Navigating necessity: professional authorship and travel writing in the career of Bayard Taylor

Abstract

The mid-nineteenth century travel writer, lecturer and poet Bayard Taylor self-consciously capitalised on the expanding commercial popularity of the travel narrative to build a substantial literary reputation and upward social mobility. Taylor’s success as a writer resulted from subtly blending sentimental and romantic elements, and punctuating these with popular sensational motifs. However, these strategies, which proved so effective commercially, deeply troubled Taylor as they ran directly counter to his most cherished romantic ideals and literary ambitions. Taylor sought to shield himself from the anxiety that this dilemma produced by advancing ideas in his travel writing and lectures that challenged the core assumptions of middle-class readers. Nevertheless, Taylor came to see himself and his dilemma reflected in the figure of Goethe’s Faust: worldly success, it seemed, came at no lower cost than that of one’s very soul.

Keywords:

• United States
• nineteenth century
• travel writing
• lecturing
• print culture
• authorship
• romanticism
• Bayard Taylor
• Herman Melville

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Nathaniel Parker Willis to Bayard Taylor, 19 September 1847, Box 4, Bayard Taylor Papers [hereafter cited as BTP], Cornell University Special Collections, Ithaca, New York (hereafter cited as CUSC).

2. Liam Corley confronts the Beatty and Wermuth market conflict argument in a different way (2014). Corley downplays the importance of Taylor’s conflict with the market, arguing that Taylor used genteel aesthetics to satisfactorily balance the competing expectations, and reach a stage, late in life, where he felt more contented writing epic poetry.

3. Bayard Taylor, “Autobiographical Sketch”, item 27, Box 7, BTP, CUSC.

4. Rebecca Bauer (Way) Taylor [Taylor’s mother] to Bayard Taylor, 30 September 1851, Box 7, BTP, Houghton Library, Harvard College Libraries, Cambridge, Massachusetts (hereafter cited as HL).

5. Rebecca Bauer (Way) Taylor to Bayard Taylor, 23 October 1851, Box 7, BTP, HL.

6. Bayard Taylor to Murat Halstead, 16 April 1877, HM 14810, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California (hereafter cited as HLC).

7. Bayard Taylor to Mary Agnew, 23 September 1849, Box 5, BTP, CUSC.

8. Bayard Taylor to John B. Phillips, 17 June 1843, File Taylor to H-Y, Box 6, BTP, CUSC.

9. Bayard Taylor to George Boker, 19 September 1850, Box 5, BTP, CUSC. Taylor to James T. Field, 17 September 1850, Box 6, BTP, CUSC.

10. Bayard Taylor to R. H. Stoddard, 19 November 1850, Bayard Taylor Collection [hereafter cited as BTC], Special Collections, State University of Pennsylvania, College City, Pennsylvania (hereafter cited as SCSUP).

11. Bayard Taylor to George Boker, 19 September 1850, Box 5, BTP, CUSC.

12. Bayard Taylor to Mary Agnew, 27 September 1850, Box 5, BTP, CUSC. Melville [1851] 1993, 14:190.

13. Bayard Taylor, “Private Account Book, from January 1^st 1857”, Box 7, BTP, HL. Melville [1851] 1993, 14:190.

14. Bayard Taylor to Murat Halstead, 16 April 1877, HLC.

15. Bayard Taylor, notebook, Box 7, BTP, HL. Taylor to Dick, 4 March 1855, Bayard Taylor Papers, Manuscript and Archival Division, New York Public Library, New York, New York.

16. Bayard Taylor, “Diary of 1854 and Greece”, item 52, Box 8, BTP, CUSC.

17. Bayard Taylor, “The Arab”, Lecture Box, BTC, Chester County Historical Society (hereafter cited as CCHS), 34.

18. Bayard Taylor, “India”, Lecture Box, BTC, CCHS, 14.

19. Bayard Taylor, “The Philosophy of Travel”, 3, Lecture Box, BTC, CCHS.

20. Taylor, “Diary of 1854 and Greece”.

21. Bayard Taylor, “Animal Man”, Lecture Box, BTC, CCHS, 4.

22. Bayard Taylor, “Reform and Art”, Lecture Box, BTC, SCSUP, 11.

23. Taylor, “Animal Man”, 4.

24. Taylor, “Diary of 1854 and Greece”.

25. Taylor, notebook, Box 7, BTP, HL.

26. Taylor, “Philosophy of Travel”, Lecture Box, BTC, CCHS, 19.

27. Taylor, notebook, Box 7, BTP, HL. Bayard Taylor to Dick, 4 March 1855, Bayard Taylor Papers, Manuscript and Archival Division, New York Public Library, New York, New York.

28. Bayard Taylor to Murat Halstead, 16 April 1877, HLC. Dixi is a Latin expression meaning “I have spoken” and often used to mean “I have said all that I had to say and thus the argument is settled”.

29. Bayard Taylor, “American Authors and Their Art”, Bayard Taylor Misc. Box, BTC, CCHS. This lecture is from 1872. Also see “American Poets and Poetry” (1872) and “Literature as an Art” (1875) at Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, State University of Pennsylvania, College City, Pennsylvania. For an example of Taylor’s opinions on Whitman, see his backhanded defence of the poet in an article from the Tribune published on 12 April 1876. He satirised Whitman in The Echo Club; and Other Literary Diversions (1876), and with his caricature of Whitman – “Smithers” – in John Godfrey’s Fortune.

30. Taylor to Halstead, 16 April 1877, HLC.