James Thomas Fields (December 31, 1817 –
April 24, 1881), American
publisher and author, was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
At the age of seventeen, he went to Boston as clerk in a bookseller's shop. Afterwards he wrote for the newspapers, and in
1835 he read an anniversary poem entitled "Commerce" before the Boston Mercantile Library Association. In 1839 he became junior
partner in the publishing and bookselling firm know after 1846 as Ticknor & Fields, and after
1868 as Fields, Osgood & Company.
He was the publisher of the foremost contemporary American writers, with whom he was on terms of close personal friendship,
and he was the American publisher of some of the best-known British writers of his time, some of whom he also knew intimately.
The first collected edition of De Quincey's works (20 vols., 1850-1855) was published by his firm. As a publisher he was
characterized by a somewhat rare combination of keen business acumen and sound, discriminating literary taste, and as a man he
was known for his geniality and charm of manner.
In 1862–1870, as the successor of James Russell Lowell, he edited the
Atlantic Monthly. In 1871 Fields retired from business and from his editorial duties, and
devoted himself to lecturing and writing. He also edited, with Edwin P. Whipple,
A Family Library of British Poetry (1878). His chief works were the collection of sketches and essays entitled
Underbrush (1877) and the chapters of reminiscence composing Yesterdays with Authors (1871) in which he recorded
his personal friendship with Wordsworth, Thackeray, Dickens, Hawthorne and others. He died in Boston on the 24th of April 1881.
In addition to his work as a publisher and essayist, Fields wrote poetry. A number of his works are collected in his book
Ballads and Verses published in 1880. This volume contains the poem Ballad of the Tempest which includes the famous
lines:
- "We are lost!" the captain shouted
- As he staggered down the stairs
His second wife, Annie Adams Fields, whom he married in 1854, was also an author. She wrote his biography Memoir of James T. Fields, by his Wife (Boston, 1881), and
Authors and Friends (Boston, 1896) which also makes mention of him.
He is featured in Matthew Pearl's novel "The Dante Club".
External links
It seems that the publishing house of Ticknor and Fields cheated some of its writers.
According to THE PEABODY SISTERS OF SALEM by Louise Hall Tharp, after the publication of Nathaniel Hawthore's THE HOUSE OF THE
SEVEN GABLES, Fields wrote Hawthorne more than once to notify him that he had a substantial account with the publisher and that
he need only ask to withdraw from it. Hawthorne did not do this very often, and never asked for an accounting.
After Hawthorne's death (and the death of Ticknor), his widow, Sophia asked for an accounting. An emplyee was sent out from
Boston to show her an "unitemized" accounting that showed the Hawthornes had a substantial negative balance in the account. When
pressed for more accounting, Sophia, who was congenitally optimistic and trusting, had difficulty getting a satisfactory
explanation. She was also told that the royalties on books subsequent to SEVEN GABLES were less, according to a verbal agreement
made by Hawthorne in the presence of his lawyer. This was odd because Hawthorne's only attorney in life, Hillard, had no memory
of such an agreement. Nor did Hillard believe in verbal agreements. According to SISTERS, Sophia was "neither the first nor the
last" to think the publishing house cheated her (among other a novelists, Gail Hamilton had a similar experience.) Unsure about
finances, Sophie picked up her family of three children and moved from Concord, MA, to London where she could live more
cheaply.
References
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