William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells (1837-1920), ca. 1900. Photo by Zaida Ben-Yusuf (1869-1933). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

William Dean Howells
Born	March 1, 1837(1837-Template:MONTHNUMBER-01) Martins Ferry, Ohio, U.S.
Died	May 11, 1920(1920-Template:MONTHNUMBER-11) (aged 83) Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Occupation	novelist, short story writer, magazine editor, mentor
Nationality	American
Period	1858-1920
Genres	essay, novel, short story, editing
Literary movement	Realism
Children	Winifred Howells (b.1863) John Mead Howells (b.1868) Mildred Howells (b.1872)
Influences James Thomas Fields James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Mark Twain
Influenced many American writers, eg Mark Twain and Sinclair Lewis
Signature	File:Appleton's Howells William Dean signature.jpg

William Dean Howells (March 1, 1837 - May 11, 1920) was an American poet, and a realist author and literary critic. He was known for his Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and novel The Rise of Silas Lapham, as well as for his decade-long.tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly.

Life

Youth

Born in Martins Ferry, Ohio, originally Martinsville, to William Cooper and Mary Dean Howells, Howells was the 2nd of 8 children. His father was a newspaper editor and printer, and moved frequently around Ohio. Howells began to help his father with typesetting and printing work at an early age. In 1852 his father arranged to have one of Howells' poems published in the Ohio State Journal without telling him.

Early career

In 1856 William Howells was elected as a clerk in the State House of Representatives. In 1858 he began to work at the Ohio State Journal where he wrote poetry, short stories, and also translated pieces from French, Spanish, and German. He avidly studied German and other languages and was greatly interested in Heinrich Heine. In 1860 he visited Boston and met with American writers James Thomas Fields, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Through these contacts, he also became a personal friend to many other writers, including Henry Adams, William James, Henry James and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr..

Said to be rewarded for a biography of Abraham Lincoln used during the election of 1860, he gained a consulship in Venice. On Christmas Eve 1862, he married Elinor Mead at the American embassy in Paris. Among their children was future architect John Mead Howells.

William Dean Howells. Courtesy Spartacus Educational.

Atlantic Monthly

Upon returning to the U.S., Howells wrote for various magazines, including the Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine. In January 1866 James Fields offered him the assistant editor role at the Atlantic Monthly. Howells accepted after successfully negotiating for a higher salary, but was frustrated by Fields's close supervision.

Howells gave a series of 12 lectures on "Italian Poets of Our Century" for the Lowell Institute during its 1870-1871 season.

On Fields's retirement, Howells was made editor of the Atlantic in 1871, remaining in the position until 1881. During that period he was also the major contributor to the magazine, writing the bulk of the book reviews, and contributing the occasional poem.

Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, Giovanni Verga, Benito Pérez Galdós, and, especially, Leo Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in support of American writers Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles W. Chesnutt, Abraham Cahan, Madison Cawein,and Frank Norris. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest influence. In his "Editor's Study" column at the Atlantic Monthly and, later, at Harper's, he formulated and disseminated his theories of "realism" in literature.

In 1869 he met Mark Twain, which began a longtime friendship. Even more important for the development of his literary style — his advocacy of realism — was his relationship with journalist Jonathan Baxter Harrison, who during the 1870s wrote a series of articles for the Atlantic Monthly on the lives of ordinary Americans.

Later years

In 1902 Howells bought a summer home overlooking the Piscataqua River in Kittery Point, Maine. He returned there annually until his death, when his son donated the property to Harvard University as a memorial. In 1904 he was one of the first seven people chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he became president.

File:William Dean Howells grave.jpg

Grave of William Dean Howells

Howells died in Manhattan on May 11, 1920. He was buried in Cambridge Cemetery in Massachusetts.

Writing

Howells wrote his debut novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his literary reputation took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which described the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur of the paint business. His social views were also strongly represented in the novels Annie Kilburn (1888), A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890), and An Imperative Duty (1892). He was particularly outraged by the trials resulting from the Haymarket Riot.

His poems were collected in 1873 and 1886, and a volume under the title Stops of Various Quills was published in 1895.

In 1928, 8 years after Howells' death, his daughter published his correspondence as a biography of his literary years.

Realism

He was the initiator of the school of American realists who derived, through the Russians, from Balzac and had little sympathy with any other type of fiction, although he frequently encouraged new writers in whom he discovered new idea

Howells defined realism as "nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material." In defense of the real, as opposed to the ideal, he wrote, "I hope the time is coming when not only the artist, but the common, average man, who always 'has the standard of the arts in his power,' will have also the courage to apply it, and will reject the ideal grasshopper wherever he finds it, in science, in literature, in art, because it is not 'simple, natural, and honest,' because it is not like a real grasshopper. But I will own that I think the time is yet far off, and that the people who have been brought up on the ideal grasshopper, the heroic grasshopper, the impassioned grasshopper, the self-devoted, adventureful, good old romantic card-board grasshopper, must die out before the simple, honest, and natural grasshopper can have a fair field."

Noting the "documentary" and truthful value of Howells' work, Henry James wrote: "Stroke by stroke and book by book your work was to become, for this exquisite notation of our whole democratic light and shade and give and take, in the highest degree documentary."

Recognition

His poem "Earliest Spring" was included in the Oxford Book of English Verse (1250-1900).

Publications

Poetry

• Poems. Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1873; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1882; Boston: Ticknor, 1886; Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1895.
• Stops of Various Quills (illustrated by Howard Pyle). New York: Harper, 1895.

Play

• A Counterfeit Presentment. Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1877; Boston: Ticknor, 1877..
• The Sleeping-Car: A farce. Boston: Ticknor, 1873; Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1873.

Novels

• Their Wedding Journey. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin / Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1871.
• A Chance Acquaintance. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin / Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1873.
• A Foregone Conclusion. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin / Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1874.
• A Day's Pleasure. Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1876.
• The Lady of the Aroostook. Boston: Houghton Osgood, 1879.
• The Undiscovered Country. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1880.
• Dr. Breen's Practice Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1881; Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1883.
• A Modern Instance. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1881.
• A Woman's Reason. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1882.
• Three Villages. Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1884.
• The Rise of Silas Lapham. Boston & New York: Houghton, Mifflin / Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1884.
• Indian Summer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885.
• A Likely Story. New York: Harper, 1885.
• The Minister's Charge; or, The apprenticeship of Lemuel Barker. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1886; Edinburgh: D. Douglas, 1886.
• Annie Kilburn. New York: Harper, 1888; Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1888.
• April Hopes. New York: Harper, 1887; Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1887.
• Annie Kilburn. New York: Harper, 1888; Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1888.
• A Hazard of New Fortunes. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1889; Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1889.
• The Shadow of a Dream. New York: Harper, 1890; Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1891.
• The Quality of Mercy. New York: Harper, 1891.
• An Imperative Duty. Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1891; New York: Harper, 1892.
• The Coast of Bohemia. New York: Harper, 1893.
• My Year In a Log Cabin. New York: Harper, 1893.
• A Traveler from Altruria. New York: Harper, 1894.
• The Landlord at Lion's Head. New York: Harper, 1897.
• The Story of a Play: A novel. New York: Harper, 1898.
• The Ragged Lady. New York & London: Harper, 1899.
• Their Silver Wedding Journey. (2 volumes), New York: Harper, 1899.
• The Kentons. New York & London: Harper, 1902.
• Questionable Shapes. New York & London: Harper, 1903.
• Son of Royal Langbrith. New York & London: Harper, 1904.
• Through the Eye of the Needle: A romance. New York & London: Harper, 1907.
• New Leaf Mills: A chronicle. New York & London: Harper, 1913.
• The Seen and Unseen at Stratford-upon-Avon: A fantasy. New York & London: Harper, 1914.
• The Leatherwood God (illustrated by Henry Raleigh). New York: Century, 1916.

Short fiction

• A Fearful Responsibility, and other stories. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin / Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1881.
• Between the Dark and the Daylight: Romances. New York & London: Harper, 1907.
• Selected Short Stories (edited by Ruth Barton). Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1997.

Non-fiction

• Venetian Life. New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1867; London: N. Trubner, 1867.
• Italian Journeys. New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1867; London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, 1868.
• Suburban Sketches. New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1871.
• Tuscan Cities (illustrated by Joseph Pennell et al). Boston: Ticknor, 1885.
• A Boy's Town. New York: Harper, 1890.
• Modern Italian Poets: Essays and versions. New York: Harper, 1887; Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1887.
• Criticism and Fiction. New York: Harper, 1891.
• My Literary Passions. New York: Harper, 1895.
• The Country Printer: An essay. Northwood, MA: Plimpton Press, 1896, 1916.
• Literary Friends and Acquaintances. New York & London: Harper, 1900.
• Heroines of Fiction. New York & London: Harper, 1901.
• Literature and Life: Studies. New York & London: Harper, 1902.
• London Films. New York & London: Harper, 1905.
• Certain Delightful English Towns. New York: Harper, 1906.
• My Mark Twain: Reminiscences and criticisms. New York: Harper, 1910.
• Years of My Youth (autobiography). New York & London: Harper, 1916.
• W.D. Howells as Critic (edited by Edwin Harrison Cady). London & Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973.
• Selected Literary Criticism (David J. Nordlow, general editor). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993
  • Volume I: 1859-1885 (edited by Ulrich Halfmann)
  • Volume III: A selected edition (edited by Ronald Gottesman)

Juvenile

• The Howells Story Book. New York: Scribner, 1900.
• The Flight of Pony Baker: A Boys Town story (illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn). New York & London: Harper, 1902.
• Editha (1905); Mankato, MN: Creative Education, 1993.

Collected editions

• Selected Writings (edited by Henry Steele Commager). New York: Random House, 1950.
• A Selected Edition. (28 volumes), Boston: Twayne, 1983; Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1983;

Edited

• Mark Twain's Library of Humor (edited with Mark Twain & Charles Hopkins Clark). London: Chatto & Windus, 1888.

Letters

• The Mark Twain - Howells Letters, 1872-1910 (edited by Henry Nash Smith). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 1960.
  • abridged as Selected Mark Twain - Howells Letters, 1872-1910. New York: Atheneum, 1968.
• John Hay - Howells Letters: The correspondence of John Milton Hay and William Dean Howells, 1861-1905 (edited by George Monteiro; Brenda Murphy). Boston: Twayne, 1980.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

The Sea William Dean Howells

"Editha" by William Dean Howells

See also

• List of U.S. poets
• List of literary critics

References

• Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. pp. 154. 
• Fryckstedt, Olov W. 1958. In Quest of America: A Study of Howells’ Early Development as a Novelist. Upsala, Sweden: Thesis.
• Witschi, N.S. (2002). Traces of Gold: California’s Natural Resources and the Claim to Realism in Western American Literature. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.. ISBN 0-817-31117-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=opfSb5vI1e8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. 

External links

Poems

• "Earliest Spring".
• William Dean Howells Poems at the Poetry Archive
• William Dean Howells at PoemHunter (18 poems)
• William Dean Howells at The Literature Network

Prose

• Essays by William Dean Howells at Quotidiana.org

Books

• Works by William Dean Howells at Project Gutenberg
• William Dean Howells at Amazon.com

About

• William Dean Howells in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• William Dean Howells at NNDB
• William Dean Howells at Spartacus Educational
• "William Dean Howells" by Carl van Doren
• "William Dean Howells" by Mark Twain

Etc.

• William Dean Howells Society includes a biographical sketch of Howells, links to his works (including the "Editor's Study" columns), questions and replies, bibliographies, and pictures

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