James Payn
James Payn was born on 28 February 1830 in Berkshire, and his education carried him through some of the most established institutions in English public life. A citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, he was schooled at Eton College before passing through the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich and then Trinity College, a sequence that moved him across markedly different institutional worlds before he settled into his vocation as a writer.
He worked as a novelist and editor, composing in the English language across a career that gave him a dual role in the literary life of his country. As both a writer of fiction and an editorial figure, his professional activity extended beyond the writing desk alone, engaging him with the wider structures of publishing that sustained English letters through the nineteenth century.
Payn died on 25 March 1898 in Maida Vale, at the age of sixty-eight. The trajectory from his Berkshire birthplace through the schoolrooms of Eton and the halls of Trinity to a working life spent among novels and editorial offices describes a career conducted entirely within the English literary establishment. His dates, recorded in the Library of Congress Name Authority File as "Payn, James, 1830–1898," remain the fixed points by which his life and work continue to be catalogued.
Quotes by James Payn
A man with an invention on which he has spent his life, but has no means to get it developed for the good of humanity – or even patented for himself – must feel the pinch of poverty very acutely.
One would think that in writing about literary men and matters there would be no difficulty in finding a title for one’s essay, or that any embarrassment which might arise would be from excess of material. I find this, however, far from being the case.
Cultivating literature as I do upon a little oatmeal, and driving, when in a position to be driven at all, in that humble vehicle, the ’bus, I have had, perhaps, exceptional opportunities for observing their mutual position and behaviour; and it is very peculiar.
There are, it is true, at present no great prizes in literature such as are offered by the learned professions, but there are quite as many small ones – competences; while, on the other hand, it is not so much of a lottery.
A man with an invention on which he has spent his life, but has no means to get it developed for the good of humanity - or even patented for himself - must feel the pinch of poverty very acutely.
It is better, however, for his own reputation that the story-teller should risk a few actions for libel on account of these unfortunate coincidences than that he should adopt the melancholy device of using blanks or asterisks.
To the truly benevolent mind, indeed, nothing is more satisfactory than to hear of a miser denying himself the necessaries of life a little too far and ridding us of his presence altogether.
The idea of bringing young people up to Literature is doubtless calculated to raise the eyebrows almost as much as the suggestion of bringing them up to the Stage.