Mr. Weston's Good Wine

Mr. Weston's Good Wine

East Chaldon, or Chaldon Herring, Dorset, where Powys lived from 1904 to 1940, was the inspiration for the fictitious village of Folly Down, in Mr Weston and other works.
Author	T. F. Powys
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genres	Novel, Allegory
Publisher	Chatto and Windus
Publication date	1927
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
OCLC	652411449

Mr. Weston's Good Wine is a novel by T. F. Powys, first published in 1927.

It describes an evening in 1923 when Mr. Weston, who is apparently a wine merchant, but is evidently God, visits the fictional village of Folly Down in Dorset, and meets some of its individuals, whose backgrounds and lives leading up to this day are described during the course of the novel. Mr. Weston's colleague is named Michael, which is an allusion to the Archangel. For a while time stands still, and these individuals, according to their possessing qualities of good or evil, find their ultimate reward.

The fictitious village of Folly Down in this novel and other works by T. F. Powys is based on Chaldon Herring, where he lived from 1904 until 1940.

In the early evening of 20 November 1923, Mr. Weston and his younger colleague Michael drive in their Ford van to the top of a hill overlooking the village of Folly Down; Michael switches on a lighting system connected to the vehicle's battery, and the phrase "Mr. Weston's Good Wine" is displayed in the sky. Michael, reading from a book, reads aloud to Mr. Weston the names and background of some of the village's inhabitants, and Mr. Weston considers the likelihood of each one purchasing his wine.

As described by Michael to Mr. Weston, or described later in the novel:

Mr. Mumby is the local squire at Oak-tree Farm; his sons are Martin and John. Mr. Kiddle is a cattle dealer; his daughters are Phoebe and Anne. Ada Kiddle, the eldest daughter, was taken by Martin and John Mumby one summer under the oak tree on the green, with the encouragement of Mrs. Vosper, and drowned herself when winter came. Mrs. Vosper, who likes to see that girls are taken by men under the oak tree, encouraged the same to happen to Phoebe and Anne.

The Rev. Nicholas Grobe lives at the rectory, with Tamar his daughter, who believes that an angel will come to her. She fell in love with the angel on the signboard of the Angel Inn. Mr. Grobe has not believed in God since his wife Alice died. She was killed when a card depicting an angel, which Tamar had bought when in town with her mother, fell onto a railway line and Alice tried to retrieve it. Mr. Grobe often sits alone in his study in the evening; he misses his wife, although she used to tease him by dancing in front of him.

Thomas Bunce is landlord of the Angel Inn; he blames God for everything. His daughter Jenny is a domestic servant at the rectory; she wants to marry Luke Bird. Luke Bird was once a brewer's clerk, but he preached against drink and lost his job; he came to live in Folly Down and started converting the farm animals to Christianity. He wants to marry Jenny Bunce.