While not as well written as military fiction by Frederick Marryat, The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton allowed Scottish author Thomas Hamilton to take advantage of his military experience by using it as background for fiction. Hamilton had been wounded in the thigh while serving in Spain, and this would be his only fiction based on that era of his life. After retiring from the service, his friendship with publisher William Blackwood and residence as a neighbor to Sir Walter Scott encouraged his writing.

He first sent “a few sheets of Cyril Thornton” to Blackwood on January 20, 1826, and continued to send progress reports, including the statement, “the ending is melancholy, and I am not quite sure that the cause is fully adequate to the effect, but I think it is out of the common run and that, in these days of imitation, is in itself something.” Hamilton wanted to kill Cyril during his participation in the storming of St. Sebastian, concluding with a “description of his grave in a grove of cork trees.” However, he eventually capitulated to Blackwood’s request for a “happy ending,” correctly judging it would reduce the novel’s quality but increase its sales.

While some initial reviews remained equivocal, the Edinburgh Review in October 1830 noted that the novel had been published three years previously, and “we should not have noticed it now, if we had not thought that it deserved to be remembered much longer. It is one of the best of its class.” Also published in America, the book remained in print through 1880.

Divided into three sections, the novel’s first portion focuses on Cyril Thornton’s studies at Glasgow, where Hamilton had also studied. Cyril carries guilt for having accidentally killed his brother in a shooting accident, which succeeded in alienating him from his family, particularly his father. He spends time with his uncle David Spreull, a merchant in Glasgow who has as his crusty companion a man named Girzy.

Some critics note that the various characters, including the provost, his wife, Archie Shortridge, and Miss Spreulls, represent stereotypical stock figures of Scottish fiction. They do, however, praise the realism of Hamilton’s depiction of Glasgow trade and his easy, readable style.

Cyril joins the army, and his military experiences occupy the novel’s second section. Critic Maurice Lindsay notes that no writer in a productive period that included Sir Walter Scott, John Galt, Jane Austen, and Susan Ferrier captured “the sense of war’s utter confusion, misunderstanding, cruelty, chaos and strategic chance” as did Hamilton.

By the third section, which brings Thornton back into society, Hamilton’s approach weakens. The loquacious characterizations of his upper-class figures, realistic or not, add tedium to the narrative, and he miscues his readers into believing the character of Laura Willoughby will become Thornton’s love interest. Instead, he chooses the daughter of Lord Amersham, Lady Melicent, whose character remains inconsistent.

Although clear about her distaste for war veterans and their messy wounds, she warmly embraces the wounded Thornton, an individual far below her class, then casts him aside to marry a wealthy man her social equal. While Hamilton had originally planned for Thornton to return to the service of his country and die in battle, he satisfied Blackwood by recalling the figure of Laura Willoughby and settling the love-triangle conflict in traditional 19th-century fiction fashion.

Burdened with a style sometimes classified as “clumsy,” The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton is yet recommended as eminently readable, in great part due to its sincere tone and realistic setting.

Bibliography

Lindsay, Maurice. Introduction to The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton, by Thomas Hamilton. Aberdeen: The Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1990, vii–xviii.

Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis

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