The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

by Jess Nevins

Stormy Waters: A Story of Today (1885)    

copyright © Jess Nevins 2022

Stormy Waters: A Story of Today was written by Robert Buchanan. Buchanan (1841-1901) was a prolific poet, novelist and dramatist. His Complete Poetical Works runs to two volumes and over a thousand pages and his non-poetical bibliography is similarly respectable. Stormy Waters is seen as the start of Buchanan’s precipitous decline, but is nonetheless a moderately entertaining (if typical) novel of anarchy.

Stormy Waters is a love story between seaman Harry Hastings, just back from a tour of the Atlantic, and Mary Morton. They were in love before he left, and they are still in love when he returns, but complications have arisen in the meantime. Mary's sister Esther has been dishonored, though by who is not immediately revealed, and is in a bad way. Worse, the evil Colonel Kingston has his sites set on Mary. After Mary rejects Kingston in favor of Harry, Kingston manipulates Michael Morton, Mary's father and one of Kingston's dupes, into killing the Squire of Gorseley, Kingston's cousin. Kingston then arranges the frame for the murder to fall upon Harry. Harry flees to London, pursued by the police. This removes Kingston's romantic opponent as well as making Kingston the new Squire of Gorseley and giving him access to the family estate. Then Kingston lets Mary in on the truth and places her in a bad position: either Mary marries Kingston, which would prevent her from ever having Harry, or Kingston reveals the truth and dooms Mary’s father to life in prison. Meanwhile Kingston and the Inflexibles, his gang of anarchist dynamitards, are hard at work north of London. Kingston manipulates Michael Morton into setting off a bomb in the London streets. Matters worsen for Harry and Mary, but good eventually triumphs and Kingston is arrested, leaving Harry and Mary free to marry.

Colonel Kingston is a thorough-going villain. He is not particularly gleeful or cackling in his villainy, and in that he is no Doomsman (see: The Ladye Annabel), but he is effective at doing wrong, and he enjoys it. As a younger man Kingston spent time in America, where he was known as “Colonel Altamont.” To the other Inflexibles Kingston is known as “Number 13.” Kingston is a schemer and opportunist. He leads the Inflexibles not because he wants to create a better society but to because it will help him gain personal power. His long term goal is to become the President of the Republic. The Inflexibles do not know that--they think he is just as ardent an anarchist as they are. (They are a vicious lot, scorning theory and writing as posturing and favoring direct and bloody action). Although the text describes Kingston as a “revolutionary firebrand” and an “infernal fiend,” the truth is that he is a “slave of sensuality, sensuality in every shape, but above all, in the gratification of his animal passion. Everything was made to pander to it, and the more pure the object of his lust was, the more intense was his desire to trail her virtue in the mire.” Kingston ruined Mary’s sister Esther, eventually forcing her to work as a prostitute. (Kingston’s past is full of ruined women). After tossing her aside he fixates on Mary, desperately wanting to “ruin” her. But Kingston is also a gamesman, and he has a sneaking admiration for those who outwit him. However, there aren’t many such men or women.

Stormy Waters is mildly entertaining, although its jocularity is ponderous and Buchanan, as in his poetry, is shrill in his attempts to evoke emotion. Interestingly, however, the novel does give the anarchists a fair hearing. While it is clear they are the villains, some of their arguments about the abuses of power by the British government are difficult to rebut, even today.

Recommended Edition

Print: Robert Williams Buchanan, Stormy Waters: A Story of Today. W.C. Leng & Co., 1885.