Above is a detail from the cover of “Deacon Brodie, or, behind the mask” a 1901 novel by Dick Donovan, the complete cover is at the foot of this blog.
William Brodie (1741-1788) was a seemingly respectable Edinburgh locksmith and cabinet-maker who was both deacon of a trades guild and a city councillor. By night though he led a gang of burglars, partly for the thrill of it but mainly to pay for his chronic gambling habit and the five children he had sired by his two mistresses.
The story of Deacon Brodie looms over both Edinburgh and Scottish literature to the present day. Robert Louis Stevenson’s childhood home had several pieces of furniture made by Brodie and he was fascinated by the contrast between Brodie’s apparent respectability and his real nature. Stevenson wrote an unsuccessful play called “Deacon Brodie, or The Double Life” (1892) with his friend the poet W.E. Henley. Brodie would later inspire Stevenson’s “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1886). The title character of Muriel Spark’s novel “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1961) claims to be a descendant of Deacon Brodie. Visitors to Edinburgh will almost certainly pass and perhaps have a drink in Deacon Brodie’s Tavern which is on the Royal Mile. Nearby is the site of the Old Tolbooth where Brodie was hanged on 1st October 1788.
A contemporary novel about Brodie would likely portray him as an anti-hero or delve deep into his psyche. Donovan’s novel was published in 1901 the year that Queen Victoria died and follows the prevailing moral views of the period, especially as they relate to personal conduct. Donovan makes clear his view of Brodie in a preface to the novel.
“The son of intelligent and God-fearing parents, well brought up, and a highly cultured man, moving in the best society of Edinburgh, he deliberately forsook the path of rectitude and plunged into a life of crime for crime’s sake, associating himself with a gang of ruffians, men far beneath him both in intelligence and socially. They were his companions in many a midnight crime. Brodie deliberately abandoned himself to wickedness ; he indulged in gambling, cock-fighting, and the other fashionable amusements of the day, and never hesitated to resort to loaded dice and every trick by which he could cheat his companions in vice.”
Donovan tells the story of Brodie’s life from cradle to gallows. The novel draws on sources of information which according to Donovan have “hitherto been overlooked” but which he does not specify. Two of the most enduring myths about Brodie are that he designed the gallows on which he was hanged and that he managed to survive his execution. They were rumours that he escaped to Paris. Later research suggests both myths are untrue and Donovan does not entertain either of them. His Brodie is very clearly dead at the novel’s end.
“Deacon Brodie had only been too effectively hanged, and had gone to his account. A few days later all that was mortal of this remarkable criminal was laid to rest in the north-east corner of the Chapel of Ease burying ground”
If you think Dick Donovan sounds more like the hero of a novel than an author, you are right. Dick Donovan was a pen-name used for a series of stories about a Glasgow detective called Dick Donovan. These stories which were told in the first person by Donovan were written by James Emmerson Preston Muddock (1843-1934), a prolific author who was born near Southhampton in England. When first published Donovan’s adventures rivalled Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes for popularity, but have now largely disappeared into obscurity. They were so popular that Muddock used the pen name for a number of novels that did not feature Detective Donovan, including this one about Deacon Brodie.
There has been a recent trend for novels about figures from Scottish history. Denise Mina published a novel about David Rizzio (c.1533-1566) who was murdered in the Palace of Holyrood and Alan Warner’s “Nothing left to fear from hell” tells the story of Bonnie Prince Charlie (1720-1788). The life of Deacon Brodie retold by Irvine Welsh, Ian Rankin or Val McDermid would certainly be a book I would look forward to reading.
If it happens it would be the most recent book to explore duality, a common theme in Scottish literature. So common that Scottish literary critic George Gregory Smith (1865-1932) coined a term “Caledonian Antisyzygy” for works that explore the accommodation of contradictory traits within the Scottish character. The best fictional example of Caledonian Antisyzygy is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the best real life one is Deacon Brodie.
