Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T03:29:31.496Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

William Stillman: championing Crispi in late Victorian Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2017

David Laven
David Laven*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Nottingham, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Christopher Duggan made extensive use of the correspondence of the American Times journalist William James Stillman in writing his important biography of Francesco Crispi. This article focuses on Stillman’s published works that deal with the Italian statesman, principally his 1898 history of Italy since 1815, the first and only English-language biography of Crispi until Duggan’s, and the journalist’s own autobiography. It argues that, despite Stillman’s much vaunted love for Italy, he in fact despised most Italians, and saw in Crispi’s virtues a rejection of typical Italian conduct. While Stillman was extreme but not altogether unusual among British and American commentators on Italy in his passionate support for Crispi, his contempt for Italians was surprisingly widespread among late Victorian observers of the new nation.

Italian summary

Nello scrivere la ricca biografia di Francesco Crispi, Christopher Duggan fa largo uso della corrispondenza del giornalista americano del Times, William James Stillman. L’articolo è incentrato su quanto Stillman ha scritto sull’uomo di governo italiano, specie nella sua storia di Italia dal 1815 edita nel 1898, in quella che è stata la prima ed unica biografia di Crispi in inglese prima di quella di Duggan, e nella stessa autobiografia del giornalista. Nell’articolo si sostiene che, nonostante il decantato amore di Stillman per l’Italia, questi fondamentalmente disprezzava la maggior parte degli italiani e interpretava le virtù di Crispi come un rifiuto della tipica condotta italiana. Mentre l’estremismo di Stillman nel sostenere Crispi non era affatto inusuale tra i commentatori inglesi e americani, la sua denigrazione degli italiani risultò sorprendentemente diffusa tra gli osservatori vittoriani della nuova nazione.

Keywords

Francesco CrispiWilliam StillmanChristopher DugganThe TimesAdowaOuidaWilliam AldenGiuseppe Fiamingo
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 22 , Special Issue 4: Special Issue: The Force of History: Modern Italian Historiography and the Legacy of Christopher Duggan , November 2017 , pp. 355 - 370
Copyright
© 2017 Association for the Study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Adcock, R. 2017. Liberalism and the Emergence of American Political Science. A Transatlantic Tale. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Alden, W.L. 1895. “Francesco Crispi. An Appreciation.” The Nineteenth Century: A Monthly Review 37 (215), January: 165–176.Google Scholar
Alden, W.L. 1897. “Erythrea.” The Contemporary Review 71, January: 117–122.Google Scholar
Ambrosini, R. 2016. “Politicizing the Aesthetic: Ouida’s Transnational Critique of Modernity.” In Ouida and Victorian Popular Culture, edited by J. Jordan, and A. King, 165–182. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cipriani, R. 2013. “The Italian sociological tradition.” Sociologia Italiana 2:143–159.Google Scholar
Crispi, F. 1898. “The antidote for anarchy. Difficulties that confront the nations. Forecast of the conference results.” The Daily Mail 807, 30 November: 4.Google Scholar
Dalla Vecchia, G. 1901. “Character Sketch: Francesco Crispi.” Review of Reviews, August 144–150.Google Scholar
de Viti de Marco, A. 1895. “The political situation in Italy.” The Nineteenth Century. A Monthly Review 38 (224), October: 548–560.Google Scholar
Dewey, S. 1895. “Francesco Crispi.” The Speaker: the liberal review 11, 16 February: 118–120.Google Scholar
Duggan, C. 2000. Creare la nazione. La vita di Francesco Crispi. Rome-Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Duggan, C. 2002. Francesco Crispi, 1818–1901: From Nation to Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Duggan, C. 2013. “Political cults in liberal Italy, 1861–1922.” In The Cult of the Duce. Mussolini and the Italians, edited by S. Gundle, C. Duggan, and G. Pieri, 11–26. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Dyson, S.L. 2014. The Last Amateur. The Life of William J. Stillman. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Ehrenkranz, A., Eisler, C., Ferber, L.S., and James, A. nd [1988]. Poetic Localities. Photographs of Adirondacks, Cambridge, Crete, Italy, Athens. New York: Aperture.Google Scholar
Ferrero, G. 1895. La Reazione. Turin: Olivetti.Google Scholar
Fiamingo, G.M. 1901. “Francesco Crispi.” Macmillan’s Magazine 85 (505), November: 24–29.Google Scholar
Georgi, K.L. 2013. Critical Shift. Rereading Jarves, Cook, Stillman, and the Narratives of Nineteenth-Century American Art. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press.Google Scholar
Gooch, J. 1998. “Italy, Abyssinia and the Sudan, 1885–98.” In Sudan. The Reconquest Reappraised, edited by E. M. Spiers, 128–145. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
James, G.M. 1894. “Character Sketch. Francesco Crispi.” The Review of Reviews, December: 537–543.Google Scholar
John, A. 1981. The Best Years of the Century: Richard Watson Gilder, Scribner’s Monthly, and The Century Magazine, 1870-1909. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
King, B., and Okey, T. 1901. Italy to-day. London: Nisbet & Co.Google Scholar
Morren, D.G. 1967. “Donald Mackenzie Wallace and British Slavophilism, 1870–1919.” Canadian Slavonic Papers 9 (2): 170–183.Google Scholar
Ouida, 1895. “The Crispi Dictatorship.” The Contemporary Review 68, August 241–255.Google Scholar
Ouida, 1896. “The Italian Awakening.” Fortnightly Review 59 (352), April: 541–546.Google Scholar
Patriarca, S. 2005. “Indolence and Regeneration: Tropes and Tensions of Risorgimento Patriotism.” The American Historical Review 110 (2): 380–408.Google Scholar
Patriarca, S. 2010. Italian Vices. Nation and Character from the Risorgimento to the Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, H.F. 1970. Richard Watson Gilder. New York: Twayne Publishers.Google Scholar
Stillman, W.J. 1874. The Cretan Insurrection of 1866-7-8. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Stillman, W.J. 1891. “The Crisis at Rome’, dated 1 February.” The Times 33241, 6 February: 13.Google Scholar
Stillman, W.J. 1891. “The New Italian Ministry’, dated Rome 10 February.” The Times 33249, 16 February: 4.Google Scholar
Stillman, W.J. 1894. “Francesco Crispi.” The Century Magazine 31:203–209.Google Scholar
Stillman, W.J. 1897. “The Old Rome and the New.” In W.J. Stillman. The Old Rome and the New and Other Studies, 1–24. London: Grant Richards.Google Scholar
Stillman, W.J. 1898. The Union of Italy. 1815–1895. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stillman, W.J. 1899. Francesco Crispi. Insurgent, Exile, Revolutionist, and Statesman. London. Grant Richards.Google Scholar
Stillman, W.J. 1901. The Autobiography of a Journalist 2 vols. London: Grant Richards; Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside; Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.Google Scholar
Stillman, W.J. 1909. The Union of Italy. 1815–1895. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sutherland, J. 1989. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Trevelyan, G.M. 1907. Garibaldi’s Defence of the Roman Republic. London: Longmans, Green & Co.Google Scholar
Trevelyan, G.M. 1909. Garibaldi and the Thousand. London: Longman, Green & Co.Google Scholar
Villari, P. 1866. “Di chi è la colpa? O sia la pace e la guerra.” Il Politecnico parte letteraria, series IV, 2 (3), September: 257–288.Google Scholar
Villari, P. 1868. “Di chi è la colpa? O sia la pace e la guerra.” In P. Villari, Saggi di storia, di critica e di politica, 385–422. Florence: Tipografia Cavour.Google Scholar

Articles in newspapers and periodicals listed alphabetically by title of publication

‘A Bismarck of the South’, The Academy, 1423, 12 August 1899: 154–155.Google Scholar
‘Political literature’, The Athenæum, 3738, 17 June 1899: 751–752.Google Scholar
‘Crispi’, The Bookman, 16/94, July 1899: 106–107.Google Scholar
‘Physiognomy’, Bow Bells: A Magazine of General Literature and Art for Family Reading, 10/122, 2 May 1890: 418.Google Scholar
‘Revolution of Naples and Sicily’, Daily News, 529, 7 February 1848: 2.Google Scholar
‘Garibaldi’s evil genius’ and ‘The Revolution in Southern Italy’, The Daily News, 4481, 21 September 1860.Google Scholar
‘Art. 1’, The Edinburgh Review, 186/381, July 1897: 1–32.Google Scholar
‘Sardinia and Rome’, Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 11 September 1860.Google Scholar
‘Garibaldi and the Sicilies’, The Morning Chronicle, 29232, 18 September 1860.Google Scholar
‘Reviews’, The Observer, 9 July 1899: 7.Google Scholar
‘A psychological senator’, Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, 69/1794, 15 March 1890: 307–308.Google Scholar
The Standard, 11268, 22 September 1860: 4.Google Scholar
‘Naples and Sicily’, The Times, 19779, 7 February 1848: 3.Google Scholar
‘Naval and Military Intelligence’, The Times, 21945, 8 January 1855: 8.Google Scholar
‘The Roman States’, The Times, 23734, 25 September 1860: 8.Google Scholar
‘Central Italy’, The Times, 23740, 2 October 1860: 8.Google Scholar
‘North Italy’, The Times, 23834, 19 January 1861: 8.Google Scholar
‘The Italian Parliament’, The Times, 24268, 10 June 1862: 12.Google Scholar
The Times, 26341, 23 January 1869: 10.Google Scholar
‘Italy’, The Times, 29067, 8 October 1877: 6.Google Scholar