History Literature / EnochSoames

''[[http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/760/pg760.html Enoch Soames]]'' is a classic story by Max Beerbohm originally published in 1916, but purporting to recollect events taking place in the 1890's as well as in the "[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture imagined future]]" of 1997. The story is a DealWithTheDevil tale that also incorporates TimeTravel and other science fiction elements. For other works by Beerbohm with their own pages, see ''Literature/ZuleikaDobson.''

''[[http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/760/pg760.html Enoch Soames]]'' is a classic story by Max Beerbohm originally published in 1916, but purporting to recollect events taking place in the 1890's as well as in the "[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture imagined future]]" of 1997. The story is a DealWithTheDevil tale that also incorporates TimeTravel and other science fiction elements. For other works by Beerbohm with their own pages, see ''Literature/ZuleikaDobson.''
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* BaldWoman: In the future of 1997, everyone is bald (and possibly hairless generally), including the women.

--> ''"Try,"'' was the prayer he threw back at me as the devil pushed him roughly out through the door—''"[[DeaderThanDisco TRY to make them know that I did exist!]]"''

-->''"You aren't an artist,"'' he rasped. ''"And you're so hopelessly not an artist that, so far from [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief being able to imagine a thing and make it seem true]], you're going to make [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer even a true thing seem as if you'd made it up]]. You're a miserable bungler. And it's like my luck."''

--> ''"Try,"'' was the prayer he threw back at me as the devil pushed him roughly out through the door—''"TRY to make them know that I did exist!"''

[[caption-width-right:219: ''"Enoch Soames in 1895"'' '''real''' portrait as depicted by '''real''' painter William Rothenstein]]

* TheGayNineties: The story is in part a recollection of that era written a few decades later (the story's subtitle is "A Memory of the Eighteen-Nineties"), particularly the writers and painters of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_de_siècle. fin de siécle]]

* TheGayNineties: The story is in part a recollection of that era written a few decades later (the story's subtitle is "A Memory of the Eighteen-Nineties"), particularly the writers and painters of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_de_siècle.]]

* TheGayNineties: The story is in part a recollection of that era written a few decades later (the story's subtitle is "A Memory of the Eighteen-Nineties"), particularly the writers and painters of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_de_si%C3%A8cle fin de siecle.]]

[[caption-width-right:219: ''"Enoch Soames in 1895"'' '''real''' portrait as depicted by William Rothenstein]]

-->''"You aren't an artist,"'' he rasped. ''"And you're so hopelessly not an artist that, so far from [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief being able to imagine a thing and make it seem true]], you're going to make even a true thing seem as if you'd made it up. You're a miserable bungler. And it's like my luck."''

-->''"You aren't an artist,"'' he rasped. ''"And you're so hopelessly not an artist that, so far from being able to imagine a thing and make it seem true, you're going to make even a true thing seem as if you'd made it up. You're a miserable bungler. And it's like my luck."''

''[[http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/760/pg760.html Enoch Soames]]'' is a classic story by Max Beerbohm originally published in 1916, but purporting to recollect events taking place in the 1890's as well as in the "[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture imagined future]]" of 1997. The story is a DealWithTheDevil tale that also incorporates TimeTravel and other science fiction elements. For other works by Beerbohm with their own pages, see ''Literature/ZuleikaDobson.''

''[[http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/760/pg760.html Enoch Soames]]'' is a classic story by Max Beerbohm originally published in 1916, but purporting to recollect events taking place in the 1890s as well as in the "[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture imagined future]]" of 1997. The story is a DealWithTheDevil tale that also incorporates TimeTravel and other science fiction elements. For other works by Beerbohm with their own pages, see ''Literature/ZuleikaDobson''.

* DastardlyWhiplash: Beerbohm (as a character in/narrator of the story) has contempt for the Devil in part because the Devil's attempts to be cool/sinister instead make him come off as this trope:
->"Dread was indeed rather blunted in me by his looking so absurdly like a villain in a melodrama. The sheen of his tilted hat and of his shirt-front, the repeated twists he was giving to his mustache, and most of all the magnificence of his sneer, gave token that he was there only to be foiled."

* DealWithTheDevil: Soames sells his soul to be able to travel 100 years in the future and see what is written about him- expecting to be a celebrated artist. Unfortunately for him, he's unremembered except as a fictional character.
* TheDevilIsALoser: Although the Devil [[TheBadGuyWins wins]], this trope is in play as the narrator makes a big point of the Devil being a humorless, self-important prig.
* DraggedOffToHell: Soames, of course. This makes for a case of IronicName, as the Biblical Enoch is famous for experiencing the [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence opposite trope]].
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: The Devil has NoSenseOfHumor and an inflated sense of self-importance (ironically, just like his victim, Soames).
* TheGayNineties: The story is in part a recollection of that era written a few decades later (the story's subtitle is "A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties"), particularly the writers and painters of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_de_si%C3%A8cle fin de siecle]].

* DraggedOffToHell: Soames, of course. This makes for a case of IronicName, as the Biblical Enoch is famous for experiencing the [[AscendToAHigherPlaceOfExistence opposite trope]].

* DraggedOffToHell: Soames, of course. This makes for a case of IronicName, as the Biblical enough is famous for experiencing the [[AscendToAHigherPlaceOfExistence opposite trope]].

* {{Utopia}}: Soames and the narrator refer to the future of 1997 as seeming utopian/along the lines of their expectations of the future. This is somewhat odd as in what may be a case of UnbuiltTrope, the future is rather stereotypically ''[[{{dystopia}} dystopian]]'', along the lines of ''Literature/We'' or ''Literature/{{Anthem}}''.

''[[http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/760/pg760.html Enoch Soames]]'' is a classic story by Max Beerbohm originally published in 1916, but purporting to recollect events taking place in the 1890s as well as in the "[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture imagined future]] of 1997. The story is a DealWithTheDevil tale that also incorporates TimeTravel and other science fiction elements. For other works by Beerbohm with their own pages, see ''Literature/ZuleikaDobson''.

* SycophanticServant: Making his DealWithTheDevil causes Soames to become one of these, such that the Devil can command him to reverse a cross shape that would otherwise have prevented the Devil from harming Soames.

* GratuitiousFrench: Pretty much everyone in the story uses a fair amount of it, given the mileu of English artists heavily influenced by French art. Soames probably uses the most, fitting his poseur behavior.

* SyncophanticServant: Making his DealWithTheDevil causes Soames to become one of these, such that the Devil can command him to reverse a cross shape that would otherwise have prevented the Devil from harming Soames.