The Project Gutenberg EBook of Yesterdays with Authors, by James T. Fields

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Title: Yesterdays with Authors

Author: James T. Fields

Release Date: June 15, 2004 [EBook #12632]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YESTERDAYS WITH AUTHORS ***

Produced by Keren Vergon, David Cortesi and PG Distributed Proofreaders

YESTERDAYS WITH AUTHORS

By

JAMES T. FIELDS.

"Was it not yesterday we spoke together?"--SHAKESPEARE

Seventeenth Edition

BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge

1879

* * * * *

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871,
BY JAMES T. FIELDS,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington

University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., Cambridge.

* * * * *
INSCRIBED

TO MY FELLOW-MEMBERS OF

THE SATURDAY CLUB.

* * * * *

Preface to the Project Gutenberg Edition.

James Fields (1817-1881) at age 14 became a clerk in a bookstore in
Boston, and in a few years became a partner in the bookselling firm of
Ticknor, Reed and Fields.

Fields's firm became the publisher for most of the great American
writers of the Nineteenth Century. In this book, Fields tells how he
persuaded a jobless, despondent Nathaniel Hawthorne to let him print
"The Scarlet Letter."

Fields made frequent visits to England to land the American publishing
rights to the works of important British writers, including the great
superstar of the time, Charles Dickens. Dickens accepted Fields as a
personal friend, entertained him at his retreat, Gad's Hill, and wrote
him many amusing notes that are included here. Fields also socialized
with the cream of London literary society, and the book includes his
personal anecdotes of meeting Wordsworth, Thackeray, and others. He
formed a friendship with Mary Russell Mitford (a successful