The first three volumes of Thomas Holcroft’s Hugh Trevor appeared in 1794. In October of that year, before he could add the final three volumes to his novel, Holcroft went to Newgate Prison on a charge of high treason due to his participation in the Society for Constitutional Information. Released after eight weeks, he completed his book in 1797, publishing an exposure of societal moral decay in the form of a bildungsroman.
His plot features the maturation of Hugh Trevor, from the impoverished child of a widowed mother disowned by her wealthy parson father, into a man who learns through multiple negative experiences that the institutions he initially reveres—university education, Parliament, the aristocracy, religion, and law—are all corrupt. He finds redemption from society only through the individual friendships he secures. One of many reformist novels that appeared at the close of the 18th century, Hugh Trevor offers liberal doses of Holcroft’s strident rhetoric. Critics like Seamus Deane note that the work’s contribution to the development of the radical novel proves more important than its questionable literary value.
Young Hugh at first experiences a pampered life with loving parents. When his father loses his money, enlists in the military, and then dies on board a ship to India, the family’s destitution will not be relieved by Hugh’s angry grandfather, who had protested his daughter’s marriage to a “rake.” The family’s only benefactor, Hugh’s uncle Mr. Elford, has left his mother’s sister for self-exile. Mr. Elford had been fond of Hugh, following the boy’s rescue of a family servant, Mary, from death at the hands of a mysterious man who had impregnated her.
Hugh becomes a farm worker, suffers terrible abuse, coincidentally saves his rector grandfather’s life, and thus is reunited with that gentleman. Following the rector’s most unclergymanlike protracted litigation with his neighbor, Squire Mowbray, much of his fortune is exhausted. However, Hugh retains an allowance that will support him through education at Oxford and a trust of £1,000 he will receive after earning his degree. He becomes immediately disenchanted with Oxford, learning that each student has a tutor and all engage in debauchery. His one saving grace is meeting an old schoolmate who had been an enemy in his youth, Hector, son of Squire Mowbray. Hugh retains no fondness for the young man, but he has long loved his sister, Olivia Mowbray, and sees her again through his connection with Hector. He also reunites with Turl, a student who had proved a voice of reason during their undergraduate years, the only student who could best Hugh in English lessons.
Due to his outspoken opinions, Hugh is not allowed to graduate from Oxford. He leaves for a time to try his hand at various types of writing, planning to return to Oxford after the time set for him by the dean. He falls first under the influence of a bishop who hires him to write defenses of doctrines that the bishop publishes under the pen name Themistocles, quickly attributed to the bishop himself. All goes well for a time, and Hugh meets the bishop’s “niece,” Miss Olivia Wilmot, who he discovers is sister to his onetime favorite teacher. Hugh also dabbles in politics, writing tracts and statements for an earl. He asks Turl’s opinion on his work, but ignores his friend’s judgment that it lacks substance, making points based on emotion. Hugh recognizes that he possesses a temper and a great capacity for revenge. Before long, Hugh is dismissed by both of his false benefactors and feels betrayed by the institutions of education, religion, and politics. Furthermore, his role model, Wilmot, attempts suicide due to the rejection of his writing by society, but is rescued by Turl.
Through a series of misfortunes, Hugh loses his money along with his faith in society, partly due to his mother’s remarriage to their attorney’s nephew, Wakefield. He fears his destitution and behavior will cause him to lose Olivia’s favor. Despite that concern, his desperation leads him to gamble, a harmful activity spurred on by the mysterious and charismatic Belmont. In the meantime, Miss Wilmot is badly used by the same Wakefield, who, coincidentally, had promised to marry her as well. Hugh discovers that the servant whose life he once saved, Mary, lives with and cares for Miss Wilmot.
Hugh encounters and fights with a carpenter named Clarke, who later becomes his devoted companion on several additional adventures. As they travel to London, they meet a wealthy physician named Mr. Evelyn, who has concocted a scheme to try to convince all wealthy people to share their good fortune with the working classes. He explains to Hugh, “It is the moral system of society that wants reform. This cannot be suddenly produced, nor by the efforts of any individual; but it may be progressive, and every individual may contribute . . . The rich, in proposition as they shall understand this power and these duties, will become peculiarly instrumental.”
In the most stridently didactic portion of the novel, Evelyn launches into a long speech about his ideas, telling the mesmerized Hugh, “Let the rich therefore awake: let them encourage each other to quit their pernicious frivolities, and to enquire, without fear or prejudice, how they may secure tranquility and promote happiness.” Again, Hugh enters into the emotion of the moment, and again he will be disappointed.
Only when Hugh is able to separate reason (represented by Turl) from passion (represented by himself and most additional characters) will he attain happiness. He reclaims Olivia’s love and admiration and discovers that Belmont is actually the despicable Wakefield. Through his own guilty conscience, Wakefield is driven to repent and develop integrity through Hugh’s influence, confirming the trust Hugh had placed in him. Hugh’s wealthy uncle Mr. Elford reappears, discovers Hugh, makes him his beneficiary, and thus inserts Hugh into the high society he has so disdained. The plot concludes with the marriage of the reformed Wakefield to his original love, Miss Wilmot.
Critics have castigated the novel’s conclusion as an unexplainable “sellout” on the part of Holcroft that reduces the entire plot to melodrama or farce. Problems in characterization include Hugh’s unexplainable attraction to Belmont/Wakefield, a scoundrel cheater who represents everything the protagonist supposedly detests. That Miss Wilmot also will accept her former lover after his misuse of her rings false, although most female fictional characters in the 18th century proved little more than strategically placed backdrops to male drama. The novel remains important, however, as a type also represented by Caleb Williams (1794), written by Holcroft’s friend William Godwin. Both offer an insight into the moral issues and political energies that occupied the thinking person at the close of the 18th century. In his preface to his work, Holcroft wrote, “All written books, that discuss the actions of men, are in reality so many histories of the progress of mind; and, if what I now suppose be truth, it is highly advantageous to the reader to be aware of this truth.”
Bibliography
Baine, Rodney M. Thomas Holcroft and the Revolutionary Novel. Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1965.
Deane, Seamus. Introduction to Hugh Trevor, by Thomas Holcroft. London: Oxford University Press, 1973, vii–xii.
Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis
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