Frederick Philip Grove (February 14, 1879–1948) was born Felix Paul Greve in Radomno, West Prussia, German Empire (now in Poland). He was best known as a prolific translator before he left Berlin for start a new life in North America in late July 1909. In 1912, he came to Manitoba, where he first taught school in Haskett, Winkler, Virden, Gladstone, & finally Rapid City, from where he emerged as a Canadian author in 1922. He died in 1948 on his estate in Simcoe, Ontario, where he had resided since 1930.
Contents |
"Solar Grove" (UMA 1996)
"Six Times Solar Grove" (UMA 2005)
The Canadian author Frederick Philip Grove (February 14, 1879-August 19, 1948) was actually a German-Canadian author after the fact: he was born Felix Paul Greve in Radomno, West Prussia (Poland after 1918), and grew up in Hamburg. When he arrived in Manitoba in 1912, he adopted the name Grove along with his new Canadian identity. In his autobiographies he claimed to be of Anglo-Swedish descent, and only twenty-five years after his death did D. O. Spettigue, Queen's University, uncover who he really was.
He was born in Radomno, West 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 George-Kreis, around 1900. During his year in Munich, he courted Karl Wolfskehl, and briefly shared an address with Thomas Mann at the Pension Gisels in Aug./Sept. 1902.
In early 1903, he "eloped" with Else Endell, wife of his friend August Endell, the well-known Jugendstil architect, to Palermo. He was imprisoned in Bonn in 1903-04 for having defrauded another friend, Herman Kilian, whose Anglo-German ancestry he would later appropriate for himself in his Canadian autobiographies.
From 1904 to early 1906, when he returned to Berlin, he lived with Else in voluntary exile, first in Wollerau, Switzerland, then in Paris-Plage, France, from where paid H. G. Wells a few visits in his Sandhurst villa just across the Channel.
From Berlin he hurriedly transferred to North America on the White Star Liner Megantic in late July 1909. He had double-sold his latest translation, Swift's Prosa Werke in four volumes (from Temple Scott's ed. which is extant in Grove's Library Collection at the UMA).
Four details planted on the very opening pages of Grove's 1927 Search for America led to the discovery of FPG's passage in October 1998, shortly after the "In Memoriam FPG: 1879-1948-1998" Symposium commemorating the 50th Anniversary of his death.
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. Greve moved west and stayed on a huge Bonanza Farm near Fargo in the late summer of 1912 (it could be identified from the author's autobiographical descriptions as the Amenia & Sharon Land Company in 1996).
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 Wiens 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, their son Arthur Leonard Grove was born on October 14, 1930 (He died in Toronto in October 2006, just a few days shy of his 76th Birthday).
Grove briefly became an editor with Graphic Publishers, who had published his first autobiographical novel A Search for America in 1927, before moving to Simcoe, Ontario. From there, he continued to write despite increasing ill-health, until he suffered a crippling stroke in late 1946.
Detailed Chronicle of FPG's two lives in Europe & America:
Though Greve used so many false names that Karl Wolfskehl called him a "Pseudologe" & referred to his "Munchhausiaden", only two are attested with certainty (2.4 below) so far. Grove offered "potboilers" & erotic fiction under assumed names as well, but one highly revealing pseudonym is on file in his UM mss poetry (2.3). It is more than likely that further pen-names will eventually come to light in Europe & North America.
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.
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 crucial central vowel uncertain, though it looks like an "o". Possibly, the German Gothic writing in Greve's passport left his name open to a variety of interpretations, & Grove was non-committal as to its true spelling.
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. 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. 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).
Felix Paul Greve, 1901-1909
Frederick Philip Grove, 1914-1948===
Posthumous
Related e-Editions by/about FPG (Greve/Grove) at the University of Manitoba [1] "Greve's & Freytag-Loringhovens 'Fanny Essler' Poems: FPG's or Else's?"] - 2005
Grove e-Editions at Gutenberg Projects In addition to the UMA e-Texts listed above, the following texts are provided by Don Lainson for Gutenberg Project of Australia or, in the case of Over Prairie Trails, by Project Gutenberg. The recently established Gutenberg Project Canada has, so far, only added It needs to be Said as an original contribution in this list.
====FPG (Greve/Grove) Source- & Research Collections====at the University of Manitoba
The FPG (Greve/Grove) & FrL Collections Website at the University of Manitoba Archives (UMA) contain numerous big & small e-texts by/about FPG and FrL, notably:
The Frederick Philip Grove Papers (Mss 2, 24 Boxes) contain many published and unpublished manuscripts and typescripts and six mss. German poems, were acquired by the University of Manitoba from his widow Catherine Wiens Grove in the early 1960s.
Professor D. O. Spettigue's Research Papers - (Mss 57, 1985 & 1995) document the sensational discovery of the FPG identity in 1971, were added in 1986. They also included two letters Thomas Mann sent to Grove in 1939.
Professor 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" in the German newspaper Der Nordwesten (Nov./Dec. 1914).
Dr. Gaby Divay's Research Papers - (Mss 12, 1986-) contain many documents pertaining to FPG & FrL discoveries such as:
FPG Book Collections: Greve's Translations & Grove's Library The UMA hold all of Grove's and Greve's known Publications. Canadian & some foreign Theses are also extant in various formats.
The Grove Library & the Greve Translations Collections are available online:
"In Memoriam FPG": 1998 Anniversary Symposium" The international anniversary symposium "In Memoriam FPG: 1879-1948-1998" was recorded on 12 videos.
In 2007, they were digitized & became the Symposium's e-Proceedings.
FPG & FrL Endowment (1995ff) An FPG & FrL Endowment Fund devoted to FPG (Greve/Grove) & Else von Freytag-Loringhoven projects was established in 1995/96. Promotional brochures, various e-text publications, and the FPG & FrL Website above were partly or entirely funded by this endowment.
External links