Manville Fenn's Regime
The first editor under the new régime was the Rev. H. R. Haweis, who had Mr. Saville Clarke as assistant editor. The editor's MS. could have been none too easy to read, for an intimate friend of his says, "What I chiefly recall about Mr. Haweis is that his writing was worse than my own, which was so vile that my teacher, as he rapped me on the knuckles, would declare that it was worse than King John's." A year before this assumption of editorial duties Mr. Haweis had been appointed incumbent of St. James's, Marylebone. The youngest incumbent in London, and the least conventional, he quickly made his mark, drawing crowded congregations to his church. It is difficult to imagine that he had the qualifications of a successful editor, or that he could have found the work congenial. At any rate, his reign lasted a year only. The most successful of his books was "Music and Morals," and the most fruitful of his public activities his advocacy of Sunday opening of museums and picture galleries and the conversion of disused churchyards and open spaces into recreation grounds.
Haweis's successor was John Lovell, who, later, became the first manager of the Press Association. His stay also was short. The next editor was the popular writer of tales for boys, George Manville Fenn, who took the position in 1870 and retained it between three and four years. A short story of his in Dickens's All the Year Round first brought him to the notice of the firm. They wrote to "The Author of 'n Jeopardy'" inviting him to contribute to their periodicals, and thus began a pleasant association as editor and contributor which lasted throughout Fenn's literary life.
One of the serials which appeared in the magazine in Fenn's time was Charles Reade's "A Terrible Temptation." The storm of criticism which this story excited has already been mentioned. Good, strong stuff, with nothing risqué in it, but real and frank, it was considered improper by some readers of that demure period. While it was running Fenn had some correspondence with Reade.
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