Ferris Lowell Greenslet

Background

Greenslet was born on June 30, 1875 in Glens Falls, New York, the son of George Bernard Greenslet, a merchant, and Josephine Ferris. He grew up in the genteel surroundings so typical of the Victorian middle class. He was introduced early to the two greatest loves of his life, books and fishing.

Education

Greenslet graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wesleyan University in 1897. He went on to Columbia University, earned the M. S. in 1898 and the Ph. D. in 1900. His dissertation, Joseph Glanvill - A Study in English Thought and Letters of the Seventeenth Century, was published the same year.

Career

In 1901 Greenslet moved to Boston, working first in the Boston Public Library as a researcher and then for the Boston Advertiser before becoming associate editor of The Atlantic Monthly in 1902. In 1907, when the post of literary editor of Houghton Mifflin publishing company opened up, he accepted, beginning an association that would last fifty-two years. Before becoming an editor, Greenslet established himself as a superb scholar with The Quest of the Holy Grail (1902), and as a biographer with Walter Pater (1903), The Life of James Russell Lowell (1905), and The Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1908). His skills remained sharp enough even after thirty-five years as literary editor to write The Lowells and Their Seven Worlds (1946). Three years later he collaborated with Charles P. Curtis, Jr. , on an anthology, The Practical Cogitator. But his most fascinating work is his spicy and impressionistic collection of reminiscences, Under the Bridge (1943). No year passed between 1910 and 1955 without several of his articles about fishing, particularly salmon and trout fishing, appearing in fishermen's magazines throughout the world. Semiretirement after 1942 provided Greenslet with time to clear the name of an ancestor, Ann Pudector Greenslet, hanged as a witch at Salem in 1692. Even the 1957 pardon of all Salem witches did not satisfy him, as Greenslet pointedly proclaimed in a newspaper interview. As the years passed Greenslet added additional duties to his position as literary editor at Houghton Mifflin. He became a director in 1910, a member of the executive committee in 1918, general manager of the trade department in 1933, and a vice-president in 1936. Highly esteemed for his work, he turned down numerous offers to work in other publishing houses and to edit the Dictionary of American Biography in order to remain in a Boston that he had come to love. Greenslet's talent for making money for Houghton Mifflin while upholding high standards helped make the Boston house one of the most important in the nation. He discovered Laura Krey as well as Stuart Cloete, and turned Willa Cather into an important author. He pursued Henry Adams for ten years before convincing Adams to give him the manuscript for The Education of Henry Adams. Greenslet was a learned man who did not tolerate the pretentious, pompous, or pedantic in authors. A warm writer with a felicitous style and a master of repartee, he appreciated the well-fashioned phrase and the carefully chosen word. He looked for sensitivity and passion plus a recognition of the human condition. Greenslet died in Boston on November 19, 1959.

Achievements

• Ferris Greenslet has been listed as a notable publisher, author by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Practical Cogitator: The Thinker's Anthology

    (The selections, long and short, prose and verse, from man...)

  • The Practical Cogitator or The Thinker's Anthology

    (Passages from the writings of famous philosophers, theolo...)

  • The Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • The Practical Cogitator or The Thinker's Anthology

    ("An anthology of important ideas and writings")

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• In 1959 Publishers Weekly put Greenslet's career into perspective. Crediting him with being a literary man who also possessed a healthy respect for budgets and profits, the editors called him an extraordinary individual, his most impressive quality being an ability to talk knowledgeably with sales managers, production chiefs, and advertising and publicity directors, as well as with authors.

Connections

Greenslet married Ella S. Hulst of Cambridge on April 25, 1905. They had two children.

Father:

George Bernard Greenslet

Mother:

Josephine Ferris

Spouse:

Ella S. Hulst

References

• The Lowells, and Their Seven Worlds Occasionem Cognosce With Illustrations
• Under the Bridge; an Autobiography
• The Lowells and their Seven Worlds