James Payn (; 28 February 1830 – 25 March 1898) was an English novelist and editor.
Family
Payn's father, William Payn (1774/1775–1840), was clerk to the Thames Commissioners, and at one time treasurer to the county of
Berkshire. Payn was educated at
Eton College and then entered the Military Academy at Woolwich, but his health was unequal to a military career and he proceeded in 1847 to Trinity College, Cambridge.
There he was among the most popular men and served as president of the Union. Before going to Cambridge he had published some verses in Leigh Hunt's Journal, and while still an undergraduate put out a volume of
Stories from Boccaccio in 1852 and one of
Poems in 1853.
In the year Payn left Cambridge, he met and soon married Miss Louisa Adelaide Edlin (born 1830 or 1831),[ODNB biography, subscription required. Retrieved 3 December 2010.] sister of Judge Sir Peter Edlin, later chairman of the London Quarter Sessions.[Victorian memoirs mentioning Edlin: [2] Parliamentary question on his salary: [3] Letter to The Times 1 March 1894: [4]. All retrieved 3 December 2010.] They had nine children, the third of whom, Alicia Isabel (died 1898), married The Times editor George Earle Buckle.
Editor and novelist
Payn then settled down in the Lake District to a literary career and contributed regularly to
Household Words and
Chambers's Journal. In 1858 he moved to
Edinburgh to act as joint editor of the latter, and became its sole editor in 1860 with much success for 15 years. Meanwhile he moved to London in 1861. In the
Journal he published in 1864 his most popular story,
Lost Sir Massingberd.
["Personal Character of James Payn," The Literary Digest, 4 June 1898.] Thereafter he was engaged in writing novels, including
Richard Arbour or the Family Scapegrace (1861),
[John Payn. " The Family Scapegrace." In: My First Book, Chatto & Windus, 1897.] Married Beneath Him (1865),
Carlyon's Year (1868),
A County Family (1869),
By Proxy (1878),
A Confidential Agent (1880),
Thicker Than Water (1883),
The Canon's Ward (1883),
A Grape from a Thorn,
The Talk of the Town (1885), and
The Heir of the Ages (1886).
[ Accessed 18 May 2010.]
In 1883 Payn succeeded Leslie Stephen as editor of the Cornhill Magazine and continued there until his health broke down in 1896.[J. Stanley Weyman, "James Payn, Editor," The Cornhill Magazine, Vol. XXVIII, January/June 1910.] He was also literary adviser to Messrs Smith, Elder & Company. His publications included a Handbook to the English Lakes (1859), and various volumes of essays: Maxims by a Man of the World (1869), Some Private Views (1881), Some Literary Recollections (1884). His posthumous work The Backwater of Life (1899) revealed much of his personality through kindly, sensible reflections on familiar topics. He died in London on 25 March 1898.["James Payn," The Bookman, June 1898.] A biographical introduction to The Backwater of Life was provided by Sir Leslie Stephen.[Leslie Stephen, "James Payn," The Backwater of Life, Smith, Elder & Co., 1899.]
Works
Articles
-
"The Critic on the Hearth", The Nineteenth Century, Vol. V, January/June 1879.
-
"An Indo-Anglian Poet", The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. CCXLVI, January/June 1880.
-
"Two Infant Phenomenons", The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. CCXLVI, January/June 1880.
-
"Sham Admiration in Literature", The Nineteenth Century, Vol. VII, January/June 1880.
-
"The Pinch of Poverty", The Nineteenth Century, Vol. VII, January/June 1880.
-
"Success in Fiction", The North American Review, Vol. 140, No. 342, May 1885.
-
"On Conversation", The Nineteenth Century, Vol. XLII, July/December 1897.
-
"On Old Age", The Nineteenth Century, Vol. XLII, July/December 1897.
Short stories
-
"The Midway Inn", The Nineteenth Century, Vol. V, January/June 1879.
-
"Uncle Lock's Legacy", Short Stories, Vol. XI, September/December 1892.
-
"A Successful Experiment", Short Stories, Vol. XI, September/December 1892.
-
"Rebecca's Remorse". In Short Stories from "Black and White", Chapman & Hall, 1893.
-
"A Faithful Retainer". In Stories by English Authors, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901.
Novels
-
The Foster Brothers (1859)
-
The Bateman Household (1860)
-
Richard Arbour: or, The Family Scapegrace (1861)
-
Lost Sir Massingberd (1864)
-
Married Beneath Him (1865)
-
The Clyffards of Clyffe (1866)
-
Mirk Abbey (1866)
-
Lights and Shadows of London Life (1867)
-
Bentinck's Tutor, One of the Family (1868)
-
Blondel Parva (1868)
-
Carlyon's Year (1868)
-
A County Family (1869)
-
A Perfect Treasure (1869)
-
Found Dead (1869)
-
Gwendoline's Harvest (1870)
-
Like Father, Like Son (1871)
-
Not Wooed, but Won (1871)
-
A Woman's Vengeance (1872)
-
Cecil's Tryst (1872)
-
At Her Mercy (1874)
-
The Best of Husbands (1874)
-
Walter's Word (1875)
-
Fallen Fortunes (1876)
-
Halves (1876)
-
What He Cost Her (1877)
-
Less Black Than We're Painted (1878)
-
By Proxy (1878)
-
Under One Roof (1879)
-
A Confidential Agent (1880)
-
From Exile (1881)
-
A Grape from a Thorn (1881)
-
For Cash Only (1882)
-
Kit: A Memory (1883)
-
Thicker Than Water (1883)
-
The Canon's Ward (1884)
-
The Talk of the Town (1885)
-
The Luck of the Darrells (1885)
-
The Heir of the Ages (1886)
-
The Mystery of Mirbridge (1888)
-
A Prince of the Blood (1888)
-
The Eavesdropper (1888)
-
The Burnt Million (1890)
-
The Word and the Will (1890)
-
A Modern Dick Whittington (1892)
-
A Stumble on the Threshold (1892)
-
A Trying Patient (1893)
-
In Market Overt (1895)
-
The Disappearance of George Driffell (1896)
-
Another's Burden (1897)
Non-fiction
-
Some Literary Recollections, 1884.
[Riches, Christopher; Cox, Michael (2015). "Payn, James". In A Dictionary of Writers and their Works. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 October 2022.]
Attribution:
Further reading
-
Block, Jr., ed. "Evolutionist Psychology and Aesthetics: The Cornhill Magazine, 1875–1880," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 45, No. 3, 1984
-
Myron Franklin Brightfield, Victorian England in its Novels, 1840–1870, University of California Library, 1968
-
Howard Haycraft and Stanley Kunitz, British Authors of the Nineteenth Century, The H. W. Wilson Company, 1936
-
Henry James, "The Late James Payn", The New England Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 1, March 1994
-
Rudolph Chambers Lehmann, Memories of Half a Century: A Record of Friendships, Smith, Elder & Co., 1908
-
Lewis Melville, "James Payn." In Victorian Novelists, Archibald Constable, 1906
-
William H. Rideing, "James Payn." In The Boyhood of Famous Authors, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, 1897
-
William H. Rideing, "Reminiscences of an Editor," McClure's Magazine, February 1910 Reproduced Eveleigh Nash, 1912]
-
George W. E. Russell, "James Payn." In Selected Essays on Literary Subjects, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1910
-
R. C. Terry, Victorian Popular Fiction, 1860–1880, Humanities Press, 1983
-
Frederick Wegener, "Henry James on James Payn: A Forgotten Critical Text," The New England Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 1, March 1994
External links
