171.
called on Mr and Mrs Andreotti.
16. Sunday. To Radway s private residence
in Greenwich St, till noon, then to Brooklyn
and Pounden s; returning by 12.
To the close of the Month. Principally en-
gaged in writing and illustrating an Autobiography
of a Stomach for Radway, which I have comple-
ted. He is mighty well pleased with it, will pay
$70 or $80, and designs publishing it in pam-
phlet form as an advertisement. There is yet
another delay of three weeks before my book will
appear; the Masons doing things with refreshing
coolness. Tis good discipline, however, and edi-
fying to observe how one s superfluous enthusiasm
gets taken out of one, when in contact with
the intervening details. These publishers neither
better nor worse than their class are always on
an imaginary dais above the men who produce
the wares they deal in. As an offset to the hope
and conceit, which they, coarsely enough, involunta-
rily attribute to authors, they assume a respectable
indifference calculated to prove exquisitely irritating
to a proverbially sensitive class. You are always
supposed to be under obligation to them for having
published your book, even if you have put a few
thousands into their pockets thereby. (I remark this
in their allusions to Parton s Greeley which they
wanted to emasculate and Fanny Fern s books.)
| Page |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Eight: page one hundred and eighty |
| Description: | Regarding his feelings about publishers, the Masons in particular. |
| Date: | 1857-05-15 |
| Subject: | Andreotti; Church, Mrs. (Andreotti); Fern, Fanny; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Mason Brothers (New York, N.Y.); Parton, James; Pounden, Frank; Publishers and publishing; Radway |
| Coverage (City/State): | [New York, New York] |
| Coverage (Street): | Greenwich Street |
| Scan Date: | 2011-02-02 |
| Volume |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Eight |
| Description: | Includes descriptions of the process of publishing his book, ''The Physiology of New-York Boarding Houses;'' his poor mental state upon returning to New York from England; meeting Walt Whitman; visits with Fanny Fern, James Parton, and Harriet Jacobs' daughter Louisa who is living with them; a visit to the Catskill Mountains with the Edwards family; moving into the boarding house at 132 Bleecker Street; working on the publication ''European'' with Colonel Hugh Forbes; the death of publisher William Levison and his daughter Ellen in his boarding house; visiting the scene of the murder of a dentist to get a sketch of the suspect; visiting Newport, Rhode Island, on assignment to sketch for Frank Leslie; and the death of his brother-in-law, Joseph Greatbatch. |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Bohemians; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Journalism; Medical care; Mental illness; Publishers and publishing; Travel; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | New York, New York; Newport, Rhode Island |
| Note: | Thomas Butler Gunn was born February 15, 1826, in Banbury, England, and came to New York in 1849. During the Civil War he worked as a correspondent for the New York Tribune and the New York Evening Post. He returned to England in 1863, and died in Birmingham in April 1903. The collection includes twenty-one volumes of his diaries, including newspaper clippings, letters, photographs, sketches, and various other items inserted by Gunn. Diary entries date from July 7, 1849, to April 7, 1863, and include his experiences with the New York publishing and literary world, his descriptions of boarding houses, his travels throughout the United States, and his experiences traveling with the Federal army as a Civil War correspondent. |
| Publisher: | Missouri History Museum |
| Rights: | Copyright 2011 Missouri History Museum. |
| Source: | Page images, transcriptions, and metadata of the Thomas Butler Gunn diaries have been provided by the Missouri History Museum. |
