Imagine 1909. I suspect that one hundred years ago people wished each other "Happy New Year" just as they did this January. I also imagine that readers, librarians, booksellers, or publishers may then asked each other, "Have you seen all the upcoming books about Lincoln?"
The Popular Interest in Abraham Lincoln
1909 was the centennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, almost certainly in Kentucky, though there are scholars ready to argue almost any statement about the sixteenth president. As the year began, he had been dead less than forty-four years, and many people remembered his presidency and assassination. He was simultaneously a hero and a villain, depending on political and regional viewpoints. Since his death, there had been a steady stream of Lincoln books. 1909 promised to be a banner year.
The reviews and lists in the New York Times Saturday Review of Books from the early months of 1909 identified numerous Lincoln biographies:
- Lincoln the Citizen by Henry W. Whitney
- Abraham Lincoln: Tributes from His Associates
- Abraham Lincoln: An Interpretation in Biography by Denton J. Snider
- Lincoln and the Sleeping Sentinel: A True Story by L. E. Chittendon
- Abraham Lincoln by Brand Whitlock
- The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and Its Explanation by David Miller DeWitt
- The Death of Lincoln by Clara E. Laughlin
- Lincoln's Love Story by Eleanor Atkinson
- How Abraham Lincoln Became President by J. McCan Davis
- Ancestory of Lincoln by J. Henry Lea and J. R. Hutchinson
So much has changed since 1909. Almost everyone now has electric lights, running water, central heat, quick telecommunications, and rapid transport. Billions of people have been born and died. Still readers are very interested in the mid-nineteenth century president. 2009 is the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth, and just like one hundred years before, publishers are using the anniversary to promote new and recent books. Review journals and book databases identify these recent and upcoming titles:
- Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer by Fred Kaplan (2008)
- Lincoln Through the Lens: How Photography Revealed and Shaped an Extraordinary Life by Martin W. Sandler (2008)
- "They Have Killed Papa Dead!": The Road to Ford's Theatre, Abraham Lincoln's Murder, and The Rage for Vengeance by Anthony S. Pitch (2008)
- Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass & Abraham Lincoln by John Stauffer (2008)
- Lincoln: A Biography by Ronald C. White (2009)
- Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865 by George S. McGovern (2009)
- Abraham Lincoln: A Presidential Life by James M. McPherson (2009)
- Lincoln's Men by Daniel Mark Epstein (2009)
- Mrs. Lincoln by Catherine Clinton (2009)
The remarkable durability of Lincoln as a subject of readers' interest and the willingness of publishers to invest so much in Lincoln books again leads to the question, "Has biography as a genre changed in one hundred years?"
Biography in 1909
1909 seems like an awfully long time ago. My grandmother was only nine years old at that time. H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and Henry James were popular authors. P.G. Wodehouse published his first book that year. Many Americans lived on farms or in small communities. Victorian ideals were still strong, but some changing sentiments were already in the air. Owning books was a sign of sophistication and prosperity.
To identify biographies from that year, to see what people were reading, I turned to the New York Times Saturday Review of Books and the 1909 Book Review Digest. The book review supplement in the New York Times celebrated its thirteenth anniversary in 1909. As can be seen from its title, it was issued in the Saturday, not the Sunday, edition of the newspaper at that time. Like its modern equivalent, it included reviews written by writers and scholars, experts with well-defined opinions about books. Unlike the 2009 issues, the book review supplement included many letters from readers praising or criticizing books. While there was not a chart of bestsellers, there was something even better for my purposes - a weekly list "Latest Publications," which identified the books that the New York Times had received from publishers each week. I knew I had hit pay dirt when I looked at the lists, which were organized by helpful topics, including "History and Biography." The 1909 edition of Book Review Digest was also very useful. It issued its fifth annual cumulation that year. Curious to see what I could learn about 1909 reading, I scanned the index for titles that appeared to be biographies and then read the review entries, which were alphabetized by author.
What Was the Same Back Then
1. In 1909 New York was already the center of much of the country's book publishing. Many of the titles reviewed in the New York Times Saturday Review of Books were published locally. The reviewers and letter writers sometimes referred to the publishers as men instead of companies, i. e. Mr. Putnam or Mr. Scribner. The review supplement also carried a weekly column recounting book news from Boston.
2. Lincoln was not the only durable biographical subject. The subjects of many of the cultural and historical biographies from that year are as recognizable today as they were one hundred years ago.
- Brontes: Life and Letters by Clement King Shorter
- Byron: The Last Phase by Richard Edgcumbe
- Chaucer and His England by George Gordon Coulton
- Court of Louis XIII by K. A. Patmore
- Grieg and His Music by Henry T. Finck
- Johann Sebastian Bach by Sir Charles Hubert H. Parry
- Life of Beethoven by Alice Mangold Diehl
- Love Affairs of Napoleon by J. Lewis May
- Maid of France: Being the Story of the Life and Death of Jeanne D'Arc by Andrew Lang
- Sir Walter Raleigh by Frederick A. Ober
- William Blake by Basil De Selincourt
3. Scandal and sensation were already being marketed in biographies in 1909. Histories of biography often point to the publishing of Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey in 1918 as the event that broke the hold of the Victorian "only say nice things" tone in biographies, but some authors were already testing the sensibilities of readers prior to that. Chateaubriand and His Court of Women by Francis Henry Gribble was described in the December issue of Bookman as "gossipy" and full of "racy episodes" that made "sprightly Gallic use of the suggestive dash ..." The Bookman reviewer enjoyed the book, but London's Saturday Review was not impressed, describing what "anyone foolish enough to read the book" would find. The New York Times said Gribble's work was "an excellent book on an extraordinary man." Protectors of public decency must have been upset.
4. Memoirs featuring dangerous adventures in frozen landscapes were also already popular 100 years ago. Wilfred Thomason Grenfell wrote Adrift on an Ice-Pan, in which he told about a night that he and his dogs spent in the waters of Newfoundland. A.L.A. Booklist called it "an absorbing, graphic narrative that will interest readers of all ages." Conquering the Artcic Ice by Ejnar Mikkelsen was also well reviewed.
What Was Different Back Then
1. Most of the review journals on which bookstores and librarians now rely did not exist in 1909. The sole exception was A.L.A. Booklist, which was published out of Boston in 1909. An annual subscription cost $1.00. Book Review Digest primarily drew its information from popular magazines, such as Atlantic Monthly, Nation, Outlook, and, of course, the New York Times Saturday Review of Books.
2. British publishing still held a share of the American book market. Many British books listed as selling for shillings and dimes are easy to spot in Book Review Digest.
3. Biographies of religious figures were more common in the "Latest Publications" list in the New York Times Saturday Review of Books than today's readers would expect. The early twentieth century was a time when clergy and missionaries to foreign lands were especially respected. The New York Times especially praised The Apostle of Alaska: The Story of William Duncan of Metlakahtia by John W. Arctander as a grand adventure of a missionary who served as a teacher and spiritual guide for the "backward natives" of the Alaska Territory.
Other typical religious biographies included the following:
- Apollonius of Tyrana: A Study of His Life and Times by F. W. Groves Campbell
- Bartholomew de las Casas: His Life, His Apostolate, and His Writings by Francis Augustus MacNutt
- Bishop Hannington and the Story of the Uganda Mission by G. Grinton Berry
- David Swing: Poet-Preacher by Joseph Fort Newton
- The Life of James Robertson: Missionary Superintendent in the Northwest Territory by Charles W. Gordon
Reviewers seemed to like any book about men and women of the cloth, except Life of Mary Baker Eddy by Mrs. Sibyl Wilbur O'Brien. The Independent said that the biography of the controversial founder of Christian Science was "manifestly and sweetly false" while the New York Times said it did nothing to answer "disagreeable charges against Mrs. Eddy."
4. There were also laudatory tributes for the recently retired or deceased subjects. Upon the retirement of Charles W. Eliot from Harvard University, essays of tribute recapping his career were published in Germany and reprinted in the United States as Charles W. Eliot: President of Harvard University by Dr. Eugen Kuehnemann. This work was favorably reviewed by A.L.A. Booklist, Dial, The Independent, Nation, New York Times Saturday Review of Books, and The Spectator. One can hardly imagine such a book even being noticed in 2009.
Former president Grover Cleveland died in 1908 and was the subject of admiring biographies within the year. The birth to death account Recollections of Grover Cleveland by George F. Cleveland was toasted as brilliant by most of the journals who also praised the Eliot biography, as well as by Bookman, Literary Digest, Outlook, and American Monthly Review of Reviews. The latter called the Cleveland biography "easily the most important volume of biography of the publications of the autumn season." Reviewers also roundly applauded work of Cleveland's friend and neighbor Jesse Lynch Williams, Mr. Cleveland: A Personal Impression, which at fifty cents was affordable for many readers. There was no disagreement about Cleveland's stellar presidency from authors or reviewers.
In 1909, there must have been some expectation of great acclaim to be satisfied. The author of The Right Honorable H.H. Asquith was criticized by The Saturday Review for being "as little inspiring as the Annual Register." Praise was supposed flow in tribute and elevate the reader.
Other notable tributes of 1909 included the following:
- Comrade Kropotkin by Victor Robinson (Lives of Great Altrurians)
- The Honorable Peter White: A Biographical Sketch of the Lake Superior Iron Country by Ralph D. Williams
- John C. Calhoun by Gaillord Hunt
- Life of Field Marshall Sir Neville Chamberlain by George William Forrester
- A Memorial of Alice Jackson by Robert E. Speer
- Recollections of Baron de Frenilly, Peer of France
5. With a few exceptions, biographies were written about prominent white men from acceptable professions 100 years ago. The Bronte sisters, Joan of Arc, and Alice Jackson (for whom a tribute was written) are among the few women to have been considered worthy of biographies. I have not found biographies of people of color in my sampling of the New York Times Saturday Review of Books or Book Review Digest of 1909. I also do not see celebrities, sports figures, or criminals.
6. Likewise, the range of memoirs seems to be quite limited, if the New York Times Saturday Review of Books or Book Review Digest are used to indicate what people were reading. The only really booming types of memoirs seem to have been the travel and adventure stories. Through Finland to St. Petersburg by A. Maccallum Scott was a representative travel title, while Conquering the Arctic Ice by Ejnar Mikkelsen was a popular adventure story of the day.
I found no tell-all confessions, but I did find a curious snippet in the entry for the light-hearted memoir of an English society woman. A reviewer from the Independent said this in his review of Memories of Fifty Years by Mary Stewart-Mackenzie Jeune St. Helier:
"At a time when there seems to have been something like a revival of the scandalous form of memoir, it is especially gratifying to find that so thoroughly encouraging a welcome has been given to those delightful personal recollections by an authoress whose finest and keenest humor never carries a heart-stain away from its blade."
One can only speculate at the reference to "the scandalous form of memoir". Perhaps there were tell-all memoirs that review journals, believing themselves the arbiters of taste and quality, declined to review.
A Biography is Still a Biography
So biography has changed a little; but the principles are the same — a life is retold, often from birth to death. Authors attempt to be as factual as possible. Readers mostly choose to read about individuals that they admire or find interesting. And some of the same subjects can be found on booklists of 1909 and 2009.
In the end, biography mirrors the society that publishes its titles, which has changed greatly in one hundred years. Any differences between eras are reflected in the books. Should our country as a whole return to the moral and religious values of 1909, biographers would notice and follow the lead; and the significant differences would disappear.
References:
- Book Review Digest. H. W. Wilson Company, 1909.
- Hooper, Brad. "Core Collection: Happy Birthday, Mr. President." Booklist. December, 15, 2008. pp 16-17.
- Forecast. Baker & Taylor. Various issues, 2008.
- New York Times Saturday Review of Books. Various issues, 1909. Accessed through ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Times at the College of DuPage website, http://www.cod.edu/library/resources/subjectdb/newspapers/
RICK ROCHE is the head of the adult services department at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library in Western Springs, Illinois and author of Real Lives Revealed: A Guide to Biography Reading Interests, an upcoming Libraries Unlimited publication. He writes about biographies, other books, and library issues at http://ricklibrarian.blogspot.com.