reviews_and_ramblings | Paul Leicester Ford (March 23, 1865

Paul Leicester Ford (23 March 1865, New York, New York, USA - 8 May 1902, New York, New York, USA) was an American novelist and biographer, born in Brooklyn. He was the great-grandson (through his mother's family) of Noah Webster and the brother of the noted historian Worthington C. Ford. He wrote lives of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and others, edited the works of Thomas Jefferson, and wrote a number of novels, which had considerable success, including The Honorable Peter Stirling (1894), The Story of an Untold Love, Janice Meredith, Wanted a Matchmaker, and Wanted a Chaperon. He was murdered by his brother, Malcolm Webster Ford, at one time the most famous amateur athlete in the United States, who then committed suicide.

Paul Leicester Ford was the consummate bookman of the late nineteenth century. During his brief life, he successfully contributed to the world of letters through printing, bibliography, editing, scholarship, and fiction. An exhibit on University of South Carolina represents part of a gift recently made to the University by Mrs. William R. Bailey of Camden in memory of her husband, William R. Bailey. Bailey was the grandson of Rosalie Ford Barr, one of Paul Ford's older sisters. Mrs. Barr was close to Ford throughout his life; she also provided him with his only formal schooling. Later in his life, she furnished him with a much needed retreat to complete one of his best-sellers. The collection contains almost forty books and pamphlets pertaining to Ford, including inscriptions, photos, and letters, and additional material by Noah Webster, Ford's great-grandfather, Emily E. Ford, his mother, Worthington C. Ford, his brother, and other authors.

Owing to a spinal injury suffered in early youth, Ford was never able to attend school. Instead, Rosalie, his sister, tutored him in English, French, Greek, and American History. After three years, this arrangement ended due to Rosalie's marriage, and Ford began educating himself in the world-renowned library belonging to his father, Gordon Lester Ford. Housed within their residence were some 100,000 books and 60,000 manuscripts, dealing mainly with colonial and revolutionary American history. At this time, however, Ford's greatest interest was family history.

In 1876, at the age of 11, Ford received a small press. This present and the massive resources to which he had access shaped his future interests. Ford immediately set about printing. Initially, the young man edited and reprinted manuscripts found in the library, specifically relating to his family, such as Ford's first reprint entitled The Genealogy, Compiled for Presentation only by Noah Webster, New Haven, 1836, with Notes and Corrections by His Great-Grand-son, Paul Leicester Ford. In a matter of years, however, the young printer also turned his attention to new manuscripts, such as a collection of poems by his mother, Emily E. Ford (1826-93), Poems, Brooklyn, N.Y.: Priv. print., 1879.

Called precocious by all who knew him, Ford demonstrated this quality by quickly gaining the skill of an expert bibliographer. One of his earliest and most successful compilations was Bibliotheca Hamiltoniana: A List of Books Written by, or Relating to, Alexander Hamilton, New York: Knickerbocker, 1886. Inscribed by Ford to his sister, Rosalie Barr, Xmas 1886. This bibliography remains the most extensive treatment of Hamilton to date.

At the same time that Ford was working hard to organize and catalogue numerous manuscripts, he was also involved in reprinting texts for scholarly use, such as Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States: Published during Its Discussion by the People, 1787-1788, Brooklyn, N.Y.: n.p., 1888.

Ford was also involved in a printing club, which was quite the rage within educated circles in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Along with his father, Gordon Lester Ford, and his older brother, Worthington, Ford set out to make available to scholars and libraries important but little known works and manuscripts. The source of much of this material was the family library. These separate texts were ultimately included in fifteen volumes of Winnowings in American History.

From 1890-93, Ford co-edited the Library Journal. His growing renown as an editor and bibliographer qualified him for such a position, but his friendships with Richard Rogers Bowker, the publisher of Publisher's Weekly and the Library Journal, and Melvil Dewey, the president of the New York Library Club and creator of the Dewey Decimal Classification System, certainly helped him gain this position. During his tenure on the magazine, Ford advocated the most progressive ideas of the day: free access to book shelves, cooperative buying on the part of libraries, the formation of union catalogs, the collecting and indexing of neglected research materials, and the introduction of inter-library loans.

In this speech given to the members of the Century Association, Ford recounted his experiences cataloguing the Graham collection and stated through this process he had grown to know not only Graham's books but also Graham.

The Story of an Untold Love published in 1897 was criticized for being slow moving and having unbelievable characters, especially female characters. The most interesting aspect of this text is the autobiographical element.

Janice Meredith: A Story of the American Revolution published in 1899 proved to be Ford's greatest literary success. Although the critics attacked the novel's faulty construction, lack of style, and contrived action, the reading public adored it. Within the first three months, over 200,000 copies sold, which was the largest on record of any novel then published. Within two years of its publication, it was dramatized and, early in the twentieth century, it was even made into a motion picture. The novel was a culmination of Ford's diverse skills. This historical romance, set before and during the time of the Revolutionary War, narrates the struggle of the colonies to gain their freedom and the struggle of the hero, Jack Brereton, to win the heroine, Janice Meredith. One enthusiastic critic went so far as to declare that this novel was "the great New Jersey novel, if not the great American novel." For the public's part, a new dance was coined the "Janice Meredith Waltz," and a new hairstyle was labeled the "Meredith curl." All in all, most critics agreed that Janice Meredith was proof of Ford's improved skill as a novelist.

Ford served as the editor of A House Party: An Account of Stories Told at a Gathering of Famous American Authors, the Story Tellers Being Introduced by Paul Leicester Ford, published in 1901, consisting of twelve anonymous short stories, one of which was written by Ford, "A Family Tradition." Some of the other famous authors included Sarah Orne Jewett, Owen Wister, George Washington Cable, and C.G.D. Roberts. Readers were instructed to identify the authors, and the first to do so correctly would win a large monetary prize.

Because Ford was widely recognized as a literary and historical scholar, he was chosen in 1902 by the Dodd, Mead publishing firm to edit their new journal, the Bibliographer. Although he served on the staff for less than a year, Ford brought prestige, experience, and commitment, to this new science and new journal. Unlike many other scholars of the day, Ford believed that historical texts could no longer be based on the scholar's opinions and a few other histories; bibliography was a necessary basis for all historical work.

It was his firm conviction that "the personal opinion of the writer, unless most thoroughly supported by citations and references, is no longer accepted as fact, and is hardly wished for by the scholar."

On May 8, 1902, Ford was shot by his estranged brother, Malcolm Webster Ford, the athlete and magazine writer, who committed suicide immediately afterward.

In response to his early demise, the Bibliographer lamented that "The death of Mr. Ford is a permanent loss to American bibliography."

A writer at Harper's Weekly stated that "there can be no doubt had Mr. Ford lived and kept what shreds of health his delicate system vouchsafed him that he would have contributed several more novels of American life and social conditions, which would have placed him in the history of American literature as one of the greatest of American novelists."

An article in the Bookman declared that Ford was one of the great historians of the nineteenth century. Leaving behind a wife and small daughter, Ford's death was truly a loss to his family, friends, and American letters. Examining his short life and his numerous accomplishments, however, makes one readily accept his friend's assertion that Ford had "an almost superhuman capacity for work."

Source: http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/amlit/plford/plford.html