I am indebted to the following scholars, and many others, for
their work on Harold Frederic and The Damnation of Theron
Ware. Their bibliographies, checklists, catalogues, critical
overviews, and online resources represent years of research and
serve as the foundation for my own work on Frederic’s novel.
I am grateful to each of them for paving the way for later Frederic
scholars.
In 1968, the editors of American Literary Realism, under the
leadership of Clayton L. Eichelberger, compiled the first annotated
bibliography of secondary criticism on Harold Frederic and his
work: “Harold Frederic (1856-1898): A Critical Bibliography
of Secondary Comment.” In 1970, Robert H. Woodward’s “Harold
Frederic: Supplemental Critical Bibliography of Secondary Comment” was
published in American Literary Realism.
For a complete bibliography of writings by and about Frederic,
see Thomas F. O’Donnell, Stanton Garner, and Robert H. Woodward’s
A Bibliography of Writings By and About Harold Frederic.
See also O’Donnell’s The Merrill Checklist of
Harold Frederic for a select, although now somewhat dated,
bibliography of writings by and about Frederic.
Noel Polk’s Literary Manuscripts of Harold Frederic:
A Catalogue identifies and locates Frederic’s extant
manuscripts.
For a complete listing of letters to and from Frederic, see George
Fortenberry, Charlyne Dodge, Stanton Garner, and Robert H. Woodward’s
The Correspondence of Harold Frederic.
Thomas F. O’Donnell’s “Harold Frederic (1856-1898)” is
a review of the state of Frederic scholarship from the late-1930s
through the 1960s. Glenn D. Klopfenstein’s “‘The
Flying Dutchmen of American Literature’: Harold Frederic
and the American Canon, a Centenary Overview” is a review
of the state of Frederic scholarship since the 1950s.
And, finally, Donna Campbell maintains an excellent bibliography
of criticism about Frederic, 1958 to the present, on her web site
http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/howells/fredbib.html.
Crisler, Jesse S. “Harold Frederic.” American
Literary Realism 8 (1975): 250-55.
Fortenberry, George, Charlyne Dodge, Stanton Garner, and Robert
H. Woodward, eds. The Correspondence of Harold Frederic.
Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian UP, 1977.
Graham, Don. “‘A Degenerate Methodist’: A
New Review of The Damnation of Theron Ware.” American
Literary Realism 9 (1976): 280-84.
“Harold Frederic (1856-1898): A Critical Bibliography
of Secondary Comment.” American
Literary Realism 2 (1968): 1-70.
Klopfenstein, Glenn D. “‘The Flying Dutchman of
American Literature’: Harold Frederic and the American Canon,
a Centenary Overview.” American Literary Realism
30.1 (1997): 34-46.
Morace, Robert A. “Harold Frederic’s ‘Degenerate
Methodist.’” Markham Review 5 (1976): 58.
O’Donnell, Thomas F. “Harold Frederic (1856-1898).” American
Literary Realism 1 (1967): 39-44.
O’Donnell, Thomas F., ed. The Merrill Checklist of
Harold Frederic. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill, 1969.
O’Donnell, Thomas F., Stanton Garner, and Robert H. Woodward,
eds. A Bibliography of Writings By and About Harold Frederic.
Boston: G.K. Hall, 1975.
Polk, Noel. The Literary Manuscripts of Harold Frederic:
A Catalogue. New York: Garland, 1979.
Stronks, James. “Supplements to the Standard Bibliographies
of Ade, Bierce, Crane, Frederic, Fuller, Garland, Norris, and
Twain.” American Literary Realism 16.2 (1983):
272-77.
Stronks, James. “Supplements to the Standard Bibliographies
of Crane, Dreiser, Frederic, Fuller, Garland, London, and Norris.” American
Literary Realism 11.1 (1978): 124-33.
Stronks, James B. “Addenda to the Bibliographies of Stephen
Crane, Dreiser, Frederic, Fuller, Garland, Herne, Howells, London,
and Norris.” The Papers of the Bilbiographical Society
of America 71.3 (1977): 362-68.
Woodward, Robert H. “The Frederic Bibliographies: Errata.” The
Frederic Herald 3.1 (1969): 3-4.
Woodward, Robert H. “Harold Frederic: Supplemental Critical
Bibliography of Secondary Comment.” American Literary
Realism 3.2 (1970): 95-147.
Crisler, Jesse S. “Harold Frederic.” American
Literary Realism 8 (1975): 250-55.
Crisler’s article is a bibliographical review of twelve
dissertations on Harold Frederic and his writing. Charles C.
Walcutt’s “Naturalism in the American Novel” (U
of Michigan, 1938), the first dissertation to address Frederic’s
novels, “views Frederic in connection with other ‘naturalistic’ writers” and,
according to Crisler, is “valuable only as a prologue to
later dissertations.” Paul Haines’ “Harold
Frederic” (New York U, 1945) is the first dissertation
to treat Frederic solely, “sets a worthy precedent in terms
of research, content, technique, and presentation,” and
is the only record for some of Frederic’s manuscripts that
are apparently no longer extant (250). Marvin O. Mitchell’s “A
Study of Romantic Elements in the Fiction of Edgar Watson Howe,
Joseph Kirkland, Hamlin Garland, Harold Frederic, and Frank Norris” (U
of North Carolina, 1953) argues that Frederic’s novels “mix
romantic elements with realistic ones” (251). Robert H.
Woodward’s “Harold Frederic: A Study of His Novels,
Short Stories, and Plays” (U of Indiana, 1957) employs
extensive use of the Harold Frederic Papers, housed in the Library
of Congress, in a critical analysis of Frederic’s works.
Thomas F. O’Donnell’s “The Regional Fiction
of Upstate New York” (Syracuse U, 1957) addresses in one
chapter Frederic’s works set in the U.S.. Charles B. Hands’ “Harold
Frederic: A Critical Study of the American Works” (U of
Notre Dame, 1959) draws upon earlier studies of Frederic in the “first
completely critical treatment of the novelist” (252). Crisler
dismisses Ralph R. Rogers’ “Harold Frederic: His
Development as a Comic Realist” (Columbia U, 1961) because
Rogers concludes that Frederic was a comic realist and appears
to overlook Frederic’s use of irony that “more often
than not transforms apparent comedy into gripping tragedy.” William
J. Holmes’ “A Study of the Novels of Harold Frederic” (U
of Iowa, 1962) supports the argument that Frederic was a realist;
Crisler ranks Holmes’ study with Haines’ as “one
of the best in its field.” Austin E. Briggs’ “The
Novels of Harold Frederic” (Columbia U, 1963) approaches
Frederic’s novels “from a ‘comic’ standpoint
in which realism and romance are always combined.” According
to Crisler, Stanton B. Garner’s “Harold Frederic:
The Major Works” (Brown U, 1963) is “of extreme importance
to Frederic criticism” (253) and “indispensable to
evaluations of Frederic and his work” (254). Fred G. See’s “Metaphoric
and Metonymic Imagery in Nineteenth Century American Fiction:
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rebecca Harding Davis, and Harold Frederic” (U
of California, Berkeley, 1967) examines Frederic’s novels
within the framework of a late-nineteenth-century movement from
romantic to realistic imagery. Crisler finds little value in
Nancy Siferd’s “Textual Range in the Novels of Harold
Frederic” (Bowling Green, 1970), with the exception of
the chapters in which she investigates character motivation.
Fortenberry, George, Charlyne Dodge, Stanton Garner, and Robert
H. Woodward, eds. The Correspondence of Harold Frederic.
Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian UP, 1977.
Fortenberry, Dodge, Garner, and Woodward’s bibliography
contains a complete file of letters to and from Harold Frederic,
organized by date. In addition to the texts of the letters, the
editors provide biographies of some of the correspondents, samples
of letterhead used by Frederic, a list of “Known and Inferred
Private Correspondence, Not Located,” and an index. The
editors discovered five letters after this book had been published;
the letters are listed in Noel Polk, The Literary Manuscripts
of Harold Frederic: A Catalogue (New York: Garland, 1979)
104-07.
Graham, Don. “‘A Degenerate Methodist’: A New
Review of The Damnation of Theron Ware.” American
Literary Realism 9 (1976): 280-84.
Graham’s bibliographical article identifies and reprints
an 1896 book review of The Damnation of Theron Ware previously
unlisted in Frederic bibliographies. The unidentified reviewer
labels the book “an important novel” (281) and proceeds
to summarize the plot, concluding that “we suspect the
probabilities of such unconscious degeneration; it seems impossible
that the conditions postulated should precipitate so involuntary
a downfall. It seems so useless the game these various characters
play against the unfortunate minister; his disillusion is so
gratuitous, so merciless” (284).
“Harold Frederic (1856-1898): A Critical Bibliography of
Secondary Comment.” American
Literary Realism 2 (1968): 1-70.
The editors of American Literary Realism, under the
leadership of Clayton L. Eichelberger, along with twenty-four
other contributors, compiled the first annotated bibliography
of secondary criticism on Harold Frederic and his work. Sources
for the bibliography include books, dissertations, and periodical
articles; newspaper articles are specifically omitted. This bibliography
provided the foundation upon which later bibliographies were
complied (see Thomas F. O’Donnell, Stanton Garner, and
Robert H. Woodward’s A Bibliography of Writings By
and About Harold Frederic, 1975).
Klopfenstein, Glenn D. “‘The Flying Dutchman of American
Literature’: Harold Frederic and the American Canon, a Centenary
Overview.” American Literary Realism 30.1 (1997):
34-46.
Klopfenstein’s bibliographical article opens with a brief
review of the state of Frederic scholarship since the 1950s.
His reference to “the Flying Dutchman” is borrowed
from Austin Briggs: “Harold Frederic, unless the interest
of the 1960’s abides, seems doomed to play the Flying
Dutchman of American literature. Over the decades he has been
enthusiastically
sighted again and again, only to disappear into the fogs of obscurity”
(35). According to Klopfenstein, the exclusion of The Damnation
of Theron Ware from the American canon can be attributed
to “changing critical (aesthetic) standards and political
(institutional) forces” (36); it has been exacerbated
by Vernon Louis Parrington’s negative criticism of
the novel in Main Currents in American Thought (1927).
Klopfenstein further speculates that the novel and its author
may have been
marginalized prior to the work’s brief revival in the 1960s
because Frederic, an expatriate living in England, was not American
enough and his effeminate antihero was not masculine enough to
appeal to critics. While lamenting that Frederic has been pigeonholed
as a regionalist, a realist, and a naturalist, and that his novel
has become “fodder for the reductions of literary theorists
and specialists,” Klopfenstein praises Stanton Garner’s
theory that Frederic’s “true descent” was
from Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville and holds out
hope that
The Damnation of Theron Ware may yet be resurrected
in the coming years by a new generation of Frederic enthusiasts
(43).
Morace, Robert A. “Harold Frederic’s ‘Degenerate
Methodist.’” Markham Review 5 (1976): 58.
Morace’s bibliographical note reprints a portion of a
long review of Harold Frederic’s The Damnation of Theron
Ware that appeared in the San Francisco Wave on
April 25, 1895. The anonymous reviewer writes, “Indeed,
considering the book, there can be no question of its great ability,
or of the vivid interest its narrative inspires. There is serious
doubt, however, of the truth of the situations; we suspect the
probabilities of such unconscious degeneration; it seems impossible
that the conditions postulated should precipitate so involuntary
a downfall” (58).
O’Donnell, Thomas F. “Harold Frederic (1856-1898).” American
Literary Realism 1 (1967): 39-44.
O’Donnell’s article is a brief overview of the state
of Frederic studies up to the 1960s. His bibliographical essay
credits Paul Haines with the “rediscovery of Frederic” in
1945, when he wrote his “pioneer dissertation at New York
University” (39). In the 1950s, about a half-dozen dissertations
and articles continued the Frederic revival. Then from 1960 to
1965, the annual PMLA bibliographies listed thirty items
of Frederic scholarship; O’Donnell briefly mentions most
of them.
O’Donnell, Thomas F., ed. The Merrill Checklist of Harold
Frederic. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill, 1969.
O’Donnell’s bibliography, a brief 34-page checklist,
is a select compilation of writings by or about Harold Frederic
“intended to provide students with the tools that will give
them access to the most meaningful published resources for the
study of an author” (iii). Divided into eight sections,
the checklist begins with “Books and Major Separate Publications”
(1-2), which includes both fiction and non-fiction, followed by
“Uncollected Writings” (2-6), which includes fiction,
poetry, reviews, and articles. Section III (6-7) lists “Editions”
of Frederic’s works. Section IV, “Letters” (7),
directs readers to Robert H. Woodward’s “Harold Frederic:
A Bibliography.” (In 1969, The Correspondence of Harold
Frederic had not been published.) Section V, “Special
Journal” (7), lists a single journal, The Frederic Herald,
devoted to short biographical, critical, and bibliographical notes
on Frederic; nine issues were published between April 1967 and
January 1970. Section VI (7-8) is “Bibliographies and Checklists”;
Section VII (8) lists “Biographies.” The last and
largest section, “Scholarship and Criticism” (9-34),
lists books and articles about Frederic’s major works, arranged
in sub-sections by title.
O’Donnell, Thomas F., Stanton Garner, and Robert H. Woodward,
eds. A Bibliography of Writings By and About Harold Frederic.
Boston: G.K. Hall, 1975.
O’Donnell, Garner, and Woodward’s compilation is
the most recent and comprehensive Harold Frederic bibliography
published. It includes writings by and about Frederic and is “[i]ntended
to be of use to the scholar, student, or interested general reader
of Harold Frederic by providing various kinds of bibliographical
information not previously available, or available only in periodicals
and pamphlets.” “Writings by Frederic” (1-105)
identifies Frederic’s books (fiction and non-fiction), shorter
works (short fiction, essays, letters, and features), journalism
(articles, editorials, and reviews in The Observer, New
York Times,and The Manchester Guardian), and editions.
“Writings about Frederic” (109-308) lists bibliographies;
reviews and notices; writings to 1900 (books, newspapers, and
periodicals); books, parts of books, monographs, and pamphlets
(1900-1973); dissertations and theses; manuscripts, letters, library
holdings, and likenesses; and The Frederic Herald. The
compilers claim the book “lists every piece of published
writing attributable to Frederic at this time (1974). [. . .]
It identifies and locates all of Frederic’s manuscripts,
letters, and related documents that could be uncovered by a lengthy
and wide-ranging search. It lists—with brief objective annotations—most
of the biographical, critical, and bibliographical comment about
Frederic that appeared in print between 1879 and 1 January 1974.
It also lists all those doctoral dissertations the compilers were
able to identify as containing significant discussion of Frederic’s
work, as well as a number of master’s theses” (v).
Polk, Noel. The Literary Manuscripts of Harold Frederic: A
Catalogue. New York: Garland, 1979.
Polk’s bibliography identifies and locates Harold Frederic’s
extant novel manuscripts. An examination of Frederic’s working
papers shows him “to have been a disciplined, methodical
worker and an unusually meticulous craftsman” (xi). Most
of Frederic’s extant manuscripts are now located in the
Library of Congress; however, Polk identifies the exceptions (thirteen
locations in the U.S. and the U.K.). The manuscripts of Seth’s
Brother’s Wife and The Lawton Girl are either
lost or no longer extant. Paul Haines’ 1945 New York University
dissertation, “Harold Frederic,” is the only source
for descriptions and quotations from these manuscripts. Section
A lists Frederic’s novels; Section B, stories; Section C,
non-fiction prose; Section D, poetry; Section E, unpublished fiction;
Section F, unpublished plays; Section G, unpublished poetry; and
Section H, unpublished non-fiction prose. Section I lists miscellaneous
items in the Library of Congress, such as three of Frederic’s
diaries for the years 1891, 1892, and 1893; the Frederic-Heinemann
(his London publisher) Papers; Frederic-Brown, Shipley & Co.
Papers; miscellaneous, unclassifiable papers; Frederic’s
will (not in Frederic’s hand); and a “photograph of
Frederic and an unidentified woman, possibly Kate Lyon”
(102). Section J is a guide to correspondences written by Harold
Frederic. Polk directs readers to The Correspondence of Harold
Frederic (1977) for a complete file of Frederic’s correspondence.
Stronks, James. “Supplements to the Standard Bibliographies
of Ade, Bierce, Crane, Frederic, Fuller, Garland, Norris, and
Twain.” American Literary Realism 16.2 (1983):
272-77.
Stronks’ bibliographical note cites five additions to A
Bibliography of Writings By and About Harold Frederic by
Thomas F. O’Donnell, Stanton Garner, and Robert H. Woodward
(Boston: G. K. Hall, 1975).
Stronks, James. “Supplements to the Standard Bibliographies
of Crane, Dreiser, Frederic, Fuller, Garland, London, and Norris.” American
Literary Realism 11.1 (1978): 124-33.
Stronks’ bibliographical note cites three additions to A
Bibliography of Writings By and About Harold Frederic by
Thomas F. O’Donnell, Stanton Garner, and Robert H. Woodward
(Boston: G. K. Hall, 1975).
Stronks, James B. “Addenda to the Bibliographies of Stephen
Crane, Dreiser, Frederic, Fuller, Garland, Herne, Howells, London,
and Norris.” The Papers of the Bilbiographical Society
of America 71.3 (1977): 362-68.
Stronks’ bibliographical note cites one addition to A
Bibliography of Writings By and About Harold Frederic by
Thomas F. O’Donnell, Stanton Garner, and Robert H. Woodward
(Boston: G. K. Hall, 1975).
Woodward, Robert H. “The Frederic Bibliographies: Errata.” The
Frederic Herald 3.1 (1969): 3-4.
Woodward’s note identifies bibliographic errors in three
published bibliographies of secondary comment on Frederic: “Harold
Frederic: A Bibliography” by Robert H. Woodward (Studies
in Bibliography 13 [1960]: 247-57); “Harold Frederic
(1856-1898): A Critical Bibliography of Secondary Comment,” compiled
by the editors of ALR and numerous contributors (American
Literary Realism 2 [1968]: 1-70); and “Frederic’s
Collection of Reviews: Supplement to the Checklist of Contemporary
Reviews of Frederic’s Writings” by Robert H. Woodward
(American Literary Realism 2 [1968]: 84-89).
Woodward, Robert H. “Harold Frederic: Supplemental Critical
Bibliography of Secondary Comment.” American Literary
Realism 3.2 (1970): 95-147.
Woodward’s critical bibliography is the first supplement
to the bibliography compiled by the editors of American Literary
Realism in 1968 (“Harold Frederic [1856-1898]: A Critical
Bibliography of Secondary Comment”). This bibliography
expands on the earlier compilation in that it includes newspaper
articles and theses on Frederic. It is divided into three categories:
books (including dissertations and theses), periodicals (including
magazines and newspapers), and errata (corrections of known errors
in the first Frederic bibliography).
