Smith, F(rancis) Hopkinson 1838-1915

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SMITH, F(rancis) Hopkinson 1838-1915

PERSONAL: Born October 23, 1838, in Baltimore, MD; died April 7, 1915 in New York, NY; married Josephine Van Deventer, April 26, 1866. Hobbies and other interests: Travel, painting.

CAREER: Engineer and co-partner of construction firm with James Symington; assistant superintendent of New York iron foundry during Civil War; novelist.

WRITINGS:

Colonel Carter of Cartersville, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1891.

Tom Grogan, Houghton Mifflin (New York, NY), 1896.

Caleb West, Master Diver, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, NY), 1898.

American Illustrators (portfolio), Scribner (New York, NY), 1892.

The Other Fellow, Houghton Mifflin (New York, NY), 1899.

The Fortunes of Oliver Horn, Scribner (New York, NY), 1902.

The Novels, Stories, and Sketches of F. Hopkinson Smith, Scribner (New York, NY), 1902-1915.

The Under Dog, Scribner (New York, NY), 1903

Colonel Carter's Christmas, Scribner (New York, NY), 1903.

At Close Range, Scribner (New York, NY), 1905.

The Wood Fire in No. 3, Scribner (New York, NY), 1905.

The Tides of Barnegat, Scribner (New York, NY), 1906.

The Veiled Lady, and Other Men and Women, Scribner (New York, NY), 1907

The Romance of an Old-fashioned Gentleman, Scribner (New York, NY), 1907.

Peter: A Novel of Which He Is Not the Hero, Scribner (New York, NY), 1908.

Forty Minutes Late, and Other Stories, Scribner (New York, NY), 1909.

Kennedy Square, Scribner (New York, NY), 1911.

The Arm-Chair at the Inn, Scribner (New York, NY), 1912.

In Dickens's London, Scribner (New York, NY), 1914.

Felix O'Day, Scribner (New York, NY), 1915.

Outdoor Sketching: Four Talks Given Before the Art Institute of Chicago, Scribner (New York, NY), 1915.

(With F. Berkeley Smith) Enoch Crane: A Novel, Scribner (New York, NY), 1916.

Also author of Old-fashioned Folk.

SIDELIGHTS: F. Hopkinson Smith was a late-nineteenth-century American writer known for his anecdotes, sketches of local life, and passion for the romanticism of past times. He was a best-selling author for both Houghton Mifflin and Scribner publishers.

Smith was the great-grandson of Francis Hopkinson, who signed the Declaration of Independence for New Jersey. He started his writing career at age fifty, after working as an engineer and partner of a construction firm for thirty years. Smith's notable engineering and construction accomplishments include the foundation for the Statue of Liberty and the Race Rock lighthouse at Fisher's Island, New York. Smith also was an accomplished visual artist, working with charcoal and watercolors. In fact, his first publications were travel sketches accompanied by his own drawings. Smith, considered a great storyteller, also lectured. A close friend of Charles Scribner II, he published seventeen volumes under the Scribner's imprint from 1892 to 1915, and one work was published posthumously in 1916.

By 1899 Smith was already a best-selling author, publishing work with Houghton Mifflin. His novels Tom Grogan and Caleb West, Master Diver were top sellers. Smith, however, believed Houghton Mifflin paid him low royalties and did not properly promote his work. A friend, Scribner's writer Thomas Nelson Page, explained the situation to New York publishing magnate Charles Scribner II. Smith became a Scribner's author after the publication of The Other Fellow, which he had committed to Houghton Mifflin. His first novel under Scribner's was The Fortunes of Oliver Horn. That year, 1902, Scribner's started a subscription edition entitled the Beacon Edition, which were publications of Smith's complete works. It was published as The Novels, Stories, and Sketches of F. Hopkinson Smith and encompasses twenty-three volumes.

Reviewing At Close Range, a collection of Smith's short stories, an Athenaeum writer said Smith "has the right knack, although exception must be taken to his literary style." A Critic writer added, "the chief characteristic of these . . . tales of 'the road,' is a realism described with a poetic touch." A Saturday Review critic added, "The author, who writes tersely and well, shows that he has keen powers of observation, he is also endowed with a sense of humour and a capacity for sympathy, and he can in a measure touch, as it has been said, both the springs of laughter and the source of tears."

Scribner's Magazine serialized Smith's The Tides of Barnegat in 1905. The novel tells of Jane Cobden, who helps her sister out of sin and mothers a child born out of wedlock. M. Gordon Pryor Rice wrote in the New York Times, "Mr. Hopkinson Smith has never done better work than in his delineation of Lucy's character. The master's hand is to be discerned in every stroke." A writer for Nation said "the story goes wider and deeper than any of its predecessors; if with less perfection of construction than the short stories, it is the most ripe of the novels." A Putnam's writer, however, called The Tides of Barnegat "unpleasant from beginning to end."

Old-fashioned Folk, printed privately, calls for a return to simplicity, as Smith's disdain for selfishness and vulgarity shows. Romance of an Old-fashioned Gentleman tells of an older man who draws on his hurtful past to guide a younger man through a temptation crisis. A New York Times reviewer wrote, "The wide world is the scene of the rest of the story told in Mr. Smith's colorful prose, but the portrait of the fair Southern holds its magic to the end." An Outlook writer called the work "both beautiful and true."

A New York Times reviewer wrote of the story collection Veiled Lady, and Other Men and Women, "In truth there is not very much to any of these stories except the water color effect of the backgrounds and the charm of the painter, engineer, good fellow visible and personally present in them."

Peter: A Novel of Which He Is Not the Hero, features a sixty-year-old man who cares for the central figure, Jack, an impetuous Southern youth who values independence and comradeship more than the financial success to be gained from his uncle's Wall Street business. An Outlook critic wrote that it "is a bit of romanticism in a day of commercial engrossment, and makes the charm of the old South, which was non-commercial, credible." The novel sold more than 100,000 copies in the first six months, and appearing on bestseller lists in 1908 and 1909.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

Dictionary of Literary Biography Documentary Series, Volume 13, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1995.

periodicals

Athenaeum, July 8, 1905, review of At Close Range.

Critic, July, 1905, review of At Close Range.

Nation, August 30, 1906, review of The Tides of Barnegat.

New York Times, August 18, 1906, M. Gordon Pryor Rice, review of The Tides of Barnegat; March 30, 1907, review of The Veiled Lady, and Other Men and Women; September 19, 1908, review of Peter: A Novel of Which He Is Not the Hero.

Outlook, October 3, 1908, review of Peter: A Novel of Which He Is Not the Hero.

Putnam's, October, 1906, review of The Tides of Barnagat.

Saturday Review, August 5, 1905, review of At Close Range.