Part 6

Born in New York City, 1893. Traveled much until he was eight years old, then lived in Racine, Wisconsin, and was educated in the Racine high school. Went to Chicago, intending to join the Thomas Orchestra as violinist, but instead, joined the staff of the Chicago _Journal_ and later that of the _Daily News_. War correspondent in Germany.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Hero of Santa Maria; a Ridiculous Tragedy in One Act. 1920. (With Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, q.v.) The Wonder Hat; a Harlequinade in One Act. 1920. (With Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, q.v.) Erik Dorn. 1921. (Novel.) Also in: The Little Review. (_Passim._)

STUDIES AND REVIEWS

Cur. Op. 71 ('21): 644. Dial, 71 ('21): 597. Freeman, 4 ('21): 282. See also _Book Review Digest_, 1921.

+Joseph Hergesheimer+--novelist.

Born at Philadelphia, 1880. Educated for a short time at a Quaker school in Philadelphia and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

1. Note Mr. Hergesheimer's use of setting and atmosphere. What is the relative importance of these to plot and character? Is the author's main interest in developing a story, in creating characters that live, or in suggesting particular phases of life, each with its own physical and emotional atmosphere?

2. What evidences of originality do you find in his books?

3. Is the author a realist or a romanticist? Is it true, as has been said, that he stands midway between the "unrelieved realism" of the new school of writers and the "genteel moralism" of the old?

4. Consider these two criticisms of Mr. Hergesheimer's work: (1) He aims to set down "relative truth ... the colors and scents and emotions of existence"; and (2) he is at times as much concerned "with the stuffs as with the stuff of life."

5. Make a special study of his style: (1) of his use of suggestion; (2) of his choice of words; (3) of his feeling for rhythm. It is true that there is both art and artifice in his methods?

6. In what ways, if any, has he made actual contribution to American literature? Can you prophesy as to his future?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Lay Anthony. 1914. Mountain Blood. 1915. The Three Black Pennys. 1917. Gold and Iron. 1918. (Wild Oranges, Tubal Cain, The Dark Fleece.) *Java Head. 1919. The Happy End. 1919. (Play.) *Linda Condon. 1919. Hugh Walpole, an Appreciation. 1919. San Cristóbal de la Habana. 1920. Cytherea. 1922. The Bright Shawl. 1922.

STUDIES AND REVIEWS

Ath. 1919, 2: 1339. (Conrad Aiken.)

## Bookm. 50 ('19): 267. (James Branch Cabell.)

## Bookm. (Lond.) 56 ('19): 65; 58 ('20): 193. (Portraits.)

Cur. Op. 66 ('19): 184; 68 ('20): 229; 71 ('21): 237. (Portraits.) Dial, 66 ('19): 449. Lond. Mercury, 1 ('20): 342. Nation, 109 ('19): 404; 112 ('21): 741. (Carl Van Doren.) Sat. Rev. 128 ('19): 343. Spec. 125 ('20): 371. See also _Book Review Digest_, 1919.

+Robert Herrick+--novelist.

Born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1868. A.B., Harvard, 1890. Taught English at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1890-3, and at the University of Chicago since then, becoming professor, 1905. More important for interpretation of his work is the fact that he has carefully studied modern English and Continental literatures and is deeply interested in philosophy and the social sciences.

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

1. Much of Mr. Herrick's work must be regarded as primarily social criticism of American life. Does the interest tend to centre rather upon the problems of the characters, growing out of their circumstances, or upon the characters themselves?

2. Is Mr. Herrick's work more notable for scope and breadth or for intensity?

3. Note, especially in the novels previous to 1905, the conscientious artistry, the compactness of structure, and the unity of tone commonly associated with poetry. What other qualities characteristic of poetry appear in Mr. Herrick's work?

4. With the structure of his earlier work compare that of the _Memoirs of an American Citizen_ as showing an attempt at greater breadth of canvas and greater variety of tone. Trace this attempt further in his later work.

5. What evidences do you find in Mr. Herrick's novels of a carefully wrought theory of the art of the novelist?

6. Someone has called Mr. Herrick "a discouraged idealist." Is this just?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Man Who Wins. 1895. Literary Love Letters and Other Stories. 1896. The Gospel of Freedom. 1898. Love's Dilemmas. 1898. The Web of Life. 1900. The Real World. 1901. Their Child. 1903. *The Common Lot. 1904. The Memoirs of an American Citizen. 1905. *The Master of the Inn. 1908. *Together. 1908. A Life for a Life. 1910. The Healer. 1911. One Woman's Life. 1913. His Great Adventure. 1913. Clark's Field. 1914. The World Decision. 1916. The Conscript Mother. 1916.

STUDIES AND REVIEWS

Bjorkman, E. Voices of Tomorrow. 1913. Cooper.

Acad. 75 ('08): 331.

## Bookm. 20 ('04): 192 (portrait), 220; 28 ('08): 350 (portrait);

38 ('13): 274. Critic, 44 ('04): 112 (portrait). Cur. Op. 54 ('13): 317 (portrait). Dial, 56 ('14): 5. Lit. Digest, 44 ('12): 426 (portrait). Nation, 113 ('21): 230. No. Am. 189 ('09): 812. (Howells.) Outlook, 78 ('04): 862, 864 (portrait). Poet Lore, 19 ('08): 337. R. of Rs. 42 ('10): 123 (portrait); 43 ('11): 380 (portrait); 49 ('14): 621.

+Robert Cortes Holliday ("Murray Hill")+--essayist, critic.

Born at Indianapolis, 1880. Studied at the Art Students' League, New York, 1899-1902, and at the University of; Kansas, 1903-4. Illustrator for magazines, 1904-5. Bookseller with Scribner's, 1906-11. Librarian, 1912-3. Held various editorial positions with New York publishers, 1913-8. Associate editor of _The Bookman_, 1918, and editor, 1919--.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Booth Tarkington. 1918. The Walking Stick Papers. 1918. Joyce Kilmer, A Memoir. 1918. Peeps at People. 1919. Broome Street Straws. 1919. Men and Books and Cities. 1920. Turns about Town. 1921.

STUDIES AND REVIEWS

## Bookm. 47 ('18): 149 (portrait); 48 ('18): 478.

Dial, 64 ('18): 297; 65 ('18): 419. See also _Book Review Digest_, 1918-21.

+William Dean Howells+--novelist, dramatist, critic, poet.

Born at Martins Ferry, Ohio, 1837. Of Welsh, English, Pennsylvania Dutch, and Irish ancestry. His father was a country editor, and Mr. Howells, living as he did under pioneer conditions, had very little formal education, but educated himself in working on newspapers as printer, correspondent, and editor. He read continually in boyhood, and taught himself to read six languages. As the result of a campaign life of Lincoln, he was appointed U.S. consul at Venice and lived there, 1861-5. After a year on the staff of the _Nation_, he became assistant editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_, 1866-72, and editor, 1872-81. Later, he became an editorial writer for _Harper's Magazine_, 1886-91, and finally writer of the "Editor's Easy Chair," for the same magazine.

Although Mr. Howells did not go to college, he received many honorary higher degrees, and was offered professorships by three Universities (including that which had been held by Longfellow and Lowell at Harvard); but he refused these, not considering himself fitted for such work. In his editorial capacity he gave much advice and help to authors who afterward became famous. He died in 1920.

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

1. For just appraisement of Mr. Howells, it is necessary to be familiar with the facts of his life, and with his theories of fiction. For his life the two autobiographical books _Years of My Youth_ and _My Literary Passions_ are most valuable. After reading these, it is possible to see the large use of autobiographical material in the novels.

2. It is interesting to group the books of Howells according to the sources of the material: (1) those growing out of his early life in Ohio; (2) those growing out of his life abroad; (3) those growing out of his life in Boston and New York. This last class might well be subdivided into those written before he came under the influence of Tolstoi and those written after. The turning-point is in _A Hazard of New Fortunes_. Does Mr. Howells's interest in sociological problems add to or lessen the final value of his work?

3. The realism of Howells set a standard for American literature, the effect of which has not yet passed. Study his theories of fiction (_Criticism and Fiction_, and _Literature and Life_) and consider the good and bad effects of his work upon the development of the novel.

4. Use the following quotation from Van Wyck Brooks, on Howells's "panoramic theory" of the novel as a test of his work:

To make a work of art, it is necessary to take a piece out of life and round it off; and, so long as the piece is perfectly rounded off and complete in itself, so long as the chosen group of characters are perfectly proportioned in relation to one another, there is no need to introduce an artificial chain of action.

5. Howells's style has often been admired. Try to analyze it into its elements. Consider Mark Twain's judgment:

For forty years his English has been to me a continual delight and astonishment. In the sustained exhibition of certain great qualities--clearness, compression, verbal exactness and unforced and seemingly unconscious felicity of phrasing--he is, in my belief, without his peer in the English-writing world.

6. Can you make any judgment now as to Howells's future place in American literature?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Poems by Two Friends. 1860. (With John J. Piatt.) Life of Abraham Lincoln. 1860. Venetian Life. 1866. Italian Journeys. 1867. No Love Lost: A Romance of Travel. 1869. (Poems.) Suburban Sketches. 1871. Their Wedding Journey. 1871. Poems. 1873. A Chance Acquaintance. 1873. A Foregone Conclusion. 1875. The Parlor Car. 1876. (Farce.) A Day's Pleasure. 1876. Out of the Question. 1877. (Comedy.) A Counterfeit Presentment. 1877. (Comedy.) *The Lady of the Aroostook. 1879. The Undiscovered Country. 1880. A Fearful Responsibility, and Other Stories. 1881. A Day's Pleasure, and Other Sketches. 1881. Dr. Breen's Practice. 1881. *A Modern Instance. 1882. The Sleeping-Car. 1883. (Farce.) A Woman's Reason. 1883. Three Villages. 1884. The Register. 1884. (Farce.) *The Rise of Silas Lapham. 1884. The Elevator. 1885. (Farce.) Five O'Clock Tea. 1885. (Farce.) Indian Summer. 1885. The Garroters. 1886. (Farce.) Tuscan Cities. 1886. Poems. 1886. The Minister's Charge. 1887. (=The Apprenticeship of Lemuel Barker.) Modern Italian Poets. 1887. *April Hopes. 1888. A Sea-Change or Love's Stowaway. 1888. (Farce.) Annie Kilburn. 1889. *A Hazard of New Fortunes. 1889. The Mouse Trap, and Other Farces. 1889. The Shadow of a Dream. 1890. A Boy's Town. 1890. (Autobiographical.) The Albany Depot. 1891. (Play.) Criticism and Fiction. 1891. An Imperative Duty. 1892. *The Quality of Mercy. 1892. A Letter of Introduction. 1892. (Farce.) A Little Swiss Sojourn. 1892. Christmas Every Day, and Other Stories for Children. 1893. My Year in a Log Cabin. 1893. (Autobiographical.) The Unexpected Guests. 1893. (Farce.) The World of Chance. 1890. Evening Dress. 1893. (Farce.) The Coast of Bohemia. 1893. A Likely Story, 1894. (Farce.) A Traveler from Altruria. 1894. (Romance.) My Literary Passions. 1895. (Autobiographical.) Stops of Various Quills. 1895. (Poems.) The Day of Their Wedding. 1896. A Parting and a Meeting. 1896. Impressions and Experiences. 1896. Idyls in Drab. 1896. The Landlord at Lion's Head. 1897. A Previous Engagement. 1897. (Comedy.) An Open-Eyed Conspiracy. 1897. Stories of Ohio. 1897. The Story of a Play. 1898. The Ragged Lady. 1899. Their Silver Wedding Journey. 1899. An Indian Giver. 1900. (Comedy.) Room Forty-five. 1900. (Farce.) The Smoking Car. 1900. (Farce.) Bride Roses. A Scene. 1900. Literary Friends and Acquaintances. 1900. A Personal Retrospect of American Authorship. 1900. Doorstep Acquaintance and Other Sketches. 1900. A Pair of Patient Lovers. 1901. (5 stories.) Poems. 1901. Heroines of Fiction. 1901. The Kentons. 1902. Literature and Life. 1902. The Flight of Pony Baker. A Boy's Town Story. 1902. Minor Dramas. 1902. (19 Farces.) Letters Home. 1903. Questionable Shapes. 1903. (3 stories.) The Son of Royal Langbrith. 1904. Miss Bellard's Inspiration. 1905. London Films. 1905. Certain Delightful English Towns. 1906. Between the Dark and the Daylight. 1907. (7 stories.) Through the Eye of the Needle. 1907. (Romance.) Mulberries in Pay's Garden. 1907. Roman Holidays and Others. 1908. Fennel and Rue. 1908. The Mother and the Father. Dramatic Passages. 1909. Seven English Cities. 1909. Imaginary Interviews. 1910. My Mark Twain. 1910.

## Parting Friends. 1911. (Farce.)

New Leaf Mills. 1913. Familiar Spanish Travels. 1913. The Seen and the Unseen at Stratford-on-Avon. A Fantasy. 1914. Years of my Youth. 1916. (Autobiographical.) Buying a Horse. 1916. The Leatherwood God. 1916. The Daughter of the Storage and Other Things in Prose and Verse. 1916. The Vacation of the Kelwyns. 1920. Mrs. Farrell. 1921.

For complete bibliography, see _Cambridge_, III (IV), 663.

STUDIES AND REVIEWS

Boynton. Cambridge, III, 77. Clemens, S.L. What is Man? and Other Essays. 1917. Follett. Halsey. Harkins. Harvey, A. William Dean Howells. 1917. Macy. Phelps. (Modern Novelists.) Robertson, J.M. Essays toward a Critical Method. 1889. Underwood. Van Doren, Carl.

Ath. 1920, 1: 634. Atlan. 91 ('03): 77; 119 ('17): 362.

## Bookm. 21 ('05): 566; 25 ('07): 2 (portrait), 67; 45 ('17): 1 (Hamlin

Garland); 49 ('19): 549; 51 ('20): 385.

## Bookm. (Lond.) 23 ('03): 214; 52 ('17): 88 (portrait).

Cath. World, 111 ('20): 445. Cent. 100 ('20): 674 (portrait). Critic, 38 ('01): 165. Cur. Lit. 52 ('12): 461. Cur. Op. 54 ('13): 411; 60 ('16): 352 (portrait); 62 ('17): 278, 357 (portrait); 63 ('17): 270; 69 ('20): 93 (portrait). Fortn. 115 ('21): 154. Forum, 32 ('02): 629; 49 ('13): 217. Harp. 113 ('06): 221 (Mark Twain)=Cur. Lit. 41 ('06): 48 (condensed); 134 ('17): 903; 141 ('20): 265 (portrait), 346. Harp. W. 46 ('02): 929 (portrait), 947; 56 ('12): Mar. 9, pp. 5, 27 (portrait). Ind. 72 ('12): 533 (portrait). J. Educ. 65 ('07): 311. Lit. Digest, 44 ('12): 485; 65 ('20): My. 29, p. 34, Je. 12, p. 53 (portrait), Je. 19, pp. 37, 56. Liv. Age, 294 ('17): 173; 306 ('20): 98; 308 ('21): 304; 312 ('21): 304. Lond. Mer., 2 ('20): 133. Lond. Times, Dec. 7, 1916: 585. Nation, 31 ('80): 49 (W.C. Brownell); 104 ('17): 261; 110 ('20): 673. New Repub. 10 ('17): supp. p. 3; 22 ('20): 393; 26 ('21): 192. New Statesman, 15 ('20): 195. No. Am. 176 ('03): 336; 195 ('12): 432 (portrait), 550; 196 ('12): 339; 212 ('20): 1 (portrait), 17. Outlook, 69 ('01): 712 (portrait); 111 ('15): 786, 798 (portrait); 129 ('21): 187 (portrait). R. of Rs. 61 ('20): 562 (portrait), 644. Sat. Rev. 91 ('01): 806. Spec. 98 ('07): 450; 117 ('16): 834. Westm. R. 178 ('12): 597. World's Work, 18 ('09): 11547. (Van Wyck Brooks.) Yale Rev. n.s. 10 ('20): 99. Cf. also _Cambridge_, III (IV), 665.

+James Gibbons Huneker+--critic.

Born at Philadelphia, 1860. Graduate of Roth's Military Academy, Philadelphia, 1873. Studied law five years at the Law Academy, Philadelphia. Studied piano in Paris and was for ten years associated with Rafael Joseffy, as teacher of piano at the National Conservatory, New York. Musical and dramatic critic of the _New York Recorder_, 1891-5; of the _Morning Advertiser_, 1895-7; also musical, dramatic, and art critic of the _New York Sun_. Died in 1921.

For an understanding of Mr. Huneker's criticisms, it is well to begin with his autobiography (_Steeplejack_).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mezzotints in Modern Music. 1899. Melomaniacs. 1902. Overtones. 1904. Iconoclasts--A Book of Dramatists. 1905. Visionaries. 1905. Egoists--A Book of Supermen. 1909. Promenades of an Impressionist. 1910. The Pathos of Distance. 1913. Ivory Apes and Peacocks. 1915. New Cosmopolis. 1915. Unicorns. 1917. Steeplejack. 1919. Painted Veils. 1920. Bedouins. 1920. Variations. 1921.

STUDIES AND REVIEWS

Mencken, H.L. Prefaces.

## Bookm. 11 ('00): 501 (portrait); 21 ('05): 79 (portrait), 564, 565

(portrait); 29 ('09): 236 (portrait); 31 ('14): 241 (portrait); 37 ('13): 598 (portrait); 41 ('15): 246 (portrait); 53 ('21): 124. Cent. 102 ('21): 191. Critic, 36 ('00): 487 (portrait). Cur. Lit. 39 ('05): 75 (portrait); 42 ('07): 167; 47 ('09): 57 (portrait). Cur. Op. 65 ('18): 392; 70 ('21): 534. (Portraits.) Forum, 41 ('09): 600. Lit. Digest, 68 ('21): Mar. 5, p. 28 (portrait). Liv. Age, 309 ('21): 426. New Repub. 25 ('21): 357. No. Am. 213 ('21): 556. Outlook, 126 ('20): 469 (portrait); 127 ('21): 286. Sat. Rev. 97 ('04): 551. Spec. 115 ('15): 879.

+Fannie Hurst+ (Missouri, 1889)--short-story writer, novelist.

Has studied especially the lives of working girls. For bibliography, see _Who's Who in America_.

+Wallace Irwin+ (New York, 1875)--short-story writer.

Most characteristic material life in California and the Japanese there. For bibliography, see _Who's Who in America_.

+Henry James+--novelist.

Born in New York City, 1843. Younger brother of William James, the psychologist. Educated largely in France and Switzerland. Studied at the Harvard Law School. After 1869, lived for the most part abroad, chiefly in England. Spent much time at Lamb House, Rye, a beautiful eighteenth century English house which he purchased in order to live in retirement. Just before his death, to show his sympathy for the part played by England in the War and his criticism of what he considered our backwardness, he became naturalized as a British citizen. In 1916, received the Order of Merit (O.M.), the highest honor for literary men conferred in England. His death in 1916 was attributed to overstrain caused by the War and his efforts to help the sufferers.

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

1. A good approach to the work of Henry James is through the three articles from the _Quarterly Review_ listed below. Mr. Fullerton sums up the material scattered through the prefaces to the definitive edition of 1909. Mr. Percy Lubbock writes as the editor of the _Letters_. Mrs. Wharton adds to criticism of the _Letters_ illuminating personal reminiscences.

2. One of the important _Prefaces_ on James's theory of the novel and his method of work is that to the _Portrait of a Lady_, from which the extract below is taken. In speaking of Turgenev's attitude toward his characters, James says:

He saw them, in that fashion, as disponible, saw them subject to the chances, the complications of existence, and saw them vividly but then had to find for them the right relations, those that would most bring them out; to imagine, to invent and select and piece together the situations most useful and favourable to the sense of the creatures themselves, the complications they would be most likely to produce and to feel.

"To arrive at these things is to arrive at my 'story,' he said, "and that's the way I look for it. The result is that I'm often accused of not having 'story' enough...."

So this beautiful genius, and I recall with comfort the gratitude I drew from his reference to the intensity of suggestion that may reside in the stray figure, the unattached character, the image _en disponible_. It gave me higher warrant than I seemed then to have met for just that blest habit of one's own imagination, the trick of investing some conceived or encountered individual, some brace or group of individuals, with the germinal property and authority. I was myself so much more antecedently conscious of my figures than of their setting--a too preliminary, a preferential interest in which struck me as in general such a putting of the cart before the horse. I might envy, though I couldn't emulate, the imaginative writer so constituted as to see his fable first and to make out his agents afterwards: I could think so little of any situation that didn't depend for its interest on the nature of the persons situated, and thereby on their way of taking it....

The question comes back thus, obviously, to the kind and the degree of the artist's prime sensibility, which is the soil out of which his subject springs. The quality and capacity of that soil, its ability to "grow" with due freshness and straightness any vision of life, represents, strongly or weakly, the projected morality. That element is but another name for the more or less close connexion of the subject with some mark made on the intelligence, with some sincere experience.

On one thing I was determined; that, though I should clearly have to pile brick upon brick for the creation of an interest, I would leave no pretext for saying that anything is out of line, scale or perspective. I would build large--in fine embossed vaults and painted arches, as who should say, and yet never let it appear that the chequered pavement, the ground under the reader's feet, fails to stretch at every point to the base of the walls....

The bricks, for the whole counting-over--putting for bricks little touches and inventions and enhancements by the way--affect me in truth as well-nigh innumerable and as ever so scrupulously fitted together and packed-in. It is an effect of detail, of the minutest; though, if one were in this connexion to say all, one would express the hope that the general, the ampler part of the modest monument still survives....

So early was to begin my tendency to _overtreat_, rather than undertreat (when there was choice or danger) my subject. (Many members of my craft, I gather, are far from agreeing with me, but I have always held overtreating the minor disservice.) ... There was the danger of the noted "thinness"--which was to be averted, tooth and nail, by cultivation of the lively.... And then there was another matter. I had, within the few preceding years, come to live in London, and the "international" light lay, in those days, to my sense, thick and rich upon the scene. It was the light in which so much of the picture hung. But that _is_ another matter. There is really too much to say.

3. Remember the following clues in reading James's, work: "His one preoccupation was the criticism, for his own purpose, of the art of life." The emphasis is on the word _art_. His _purpose_ is suggested by his own claim to have "that tender appreciation of actuality which makes even the application of a single coat of rose-color seem an act of violence."

4. There is suggestion of Mr. James's limitations in the facts that he was tone deaf and so could not appreciate music, and that he is said not to have written a line of verse, and also in the fact that although his method of presentation in the novels is dramatic throughout and he strongly desired to write plays, the eight plays that he wrote (three of which were presented) were failures.

5. Mr. James's place in the sequence of great European novelists is as a follower of Balzac, Flaubert, De Maupassant, and Turgenev, and as a predecessor of Conrad (whose study of him listed below should be read).

6. Early in the nineties, a great change in method came about in James's work (cf. _Cambridge_, III, 98, 103). Judge separately typical books written before this change and others written after; then read several books of the period of change and decide what happened and whether or not it enhanced the value of his work.

7. One of the remarkable facts about James's style is its influence upon the critics who write about him. A close analysis of its qualities--sentence length, the order and placing of the parts of the sentence, punctuation, vocabulary, etc., might bring a more definite understanding of the reasons for this influence.

8. A comparison of the work and qualities of Henry and William James might be made a valuable contribution to criticism.

9. For a student familiar with Europe, a study of the reasons for James's affinity with Europe and dislike for American life would make an interesting study.

10. What different types of reasons can you bring to show that Henry James is likely to be a permanent force in American literature?

BIBLIOGRAPHY