GUY THORNE and ‘When it was Dark’

A book was published in 1903 by a man named Guy Thorne called ‘When it was Dark’.  The book tells the tale of a successful Jewish merchant living in Manchester, a German immigrant, called Schwabe (or Schuabe depending on which edition) who is a Unitarian and who undertakes a devilish plot to destroy Christianity!  How does Schwabe intend to do this?  Simple.  A message, in the form of a clay tablet, will be discovered by a renowned archeologist in a tomb among the hills above Jerusalem.  The message is from Joseph of Arimathea, admitting that he, Joseph, stole the body of Christ and hid it in this same tomb.  So that when the disciples thought that Christ had risen from the dead, they were victims of a well-meant deception by Joseph of Arimathea.  There had been no Resurrection.  The body had merely been secretly transferred from one tomb to another.  The entire Christian world had been the victim of this hoax.  Schwabe manages to get the leading archeologist from the British Museum to authenticate the message by not only paying him a lot of money but also threatening to reveal the expert’s adulterous relationship.  As a result of the finding all hell breaks out mainly in terms of assaults on women by bands of rampaging men.

It is matter of debate as to whether Thorne was aware of the Manchester Schwabes, and if so which one(s) he may have had in mind.  If he was aware, then it is unlikely to have been Salis since Guy Thorne lived from 1876-1923.  Salis died in 1853, Louis I died in 1845, but Louis II not until 1922.  Also, the Louis family was more closely associated with Manchester and Unitarianism than the Salis lot, most of whom had moved to London toward the end of the nineteenth century [i], while Louis II died at Manchester.  The villain of the piece is called Constantine Schwabe (one of Louis’ daughters was baptized Constance but this may be stretching things).  Who exactly Thorne had in mind when he created the devilish character of Constantine Schwabe we will never know.  In 1973 Claude Cockburn, the British journalist, wrote an interesting article on this novel (‘The Horror of it all’).  To view my summary of the book in PDF click HERE.