Willis, Nathaniel Parker (1806-1867)

In October 1844, Whitman wrote for Willis and George Pope Morris' New Mirror for two or three weeks (65). Willis, brother of Fanny Fern (Sarah Payson Willis Parton) is described by Allen as "a well-known critic and third-rate poet" (177).

N. P. Willis is listed by Books as an example of how several Americans are referred to by their first initials (1).

Willis was one of the writers gathered at the complimentary fruit and flower festival held for distinguished authors by New York publishers at the Crystal Palace in 1855 (35).

Chevalier Wikoff described the young N.P. Willis as "having at that time [when both men were at Yale College] 'a reputation of rare poetical talent, although his tone and bearing were aristocratic not unmixed with hauteur'" (370).

According to Derby, Willis and Morris, when they ran the Home Journal, quoted Halleck's "Winds of March" "with every advent of March" (156).

Some poems Aldrich submitted to The Home Journal caught the attention of N. P. Willis, the editor, who "introduced [the poems] to its readers in a very flattering manner. A habit Mr. Willis always indulged in, when young writers sent in contributions in prose or poetry, that he really liked" (230). After this, Willis suggested to his partner Gen. Geo. P. Morris that he go see Aldrich and hire him as an assitant editor (230).

According to Derby, Willis usually came to the city only twice a month during this period, spending most of his time at his home at Idle-Wild. Aldrich was working at The Home Journal six months before he met Willis (230-231). Derby writes of their first meeting: "One day as he sat in the editorial sanctum, stretched out on three chairs, each foot on a chair, placidly smoking a cigar and lazily looking over the exchanges, he was startled by the sudden appearance of a tall, pleasant looking gentleman, who said, 'Is this Mr. Aldrich? My name is Willis.' The young autocrat of an editor was very much embarassed for the moment, but the famous poet, who was a man of the world, took the situation in at once, and soon put him entirely at ease. In less than five minutes, the young editor felt as if he had known the editor-in-chief all his life" (231).

Willis's sister was Fanny Fern. She married a previous occupant of Aldrich's desk and assistant editor of The Home Journal, James Parton (231).

Shortly after his first publication in the Rover, Stoddard brought N.P. Willis some of his manuscript poems and asked him to review and critique his work. Willis wrote the following note that Stoddard received when he called at the offices of the Home Journal a few weeks later: "I should think the writer of these poems had genius enough to make a reputation. Pruning, trimming and condensing is necessary to make them what they should be; the same labor was necessary to make Lord Byron's genius, and that of Tom Moore. It is hard work to do, but well paid when done" (596). Derby writes, "These words were the first real encouragement that he had ever received, and Mr. Stoddard further says, that no young person possessing any kind of talent ever appealed to N.P. Willis without receving aid and encouragement" (596).

According to Derby, "When Bayard Taylor, who was always a favorite with Mr. Willis, returned from Europe, the first time, he took the letters he which he had written to a Philadelphia paper to Wiley & Putnam to publish in book form, and that firm agreed to do so, provided Mr. Willis would write an introduction for the same, and this secured the publication of 'Views Afoot'" (596).

At the height of his popularity, Willis's publishers were Baker & Scribner; Mr. Armstrong, who worked for the firm was a recent member of the Home Journal. It is through Armstrong that Derby has an account of the arrangement "A new uniform edition" Willis's prose writings that occured forty years prior to Derby's writings. The works published by this house "with the attractive and taking titles" were: "People I Have Met," "Life Here and There," "Famous Places and Persons," "Letters from Under a Bridge," Out-doors at Idlewild," and others (442).

Elizabeth Oakes Smith remarked that Poe "could turn a compliment almost as elegantly as N.P. Willis" (547).

Identified as one of "The group of men at that table [who] constituted the Bohemia of a quarter of a century ago, the most notable gathering of its kind that one city has ever known."

In 1843, he asked Thomas Dunn English to write a poem for the New Mirror. He received a poem from English "with the suggestion that he either print it or tear it up as he thought best." Willis printed English's poems, which Hemstreet claims are still his most notable work (162).

Halleck was also known to frequent Windust's with Edmund Kean, the Wallacks, Harry Placide, Cooper, Jack Scott, Mitchell, Brown, Junius Brutus Booth, Willis, and Morris (137-8).

Hemstreet mentions that he was a young man when he became associated with Morris. "He had given up the American Montly Magazine at Boston to devote his energies to the New York Mirror. He began working for Morris in 1831, at $10 a week, and went abroad to conduct a correspondence from London. While in London, he became associated with the fashionable group of Lady Blessington, and he "came to be the adoration of all the sentimental young ladies in that set" (154-5).

According to Hemstreet's description, "There was a daintiness about his dress, a suggestion of foppishness in the arrangement of his blond hair, trifles about him which suggested the dandy and the idler; but withal there was a terrific capacity for work under the smooth outside. His letters to the Mirror and other papers did much for the refinement of literature and art, and, indirectly, for the manners of the times" (155). He returned to America in 1836 with a bride (155).

Willis returned to Europe in 1839, but came back to America in 1844 to help Morris start the Evening Mirror. "From this on Willis lived an active social-literary life, singing of Broadway with the same facileness he sang of country scenes. He came to be a grave and patient invalid, living happily with his second wife as he had with his first, and ending his days at Idlewild -- his home on the Hudson" (156).

After the failure of the Evening Mirror, Willis and Morris began the Home Journal, which became known as Town and Country in the Twentieth Century (157).

A note on the forthcoming edition of the Home Journal remarks that the magazine often features "Idlewild gossip" (2).

Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote for Willis's Home Journal.

Quelqu'un claims that "Barnum, like N.P. Willis, is said to have got religion" (3).

Spofford quotes N.P. Willis as stating that Clara Louise Kellogg's debut performance "astonished her hearers with her force and execution" (366-367).

Willis often dined at Delmonico's: "At another table might be Nathaniel Parker Willis, scribbler of newspaper gossip" (57).