Contemporary Biography [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512803723

Citation preview

CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY

CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY By Mark Longaker

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS Philadelphia 1934

Copyright 1934 UNIVERSITY O F P E N N S Y L V A N I A

Manufactured

PRESS

in the United States of

London Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press

America

To

DANIEL LONGAKER

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

AM indebted to the following authors and publishers for their permission to quote illustrative passages: to Harcourt, Brace and Company for quotations from Lytton Strachey's Books and Characters, Eminent Victorians, and Queen Victoria; to the Houghton Mifflin Company for extracts from Gamaliel Bradford's Biography and the Human Heart, Saints and Sinners, A Naturalist of Souls and the essay "Psychography"; to the D. Appleton-Century Company for passages from André Maurois' Aspects of Biography, Disraeli, and Byron; to Little, Brown and Company for several generous quotations from Emil Ludwig's Gifts of Life and Goethe; to the J. B. Lippincott Company for materials from Hilaire Belloc's Napoleon and Cranmer; to E. P. Dutton and Company for passages from Belloc's The Eye-Witness; and to G. P. Putnam's Sons for excerpts from Belloc's Marie Antoinette. Mr. Philip Guedalla has kindly given me permission to quote from Fathers of the Revolution, Masters and Men, and The Missing Muse. Among other obligations which gratitude prompts me to mention are the generosity of the Faculty Research Committee of the University of Pennsylvania, and the suggestions of Mr. Edward O'Neill, whose robust criticism has been a source of guidance and delight.

I

M. L. May 7, 1934

FOREWORD

RiTiciSM, curiously enough, leaves our literary contemporaries

almost entirely in the hands of the reviewers. The impressive interest which has been shown of late in biography suggests that contemporary Life-writing deserves more than the notices which appear in the newspapers. There is truth, no doubt, in the observation that critical perspective is warped by proximity; but it is likewise to be observed that a contemporary point of view is valuable in forming a correct judgment. The studies which form this book may have only the utility of bringing together in a convenient and, I hope, agreeable way the whimsical reflections of one whose point of view is neither strictly contemporary nor strictly impartial; and again, they may help to bring to the critical standards of biography a much-needed definiteness. At least, the book was written with that intent.

CONTENTS

Page

I II

The Vogue of Contemporary Biography

3

The Art of Lytton Strachey

29

III

A Naturalist of Souls: Gamaliel Bradford

67

IV

M. Maurois Changes His Method

91

ν VI VII VIII

The Popular and Prolific Herr Ludwig

12 7

Erudition and Epigram: Mr. Philip Guedalla

l6j

Bias and Brilliance: Mr. Hilaire Belloc

I93

Some American Biographers

221

Index

2*3

THE VOGUE OF CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY We care most for those portraits in which -we find ourselves VOLTAIRE

THE VOGUE OF CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY

B

IOGRAPHY

has become one of our most popular literary forms.

Its vogue rivals that of the novel. Babbitt likes nothing better than a good biography, and Mr. Gradgrind of the conservatives nods knowingly at the mention of The Tudor Wench. Men who read little else read Lives; and those who for long have had the novel, the drama, and the essay as their chief literary nourishment, have come to recognize biography as a form which demands attention. Sales records, classified lists of "Latest Books Received," and the many reviews which appear in our periodicals, all indicate that Life-writing is receiving unparalleled attention. Growing out of this widespread interest, a much-needed critical literature has begun to flourish in which biography is examined as an art, as a phase of history, and as a clinic for psychological experiment. Even "The Doctor Looks at Biography." A vast number of critical articles are appearing under such interest-provoking titles as "The New Biography," "Biography Drifts Toward the Novel," "The Modern Historical School for Scandal," and "Debunkery and Biography," in most of which contemporary Life-writing is viewed not only as a by-product of the times, but as a powerful force on the mind of the age as well. The passing of hero worship has been much lamented; and one critic, sad at the thought that Rudolf Rassendyl of The Prisoner of Zenda is now relegated to the gallery which has been put aside for characters that are jejune, blames the psychology and ethics of contemporary biography for the patronizing smile with which the age views Ruritanian characters. Unfortunately, perhaps, the modern reader, filled with the psychoanalytical treatment of inhibitions and aberrations, finds Ruritania a land scarcely worth visiting. )

4

CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY

The wave of approval which greeted the first products of the contemporary school, and which continued to rise during the middle twenties, gave some of the more conservative critics cause for alarm. "We are in for it now," observed Chauncey Tinker in 1925. "As a result of the popularity of M. Maurois and of his ironical English predecessor, Mr. Strachey, we must brace ourselves for a rushing flood of these novelistic biographies. Hardly an author of the nineteenth century, except Alfred Lord Tennyson, can hope to escape." A less serious critic of the times offered the whimsical but pointed suggestion that historical figures should be protected from too many biographers by law. It is true that if the torrent of Lives continues to fall upon us, a Commissioner of Biography should be appointed in Washington, who, with a large staff of assistants, would issue permits only to those writers who have more than a nimble pen, and who have a subject which has not been treated more than ten times during the year. Heavy fees would accompany the granting of a license to write about Washington, Lincoln, Napoleon or any of Queen Victoria's Prime Ministers. The license fee for Hannibal and Vice-President Garner would not be so high, but the tax for Cairol of Roumania and Al Capone would be prohibitive save for writters like Herr Ludwig who have gone to work in Hollywood. Suclh a Commissioner would try to guarantee the great figures of hist