Columbia Library columns (v.7(1957Nov-1958May))

(New York :  Friends of the Columbia Libraries.  )

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  v.7,no.2(1958:Feb): Page 6  



6                                     Clara M. Kirk

pamphlet, gayly adorned w ith btightly-eolorcd illusttations of the
well-known March family, was so attractive, ten or twelve copies
v\'ere secreted when the issue was destroyed and are now to be
found in the hands of a few libraries and private book-dealers. Since
the Boston and Maine Railroad took over the Fitchburg Railroad
in 1900, destroying the papers, we are not likely to learn more of
the story of the book from the point of view of the railroad; sixteen
letters exchanged between Howells and his literary agent, James R.
Osgood, however, state the authot's posinon very clearly. Only
one of these letters is included in The Life rn Letters of William
Dean Howells (edited by .Mildred Howells, 1928); the remaining
fifteen are still scattered in libraries from Los Angeles to Boston.
The ptesent writet has been able, from a study of these letters, to
support the conjecture that the copy of Niagara Revisited owned
by Columbia was a trial copy.

The exchange of letters between Howells and his agent as to the
disposition of Niagara Revisited took place in the year 1882-83,
after Howells had resigned from the Atlantic and set out on his trip
to Fngland and Italy. The letters make it plain that Osgood had
some difficulty in disposing of the manusctipt but that it was
finally sold to the Atlantic, where it appeated in May, 1883. The
cover of the pamphlet states that it was "published by D. Dalziel,
Chicago," but makes no reference to the Fitchburg Railroad. In
italics under the title is the additional information, "Published by
arrangements with James R. Osgood & Co., Publishers, Boston."
The correspondence which was continued after Howells's return
to this country in July, 1883, indicates that, in fact, there was also
"an arrangement" between D. Dalziel and the Fitchburg Railroad,
whereby the profits from the publication of the pamphlet were to be
shared. The trial issue owned by the Columbia Library was evi¬
dently submitted to Osgood with no advettisements; these were
added later and without the consent of eithct Howells or Osgood.
When Howells returned to the United States in the summer of
1883 and discovered that the Fitchburg Railroad had not only
vulgarized his essay by sixteen pages of blatant advertising, but
  v.7,no.2(1958:Feb): Page 6