Bernard C. Blake

Bernard C. Blake (b. reg. Gosport, Hampshire, July-September 1882; d. 9 April 1918, Cocques, France) 

Bernard Cecil Blake was the third son (of three children) of John William Blake (1846-1920), who owned a yacht-fitting shop in Gosport,  and his wife Emma Julia Collins (1846-1934), who were married in 1867. His older brothers were Stanley James Blake (1870-1941), who worked alongside his father, and Victor John Blake (1873-1925), who became a medical doctor. 

Little is known of Blake's youth and education. In early 1892, he sent contributions (evidently letters or puzzles, which appear uncredited) to "The Children's Page" of  The Lady's Pictorial, and a photo of the boy at age nine, with his dog, appeared in the issue for 14 May 1892. He wrote letters to The Boy's Own Paper about five years later.  His first fiction was published in the local Hampshire newspaper (to which his father was a frequent contributor) in 1899. 

His first of three books was At the Change of the Moon (London: Greening & Co, [June] 1902). It contains nine stories, most of which are fairly short, and most of which concern madness or lunacy of some kind. There is a frame story of a competition witnessed at an inn by the narrator over a ten day storm in the 1870s,  whereby two men, Dr. Hermes, a retired brain specialist, and a small shriveled bald-headed man called "Pharaoh" by the narrator, try to one-up each other with successive tales. None are atmospheric and rarely hint of the supernatural. Some of the contemporary reviews overpraise the work (e.g., "Mr. Blake has the touch of a fine artist, and knows the value of a suggested horror as against a plainly elaborated one. All who like weird literature and are fond of thrill should read this book" Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 29 June 1902). 

Blake published five stories, two poems, and a piece of nonfiction in a short-lived small magazine Vectis in early 1903, but his next major work was a epistolary novel, The Peculiar History of Mary Ann Susan: Told by Herself (T. Fisher Unwin, [October] 1903). It is made up of letters from a young lady to her aunt, an amusing and humorous contrast to what Blake notes in a brief preface as novels written "with a purpose." 

In his entry in The Literary Year-Book for 1906 Blake listed himself as a contributor to Punch and to M.A.P. [Mainly about People, edited by T.P. O'Connor].  

Blake's final book was Cain's Wife (Walter Scott Publishing, [16 May] 1906). On publication it was attacked for daring to take on its Biblical subject matter. The Saturday Review called it "a vulgar melodrama" (19 January 1907). Another fairly negative review in the East Anglian Daily Times is worth quoting at length for it gives details about the novel and makes it sound highly interesting:

Mr. Blake does not follow the lines of the Biblical story. He adopts the theory that co-existing with Adam, the Creator put upon the earth another race of women and men, and that amongst the latter were some who possessed attractions for the "sons of God," as Adam and his sons were called to distinguish them from the less favoured "sons of the earth." Cain and Abel play prominent parts in the story: the elder is described as a giant of vast strength but of hideous features, whereas his brother is a magnificently handsome being. Amongst the daughters of the earth are sister patricians named Silave and Naamah, dark and light respectively physically and by nature. The love tangle which sets the four at cross purposes is made responsible for the commission of that crime of fratricide which caused a curse to descend upon Cain. The erring brother, though fierce and elemental, is averse to taking Abel's life until his temptation by the sensuous and revengeful Silave becomes irresistible. The description of that terrible period, and of the dire consequences of the sin of Cain is excellently done; indeed, the power of these portions must atone for the disappointment caused by other chapters. . . . Mr. Blake's greatest fault is his modernising of the actions and language of the actions in the great drama. (16 July 1906) 

After Cain's Wife, Blake apparently ceased publishing, and went to work at his father's shop, until it was sold in 1911. After the War broke out in 1914, he joined the Army and served in North India for two and a half years. Back in England in 1917, he asked that he serve in France in place of a married officer whose wife and family were in India. Incidentally, Blake's last known short story (mentioned in a 1914 newspaper article) appeared in The Regiment--it concerns the misery of a soldier and a woman who rush to marry. Blake himself never married. On April 9th 1918 he was shot in the chest at the Front, and died during subsequent medical treatment. 

Johnny Mains has championed At the Change of the Moon, publishing in 2025 with Mislaid Books an expanded edition (including all the items from Vectis), including a well-illustrated biographical account of what is known of Blake's life.