Saturday, March 12, 2022

"The Happy Failure," newspaper reprintings in Melville's lifetime

Probably written in spring or summer 1853, Herman Melville's short story The Happy Failure appeared the following year in the July 1854 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Volume 9, pages 196-199). The humorously instructive tale of a delusional inventor and his impracticable scheme for draining swamps was first published anonymously, but rightly credited to Herman Melville in later indexes to contents of Harper's magazine. 

"The Happy Failure / A Story of the River Hudson" in Harper's New Monthly Magazine volume 9:

https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hnybgz?urlappend=%3Bseq=210%3Bownerid=27021597768253623-212

Not in The Piazza Tales (New York, 1856), but collected in the 1987 Northwestern Newberry edition, The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860 edited by Harrison Hayford, Alma A. MacDougall, G. Thomas Tanselle and others. Textual notes in the Northwestern-Newberry edition, page 690, indicate 

"No known manuscript, and no later printing in Melville's lifetime.

However, "The Happy Failure" did get reprinted at least three times in Melville's lifetime, during and after the Civil War. On October 23, 1861 the Gloucester Telegraph and News, reprinted "The Happy Failure" on the front page, concluding the story on the fourth page where credit was given to "Harper's magazine." Also reprinted in full on page 4 of the Cape Ann Light and Gloucester Telegraph for the same day, October 23, 1861, with the same credit to Harper's magazine at the end. The Gloucester Telegraph was owned and edited by John Stevens Ellery Rogers.

Gloucester MA Telegraph and News - October 23, 1861
via Genealogy Bank

More than a decade later, "The Happy Failure" was reprinted in the Columbus, Ohio Daily Dispatch on September 18, 1873. Also reprinted in the Paterson, New Jersey Daily Press on October 31, 1873, under the byline of "Blanche Avignon."

Paterson NJ Daily Press - October 31, 1873

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