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INFORMATION TO USERS The most advanced technology has been used to photo­ graph and reproduce this manuscript from the microfilm master. UMI films the original text directly from the copy submitted. Thus, some dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from a computer printer. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyrighted material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are re­ produced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each oversize page is available as one exposure on a standard 35 mm slide or as a 17" x 23" black and white photographic print for an additional charge. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. 35 mm slides or 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. A ccessing the World’s Information since 1938 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA Order Number 8824534 Harold Frederic: His position in the context of modernism Jolliff, William Gerald, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1988 Copyright ©1988 by Jolliff, William Gerald. All rights reserved. UMI 300 N. Zceb Rd. Ann Arbor,MI 48106 HAROLD FREDERIC: HIS POSITION IN THE CONTEXT OF MODERNISM DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By William Gerald Jolliff, B.S, M.A., M.A. The Ohio State University 1988 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Anthony Libby Steven Fink Julian Markels Copyright by William Gerald Jolliff 1988 To My Parents, E. Gerald and Leila Mae Jolliff i i VITA March 15, 1958 .............. Born - Delaware, Ohio 1981 . ..................... B.S., Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan 1983 .......................... M.A. Religious Studies, Ashland Theological Seminary, Ashland, Ohio 1984 ..........................M.A. English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1983-88 ..................... Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Oh io FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: American Literature Minor Fields: Composition Pedagogy Modern British and American Literature The Novel as a Genre Christian Theology and Thought i i i TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION................................................. ii VITA .......................................................... iii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ......................................... 1 II A FATHERLESS MAN IN A FATHERLESS A G E .............. 41 III TYPES , CHARACTER, AND THE DIALECTIC OF MOTIVES ............................................86 IV FREDERIC AND FAULKNER: INTERTEXTUALITY AND FICTIVE REGIONS ................................. 157 V FREDERIC AND LEWIS: PORTRAYING CHRISTIANITY IN A POST-CHRISTIAN W O R L D ........................203 VI FREDERIC AND FITZGERALD: THE AMERICAN ADAM IN A WORLD WITHOUT F A I T H .......................... 252 VII THE MARKET-PLACE AND THE MORALITY OF STYLE . 2 83 VIII SAVING THE PARTICULARS: GLORIA MUNDI, ERNEST HEMINGWAY, AND HAROLD FREDERIC'S MODERN WORLD VIEW ..................................................317 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................... 352 iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Few Americans of the 1890s were better prepared to write compelling realistic fiction than Harold Frederic. The broad and varied experiences of the journalist had allowed him to see the full spectrum of life in his world, from the small towns of upstate New York to the chief cities of Europe— London, Paris, and even Moscow. First his American experience.^ In 1875 Frederic started the newspaper career that would become his life's work. He began by reading copy on his hometown paper, the Utica Morning Herald; then, after finding the hours of a morning paper were not to his liking, he took a similar position at the Democratic Utica Observer. Though he was only nineteen, he had already experienced a taste of big city life, having worked as a photograph retoucher in bohemian Boston, and he considered himself quite a knowledgeable man of the world. And he may have been, for four years later he became the news editor of that paper. A year later, when he became the chief editorial writer, he was only twenty-four years old. After 1 2 two years in that post, Frederic moved to Albany, where he had accepted the editorship of one of the chief Republican newspapers of the state, the Albany Evening Journal. During this early journalistic career, the scope of his coverage had already included everything from reporting on the crudest murders in the upstate New York outback, through covering theater events and reviewing books for city papers, and on to playing a key role in throwing Grover Cleveland from relative obscurity into the New York governor's mansion, thereby making Cleveland's bid to the White House a possibility which would be successfully consummated. Not surprisingly, Frederic's part in Cleveland's election, along with his free-trade editorials, eventually made his position with the Evening Journal difficult, and when the paper changed hands, the young editor was fired. He frantically sought a new position, and once again, he moved into an opportunity that would broaden his experience. But in addition to broadening his experience, this new position would also give him the distance from his native New York that he needed to help him turn his Utica and Albany experience into fiction, thereby realizing his nonjournalistic goal of writing serious literature in a realistic vein. In 1884 Frederic sailed from New York to be stationed in London as the European correspondent for The New York Times. In London he established himself rapidly as a brilliant and popular reporter, and as a splendid man about 2 town. A letter of recommendation from New York Governor Cleveland helped to smooth Frederic’s entrance into the London club scene, especially since the governor was soon to become President. With a foot in the door, Frederic could count upon his personal exuberance and gutsy reporting to bring him an enviable position in the British club scene. Indeed, his ability and networking resulted in his becoming a well informed reporter— certainly the preeminent American correspondent of his day. By his thirtieth year, then, Frederic had acquired a lifetime of experience. In America he had experienced and reported everything from rural poverty to urban affluence, and in Great Britain he was fast becoming a friend of important public servants, journalists, and artists. And much of this experience he immediately worked into words. So when the constraints precipitated by his London lifestyle^ demanded that he begin his first novel in earnest, Frederic was well prepared, in experience and craft, to become a novelist. His first novel, Seth * s Brother’s Wife (1887), has received more attention than his other works. The Damnation of Theron Ware excepted, primarily because it has certain similarities with the writings of the naturalists on one hand and the local colorists on the other. And it is a good first novel. But it was some years and several novels later before Frederic would find a form that would allow his capabilities to extend most fully. By the middle 1890s Frederic had gained his artistic maturity, and his best works followed. The earlier books had been for the most part kindly received, though not unreservedly, but their sales had been limited. With The Damnation of Theron Ware, however, he became the most important young novelist of his day. Theron Ware received praise from all important quarters, including the one that pays the bills--it was the sixth best selling book of 1896. March Hares, a happy piece of romantic fluff that Frederic had the sense to publish under the pseudonym "George Forth" followed that same year. Gloria Mundi, Frederic's first major fiction set outside New York, received mixed reviews when it was published in 1898, and has seldom had a fair reading since. But Frederic's next project in an English setting, an expert psychological study of a new financial superman, found his expertise renewed. In the unfortunate tradition of fin de siecle writers, however, Frederic died young, without seeing The Market-Place (1899), his second masterpiece, published and well received. It is worth noting that in his own day, people whom we still perceive as good literary thinkers did not fail to realize Frederic's importance. William Dean Howells 5 reviewed the early books well, save the historical romance In the Valley. {Howells’s dislike of that genre is well- known, and Frederic's attempt to use it is not in fact a particularly successful one.) And in spite of the fact that Theron Ware may have violated certain of Howells's early opinions on morality and literature, he referred to Frederic's masterpiece as a "work of power." Frank Norris, when campaigning for American books to an anglophilic public, refers to Frederic along with Howells as one of the few important American authors of whom the American public is aware (Norris 25). In another essay, he describes Frederic as brilliant, and laments that "The Lawton Girl, The Copperhead, and Seth's Brother's Wife, masterpieces though they are, never made any money for the writer" (Norris 148). Stephen Crane also had the greatest respect for Frederic, and came to England anxious to meet his literary hero. Crane lambasts the American literary community for missing Frederic for so long— here in reference to the volume entitled In the Sixties, which included the novella The Copperhead: I believe at about the time of the appearance of these stories, the critics were making a great deal of noise in an attempt to stake the novelists down to the soil and make them write the impressive common life of the United States.

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