Edgar Saltus at the age of two, sitting on the lap of his mother.
Wife: Marie Flored Giles
1925
A portrait of Edgar Saltus' wife Marie Flores Giles, sitting at the Table on which her Husband wrote his Books, burning Incense before a Siamese Buddha and meditating on a Stanza from the Bhagavad Gitâ.
Half-brother: Francis Saltus Saltus
Edgar Saltus' brother Francis Saltus Saltus, a poet.
(When Harmon Incoul's wife died, the world in which he liv...)
When Harmon Incoul's wife died, the world in which he lived said that he would not marry again. The bereavement which he had suffered was known to be bitter, and it was reported that he might betake himself to some foreign land. There was, for that matter, nothing to keep him at home. He was childless, his tastes were too simple to make it necessary for him to reside as he had, hitherto, in New York, and, moreover, he was a man whose wealth was proverbial.
("No," he answered in reply to his mother's question. The ...)
"No," he answered in reply to his mother's question. The answer was strangely truthful. Fanny Price had tantalized him greatly. Semi-continuously he had thought of her for a long time. But not matrimonially. To him, matrimony meant always one woman more and usually one man less. He had no wish to dwindle. When he was fifty he might, perhaps, to make a finish, marry some girl who wanted to begin. But that unselfishness was remote. He was quite young; what is worse, he was abominably good-looking.
The Philosophical Writings of Edgar Saltus: The Philosophy of Disenchantment & The Anatomy of Negation
(This book contains both major philosophical books authore...)
This book contains both major philosophical books authored by a master of prose and philosopher of pessimism - Edgar Saltus. A lively and talented writer, Saltus tackles topics of philosophy which might otherwise be dry or boring with a sparkling wit. Clarity is given to subjects which would normally turn off readers from even approaching, and it is with an entertaining passion that Saltus tackles a variety of topics concerning pessimism, religion, and human life.
Edgar Evertson Saltus was a United States writer and translator, also known under the pseudonym Myndart Vereist. In addition to his fiction, he wrote several philosophical studies of pessimism and disenchantment.
Background
Edgar Evertson Saltus was born on October 8, 1855, in New York City, United States. He was a son of Francis Henry Saltus and Eliza Howe Evertson. His family had been in New York City for quite some time - his ancestor, Adm. Kornelis Evertson of the Dutch Navy, had led the expedition that captured New York from the British in 1673. His great-grandfather, Solomon Saltus, came to New York City from Bermuda in the late eighteenth century and became a successful merchant. When Saltus was seven, his parents separated and he remained with his mother, Eliza. According to Saltus' third wife, Marie Giles, as noted in her biography of her husband, Eliza lavished money and attention on Edgar.
Education
Edgar Saltus attended St. Paul's School in Concord, and entered Yale College with the class of 1876, leaving after one year and returning for a brief time with the class of 1877. He spent three or four years abroad, studying in Paris, Heidelberg, and Munich. He studied under Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann in Germany. While he was abroad, the pessimistic philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and the aesthetics and mood of French writers captivated him. Saltus returned to the United States, entered Columbia Law School in 1878, graduating with a Doctor of Law in 1880, although he never practiced law.
Edgar Saltus' literary career began with Balzac, a biography highly praised for its graceful and lively treatment. In his second book, The Philosophy of Disenchantment, Saltus established his trademark pessimistic philosophy and themes. The essays in this book, along with those in its companion volume, The Anatomy of Negation, illuminate Schopenhauer's philosophy that life is nothing but despair and suffering.
Saltus' first novel, Mr. Incoul's Misadventure, became an immediate sensation. When the protagonist, Mr. Incoul, suspects his wife of being unfaithful, murder, and suicide follow. This melodramatic story of the diabolical Incoul reveals how Saltus can construct a suspenseful, entertaining tale, yet criticisms varied. Many of Saltus' other fifteen novels also deal with unrequited love and the pursuit of the ideal, yet most observers viewed his second novel, The Truth of Tristem Varick, as a noteworthy example of Saltus' stylistics and storytelling. The story follows Tristrem Varick's quest for the love of the gorgeous Viola Raritan - a pursuit. The plot is rife with bizarre incidents and crises culminating when Varick is sent to the electric chair. Although the themes are unmistakably pessimistic, Saltus infuses playfulness. The tightly woven plot, suspense, and clever irony make The Truth of Tristrem Varick one of Saltus' most highly acclaimed works.
Imperial Purple, a collection of essays on historic Roman personalities, is generally considered Saltus' finest work. This lyrical, even outrageous account of the excesses and decadence of powerful Roman emperors, involves malicious characters that are not entirely fictional. Carol Sue Hubbell in the Dictionary of Literary Biography explained: "A picture of the caesars of Imperial Rome in a luxuriously draped parade of corruption, it [Imperial Purple] may be read as a study in the corruptibility of human nature and the insatiability of power."
For his last book published before his death, The Imperial Orgy, Saltus found another nation as steeped in murder and debauchery as Rome: Imperial Russia. Using these mad rulers as a subject, Saltus could easily display his genius for gruesome detail, and the excessiveness of the imagery surpasses even Imperial Purple. As always, however, the sensationalism is delivered with poetic style and cleverness. Beginning with Ivan the Terrible, Saltus chronicles his terrifying reign.
Many readers found Edgar Saltus' cynicism, hedonism, and luridness unpalatable. Many others admired the writer, yet found Saltus lacking substance, commitment, and conviction. Regardless, Saltus earned a reputation for seeing through the sentimental, superficial society of his time, and providing a brave alternative. One of Saltus's contemporary critics said: "Style is a synonym for Saltus." His style is unique and in many ways more daring than most of the later modernists: his prose often wavers between the lurid excess of a romantic poem and the spare, dangerous staccato of a telegram. There is also a bizarre edginess to his work: Saltus sometimes sacrifices meaning for the sake of style, leaving his writing jagged and incomprehensible at points. His histories are unusual in that they rarely seem to privilege historical facts over the use of Saltus' own beautiful turn of phrase. At times, his work is prone to dissipate into sheer impressionistic imagery of violence or debauchery. But, strangely, despite having such a stringent Flaubertian aesthetic, Saltus's work is often gloriously unpredictable and surreal.
Edgar Saltus was famous for his staunch rejection of the sentimentality of late-nineteenth-century literature. Instead, he countered the optimism and false spirituality with a hedonism, pessimism, eroticism, and melodrama that pervaded his novels, essays, and short stories. He was converted by his third wife Marie Giles to theosophy, a doctrine that made itself felt in all his later work.
Quotations:
"I wrote The Philosophy of Disenchantment, which is, I think, the gloomiest and worst book ever published. Out of sheer laziness, I then produced a history of atheism, The Anatomy of Negation, which has been honored by international dislike. Need I state that of all my children it is the one that I prefer?"
"In literature, only three things count: style, style polished, style repolished. Style may be defined as the harmony of syllables, the fall of sentences, the infrequency of adjectives, the absence of metaphor, the pursuit of a repetition even unto the thirtieth and fortieth line, the use of the exact term no matter what that term may be."
Interests
Philosophers & Thinkers
Arthur Schopenhauer, Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert
Connections
Edgar Saltus was married three times. He married Helen Sturges Read in 1883. They divorced in 1891. He married Elsie Walsh Smith in 1895. They divorced in 1911. He married Marie Flores Giles in 1911. From the second marriage, Saltus had one daughter Elsie.