Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania
| File:Joseph and his friend.jpg | |
| Author | Bayard Taylor |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Gay novel |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam's Sons |
|
Publication date
|
1870 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 361 pp |
Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania is an 1870 novel by American author Bayard Taylor.[1]
Contents
Plot introduction
Joseph Aster, a young farmer in his twenties, marries Julia Blessing, a wealthy woman. He develops a deeper romantic attachment to Philip Held, his somewhat older and more worldly friend as he comes to recognize his wife's manipulative nature.[2]
Publication history
Joseph and His Friend was the last of four novels by Bayard Taylor.[3] It was the only one to have been serialized before publication; it first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly before appearing in book form.[4]
Literary significance and criticism
Near the end of the 19th century, poet and critic Richard Henry Stoddard, in a brief biography of Taylor, described Joseph and His Friend as "an indictment of rural poverty in Pennsylvania".[5] It has been called "America's first homosexual novel".[6][7] Taylor dedicated it to those "who believe in the truth and tenderness of man's love for man, as of man's love for woman".[8] Taylor also wrote that the reader who did not feel "cryptic forces" at play in the novel would find its plot of little interest.[9]
The book was not well received[8] and became the author's least successful and most disliked novel. It may have been its failure may have caused Taylor to stop writing novels.[4]
A later critic of Taylor, Albert Smyth, found Joseph and His Friend to be "an unpleasant story of mean duplicity and painful mistakes. The characters are shallow and their surroundings mean. There is not a single pleasing situation or incident in the book."[4] According to Robert K. Martin, the novel "is quite explicit in its adoption of a political stance toward homosexuality". As he summarizes the story:[10]
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[Joseph] meets Philip Held, with whom he falls in love and who explains to him "the needs" that are often unfulfilled in conventional society. Philip argues for the "rights" of those "who cannot shape themselves according to the common-place pattern of society."
Taylor's biographer Paul C. Wermuth, however, admitted that, though homosexual themes could not be overlooked, "it is by no means certain that the book should be interpreted this way."[11]
Footnotes
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Taylor, Bayard, Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania, New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1870
- ↑ Wermuth, Paul C. Bayard Taylor. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1973: 76. ISBN 0-8057-0718-2.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Wermuth, Paul C. Bayard Taylor. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1973: 94. ISBN 0-8057-0718-2.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Austen, Roger, Playing the Game: The Homosexual Novel in America, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1977, p. 9
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Austen, Roger, Playing the Game: The Homosexual Novel in America, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1977, p. 77
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Wermuth, Paul C. Bayard Taylor. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1973: 97. ISBN 0-8057-0718-2.
References
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External links
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