Howells, William Dean (1837-1920)

Baker discusses his role as the editor of the Atlantic Monthly.

Belasco mentions that his poetry was printed in Clapp's columns of "original" poems, which usually appeared on the first page of the Saturday Press (252).

Belasco mentions that Howells "published frequently in Clapp's Saturday Press" and reviewed '"Bardic Symbols" for the Daily Ohio State Journal (253).

Mentioned in the 1861 chapter.

Howells remarked that Whitman was practically the object of cult worship. Howells also claimed that that the Atlantic [Monthly] was a more desirable showcase for young writers than The Saturday Press.

It appears that Howells' visit to Pfaff's prompted by being baited by Clapp to do so. Howells also reportedly did not recognize Whitman and was unawareof his presence until Howells' departure.

Mentioned as a writer Whitman met at Pfaff's.

According to Ford, Howells went to Pfaff's once and "spoke to me of it with disapproval" (1). Howells is also described as "part of the more conservative literary element" who were critical of the Bohemians (1).

Hemstreet mentions that Howells visited Pfaff's during his first visit to New York and dined with Walt Whitman (218).

Hemstreet mentions that Howells has filled Curtis' "Easy Chair" at Harper's Magazine (235).

Hemstreet notes that the larger apartment house close to Sixth Avenue and Central Park, where "William Dean Howells did much of his work" is still standing at the time of Hemstreet's writing (251).

Howells feels that the "Bohemian group represented New York literature to my imagination" (63).

He discusses how the anti-Boston sentiment of the New York Bohemians made him uneasy during his first visit to the offices of the Saturday Press (64).

Howells states that the same day he visited the Saturday Press, he also visited the "beer cellar," "where I was given to know that the Bohemian nights were smoked and quaffed away" (64). He felt he should visit since he had been a contributor to the Saturday Press and that he should at least "witness" the "revels of my comrades" (64). Of the conversation that night, Howells claims that "Nothing of their talk remains with me, but the impression remains that it was not so good talk as I heard in Boston" (64). Howells also claims that his first night with the Bohemians was his last Bohemian evening and the last of his New York authorship for a period.

Says of his visit that "The Bohemians were the beginning and end of the story for me, and to tell the truth I did not like the story" (66). Howells mentions that during his visit of Pfaff's he found the conversation, humor, and atmosphere unpleasant to his sensibilties; he much preferred the Boston literary circle. He claims that after that evening, much of the rest of his New York trip was spent sight-seeing.

Howells also discusses issues with publishing and writing for young American writers.

Lalor argues that Howells's account of meeting Whitman at Pfaff's contradicts the view of some biographers (Lalor cites Parry) of Whitman's "extreme detachment" at Pfaff's (133). Lalor also quotes Howells on Whitman's debt to the Saturday Press (138).

Ohioan William Dean Howells visited Pfaff's and recorded his poor impressions of the rowdiness of the crowd there (78).

Howells is mentioned as one of the "disparate writers" who discuss "Bohemia" in their works (4). Levin notes that in accounts of Bohemian life, such as Howells' A Modern Issue and The Coast of Bohemia, "the regional metonymizes the provincial and upholds traditional values, while Bohemia represents an urbane, if outre, metropolitanism" (9).

Levin mentions that the Saturday Press was influential enough for Howells to say that "at the time, it 'represented New York literature to my imagination' and 'embodied the new literary life of the city'" (23).

Levin presents him as a representative Bostonian among the Bohemians.

Ohioan, allegedly met Whitman at Pfaff's shortly after first his meetings with the New England literary Brahmins. Howells' presence at Pfaff's has been challenged by William Winter.

Howells published several poems in The Saturday Press. His negative review of Whitman may have prompted Whitman's promotion of Leaves of Grass.

The article cites Howells' Literary Friends and Acquaintances as providing an account of Howells' first meeting with Whitman.

Parry writes that on Howell's only visit to Pfaff's, he "found the German pancakes rather toothsome, though he charged the saloon with the poor appetite show by Clapp's men at supper" (22). During Howell's visit to the offices of the Saturday Press that same August, 1860, Parry mentions that "he found himself displeased with the foreign character of Henry's coterie which he called 'a sickly colony, transplanted from the mother asphalt of Paris, and never really striking root in the pavements of New York'" (24). According to Parry, during this visit, Howells went to Pfaff's to see Whitman and also because he was "curious about" Ada Clare, whose reputation had spread as far as his native Ohio; he also conceded, however, that "it was taken for granted that she was a brilliant woman." During this visit, Parry writes that Howells's "soul of propriety revolted at the sight of Pfaffians 'who neither said nor did anything worthy of their awful appearance,' but he forgave Walt's naturalness for his talent and dignity, and Ada's wild reputation for her 'sprightly gift in letters.'" Parry also notes that "In later years he spoke with feeling of her fate, which, 'pathetic at all times, out-tragedies almost any other in the history of letters'" (28). Parry claims that when Howells visited Pfaff's, Whitman mistook him "for a member of the faithful and warmly shook his hand as the chaste young Ohioan was angrily leaving the cellar. Whitman did not know who Howells was an dstill less what he was destined to become, but he liked to play his role of a benevolent celebrity and shake strangers' hands with hearty magnificence" (38). According to Parry, Howells liked Whitman's beard "the best of all the Pfaffian scenery" (42).

As an example of one of Clapp's "bon mots," Parry cites the instance when Clapp learned from "Howells that he and Hawthorne were shy when meeting each other, Clapp dubbed them a couple of shysters, much to the merriment of present Pfaffians" (45). Parry writes that on Clapp's death, "Howells wrote that Henry was not such a cynic after all, that 'he had really talked himself into being what he seemed.' Howells wanted to see the whole world smiling, he tried to find in Clapp 'a kindly optimist at heart.' He intimated, in effect, that Clapp might have been sorry for his fire and sharpness at least in his dying moment. But if Clapp, on his deathbed, was indeed remorseful over anything, it was most likely over the fact that he was one of the first to encourage Howells and print his youthful poems. However, there might have been consolation for the dying Clapp in his memory that he never paid Howells for his contributions" (48).

In the 1870s, Aldrich and Howells were elected members of the Boston Payrus Club begun by John Boyle O'Reilly without being aware of the club's "scarlet lining" as a Bohemian organization (139). According to Parry, when O'Reilly produced and printed the "national anthem of the boundless realm of Bohemia" called "In Bohemia" to the club, "If William Dean Howells was gruff about it or, at best, coldly condescending, the other members frankly raved" (140).

Parry notes that in the 1890s, during the popularity of a new brand of Bohemainism, he wrote in his 1893 novel The Coast of Bohemai that "to explain what Bohemain meant, and what Bohemia was...no one can quite do." Parry writes that "He was not so wrong at that. Howells then proceeded to pull Bohemia's ears -- very gently -- as a harmless pretension." Parry also notes that secure in his own reputation, Howells could take a "paternal" attitude towards the young Bohemains of this period, as they were "not as ferocious as Clapp" and "did not try to drag Howells off his pedestal; in fact, they respected their elders and were awed by the standards of Boston" (100). According to Parry, by 1900, there were so many versions of "Bohemianism" in America "that Howells' picture of it became even more narrow and stilted than it was in 1893 (106).

While Howells only visited Pfaff's once, Rogers implies that he is a regular.

In William Dean Howell's opinion, it was as good to be published in the Saturday Press as it was to be published in the Atlantic Monthly, since despite one critic's claim that "man cannot live by snapping turtle alone," Howells admitted, in response, that "the Press was very good snapping turtle" (4-5).

In a discussion of the idea that "To be a Bohemian affored license for all manner of youthful exuberances," Starr quotes Howell's observations about the Bohemians on the night he visted Pfaff's: "[Howells} noted the arrival of a pair 'whom the others made a great clamor over; I was given to understand that they had just recovered from a fearful debauch'" (7).

Whitman notes that there is nothing new going on with Howells.

Winter describes Howell's first meeting with Whitman at Pfaff's. "Mr. W. D. Howells, now the voluminous and celebrated novelist,--...,--came into the cave, especially, as afterward was divulged, for the purpose of adoring the illustrious Whitman. Mr. Howells, at that time, was a respectable youth, in black raiment, who had only just entered on the path to glory, while Whitman, by reason of that odiferous classic, the 'Leaves of Grass,' was in possession of the local Parnassus. The meeting, of course, was impressive. Walt, at that time, affected the Pompadour style of shirt and jacket,--making no secret of his brawny anatomy,-- and his hirsute chest and complacent visage were, as usual, on liberal exhibition: and he tippled a little brandy and water and received his admirer's homage with characteristic benignity. There is nothing like genius--unless possibly it may be leather" (89-90).

In discussing the true nature of Bohemia and celebrations at Pfaff's Cave in response to Howells's recollection of the "orgy" he witnessed, Winter discusses a birthday celebration for Clapp in which Whitman was called upon to give the toast: "I have regretted the absence of Mr. Howells from a casual festival which occurred in Pfaff's Cave, much about the time of his advent there, when the lads (those tremendous revellers!) drank each a glass of beer in honor of the birthday of Henry Clapp, and when he might, for once, have felt the ravishing charm of Walt Whitman's clossal eloquence. It fell to the lot of that Great Bard, I remember, to propose the health of the Prince of Bohemia, which he did in the following marvellous words: 'That's the feller!" It was my privilege to hear that thrilling deliverance, and to admire and applaud that superb orator. Such amazing emanations of intellect seldom occur, and it seems indeed a pity that this one should not have had Mr. Howells to embroider it with his ingenious fancy and embalm it in the amber of his veracious rhetoric" (91-92).

Winter also indicates that the Pfaff's crowd did not take much of a liking to Howells: "Sad to relate, he was not present; and, equally sad to relate, the 'types' whom he met at Pfaff's Cave, and by whom he was 'distinctly disappointed,' were quite as 'distinctly disappointed' by him. They thought him a prig" (92).

Winter remarks upon Howell's later published recollections of the "orgy" he witnessed during his visit to Pfaff's. Winter remarks that "The fine fancy and fertile invention that have made Mr. Howells everywhere illustrious were never better exemplified than in these remarkable words; for, as a matter of fact, no such indcidents occurred, either then or at any other time, nor did the novelist ever see them, except in his 'mind's eye.' Fancy is both a wonderful faculty for a writer of fiction and a sweet boon for the reader of it" (90-91).

In response to Howells' criticisms of the Bohemians and in a discussion of their writing, Winter states: "Revelry requires money: at the time Mr. Howells met those Bohemians, -- with the 'damp locks' and the 'frenzied eyes,' -- it is probably that the group did not possess enough money among them all to buy a quart bottle of champagne. Furthermore, they were writers of remarkable quality, and they were under the stringent necessity of working continually and very hard: and it seems pertinent to suggest that such a poem, for instance, as George Arnold's 'Old Pedagogue,' or Fitz-James O'Brien's Ode in commemoration of Kane, or Charles Dawson Shanly's 'Walker of the Snow,' is not to be produced from under the stimulation of alcohol. Literature is a matter of brains, not drugs. It would be equally just and sensible for American criticism to cherish American literature, and to cease from carping about the infirmities, whether actual or putative, of persons dead and gone, who can no longer defend themselves" (93).