Brunette Coleman was a pseudonym used by the poet and writer Philip Larkin. In 1943, towards the end of his time as an undergraduate at St John's College, Oxford, he wrote several works of fiction, verse and critical commentary under that name, including homoerotic stories that parody the style of popular writers of contemporary girls' school fiction.
The Coleman oeuvre consists of a completed novella, Trouble at Willow Gables, set in a girls' boarding school; an incomplete sequel, Michaelmas Term at St Brides, set in a women's college at Oxford; seven short poems with a girls' school ambience; a fragment of pseudo-autobiography; and a critical essay purporting to be Coleman's literary apologia. The manuscripts were stored in the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull, where Larkin was chief librarian between 1955 and 1985. Their existence was revealed to the public when Larkin's Selected Letters and Andrew Motion's biography were published in 1992 and 1993 respectively. The Coleman works themselves were finally published, with other Larkin drafts and oddments, in 2002.
At Oxford Larkin underwent a period of confused sexuality and limited literary output. The adoption of a female persona appeared to release his creativity, as in the three years following the Coleman phase he published under his own name two novels and his first poetry collection. Thereafter, although he gradually established his reputation as a poet, his career as a prose writer declined, and despite several attempts he completed no further fiction. Critical reaction to the publication of the Coleman material was divided between those who saw no value in these juvenilia, and those who considered that they cast useful light on the study of the mature Larkin.
Origins
In October 1940 Philip Larkin began studying English at St John's College, Oxford.Motion, p. 72 A prolific writer since childhood, his primary ambition as an undergraduate was to be a novelist rather than a poet.Booth, p. vii As well as publishing articles and poems in Cherwell and Oxford Poetry, he wrote additional unpublished material that included fragments of semi-autobiographical stories exploring homosexual relationships among groups of undergraduates. According to Larkin's biographer Andrew Motion these writings, while of no literary value, give an indication of Larkin's confused sexuality at that time, and his growing distaste for what he terms "this buggery business".Motion, pp. 64–65
From 1942 the character of much of Larkin's private writing changed, as a result of his friendship with a fellow undergraduate from St John's, Kingsley Amis, who arrived at the university that summer.Motion, pp. 53–54 Amis, a much more confident and assertive character than Larkin, disguised his serious concerns behind a facade of jokes and comic ironies. Larkin soon adopted that style as his own, joining with Amis in composing obscene rhymes and parodies of the Romantic poets they were required to study.Motion, p. 58 In time they extended their efforts to soft-porn fantasies in which, typically, "girls roll[ed] around together twanging elastic and straps".Motion, pp. 86–87 After Amis's departure for the army in early 1943, Larkin made his first attempt at writing from a specifically feminine perspective in a story called "An Incident in the English Camp", which he subtitled "A Thoroughly Unhealthy Story". Lacking any salacious content despite its subtitle, the work is written in a pastiche of sentimental women's magazine prose. It depicts an undergraduate girl's parting from her soldier lover, and ends: "She walked in exaltation through the black streets, her heart glowing like a coal with deep love".Booth, pp. viii–ix
Writing
From his general reading, Larkin had acquired a considerable knowledge of girls' school fiction, and had formed definite views on the authors of such works: "stupid women without a grain of humour in their minds", who lacked "erotic sensibility" and treated the lesbian perspective "too casually".Booth, pp. xii–xiii His intention to write in this genre is expressed in a letter to his friend Norman Iles, dated 5 June 1943, just before Larkin sat his degree Finals: "I am spending my time doing an obscene Lesbian novel in the form of a school story".Thwaite, p. 58 The novel was Trouble at Willow Gables, a school adventure story in the manner of Dorita Fairlie Bruce or Dorothy Vicary, which Larkin completed at home while awaiting his Finals results. That was the prelude to a busy summer's writing: "Leaving Oxford was like taking a cork out of a bottle. Writing flooded out of me", Larkin later told his biographer.Motion, p. 106
Larkin's letter to Iles does not mention a female pseudonym, although the idea of using one had been in his mind for months. The previous March he had begun writing the imagined autobiography of a supposed lady novelist, "Brunette Coleman", adapting the name of a well-known contemporary female jazz musician, Blanche Coleman. Larkin tentatively titled the autobiography "Ante Meridian"; he soon abandoned it, but held on to the Coleman name. According to James Booth, who prepared the Coleman texts for publication in 2002, the adoption of a female persona was in line with the pose of "girlish narcissism" that Larkin was affecting in the summer of 1943: "I am dressed in red trousers, shirt and white pullover, and look very beautiful".Booth, p. xii In his letters to Amis, Larkin maintained a straight-faced pretence that Coleman was a real person. Thus in one letter he wrote "Brunette is very thrilled" with a poem written in her name, and in another, "Brunette can stand healthy criticism".Thwaite, pp. 66 and 69
As he waited for offers of employment through the summer and autumn of 1943, Larkin added more works to the Coleman oeuvre. He began a sequel to Trouble at Willow Gables, set in a women's college at Oxford and entitled Michaelmas Term at St Bride's, but did not finish it: "All literary inspiration has deserted me", he informed Amis on 13 August.Thwaite, p. 62 Nevertheless, a week later he told Amis that Brunette was helping him to write a novel, provisionally entitled Jill, about "a young man who invents an imaginary sister, and falls in love with her". With this letter Larkin sent a Coleman poem, "Bliss", the first of seven written in the girls' school idiom.Thwaite, p. 63 As late as 19 October he reported to Amis that "Brunette is working on a little monograph about girls' school stories".Thwaite, p. 80 This is a reference to the putative literary manifesto "What Are We Writing For", which became the final Coleman work. Thereafter, Motion records, she disappeared, "to be mentioned only fleetingly in later accounts of his university life ... She ended up as an occasional comic reminder of lost youth".Motion, p. 101
Works The works which Larkin attributed to Brunette Coleman comprise a short piece of supposed autobiography, a complete short novel, an incomplete second novel, a collection of poems and a literary essay.
"Ante Meridian" This fragment of spoof autobiography is distinct from the rest of the Coleman oeuvre in having no relation to girls' school fiction. It records Brunette's early life as the daughter of an eccentric priest, brought up in a tumbledown Cornish cliff-top house. Apart from descriptions of the house and its contents (some of which may be drawn from Larkin's own childhood home in Coventry),Bradford, pp. 52–55 much of the narrative is taken up with a comical description of an attempt to launch the local lifeboat. Larkin's biographer Richard Bradford is struck by the distinctive tone in the fragment, different from anything else written under Coleman's name. The text breaks off suddenly; Motion surmises that Larkin abandoned it because he was eager to begin work on the first Coleman novel. Booth describes the prose as "a mix of Daphne du Maurier nostalgia and surreal farce".
Novel: Trouble at Willow Gables
Synopsis
Marie Moore, a junior pupil at Willow Gables, receives a birthday present of £5 from an aunt. After the banknote is retained for safekeeping by the headmistress, Miss Holden, Marie slyly recovers it but is quickly found out, and is coerced by Miss Holden into giving the money to the school's gymnasium fund. When later the banknote goes missing from the fund's collection box, Marie is suspected, but protests her innocence despite a savage beating from Miss Holden with assistance from two burly school prefects. Only her friend Myfanwy believes her. Confined in the school's punishment room, Marie manages to escape with the help of a domestic servant, and runs away.
Hilary Russell, a prefect and predatory lesbian, lusts after Mary Beech, the school's cricket captain. On a night expedition in pursuit of Mary, Hilary catches Margaret Tattenham, a junior, in the act of replacing the £5 note in Miss Holden's room. Margaret says she originally took the money as a prank; Hilary agrees not to report her to Miss Holden in return for sexual favours, to which Margaret reluctantly consents. The following morning, Hilary denounces her anyway; Margaret responds by revealing Hilary's sexual harassment but is not believed, and is taken to the punishment room where Marie's absence is revealed.
Hilary is sent with a search party to find the missing girl. Meanwhile, Margaret makes a daring escape via the window, and rides off on the school horse. She finds Marie, who is miserable and frightened and wants to return to the school whatever the consequences. Margaret confesses that she borrowed the £5 to bet on a horse, and has won £100. She means to leave Willow Gables for good, and apologises to Marie for the trouble she has caused her. This conversation is overheard by Hilary's search party, and after a scuffle the truants are captured. On the way back to school they hear cries from the river; it is Myfanwy, who has got into difficulties while swimming. Margaret frees herself from her captors' clutches, dives in and saves her drowning friend.
Back at the school, Miss Holden overlooks the theft in view of Margaret's heroism, although she confiscates the £100 winnings and donates the money to a new swimming pool fund. Marie is exonerated, and her £5 is returned. Mary Beech comes forward to corroborate Margaret's accusations against Hilary, who is summarily expelled. Marie and Myfanwy enjoy an emotional reunion in the school sickroom, as life at the school returns to normal, with friendship and forgiveness all round.
Commentary The typescript begins with a dedication page "To Jacinth" (Brunette Coleman's imagined secretary). There follows an untitled poem which later appears, slightly altered, as "The School in August" in Sugar and Spice, the Coleman poetry collection. In the story the surnames of the headmistress and principal girls have been altered in ink throughout the typescript; some of the original names belonged to Larkin's real-life acquaintances at Oxford. The presence of a publisher's inkstamp on the wallet containing the typescript indicates that the story may have been submitted by Larkin for publication.Booth, pp. 3–5