Criticism of G. P. R. James

Late in 1851, G. P. R. James was another idol of Berkshire, like Hawthorne and Melville.  Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker observe that Herman Melville's mother Maria

"bestowed high respect on any man of high literary reputation and unimpeachable Christian principles, such as G. P. R. James, the popular novelist who had recently settled near Stockbridge." (Reading Melville's Pierre, 13)

Higgins and Parker cite Parker's biography (1.829-30) on Maria Melville's regard for James as "the great novelist." She called him that in a letter to her daughter, Herman Melville's sister Augusta. At one point in the letter, Maria describes a party where the Melvilles socialized with the great novelist's wife, but missed the absent Mr. James.

At his blog Fragments from a Writing Desk, Parker gives more of the 5 November 1851 letter from Maria Melville to Augusta. Here's some of it, including Maria's reference to G. P. R. James as "the great novelist":

Mrs James is agreeable, does not dress well, is thin, but badly form'd, her rich silk dress was not well made. . . . Mr James has purchase'd a farm near Stockbridge, his son is to manage it. The author is going to build upon this farm & locate himself permanently on the expiration of their present lease--which was taken for two years.
Mr & Mrs Sedgwick on the entrance of Mrs James both ask'd for her husband, she slowly & very quietly said, Mr James beg'd me to say that he had "commenced a new book to day," & could not break out on any account. Bessie Sedgwick says he snuffs to such a degree that his bosom is cover'd with the dust, and you can't help inhaling some of the particles when you sit beside him. Our disappointment was very great at not seeing the great novelist. (transcribed by Hershel Parker)

Two months later, James receives detailed consideration in the January 1852 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border, when the narrating captain of dragoons dissects James's 1843 novel The False Heir in conversation about books and authors with his Imaginary Friend. I. F. for short.

Verbal and thematic connections to Melville's writings are demonstrated in previous posts on the quirk of repeating speech and the complaint about artificial plot twists. What strikes me now is the timing of the criticism, and its evident importance to the writer or more likely the ghostwriter. In the 1857 book version, this unusual significance is attested by the synoptic chapter headings in the table of contents, where the dialogue is described as Criticism of J. P. R. James.

The 1859 printing is the same except for the title page (updated to reflect Philip St George Cooke's promotion to Colonel) and repeats the error of J. P. R. instead of the correct G. P. R. for George Payne Rainsford James. Not exactly a common error, though Allen Cunningham's 1834 Biographical and Critical History provides one early example of the same thing.

UPDATE: James's offending sentence on the bad influence of Americanism, which supposedly undermines social order and high culture, is the sort of thing Melville argued against in the first book of Pierre. There Melville self-consciously aimed to "poetically establish the richly aristocratic condition of Master Pierre Glendinning." (Pierre, 1852)  And he kept at it. Trying still to counter the kind of disdain for "Americanism" that James had coolly exhibited in The False Heir, Melville urged Richard Bentley to consider the popular appeal of his new book as a treatment of

"a new & elevated aspect of American life." (April 16, 1852)

January 1852:

I. F. — What would you give to see a late paper?

"You have me there! I have a weakness for a damp newspaper; — let me see — it is now eight weeks since we have had news. But I discovered a copy of James's False Heir with my baggage; that, in my mental famine, has been quite a feast."

I. F. — Do you like it ?

"I think he has exhausted his best powers: the plot turns solely on a worn-out incident; the real or pretended substitution of infants. James has at last committed the folly, which, first or last, all the British authors seem to fall into — I mean a sneer, or slander, on us Americans. Strange, indeed, that a writer who has made friends of the readers of a great nation, should without any good object turn their finer feelings into contempt or anger, by a few motions of his pen. Ah! deliver us from the temptation of a sneer! But this is coolly and deliberately done."

I. F. — And what is it?

"I say Americanism advisedly; for republicanism is a very different thing, and does not imply a rejection of refinement in the higher classes of society." [quoting James as narrator in The False Heir]

I. F. — He pins his faith then upon the mercenary class of tourists; for he has never visited us. Did you ever remark that his valets are often the most intelligent and quickwitted of his characters?

"It is the case in this very work. The hero is a lad of seventeen; old enough to fall in love, and but little else. St. Medard is a mere abstraction, De Langy a cipher, Artonne a riddle, Monsieur L. a man in a mask who puts himself in the way sufficiently to give some interesting trouble and help out the plot. In the most commonplace manner, he has thrown the hero and favorite characters into difficulties for the transparent object of a final triumph; he disinherits the hero, shipwrecks his best friend, St. Medard; confines Artonne in prison for murder, and last, not least, sends his best-drawn character, Marois [Marais], to the galleys!

I. F. — James has an extraordinary habit of making his spokesmen repeat the first sentence of their speeches, thus — "I don't know, sir; I don't know, sir," — "That's a pity — that's a pity !" Since I have noticed it, it always makes me nervous!

"One of the last announcements I read before I left home, was, that he had engaged to write a 'serial' for the Dublin University Magazine; sorry I am, but such is the accustomed drivel of exhausted minds."

I. F. — After all, James has been a most effective moralist; and we owe him much.