Joseph Percival Pollard (January 29, 1869 - December 17, 1911) was an American literary critic, novelist and short story writer.
Biography
Born in
Greifswald,
Pomerania to English and German parents, he was educated at
Eastbourne College
Eastbourne College is a co-educational independent school in the British public school tradition, for day and boarding pupils aged 13–18, in the town of Eastbourne on the south coast of England. The College's headmaster is Tom Lawson.
Overv ...
in
Sussex, England. His family emigrated to the United States in 1885.
After a youthful period in
Iowa, he spent much of his life moving back and forth between
London,
Paris and
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
. His best-known work was ''Their Day in Court'', a 1909 book of literary and cultural commentary. His works reflect his dislike for
naturalism, and disdain for the commercial tastes of the masses, promoting instead
aestheticism and literary
impressionism. A good friend of both
Ambrose Bierce and
H.L. Mencken
Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...
, Mencken wrote of him warmly in the first series of his work ''Prejudices'', comparing Pollard favorably to contemporary and fellow American aesthete
James Huneker. Pollard was also noted as an early advocate of
James Branch Cabell and the initial works of
Robert W. Chambers.
Other works include ''Dreams of To-day'' (1907), a book of decadent 'weird tales' in the vein of
Chambers' ''
The King in Yellow'', the critical study ''Masks and Minstrels of New Germany'' (1911), the novels ''The Imitator'' (1901) and ''Lingo Dan'' (1903), as well as a play written in collaboration with Leo Ditrichstein, ''The Ambitious Mrs. Alcott'', which opened and closed after 24 performances on
Broadway in 1907. Pollard, aged 42, died unexpectedly from "brain neuritis" in 1911 in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was d ...
, cutting short a promising career.
Mencken and
Bierce attended his funeral. His cremated remains were sent back to
Iowa. A 1947 Ph.D. dissertation, ''Percival Pollard: Precursor of the Twenties'', by George Nicholas Kummer of
New York University, has remained in unpublished typescript form.
Bibliography
*''The Cape of Storms'' (1892
*''Miniature Dreams'' (1893)
*''Posters in Miniature'' (1896)
*''The Kiss That Killed'' (1898)
*''The Imitator'' (1901
*''Lingo Dan'' (1903)
*''In Memoriam: Oscar Wilde'' (1905, as translator
*''Dreams of To-day'' (1907)
*''The Ambitious Mrs. Alcott'' (1907, with Leo Ditrichstein)
*''Their Day in Court'' (1909
*''Masks and Minstrels of New Germany'' (191
*''Vagabond Journeys: the Human Comedy at Home and Abroad'' (1911
References
*
Henry F. May, May, Henry F. ''The End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Own Time, 1912-1917''. Columbia University Press, 1992.
*
Mencken, H.L. ''Prejudices: First Series''. Kessinger Publishing, 2005.
External links
Cora T. Dunsmore on Percival Pollard*
ttp://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchresult.cfm?parent_id=301465&word= Photographs of Pollard at NYPL Digital Gallery*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pollard, Percival
19th-century American novelists
20th-century American novelists
American literary critics
American male novelists
1869 births
1911 deaths
People from Greifswald
People educated at Eastbourne College
Neurological disease deaths in Maryland
American male short story writers
19th-century American short story writers
19th-century American male writers
20th-century American short story writers
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers
Emigrants from the German Empire to the United States