Frederick Philip Grove
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Frederick Philip Grove (February 14, 1879-August 19, 1948) was a German-Canadian author.
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[edit] Early life
He was born on in Radomno, East Prussia, but was brought up in Hamburg where he graduated with the "Abitur" from the famous Gymnasium Johanneum in 1898. After studying Classical Languages & Archaeology in Bonn, he became a prolific translator of World Literature and a minor literary figure in Stefan George's group, the Georgekreis, around 1900.
[edit] Emigration
He was imprisoned for fraud in 1903-04, lived in Wollerau, Switzerland, Paris-Plage, France, and Berlin, from where he transferred to North America on the White Star Liner Megantic in late July 1909. His wife Else joined him a year later in Pittsburgh, and in her papers at the University of Maryland, College Park, it is attested that the couple farmed near Sparta, Kentucky, until 1911, when Greve left her permanently. She modeled in nearby Cincinnati, and later became well-known in New York dada circles as Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven.
Grove arrived in Manitoba, Canada, in 1912. He first taught in rural areas, but devoted himself entirely to writing after he settled in Rapid City, Manitoba, in 1922. In 1927, Grove and his wife Catherine lost their only child Phyllis May shortly before her twelfth birthday.
In 1928-29, Grove went on three coast-to-coast lecture tours, and then the couple moved to Ontario in the fall of 1929. There, his son Arthur Leonard Grove was born on October 14, 1930. Grove briefly became an editor with Graphic Publishers, before moving to Simcoe, Ontario, where he continued to write. He suffered a second, crippling stroke in 1946.
[edit] Pseudonyms
[edit] FPG
Grove's most clever and obvious pseudonym is FPG: he used these initials on both sides of the Atlantic, for his legal birth name Felix Paul Greve and his Canadian name Frederick Philip Grove. Queen's University Professor D. O. Spettigue, who discovered Grove's true identity in October 1971 in the British Museum, published his sensational finding in his 1973 book FPG: The European Years.
[edit] Grove
The name Grove itself is an elegant modification of the author's real name Greve. On the Immigration Manifesto of the White Star Liner Megantic on July 31, 1909, it appears that Grove's name was smudged, leaving the nature of the central vowel uncertain, though it looks like an "o". Possibly, the German Gothic writing in Greve's passport left it open to a variety of interpretations, & Grove was non-committal as to its true spelling.
[edit] Andrew R. Rutherford
Grove suggested the name "Andrew R. Rutherford" as a pseudonym for his first Canadian book publication Over Prairie Trails (1922). The same name appears in relation to his unpublished typescript in the University of Manitoba Archives, Jane Atkinson (ca. 1923, e-publ. 2000). This name is a direct reference to Grove's friend Herman Kilian's maternal grandfather, a renowned Scottish judge. Though Kilian had Grove arrested, tried & sentenced for fraud in May 1903, Grove appropriated Kilian's entire family background for his invented Canadian autobiography in the early 1920s, except that he claimed to be of Scottish-Swedish rather than Scottish-German origin.
[edit] Gerden & Thorer
Only two pseudonyms are attested in Grove's correspondence with Insel Publishers: he used F. C. Gerden for translations of decadent literature (Dowson, Browning), and Konrad Thorer for translations of Cervantes & Lesage.
[edit] Fanny Essler
In 1904-05, Greve published an accomplished, Petrarchan poetry cycle with his lover Else Endell, under the joint pseudonym Fanny Essler in Die Freistatt. In a revealing letter to Gide [Oct. 17, 1904], Greve explained daring plans concerning the so-called 'Fanny Essler' complex, which included his first novel about Else's life, which was entitled Fanny Essler (1905).
[edit] Bibliography: Greve, 1901-1909
- Wanderungen (Poems) - 1902
- Helena und Damon (Play) - 1902
- Gedichte / Ein Portrait: Drei Sonette / Gedichte von Fanny Essler (joint pseud. for Greve & Else von Freytag-Loringhoven) - Die Freistatt, 1904/5
Greve's & Freytag-Loringhovens 'Fanny Essler' Poems, March 2005 e-Ed.
- Fanny Essler: ein Berliner Roman (about Else von Freytag-Loringhoven) - 1905
- Maurermeister Ihles Haus (about Else von Freytag-Loringhoven) - 1906
[edit] Bibliography: Grove, 1914-1948
- Rousseau als Erzieher (Essay) - Der Nordwesten (Winnipeg), 1914
- Over Prairie Trails (Essays) - 1922
- Turn of the Year (Essays) - 1923
- Settlers of the Marsh (Novel)- 1925
- A Search for America (Autobiogr. Novel)- 1927
- Our Daily Bread (Novel - 1928
- It Needs to Be Said (Essays) - 1929
- The Yoke of Life (Novel) - 1930
- Fruits of the Earth (Novel) - 1933
- The Master of The Mill (Novel) - 1944
- In Search of Myself (Autobiography) - 1946 (Won Governor General's Award)
- Consider Her Ways (Novel) - 1947
- Tales from the Margin (Short Stories) - 1971
- Letters of Frederick Philip Grove [& Felix Paul Greve] (Correspondence) - 1976
- Poems/Gedichte by/von Frederick Philip Grove, Felix Paul Greve, und 'Fanny Essler' - 1993
- Jane Atkinson (ms. Novel, ca. 1923, e-publ.) - 2000
[edit] e-Editions
- Gedichte / Ein Portrait: Drei Sonette / Gedichte von Fanny Essler (joint pseud. for Greve & Else von Freytag-Loringhoven) - Die Freistatt, 1904/5Greve's & Freytag-Loringhovens 'Fanny Essler' Poems, March 2005 e-Ed.
- Jane Atkinson (ms. Novel, ca. 1923, e-publ.) - 2000Grove's Novel Jane Atkinson
- A Search for America (Autobiogr. Novel, e-publ.)- 2001 & 2005Grove's Novel A Search for America
[edit] FPG (Greve/Grove) chronology and "Solar Grove" portrait
[edit] F.P. Grove at the Gutenberg project
Texts below provided by Gutenberg Australia or the University of Manitoba.
- Consider Her Ways (1947)[1]
- Fruits of the Earth (1933)[2]
- The Master of the Mill (1944)[3]
- Our Daily Bread (1928)[4]
- Settlers of the Marsh (1925)[5]
[edit] Source collections
Grove's papers were acquired by the University of Manitoba from his widow in the early 1960s (Mss 2, 24 Boxes). -- D. O. Spettigue's research papers, documenting the discovery of the FPG identity, were added in 1986, with an additional cluster concerning Greve's correspondence with A. Gide, K. Wolfskehl, O. A. H. Schmitz, but most importantly, Else von Freytag-Loringhoven's autobiographical writings, arriving in 1995 (Mss 57, 16 Boxes). -- Margaret Stobie's collection (Mss 13)documents Grove's early teaching activities in Manitoba, and contains Grove's first Canadian publication, the sprawling article "Rousseau als Erzieher" (Der Nordwesten, Nov./Dec. 1914). -- Dr. Divay's Research papers (Mss12) contain many documents pertaining to discoveries such as Greve's mss. poems submitted in 1902 for publications in Stefan George's prestigious Blätter für die Kunst, several sonnets he translated from Dante's Vita Nuova in 1898 [both from the Stefan-George-Archiv in Stuttgart, courtesy Dr. Ute Oelmann], seven poems published in 1904/5 under the joint pseud. 'Fanny Essler' in Die Freistatt, Greve's passage to North America from Liverpool to Montreal in July 1909, the Bonanza farm "in the Dakotas" described in A Search for America (1925), and Else & Greve's Sparta, Kentucky, location in 1910/11. -- The Grove Library Collection of some 500 titles contains many of the incredible number of books Grove translated into German when he was Greve, & the FPG Translations Collection reflects an almost complete record of these titanic efforts. -- The international anniversary symposium "In Memoriam FPG: 1879-1948-1998" has been recorded on 12 videos & made available for public viewing since early 1999. -- A website devoted to FPG (Greve/Grove) & Else von Freytag-Loringhoven has been established in 1995.
