James Thomas Fields (1817-1881)James Thomas Fields est né en 1817. Son plus grand titre de gloire repose sans doute dans la maison d'édition de Boston qu'il mit sur pied avec son associé W. D. Ticknor. Ils imprimaient des livres au premier étage et les vendaient dans la librairie Old Corner Bookstore au rez-de-chaussée. Fields introduisit le système des redevances de droits d'auteur ("royalties") afin que ceux-ci reçoivent leur dû lors de la publication de leurs oeuvres.
Fields édita le Atlantic Monthly entre 1861 et 1871. Il publia également plusieurs volumes de poésie, notamment A Few Verses for a Few Friends en 1858. Son épouse, Annie Adams, était également une poètesse et elle établit un salon littéraire chez elle. En plus de favoriser la littérature américaine, The Old Corner Bookstore constituait un lieu de ralliement pour les écrivains et les penseurs du temps. Plusieurs chefs d'oeuvre lui doivent leur existence. Longfellow, Thackeray et Dickens furent parmi les habitués. C'était un endroit où on pouvait discuter d'édition, de politique, de religion, etc.
Mrs. Chub was rich and portly,
Mrs. Chub was very grand,
Mrs. Chub was always reckoned
A lady in the land.
You shall see her marble mansion
In a very stately square, --
Mr. C. knows what it cost him,
But that's neither here nor there.
Mrs. Chub was so sagacious,
Such a patron of the arts,
And she gave such foreign orders,
That she won all foreign hearts.
Mrs. Chub was always talking,
When she went away from home,
Of a prodigious painting
Which had just arrived from Rome.
"Such a treasure," she insisted,
"One might never see again !"
"What's the subject?" we inquired.
"It is Jupiter and Ten !"
"Ten what?" we blandly asked her,
For the knowledge we did lack.
"Ah! that I cannot tell you,
But the name is on the back.
"There it stands in printed letters.
Come tomorrow, gentlemen,
Come and see our spending painting,
Our fine Jupiter and Ten."
When Mrs. Chub departed,
Our brains we all did rack, --
She could not be mistaken,
For the name was on the back.
So we begged a great Professor
To lay aside his pen,
And give some information
Touching "Jupiter and Ten."
And we pondered well the subject,
And our Lemprière we turned,
To discover what the Ten were ;
But we could not, though we burned !
But when we saw the picture, --
Oh, Mrs. Chub! Oh, fie ! Oh !
We perused the printed label,
And 'twas Jupiter and Io !James T. Fields (1817-1881), dans Anthology of American Poetry, 1983, pages 234-235.
Références :
- All Poetry - James T Fields : https://allpoetry.com/James-Thomas-Fields
- Poem Hunter - James T Fields : https://www.poemhunter.com/james-thomas-fields/poems/
- James T Fields : https://pennyspoetry.fandom.com/wiki/James_T._Fields
- Poems: by James T. Fields : https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/ABR6934.0001.001?rgn=main;view=toc
- James T Fields - Biographical notes... : https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t3kw58m7h&view=1up&seq=9
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