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Francis Saltus Saltus (November 23, 1849 – June 24, 1889) was an
He was a frequent contributor to American and international periodicals, such as '' Town Topics''. A talented musician, he wrote four comic operas and much musical criticism. Much of his humorous, commercial work was written under the pseudonym Cupid Jones. Saltus wrote and edited a comic paper entitled ''the Thistle'' in the 1870s, the entire contents of which were written by him and signed with various pseudonyms. After an illness lasting several weeks, he died at midnight on June 24 of 1889 at the Riverside Sanitarium in
''Honey and Gall''
(1873)
''Shadows and Ideals''
(1890)
''The Witch of En-dor and Other Poems''
(1891)
''Dreams after Sunset''
(1892)
''Flasks and Flagons, Pastels and Profiles, Vistas and Landscapes''
(1892)
''The Bayadere and Other Sonnets''
(1894)
''Fact and Fancy''
(1895)
Absinthe related poems by Francis Saltus at Absinthe.se
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saltus, Francis Saltus 1849 births 1889 deaths Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery Writers from New York City Columbia University alumni American male composers American music critics Musicians from New York City 19th-century American poets American male poets 19th-century American journalists American male journalists Journalists from New York City 19th-century American composers 19th-century American male writers 19th-century American male musicians
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
.
Biography
Born in 1849 inNew York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to Francis Henry Saltus and his first wife, Julia Augustus Hubbard, he was the elder half-brother of once popular but now relatively obscure novelist Edgar Saltus
Edgar Evertson Saltus (October 8, 1855 – July 31, 1921) was an American writer known for his highly refined prose style. His works paralleled those by European decadent authors such as Joris-Karl Huysmans, Gabriele D'Annunzio and Oscar Wild ...
.''The Bookmart'': Volume Seven, June, 1889 to May, 1890. Page 95. He was educated at Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
Vechten, Carl Van. ''Excavations: a Book of Advocacies''. Page 95. Ayer Publishing, 1971. and later at the Roblot Institution in Paris. Saltus was the leader of a group of bohemians
Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to:
*Anything of or relating to Bohemia
Beer
* National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst
* Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors
Culture and arts
* Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...
in New York, including his brother Edgar and the young James Huneker
James Gibbons Huneker (January 31, 1857 – February 9, 1921) was an American art, book, music, and theater critic. A colorful individual and an ambitious writer, he was "an American with a great mission," in the words of his friend, the critic Be ...
, which met at Billy Moulds' bar in Manhattan's University Place; they were fond of absinthe
Absinthe (, ) is an anise-flavoured spirit derived from several plants, including the flowers and leaves of ''Artemisia absinthium'' ("grand wormwood"), together with green anise, sweet fennel, and other medicinal and culinary herbs. Historical ...
and had "a taste for anything exotic". Van Wyck Brooks
Van Wyck Brooks (February 16, 1886 in Plainfield, New Jersey – May 2, 1963 in Bridgewater, Connecticut) was an American literary critic, biographer, and historian.
Biography
Brooks graduated from Harvard University in 1908. As a studen ...
remarked that the unhappy Saltus "looked like a Greek god gone to ruin, partly as a result of the absinthe that he drank to excess". His verse reflects a refined, erotic and decadent temperament similar to that of his brother, inspired primarily by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
, Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic.
While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and rem ...
(of whom he was a student) and Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poetry, French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticis ...
. He was praised by influential editor William Marion Reedy
William Marion Reedy (1862 – July 28, 1920) was a St. Louis-based editor best known for his promotion of the poets Sara Teasdale, Edgar Lee Masters, and Carl Sandburg to the audience of his newspaper, ''Reedy's Mirror''. Politically, Reedy was ...
as an 'American Baudelaire' whose verse had "the perfume of exquisite sadness."Putzel, Max. J. ''The Man in the Mirror: William Marion Reedy and His Magazine''. Page 44. University of Missouri Press, 1998. Able to converse in ten languages, Saltus also wrote poems in Italian, German and French.
He was a frequent contributor to American and international periodicals, such as '' Town Topics''. A talented musician, he wrote four comic operas and much musical criticism. Much of his humorous, commercial work was written under the pseudonym Cupid Jones. Saltus wrote and edited a comic paper entitled ''the Thistle'' in the 1870s, the entire contents of which were written by him and signed with various pseudonyms. After an illness lasting several weeks, he died at midnight on June 24 of 1889 at the Riverside Sanitarium in Tarrytown
Tarrytown is a administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in the administrative divisions of New York#Town, town of Greenburgh, New York, Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson Rive ...
, aged thirty-nine and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York, is the final resting place of numerous famous figures, including Washington Irving, whose 1820 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is set in the adjacent burying ground at the Old Dutch C ...
.Crandall, Charles Henry (editor). ''Representative Sonnets by American Poets''. Page 342. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1890. Saltus' father, Francis H. Saltus, edited a four-volume edition of his poetical works after his death.Stedman, Edmund Clarence (editor). ''An American Anthology, 1787-1900''. Page 819. Houghton Mifflin, 1900. Saltus left behind a good deal of unpublished material, including "five thousand lyrics for posthumous publication" and several musical biographies, including a life of Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the '' bel canto'' opera style dur ...
which was never published.
Bibliography
''Honey and Gall''
(1873)
''Shadows and Ideals''
(1890)
''The Witch of En-dor and Other Poems''
(1891)
''Dreams after Sunset''
(1892)
''Flasks and Flagons, Pastels and Profiles, Vistas and Landscapes''
(1892)
''The Bayadere and Other Sonnets''
(1894)
''Fact and Fancy''
(1895)
Notes
External links
* *Absinthe related poems by Francis Saltus at Absinthe.se
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saltus, Francis Saltus 1849 births 1889 deaths Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery Writers from New York City Columbia University alumni American male composers American music critics Musicians from New York City 19th-century American poets American male poets 19th-century American journalists American male journalists Journalists from New York City 19th-century American composers 19th-century American male writers 19th-century American male musicians