James Thomas Fields

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For the American soldier and Medal of Honor recipient, see James H. Fields.

James Thomas Fields (December 31, 1817 – April 24, 1881) was an American publisher and author.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Fields was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. His father, a sea captain, died before Fields was three.[1] At the age of fourteen, he took a job at the Old Corner Bookstore in Boston.[1] Afterwards he wrote for the newspapers, and in 1835 he read an anniversary poem entitled "Commerce" before the Boston Mercantile Library Association. In 1839 he joined William Ticknor and became junior partner in the publishing and bookselling firm known after 1846 as Ticknor & Fields, and after 1868 as Fields, Osgood & Company.

He was the publisher of the foremost contemporary American writers, with whom he was on terms of close personal friendship, and he was the American publisher of some of the best-known British writers of his time, some of whom he also knew intimately. The first collected edition of Thomas De Quincey's works (20 vols., 1850-1855) was published by his firm. As a publisher he was characterized by a somewhat rare combination of keen business acumen and sound, discriminating literary taste, and as a man he was known for his geniality and charm of manner. Acknowledging Fields's influence in the literary scene, Nathaniel Parker Willis once wrote to him, "Your press is the announcing-room of the country's Court of Poetry."[2]

In 1862–1870, as the successor of James Russell Lowell, he edited The Atlantic Monthly. In 1871 Fields retired from business and from his editorial duties, and devoted himself to lecturing and writing. He also edited, with Edwin P. Whipple, A Family Library of British Poetry (1878). His chief works were the collection of sketches and essays entitled Underbrush (1877) and the chapters of reminiscence composing Yesterdays with Authors (1871) in which he recorded his personal friendship with William Wordsworth, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne and others. He died in Boston on April 24, 1881.

In addition to his work as a publisher and essayist, Fields wrote poetry. A number of his works are collected in his book Ballads and Verses published in 1880. This volume contains the poem Ballad of the Tempest which includes the famous lines:

"We are lost!" the captain shouted
As he staggered down the stairs


His second wife, Annie Adams Fields, whom he married in 1854, was also an author. She wrote his biography Memoir of James T. Fields, by his Wife (Boston, 1881), and Authors and Friends (Boston, 1896) which also makes mention of him.

[edit] Legacy

Fields was known in his lifetime as one of the most successful and shrewd book promoters, working at a time when bribery was typical in the publishing culture.[1] Hawthorne said he owed his success as a writer to him:

I care more for your good opinion than for that of a host of critics, and have excellent reason for so doing; inasmuch as my literary success, whatever it has been or may be, is the result of my connection with you.[1]

Fields is featured in Matthew Pearl's novel The Dante Club, and mentioned in the 1994 film version of Little Women.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Miller, Edwin Haviland. Salem Is My Dwelling Place: A Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991: 281. ISBN 0877453322
  2. ^ Brooks, Van Wyck. The Flowering of New England. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1952: 495.

[edit] External links

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