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Friends! Romans! Countryman! As you may recall, I set out in search of a William Dean Howells' book as slashy as The Coast of Bohemia is femslashy, and I have a lead! In fact, TWO leads! John W. Crowley's The Mask of Fiction helpfully lists two Howells books that feature romantic friendships between men: "Private Theatricals" (later published as Mrs. Farrell, under which title it is available on Gutenberg) and The Undiscovered Country, which does NOT appear to be available on Gutenberg, but never fear! I shall track it down.
Crowley quotes this passage from The Undiscovered Country, which Howells cut before publication. I will have to read the novel itself to decide if Howells cut it because he thought it was Too Much or if he just thought he'd hit the YOU ARE SO FASCINATING note too many times. (Note that fascinating is also Charmian's word for Cornelia in The Coast of Bohemia.)
I just!!!! Exclamation points times a thousand!!!!!!!
I am also delighted to inform you that Crowley says that Howells enjoyed romantic friendships himself in his youth. (However, one of his sources is My Literary Passions, which I have read, and I'm not sure I agree with Crowley's assessment of that friendship as romantic. So this perhaps should be taken with a grain of salt.) He also details Howells' friendship with Charles Warren Stoddard, nowadays a literary nonentity who is remembered (insofar as he is remembered) for having written a VERY gay book called South-Sea Idyls, which Howells loved and helped shepherd to publication. He also wrote a lengthy and favorable review, which I attempted to look up in the online Atlantic archives, but APPARENTLY the Atlantic has not digitized every single one of Howells' reviews, possibly because they want to break my heart.
(I should note that Howells did this sort of thing for MANY writers in the American literary scene: he appears to have known literally everybody and enthusiastically boosted many of them. He also championed Charlotte Perkins Gilman, personally finding a home for "The Yellow Wallpaper": "I could not rest until I had corrupted the editor of The New England Magazine into publishing it," Howells crowed. Years later he brought it back from obscurity by printing it in The Great American Short Stories, which also included a sketch by Stoddard.)
Stoddard was apparently a favorite of the whole Howells family, and Howells and Stoddard have a cute kind of flirtatious correspondence: "Whenever we feel gay or sad, we say, we wish Stoddard was here. Does everybody like you, and does it make you feel badly? Are you sure that you are worthy of our affection? If you have some secret sins or demerits, don't you think you ought to let us know them, so that we could love you less?" Howells teases, to which Stoddard responds with a LENGTHY account of his schoolboy crush on a classmate: "Me he ignored utterly even while I worshiped silently in his presence and secretly wished that I might die for his sake," Stoddard sighs. He continued to worship until the object of his adoration made some sign of returning his feelings - at which point Stoddard turned him down flat!
Howells replies, agreeing that Stoddard did quite right to turn on his idol. An idol has no business becoming human!
In 1901 Howells wrote a book called Literary Friends and Acquaintances, which cut off chronologically before he met Stoddard, so Stoddard wasn't in it. Concerned that Stoddard's feelings might be hurt, Howells sent Stoddard a poem:
If you are not in this book
My dear Stoddard, turn and look
in the author's heart, and there,
lightening, sweetening all its care,
mirrored in its most sacred place,
you shall see your own dear face.
Now, Howells was married and had three children and also writes about women the way that men who are attracted to women write about women (the mores of the time do not allow anyone to breast boobily, but there are moments when you just feel him posing his women characters and thinking "GOD she's looking fine"). He's just, like, enjoying a cute little flirtation with his friend, and apparently reading the resulting correspondence aloud to the whole family, to the enjoyment of everyone. (Stoddard meanwhile was sleeping his way across three continents and BREAKING FRANCIS MILLET'S HEART, as detailed in Jonathan Ned Katz's Love Stories, not that I'm bitter on Millet's behalf or anything. So Stoddard's not eating his heart out over Howells, but if he WAS, it was a well-deserved taste of his own medicine.) Apparently that was just something that straightish nineteenth century guys did sometimes. The more you know!
Crowley quotes this passage from The Undiscovered Country, which Howells cut before publication. I will have to read the novel itself to decide if Howells cut it because he thought it was Too Much or if he just thought he'd hit the YOU ARE SO FASCINATING note too many times. (Note that fascinating is also Charmian's word for Cornelia in The Coast of Bohemia.)
"And,--I'm fascinating?" asked Ford.
"Oh yes,--to women, and to undecided men like myself. Didn't you know it?"...
"Now you are flattering me," said Ford, with an ironical smile. "Be frank; you don't mean it."
"I'm doing you simple justice," returned Phillips. "And can't you see what an irresistible attraction you must naturally have for a man like me?"
"I've never been at pains to formulate you," said Ford. "I don't know what sort of man is like you."
I just!!!! Exclamation points times a thousand!!!!!!!
I am also delighted to inform you that Crowley says that Howells enjoyed romantic friendships himself in his youth. (However, one of his sources is My Literary Passions, which I have read, and I'm not sure I agree with Crowley's assessment of that friendship as romantic. So this perhaps should be taken with a grain of salt.) He also details Howells' friendship with Charles Warren Stoddard, nowadays a literary nonentity who is remembered (insofar as he is remembered) for having written a VERY gay book called South-Sea Idyls, which Howells loved and helped shepherd to publication. He also wrote a lengthy and favorable review, which I attempted to look up in the online Atlantic archives, but APPARENTLY the Atlantic has not digitized every single one of Howells' reviews, possibly because they want to break my heart.
(I should note that Howells did this sort of thing for MANY writers in the American literary scene: he appears to have known literally everybody and enthusiastically boosted many of them. He also championed Charlotte Perkins Gilman, personally finding a home for "The Yellow Wallpaper": "I could not rest until I had corrupted the editor of The New England Magazine into publishing it," Howells crowed. Years later he brought it back from obscurity by printing it in The Great American Short Stories, which also included a sketch by Stoddard.)
Stoddard was apparently a favorite of the whole Howells family, and Howells and Stoddard have a cute kind of flirtatious correspondence: "Whenever we feel gay or sad, we say, we wish Stoddard was here. Does everybody like you, and does it make you feel badly? Are you sure that you are worthy of our affection? If you have some secret sins or demerits, don't you think you ought to let us know them, so that we could love you less?" Howells teases, to which Stoddard responds with a LENGTHY account of his schoolboy crush on a classmate: "Me he ignored utterly even while I worshiped silently in his presence and secretly wished that I might die for his sake," Stoddard sighs. He continued to worship until the object of his adoration made some sign of returning his feelings - at which point Stoddard turned him down flat!
Howells replies, agreeing that Stoddard did quite right to turn on his idol. An idol has no business becoming human!
In 1901 Howells wrote a book called Literary Friends and Acquaintances, which cut off chronologically before he met Stoddard, so Stoddard wasn't in it. Concerned that Stoddard's feelings might be hurt, Howells sent Stoddard a poem:
If you are not in this book
My dear Stoddard, turn and look
in the author's heart, and there,
lightening, sweetening all its care,
mirrored in its most sacred place,
you shall see your own dear face.
Now, Howells was married and had three children and also writes about women the way that men who are attracted to women write about women (the mores of the time do not allow anyone to breast boobily, but there are moments when you just feel him posing his women characters and thinking "GOD she's looking fine"). He's just, like, enjoying a cute little flirtation with his friend, and apparently reading the resulting correspondence aloud to the whole family, to the enjoyment of everyone. (Stoddard meanwhile was sleeping his way across three continents and BREAKING FRANCIS MILLET'S HEART, as detailed in Jonathan Ned Katz's Love Stories, not that I'm bitter on Millet's behalf or anything. So Stoddard's not eating his heart out over Howells, but if he WAS, it was a well-deserved taste of his own medicine.) Apparently that was just something that straightish nineteenth century guys did sometimes. The more you know!
