Edgar Saltus
Edgar Saltus was an American author born on October 8, 1855, in New York City, to a well-off family of Dutch descent. He pursued education at prestigious institutions, including St. Paul's School and Yale University, before transitioning to law at Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1880. However, Saltus chose not to practice law, instead focusing on writing and literary philosophy. His first notable work, a biography of Honoré de Balzac, was published in 1884, followed by several influential studies on topics like atheism and the philosophy of Schopenhauer.
Saltus is recognized for his novels that often reflect the pessimistic and bizarre aspects of fashionable New York society, likened to the works of Joris-Karl Huysmans. His writing style emphasized an exaggerated and ironic approach, capturing the attention of contemporaries such as Oscar Wilde. Throughout his career, he published numerous short stories, essays, and historical novels, with works like "Imperial Purple" and "The Paliser Case" gaining some recognition, though his popularity waned after his death in 1921. Despite a brief revival of interest following a 1968 biography, Saltus's contributions to literature are sometimes seen as precursors to the modernist movement, although his works are not widely read today.
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Edgar Saltus
Author
- Born: October 8, 1855
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: July 31, 1921
Biography
Edgar Saltus was born in New York City on October 8, 1855, the son of Francis Henry Saltus and Eliza Howe Evertson, both of Dutch descent. The family was well-off, and Saltus had independent means for the first part of his life. He graduated from St. Paul’s, a private school in New Hampshire, and then attended Yale University for one year. After he left Yale, he went abroad to study at Paris, Heidelberg, and Munich. On his return, he pursued a law degree at Columbia University, earning his LL.B. in 1880.
However, Saltus had no desire to enter the legal profession and instead turned his attention to writing and to literature and philosophy. His first published book was Balzac, a biography of the French author Honoré de Balzac, published in 1884 to favorable reviews. This was followed the next year by The Philosophy of Disenchantment, a study of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, and then by The Anatomy of Negation in 1886, a study of atheism and skepticism. The choice of these topics gives some idea of his underlying cast of mind.
Saltus married three times. In 1883, he married Helen Sturgis Reed, and the couple divorced ten years later. In 1895, he married Elsie Welsh Smith, by whom he had a daughter; in 1911, he married Marie Giles, who converted him to Theosophy and who wrote a biographical sketch of Saltus after his death. Saltus continued to live in New York City, where he died in 1921.
Saltus’s primarily wrote fiction and popular histories. His first novel, Mr. Incoul’s Misadventure, appeared in 1887, and he published many other novels during his lifetime. These novels about fashionable New York society are often likened to the novels of the contemporary decadent French novelist Joris- Karl Huysmans; the works of both authors are pessimistic and display a penchant for the bizarre, violent, and sordid presented in a consciously exaggerated and taut style. Saltus claimed that style was everything, a remark that attracted the attention of Oscar Wilde, another ironic stylist. In 1889, Saltus published a collection of short stories, A Transient Guest, and Other Episodes, and in 1890, a collection of essays, Love and Lore. Imperial Purple, a historical novel in which Saltus related the more macabre episodes of Roman history, was published in 1892.
In the 1890’s, Saltus appears to have descended into becoming a hack writer for the Colliers publishing house, but he did not publish these works under his own name. In 1903, Purple and Fine Women, another short story collection, appeared under his name, and he published four novels between 1905 and 1912. Once again, these novels were sensational, bizarre, and pessimistic and their characterization is often considered weak. Two further collections of historical sketches also appeared during this period and a nonfiction book, Lords of Ghostland: A History of the Ideal, was published in 1907.
A period of ill health between 1913 and1919 interrupted Saltus’s career, but after he recovered he wrote two books that would become well known. The first book, The Paliser Case (1919), a novella, was made into a film in 1920, as was his earlier novel, Daughters of the Rich (1909), released as a film in 1923. The second book, The Imperial Orgy: An Account of the Tsars from the First to the Last (1920), was an early example of creative nonfiction, focusing on the Russian czars in much the same manner as his earlier Imperial Purple concentrated on ancient Roman rulers. To Saltus, political power meant violence, often unrestrained violence. After his death, three works were published posthumously: a novel The Ghost Girl (1922); a collection of essays and poetry, The Uplands of Dream (1925); and a collection of poetry coauthored with his wife, Poppies and Mandragora (1926).
Saltus’s work fell into almost instant oblivion after his death. A biography in 1968 resulted in the reprint of a few of his titles, but there seems little ongoing interest in his work. However, his work has some literary significance because the style and treatment of his material often anticipated aspects of the modernism literary movement.