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and emerge, modestly yet virtuously shining, from the ordeal; that we put in our daily appearance at the Works—for a utility nowadays so vague that I'm fully aware (Lorraine isn't so much) of the deep amusement I excite there, though I also recognize how wonderfully, how quite charitably, they manage not to break out with it: bless, for the most part, their dear simple hearts!
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It's in fact in this beautiful desperation that we spend our days, that we face the pretty grim prospect of new ones, that we go and come and talk and pretend, that we consort, so far as in our deep-dyed hypocrisy we do consort, with the rest of the Family, that we have Sunday supper with the
Parents
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from 1907 to 1908. In serial form, the chapters were published anonymously, though there was an accompanying list of contributors and a teasing note that an "intelligent reader" would "experience no difficulty in determining which author wrote each chapter—perhaps. Elizabeth Jordan later utilized the
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developed, the plot increasingly focused on family misunderstandings and family rivalries, which were mirrored by the artistic rivalries of the authors. The writing of the novel became a contest as much as it was a collaboration, with each author trying hard to impose his vision on the entire work."
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It was
Howells's intention that each of the authors would examine the impact of Peggy's engagement on a different member of the Talbert family. The second chapter, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, immediately disrupted Howells's intended trajectory. Freeman apparently took issue with Howells's reference
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Howells was concerned about which writers would contribute, especially if he intended to contribute a chapter himself. As he wrote to Jordan, "If you find the scheme does not commend itself to the more judicious and able among the writers to whom you propose it, you had better drop it. I should not
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Their single state is a deliberate choice on their part, and men are at their feet. Single women have caught up with, and passed, old bachelors in the last half of the century. I don't think Mr. Howells recognizes this. He is thinking of the time when women of thirty put on caps, and renounced the
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Jordan, herself unmarried, was impressed by
Freeman's character and, as she called it, the "explosion of a bombshell on our literary hearthstone", but she dealt with considerable negative response from some of the other collaborators, particularly Howells and van Dyke. Howells, never particularly
125:, who (like Howells) would write one of the chapters herself. Howells's idea for the novel was to show how an engagement or marriage would affect and be affected by an entire family. The project became somewhat curious for the way the authors' contentious interrelationships mirrored the sometimes
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In his long, dense but insightful chapter, and with charged rhetoric reminiscent of his late novels, Henry James has the aesthetic son
Charles Talbert rail against the frustrations that he and his equally artistic wife Lorraine experience due to the claustrophobic realities of family life in his
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The novel's contemporary reception was favorable, with decent sales and mostly positive reviews. Its contemporary popularity was spurred by the literary novelty of the project, as well as the guesswork required from its initial anonymous publication, in addition to rumors of in-fighting between
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to the old maid aunt as a quiet old spinster and transformed her from a minor character to be pitied into a major one to be envied. Her character, Aunt
Elizabeth or "Lily", is a vibrant and sexually attractive woman who does not mind getting noticed by Peggy's fiancé.
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comfortable with frank sexuality, recoiled from
Freeman's spicy conception of a character he had intended as a harmless old lady. Van Dyke, who would eventually write the concluding chapter, reacted in a half-humorous, half-worried letter to Jordan:
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As subsequent critics have pointed out, the rest of the novel became an effort by the later writers to cope somehow with this introduction of Aunt
Elizabeth as a sexual competitor with Peggy for her fiancé's affections.
283:, and a more suitable mate for Peggy is found in a college professor named Stillman Dane. Peggy marries Dane and the couple sails off to Europe with Peggy's brother Charles and his wife Lorraine for a honeymoon tour.
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works that turns out ice-pitchers and other mundane household items. Daughter Peggy
Talbert has just returned from her coeducational college engaged to a harmless but rather weak young man named Harry Goward.
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like to appear in co-operation with young or unimportant writers." Jordan set about finding contributors, though only half of those approached agreed to the project. Howells had predicted that neither
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The highest paid of the contributors was Ward, who asked for $ 750. Van Dyke was paid $ 600, Brown $ 500, James $ 400, Cutting $ 350, Freeman $ 250, and
Howells contributed without additional payment.
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would be willing, though James ultimately did contribute. James, in fact, was immediately impressed with the idea and wrote to Jordan he was interested in writing any of several characters' chapters.
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Heavens! What a catastrophe! Who would have thought that the old maiden aunt would go mad in the second chapter? Poor lady. Red hair and a pink hat and boys in beau knots all over the costume. What
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family of authors". Jordan was excited and hoped "to bring together the greatest, grandest, most gorgeous group of authors ever collaborating on a literary production".
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Eventually, after many twists and turns introduced by the subsequent contributors, Harry Goward is dismissed as a suitor, Aunt
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James might as well have been talking about the frustrations that many of the authors felt with the "family" of their collaborators.
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world. That was because they married at fifteen and sixteen, and at thirty had about a dozen children. Now they simply do not do it.
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Freeman, who had been single until her marriage at age 49, defended herself to Jordan by noting the changing role of single women:
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Mr. Howells say? For my part I think it distinctly cruel work to put a respectable spinster into such a hattitude before the world.
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Kilcup, Karen L. "The Conversation of 'The Whole Family': Gender, Politics, and Aesthetics in Literary Tradition", from
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may have inspired the collaboration after previously suggesting a similar project involving himself,
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told in twelve chapters, each by a different author. This unusual project was conceived by novelist
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was probably the best-known author to contribute. The novel was serialized in
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In the opening chapter Howells introduces the Talbert family, middle-class
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The Twentieth-Century World of Henry James: Changes in His Work After 1900
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The Twentieth-Century World of Henry James: Changes in His Work After 1900
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The Dean of American Letters: The Late Career of William Dean Howells
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The Dean of American Letters: The Late Career of William Dean Howells
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The Dean of American Letters: The Late Career of William Dean Howells
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Making Noise, Making News: Suffrage Print Culture and U.S. Modernism
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was a mess!" Critic Alfred Bendixen sympathized when he wrote: "As
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636:(Karen L. Kilcup, editor). University of Iowa Press, 1999: 7–8.
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In a Closet Hidden: The Life and Work of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
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In a Closet Hidden: The Life and Work of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
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in 1907–08 and published as a book by Harper's in late 1908.
303:. He enlisted the help of Elizabeth Jordan, then editor of
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596:. The University of Massachusetts Press, 1996: 88–89.
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Family Plots: The De-Oedipalization of Popular Culture
676:. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014: 165–166.
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they described in their chapters. Howells had hoped
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411:First page of the first chapter of
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287:Composition and publication history
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1367:The Pot of Gold and Other Stories
388:The book was first serialized in
1359:Young Lucretia and Other Stories
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1149:Essays in London and Elsewhere
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236:Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
218:Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
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343:declined to take part and
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250:The Friend of the Family
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1133:A Little Tour in France
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214:The Married Daughter
182:Mary Stewart Cutting
155:William Dean Howells
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127:dysfunctional family
113:William Dean Howells
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345:Kate Douglas Wiggin
200:John Kendrick Bangs
178:The Daughter-in-Law
109:collaborative novel
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1181:The American Scene
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160:The Old-Maid Aunt
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263:Plot summary
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107:(1908) is a
103:
102:
101:
1109:Non-fiction
1082:Theatricals
820:Henry James
337:Henry James
273:silverplate
269:New England
245:Alice Brown
227:Edith Wyatt
209:Henry James
135:Henry James
1392:Categories
1261:Lamb House
996:The Outcry
876:Confidence
453:References
321:Bret Harte
313:Mark Twain
223:The Mother
151:The Father
131:Mark Twain
1221:Notebooks
1125:Hawthorne
53:Publisher
1354:" (1891)
1325:Pembroke
1023:Novellas
784:LibriVox
309:Harper's
45:Language
1239:Related
121:editor
84:Print (
48:English
40:Various
1378:(1974)
1370:(1892)
1362:(1892)
1328:(1894)
1317:Novels
1231:(1917)
1216:(1914)
1208:(1914)
1200:(1913)
1192:(1909)
1184:(1907)
1176:(1905)
1168:(1903)
1160:(1893)
1152:(1893)
1144:(1888)
1136:(1884)
1128:(1879)
1120:(1878)
1101:(1895)
1093:(1895)
1085:(1894)
1066:(1903)
1058:(1898)
1050:(1888)
1042:(1878)
1034:(1874)
1015:(1917)
1007:(1917)
999:(1911)
991:(1904)
983:(1903)
975:(1902)
967:(1901)
959:(1899)
951:(1897)
943:(1897)
935:(1896)
927:(1890)
919:(1888)
911:(1886)
903:(1886)
895:(1881)
887:(1880)
879:(1879)
871:(1878)
863:(1877)
855:(1875)
847:(1871)
836:Novels
735:
722:
700:
680:
660:
640:
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600:
580:
560:
540:
520:
500:
475:
96:317 pp
86:Serial
37:Author
1074:Plays
241:Peggy
93:Pages
733:ISBN
720:ISBN
698:ISBN
678:ISBN
658:ISBN
638:ISBN
618:ISBN
598:ISBN
578:ISBN
558:ISBN
538:ISBN
518:ISBN
498:ISBN
473:ISBN
361:will
335:nor
754:at
252:by
243:by
234:by
225:by
216:by
207:by
198:by
189:by
180:by
171:by
162:by
153:by
1394::
483:^
460:^
319:,
1350:"
1302:e
1295:t
1288:v
812:e
805:t
798:v
88:)
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