George J Whyte Melville Biography
George John Whyte-Melville (1821-1878) was a Scottish novelist of the sporting-field and a poet.
Born at Mount Melville, near St. Andrews. He achieved immediate success as a writer of fox-hunting stories with his first novel Digby Grand in 1854. Having served as a captain in the Coldstream Guards between 1846 and 1849, he volunteered as a major of irregular Turkish cavalry when the Crimean War began.
Bones and I, or The Skeleton at Home is an anomaly to the corpus of his work, since it is far from the worlds of the hunting field or the historical romance. Instead Bones and I centres upon an urban recluse who lives in a small, modern villa situated in a London cul de sac looking out upon "the dead wall at the back of an hospital."
He met his death while hunting.
In the hollow, by the pollard, where the crop is tall and rank
Of the dock-leaf and the nettle growing free,
...
Go strip him, lad! Now, sir, I think you'll declare
Such a picture you never set eyes on before.
...
Come, I'll show you a country that none can surpass,
For a flyer to cross like a bird on the wing,
We have acres of woodland and oceans of grass,
...
Hunters are fretting, and hacks in a lather,
Sportsmen arriving from left and from right;
Bridle-roads bringing them, see how they gather,
...
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