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| ''An Imperative Duty'' is a novel by American author [[William Dean Howells.]] The story was first serially published in 1891 and then republished in 1962 and 1970. The novel takes place in Boston, Massachusetts and covers a little less than a three month period starting mid summer and going in to the fall. | ''An Imperative Duty'' is a novel by American author [[William Dean Howells.]] The story was first serially published in 1891 and then republished in 1962 and 1970. The novel takes place in Boston, Massachusetts and covers a little less than a three month period starting mid summer and going in to the fall. | ||
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An Imperative Duty by William Dean Howells
An Imperative Duty is a novel by American author William Dean Howells. The story was first serially published in 1891 and then republished in 1962 and 1970. The novel takes place in Boston, Massachusetts and covers a little less than a three month period starting mid summer and going in to the fall.
An Imperative Duty takes place during an economically and socially unstable time in American History. The Civil War has ended and the country is learning how to incorporate an entire race of people in to society. Many southern black are crowding in to northern cities, such as Boston, and hoping to settle in to homes and jobs.
Told from the point of view of an omniscient narrator and in Howells's characteristic realist style, An Imperative Duty stands out as an important and contemplative work that did not receive the readership or praise that current critics and readers bestow upon it.
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Contents |
The novel begins with a description of Olney's perception of current Boston society, as told by the third person narrator. After years in Europe, Olney returns to Boston in mid July. He watches the people and comments on the similarities between Boston and Liverpool he observes. The "proletarian"[1] women of Boston remind him of the people in Liverpool; they are modern in dress and aggressive in a way they evoke a desire for "social freedom."[2] In Boston, he is also greeted with manners he deems too attentive. Certain waiters, he claims, just want tips, especially the Irish. He thinks that "Negro" waiters are better at hiding their greed. He believes that "colored people" keep to themselves in public places; even with the same "civil rights," they still have their own neighborhoods, churches, amusements, and resorts.[3] If they were to go to the park with white people, he predicts that they would not be bothered but just ignored. After walking through a black neighborhood, he felt that the number of black people in Boston had increased since he had been home last. He had been told that a lot of them migrated from the South that summer, but he cannot tell the difference between Southern Blacks and Boston Blacks; he thinks they all have bad taste and cannot assimilate like other foreigners. After an unfavorable description of black Boston society, the narrator emphasizes that Olney does think that young black people are beautiful in a way, but he also misses his time in Italy when he did not have to see them at all.[4]
In the second chapter, the narrator informs the reader that Olney had been in Europe for five years, and he expected a difficult repatriation. He went to Italy as a student with a lot of money to spare, but the person handling his finances put all of his money in Union Pacific Railroad stock, like a lot of Bostonians had done. Olney was not making any money, and it was too late to sell his depreciated stock, so he returned home.[5] During the years leading up to the Panic of 1873, Olney's financial woes were not unique. As a specialist in nervous diseases, he thought it could be lucrative to go where the people were nervous, or the United States during economic upheaval. He arrived in Boston depressed and without any clients. The narrator states that Olney was 30 at the time, but his hair was already thinning.[6]
One night, while in his room at a cheap Boston hotel, a messenger approached Olney and asked if he is a doctor. He responded affirmatively, and the messenger handed him a note written by a young woman staying in the same hotel, Rhoda Aldgate, whose aunt, Caroline Meredith, was not well.[7] Olney remembered that he had met these two women a year earlier in Florence, so he followed the messenger to their room.[8]
Rhoda answered the door for Olney when he arrived at the women's room and confirms that he is in fact the man that they knew from Florence and whose name they read in the hotel guest book. After making pleasantries with Rhoda, Olney examined the elderly Caroline and diagnosed her with "suppressed seasickness." [9] He prescribed a sleeping medication to help her sleep. He also noticed that Caroline seemed concerned about something regarding Rhoda, but he did not care to investigate their relationship. He then tersely tried explaining to the porter how to fill the prescription for Caroline. After the porter left, Rhoda and Olney made small talk about Boston's growing immigrant population and the "race problem."[10] They viewed the Irish as remarkably different from themselves, even more so than the Jews or Negroes. Both Rhoda and Olney claim to like black people, but they still do not see them as equal, and they would not marry a black person.[11] They can, however, associate with them, and he mentions again to Rhoda that he finds it odd that they attend separate churches. Eventually, the messenger returned with the medicine. Caroline was skeptical about its effects; she suspected that it will not help her or that Olney was trying to feed her "chloral" and attempting to "hypnotize" her.[12] Caroline makes a comment about questioning the good in the truth, foreshadowing future events regarding telling the truth.
The following afternoon, Olney went to check up on Caroline and found Rhoda absent from her room. After talking with Caroline, Olney knew that Caroline's problems were not merely physical. As a physician, he thought should be obligated to confess patients and find out what they are thinking before prescribing them medicine, especially for nervous diseases.[13] He, however, simultaneously did not want to know what was on her mind even though if she were to tell him, she would be able to sleep without the medicine. Caroline was a women living in a romanticized world based on stories and not on real people. She thought her everyday problems were dramatic,[14] and Olney had the sense that Caroline wanted to talk to him about them with him out of desperation. She started asking him questions about "Atavism," or the persistence of ancestral traits, transition of character and tendency, and reappearance of types for several generations.[15] It was a controversial piece of the broad "race problem," so he explained it to her briefly and added that he thinks prejudice is ignorant; the white race will take over the black race and the bad qualities will eventually disappear leaving only the good ones.[16] Caroline then informed Olney of Mr. Bloomingdale, a reverend who had offered himself to Rhoda in Liverpool.[17] The young woman did not give him an answer, but he was set to arrive in Boston that day expecting an answer. His family really likes Rhoda's company and has been spending time with her without the reverend, including at that moment. Caroline feared that by spending time with his family, Rhoda was making a statement of commitment to him. Olney considered the family's behavior "pushing and vulgar"[18] Caroline verified that they are nice and wealthy people, and the reverend has been offered a position in Ohio where they will move, but she thinks that Rhoda is taking advantage of them without officially committing herself. She had initially declined his offer in Florence, and then in Liverpool she had wanted to accept, but Caroline did not want Rhoda to accept the proposal without him knowing an untold truth about her. Rhoda does not know it, but she has a tainted identity. Caroline revealed that Rhoda is actually part black – a horrifying and disturbing fact. Although not noticeable physically, Caroline thought that Bloomingdale must know the truth of Rhoda's race because it can reappear in later generations. Olney told the quivering woman that knowing this information did not change his image of the girl. He even thought that he would still marry her, but he was of course not the groom in question.[19]
After fully comprehending that Rhoda is of "negro descent,"[19] Olney was disgusted at first. Rhoda's mother "was an octoroon, the daughter and the granddaughter of women who had never hoped for marriage with white men who fell in love with them," but was well educated by her "Creole" father.[20] Rhoda's father married her mother and did not care to keep it a secret, but he gave his daughter his name. When his wife died, Rhoda's father went back north with his daughter, but then he died. Caroline, his sister, took in the child, and she and her husband never told anyone about the girl's "negro descent." She received a high quality education and social life because they were quite wealthy and did not have children of their own. They regularly talked with her about her father but rarely about her mother and never about her race. They assumed they would reveal the truth to her eventually, but when Caroline took Rhoda to Europe, she had hoped that the young girl would meet an Italian man who would marry her without possessing same racial stigma that white men have in the United States, but Rhoda loved and missed America and Americans.[21] She wanted to return home and be surrounded by fellow Americans. Caroline's husband, however, died while they were in Europe leaving the two women without much money. They had stayed in Florence where Rhoda met Bloomingdale. Caroline finished telling her tale and then asked Olney for advice because she considered telling Bloomingdale the truth herself. Olney does not know exactly what to do, but he respects Caroline and thinks that she should not speak with Bloomingdale. Instead, Caroline should tell her niece the secret and allow her to decide what to do with it. Caroline was obviously nervous. She did not think that if given the information, Rhoda would admit the truth to Bloomingdale. Caroline suddenly decided that she will tell her niece, and if she does not then go and tell Bloomingdale, she will do it herself. All of a sudden, Rhoda swept back in to the room to check in on her aunt and then left to return to the Bloomingdales.
When Rhoda returned to her aunt's room after her day out with the Bloomingdales, she told Caroline that she had decided that she does not really like them. They are boring, or "formal" and "conventional"[22] and insisted on relating all conversation back to the reverend and his accomplishments. Rhoda was worried that Bloomingdale is too much like his family, and Caroline agreed that ties to ancestry are very important, referencing the secret about Rhoda's ancestry. Caroline then briefly attempted to convince her niece that marriage is not necessary. Rhoda, however, wanted a family, and even though she was not fond of them, the Bloomingdales could provide her with that family. Rhoda announced that if Bloomingdale proposed, she would accept his offer, and to that, Caroline told Rhoda that Bloomingdale should know all of her truths before marrying her. She then tells her that her grandfather was a Creole and his wife a slave.[23] Rhoda was instantly angry with Caroline for allowing her to pass all her life, but at the same time, she did not want to believe what she just heard and did not understand why Caroline would bother telling her at all. Rhoda thought that Caroline was trying to prevent her from marrying Bloomingdale, otherwise, she would have told her a long time ago if it is true. Caroline tried to calm her by explaining that her father married her mother, so he was an honorable man. Rhoda did not care at that point and quickly wrote a letter to Bloomingdale telling him that she cannot accept his proposal. She got dressed to go out and send it, but Caroline told her it is too late and dangerous to go out in the dark. Rhoda now wanted to go to New Orleans and find her mother's family. She asked Caroline if anyone else knows the secret, and Caroline lied and said that nobody else knew. Rhoda headed out of the room. In a moment of stress and sadness, Caroline drank the entire bottle of sleeping medication.
Out in the street, Rhoda encountered a mass of black people. She was uncomfortable and afraid, and she thought they were ugly. She noticed the varying skin hues and wondered what how they were created through the generations. She then quickly envisioned her own bloodline. As she walked, she tried to reconcile this new identity. She asked herself what she should do now. "What ought I to do? Yes, that is the key: Duty."[24] She also realized that her aunt was coward for not telling her sooner and ruined her life as a result. Rhoda made eye contact with a mulatto woman to whom she feels a connection. The woman was motherly, and Rhoda felt comfortable enough to ask why god cannot make everyone white, and the woman responds that he makes certain people "willing to be black"[25] because someone has got to do it. Rhoda followed the woman to church where she is surrounded by blackness. She enjoyed the scene but also thought the churchgoers were grotesque and smelled.[26] The preacher proclaimed that if white people were to give black people a chance, it would be good for everyone. By helping each other, society can heal. His words resonate with Rhoda, and she placed all the money she had in to the collection basket.[27] She ran home with plans of forgiving her aunt but found her lying still in her bed with the empty medicine bottle on the floor.
While Rhoda was out on her own and at church, Olney realized that he loved Rhoda despite what Caroline had just told him about her "negro descent." He wanted to run back and tell Caroline but hesitated because he did not think it fair to steal Rhoda away from Bloomingdale even though he thought he could be good for her. Not knowing that Caroline had already revealed the secret to Rhoda, he thought that if he married Rhoda, he would not have to Rhoda her ancestry secret. He wanted to go and convince Caroline not to tell Rhoda anything, and he, as the family physician, could then hypothetically ask Bloomingdale what he would do in a situation such as this so as to gauge what his response to Rhoda would be.[28] Olney decided to return to Caroline's room. He knocked on the door but did not hear a response, and the office did not have a spare key. He went to dinner and returned to knock again but did not receive a response, so he assumed that Caroline went out, possibly with Rhoda and the Bloomingdales. He feared that Rhoda was accepting Bloomindale's offer at that moment and that Caroline was telling her the truth before he had a chance to protect her from it. The third time he knocked, he was able to open the unlocked door. He found Rhoda standing over her aunt's dead body. Rhoda told him that they had gotten in to an argument and she went out leaving her aunt alone. He wondered if Caroline had told her the secret. He offers to help her with funeral proceeding, as a mode of distraction, by contacting family and friends and reserving a different room for Rhoda to sleep in.
Soon after Caroline's death, Olney ran in to a friendly acquaintance, Clara Kindsbury Atherton, who offered to help him and Rhoda. He chose not to tell her about Rhoda's newly discovered identity. Clara thought to take Rhoda with her to her home in Beverly where she could relax and mourn. Olney continued trying to contact Caroline's family in St. Louis who eventually wrote that they were sorry but could not make the funeral. Mrs. Bloomingdale then confronted Olney. She asked if Caroline committed suicide, but Olney could not confirm that. Mrs. Bloomingdale was also offended that Rhoda did not inform her before leaving town because she and her family would have wanted to help her. Despite the disappointment, Mrs. Bloomingdale reiterated that her family would still accept Rhoda. Olney grew paranoid that Mrs. Bloomingdale somehow knew how he felt about Rhoda, so he decided that he definitely wanted to tell Rhoda himself.[29]
Reverend Bloomingdale also approached Olney to apologize for his mother's behavior earlier. He said he understood why Rhoda did not turn to his family after Caroline's death and was not disappointed. Bloomingdale, however, did ask Olney for help with Rhoda. He wanted to know what her decision would be and support her during her mourning period, but he did not want to be inappropriate. Bloomingdale also believed the Caroline committed suicide, but he wanted Rhoda to know that that did not change his opinion of her. Olney considered telling Bloomingdale Rhoda's secret thinking that if he would be comfortable with Caroline committing suicide, then he would accept Rhoda even with "negro descent." Olney, however, wanted to give Bloomingdale a fair chance with Rhoda and thought that by telling her secret, he would stand in between them. He gave Bloomingdale Clara's address in Beverly so that he could go in the morning, but once he departed, Olney changed his mind and left to try to see Rhoda that night before Bloomingdale.[30]
Olney arrived in Beverly at Clara's house late that night after Rhoda was already asleep. Clara seemed to instantly understand Olney's romantic motivations, so he confided in her[31] and warned her that Bloomingdale planned to visit in the morning expecting an answer from Rhoda. Olney returned home trusting Clara to deal with Bloomingdale once he arrived. As planned, the reverend reached Beverly in the morning, but Rhoda refused to meet with him and received no pressure from Clara to do so.
In the final chapter, Olney thought a lot about how Rhoda had refused to see Bloomingdale in Beverly. Olney did not know whether she does not trust Bloomingdale enough to tell him her secret or she loves him too much to burden him with it. Olney decided to return to Beverly to meet with Rhoda. At the house, she greeted him right away without any pressure from him or Clara. She appeared better than the last time he had seen her, but she still believed that her aunt should not have told her about her race. As the conversation progressed, he became sure that Rhoda loved him and may have loved him ever since they met in Florence. He thought she was angry because her aunt told her the secret information too late, not that she told her at all, but he constrained himself so that he would not reveal that he knew. She hinted at it when she explained her plan to go to New Orleans in hopes of finding her "very poor and humble"[32] family. Olney asked Rhoda to stay in Boston instead and marry him because he loved her. She then admitted to him that she is a "negress,"[33] but he still professed his love for her anyway. He accidentally revealed that he knew already, and told her that her aunt Caroline had told him in confidence. Rhoda still planned on helping her family even though she considered them gross and different from herself, but she believed that the only way to accept her new identity is to go live with them. Olney assured her that she does not have to do that and promised not to tell anyone her secret, and Rhoda admitted that she did not care for the reverend. The novel ends with Olney and Rhoda continuing their lives together, without discussing her origin. Anytime they meet a new friend, however, they must decide whether or not to share the secret. The couple moved to Rome where Rhoda can blend in with the Italians around her, but Olney finally understood that identity is not about ancestral color but about condition; Rhoda's ancestors were hard workers who perpetually helped society.[34]
[edit] Characters
Olney – Recently repatriated American doctor who spent five years in Europe studying and socializing. There, he met Caroline and Rhoda. He cared for Caroline when she was sick and allowed her to confide in him. He fell in love with Rhoda, despite knowing that she was of "negro descent" and married her.
Caroline Meredith – Elderly aunt to Rhoda who raised her and brought her to live in Europe. Once arriving back in Boston, she got sick and revealed to Olney that Rhoda has black ancestors, a secret she has kept for Rhoda's whole life. She then dies that night by overdosing on sleeping medicine.
Rhoda Aldgate – Young niece of Caroline whose parents both passed away when she was a child. She spent time abroad and is looking for a husband. When her aunt revealed to her that she has black ancestors, and she believed that her life was over only to then fall in love with and marry Olney.
Reverend Bloomingdale – An American reverend who has been abroad in Europe and returned home to Boston before moving to Ohio for a new job placement. He proposed marriage to Rhoda in Florence where she declined and then again in Liverpool where she said she said she would give him and answer soon. Once in Boston, he hoped to get a response from her, but she decided that she did not love him.
Mrs. Bloomingdale – Mother of Reverend Bloomingdale. She liked Rhoda and invited her to join family outings in an attempt to persuade her to accept her son's offer. She is aggressive in pressuring Rhoda.
Clara Kindsbury Atherton – A helpful friend or acquaintance to many in the Boston social circle described in the novel, including Olney, Rhoda, Caroline, and the Bloomingdales. She has a home in nearby Beverly where she took Rhoda after Caroline died. She looked after Rhoda and listened to Olney as he tried to win her over.
[edit] Themes
An Imperative Duty is a "social novel,"[35] but it is not only an analysis of contemporary social classification and strata during Howells's day, it is also "an early expression of Howells's social conscience dwelling on slavery, more specifically miscegenation."[36] Although Howells was known for his psychological studies of motives and behavior, in An Imperative Duty he pioneered the analysis of the period's social problem concerning race. The novel is an expression of Howells's attitude toward racial problems – black segregation and miscegenation – of his own day. The race problem was a delicate and controversial topic,[37] so it provided a sensitive theme for a novel.
The term "imperative duty" refers to two racially motivated elements of the story, both of which show Howells's thoughts on the race problem. Caroline and Rhoda each have an "imperative duty," forced on to them by the society around them. From their position as high class, seemingly white, educated individuals, they are supposed to have an impulse to better society and move civilization forward. Caroline's duty is to inform her niece of her black ancestry because "Those ancestral traits, those tendencies, may die out, but I can't let any one take the risk of their recurrence unknowingly. He must know who and what she is as fully as I do: her origin, her—."[19] Caroline was convinced that Rhoda's hidden black traits could reoccur if she were to have children with Reverend Bloomingdale. This cannot happen. In order to better the world, Caroline must reveal that, "There was some stain upon that poor child's birth,"[19] so that she does not continue contaminating the future of American society. Previously, Olney had told her that the bad, or black, traits eventually die out after generations leaving only the good ones, but at the time, people like Caroline considered miscegenation sinful and ruinous to society.
Rhoda also had a race related duty. She felt it her responsibility to aid people less fortunate than she, or her black relatives, because she had the means to do so. Almost immediately after learning that she herself has black ancestry, she felt an impulse to head straight for New Orleans, find her family, move in, and educate them as best as she could.[38] Although she had not completely accepted her newfound identity, she still assumed that her education and presence would be worthwhile to her "humble"[32] family members. She was the result of miscegenation and felt she had to do what she could to reverse its effects on society, and that included not marrying.
The characters in the novel have mixed views of black people during a time of great social questioning. When Olney returned to Boston, he saw the black people as, "the only people left who have any heart for life here; they all look hopeful and happy, even in the rejection from their fellowmen, which strikes me as one of the most preposterous, the most monstrous things in the world, now I've got back to it here."[11] He then treated the porter condescendingly when asking him to fill Caroline's prescription and was also at first disgusted by Rhoda's "negro descent." He eventually overcame that feeling, but his thoughts on black people definitely fluctuated. Howells's solution to Olney's problem of interracial marriage was for him to marry Rhoda and take her away to Italy. This was a somewhat realistic solution to interracial marriage at the time, but it still shows Olney's apprehension and fear of confronting the issue.[39]
Rhoda also, even after learning her own secret, cannot determine whether or not she likes or dislikes the black people around her. Towards the beginning of the novel she talked about a small black waiter who she finds entertaining. She objectifies him by saying, "I should like to own him, and keep him as long as he lived. Isn't it a shame that we can't buy them, Dr. Olney, as we used to do?"[40] When she later wondered the street, she found the black church community simultaneously welcoming and comforting and grotesque and ugly. She claimed to "hate" her black relatives but also wanted to help them. Her opinions are confused, as are Olney's, which represents a larger theme in society at the time.
Howells grew up in a post-slavery society still divided by race, and in this realist portrayal of Bostonian society, he focused on the racial climate. Stereotypes and segregation still existed, and miscegenation was considered taboo. He was sympathetic towards the black population. He even had to tone down several anti-Irish and pro-Negro passages[41] in his original draft to appeal to a particular intellectual audience, and his novel expresses his struggle determining his stance on the issue. "It does not seem too great a risk to suggest that Howells was in sympathy with the answers offered by Edward Olney."[42]
[edit] Critical Reception
Howells's An Imperative Duty was first published, the British were "lavish in their praise,"[43] but the American reviewers were not so favorable because Howells was dealing with such a sensitive theme. It was bound to cause offense even if that was not his indent. "Reception of this book involving even such a slight degree of miscegenation was not kind in 1891. Harvard scholar Bliss Perry wrote in 1935 in And Gladly Teach that Howells had dissuaded him from writing a book about the 'color line in the north.'"[44] Reviews also changed with time. Critiques dating from when the novel was first published differ from those when it was republished in the late 20th century.
The British The Athenaeum reviewing then novel after it was first published wrote, "An Imperative Duty is remarkable for the cleverness of its story and the neatness with which the plot is constructed." It shows "the folly of an aimless act of self-sacrifice."[43] The race problem, however, was distinctly American, but The Westminister Review, although recognizing that it is an American problem, also identified the importance of Caroline and Rhoda's duties.
The Critic, an American publication, thought, on the other hand, thought Howells failed to even treat the race problem. He bit "off more than he can easily masticate…and his failure is probably due to his ignorance of the subject."[37] It also took issue with Olney's effort to make light of the situation and joke Rhoda out of her morbidness. The Nation, however, complimented but then criticized Howells's work. The American periodical complimented Howells's lucidity, force, and grace in describing and arguing the situation, but it doubted the validity of Olney's solution as a general application, and the reviewer "flippantly [remarked] that he would not advise 'young men to keep a woman with a strain of Negro blood.'"[39] Reviewers recognized Howells's psychological study of an exaggerated Puritan conscience, motives and behavior; and a contemporary social problem, but they largely comment on the lack of realistic solutions to the race problem, although Howells suggested a lackluster one. Reviewers were not sure if Olney represented Howells, but it was widely known that he was heavily influenced by psychology and science, much like Olney's character was.
When the novel was republished, it was re-reviewed, and the critiques reflected a different time. The critiques were generally positive, looking retroactively at the situation of which Howells wrote and relating it current society. Generally, "modern critics devote but scant attention to An Imperative Duty. It is in this short novel, however, that one gains an insight into Howells' attitude toward racial problems in his own day. In view of our own current racial tensions, I feel that a close look at An Imperative Duty is more than justified."[45] Cady, the editor of the 1962 edition, was thought to have "brought renewed life and interest"[46] to Howells in the fifties and sixties. It is now considered a novel that rigorously exposed "infirmities of character, judicial hypocrisies, economic inequalities and other social failings about which Howells was passionate."[47]
Modern positive critiques highlight that the novel should be more widespread because of Howells's skill at detailing society "Two short novels written about the same time and now published in one volume of the Indiana Howells Edition, The Shadow of a Dream (1890) and An Imperative Duty (1891), are extraordinarily good novels that deserve to be better known. The first is Howells's most Hawthornesque fiction, and the second is a powerful pioneering study of black segregation and miscegenation." [48] Also, "An Imperative Duty always has seemed to this reviewer to be a remarkable work, and this present edition needs wide circulation."[49] This is a "tastefully and conservatively edited book, beautifully printed and bound; moreover, it makes readily available to the common reader two Howells stories of considerable importance, readability, and relevance."[49]
Some critiques found Howells's portrayal of the tragedy of racism highly accurate. An Imperative Duty "treats in an honest and worldly fashion the desperate horror of the person who discovers Negro blood in his veins and the subsequent happiness achieved through love, distance, and a mature personal reconciliation with reality."[50] The book "gains power from its recognition of how akin all men are psychologically, whether white or Negro."[49] "An Imperative Duty is a surprisingly early and bold treatment of race relations, is compact, tightly structured, and well executed…At the end of the novel Howells adopts a realistic solution for an interracial marriage in 1892 by sending his couple back to Italy to live."[51]
Contemporary negative reviews were also prevalent. Discrediting Howells's solution to the race problem that other critics found realistic and compelling, critics argued that if Howells's solution to the problem were for Olney to marry Rhoda and take her to Italy, this would be a weak solution. Critics also questioned the 'duties' and wondered whether Caroline's duty was to actually tell her niece and ruin her life and the lives of others or to keep the secret to herself.[39] Others critiqued the humor and romanticism claiming that Howells treated the situation with "an incidentality that approaches lightness a subject capable of tragic enlargement,"[52] or not applying enough sensitivity to the already controversial area.
[edit] Sales and Publishing Information
Beginning in July 1891 and ending in October 1891, the novel was first serially published in four installments in Harpers Monthly Magazine. Immediately afterward, it was stereotyped, and David Douglas printed it in Edinburgh.[41] Then, using the same plates, Harpers and Brothers published it in book form and released it on November 14, 1891.[45]
Martha Banta, the Indiana University Howells Center, and the Center for Edition of American Authors of the Modern Language Association edited it,[53] and it was republished in 1962 by Twayne Publishers of New York and cost $4.00.[50] The book contained both An Imperative Duty and another Howells novel, The Shadow of a Dream. The two novelettes have since been consistently published together in one bookbinding. Indian University Press in Bloomington, Indiana published it again in 1970, and it cost $10.00 and also contained the companion, The Shadow of a Dream.[54]
[edit] References
- ^ Howells, William Dean. An Imperative Duty. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 1962. 137. Print.
- ^ Howells. 138.
- ^ Howells. 139.
- ^ Howells. 141.
- ^ Howells. 142.
- ^ Howells. 144.
- ^ Howells. 146.
- ^ Howells. 147.
- ^ Howells. 150.
- ^ Howells. 151.
- ^ a b Howells. 153.
- ^ Howells. 156.
- ^ Howells. 157.
- ^ Howells. 158.
- ^ Howells. 160.
- ^ Howells. 161.
- ^ Howells. 162.
- ^ Howells. 163.
- ^ a b c d Howells. 164.
- ^ Howells. 166.
- ^ Howells. 169.
- ^ Howells. 174.
- ^ Howells. 184.
- ^ Howells. 193.
- ^ Howells. 195.
- ^ Howells. 197.
- ^ Howells. 198.
- ^ Howells. 200.
- ^ Howells. 205.
- ^ Howells. 215.
- ^ Howells. 217.
- ^ a b Howells. 226.
- ^ Howells. 227.
- ^ Howells. 234.
- ^ Ford, Thomas W. "Howells and the American Negro." Texas Studies in Literature and Language. 5.4 (1964): 531. Web. 13 May. 2012. <jstor.org>.
- ^ Pochman, Henry A. ""The Shadow of a Dream" and "An Imperative Duty" by William Dean Howells; Martha Banta; Ronald Gottesman; David D. Nordloh." American Literature. 42.4 (1971): 578. Web. 13 May. 2012. <jstor.org>.
- ^ a b Ford. 532.
- ^ Howells. 188.
- ^ a b c Ford. 533.
- ^ Howells. 172.
- ^ a b Pochman. 579.
- ^ Ford. 537
- ^ a b Ford. 531.
- ^ Walts, Robert W. "Howells' Travels toward Art by James L. Dean; The Shadow of a Dream and an Imperative Duty by W.D. Howells." American Literary Realism, 1870-1910. 4.1 (1971): 88.
- ^ a b Ford. 530.
- ^ Meserve, Walter J. "THE SHADOW OF A DREAM and AN IMPERATIVE DUTY by William Dean Howells; Edwin H. Cady." Midcontinent American Studies Journal. 3.2 (1962): 56. Web. 13 May. 2012. <jstor.org>.
- ^ "Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920." Literature Online biography. Literature Online, n.d. Web. 13 May 2012. <http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&xri:pqil:res_ver=0.2&r es_id=xri:lion-us&rft_id=xri:lion:rec:ref:1104>.
- ^ Woodress, James. "William Dean Howells." Gale Literary Databases. The Gale Group, 1982. Web. 13 May 2012. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=2&locID=31841&secondary=false&u=CA&u=CLC&u=DLB&t=KW&s=1&NA=Howells&TI=An Imperative Duty
- ^ a b c Walts. 88.
- ^ a b Meserve. 56.
- ^ Woodress.
- ^ Ford. 534.
- ^ Walts. 87.
- ^ Walts. 85.
SNIyer12 15 May, 2012
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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/An_Imperative_Duty&diff=492588633&oldid=492588225
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