Tuesday 23 February 2021

Skulferatu #20 - Greyfriars Kirkyard, Candlemaker Row, Edinburgh

 

Another day and another graveyard.  Greyfriars Kirkyard is probably the most famous graveyard in Edinburgh.  This was once due to the enduring story of Greyfriars Bobby, the little dog who sat on his master’s grave for years after he had died.  Now it is the Harry Potter franchise that attracts visitor after visitor to this wonderfully gothic place.

 

Detail of Gravestone at Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Detail of Gravestone at Greyfriars Kirkyard

 

Gravestone at Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Gravestone at Greyfriars Kirkyard

 

I used to work near to Greyfriars and at lunchtimes would often wander around the graveyard to clear my head.  Many of the graves and tombs here are steeped in the history of Edinburgh, and page after page could, and has, been written about their occupants.  There is the tomb of George ‘Bloody’ Mackenzie, the Lord Advocate who in the late 17th Century was responsible for the prosecution and execution of many of the Covenanters.  There is the grave of Captain John Porteous, who was lynched by an angry mob after ordering his men in the City Guard to shoot into a crowd of townsfolk rioting after a public hanging.  Then there is the grave of William McGonagall, the poet who wrote some of the worst poetry known to man.  Here is a little extract from his best known work, ‘The Tay Bridge Disaster’ -

 

‘…Twas about seven o’clock at night,

And the wind it blew with all its might,

And the rain came pouring down,

And the dark clouds seem’d to frown,

And the Demon of the air seem’d to say –

I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay…’

 

Great stuff! 

 

However, the gravestone that drew my attention on one of my previous wanderings here was a simple and unadorned one for another poet and author, Franz Hedrich.  I had never heard of him, so did a little research and found that in the 1880s he was involved in a scandal that shocked the literary world.  His story is as follows…

 

Grave of Franz Hedrich, Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Grave of Franz Hedrich

 

Franz Hedrich was born in Bohemia (present day Czech Republic) in 1823.  As an aspiring poet and author in his youth, he moved in various literary circles and in the 1840s became a close friend of the poet and author Alfred Meissner.   Hedrich also dabbled in politics and was at one point elected to the Frankfurt National Assembly as the leader of one of the parties on the extreme left.  He was then arrested and exiled for his political views.

 

In the 1850s Hedrich moved to Munich and would often spend his summers with Meissner.  During this time, according to Hedrich, Meissner came to rely on him to review and rewrite much of his new work and this eventually culminated in Hedrich writing several of Meissner’s novels for him, as his ghost-writer.  It would, however, appear that Hedrich was unhappy with this as Meissner had promised that the work would appear in their joint names.  He also felt that Meissner was pocketing most of the money and ‘awarding him only a trifle.’

 

In 1871, in Switzerland, Hedrich married Janet Barron of Edinburgh.  He then lived with her in Switzerland, France and in Scotland.  Janet appears to have been quite wealthy, having inherited a large amount of money after the death of her parents.  Whether this played any part in Hedrich falling for her we will never know, however being a man who enjoyed the finer things in life he quickly squandered much of her fortune.  Running low on money, he then began to blackmail Meissner threatening to let the world know that he had written the novels.  It would seem that through this he obtained substantial sums of money from Meissner for several years.  Then in 1885, Meissner could take no more and made a suicide attempt by slashing his own throat.  He survived this but died shortly afterwards of sepsis.  On his death bed he told his brother in law, Robert Byr, that Hedrich ‘was hunting me like a tiger.  He claimed the fortune of my children.  He was my evil genius during all my life, and I was his prisoner, so that nothing but death remains for me to escape his bondage.’

 

A few years after Meissner’s death, a collection of his works was published and included various novels that Hedrich had written.  This seems to have annoyed Hedrich and resulted in him writing a pamphlet that was then published by the Berlin firm O. Janke.  The same firm who had published Meissner’s work.  In this pamphlet Hedrich claimed authorship of most of Meissner’s novels and stated that for almost thirty years Meissner had been claiming to be the author of books that he, Hedrich, had written.  To provide proof of his claims he included copies of letters from Meissner and these showed beyond doubt that Hedrich had indeed written several novels attributed to Meissner.  Hedrich also pointed out that in several of the novels he had used a simple type of cryptogram to encode the words ‘Autor Hedrich’ to show he was the author of the work.

 

Robert Byr, Meissner’s brother in law, then made a reply to Hedrich’s accusations.  He stated that Meissner had claimed authorship and tried to sell a single novel written by Hedrich. This deed had caused him such remorse that he had then committed suicide.  Byr also claimed that Hedrich was only a collaborator in some of Meissner’s novels.  The two men had arranged this collaboration as Meissner’s name was well known, and novels appearing under his name would command a greater price than those appearing under Hedrich’s.

 

On viewing the evidence that Hedrich produced, it was accepted by the literary world that he had indeed written several of the novels appearing under Meissner’s name, and had collaborated on others.  However, it was also found that he had overstated his case and claimed authorship of some novels that were purely Meissner’s work.  

 

Hedrich did not fare well in this scandal.  He was seen by many as being dishonourable, and too ready to denounce someone who had been his close friend in order to make money.  A leading literary magazine of the time wrote of him that - ‘Hedrich had dragged Meissner in the mire…but he has degraded himself beneath the notice of respectable men in doing it.’

 

Hedrich spent his later years living in the West End of Edinburgh with his wife.  He died on 31 October 1895.

 

Well, back to my walk around Greyfriars on what was a miserable and cold February day.  A day so grey that the sun seemed to have lost its way.  A day so damp that even the stone of the tombs around me seemed to ooze out dark, cold water.  A perfect day for a walk around the graveyard, as there was no-one else stupid enough to come out in this weather.  A perfect day for being unobserved in leaving a Skulferatu in a tree just across from the grave of Franz Hedrich.

 

Skulferatu #20 at Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Skulferatu #20

 

Skulferatu #20 in tree at Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Skulferatu #20 in tree at Greyfriars Kirkyard

 

Skulferatu #20 in tree at Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Skulferatu #20 in tree at Greyfriars Kirkyard

  

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu #20.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project
Google Map showing location of Skulferatu #20

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

Latitude 55.946205

Longitude -3.192669

 

I used the following sources for information on the Hedrich & Meissner scandal –

 

Renfrewshire Independent (Births, Marriages and Deaths)

Published 14 January 1871

 

The Scotsman (Alfred Meissner and Franz Hedrich)

Published 22 November 1889

 

The New York Times (A Literary Scandal)

Published 18 December 1889

 

The Publisher’s Weekly (Page 27)

New York

Published 12 July 1890.

 

Wikipedia articles on Franz Hedrich & Alfred Meissner