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Reviews, Responses, and Correspondence
related to Sarah Orne Jewett's The Tory LoverFor a number of other letters related to the novel,
see Correspondence of Sarah Orne Jewett, letters from 1900 onward.
Houghton, Mifflin Brochure on the book publication
of The Tory Lover by Sarah Orne Jewett"Something more than merely a good
historical novel." - Boston Herald.
THE TORY LOVER
By Sarah Orne JewettPrice, $1.50
For sale at all bookstores.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
Boston and New York
NOTICES FROM NEW ENGLAND
It is one of the most pleasing, dignified, and artistic historical novels of the last five years. Indeed, one would be at a loss to point to a modern historical romance that equals it in all those qualities and features that make a book worth reading twice. - Boston Herald.
It is a book which will bring especial delight to New Englanders, but its characters and the treatment of them are great and broad enough to win admiration anywhere. It will long outlive the year of its appearance. - Editorial in Boston Journal.
It is the emphatic verdict of all who have learned to admire the subtle imaginative power, the refined humor and exquisite literary form of the writings of Sarah Orne Jewett, that she has put her best work thus far into The Tory Lover. The story as a story moves with stately grace; the historical setting is perfect. - The Beacon, Boston.
The story is told with great spirit, and the atmosphere of the period is well preserved. - Cambridge (Mass.) Tribune.
The reader is bound to recognize in The Tory Lover a faithfulness of incident, locality, and character which makes it a novel of unusual merit, easily ranking among the very best productions of its class. - Portsmouth (N. H.) Journal.
NOTICES FROM NEW YORK
Of all the historical gallery to which our novelist friends have introduced us of late, Mary Hamilton is easily the most winsome. - Oct. Book Buyer.
Miss Jewett carries all the finesse which characterizes her short stories into her new novel . . . . It is a thoroughly wholesome and charming book. - N. Y. Evening Post.
The love story is fine, delicate, charming in every line, while the literary quality of the work is of the best sort. The Tory Lover ranks with the best fiction of the year. - Brooklyn Eagle.
The pictures of the life in rural Maine have a stamp that is all their own, and gives them charm and freshness, after all the work that has been done in this field by innumerable romancers of Revolutionary days. - N. Y. Mail and Express.
Has already attracted sufficient attention to make its popular success a foregone conclusion. - N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.
It tells an admirable story of courage and devotion to country, and is at once strong, brilliant, spirited, graceful, and true. - N. Y. Press.
NOTICES FROM THE WEST
That exquisite spirit pervades it, - a reflection of Miss Jewett's own loveliness of feeling, - a spirited beauty with which she has unconsciously invested her heroine, Mary Hamilton. Miss Jewett's painting of Berwick (her home in Maine) has the touch of unerring sincerity. - Chicago Inter-Ocean.
The difference between the average historical novel and this work of Miss Jewett's is the difference between the vital and the spectacular elements in literature and life. Where others have laid hold of the surface facts merely, she has grasped the inner meaning. - St. Paul Globe.
Her fine literary style assures the book a welcome among all readers fond of good literature. - San Francisco Chronicle.
A story of surpassing interest, skillfully blending history and fiction and presenting a most artistic series of famous pictures. - San Francisco Bulletin.
A good story . . . The characters of Mary Hamilton and Roger Wallingford are eminently sympathetic and awaken a genuine admiration. - New Orleans Picayune.
A beautifully finished piece of literary work. - Indianapolis Journal.
PAUL JONES IN THE TORY LOVER
Her picture of him is so vital and convincing that it supersedes any other. One seems to see the real man. - Octave Thanet in Oct. Book Buyer.
Miss Jewett's Paul Jones is more human, more convincing, less striking, and nearer to completeness than that of Mr. Churchill. - Boston Herald.
Miss Jewett has studied John Paul Jones carefully, with perhaps even more than due charity for his vanity. - New York Times.
The little man with the soul of a hero is drawn here as he lived, and it is not too much to say that he impresses one more vividly than in Winston Churchill's pages. - San Francisco Chronicle.
Perhaps the thing the reader will be most thankful for is the splendid picture of John Paul Jones, which Miss Jewett has given us. Within the past few years a dozen "lives" of this masterly "sea-wolf" have appeared. None of them has set forth the character of Jones with such life-like reality, with such flesh and blood "humanness" as does this story. - St. Paul Globe.
She adds to the charm of her locality the best picture of Paul Jones that has appeared in fiction. - Holyoke (Mass.) Transcript.
THE ONLY DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
The Tory Lover - a pretty story, well written and properly heralded, but which the present writer declines to review . . . . Sarah Orne Jewett is well and pleasantly known to novel readers. . . . In writing The Tory Lover she has improved on some of its popular predecessors. And there is nothing more to be said. - Flora Mai Holly in Oct. Bookman.
The sad blow has fallen. Another idol has crumbled to ashes, another reputation has been pulled down. Miss Flora Mai Holly has declined to review The Tory Lover. Miss Jewett, its author, she impartially admits, is "well and pleasantly known to novel readers, but she was tempted and she fell." . . . Miss Jewett is "well and pleasantly" known to American readers. To students of letters she is the brightest jewel in that coronet of short story writers which is the chief adornment of contemporary American literature. Who is Miss Flora Mia Holly? Why, she is the young lady who has declined to review The Tory Lover. - Editorial in New York Mail and Express, Oct. 5.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Publishers
Boston and New York
This document is available courtesy of Wendy Pirsig.
From an advertisement in Public Opinion 31, (7 November 1902) p. 576
The Tory Lover is Literature
The New York Mail and Express says: Miss Jewett's historical romance has one quality that distinguishes it from and places it above many of the current popular books in the same field of fiction -- it is literature.
Reviews of the Atlantic Serial Publication
Boston Evening Transcript, 16 October 1900, p. 8
The call to take up her pen and write historical fiction has reached Miss Sarah Orne Jewett's ears, and as a result we are to have in the November Atlantic the first chapters of a story of hers called "The Tory Lover," the scene of which is laid in England and France. New England will miss her most truly appreciative author even for this excursion. Every characteristic of our soil and every trait of human character to be found here has Miss Jewett elaborated, though she has written but seldom of any but the loveable ones. People didn't mind her little trips to sea -- everybody in Maine goes to sea either for profit or for pleasure -- for they knew she would come back to them. But they aren't sure that she won't find artistic attractions so great in England and in France, whither her new novel takes her pen, that it will be loth to return to the pale blooms of New England pastures and the quiet scenery of our North Shore salt marshes.
The Lewiston Daily Sun, 20 October 1900, p. 3
A bitter blow for Mr. Howells and all the school of realists and veritists who have been praying for the tide of interest in historical fiction to turn is the news that Miss Sarah Orne Jewett has succumbed to the fever and forsaken her familiar walks for the ways of romance. The Atlantic Monthly announces that a story of her, having for subjects the fortunes of New England loyalists, will run through six numbers of the magazine, beginning with the November issue. -- Transcript.
Miss Sarah Orne Jewett hasn't moved her scene from Maine, in the opening chapters of her long-expected historical novel, "The Tory Lover." On the contrary, she gives a glimpse of a Maine mansion and its inhabitants of the long ago that reveals a tasteful, well ordered luxury in upper circles in summer that we have not come across any too frequently in American stories of the last century. It's the other half of the stress and storm people who set the Revolution in motion from that we have usually had presented to us in semi-historical accounts of the American revolt against Great Britain, and it's also a different plane of Maine society than that with which Miss Jewett has hitherto dealt. Furthermore, it is undoubtedly authentic, and most carefully and sympathetically studied. All of which makes it reasonable to forecast that it will be one of the popular serials not only of the coming year, but standard for many years to come.
The Boston Evening Transcript 25 September 1901, p. 19
In her latest novel, "The Tory Lover," Sarah Orne Jewett has painted Old Berwick and the country about it with the faithful hand of one who knows and loves the town in which she has lived so long. She is as much at home in the country of the pointed firs as Thomas Hardy is in his beloved Wessex.
A Selection of Letters -- Historical Fiction
From a letter by Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc of 7 March 1901, translated from Blanc's French
I am reading with increasing interest your Tory Lover, where your personal impressions blend so happily with the story because you have seen Quiberon through the eyes of your hero and he sails with you into the mouth of the Loire. Your travels in Brittany serve you well in rendering the region's atmosphere truthfully. The scene concerning the ring is perfect, the two realistically rendered men acting each according to his temperament.
I really like old Sullivan's memories of France. It is somewhat risky to present him as having been acquainted with Fenelon, who died in 1712, but it is possible, after all, if he was a child, and his tribute to Fenelon is so charming. May I offer some advice? In your book, simply put in one word regarding the Abbot of Châteauneuf, -- on his way to Mademoiselle, not Madame, de Lenclos. The music was, I think, their least concern, the abbot having succeeded the Cardinal "as King Louis succeeds Pharamond," said Victor Hugo.*
Notes
Blanc refers here to Chapters 17-21 of the serialization, which were included in the March 1901 installment. The ring scene occurs in Chapter 20, when Captain John Paul Jones and his Lieutenant, Roger Wallingford, work out how they can manage being naval comrades in arms on The Ranger while being rivals for the hand of the heroine, Mary Hamilton.
Chapter 18 describes the arrival of The Ranger at the shores of France, where Jones has come in the hope of receiving a warship, built secretly in France, to captain in the American Revolutionary War. Jones approaches France near "the low curving shores of Quiberon," a commune and peninsula in Brittany, on the way to Nantes on the river Loire, where he and Wallingford disembark for Paris.
Jewett and Annie Adams Fields had traveled in Brittany in the summer of 1898, during an extended stay in France that included touring southern France with Mme. Blanc and a stay at her home near Paris.
The French syntax of Blanc's advice is difficult to untangle, making this part of the translation more than usually uncertain. The following Is an attempts to interpret Blanc's advice and examines how Jewett responded to the suggestions.
In Sullivan's account, the Abbé de Châteauneuf (1650-1703) was one of his elementary teachers in Paris. According to Parton's Life of Voltaire, the abbot was Voltaire's godfather and tutor. He is characterized in The Tory Lover as a freethinker and epicurean, an admirer of the French dramatist, Racine. He recognized young Voltaire's talents and in various ways furthered his early successes, such as introducing him to influential patrons like Anne "Ninon" de L'Enclos (1620-1705), the French author, salonnière and courtesan, who was the mistress of several powerful men, including the Abbé de Châteauneuf. One way she aided Voltaire (1694-1778) was by leaving him a legacy in her will.
In Chapter 17 of the serial, Jewett has Sullivan recall his youth in Paris: "I have seen the Abbé de Châteauneuf pass, with his inseparable copy of Racine sticking out of his pocket, on his way to hear music with Madame de L'Enclos, once mistress to the great Cardinal."
Mme Blanc corrects Jewett's "Madame de L'Enclos" to "Mademoiselle." That may have been her only intention, but her further comments also seem to have had an effect. Blanc continues: "The music was, I think, their least concern, the abbot having succeeded the Cardinal 'as King Louis succeeds Pharamond,' said Victor Hugo." In revising for book publication, Jewett deleted Sullivan's reference to de L'Enclos and "the Great Cardinal." Though we cannot know exactly why Jewett made this choice, it may be that after Blanc had cautioned her about stretching too far to connect Sullivan with French notables, such as Fénelon, Jewett thought more carefully about problems with dates in connecting Sullivan with the abbot, de L'Enclos, and the "Great Cardinal."
Mademoiselle Anne "Ninon" de L'Enclos (1620-1705) was a French author, salonnière and courtesan, who was the mistress of several powerful men, including the Abbé de Châteauneuf. One should note that, according to Wikipedia, various sources give her birth years ranging from 1615 to 1623. While her recent biographer Michel Vergé-Franceschi gives the 1623 birth year, in this note I will use 1620 as likely to be close. Sullivan says that the Abbé de Châteauneuf (1650-1703) was one of his elementary teachers in Paris. Born in 1692, Sullivan could have had the Abbé de Châteauneuf as a teacher, at best, between 1697 and 1703. De L'Enclos could have received the abbot's visits under Sullivan's observation only in those same years of 1697-1703, when the abbot was between 47 and 53 and when de L'Enclos was between about 77 and 83. Almost certainly, the sort of sexual relationship Blanc seems to imply would have taken place years earlier.
Furthermore, though contemporaries apparently believed that de L'Enclos had some sort of liaison with Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu (1585-1642), their life dates also do not coordinate. She would have been only about 22 when he died. Wikipedia indicates that de L'Enclos was at least 23 when she began a career as salonnière and courtesan that was not firmly established until she was near 30. Still, it seems to have been generally accepted that Richelieu and de L'Enclos had some sort of connection. In Ninon de L'Enclos (1903), Charles Robinson reports her birth year as 1615 and gives her an extended and conflicted relationship with Richelieu, but without giving dates, implying that de L'Enclos was a socially and politically powerful woman when, according to Wikipedia, she was living with her mother as a teenager and perhaps during her year in a convent after her mother's death.
One may wonder whether Robinson and others confused de L'Enclos with another, somewhat older salonnière and courtesan, Marion de Lorme (1613-1650). De Lorme was the subject of the play Marion de Lorme (1831) by Victor Hugo (1802-1885), from which Blanc quotes in her advice. Wikipedia says that Cardinal Richelieu was among de Lorme's lovers. See also Wikipedia's summary of Hugo's play.
Blanc's reference to Richelieu, Châteauneuf, King Louis and Pharamond is somewhat puzzling.
Richelieu was, in the 2 decades before his death, chief minister to King Louis XIII of France, who also appears as king in the Hugo's Marion de Lorme, set in 1638. Pharamond was a legendary 8th century king of the Franks, sometimes identified as the first King of France. Blanc seems to say that the abbot relates to the Cardinal as Louis XIII relates to Pharamond. Does she imply that she thinks the Cardinal's relationship with de L'Enclos was legendary, as suggested by the unlikelihood that they really had a sexual relationship? Or does she mean simply that the abbot was one in a succession of sexual partners for de L'Enclos after the Cardinal? Blanc's exact meaning seems uncertain.
From a letter by Jewett to Lucy Keays Hayward, 12 June 1901
I have just finished a long story which has taken me a whole year since I came from Greece, though I had done a good piece of it three years before.* I am sure you will find much of our old town in it -- our dear Old Berwick! I was writing a story and not a history so that I have not always followed the true dates, in minor matters -- making my people earlier or later dead, giving them journeys that they never took; even keeping my hero alive and making him happy when history reports that he died! I wanted to keep the memory alive of old houses and old families and I am so glad that I have got the long story done -- If your dear Mother had still been here how many questions I should have loved to ask her --
From a letter by Henry James, 5 October 1901
The "historic" novel is, for me, condemned, even in cases of labour as delicate as yours, to a fatal cheapness, for the simple reason that the difficulty of the job is inordinate & that a mere escamotage, in the interest of each, & of the abysmal public naïveté, becomes inevitable. You may multiply the little facts that can be got from pictures, & documents, relics & prints, as much as you like -- the real thing is almost impossible to do, & in its essence the whole effect is as nought. I mean the evolution, the representation of the old CONSCIOUSNESS, the soul, the sense, the horizon, the action of individuals, in whose minds half the things that make ours, that make the modern world were non-existent. You have to think with your modern apparatus a man, a woman -- or rather fifty -- whose own thinking was intensely otherwise conditioned. You have to simplify back by an amazing tour de force -- & even then it's all humbug. But there is a shade of the (even then) humbug that may amuse. The childish tricks that take the place of any such conception of the real job in the flood of Tales of the Past that seems of late to have been rolling over our devoted country -- these ineptitudes have, on a few recent glances, struck me as creditable to no one concerned. You, I hasten to add, seem to me to have steered very clear of them -- to have seen your work very bravely & handled it firmly; but even you court disaster by composing the whole thing so much by sequences of speeches. It is when the extinct soul talks, & the earlier consciousness airs itself, that the pitfalls multiply & the "cheap" way has to serve. I speak in general, I needn't keep insisting, & I speak grossly, summarily, by rude & provisional signs, in order to suggest my sentiment at all. I didn't mean to say so much without saying more, now I have touched you with cold water when I only meant just lightly & kindly to sprinkle you as for a new baptism -- that is a re-dedication to altars but briefly, I trust, forsaken. Go back to the dear Country of the Pointed Firs,* come back to the palpable present intimate that throbs responsive, & that wants, misses, needs you, God knows, & that suffers woefully in your absence.
From a letter by Jewett to S. Weir Mitchell, 11 October 1901
I am not going to write any more historic fiction either, but I have wished for many years to write this story. I began it the year that you were writing Hugh Wynne, but I was ill & had to put it by. You were at the head of the procession with your great Hugh Wynne and I am trailing at the end, but I am just as ready to cheer my leader as -- I ought to be!
From a letter by Jewett to S. Weir Mitchell, 23 October 1901
I wonder why there should be two schools: if there are any real differences between the historical novel and the realistic? Is there any distinction between last summer and last century? and why cannot we feel and think one as we do the other. You know this wonderfully drawn adventuress this Sydney Archer [from Mitchell's Circumstance (1901)] just as well as you knew Hugh Wynne but no better, and I can't find any difference in the realities of Madam Wallingford & Mrs. Todd of Dunnet Landing: if we can get atmosphere between ourselves & them: perspective; illusion of a sort; we get hold of Art in regard to them and do our work well. Mr. Henry James and I are now writing letters to each other, and he always believes in an 'extinct soul' of the last century but I do not. (How could I, when one of my most intimate early friends was a Harvard man of the class of '05, and I have seen fashions far back into the 1700's parading up the aisle of our old Berwick Church?) But I am trying to begin a talk -- and this alas -- is only a letter. I must send you my most affectionate thanks and be done.
From a letter by Rudyard Kipling, 25 November 1901.
I think it's the biggest thing you've done yet and also I think that you've pulled it off - a result that not always attends the doing of big things. But what - apart from its felicities - interested me as a fellow craftsman was the amount of work - solid, laborious dig that must have gone to its making: and the art with which that dig is put away and disguised. I love that sort of work where only the fellow-labourer can see where his companion went and how far, for the stuff that seems to turn up so casually and yet so inevitably in the fabric of the weaving.
For the whole letter and more comments on the novel, see Thomas Pinney, ed. The Letters of Rudyard Kipling v. 3, pp. 78-9. University of Iowa Press, 1996.
From a letter by Jewett to Annie Adams Fields, Sunday, March 1903.
What do you think I read yesterday but a good piece of The Tory Lover!* You know how long it takes before you can sit down to a book of your own with any detachment -- as if somebody else had written it? I have taken it up now and then and [ found corrected ] that it only worried me but yesterday was different -- it seemed quite new and whole! and I really was delighted with my piece of work. I have never succeeded in doing anything except the Pointed Firs* that comes anywhere near it -- my conscience upholds this happy belief, and whether it was a hundred years ago or now, is apart from the question altogether. The book of Ruth
was^was^ is [so written] an historical novel in its day.* The French Country House is no more real to writer or reader because Mrs. Sartoris* had made the visit & imagined she made some episodes a few summers before ---- I cant think what people are thinking of who didn't like the T. L. as much as some of my books of slight sketches which -- are mostly imaginary! or even as well as the Pointed Firs -- but as Brother Robert* frankly remarked "They don't!" ---- I can't help being sure that somebody now and then will like it. ( and if H. & M.* were as good publishers as they are printers it would have been done better -- ) However it did very well and lets not grumble about any thing. I think it wasn't very well fitted for a Serial -- I am sorry for all that part of it, and for the foolish exhausting hurry I was led into.
From Mrs. James T. Fields, Charles Dudley Warner, 1904
Warner's faith in literature led him to be a prop and inciter to young authors. Where he could discern real talent and character he was ready to become a mainstay. Only those shivering upon the edge of a plunge into the sea of literary life can know what a help he was and what happiness his hope in behalf of others gave. His advice was born out of wide experience. There is a record of one of the many cases of his helpfulness, where he writes to Sarah Orne Jewett, who had confided to him the actual beginning of a story which he had first suggested and she had long been planning, "The Tory Lover"; "I am not in the least alarmed about the story, now that you are committed to it by the printing of the beginning, only this, that if you let the fire slow down to rest for a week or so, please do not take up any other work, but rest really. Do not let any other theme come in to distract your silent mulling over the story. Keep your frame of mind in it. The stopping to do any little thing will distract you. Hold the story always in solution in your mind ready to be precipitated when your strength permits. That is to say, even if your fires are banked up, keep the story fused in your mind." He wrote also to the same friend: "The Pointed Firs in your note perfumed the house as soon as the letter was opened, and were quite as grateful to me as your kind approval . . . . We are greatly rejoiced to know that you are getting better. I quite agree with you that being sick is fun compared to getting well. I want to see you ever so much and talk to you about your novel, and explain to you a little what I tried to do with Evelyn in my own. It seems to me possible to educate a child with good literature as well as bad; at least I tried the experiment. Most affectionately yours."
A Dramatization ?
Even before the novel began to appear in The Atlantic, theatrical agent Elisabeth Marbury (1856-1933) contacted Jewett about dramatizing the book. No dramatic treatment is yet known to exist. The following letters document this interaction.
Jeannette Leonard Gilder to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Begin letterhead ]
Jeannette L. Gilder
Joseph B. Gilder } Editors
-----
ESTABLISHED 1881
The Critic
An illustrated Monthly
Review of Literature,
Art & Life
Published for
THE CRITIC COMPANY
-- G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
27 and 29 West 23d Street,New York.
[ End letterhead ]
October 16 1900
Dear Miss Jewett,
I have just read a note about your new novel, The Tory Lover,* and it sounds to me as though there was a play in it. Have you control of the dramatic rights? If you have and will [ have them made ? ] over to me I will see that you get the very best terms & the very best dramatization. I have just gone into partnership with Miss Elisabeth Marbury* in the placing of book plays. She has To Have & to Hold, The Little Minister, David
2
[ also on letterhead ]
Harum, Caleb West, Janice Meredith* & all the big things. What we do is to see the managers and make the best terms. We get a payment down & good percentages and we ask eight percent of the author [ deletion ] receipts, that is if you get $500. a week we get forty dollars. For this we also attend to all the business of collecting royalties, making contracts &c &c. Please let me know the situation.
Faithfully yours
Jeannette L. Gilder
Notes
Tory Lover: Jewett's novel, The Tory Lover (1901), began to appear in serial in Atlantic Monthly in November of 1900. Gilder probably had not yet seen the first installment when she wrote this letter.
Marbury: Elisabeth Marbury (1856-1933) was an American theatrical and literary agent and producer. Wikipedia. The titles Gilder mentions are:
To Have & to Hold (1899), a novel by American author Mary Johnston.
The Little Minister (1891), a novel by Scottish author, J. M. Barrie.
David Harum: A Story of American Life (1899), a novel by American author, Edward Noyes Westcott.
Caleb West, Master Driver (1898), a novel by American author and Jewett correspondent, Francis Hopkinson Smith.
Janice Meredith (1899), a novel by American author, Paul Leicester Ford.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Gilder, Jeannette Leonard, 1849-1916. 4 letters; 1895-1900., 1895-1900. (79).
This transcription is from a photocopy held by the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Box 2, Folder 99, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Jeannette Leonard Gilder to Sarah Orne Jewett
Jeannette L. Gilder
Joseph B. Gilder } Editors
-----
ESTABLISHED 1881
The Critic
An illustrated Monthly
Review of Literature,
Art & Life
Published for
THE CRITIC COMPANY
-- G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
27 and 29 West 23d Street,New York.
October 22 1900
Miss Sarah Orne Jewett
South Berwick, Maine
Dear Miss Jewett
I wrote you several days ago at Manchester-by-the-Sea in regard to the dramatic rights in The Tory Lover*. I want 'em. I don't insist uponthedoing the dramatization but I want to attend to the business of disposing of the dramatic rights for you. If you will put yourself in the hands of Gilder & Marbury you will get the best terms and the best treatment that can possibly be had. Your publishers can tell you this for they have had dealings with Miss Marbury in relation to Miss Johnston's To Have and to Hold.* Miss Marbury has the biggest business of the kind in the world and I am associated with her in the book-play end ofiit. What I want now [ is typed over id ] for you to say that we may arrange for the disposition of a dramatization of your novel, subject to your approval, and that you will not go to any other shop.
Faithfully yours,
[ Signed by hand ]
Jeannette L. Gilder
Notes
Tory Lover: Jewett's novel, The Tory Lover (1901), began to appear in serial in Atlantic Monthly in November of 1900. Gilder probably had not yet seen the first installment when she wrote this letter.
Marbury: Elisabeth Marbury (1856-1933) was an American theatrical and literary agent and producer. Wikipedia.
Johnston: To Have & to Hold (1899), a novel by American author Mary Johnston (1870-1936). Wikipedia.
The typescript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Gilder, Jeannette Leonard, 1849-1916. 4 letters; 1895-1900., 1895-1900. (79).
This transcription is from a photocopy held by the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Box 2, Folder 99, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Francis Jackson Garrison to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Graphic of hand, index finger pointing right ] All letters, to ensure prompt attention, must be addressed to the Firm.
__________________________________________________
CHICAGO OFFICE
378-358 WABASH AVENUE.
BOSTON OFFICE,
4 PARK STREET.
11 E. 17TH STREET.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, Publishers.
Boston Oct. 27, 1900*
Miss S. O. Jewett,
South Berwick, Maine.
Dear Miss Jewett:
In reply to your favor of the 23d inst. about the matter of the dramatization, we would say that we have had quite an experience recently in this direction, and should be glad to have a personal talk with you about the ins and outs of it. There is unquestionably an unusual interest on the part of theatrical managers in the successful novels of the day, and they are looking more and more to them for possible stage materials, but it is advisable to be very cautious about committing one's self to any definite arrangement until several very important elements have been carefully considered and provided for or against. The best course of procedure seems to be to avail one's self of the dramatic agencies which exist, and two of the most successful of which are managed by women, namely, Miss Elisabeth Marbury and Miss Alice Kauser,* both of New York City. Miss Marbury has a very excellent reputation and standing, and has been very successful in her business operations. Her business is to discover promise in a work of fiction, to find the best playwright, to negotiate for the production on the stage of the play, and to collect the royalties or share of the box receipts, which may be payable under the business arrangement with the manager. An author who has a literary reputation to guard needs among other things to make careful provision that the dramatization shall not violate his or her feelings, and shall be subject to her veto if unsatisfactory or offensive. Should you care to have us serve you in connection with the business and other arrangements for the dramatization of "The Tory Lover", we shall be happy
[ Page 2 ]
to do so, or if you shall prefer to deal directly with Miss Marbury or any other agent and negotiate at first hand, we shall be entirely content, but we should advise for the present reserving all rights, and making no definite arrangement until you had had longer opportunity to ascertain what eagerness or competition there may be on the part of the theatrical managers to take hold of such a play; for it is a matter in which hasty action is likely to be regretted, and with the book publication so many months away, there is ample time for deliberation in the matter.
Yours very truly,
Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
[ Initials handwritten F. J. G. ]
Notes
Miss Elisabeth Marbury and Miss Alice Kauser: Elisabeth Marbury (1856-1933) was an American theatrical and literary agent and producer. Wikipedia.
Alice Kauser (c. 1872-1945) was a play broker and literary agent in New York City. NY Times obituary, 10 September 1945, p. 19.
The Tory Lover: Jewett's novel began serialization in 1900 and appeared as a book in 1901.
The typescript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., firm, publishers, Boston. 6 letters; 1891-1904.. (101).
This transcription is from a photocopy held by the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Box 2, Folder 99, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Jeannette Leonard Gilder to Sarah Orne Jewett
Jeannette L. Gilder
Joseph B. Gilder } Editors
-----
ESTABLISHED 1881
The Critic
An illustrated Monthly
Review of Literature,
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November 21 1900
Miss Sarah Orne Jewett
South Berwick, Maine
My dear Miss Jewett
I am so glad that you have decided to put the business of the dramatic rights of your story* into our hands. Miss Marbury* is great as you will see if you have personal relations with her. As to the dramatization,* it is time enough to talk of that when the book is finished, that is when the ms. is out of your hands. It might as well be all settled early in the spring for the sooner these matters are arranged the better. I would advise you not to give the dramatizing of the story to any one, but let us suggest a dramatizer to you when the time comes. The wrong dramatist often prevents the production of a play. I know of a case just now where a well known author, in the kindness of his heart, gave a young woman the right to dramatize a certain story. There are two leading managers who would take the play but they will not take her version and she will not change ti, even at the request of the author,* whose property is therefore tied up and useless to him or anyone.
If any one asks you for the right turn them over to us and we will soon tell you whether they can do it or not.
I hope that there is plenty of patriotism and love in your story. It is those elements that have made the suc-
[ Page 2 with the same letterhead as above ]
S.O.J. 2
cess of Janice Meredith* as a play.
With the best wishes for The Tory Lover and its author,* I am
Faithfully yours,
[ Signed by hand ]
Jeannette L. Gilder
How happy you ought to be that you can do your work in the peace and quiet of the country.
Notes
story: Jewett's novel, The Tory Lover (1901), began to appear in serial in Atlantic Monthly in November of 1900. Gilder could have read the first installment when she wrote this letter.
Marbury: Elisabeth Marbury (1856-1933) was an American theatrical and literary agent and producer. Wikipedia.
dramatization: The comma after this word has been added in pen.
author: The comma after this word has been added in pen.
Janice Meredith: This drama set during the American Revolution opened in 1900. It was based on the 1899 novel by American author, Paul Leicester Ford (1865-1902). The play was adapted to a silent film in 1924. Wikipedia.
its author: The comma after this word has been added in pen.
The typescript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Gilder, Richard Watson, 1844-1909. 1 letter; 1897. (80).
This transcription is from a photocopy held by the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Box 2, Folder 99, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Reviews of the Book Publication
New York Times, 31 August 1901, p. BR12. "Told with Charity."
From "Authors and their Books," The Pittsburgh Press 29 September 1901, p. 11.
Magnanimity is easy for victors, and, from the days of "Lionel Lincoln," American novelists have scrupulously endeavored to adorn the novel of the Revolution with at least one noble Briton, and, in later years, even the Tory has been granted the grace of toleration, but Miss Sarah Orne Jewett is the first to make Tory and Whig equally lovable. In her "The Tory Lover," she has introduced her first villain, and he is neither Tory nor Englishman, but a pretended patriot, devoured by a gnawing envy of all superiors. Through him, bitter sorrow and long suspense come to the fair, courageous patriot heroine and to the brave and loving loyalist great lady, and through him ruin almost comes to John Paul Jones, and in the end he earns a traitor's doom and is left despised of all men. Miss Jewett has described him perfectly, yet without one of those acrimonious phrases which few authors can refrain from bestowing upon their villains.
This is not the only piece of reserve in the story: it is not even the most remarkable. "The Tory Lover" is a war novel without a battle, and with the merest sketch of Jones's daring but fruitless attack upon Whitehaven, to satisfy those who like talk of guns and drums and swords.
Miss Jewett has studied John Paul Jones carefully, with perhaps even more than due charity for his vanity, and his raging desire to exercise his genius for command under one flag or another, but all her views of him are tinged by well-beloved traditions absorbed in childhood from narrators speaking with earnestness and conviction as sincere as if they and not their sires had trodden the deck of the Ranger.
May Hamilton, heroine of the tale, is beloved not only by Roger Wallingford, the hero, but by Jones, and hardly knows to which she has given her heart until the news of Roger's captivity in England and doubts of his faithfulness to the patriot cause come to her ears. It is love of her which gives Roger to his country, for an English education and his mother's loyalty have made him a King's man, but once he opens his mind to patriot argument he gives no half-hearted devotion to the cause and sails with Jones, accepting a commission. The villain contrives to make him appear a traitor, and inflicts a well-night fatal wound upon him, and he tastes the mercies of a military prison. He owes his pardon and release, not to Mary alone, but also to Master Sullivan, the father of Gen. Sullivan, the schoolmaster to whom Berwick acknowledges great debt for the noble training of her boys, the exiled companion of Derwentwater and the first Pretender. He gives her letters to the kinsmen of is former companions in arms, and her success is instant.
The story of her voyage to England with Madam Wallingford, of the love of the mother country swiftly springing up in her heart, and giving her clearer understanding of loyalists, is beautifully narrated, but the most exquisite touch in the story is the last. In the very last pages of the book, when, all troubles past, all perils vanished, united and happy, the lovers speed up the river through the evening shadows of their firesides shining warmly from the windows of their house for a beacon, and a great company of their friends coming down the terraced gardens to meet them.
The frontispiece of the book reproduces a miniature long on Miss Jewett's possession, an inheritance from the days of Mary Hamilton, and Mr. and Mrs. Woodbury add other pictures, among them a view of the Hamilton mansion, a superb Colonial house, quite warranting the boast that life in the Piscataqua plantations was as stately as in Virginia.
"The Tory Lover" is the best book Miss Jewett [Jewitt] has yet written. It is a very interesting love story in an historical setting. The time is that of the Revolution, and Paul Jones figures prominently in the action. The scenes include Portsmouth and Berwick, changing to France and England. The lover, Roger Wallingford, is tory by tradition, but goes out as a lieutenant from partial conviction of the patriotic cause, and entire conviction of the loveliness of Mary Hamilton. The story is full of stirring incidents and dramatic interest. It is marked by the dignity of sincerity, which characterizes all of Miss Jewett's [Jewitt's] work. It is an admirable story of courage and devotion to country, and is at once strong, brilliant, spirited and true.
From "New Literature," Boston Daily Globe 2 October 1901, p. 4.
Miss Sara[h] Orne Jewett has added to the delight of new thousands of readers by her sweet and extremely natural story, " TheTory Lover" (Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Boston). It is full of dramatic movement and wholesomeness. The scenes include Merwick, Me -- which the author has known from her earliest childhood -- Portsmouth, England and France. Roger Wallingford, the "lover"; Miss Mary Hamilton, who he adores, Capt Paul Jones of the Ranger and the patriot cause in revolutionary times are features of this well-told historical tale.
From "Reviews of Newest Books," Detroit Free Press 5 October 1901, p. 7.
More threshing of old straw has resulted in the production of another novel of Revolutionary history, "The Tory Lover," Sarah Orne Jewett's venture in a field that is new to her. The Tory lover is Roger Wallingford, who, hesitating between hereditary loyalty and new-born convictions, remains neutral until his love for Mary Hamilton leads him to give half-hearted service to the cause she espouses. He is suspected of being a Tory at heart, and it is only Mary's influence with Paul Jones, and Jones's desire to get a rival out of Mary's sphere, that induces the captain to allow Wallingford to sail with him on the Ranger. In a raid on the English coast Wallingford is wounded and taken prisoner. His shipmates, believing him among those to whom his sympathies incline, make no effort for his release, and it is not until his mother, accompanied by Mary, goes to England and makes long an diligent search for him that he is found and freed, with the help of Jones, who becomes magnanimous.
Miss Jewett tells a very good story, not overweighted with history, well spiced with adventure: one which if not as good as the best is at least better than the most of romances of its class. That it has appeared serially in Atlantic is in itself a distinction. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin &Co. Detroit: J. F. Sheehan & Co.)
Lewiston Journal Magazine Section October 19-24, 1901[ Illustrated with two photographs: one of Jewett and the other of her South Berwick home. ]
The Tory Lover: Sarah Orne Jewett's Novel of the American Revolution
Among all the novels for which the Revolutionary war has furnished material, "The Tory Lover," which Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, publish[er], will have a distinct interest for Maine people and New Englanders in general.To begin with, the author is a Maine woman and a special favorite of Maine people, Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, and the book was written at her old home in South Berwick, under the shadows of the big trees with the odor of old fashioned flowers coming in at the window; in the same study we have here in the picture before us.
Then there is much local color and local characterization, for in the old historic towns of Berwick and York, not Boston or any Massachusetts towns, are laid the principal scenes.
So strong and true are the pictures drawn of life in Maine farming communities in those trying days and of the hardy Yankee farmers, they come to Maine readers with a sort of familiarity, born of the tales of those troublous times handed down from their forefathers.
The lapse of years has not surrounded the scene with the glamour of romance which, in so many historical novels, removes it so far from our everyday lives and feelings. Miss Jewett tells her story as simply and naturally as though it all happened but recently. Her readers feel a nearness to these men and women which makes them forget that more than a century separates them.
At the opening we are introduced to a class of aristocracy, whose culture and stately living in the northern wilderness may surprise the reader as it did Capt. Paul Jones who did not expect to find here the manner of life of a Virginia gentleman.
Easily and naturally are the glimpses of rough, rural life brought in and the scene transferred to the broad Atlantic, where Miss Jewett shows her thorough knowledge of seamanship by depicting the daily routine on board the warship Ranger and the little idiosyncrasies and sturdy [study] independence of the Maine sailors on board, who, all unused to naval discipline and restraint chafed under the strict rule of Jones.
For none other than the renowned Paul Jones is the hero of the story and here Miss Jewett gives one of her most intelligent and discriminating character portraitures. This has been variously done before, but perhaps never so fully and naturally. Paul Jones is not a hero of the stage here, but a man of history - a great man, it is true, but his foibles appear as clearly as his virtues. We do not have to judge him by what was best and worst in his nature, for Miss Jewett gives us all the gradations between the extremes. We see him in many moods and under many conditions. He is the blustering, abrupt and unyielding captain, who has apparently never learned the value of tact, but he is also the affable, sympathetic and appreciative companion on his official trip to Paris. Now he is moved to sentiment by the moonlight and Mary Hamilton, again he seems to have a mind only for adventure and love of glory. Miss Jewett has tried to avoid any exaggeration and present Capt. Paul Jones as he was, impatient of restraint, of the irksome bonds to opportunity and inspiration necessitated by circumstances, yet ever ready, though sore at heart, to do the best that was in him, to immortalize the little Ranger though the fine ship he had hoped for was not forthcoming.
With the same moderation she presents the varying attitude of the Colonists toward England. The war was a serious thing. There was much searching of heart[,] much doubt and fear. With a fine sense of justice Miss Jewett presents the varied feelings of the people. Roger Wallingford, a Tory by tradition, was no less a patriot because he was slow in the conviction of duty. In truth he was only partially convicted when he started out as lieutenant with Capt. Jones, but he was entirely convicted of his love for Mary Hamilton and she was an enthusiastic patriot. But having undertaken a duty Wallingford was not one to shirk and he wins the admiration of the reader as he did of Paul Jones who came to put great confidence in the young man.
Mary Hamilton is a lovely and lovable character with a decided individuality, as have all of Miss Jewett's characters. Among the interesting figures who move through the story is Master Sullivan, the aged scholar and gentleman, Mary's adviser and friend, who seems strangely out-of-place in his uncongenial surroundings.
The story, while stirring and full of incident, does not border on the sensational. There is nothing glaring nor artificial. It is distinguished by the mild humor and tender pathos characteristic of Miss Jewett.
On the whole, "The Tory Lover" is an addition [additture] to literature and to Maine people at least, a welcome addition to local and historical lore. The book is attractively illustrated and has as a frontispiece a charming medallion portrait of Mary Hamilton.
"Novel Notes," Bookman (New York) 14 (October, 1901) p. 195.
THE TORY LOVER. By Sarah Orne Jewett. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Company. $1.50.What can be easier for a writer drilled in the art of novel-making than to turn out an historical novel of the American Revolution? All one needs to do is to study the books of this kind which have flooded the market during the past few years, and to try to improve upon them. The necessary implements for the actual work are a bottle of ink, a writing pad, a good memory, a history or two, and possibly an encyclopedia. For inspiration one may turn to George Washington or Paul Jones or Lafayette. A beautiful young maiden must flit through the pages, and a large, rambling old house with plenty of servants and good old wine must serve as a background. Then, too, there should be several lovers, one of whom is destined to be the favoured one from the very beginning. Of course any number of changes can be rung on this scene, but the result is the same -- an American historical novel which is sure to sell, and to please the masses. In this way the half-educated learn something about the history of their own country, which they have not had the energy to study, and in this way also authors make enough money to buy estates in the country and to retire from the field for a year or so. Then, again, one does not have to be original. History made the most of characters many years ago, and even the heroine does not tax one's ingenuity too far. Revolutionary maidens are pretty much the same. They make pretty frontispieces for a book, and when they get dramatised they make even prettier "stars." All they require is a dash of coyness and of coquetry, for, whatever they are or whatever they do, the hero wins them in the end, and the orchestra chairs are seldom vacant. Nothing is left to the imagination. Human nature and psychology and analysis are not needed here.
This generalisation applies in particular to The Tory Lover -- a pretty story, well written and properly heralded, but which the present writer declines to review. We all know what it is about. Sarah Orne Jewett is well and pleasantly known to novel readers. But she was tempted, and she fell. What if Mary Hamilton is like Janice Meredith, and what if the setting does remind one of Mr. Ford's story? Will the thousands of admirers of Janice Meredith object to that? At any rate, Miss Jewett has benefited by others' experience, and in writing The Tory Lover she has improved on some of its popular predecessors. And there is nothing more to be said.
Flora Mai Holly.
The Living Age 231: 2990 (26 October 1901) 263.
In "The Tory Lover," Sarah Orne Jewett has done what, for a newer writer, would be counted a really brilliant piece of work. Her venture into the field of historical fiction was viewed with a good deal of natural misgiving by friends who felt that her distinctive talents had already found their line, but the popularity of the story, as it has been appearing in serial form in "The Atlantic Monthly," has justified the experiment. Combining patriotism, adventure and romance in the familiar proportions that the public craves, Miss Jewett gives her narrative a literary quality which the public does not often get and which it ought to appreciate. Captain Paul Jones is the central historical figure. The action of the earlier chapters takes place near Portsmouth, N.H., where Miss Jewett is thoroughly at home, and the country-folk there are sketched with her own deft touch. If this book does not add greatly to its writer's reputation, except in point of versatility, it certainly adds to the number of good historical novels. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. publish it in attractive covers of Tory red.
Octave Thanet, "FINE PORTRAITS BY MISS JEWETT." Book Buyer 23 (October 1901) 227-8.ALL Miss Jewett's work is instinct with charm. But her latest novel has power. It deals with a little recognized side of the war of the Revolution and with a new scene. We owe her gratitude, also, in that she has not further muddled our conceptions of Washington by a new portrait. She does bring in Paul Jones; but her picture of him is so vital and convincing that it supersedes any other. One seems to see the real man, the irritable, vain-glorious hero. She has even given us an insight into the broad and daring vision which separated Paul Jones from the score of able men and good seamen who were his American contemporaries.
The most difficult of an artist's problems is to portray a man of genius. Miss Jewett does indicate the touch of genius in Paul Jones. She does it at the very moment which reveals his weaknesses. You are able to comprehend how his subordinates could criticise and his equals dislike him, and how he failed of winning (what many a man of lesser mould has won) the unfaltering devotion of his followers. At the same time you come to recognize the fine and noble strain in the man. You feel toward him the partisanship of an actual acquaintance. You can see how he won love, although he could not always keep what he won. There are few more pathetic pictures than the scene with Mary Hamilton in the cathedral, so delicate and restrained, yet so strong. And, surely, there was never a gentler and more plaintive touch on a chord we all know, than Mary Hamilton's last spoken words in the book: "I am thinking of the captain," she said, after a little silence. "You know how he left us when we were so happy, and slipped away alone into the dark without a word. . . . "
"Oh, look, Madam!" she cried then. "Our friends are all there; they are all waiting for us!" And so with more glad recognition the happy girl to whom Paul Jones has given back her lover, turns again to her happiness and her home-coming, leaving the hero who had loved her, alone in the dark. It is beautifully and most deftly done. A mere suggestion, a touch on the strings of the violin in passing. But in it is the hint of sacrifice and the undemanding pain of a manly heart and a glimpse into a brave and lonely soul.
The real artist's touch is in this subtle final shadow on the portrait. But, after all, it is not Paul Jones whose image will remain longest in the reader's mind; it is Mary Hamiton. A sweeter, braver, more charming creature not even the painter of dainty Betty Leichester [Leicester] has ever drawn. Of all the historical gallery to which our novelist friends have introduced us of late, she is easily the most winsome. She is not startling, or bewildering, or dazzling; one can as soon imagine her playing with her lover as forgetting him; there are no fireworks about Mary Hamilton, and she never poses for the limelight. Even if she do a heroic act (as she does more than once) it is done so unobtrusively and naturally that one is more impressed with its sense than its heroism. She is merely a high-souled and lovable creature, one of the few, notably few heroines of fiction, whom one would like for a next-door neighbor. Did she live to-day, her husband and children would adore her, her mother-in-law would cling to her, men would admire her and woman love her; and she would have a good name in the intelligence offices -- which means more than any of the other praises! To have made her as she is, and not in the least other-worldly or pretentious -- just a sweet, sane gentlewoman, who could make mistakes, but never loses either her tact or her good manners -- is a triumph.
Another delicious portrait is Madame Wallingford's. "She had never been called beautiful; she had no great learning. . . . She had manner rather than manners; she was plainly enough that unmistakable and easily recognized person, a great lady. They are but few in every generation, but the simplicity and royalty of their lovely succession have never disappeared from an admiring world." "Easily recognized," truly; but not so easily drawn. Both Madame Wallingford and Mary Hamilton are great ladies. How many novelists of this ilk can draw a lady? Miss Jewett can draw a lady without having to think. She never makes a false stroke. It is something to do. Because Miss Jewett does it so easily her achievement is not less. Her gentlefolks are silly, sometimes (brains cannot always be either born or bred!) brutal, even; but they are always gentlefolks.
As Mary is a gentlewoman so is her lover a brave and gallant young gentleman. To have made him keep our respect through his misfortunes and his acting in these misfortunes like a plucky, every-day man, rather than a god-like conqueror of a hero, is another achievement. The lover is a Tory who becomes a very moderate patriot, possibly seeing things more clearly than a more sanguine partisan. The conduct of the so-called patriots to his mother is instructive reading for those of us who are disposed to believe all the virtues can belong to one side. In truth, the patriots treated the royalists with the same ferocious and stupid brutality that the Tories meted out to the "rebels." And among the loyalists were some of the true lovers of their country, men like Thompson and Hutchison. When the colonies exiled such men, they emulated George III.'s stupidity.
Miss Jewett's story deals with the fortunes of a young man who loved his country with his eyes open. He disapproves of her rebellion; but when the die is cast, throws his lot on her side. There is a likeness to some readers between such a tory and the anti-imperialists who utterly disapproved of the Spanish War, but accepted its results. Indeed, an amusing and ingenious parallel might be drawn; so well has Miss Jewett described a certain temperament, as indigenous to the New England soil, to-day, as yesterday.
I seem to be speaking, always, of portraits; but I feel more the power of the human beings (they are no less) who walk through the story as they do through life, than any rush of incident or any excitement of plot. There are a few places where the rich and leisurely flow of the charming narrative grows rapid. The best of these is the attack on Madame Wallingford's house. Those pages stir the blood; so do some about Paul Jones's hawk-like dives at the English coast; and the whole story of the sickening squabbles and bickerings and squeamish timidities which hindered him in France, is vivid to a degree. And as always with Miss Jewett, the style of these narrations is exquisite, simple as finished, the style of a master. But in general, it is not for the plot or for the style that one must believe that here is a book to endure; it is because before us we have the veritable lives and souls of our ancestors. They are before us in their habit as they lived. We not only see; we know them. And such portrayal is the only real creative, the only real enduring force in literature.
"The FICTION of the EARLY AUTUMN," Outlook 69 (October 19, 1901) p. 420.MISS JEWETT'S work has been a long loyalty to art so delicate, finely wrought, and sincere has it been from the beginning. She has never been diverted from her vocation as a painter of New England traits and life -- a painter of sensitive feeling, clear insight, and a finished, reposeful, but individual and vital style. Her quiet fidelity to high standards, wholesome methods, and the realities of character has evidenced that quality in her nature and in her art which stamps her as one of the writers of our time whose place is secure. In "The Tory Lover" she does not leave the field which she knows intimately and with the insight of affection. The larger movement of the story is on the other side of the sea; but the passions and convictions which dominate and shape it are of New England origin, and the air of New England fills the sails of the little craft which bears Paul Jones and his turbulent crew. There is in the story no striving to catch the wind of popular favor which is bearing tales of adventure to such fabulous ports in these days; no attempt to adjust an exquisite art to the taste of the hour. Miss Jewett is beyond the reach of these grosser temptations. Her method is unchanged; her refinement, delicacy, and trained skill are on every page; she has simply varied her material. For any writer of average ability "The Tory Lover" would be an achievement, so admirable is its workmanship. Miss Jewett must be judged by her own standards, however, and by her standards her latest tale cannot be regarded as on a level with her most characteristic work. It is not convincing. The story of incident and adventure is not her vocation. Fortunately, she has no need of success in a new field; her own field is ample, and her possession of it complete. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston.)
From "Fiction," New York Tribune 27 October 1901, p. B11.
Miss Jewett's short stories of New-England life have long been valued for their truth and quiet charm. They occupy a place by themselves, for while the author has more than one capable rival she has communicated always to her work a certain individual quality. All this has prepared us to look with special interest into her new book, a novel of Colonial times. "The Tory Lover" does not quite demonstrate that the author has been well advised to make the transition from a field in which she moves with ease of perfect familiarity to one in which she is practically a stranger. Though she has written a novel before this one, she has been at her best in the brief commemoration of episodes, in the delineation of a single type involved in some small situation. Compelled in writing of this book to spread the action over a good many pages, she has been at loss for material, and fills up with talk long stretches that ought to be filled with incident. There is some excitement, it is true. The hero begins by rousing the wrath of his neighbors in New-England though allowing them to believe that he is faithful to Tory principles. Then, to please the heroine, he ships in the Ranger to accompany Paul Jones to Europe. On the other side of the water he gets into trouble not of his own making, is unjustly suspected of treachery, and ultimately lands in a British prison. Miss Jewett succeeds in interesting us in these matters, but only mildly: her plot is thinly constructed, and she has failed to breath into it the ebullient spirit necessary to conceal its attenuation. On the other hand, there is a winning simplicity and freshness about the book; the author could not help but lend to it something of that sincere and appealing tone which distinguishes her best work. She has strayed from her true inspiration, but she has carried with her the charm of her individuality as a writer.
William Payne Morton, "Recent Fiction," Dial 31 (November, 1901) p. 365.
We regret that Miss Jewett should have attempted to write a historical romance of the conventional sort. In delicate genre studies of New England life and character, she has few equals, and her work in this her chosen field is artistically satisfying to an exacting taste. But in such a book as "The Tory Lover" she is out of her natural element, and the result is a rather poor example of a species of composition now only to be justified by extraordinary dash and brilliancy. Neither of these qualities is displayed in this story of the Revolutionary War. There is much finish in the detail, but there is nothing of the large imaginative sweep that should characterize historical romance. The best feature of Miss Jewett's book is found in its account of the brutal treatment meted out to the tories in New England during the turbulent days that followed the outbreak of hostilities. This aspect of our revolutionary struggle has been treated in much too gingerly a fashion by the historians, and it is only of recent years that the public has been told the truth about the matter. Miss Jewett tells the truth, and for this we may be thankful. But for the story of heroic deeds she has not the equipment, and her Paul Jones, for example, offers a weak contrast to the figure of that captain as it appears in "Richard Carvel," or even in the slap-dash books of Archdeacon Brady. We trust that Miss Jewett will at once go back to her study of the humors of the New England town.
M. H. Vorse, "Recent Fiction," Critic 39 (November 1901) pp. 469-70."The Tory Lover," a book distinguished in many ways from the ordinary historical romance, is not without some of its faults.
Miss Jewett evidently was at much pains to convey the breath of life into her story of the Revolution, but instead of making the time live for one, she merely writes about it, although it is fair to say that she writes about it sympathetically.
It is as a series of pictures that one thinks of the book rather than as a consecutive story, for one is quite convinced that the somewhat uninteresting Mr. Wallingford, who is rather too conspicuously a perfect gentleman, will come to no harm and will in due time be united with Miss Hamilton. The interview between Mary and Madame Wallingford, the description of the monotonous life on shipboard, with the demoralizing results it has on the men, together with other minor incidents, are what raise "The Tory Lover" above the rank and file of historical novels of the year. The character of Paul Jones is the most convincing of any in the book and the one with the greatest personality.
It is, perhaps, too much to demand that, beside the difficult task of making the personages of a story act as men and women, an author shall enter into the brain of another century and, to the permanent human traits, add that evanescent something that divides the thought of one generation so widely from that of another.
After all, it is a great gift easily to be pleased by the stories one reads and one should be content in the fact that "The Tory Lover" is a graceful story, and attractively written, and that Miss Jewett had been very merciful in that she has spared us descriptions of the horrors of war -- she has so far departed from precedent that not even one Tory is tarred and feathered by indignant patriots. M. H. Vorse
"CURRENT FICTION," THE LITERARY WORLD 32 (November 1, 1901) p. 218.
Sarah Orne Lewett. With her accustomed grace and finish of style, Miss Jewett tells in this novel the oft told story of Captain Paul Jones and the early days of the American navy. The opening scenes are laid in Berwick from which the gallant little "Ranger" and her crew set forth to demonstrate to the world that the ocean belongs as well to the United States as to the United Kingdom. There is a pretty love story with a happy close, and though we may experience a natural regret that Miss Jewett should ever deviate from the line of work which is especially her own and which she has brought to a point of literary perfection, so carefully wrought and conscientious a piece of work as "The Tory Lover" earns and deserves a large measure of praise.
from "Books of the Week," Arizona Republican, 3 November 1901, p. 6.
This favorite author of short stories has again demonstrated her ability to produce an interesting novel. More than this, she has gone into that dangerous but fertile field, the realm of history: a gleaning ground that has been the commencement and the ending of many an aspiring writer. In common with some other writers of the day, Miss Jewett has studied the stirring days of the war of the revolution: she has selected as the bright particular hero of her story a character of the mold of heroes, not physically, but of the lion hearted, where energy, bravery, determination and personality have given him fame and reputation -- John Paul Jones, the old "Sea Wolf," "Daredevil," "Scourge," and worthy claimant to many other titles of affection and dread. The well known reputation of Miss Jewett as a writer coupled with the heroic subject is sufficient to secure a large clientele, but the merit of the story, the excellent manner of handling it, and the absence of rot, and the impossible that so often stalk boldly through colonial novels, should give "The Tory Lover" the most unqualified success.
The lover is Roger Wallingford, and though playing a conspicuous part in the working out of the story, is of necessity secondary to the pride of the continental navy. There are other men in this novel, well drawn characters, manly and brave: English, and later American gentlemen, with a traitor and intriguer who disturbs Captain Jones' plans at Whitehaven and attacks Wallingford, who is leading a landing party, leaving him wounded on the shore, where he is recaptured [intended captured].
The heroine, Mary Hamilton, is every inch a woman. She is a patriot for the love of liberty and her home. She hasn't any doubts of the justice of the cause of the colonies; she knows that her family risks all, and knowing, is willing to take the risk. The development of love in her heart is beautifully told by Miss Jewett. A lifelong friend of Wallingford, she prevails upon him to sail from Portsmouth with Jones, realizing the Mrs. Wallingford, a strong character, a widowed lady of wealth and position, but a persistent and consistent loyalist, will be subject to indignities and loss of home if the son Roger remains at home. He, desperately in love, sails away with a "partial conviction of the justness of the cause and entire conviction of the loveliness of Mary Hamilton."
Paul Jones, as much of a gallant as he was a sailor, admired and also loved Mary Hamilton. For this reason, he accepted Wallingford's enlistment, because Mary demanded it, but Jones regretted it and made it unpleasant until the manly character of the young man and a full conviction of the justice of the case made him his boon companion. In gratitude Mary gives Captain Jones her ring as a charm. A very pretty by-play results when Wallingford notices the ring on Captain Jones' finger. Explanations follow, and while the captain of the "Ranger" holds the ring and denies a promise, he kisses the golden band and vows "to win her yet." Not until Wallingford has been captured, disgraced by being called a traitor, as charged by the real traitor at Whitehaven, does the latent love of Mary Hamilton burst forth in a grand passion. The working out of the story is well concealed and prettily told.
Other characters are introduced in the by-play. Stalwart and dignified Franklin, the duchess of Chartres, and the duke, Jones' good friends, and other characters in England and France at that time.
"The Tory Lover" contains an excellent character study of Paul Jones: the story is one that will ever excite admiration: the love passages delicate, refined, human. Of course all ends well, save that the threat of Paul Jones' love doesn't weave to a successful conclusion, but the young lieutenant takes a price fit for an admiral.
from "Fiction," The Sun (Baltimore, MD), 7 November 1901, p. 8.
By C. Ernest Wagner.
The Tory Lover. By Sarah Orne Jewett. (7 3/4 x 4 7/8. pp. 405. Illus. $1.50.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston [ Cushing, Baltimore.]
Miss Jewett's captivating romance, "The Tory Lover," will prove a treat to those who have not already made the acquaintance of her heroes and heroines in the pages of the Atlantic.
One lays down the finished volume with a feeling of sweet content. A romantic love story is good; a romantic love story artistically told is far better, and Miss Jewett's trained hand is equal to this most difficult of achievements. Her touch is sure; the pictures she prints and the characters she draws are convincing. They are not "such stuff as dreams are made of," but men and women whom we love or hate because they are essentially human.
The action begins in old Berwick on the even of Paul Jones' departure from Portsmouth in the Ranger. The figure of Mary Hamilton -- sweet and girlish at the outset, ever sweeter and more womanly as the story advances -- dominates the pages of the book. It is Mary Hamilton, the ardent young patriot, who wins over her Tory lover, Roger Wallingford, and sends him to sea with John Paul Jones. It is Mary Hamilton who unwittingly calls forth the love of this bold adventurer and impulsively bestows on him her ring to serve as a talisman to keep him to his best in the strenuous career he has set himself. It is Mary Hamilton who, inspired by love and a beautiful devotion, leaves her home and goes with Madam Wallingford, the uncompromising loyalist, in search of her cruelly suspected son, languishing in the sailors' pen of an English prison. It is Mary Hamilton who vindicates the honor of her lover and who, in the resolution of the plot, reaps the due reward of her fidelity, her courage and her love.
In Roger Wallingford Miss Jewett has drawn a lover worthy of such a maid. Well-born and well-bred, handsome, strong and brave, gifted with a fine intelligence and a final moral sense, he fulfills every demand of that good old term -- now almost impossible to use because so sadly abused -- a gentleman.
John Paul Jones, in intrepid captain of the Ranger, wins in hie heroic moods our unbounded admiration and in his tender but no less manly moods our heartfelt sympathy. There is something unutterably pathetic in the loneliness, the aloofness of this masterful man, cut off by force of circumstances from the confidence of his fellows and denied the love of a woman, which, if granted, would have transfigured his life. He plays the hero's part to the end, and as we turn the last page Mary Hamilton's words, spoken in her hour of perfect happiness with a strange, wistful melancholy, usher him from the scene.
"I am thinking of the Captain," she said gently after a little silence. "You know how he left us when we were so happy and slipped away along into the dark without a word."
Houghton, Mifflin reports on Sales
All letters, to ensure prompt attention, must be addressed to the Firm.
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HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, Publishers.
Boston,
Nov. 8, 1901.*
Dear Miss Jewett, --
We thank you very much for the notices. We have acted on your suggestion and the enclosed advertisement appears in the "Transcript"* to-night and in the "New York Evening Post" on next Monday, as we agreed with you that, on Saturday, single advertisements are apt to be buried in the midst of the large amount of advertising printed then. We have been advertising "The Tory Lover" right along, at least, once a week.
The fifth printing which was ordered Nov. 1st was for 2000 copies, making 12,000 in all; the sales to Oct. 1st were over 9000 and some re-orders are now coming in.
We regret to say that we do not know who wrote the review in the "St. Paul Globe".
We enclose the notice from the "Chicago Inter-Ocean" and will ask you to return it to us when you are through with it.
Your letters would have had an earlier answer but the writer was away from the office for the first part of the week.
Very truly yours,
Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
[ Signed by hand: N. P. Macomber. ]
Notes
Macomber: This person has not yet been identified.
1901: The date was typed in.
Transcript: The Boston Evening Transcript.
"St. Paul Globe" ... "Chicago Inter-Ocean": Snippets from the Globe review appeared in a Houghton Mifflin brochure that accompanied the publication of The Tory Lover, soon after August 1901:
The difference between the average historical novel and this work of Miss Jewett's is the difference between the vital and the spectacular elements in literature and life. Where others have laid hold of the surface facts merely, she has grasped the inner meaning....The same brochure included a snippet from the Chicago Inter-Ocean:
Perhaps the thing the reader will be most thankful for is the splendid picture of John Paul Jones, which Miss Jewett has given us. Within the past few years a dozen "lives" of this masterly "sea-wolf" have appeared. None of them has set forth the character of Jones with such life-like reality, with such flesh and blood "humanness" as does this story.
That exquisite spirit pervades it, - a reflection of Miss Jewett's own loveliness of feeling, - a spirited beauty with which she has unconsciously invested her heroine, Mary Hamilton. Miss Jewett's painting of Berwick (her home in Maine) has the touch of unerring sincerity.The typescript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Gilder, Richard Watson, 1844-1909. 1 letter; 1897. (80).
This transcription is from a photocopy held by the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Box 2, Folder 99, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
"LITERATURE," Independent 53 (November 14, 1901) p 2717.THE TORY LOVER. By Sarah Orne Jewett. Those qualities which have made Sarah Orne Jewett a celebrated writer of short stories do not appear to have fitted her for the adventure of compassing a long one. Her delicate, discriminating taste and literary skill are beyond question, but the almost monotonous accuracy of her style grows tedious in the course of a whole book. Besides, history has had such a classifying, leveling effect upon the characters and events of colonial days that the revolutionary romance has long since palled upon the imagination of the average reader. The greater part of this story is taken up with the vaporings and adventures of Captain Paul Jones. But in her analysis of his character she follows so faithfully the records of his deviating course as sailor-soldier of fortune that he fails to show off very grandly in the rôle of an honorable captain of revolutionary fame. As for the "Tory Lover," he is the victim, and not the hero, of the tale.
Los Angeles Herald, Volume XXIX, Number 54 (24 November 1901) p. 24.
"The Tory Lover"
Sarah Orne Jewett has won most of her well-earned fame in literature as a writer of short stories. There is no one else that can portray the New England character so faithfully and so skillfully. The "Yankee" who reads one of Miss Jewett's New England sketches hears again the dialect familiar to his ears, and mayhap there lives again a character with which, he has been familiar in real life. But now this favorite writer has essayed a broader canvas, and comparison with her work in short stories is inevitable. Probably the weight of opinion will be in favor of the latter. Miss Jewett is at her best in character sketching, rather than in the weaving of a complicated plot.
To say this is not to withhold honors that are justly due. "The Tory Lover," which, as the title would indicate, is a story ot the Revolutionary period. Roger Wallingford, son of a Tory family, sails with Captain John Paul Jones in the Ranger on the voyage mat first gave the great captain fame. The young man's Tory principles were almost balanced by his growing conviction that the colonies were in the right; and when his love for Mistress Mary Hamilton, the beautiful patriot heroine was cast into the tale, there was no more hesitation on his part. But Wallingford, because of his Tory connections, was wrongfully suspected of being a spy, and grave complications arose because of this. Madame Wallingford, the Tory mother, is an admirably drawn character. and the heart of the reader involuntarily goes out to her.
The many-sided Paul Jones figures prominently in the story, as he does in "Richard Carvel," and here another comparison is necessary. It were better, perhaps, to say that each is complementary to the other. Mr. Churchill makes the great admiral the personification of vanity in a certain form, and a worshiper of rank, but without detracting from his personal worth. Miss Jewett presents him as a hopeless lover, having as a subordinate his successful rival. But John Paul Jones proves to be incapable of petty meanness. The voyage of the Ranger to Fiance, the discouraging reception its commander suffered there, the attempted burning of the shipping in Whitehaven harbor and other historical incidents are clothed with much interest. Dickson proves a capable villain, but his machinations end with the defeat they deserved, "The Tory Lover" will add many new friends to Miss Jewett's already large constituency, and she will doubtless feel warranted in remaining in the ranks of "long story" writers.
THE TORY LOVER. By Sarah Orne Jewett. Cloth, illustrated. pages; price. $1.50. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. For sale by Stoll & Thayer.
"Recent Novels," Nation 73 (November 28, 1901) 417-8.
It must be a mortal temptation to the veteran in other fields who beholds the country houses of the writers of the American historical novel, to take a hand and prove that he, too, can play that fashionable game. One's amour propre, hardly less than one's pocket, is concerned in the competition. To such a temptation did Miss Jewett succumb when she wrote 'The Tory Lover,' which answers all the tests of that type of composition. The scene is Berwick, Me., in 1777. The heroine is a charming New England maiden of good lineage, set off by a background of spacious colonial mansion, lavish hospitality, and devoted retainers; her miniature, in the style of the period, adorns the front page. The hero, Roger Wallingford, is lucky in love and in nothing else. After passing through the conventional phase of unjust suspicion, imprisonment, and a visit to England, he is restored to his sweetheart by the sub-hero, in whom we encounter the historical personage essential for the local color. This is Paul Jones of the good ship Ranger, who, resourceful as D'Artagnan and unselfish as your genuine sub-hero, puts up with a career of glory without love, and helps his rival to Mary Hamilton's hand. "I could throw my hope of glory down at your feet now, if it were of any use," he cries; but a little later he meets the hero in distress. "'Thank God, I have it in my power to make you amends!' he exclaimed. 'God bless you, Wallingford! Wait here for me one moment, my dear fellow,' he said with affection and disappeared" -- to send in the heroine. The figure of Paul Jones is drawn with spirit, and so is the voyage of the Ranger. There is a rather unsuccessful attempt at an historical mystery over an Irish colonist of remarkable learning and exquisite manners, whose name, it appears, is one to conjure with, though it is not confided to the reader. Miss Jewett's name is a guarantee of conscientious work, but we hope that her undoubted success in turning out a novel of the prevalent kind will not induce her to change her genre.
"TALK ABOUT BOOKS." Chautauquan 34 (December 1901) p. 321.The reader who has not had his fill of historical novels of the Revolutionary period will find in "The Tory Lover" one of the latest additions to this class of literature. Like the other novels of its kind, it is full of "stirring incident and dramatic interest." While fundamentally a love tale, with Mary Hamilton, a patriot maid, and Roger Wallingford, a Tory by inheritance, the principals, the reader will find the chief interest of the story to center in Captain Paul Jones and the first cruise of the famous Ranger. The brilliant strategist and sea fighter is followed through his first struggle to maintain supremacy over his motley crew, the weary months through which he waited at Nantes and his final triumph over the host of adverse conditions. The patriot maid finally crosses the sea, the Tory lover leaves his English prison, and all are happy.
W. S. B.
From: "The Literature of the Season." The New Outlook 68 (December 1901) p. 1062.
Miss Jewett always imparts to her work a touch of distinction; and, in writing "The Tory Lover" in an entirely new field, she did not abandon either her methods or the ground which which she is thoroughly familiar. No one could have written "The Tory Lover" except Miss Jewett; but those who value her work most highly can hardly regard her experiment with pure romance as successful.
From: The Ottawa Free Trader [Illinois] -- (December 6, 1901) p. 11.
DOWN EAST WRITER
SARAH ORNE JEWETT AND HER FIRST LONG STORY.
Author of "The Tory Lover" Has Laid the Scene Around Her Quaint Home -- How she Works.
Although "The Tory Lover" is the first long story that Miss Sarah Orne Jewett has ever written, the many charming New England tales that have come from her pen have kept her prominently before the reading public in this country for many years. Her new book has caused quite a sensation in literary circles and is like part of her personality, for the scene is laid in her own native town around the beautiful old colonial house where she was born and where she lives today, as her father and grandfather did before her.
Twenty years ago Sarah Orne Jewett's reputation as a writer of New England stories was established with the publication of "Deephaven," and as a painter of "down east" country life a she has never been excelled. Before her day writer depicted the phases of life she treats without making a burlesque of it. and she has shown that the country life and the country dialect hide some of the noblest and kindest hearts in the world. Of her first inspiration to write she says: "When I was fifteen, the first 'city boarders' began to make their appearance near Berwick. and the way they misconstrued the country people and made game of their peculiarities fired me with indignation. I determined to teach the world that country people were not the awkward ignorant set those people seemed to think. I wished the world to know their grand, simple lives."
Miss Jewett was born at South Berwick, Me., in one of the most beautiful old houses to be seen anywhere in New England. It dates back into the early part of the eighteenth century and was an old house even before her grandfather secured it. [The Jewett house was built between 1774 and 1778. Editor.] The house stands close to the street amid shrubbery and great elms that lend to it a rich background of green. In this eighteenth century house are many interesting rooms containing the most fascinating old fashioned mahogany furniture, high backed chairs, spindle legged escritoires and china cabinets full of rare treasures.
The author's desk stands in a corner of the upper hall in a cozy with a window looking upon the tree shaded village street. Pictures, flowers and books are everywhere. It is in this "den" that "The Tory Lover" was written, as were also the stories entitled "Deephaven," "A Country Doctor," "A Marsh Island," "The Country of the Pointed Firs" and "Lucy Garron's Lovers," the latter when Miss Jewett was only fourteen years of age. ["Jenny Garrow's Lovers," 1868. Until 1887, Jewett lived and worked not in the Jewett house, but next door in the Jewett-Eastman House. Furthermore, some of her writing was done in Boston, at the home of Annie Fields. Editor.]
Miss Jewett's father, who is dead, was a country doctor, and she believes the greatest part of her training for Authorship was acquired when as a child she drove with him through the country to visit his patients and carefully listen to what he said of the people and of nature, The old doctor, from a long and familiar intercourse with his humble patrons, had absorbed a vast amount of folklore and was a great story teller. Not a few of the tales with which he used to entertain his little companion while on their trips have been touched on by the authoress in her popular stories. She got most of her education at home under his wise direction. [Jewett did attend school, including the Berwick Academy, from which she graduated. Editor.]
There are few authoresses in this country who can turn out a good story as rapidly as Miss Jewett. She frequently writes 10,000 words a day, and many a delightful magazine sketch has been completed at a single sitting. She is very systematic, and her story is usually outlined in her mind before begun on paper. When she has a long story on hand, she writes from 2,000 to 3,000 words a day five days in the week.
In personal appearance Miss Jewett is tall and dignified, with a high bred grace and courtesy of manner which charm all with whom she comes in contact. She has a bright, piquant face that lights up beautifully as she talks and a low, pleasing voice. In conversation she is vivacious and interesting, selecting her words with a quick discrimination which shows her appreciation of the use and power of language
The New England rustic has attracted the attention of many writers, but few have shown an insight into this character equal to that of Miss Jewett. James Russell Lowell said of her just before his death, "Nothing more pleasingly characteristic of rural life in New England has been written than that from the pen of Miss Sarah Orne Jewett."
Note
This piece contains a number of questionable and factually incorrect statements, some of which have been noted in the text.
The Nashville American, 8 December 1901, p. 30
THE TORY LOVER. By Sarah Orne Jewett. Illustrated. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, publishers, For sale by Hunter & Welburn. Price. $1.50.Note
For love of charming Mary Hamilton, Roger Wallingford throws off his allegiance to King George and enlists under the banner of that gallant American, Paul Jones. A traitor on the ship, Dickson, betrays Roger, who is captured by the British. Dickson lead Jones and others to believe that he has only been a spy. But Mary Hamilton never doubts him, and sets about securing his release, which is finally accomplished, and the tale ends as all good romances should.
Of course, there is much of Paul Jones in the books and Miss Jewett writes a new character for him. He has been generally conceived as a rather profane and strenuous and noisy naval commander, who would rather [vie ? ] in the thunder and smoke of a sea fight against great odds than linger in the most fascinating female society. Miss Jewett reveals him as a lover, tender and true. Her description of the interview between Mary Hamilton and Jones, when the latter learns definitely that she loves Wallingford, is exquisitely done. There is a pathos in his words: "Oh, that I had only spoken! Glory has been a jealous mistress to me, and I dared not speak; I feared 't would cost me all her favor, if my thoughts were all for you. I could throw my hope of glory down at your feet now, if it were any use. I can do nothing without love. Oh, Mary, must you tell me that it is too late," and Mary "stood there as a ghost might stand by night to pity the troubles of men: she knew, with a woman's foresight, the difference it would make if she could only stand with love and patience by his side."* The story of Jones' baffled love is, throughout, portrayed with a fine and delicate touch which characterizes all of Miss Jewett's [ apparently missing text appears as the final words of the review -- work. The story ] has plenty of stirring incident and dramatic interest. It is a tale of courage and devotion to country, reassuring sincerity, and satisfactory literary style which fascinates the reader.
side: The reviewer has made slight alterations in the text of the quotation.
from "New Literature," Boston Daily Globe, 14 December 1901, p. 3.
The longest and strongest story Miss Sara[h] Orne Jewett has yet written, "The Tory Lover," (Houghton, Mifflin Co. Boston), ranks well among the best selling books of the season. France, England and America contribute scenery for the clever and engaging story, which is full of adventure and bright analysis of character. It affords a truthful and sympathetic picture of actual conditions in the heroic and historic days of gallant Paul Jones. Mary Hamilton's portrait forms the frontispiece of the exceedingly attractive holiday edition.
"New Novels." The Athenaeum 3876 (February 8, 1902) p. 173.THE author's real hero is that renegade Scotsman, John Paul or Paul Jones, but one can understand a good deal of sentiment in his favour from an American author. Here he appears as a gallant lover and perfect cavalier, though his rough methods at sea are not ignored. Perhaps the story would have gained interest had Jones's really valiant fight with the Serapis been included in its scope. His raid with the Ranger strikes one as rather impudent than heroic, though he did get Lady Stirling's silver spoons and frighten the fishermen at Whitehaven. The Tory lover, the nominal hero, is not wholly satisfactory. He sails with Jones, against his inclinations, in order to win the fair patriot Mary Hamilton; and the best part of the book deals with his life at sea, and the false position of a gentleman and a loyalist in such a galley. It must be acknowledged that the lady is a prize worth winning. Miss Jewett has a happy gift of description, and the old colonial families she introduces, with their neighbours and quaint dependents, are aptly depicted.
"The Tory Lover" Atlantic Monthly 89 (June 1902) pp. 22-3.
MISS SARAH ORNE JEWETT'S Revolutionary story has been very fortunate in winning the hearty favor of judicious critics as well as good readers. The Portsmouth Journal, which is published where the story opens, remarks that "the reader is bound to recognize in 'The Tory Lover' a faithfulness of incident, locality, and character which makes it a novel of unusual merit, easily ranking among the best productions of its class." The Book Buyer says that "of all the historical gallery to which our novelist friends have introduced us of late, Mary Hamilton is easily the most winsome." The St. Paul Globe thus makes a very good point, and an important one: "The difference between the average historical novel and this work of Miss Jewett's is the difference between the vital and spectacular elements in literature and life. Where others have laid hold of the surface facts merely, she has grasped the inner meaning." The San Francisco Bulletin pronounces it "a story of surpassing interest, skillfully blending history and fiction, and presenting a most artistic series of famous pictures." The public appreciation of "The Tory Lover" is shown by the fact that it has reached its sixth large printing.
"SIX MONTHS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE." The Saturday Review. (London) 93 (March 29, 1902) p. 405.New England is always in evidence in American fiction, and neither Miss Jewett* nor Miss Wilkins shows any signs of fading interest in a background of social life which both have brought before the imagination again and again with that freshness which comes from intimate knowledge and quick sympathy. In "The Tory Lover" Miss Jewett puts boldly to sea with Captain John Paul Jones and tells a stirring story, full of action and incident quite out of her customary field; but the starting-point of the novel is one of the most attractive homes of the colonial period, and the group of adventurers are typical New England characters of the Revolutionary period. "The Tory Lover" is written with care and with a skill born of long and loving practice, but Miss Jewett is not at her best in a novel of incident; she is a born painter of the quiet life.
* The reviewer spells her name "Jowett."
From "Le Roman Historique aux États-Unis" by Th. Bentzon (Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc), Revue des Deux Mondes (1 March 1906) pp. 699-704.
A Tory Lover [ American title: The Tory Lover ] has just taken its place in one of our most popular libraries ( 1 ), under the title The Story of a Loyalist. Praising its author is no longer necessary in France. Twenty years ago, readers of the Revue first encountered Sarah Jewett, who has become the official portrayer of New England, second only to Hawthorne, though without his degree of pessimism. Her impressions of nature, confined to the state of Maine, even then revealed a writer in the full sense of the word. Later, she presented artlessly, but with the penetrating originality which marks all that she touches, a novel derived from her own childhood, A Village Doctor [ American title, A Country Doctor ] (2). Since then, from year to year, have come strong and serious new titles, in which humor excludes neither tenderness nor sweetness.
The novelist, who has traveled since, always returns to her village of South Berwick in search of familiar landscapes and friendly faces; in this way she has brought us these small, genuine masterpieces: "Miss Tempy's Watchers," "Decoration day," "The Queen's Twin," "A Native of Winby," and so many others, one after the other, all of equal value, like pearls in a necklace. Nothing, however, not even the great success of one of her most recent books that is richer if not more perfect than the others, The Country of the Pointed Firs, could lead one to suppose that the author of these brief sketches of provincial life would yield one day to the temptation to approach a genre that so easily falls into convention and banality, the historical novel, a genre preferred, quite wrongly, over the novel of manners. Wasn't she sure to produce a work below her usual standard? This did not happen. Miss Jewett followed her familiar methods, knowing how to add to her usual precise observation of the facts all the necessary dramatic movement without departing from simplicity or truth.
As always, Jewett remains faithful to her method of painting only what surrounds her. It was in Berwick and in Portsmouth, places she knows so well, that her hero, Paul Jones, prepared the famous expedition of the Ranger, that poor little ship, which carried all the way to France, to have it recognized there, the nascent fortune of a great nation. Near her own family home in South Berwick flows the leaping Piscataqua River, on the banks of which Jones, the Scottish adventurer who had sworn himself to serve the future republic, receives in the first chapter the opulent hospitality of Colonel Hamilton. This introduction surprises in its depiction of colonial life, with a solid luxury and severe dignity unsuspected by those who persist in denying America a past. Around the captain, ready to carry to France the news of Burgoyne's capitulation, are grouped figures who, against the familiar background which Miss Jewett excels in rendering, stand out in relief with the frank realism of good Dutch portraits: Major Tilly Haggens, who fought often against the Indians, tall, heavy, rough-built and nevertheless not without a certain elegance, like a plump bottle of old burgundy; other notables in ruffles, cuffs, a red coat with velvet collar; the minister, of high ecclesiastical lineage, who, with his three-cornered hat, his ample frock coat, his long waistcoat with large pockets, the white collar that holds his chin very high and that is fastened behind his head with a silver buckle matching the buckles of his tight breeches and the other wide, flat buckles that adorn his shoes, looks, as much as a man can, like a serious folio with a clasp, his costume seemingly made for his person and corresponding to his interior equipment; and then the host, in a blue coat with red lapels, robust, with powdered hair and features marked with a willful and serious expression, that sort of brusque maturity which explains the success of a great ship owner, a merchant prince who has succeeded in all his land and sea ventures.A few well chosen words are enough to characterize each of them. The negroes as well, servants of these local powers, have the same air of well-nurtured importance as their masters. In the midst of this comfortably prosperous society, which Jones himself has never known, he passes, bowing to the right and to the left, as a sovereign might, with a stiffness he attributes to ship's cramp, the poor and lean captain, who nevertheless towers above them all by the force of his will and resolve, impatient, driven by his demon of military glory: "On his sailor's face with its distinctly marked features, in his lively eyes which did not seem to observe his immediate surroundings, but to look with a long gaze full of hope towards the horizon, there was an intense energy. He was small and a little stooped from living between decks; his sword, too long for him, struck the ground as he walked."
Though worn down by adversity, still Paul Jones falls in love, insofar as this is possible for a man for whom ambition is a tyrannical and jealous mistress. He sets his heart upon the most noble, the most endearing heroine that we have encountered in literature for a long time. Mary Hamilton is the fully realized American patriot or rebel, a person of both head and heart. Mary uses the power she has over the captain to get her young lover, the Tory Wallingford, on board the Ranger, and she uses Wallingford's youthful passion for her to win him over to the American cause, the party of freedom.
We are surprised that a female author could weave a solid fabric where the adventures of love and war intermingle, lending the book the double interest of history and psychology. On the other hand,would a masculine writer have been able to draw certain portraits of women; the great Tory lady standing up to the pitiless patriot mob that attacks her house; the servant-mistress Peggy and the helpers she leads with a beating drum, the young ladies, who are laughing and adorned in the evening, but are ready on the morrow for any sacrifice to resist English oppression and prepare the future of their liberated country. But could a man present this Mary Hamilton, who stands over them all, her rare type still to be found in the country where she is shown to be prudent and courageous, adroit and sincere, pushing self-control to the point of heroism, so reserved, so patient that one could see in her sometimes a coldness which is nothing but extraordinary self-possession? This poise is most vivid when she intrepidly crosses across the ocean in quest for the man she loves, to snatch him from the abominable English prison where rot the captives of rebellion. That he has betrayed his country she does not believe. Her faith in him endures these false accusations. Such women -- may their species multiply in all lands! -- embody the eternal feminine which elevates men above their limited selves; these women seem born to lead the men they enthrall toward greatness, while remaining faithful to them even in the worst adversity.
This is a novel not to be considered light reading. It includes diverse episodes of the highest order that we cannot recommend too highly. Among these are discussions between [ Benjamin ] Franklin and Paul Jones, his night attack on the English coast at Whitehaven, the meeting of Jones and Mary in Bristol's old abbey, concerning her search for Wallingford, with Paul Jones in disguise as he daringly scouts in England despite the price on his head. Even more impressive, perhaps, is the short, vibrant passage in which sounds the first salute accorded by a French warship to the American flag, which no nation had yet recognized.
The poor little Ranger is miserable and needing supplies and repairs when Jones arrives on the shores of France. Jones does not know what awaits him, disdain or sympathy, and there he is, on the coast of Brittany, near Quiberon, passing slowly, with the proudest air possible, between the formidable vessels of the French navy. The Ranger fires the thirteen guns of the regulation salute. Will we answer him, or will his salute be neglected like that of a pleasure boat whose passengers have waved their handkerchiefs?... Suddenly we see a puff of white smoke rising; then the powerful guns of the flagship shake the atmosphere one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine times... After which, they are silent, but the slopes of Carnac send back long echoes. Paul Jones calls to his helmsman: "-- You can tell the crew that this is France's salute to our Republic and the first tribute to our colors." All hear, and all understand that they have just born witness to the baptism of a great nation, while the little captain, raising his hat, stands motionless, his eyes fixed on the American flag.
The precision of the smallest details in this chapter, as sober as it is moving, reveals how thoughtfully Miss Jewett traveled in Brittany, following step by step along the coast, the actual route of the Ranger. On all points, she has researched in the same way in the most vivid and reliable sources. It would seem as if in Paris she had overheard Franklin restraining Paul Jones's teeming ambitions, and that in Bristol she had actually conversed with the emigrant royalists who were so surprised at being coldly received in the mother country where they no longer seem to belong. Everything has been closely studied, documented, reconstructed. If the French version of The Tory Lover had appeared a year earlier, we think that the public would have been more interested in an event that went almost unnoticed: the return of the ashes of the exiled Paul Jones. We little knew this great mariner who had the misfortune outlive his fame in obscurity.
Translation by Terry Heller and Jeannine Hammond.
Edited by Terry Heller, with assistance from Linda Heller