A Hazard of New Fortunes by William Dean Howells

First published: 1889

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of plot: 1880’s

Locale: New York City

Principal characters

• Basil March, the editor of a literary magazine
• Mr. Fulkerson, the sponsor for the magazine
• Conrad Dryfoos, the publisher of the magazine
• Mr. Dryfoos, Conrad’s father and a newly rich millionaire
• Christine Dryfoos, his daughter, in love with Angus Beaton
• Henry Lindau, a socialist
• Angus Beaton, the art director for the magazine, courting Christine Dryfoos, Margaret Vance, and Alma Leighton
• Margaret Vance, a young woman involved in charity work
• Alma Leighton, a young artist

The Story:

When he was young, Basil March wished for a literary career, but family responsibilities have led him to enter the insurance business, a field in which he has proven to be mediocre. After he has spent eighteen years with his firm, March’s employers decide to replace him and put him into a somewhat meaningless position. Rather than be so embarrassed, he resigns. Fortunately for him and his family, Mr. Fulkerson, a promoter of syndicated newspaper material who met the Marches years before, proposes that March take over the editorship of a new literary magazine that he is promoting. March at first demurs at Fulkerson’s proposal, but the promoter, certain that March has the necessary taste and tact to be successful, finally persuades him to take the position.

March’s wife and children have lived in Boston their entire lives, so, when the prospect of moving to New York City appears, even though it means a career for March, they need considerable persuasion. At last, Mrs. March is convinced that moving to the larger city is imperative. She and her husband go to New York to find an apartment. After many days of searching, Mrs. March returns to Boston, leaving her husband to make a decision about the editorship. He does so a short time later.

March fears that he will encounter problems with the magazine’s staff, but the situation proves less difficult than he had imagined. Fulkerson, the promoter, has engaged an artist, Angus Beaton, to serve as art director; procured a cover sketch for the first issue; and made all the financial arrangements with the magazine’s backer, Mr. Dryfoos, who recently made a fortune for himself through the control of natural gas holdings. Mr. Dryfoos, who is trying to win his son Conrad away from a career as a minister, has undertaken to finance the magazine in order to give Conrad a chance to enter business as the ostensible publisher of the periodical. March has made arrangements for foreign articles and reviews to be handled by an old German socialist, Henry Lindau, a former tutor of March whom the younger man happened to run into in New York.

Despite March’s fear and lack of confidence, the new magazine, Every Other Week, is a success from the very first issue; both the illustrations and the material catch the public’s fancy. On the periphery of the business, however, many complications arise. The Dryfoos family were simple farm folk before acquiring their fortune, and the two daughters want to enter society and be accepted in their new milieu. Christine Dryfoos, the older daughter, falls in love with Beaton. Beaton, however, admires Margaret Vance, a young woman from a good family who performs charity work among the poor. Beaton also has an interest in Alma Leighton, a young artist from whom he procured the cover sketch for the magazine. Fulkerson, the promoter, has also fallen in love. He is busy paying court to a Southern girl who boards at the same house he does. The girl’s father, a Virginia colonel, wants Fulkerson to have the magazine print a portion of his work extolling the merits of slavery.

Because the magazine is successful, Fulkerson suggests that, for publicity purposes, it should give a dinner party for members of the staff and the press. Mr. Dryfoos is asked to pay for the proposed affair and vetoes the idea, but he agrees to have a small dinner party at his home for several of the men connected with the magazine. Among the guests is Henry Lindau. Dryfoos is impressed with Lindau because the old German lost a hand fighting in a war, but the millionaire is unaware that Lindau is a socialist. At the dinner party, the personalities and the principles of the men clash openly. The next day, the millionaire bluntly tells March to fire Lindau. March wishes to support his former tutor, but Lindau himself forces the issue by refusing to do any more work for the capitalistic owner of the magazine.

Another crisis occurs a short time later, when Mr. Dryfoos and his son, who hates being a businessman rather than a minister, have an open clash of wills. The situation becomes so acute that the father, visiting one day when his son is alone in the office, strikes the young man in the face. Outside the office, Mr. Dryfoos also has trouble with his daughter, Christine, for he has forbidden Beaton from visiting her.

At this time, the New York City streetcar operators are on strike. Young Conrad Dryfoos is very much in sympathy with the strikers, many of whom he knows as a result of his church work among the poor and sick of the city. At the instigation of Margaret Vance, with whom he has fallen in love, he goes into the streets to try to mediate between the rioting strikers and the police. He sees Mr. Lindau, the aged, one-armed socialist, being beaten by a policeman and runs to intervene, but Conrad is struck by a stray bullet and killed.

Mr. Dryfoos is heartbroken at the loss of his son, particularly because he feels that he had mistreated the young man. When he learns that his son died trying to save Mr. Lindau from a policeman’s club, he decides to accept the old man as a friend and to take care of him for the rest of his life. The decision comes too late, however, for the old man has died as a result of the police beating. In a last effort to show his change of heart, Mr. Dryfoos has Mr. Lindau’s funeral conducted in his own home.

Still wishing to try to make his family happy, Mr. Dryfoos swallows his pride and goes to see Angus Beaton. Confessing that he is sorry to have caused the young people unhappiness, he invites Beaton to resume his calls on Christine. The young man eventually pockets his own pride and visits Christine, but even her father’s money cannot make up for his embarrassment at her lack of proper manners and decorum. Beaton later proposes to Alma, who rejects him in favor of pursuing her art career.

A few days later, Mr. Dryfoos resolves to take his wife and daughters to Europe. Before they leave, he visits the offices of the magazine, where everyone is wondering whether Conrad Dryfoos’s death has destroyed his father’s interest in the periodical and what its fate will be. Mr. Dryfoos magnanimously consents to sell the periodical to Fulkerson and March for a low price and to finance the purchase at very low interest. Both March and Fulkerson are extremely happy at this turn of events. March sees his future secure at last, and he also relishes the opportunity to have a free hand in shaping editorial policy. Fulkerson is happy because he, too, foresees a prosperous future for himself. As the result of his expectations, he is able to marry and settle down. Some months afterward, the magazine’s staff learns that the Dryfoos family has been accepted into at least a portion of Parisian society, and Christine Dryfoos has become engaged to a penniless but proud French nobleman.

Bibliography

Abeln, Paul. William Dean Howells and the Ends of Realism. New York: Routledge, 2004. Analyzes Howells’s fiction, providing a close look at his late works, to demonstrate that Howells’s work is as significant in the American literary tradition as that of his better-regarded contemporaries, Henry James and Mark Twain.

Cady, Edwin H. The Realist at War: The Mature Years, 1885-1920. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1958. An excellent source of autobiographical criticism. Traces parallels between Howells and Basil March. Uses events in Howells’s life to explain his fictional choices in this period.

Goodman, Susan, and Carl Dawson. William Dean Howells: A Writer’s Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Broad and compelling biography providing a comprehensive account of Howells’s life and work. Among other topics, the biographers discuss Howells’s friendships with and support of contemporary writers and his significance in American letters. Includes illustrations and bibliography.

Johnson, Joel A. Beyond Practical Virtue: A Defense of Liberal Democracy Through Literature. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007. Examines the relationship between liberal democracy and the individual in works by Howells and other nineteenth century American writers.

Kaplan, Ann. The Social Construction of American Realism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. An insightful study of representations of class within American realism. Includes a lengthy chapter about A Hazard of New Fortunes that examines the roles of the city and social difference in the novel.

Nettels, Elsa. Language, Race, and Social Class in Howells’ America. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988. Examines Howells’s use of dialect and vernacular as markers of class and ethnicity. Analyzes the speech patterns of Lindau, Madison Woodburn, and the Dryfoos family.

Stratman, Gregory J. Speaking for Howells: Charting the Dean’s Career Through the Language of His Characters. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2001. Analyzes Howells’s interest in language, focusing on the language of his characters and his use of literary dialect. Argues that Howells’s use of and writing about language demonstrate how his career moved in a circular path, from Romanticism to realism and back to Romanticism

Taylor, Walter F. “William Dean Howells and the Economic Novel.” In Critics on William Dean Howells, edited by Paul A. Eschholz. Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami Press, 1975. An early analysis of the novel and its economic implications. Contains a bibliography of other economic critiques.