Charles Auchester

Charles Auchester is a novel by Elizabeth Sara Sheppard, published in 1853. Its hero is an idealised portrait of the composer Felix Mendelssohn. The novel, which is notable for its positive portrayal of Jewish musicality, was praised by Benjamin Disraeli and was initially very popular, remaining in print for over seventy years. Novel The novel, which was written between the years of 1846 and 1849, reflects the author’s adulation of Felix Mendelssohn, who had died in 1847 (when the author was 17 years old), and who appears in the book as ’the Chevalier Seraphael’. The book, which is set in England and Germany, describes Seraphael’s artistic and moral influence on a body of gifted friends and students, as narrated by the eponymous Auchester. Auchester has been assumed to represent Charles Horsley. Other thinly veiled members of Seraphael’s circle are his pupil ‘Starwood Burney’ (Sterndale Bennett), the singer ‘Clara Benette’ (Jenny Lind) and the composer ‘Anastase’ (Hector Berlioz). The book attributes much of Seraphael/Mendelssohn’s musical ability to his Jewish origins. At one point, a conversation between the character Aronach (based on Mendelssohn’s teacher Carl Zelter), and Auch