[Vwoolf] Wickham

[Martin, James]

Good day!

In Mrs. Dalloway Clarissa calls Richard "Wickham" by accident when they first meet. The reference that is usually accepted is from Pride and Prejudice, though I've just run across another deceptive villain, whom Woolf may have also been referring to. Whereas the reference to Austen may have portended an unhappy marriage (though Clarissa's wasn't, was it?), the reference to this colonial entrepreneur resonates in a stronger way for me. The reference to Kew Gardens was the icing on the cake for me. What do you think?
>From a review of the book The Thief at the End of the World:
In 1876, a man named Henry Wickham smuggled seventy thousand rubber tree seeds out of the rain forests of Brazil and delivered them to Victorian England's most prestigious scientists at Kew Gardens. Those seeds, planted around the world in England's colonial outposts, gave rise to the great rubber boom of the early twentieth century - an explosion of entrepreneurial and scientific industry that would change the world. The story of how Wickham got his hands on those seeds - a sought-after prize for many suffered and died - is the stuff of legend. In this utterly engaging account of obsession, greed, bravery and betrayal, author and journalist Joe Jackson brings to life a classic Victorian fortune-hunter and the empire that fueled, then abandoned, him. "The Thief at the End of the World" is a thrilling true story of reckless courage and ambition.


Jim Martin

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