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Andrew Lang versus W. D. Howells: a Late-Victorian Literary Duel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Marysa Demoor
Marysa Demoor
Affiliation:
Dr Marysa Demoor Teaches in the Department of English and American literature inthe State University of Ghent, Rozier 44, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
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Extract

It was fate's infallible sense of the ironic which induced Andrew Lang to contact William Dean Howells as a potential contributor to the newly founded Longman's Magazine in October 1882. Ironic, that is, in the light of later events, for the two men barely knew one another at the time, Howells having been introduced to Lang two months previously, at one of Edmund Gosse's celebrated Sunday parties. Had Lang waited for Howells to show his colours, he would, no doubt, have refrained from hauling this Trojan horse into the Longman camp. Indeed, Howells's notorious disparagement of Dickens and Thackeray appeared that same year, in the Century Magazine for November 1882. All but a nonentity to the British public before, the American author thereby achieved fame, almost overnight, as the powerful vindicator of the new American prose and a merciless denunciator of the established British novelists.

Type
Notes and Comment
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , December 1987 , pp. 416 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

1 See Lang's unpublished letter to E. W. Gosse, 26 October [1882], in the Brotherton Library, Leeds University. The letter testifies to Lang's scant acquaintance with the critic: “By the way, I also asked Howell, or Howells, however he spells his name.”

2 Cf. The Book of Gosse, volume I, under 6 Augest 1882 (Cambridge University Library, Add. 7034).Google Scholar

3 Howells, W. D., “Henry James Jr.,” Century Monthly Magazine, 11 1882, 25–29.Google Scholar

4 Unpublished letter to J. B. Matthews, New Year's Day [1883], Columbia University Libraries. As Lang systematically destroyed all incoming mail, Matthews's probably very interesting letter provoking this answer has not been preserved.

5 Concurrently, Lang's references to the man are scarce and always made in private; cf. his letters to J. B. Matthews, 19 November [1882], the Beinecke Library, Yale University, and, 9 December [1884?], Columbia University Libraries, and to Edmund Gosse, 22 December [1884], Brotherton Library, Leeds University. Howells's allusions to his British colleague, however, are even fewer; see Selected Letters of W. D. Howells, ed. Nordloh, David J. et al. (Boston: Twayne, 1979–1986), 6 vols.Google Scholar

6 Unpublished letter to E. W. Gosse, 14 November [1885], the Brotherton Library, Leeds University.

7 Unpublished lettter to J. B. Matthews, 16 November [1885], Columbia University Libraries.

8 “Mr. Howells's Paper,” Criticism and Fiction and Other Essays, ed. Kirk, C. M. and Rudolf, Kirk (New York: New York University, 1965), 380.Google Scholar

9 Contemporary Review, November 1887, 693.

10 “The Editor's Study,” Harper's Monthly Magazine, November 1889, 965. Henceforth abbreviated as “ES”.

11 “ES,” November 1889, 964 and “ES,” September 1890, 639.

12 “ES,” November 1889, 966.

13 “At the Sign of the Ship,” Longman's Magazine, December 1889, 217–8. Hereafter abbreviated as “SS.”

14 “A Fallacy of Mr. Howells,” Illustrated London News, 1 August 1891, 143.

15 “The Avengers of Romance,” Illustrated London News, 30 April 1892, 467.

16 “ES,” June 1887, 157.

17 “From a Scottish Workshop,” Illustrated London News, 27 June 1896, 811.

18 “ES,” August 1886, 476.

19 “SS,” July 1887, 329–32.

20 “ES,” August 1890, 476.

21 “SS,” September 1890, 57.

22 “ES,” November 1890, 962, 976.

23 “SS,” April 1892, 683–84.

24 “SS,” January 1901, 280.

25 Unpublished letter to H. H. Furness, 10 June [1904], University of Pennsylvania Library.

26 Unpublished letter, 7 August [1904], University of Pennsylvania Library.

27 I have found no confirmation of Edward Wagenknecht's assertion that this was due to Lang's being (re-?)appointed as editor of the English edition of Harper's Magazine (William Dean Howells, New York: Oxford University Press, 1969, 51).Google Scholar In Selected Letters of W. D. Howells (111, 300, note 3) one merely finds Alden describing Lang as “so good a friend of the Magazine in England.”

28 “Mr Howells's Paper,” 381.

29 “ES,” June 1889, 151–54 and November 1889, 966.

30 “Realism and Romance,” 688.

31 See his unpublished letter to H. R. Haggard, 7 September [1887], in the Lockwood Memorial Library, State University of New York at Buffalo.

32 “ES,” October 1890, 801.

33 Unpublished letter to Rhoda Broughton, 30 October [1892?], Cheshire County Library.

34 Unpublished letter to H. R. Haggard, Sunday [1894?], Lockwood Memorial Library, State University of New York at Buffalo.

35 Unpublished letter to H. H. Furness, 22 May [1902], University of Pennsylvania Library.

36 Unpublished letter to Harper, 27 March [1912], Humanities Research Center, University of Texas.