (1917). "The Stage" Year Book, London: "The Stage" Offices, p. 136. Horniman's play Three Weeks was an adaptation of Elinor Glyn's controversial novel of the same name. It opened at the Strand Theatre in July 1917.
Stage and screen Horniman was an investor in the Gattie Transport Scheme and a director of the associated company, the New Transport Co. The scheme had been proposed in 1918 by the playwright, engineer and inventor Alfred Warwick Gattie, for "the more expeditious and economical handling of goods" by the railways and motor-lorries, based on a large clearing yard and special machinery to lift and sort the goods."The London Traffic Problem", The Illustrated London News, 27 September 1919, pp. 468–469."Libel Action Against "The Times" Case Stopped by the Jury", The Times, 11 February 1921, p. 5.