George Wharton James
| George Wharton James | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Born |
27 September 1858 Lincolnshire, England |
| Died | 1923 |
| Occupation | lecturer, photographer, journalist |
| Subject | California and the American Southwest |
George Wharton James (27 September 1858[1] – 1923) was a prolific popular lecturer, photographer and journalist, writing more than 40 books and many articles and pamphlets on California and the American Southwest.
Biography
James was born in Lincolnshire, England. He was ordained as a Methodist minister and came to the United States in 1881, serving in parishes in Nevada and southern California. However, in 1889 he was sued for divorce, accused by his wife with committing numerous acts of adultery. He subsequently underwent an ecclesiastical trial, charged with real estate fraud, using faked credentials, and sexual misconduct. He was defrocked, although he was later reinstated. He had a long-running feud with Charles Fletcher Lummis, another writer with similar regional interests.[2]
James' books included the well-received The Wonders of the Colorado Desert (1906),[3] Through Ramona's Country (1909), In and Out of the Old Missions of California (1905), and The Lake of the Sky (1915). Characteristics of his writing included romanticism, an enthusiasm for natural environments, idealization of aboriginal lifeways, and health faddism. He was associate editor of The Craftsman (1904–05), editor of Out West (1912–14),[4] and lectured at the Panama-Pacific and Panama-California expositions 1915–16.[5]
The California State Library and the University of California, Berkeley have collections of James' books and pamphlets. A collection of his photographs is on file at the University of New Mexico. The Southwest Museum in Los Angeles also has some of his papers and photographs.
Bibliography
- The Wonders of the Colorado Desert. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1906. ISBN 978-1-103-73361-3. OCLC 3313620.
LCC F868.S15 J2 (with illustrations by Carl Eytel)[6]
- Indian basketry. Henry Malkan. 1909. ISBN 0-486-21712-4.
- Through Ramona's Country. Little, Brown. 1909. OCLC 1710960.
- Indian blankets and their makers. A.C. McClurg and Co. 1914. ISBN 0-486-22996-3.
- The Old Franciscan Missions of California (Illustrated Edition). The echo library. 2009. ISBN 978-1-4068-2950-1.
- The Lake of the Sky. The echo library. 2009. ISBN 978-1-4068-2952-5.
- The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It. The echo library. 2009. ISBN 978-1-4068-5328-5.
- In and Out of the Old Missions of California. 2003. ISBN 978-0766142237.
- Quit Your Worrying!. The echo library. 2009. ISBN 978-1-4068-5330-8.
- Indian Basketry, and How to Make Indian and Other Baskets. BiblioBazaar. 2011. ISBN 978-1-178-58712-8.
- New Mexico, the land of the delight makers. The Page Company. 1929. ASIN B008LH6ZN0.
- The Legend of Tauquitch and Algoot. Forgotten Books. 2008. ISBN 978-1605068480.
Notes
- ↑
Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "James, George Wharton". Encyclopedia Americana. - ↑ Starr, Kevin (1985). Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era. New York: Oxford University Press.
- ↑ Adams, Cyrus C. (March 2, 1907). "Wonders of the Far West: George Wharton James's New Book on the Colorado Desert". The New York Times Saturday Review of Books. Retrieved August 30, 2012.
...[James] has gifts of observation far above the common and the literary art of vivid and picturesque description.
- ↑ OCLC 3687761 and OCLC 702604648
- ↑ Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "James, George Wharton". Encyclopedia Americana.
- ↑ Eytel contributed the color plate Mirage in the Desert (1905) and over 300 drawings – Edwards, Elza Ivan (1962). Desert Harvest. Los Angeles: Westernlore Press. p. 128. OCLC 2022836. LCC Z1251.S8 E3
References
- Bourdon, Roger Joseph (1966). George Wharton James, Interpreter of the Southwest. Los Angeles, CA: University of California, Los Angeles. Ph.D. thesis. pp. 375. OCLC 28143279, 32290472 and 52598780
- Farquhar, Francis Peloubet (1953). The Books of the Colorado River & the Grand Canyon: A Selective Bibliography. Los Angeles: Glen Dawson. p. 54. OCLC 31136472.
- Larson, Roger Keith (1991). Controversial James: An Essay on the Life and Work of George Wharton James. San Francisco, CA: The Book Club of California. p. 90. ASIN B0006EY8AS. OCLC 24570433. LCC F865.J35 L37 1991
- Starr, Kevin (1973 and 1986). Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 494. ISBN 978-0195016444 (1986) OCLC 641725018 and 254930084
- Wild, Peter; Chatterton, Wayne; Maguire, James H. (1990). George Wharton James. Boise, ID: Boise State University "Western Writers Series" (#93). p. 52. ISBN 978-0-88430-092-2. OCLC 754890912 and 22357424
External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to George Wharton James. |
- Works by George Wharton James at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about George Wharton James at Internet Archive
- Works by George Wharton James at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- "An Adventure in Beaver Canyon 1899" at the Wayback Machine (archived October 28, 2009)
- "Basket Makers," Sunset 8(1) (1901)
- "A Saboba Origin-Myth" (1902)
- "The Legend of Tauquich and Algoot" (1903)
- The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It at the Wayback Machine (archived October 28, 2009) (1910)
- The Old Franciscan Missions Of California by George Wharton James at Project Gutenberg (1913)
- George Wharton James at Find a Grave
|