Barry Pain

Artist Info

Barry PainCambridge, England, 1864 - 1928, Watford, England

http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79109895

Pain, Barry Eric Odell (1864–1928), writer, was born at 3 Sidney Street, Cambridge, on 28 September 1864, one of the four children of John Odell Pain, linen draper of Cambridge, and his wife, Maria, née Pain. After attending Sedbergh School from 1879 to 1883, he went up to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Awarded a scholarship in 1884, he graduated in 1886, obtaining a third class in part one of the classical tripos. He then spent four years as an army coach at Guildford before moving to London in 1890 to devote himself to writing.

Pain had contributed to Granta at Cambridge with much success and soon obtained regular work from the Daily Chronicle and Black and White. In 1891 he published his first book, In a Canadian Canoe, compiled from his Granta pieces. Shortly afterwards he was invited by James Payn, editor of the Cornhill Magazine, to become a contributor. He soon made his name as a novelist and writer of short stories, mainly of a humorous nature, publishing books at yearly intervals.

Pain's dislike of banality led him to satirize the stock characters and accepted formulas of Victorian fiction. His parodies of the best-selling novels of the time displayed an iconoclastic approach to well-worn literary conventions, and made him and other apostles of the ‘new humour’ popular, although in their day they aroused as much criticism as they did enthusiasm.

On 2 June 1892 at Emmanuel Church, Maida Vale, London, Pain married Amelia Nina Anna (1865/6–1920), daughter of the portrait painter Rudolf Lehmann (1819–1905) and sister of Liza Lehmann, the composer. They had two daughters. A burly, bearded figure who enjoyed family life and foreign travel, Pain was a man of many interests including Georgian literature, occult lore, and precious stones. It is typical that he gave up writing for a year to learn to draw.

In 1897 Pain succeeded Jerome K. Jerome as editor of To-Day and, three years later, published the first of the Eliza books for which he is now best remembered. Although Eliza (1900) was rejected by many publishers including those who were publishing his other books, it proved to be an instant success. A series of domestic sketches narrated by a despotic and fussy London clerk, it reflected an aspect of the everyday life of his readers. Pain had success with other sketches of working-class life—the charwoman Mrs Murphy and the scrounging gardener Edwards are good examples—but his public wanted more of Eliza, and he produced four sequels in the next twelve years.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Pain was touring the United States. Although well over age, he returned to join the anti-aircraft section of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in April 1915. Posted to a searchlight station on Parliament Hill, north London, he attained the rank of chief petty officer but the eye-strain caused by this work eventually forced him to abandon it. In 1917 he became a member of the London Appeal Tribunal, adjudicating on claims for exemption from military service.

Although Pain is best-known today for his humorous working-class sketches, it was his serious writing that earned critical acclaim during his lifetime. He was admired for his narrative ability and economy in a range of books that included novels, fantasies, a theological study, a detective story, and a series of parodies that were widely admired. In all, he wrote over sixty books and a mass of uncollected articles and short stories in every conceivable vein, and it is possible that the diversity of his writing meant that he never developed the reputation he deserved. If it is ironic that Pain is now best remembered for Eliza and the sequels he produced in response to popular demand, it is also true that their wit and detailed description of suburban life and snobbery stand up very well today and led to a television series and reissue of the stories in the 1980s. Barry Pain died of heart disease on 5 May 1928 at his home, 69 Bushey Grove Road, Bushey, Watford, Hertfordshire, and was buried in the Bushey parish churchyard.

N. T. P. Murphy

Sources

private information (1937) · J. H. Bowen, introduction, in B. Pain, More stories (1930), v–ix · A. Noyes, introduction, in B. Pain, Humorous stories (1930) · The Times (7 May 1928) · Daily Telegraph (7 May 1928) · A. Noyes, ‘Barry Pain’, The Bookman, 73 (1927–8), 166–7 · Truth (9 May 1928) · London Mercury, 18 (1928), 123 · T. Jones, introduction, in B. Pain, The Eliza stories (1984), [7]–[10] · West Herts and Watford Observer (12 May 1928) · P. G. Wodehouse, ‘Preface’, A century of humour (1934) · b. cert. · m. cert. · d. cert.