Washington Irving by Brian Jay Jones

Author:Brian Jay Jones
Language: nld
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2011-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

10

Professional

1826–1829

I have principally been employed on my Life of Columbus, in executing which I have studied and laboured with a patience and assiduity for which I shall never get the credit.

—Washington Irving to Henry Brevoort, April 4, 1827

THE LETTER FROM THE AMERICAN MINISTER to Spain seemed too good to be true.

President John Quincy Adams's newly appointed minister, a thirty-five-year-old Bostonian named Alexander Hill Everett, had met Irving during the summer of 1825 in Paris. The two had enjoyed each other's company, and before leaving for Spain, Everett invited Irving to visit Madrid, even offering to formally attach him to the Spanish embassy for protection. Irving had declined, but in early January 1826, on a whim, he wrote Everett from Bordeaux, asking if his invitation was still open.

Everett's response arrived on January 30. Not only did the offer still stand, but Everett also had a potential literary project for him: the Spanish writer and scholar Martin Fernández de Navarette was preparing to publish the journals of Christopher Columbus, and Everett wanted to know if Irving would be interested in translating the documents into English. Everett suggested that such a translation might be sold to interested publishers.

Everett had shrewdly appealed to Irving's purse, and the offer was tempting. The investment in the Bolivian copper mine was a disaster, and his personal finances remained tight. As for the proposed project, Irving had undertaken similar work before, translating plays like Richelieu from French into English. It seemed to be easy money. “The very idea of it animates me,” Irving wrote to the minister. “There is something in the job itself that interests and pleases me, and will assist to compensate me for my trouble.” To Storrow, however, he was markedly less reserved. “A job has suddenly presented itself which seems like a godsend. This thing has come upon me so suddenly that it has thrown me quite in a flurry.”1

In the meantime, Irving wrote to Leslie in London and asked the artist to approach John Murray, to see if he—or any other publisher, for that matter—would be interested in acquiring the Columbus translation, sight unseen, for 1,000 guineas. Irving apologized for the bother; Leslie and his wife were friendly with the Murrays, and Irving knew that his request could put Leslie in an awkward position. But Murray hadn't responded favorably to his letters lately, so he thought a more personal appeal was necessary. For good measure, he dropped a note to the publisher, assuring him that his project was sure to be “very interesting… I hope it will be a work to tempt you.”2

And still there was Payne and his long, tiresome letters from London to deal with. A bit of good news had come from the wastrel playwright in early January, when Payne informed him that Riche-lieu would finally be performed at London's Covent Garden Theatre in February. But the play bombed badly, running only six performances. Worse, Payne had given Irving a writing credit, tacking a failed play onto Irving's résumé immediately on the heels of the hated Tales of a Traveller.

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