Fitzroy Tavern, Charlotte Street, London

The Fitzroy Tavern is a public house situated at 16 Charlotte Street in the Fitzrovia district of central London, England, to which it gives its name. It is currently owned by the Samuel Smith Brewery. It became famous during a period spanning the 1920s to the mid 1950s as a meeting place for many of London's artists, intellectuals and bohemians such as Dylan Thomas, Augustus John, and George Orwell. It is named either directly or indirectly after the Fitzroy family, Dukes of Grafton, who owned much of the land on which Fitzrovia was built. Read more on Wikipedia.

The tavern was manged by in the early years of the 20th century, Judah Morris Kleinfeld, a [Savile Row]? tailor and naturalised British citizen originally from Polish Russia, decided that he wanted to become a pub licensee, and started the work of persuading the brewery that owned the Hundred Marks, Hoare & Co., that he was the man for the job. the  History of Fitzroy Tavern

Lowry refers to the Fitzroy in Chapter 6 of his novel Under The Volcano; "No, the idea was to camp outside a pub down a back alley, and that not any pub, but the Fitzroy Tavern in Charlotte Street, chock full of starving artists drinking themselves to death simply because their souls pined away, each night between eight and ten, for lack of just such a thing as a hot dog. That  was the place to go!" (Pg. 156) and "And--not even the hot-dog man was the answer; even though by Christmas time,obviously, he had been doing a roaring trade outside the Fitzroy." (Pg. 156)

Lowry frequented the Fitzroy Tavern during his time in London between 1931 and 1933. (See Gordon Bowker Pursued By Furies Pgs. 140-41). Lowry refers to a brawl at the tavern in a letter to Conrad Aiken dated Summer/Autumn 1932; "I would have written you before this only I got beaten up in an Ulyssean brawl near Kleinfelds' in Charlotte street the first night of my arrival..." (Collected Letters Vol 1 Pg. 81). The fight occurred while Lowry was staying with John Davenport in London when they started a fight with a group of Welsh miners. (Bowker Pg. 118). Paul Ferris records that Lowry met Dylan Thomas at the Fitzroy in July 1933 on Thomas's second ever visit to London (Dylan Thomas Pg. 166).

Macassar, Indonesia

Sometimes spelled Macassar, Mangkasar. Provincial capital of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and the largest city on Sulawesi Island. Located on the southwest coast of the island of Sulawesi, facing the Makassar Strait.

There is no record of Lowry visiting city on his voyage to the Far East in 1927. Lowry refers to the city in his short story 'Tramps'; "Now when I was in Macassar.." (Pg. 4). Lowry also refers to the city in a letter to John Davenport dated 27th October which contains many references to Richard Eberhart's poems 'Caravan of Silence' and A Bravery of Earth though Eberhart does mention the city; "a Persian too - he longed for the friendly lights against the night in his home-town Macassar or Basia." (Collected Letters Vol 1 Pg. 74). Lowry may have been influenced by Conrad's reference to the city in his short story 'Freya of the Seven Isles'; "the prettiest, and perhaps the cleanest-looking, of all the towns in the Islands." Lowry also makes reference to a "Maccaser" in his novel Ultramarine; "In Persia it was, Macasser the Sultan came aboard with all his harem under bloody umbrellas." (P.70). There was a Sultanate of Macassar which maybe what Lowry is making reference to in his novel. Again there maybe a connection to Conrad as Sultans occur in many of his short stories.

Southern Cross

Crux is the smallest of the 88 modern constellations, but is one of the most distinctive. Its name is Latin for cross, and it is dominated by a cross-shaped asterism that is commonly known as the Southern Cross. Read more on Wikipedia

Lowry refers to the asterism in a letter to John Davenport dated 27th October 1930; "The crew sleep the deep sea sleep while the ship somnambulates under the Southern Cross" (Collected Letters Volume 1 Pg. 74);  the image of the asterism emerges in the La Mordida; Sigbjorn and Primrose rise in the morning; "thye still couldn't find the Southern Cross" (Pg. 86); "still crashing into the seas at 4 a.m.: the Southern Cross appeared tilted in the sky, as if an invisible priest were holding it to ward off evil:" (Pg. 124);  "see ship is still crashing into the seas, see the Southern Cross — the other had (UBC 13:23, 207} been merely The False Cross — the Southern Cross appeared tilted in the sky as if an invisible priest were holding it to ward off evil." (Pg. 155); "Sigbjorn hunts for the Southern Cross - he has an idea if he can find it he will go back and get Primrose out of bed and this will make her happy." (Pg. 171); "He puts on his bathing trunks goes up to try and find the Southern Cross." (Pg. 205); and "it should be pointed out that Primrose is disappointed that she never saw the Southern Cross." (Pg. 319). The asterism also appears in the poem 'The Ship'; "Crucified, beneath the wild Southern Cross.(Collected Poetry Pg. 212). The asterism occurs in Dark as the Grave wherein my friend is laid; "And soon we'll see the Southern Cross (Pg. 20); but his thoughts now passed tenderly to Primrose, so disappointed because she had not yet seen the Southern Cross." (Pg. 261).


Sherrill Grace has identified the cross as a major symbol in Lowry's work ( The Voyage That Never Ends Pg. 72. The Southern Cross is a heavenly manifestation of that symbol. Grace notes in Collected Letters Volume 1 that "Lowry's listing of constellations and stars is characteristic of Eberhart's A Bravery of Earth, but Lowry has deliberately exaggerated the effect". ((Pg. 76) - though it must be noted that Eberhart only specifically refers to the South Cross constellation in his poem;

The south-west wet monsoon blows
Off the coast of Africa
All day: and the nights are still.
Night birds, like whippoorwills,
Or owls, flutter about the deck
In the uncertain light before dawn,
And the coming sun slowly tinges
The slate-coloured sky. And they grope
From the limbs of the Southern Cross
To perch on the gloomy ship......