Justus Starr Redfield was born on January 2, 1810 at Wallingford, Connecticut, the eldest son of William Redfield and Sarah Dejean, his wife. He was descended from William Redfin who came from England to Massachusetts as early as 1639 and later settled near New London, Connecticut. The year of Justus' birth his parents moved to Weathersfield, Vermont, and in 1812 to Charleston, New Hampshire.
In Charleston, New Hampshire Redfield attended school.
About 1827 he went to Boston, and then to New York, where he became a printer. In 1834 he took over the Family Magazine founded the year before by Origen Bacheler in imitation of the London Penny Magazine of Charles Knight and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
It offered, at $1. 50 a year, "systematic courses of general knowledge, " and was one of the earliest American periodicals to be well illustrated. Many of the cuts were by Redfield's brother, W. D. Redfield, who died early, and by the celebrated engraver, Benson J. Lossing, whom Redfield brought to New York to edit the magazine from June 1839 until its suspension in May 1841. Earlier editors were Thomas Allen and an "association of gentlemen" headed by Dr. Augustus Sidney Doane. Frequency of publication varied, and the work was reprinted in Cincinnati, and in part in Philadelphia.
Upon the cessation of the magazine, Redfield opened a bookstore, and during the period 1841 to 1860 was identified with successful printing and general publishing.
Through Griswold, too, came Redfield's greatest opportunity, for despite their unfriendly relations in life, Edgar Allan Poe had appointed Griswold his literary executor, and Mrs. Clemm, Poe's mother-in-law and heir, had commissioned him to collect Poe's works. These he offered vainly to several publishers before Redfield decided to risk an edition.
Two volumes, dated 1850, were brought out as an experiment; a third, with Griswold's unfriendly memoir, later the same year; and a fourth, completing the set, in 1856. The work was done, according to Redfield, without financial remuneration to Griswold; editorially the work was fair for the time, and the set was a great success financially. Royalties were at first paid to Mrs. Clemm, but when she wished to enter the Church Home in Baltimore, she needed $250, and for this sum, advanced after hesitation, Redfield became the owner of the copyrights and plates.
His firm also published in 1853 the writings of William H. Seward, and a life of him by George E. Baker. When the Nassau Bank was founded in New York by a former associate of Redfield, named McElrath, the publisher became a director. In 1860 his firm was succeeded by that of W. J. Widdleton, and the next year Redfield became consul at Otranto. He was transferred in 1864 to Brindisi whence, upon resigning, he returned home in 1866.
In Europe he seems to have associated with liberals. He "edited" Jean Macé's Histoire d'une Bouchée de Pain and controlled the American translation of this physiology and natural history for children; he also translated Henrietta Caracciolo's The Mysteries of Neapolitan Convents (1867) and had a hand in a Traveler's Guide to the City of New York (1871). He lived at last in retirement, at Florence, Burlington County, New Jersey. There, on March 24, 1888, he took laudanum and slashed his wrists, asking to be buried without ceremony under an apple tree.
He was famous for publishing an edition (1854) of John Wilson's Noctes Ambrosianæ from Blackwood's; works of William Maginn, John Doran, Cornelius Mathews; Fitz-Greene Halleck; and Robert Montgomery Bird's Nick of the Woods (1853). Impressed by reading The Yemassee in youth, Redfield produced an edition of Simms; and through Rufus W. Griswold he became the publisher of Alice Carey.
He had married, in 1835, Elizabeth C. Hall, who died in 1842 soon after bearing a son. He had another son, born to his second wife, Elizabeth Eaton Jones, and three daughters.
