James Payn

Payn's father, William Payn (1774/1775–1840), was clerk to the Thames Commissioners and at one time treasurer to the county of Berkshire. Payn himself was educated at Eton, and afterwards entered the Military Academy at Woolwich; but his health was unequal to a military career, and he proceeded in 1847 to Trinity College, Cambridge.[2] He was among the most popular men of his time, and served as president of the Union. Before going to Cambridge he had published some verses in Leigh Hunt's Journal, and while still undergraduate put forth a volume of Stories from Boccaccio in 1852, and in 1853 a volume of Poems.

In the year he left Cambridge, he met and shortly afterwards married Miss Louisa Adelaide Edlin (born 1830 or 1831),[3] sister of Judge Sir Peter Edlin, later chairman of the London Quarter Sessions.[4] They had nine children, the third of whom, Alicia Isabel (died 1898), married The Times editor George Earle Buckle.[3]

Payn then settled down in the Lake District to a literary career and contributed regularly to Household Words and Chambers's Journal. In 1858 he moved to Edinburgh to act as joint editor of the latter, and became its sole editor in 1860. He conducted the magazine with much success for 15 years. In the meantime he removed to London in 1861. In the pages of the Journal he published in 1864 his most popular story, Lost Sir Massingberd.[5] From this time he was engaged in writing novels, including Richard Arbour or the Family Scapegrace (1861),[6] Married Beneath Him (1865), Carlyon's Year (1868), A County Family (1869), By Proxy (1878), A Confidential Agent (1880), Thicker Than Water (1883), A Grape from a Thorn, The Talk of the Town (1885), and The Heir of the Ages (1886).[7]

In 1883 he succeeded Leslie Stephen as editor of the Cornhill Magazine and continued in the post until the breakdown of his health in 1896.[8] He was also literary adviser to Messrs Smith, Elder & Company. His publications included a Handbook to the English Lakes (1859), and various volumes of occasional essays, Maxims by a Man of the World (1869), Some Private Views (1881), Some Literary Recollections (1884). A posthumous work, The Backwater of Life (1899), revealed much of his own personality in a mood of kindly, sensible reflection upon familiar topics. He died in London, on 25 March 1898.[9]

A biographical introduction to The Backwater of Life was furnished by Sir Leslie Stephen.[10]

Articles

• "The Critic on the Hearth," The Nineteenth Century, Vol. V, January/June 1879.
• "An Indo-Anglian Poet," The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. CCXLVI, January/June 1880.
• "Two Infant Phenomenons," The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. CCXLVI, January/June 1880.
• "Sham Admiration in Literature," The Nineteenth Century, Vol. VII, January/June 1880.
• "The Pinch of Poverty," The Nineteenth Century, Vol. VII, January/June 1880.
• "Success in Fiction," The North American Review, Vol. 140, No. 342, May 1885.
• "On Conversation," The Nineteenth Century, Vol. XLII, July/December 1897.
• "On Old Age," The Nineteenth Century, Vol. XLII, July/December 1897.

Short Stories

• "The Midway Inn," The Nineteenth Century, Vol. V, January/June 1879.
• "Uncle Lock's Legacy," Short Stories, Vol. XI, September/December 1892.
• "A Successful Experiment," Short Stories, Vol. XI, September/December 1892.
• "Rebecca's Remorse." In Short Stories from "Black and White," Chapman & Hall, 1893.
• "A Faithful Retainer." In Stories by English Authors, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901.

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Payn, James". Encyclopædia Britannica. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

• Atkinson, Damian. "Payn, James (1830–1898)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21640. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Block, Jr., Ed. "Evolutionist Psychology and Aesthetics: The Cornhill Magazine, 1875–1880," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 45, No. 3, 1984.
• Brightfield, Myron Franklin. Victorian England in its Novels, 1840–1870, University of California Library, 1968.
• Haycraft, Howard & Kunitz, Stanley. British Authors of the Nineteenth Century, The H. W. Wilson Company, 1936.
• James, Henry. "The Late James Payn," The New England Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 1, Mar. 1994.
• Lehmann, Rudolph Chambers. Memories of Half a Century: A Record of Friendships, Smith, Elder & Co., 1908.
• Melville, Lewis. "James Payn." In Victorian Novelists, Archibald Constable, 1906.
• Rideing, William H. "James Payn." In The Boyhood of Famous Authors, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, 1897.
• Rideing, William H. "Reminiscences of an Editor," McClure's Magazine, February 1910 [Rep. in Many Celebrities and a Few Others, Eveleigh Nash, 1912].
• Russell, George W. E. "James Payn." In Selected Essays on Literary Subjects, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1910.
• Terry, R. C. Victorian Popular Fiction, 1860–1880, Humanities Press, 1983.
• Wegener, Frederick. "Henry James on James Payn: A Forgotten Critical Text," The New England Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 1, Mar. 1994.

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• Works by James Payn at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about James Payn at Internet Archive
• Works by James Payn at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Works by James Payn at Open Library
• Works by James Payn, at Harper's Magazine
• Works by James Payn, at Hathi Trust
• Works by James Payn, at Unz.org