The reviewer of Simon Called Peter, in The Church Times on May 6^th, 1921, was about as rude as one can be about a new novel. The review was headed, in classic British understatement:

A Very Disagreeable Novel

The reviewer was not just angry they were disappointed. As they pointed out at the beginning of the piece:

For some years past we have watched the literary career of Mr Robert Keable with much sympathy and interest. His imaginative gift is a rare quality and he is a possessor besides of an easy and attractive style. It seemed to us that he might go very far.

And the truth was, up until this review The Church Times had been very supportive of his career and writing.

First mention

Robert was first mentioned in The Church Times, apart from listing him along with other new deacons was when he was appointed to a post in Zanzibar in 1911, aged 24:

The Rev. Robert Keable, of Bradford Parish Church, has accepted an invitation from the Bishop of Zanzibar to join the staff of St. Andrew’s College, Kinugani, Zanzibar. This college is part of the training school of the Universities Mission in that diocese. Mr Keable took a First Class in the Cambridge History Tripos in 1908, and was ordained Deacon to a title at Bradford parish church by the Bishop of Ripon last year. After being admitted to the priesthood at the ensuring ordination, he will preach his farewell sermon on October 29 and expects to sail to Zanzibar early in November.

First Review

The first book of Robert Keable’s that The Church Times reviewed, in May 1913, was his devotional work The Loneliness of Christ. They praised the fact that he had something to say that would be helpful ‘to the many people who need strength and comfort’ and commented on his distinct style and ‘happiness of phrasing’. Even then they suggested he had a ‘future before him as a writer’.

A year later they reviewed his first, and only, book of verse Songs of the Narrow Way. They recorded that his little book offered ‘a message of consolation from one who [knew] all the hardships of the narrow way’, suggested his brother priests in like circumstances would thank him for it, and commended it ‘heartily’ to all those who supported the Universities Mission to whom the proceeds of the book would be going.

Sermon

In October 1914, less than six months after the start of the First World War – which the Church of England supported – The Church Times published, in full, a sermon Robert had given at St. Barnabas, Pimlico on the Feast of St Lukes. It carried a strikingly anti-war message tempered only by the fact he states half-way through: ‘Of course the war is just and we should fight, but ah, the sorrows of the world, its bitter sin and pain.’ He detailed some of the sorrows:

… the terrible sorrow of the disease-stricken trench, and of wood and field when the batteries have done their worst,

… the sorrow of the women, wives, mothers, lovers, and of the children of Belgium, France, Russia, yes, and of Germany

… the sorrow of our own land, sorrows such as these, and more. … You close the public-houses early, but out late last night I myself saw the pitiful crowds of shouting drunken people outside every door.

And he continued:

… even more overwhelming and devastating is the bitter shame that in this age countless hosts of men, themselves neither desiring not rightly understanding it, should be hurling death the one upon the other at the bidding of forces that are scarcely human at all. It is as if we were all in the grip of a heartless and awful machine that wants war; tens of millions throughout Europe loathe the name; multitudes of innocent lives are to be stained and broken by it; and yet we can do nothing to stop it; a nameless something will ravage until it is too spent to move, and to what end, and to what good.      

If Robert had stayed in England The Church Times may well have carried more of his sermons and writings, but instead of accepting an offer of a parish in Sheffield he decided to travel to Basutoland (now Lesotho) for his next job.

More reviews

Whilst in Basutoland Robert continued to write. Occasional articles for the Treasury Magazine earnt good mentions in The Church Times, and his newly published books were well received.

His book on the Universities Mission to Central Africa – Light or Darkness – was called ‘quite the best study circle book that we have ever read’. His children’s book – The Adventures of Paul Kangai – was considered ‘well worth reading, as it is vividly told’.

In December 1915 his book City of Dawn, about his time in Zanzibar was praised to the rafters:

It is literature. Mr Keable has the two great gifts of the imaginative artist: the eye to see, and the gift of words to describe what he has seen. The impression is extraordinarily vivid.

Again, the reviewer repeated, ‘undoubtedly, there is a future before Mr Keable’ adding:

He is one of the ablest of our younger writers. Where that future lies it is perhaps too soon to say. …it is possible that he will find the true expression of his imaginative gifts in the art of fiction.

In March 1917 The Church Times compared another devotional work, Robert’s The Perpetual Sacrifice; Meditations on the Passion to his previous book The Loneliness of Christ – ‘one of the most popular devotional books published last year and it was certainly one of the best.’

His new devotional book is, we are inclined to think, even better than the first. It is the product of a skilled pen, - how skilled, let readers of A City of Dawn say. …We are glad that Mr Keable does not think it beneath the dignity of his great literary gift to produce these simple books of devotion for the ordinary Christian.

Controversy

Towards the end of the war, whilst serving as a chaplain to the South African Native Labour Contingent (SANLC) in France, Robert wrote two pieces on the training of African priests for The East and the West magazine that received a fair degree of publicity in various church magazines, and which led to Robert being denounced in the South African press. The Church Times took a neutral stance simply stating that articles had been written and publishing Robert’s letter defending his views. In their final word on the matter, they mention Fr. Barnes’s rebuke of Robert in the Quarterly Chronicle of the Community of the Resurrection before concluding

Whatever one may think of Mr. Keable’s criticism – Fr. Barnes calls it ‘hasty and inexperienced’ – he has set archbishop, bishop, and other trainers of men thinking, which is all to the good.

Drift of Pinions

Robert had more books published in 1918 and 1919. Drift of Pinions was a collection of short stories on spiritualism. The Church Times saw the collection as further evidence of Robert’s talent. Recalling their suggestion a few years ago that his future might lie in fiction they wrote:

He has great gifts for this kind of work. He joins a vivid and picturesque style to great ingenuity in telling a story, though sometimes the introduction to the story is too long. Whether he has also the gift of drawing and developing character is not yet evident, though there are signs, even in the limited scope here, that he may possess it.

They concluded:

Mr. Keable has not lessened a growing reputation by this book. He owes little to modern influences in the world of fiction, but there are few among our younger writers who are doing better work.

Simon Called Peter

And then in May 1921 came the review of Simon Called Peter.

to speak quite bluntly, Mr. Keable’s book is the story of unattractive and sordid vice on the part of a clergyman. A young chaplain goes to France, he quickly falls into careless living and philandering ways with nurses and others; he ends by spending several days of leave with a nurse who becomes his mistress, and from that he goes back again to France, back apparently to celebrating the Holy Eucharist and making his communion; back to his priestly work in attending the sick and dying in the great base hospital, back to being, in the eyes of the army, a faithful priest. Over all this there is thrown a glamour of romance, but there would be no romance in reality. The grossness is there, however it may be hidden.

The reviewer went on to suggest that if the hero of the book had had a ‘tremendous repentance’ their view of the novel might have been different. As it was, they were surprised Robert ‘would willingly give such pain and offence to Anglicans as this book is bound to give’ and they concluded:

His imagination has failed him here. The novel is unworthy of his great and undoubted talents.

Robert did protest in a letter to The Church Times that they had read too much into the ending of his novel. He had left a blank page and it was ‘apparent’ to him that when ‘the author lays down the pen, the interested reader concludes precisely what he wished to conclude.’

He did not however suggest that his hero was likely to repent. By now Robert had left the church and a year later he was to leave his wife and England. While still a priest many, certainly on the   High Church wing, had envisaged a glittering career in the church for Robert. But it was not to be.

The Obituary

The Church Times never again wrote about his great talent as a writer. They stood by their review of Simon Called Peter. The poor review, and many similar in the British press, failed to prevent the book from becoming a huge bestseller in the UK and the following year across America. In my new book Utterly Immoral I detail the writing, and amazing success, of Simon Called Peter and the extraordinary story of Robert’s life in Croydon, Cambridge, Bradford, Zanzibar, Leribe in Basutoland, behind the lines in France, Dunstable and, for the last few years, Tahiti.

In their obituary The Church Times detailed his early life and then added:

There is no doubt that he became unsettled again in his religious convictions, and, at the close of the war, he ceased to exercise his priestly office. For a time he took to school mastering, but soon became more active with his pen. One after another the novels, which distressed many of his old friends, appeared and brought him a certain fame as well as wealth.

EFS added his comments to the obituary concentrating on Robert’s time in Zanzibar and his book Darkness or Light. He described a ‘truly charming companion’ going on to say:

He was a delightful boy when I knew him first, and he remained a boy to the end; a very jolly boy, a singularly generous boy, and at times an extremely naughty boy.