City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2016 Imaginary Subjects: Fiction-Writing Instruction in America, 1826 - 1897 Paul Collins Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/671 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] IMAGINARY SUBJECTS: FICTION-WRITING INSTRUCTION IN AMERICA, 1826 – 1897 by PAUL S. COLLINS A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York. 2016 © 2016 PAUL S. COLLINS All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English to satisfy the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Ira Shor Date Chair of the Examining Committee Mario DiGangi Date Executive Officer David Reynolds Talia Schaffer Ira Shor Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract IMAGINARY SUBJECTS: FICTION-WRITING INSTRUCTION IN AMERICA, 1826 – 1897 by Paul S. Collins Adviser: Ira Shor Imaginary Subjects: Fiction Writing Instruction in America, 1826-1897 is a study of the confluence of commercial, educational, and aesthetic developments behind the rise of instruction in fiction-writing. Part I ("The Predicament of Fiction-Writing") traces fiction-writing instruction from its absence in Enlightenment-era rhetoric textbooks to its modest beginnings in magazine essays by Poe and Marryat, and in mid-century advice literature. Part II ("Fiction-Writing in the Classroom") notes the rise of fiction exercise from early Romantic-era primers upwards into mid-century high-school level textbooks, and from there into Harvard composition exercises; this coincided with an increasing emphasis by author advocacy groups on writing as a learnable craft, culminating in full-fledged professionally-oriented instruction at the University of Chicago in the 1890s. Part III ("The Literary Advice Industry") traces the late nineteenth-century development of advice bureaus, "School of Fiction" magazine departments, and how-to periodical and guidebook literature. Their emphasis on teaching women, who were still largely unable to access higher education, remains an insufficiently studied influence on the later Creative Writing movement. An epilogue suggests further directions for research and notes how Creative Writing instruction, particularly at the graduate level, has since drifted far from its origins in both professional how-to advice and in experiential education. iv Acknowledgements First and foremost, I'd like express my deep gratitude to my advisor, Ira Shor. I took up this dissertation after many years away, and with an entirely new subject matter—and that could not have happened without his patience and generosity. His guidance, both in my early years in the classroom and now in this study, have been essential to my development as a student and as a teacher. I'd also like to particularly thank my committee members, David Reynolds and Talia Schaffer. Their feedback on this work guided it into a more carefully planned and focused study, and opened new avenues of study in a number of its chapters. I'm indebted to the many scholars who have pursued these excavations before me, particularly D.G. Myers, Katherine Adams, and Mark McGurl. A special thanks as well to Edwin Battistella for his assistance in my inquiries about Sherwin Cody. Finally, my profound thanks to my wife Jennifer Elder, who met me before I had published a single article or book, when I was temping as a receptionist and cramming the reading of journal articles into my coffee breaks. Her love and support has made all of this possible. v Table of Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgements iv Introduction i. Scholarship on Fiction-Writing Instruction 1 ii. The Focus of This Study 3 iii. The Organization of This Study 5 PART I: The Predicament of Fiction-Writing 1. An Impolite Literature: American Fiction-Writing Instruction in the 1820s i. Edgar Allan Poe (1826) 9 ii. The Problem of Fiction in Hugh Blair (1783), George Campbell 13 (1776), Richard Whately (1828), Samuel Newman (1827), and Richard Green Parker (1832) iii. "Euonomy" (1825) 17 2. All Plot, But No Plot: Advice Humor and Bulwer Lytton's "On Art in Fiction" i. Frederick Marryat's "How To" Series (1833 – 1835) and James 22 White's "Hints for Authors" (1835-1836) ii. Edward Bulwer Lytton's "On Art in Fiction" (1838) 25 iii. Edgar Allan Poe's "How to Write a Blackwood Article" (1838) 29 3. Marketable Brains: The Birth of Author Manuals and Josiah Holland's Letters to the Joneses i. "The Poor Author and the Rich Bookseller" 36 ii. The Perils of Authorship (1835), The Author's Printing And Publishing Assistant (1839), and Hints and Directions for Authors (1842) 39 iii. Eliza Leslie's The Behaviour Book (1852), The Search for a Publisher (1855), and Josiah Holland's Letters to the Joneses (1863) 42 4. No Man Weeps on Stilts: Literary Success and Haney's Guide to Authorship i. The Guild of Literature and Art (1865) 49 ii. George Lewes' "The Principles of Success in Literature" (1865) 51 iii. Haney's Guide to Authorship (1867) 55 vi PART II: Fiction-Writing in the Classroom 5. The Moral is Excellent: George Quackenbos and the Coming of Classroom Fiction Instruction i. Campus Literary Magazines 63 ii. Antebellum Composition: James Getty (1831), Richard Green Parker (1844), and Henry Noble Day (1850) 67 iii. The Beginnings of Classroom Fiction Instruction in George Quackenbos's First Lessons in Composition (1851) and Advanced Course in Composition (1854) 70 6. Cakes and Ale for Everyone: A.S. Hill and Fiction-Writing at Harvard i. The Harvard Advocate (1866) 77 ii. The Coming of Land Grants and Fine Arts to American Colleges in the 1860s 79 iii. Thomas Harvey's Elementary Grammar (1869), Hiram Hadley's Lessons in Language (1870), and John Seely Hart's A Manual of Composition and Rhetoric (1870) 83 iv. Adams Sherman Hill's Stories for Children, By Eleven Sophomores (1875) and The Principles of Rhetoric (1878) 88 7. A Sneaking Ambition for Literature: Writing Instruction and Walter Besant's The Art of Fiction i. A Set of Propositions 94 ii. Anthony Trollope's An Autobiography (1883) and Walter Besant's The Art of Fiction (1884) 96 iii. Henry James' "The Art of Fiction" (1884) and Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Humble Remonstrance" (1884) 100 iv. G.H. Lewes' The Principles of Success in Literature (1865): Reprint Editions by Albert S. Cook (1885) and Fred Newton Scott (1891) 104 8. Writing for the Mermaids: How College Fiction Classes Grew Out of – And Away From – The Influence of Harvard i. Barrett Wendell and the Launch of English 12 at Harvard (1884) 109 ii. Wendell's Protégés in the 1890s: George Rice Carpenter (Columbia), Robert Herrick (Chicago), William Phelps (Yale), Jefferson Fletcher and George Pierce Baker (Harvard) 114 iii. The Chicago School, 1892 – 1897: William McClintock, Robert Herrick, Robert Morrs Lovett, William Cleaver Wilkinson and Edwin H. Lewis 118 vii PART III: The Literary Advice Industry 9. Exile on New Grub Street: On the Murky Beginnings of the Literary Advice Industry i. The London Literary Society and Percy Russell's The Literary Manual (1886) 126 ii. The Writer (1887) and Early Literary Bureaus 130 iii. The Author (1890), The Grievances Between Authors and Publishers (1887), and George Gissing's New Grub Street (1891) 135 10. Women For Women: A Brooklyn Suffragette's Startup and the Modern Writing Guide i. The Making of "Eleanor Kirk" 140 ii. Eleanor Kirk's Periodicals That Pay and Information for Authors (1888) 141 iii. George Bainton's The Art of Authorship (1890) and Alice R. Mylene's To Write or Not to Write (1891) 145 iv. Eleanor Kirk's Idea (1892) and Effie W. Merriman's The Young Author's Assistant and Guide (1893) 149 11. Young Maidens Trained to the Business: How Women's Magazines and a Temperance Union Fostered the First Schools for Fiction i. The Saturday Review (1868, 1874), James Payn's "The Literary Calling and Its Future" (1879), and Walter Besant's "The Science of Fiction" (1891) 153 ii. Arthur's Home Magazine and the "School of Fiction" (1891 – 1892) 155 iii. Atalanta Magazine and the "School of Fiction" (1892 – 1893) 161 iv. The School For Writers in Bay View, Michigan (1891 – 1895) 165 12. "Fiction as a Universal Exercise in Composition": Sherwin Cody and the Dawn of Creative Writing i. Sherwin Cody's How to Write Fiction (1894 typescript edition) 169 ii. The Origins of How to Write Fiction 172 iii. Sherwin Cody's How to Write Fiction (1895) and In the Heart of the Hills (1896) 175 iv. Sherwin Cody's Story Composition (1897) and "Creative Writing" 178 Epilogue 185 Works Cited 190 viii Introduction i. Scholarship on Fiction-Writing Instruction Of all the degree-granting disciplines in an English department, Creative Writing may be the most peculiarly ahistorical. Like many of my colleagues, I experienced it as both a student and a professor with little sense of my field's origins, beyond a vague notion that Iowa's program apparently came first, that Bread Loaf has been around for a while, and that Black Mountain College was a colorful early experiment. Beyond that, the origins of creative writing instruction—let alone the debates that have surrounded it from the start—simply seemed to vanish in the mist. This arises in part because the field's own practitioners are encouraged to publish creative writing rather than scholarly studies.