27 Memorial Drive West, Bethlehem, PA 18015
To explore the relationships between the various bohemian writers and artists who frequented Pfaff's bar, select a person or group, and then select a relationship type. This section of the site is currently under construction; new content is being added on a regular basis.
A signed note to Stoddard appears in the collection of poetry and by and to Arnold.
Winter mentions that Clapp had made the acquaintance of Stoddard and that Stoddard sometimes contributed to Saturday Press.
Ludlow attended a party hosted by the Stoddards.
Ludlow was a member of Taylor's poetic group, along with Richard Henry Stoddard, Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard, Edmund Clarence Stedman, George Henry Boker, Fitz-James O'Brien, Christopher P. Cranch, and George William Curtis.
Parry mentions that in a similar fashion to the Bohemians who met or interacted with Poe becoming celebrated authorities on their idol, "R.H. Stoddard, a sedate and staunch enemy of noisy freedom, used his recollection of an encounter wtih Poe as a sermon to his young friends on the evils of their mode of life" (9).
Mott quotes an anecdote by William Winter in which Winter locked the doors of the Press office to hide from Stoddard when he came by to collect payment for a poem that Clapp had published (39).
Winter talks about Stoddard's poetic tendencies that he had told him about (155-6).
Winter went to the Stoddards at least on one occasion because he said he met Bayard Taylor there (177).
Winter recalls a time when he and Clapp were in the Press offices and Stoddard came to receive his payment for a piece that was published, and Clapp and Winter pretended they weren't there so they wouldn't have to pay him because the Press was having financial problems at the time (294).
Taylor, Stoddard, Aldrich, and Stedman are mentioned as the parties in New York involved in the "inconsistent opposition" to the third edition of Leaves of Grass in 1859-1860. Clapp battled against them.
Clapp called Stoddard a "bogus Bohemian."
When Stoddard criticized The Good Gray Poet in the Round Table on January 20, 1866, the critque was "flippant, satirical, and abusive both of the poet and his defender" (367).
Taylor, Stoddard, Aldrich, and Stedman are mentioned as the parties in New York involved in the "inconsistent opposition" to the third edition of Leaves of Grass in 1859-1860. Lalor writes that "It was chiefly against this ambivalent group and against the naysayers of New England that Clapp did battle for Whitman, with a characteristic originality of method which was both a tribute to the Press at the same time it was a boon to Whitman" (137).
Stoddard is said to have particularly hostile to Walt Whitman upon his publication of Leaves of Grass (53).
Stoddard is one of several contemporary writers who were neither fans of Whitman nor friends with the poet (41).
Stoddard is recalled as having pursued Whitman with "a sort of venom always" and appears to have been a harsh media critic (99).
Stoddard is described as a member of Clapp's "cabinet" in the "Kingdom of Bohemia" and at the Saturday Press (192).
Stoddard is included among one of many young writers assisted by Henry Clapp (25).
Stoddard is mentioned as one of Nast's colleagues at Frank Leslie's Illustrated Paper, but he is not specifically connected with Pfaff's here (22).
Derby described Elizabeth as "a lady of cultivated tastes, she is a very efficient aid to her husband in his literary pursuits" (603).
Elizabeth assisted with her husband's literary work (58).
Desccribes her influence on her husband's work: "[S]he was a poetical writer of no mean gifts, and her insight, her encouragement, and her felicitous comradeship in his work as a writer became constituent elements in his [R. H. Stoddard's] career" (613).
Taylor wrote the introduction for Stoddard's Life of Baron Humboldt, which was a condition of its publication by Carleton (600).
When Stoddard's career was just starting, he 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, an 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).
"In late 1862/early 1863, Aldrich worked as the editor of the Illustrated News and visited the Stoddards from time to time."
During the summer of 1859, Aldrich informed Stoddard that he was working on a short novel called "Glass Houses," which he was unsure as to when he would complete -- the novel would remain unfinished (46).
Greenslet reprints Aldrich's correspondence with "Dick" during August, 1860 on pp. 50-51; Alrich says he has a lot to tell him and "Lizzy" (50-1).
Greenslet also prints a letter to both "Dick and Lizzy" from August 1861, in which he talks about Lizzy's novel and promises to visit them soon (55).
Benton and Stoddard were friends.
The Booths and the Stoddards were friendly and visited with each other.
Stoddard's obituary names Clapp as one of his companions.
The Howells were introduced to the Stoddards by Edmund Stedman (72).
Of his friendship with the Stoddards, Howells says "But what I relished most was the long talk I had with them both about authorship in all its phases, and the exchange of delight in this poem and that, this novel and that, with gay, wilful runs away to make some wholly irreverent joke, or fire puns into the air at no mark whatsoever. Stoddard had then a fame, with the sweetness of personal affection in it, from the lyrics and the odes that will perhaps best keep him known, and Mrs. Stoddard was beginning to make her distinct and special quality felt in the magazines, in verse and fiction. In both it seems to me she has failed of the recognition her work merits, and which will be hers when Time begins to look about him for work worth remembering" (72-73).
Howells fondly recalls visiting the couple and mentions that they had an appreciations for all literature, including his own (73).
Howells says "I liked the Stoddards because they were frankly not of that Bohemia which I disliked so much, and thought if of no promise or validity; and because I was fond of their poetry and found them in it" (73).
Parry writes that Stoddard attempted to "wean" his "valued friends" O'Brien, Stedman, and Taylor away from Pfaff's; "O'Brien resisted succesfully, and died tragically, but Stedman and Taylor were easily led into respectability" (59). Stoddard would later refer to O'Brien as "the best of the Bohemians" (77).
Winter also notes that both Taylor and Stoddard were friends with O'Brien, but their friendship did not last. According to Winter, "the most censorious review" of Winter's collection of O'Brien's work - Poems and Stories - in 1881, appeared in "The New York Tribune" and was written by Stoddard (295).
Derby writes that Stoddard was introduced to Stedman through Bayard Taylor. Stedman and Taylor had recently met, and Stedman asked Taylor about Stoddard, "the poet, whom he had always wanted to know." Taylor introduced the two men the next day and began a life-long friendship between the two men (535).
According to Derby, "As a poet, Mr. Stoddard ranks in public estimation with his friends Edmund C. Stedman and Thomas Bailey Aldrich, contributing more frequently, however, to magazines and other literary journals of the day" (603).
Taylor, Stoddard, Aldrich, and Stedman are mentioned as the parties in New York involved in the "inconsistent opposition" to the third edition of Leaves of Grass in 1859-1860 (137).
In an obituary of Stoddard, Stedman is mentioned as "the closest of the poet's surviving friends" (378).
Parry writes that Stoddard attempted to "wean" his "valued friends" O'Brien, Stedman, and Taylor away from Pfaff's; "O'Brien resisted succesfully, and died tragically, but Stedman and Taylor were easily led into respectability" (59).
According to Derby, Stedman asked Taylor about Stoddard, and Taylor introduced the two men the next day, beginning another life-long friendship. Derby also writes that "The death of Bayard Taylor was a great blow to his brother poets, and both Mr. Stedman and Mr. Stoddard have in prose and poetry rendered affectionate tributes to the memory of their friend, the distinguished poet, traveler, and diplomat, whose death created a vacancy in American literature which has never been filled" (535).
Stoddard met Bayard Taylor through Mrs. C.M. Kirkland. When she left for Europe, she left Taylor in charge of the Union Magazine, and "told Mr. Stoddard, that during her absence, he had better call upon the latter, as he would be sure to like him" (597). Derby reprints Stoddard's account of their first meeting from recollections of Bayard Taylor, contributed to the New York Independent p.597-599.
Taylor and Stoddard met the same year Stoddard met his wife (204). Hemstreet describes their first meeting at the offices of the Tribune, when Stoddard entered Taylor's office and found him hard at work. Stoddard visited Taylor at home a few days later (205). Stoddard visited him every Saturday after work at the foundry, and Taylor taught Stoddard how to smoke, they wrote poetry together, and discussed literature (206). Stoddard also made several friends through Taylor (207).
Taylor and Richard Henry Stoddard were friends, and met while they were "poetry-struck teenagers" (51).
Parry mentions that Taylor and Stedman were among the "valued friends" Stoddard "weaned" away from Pfaff's and into respectability (59).
Stoddard's obituary mentions that during the years Stoddard worked at the Custom House (1853-1870), he struck up an acquaintance and then a friendship with Taylor (217)
The obituary states that "By the best of his leisure he struggled up into self-education, and the companionship of such men as Bayard Taylor and Henry Clapp" (5).
Stoddard recalls spending late nights in his quarters writing verse with O'Brien and Bayard Taylor, who "had just returned from the Orient" (44).
The obituary reports that Stedman was with Stoddard for the last year and was at his bedside the day Stoddard died (217).
Hemstreet mentions that Stoddard and Taylor once lived together across the street from 108 Waverly Place; their house was at the corner (238).
Stoddard wrote the Life of Humbolt when he lived with Taylor near the corner of Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street (241).
In the obituary for Elizabeth, there is brief discussion of her marriage to Richard and literary society she and her husband cultivated in New York (9).
The future Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard's first meeting is described as taking place at one of Lynch's receptions (204).
The note states that his wife, Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard, passed away. They lived on Stuyvesant Square in New York City. Their home is described as "a shrine and a salon" (194).
Stoddard married Elizabeth Drew Barstow in 1852 (51).
Richard and his wife were both great admirers of Edgar Allen Poe (52).
In his tribute to Elizabeth Stoddard, Stedman includes Stoddard's statements regarding the death of his wife (9).
27 Memorial Drive West, Bethlehem, PA 18015