Henry Festing Jones

Henry Festing Jones (30 January 1851 – 23 October 1928)[1] was an English solicitor and writer, known as the friend and posthumous biographer of Samuel Butler.[2][3]

Henry Festing Jones, 1923 portrait by George Clausen

Life
Samuel Butler (1835-1902). Henry Festing Jones, St John's College, University of Cambridge; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

He was the son of Thomas Jones Q.C., and entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1870.[4] Graduating B.A. in 1873, he was articled to a solicitor. He qualified in the profession in 1876.[3]

Jones met Samuel Butler through Edward Hall, a college friend; they became close in 1876.[2] From 1887, he was Butler's paid companion and musical collaborator.[5] Two of the musical works they worked on together, with Butler chiefly responsible for the words, were the cantatas Narcissus (private rehearsal 1886, published 1888), and Ulysses, both for solo voices, chorus and orchestra.[6] Butler had settled in 1864 in Clifford's Inn, London, where he lived for the rest of his life, dying in 1902;[7] Jones lived in Barnard's Inn and Staple Inn during Butler's lifetime.[8][3]

After Butler's death, Jones moved within London to Maida Vale, where his sister kept house for him.[3] He advised Butler's executors (Reginald Worsley, and R. A. Streatfeild who was literary executor).[9] He organised annual "Erewhon Dinners" in Butler's memory, from 1908 to 1914, at the suggestion of Marcus Hartog.[10][11] P. N. Furbank has criticised the editorial stance Jones took, and the effort to make Butler "respectable".[12]

Work on Samuel Butler's legacy

In 1910 Jones met Francis Darwin, in an attempt to close the feud between Butler and Charles Darwin that had arisen around 1880; the result was a pamphlet, Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler: A Step toward Reconciliation (1911).[13]

Jones published a well-regarded selection, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), after Desmond MacCarthy had seen the originals and published extracts in the New Quarterly Review.[14][9] The editing of this work has been seen as involving false emphasis and polishing of the originals, producing an effect of a "cross between Oscar Wilde and Dr Johnson".[15] In 1919, his biography of Butler, entitled Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon (1835–1902): A Memoir, won the inaugural James Tait Black Memorial Prize for a biography.[16]

Jones edited Butler's works with Augustus Theodore Bartholomew, known as Theo and a librarian and bibliographer in Cambridge, in 20 volumes, which appeared in 1923–1926.[17] On Bartholomew's death in 1933, Geoffrey Keynes became his literary executor, also taking on the papers of Jones and Butler, acting with Brian Hill.[18][19]

Later life

Through Theo Bartholomew, Jones came to know Siegfried Sassoon, meeting after World War I; Sassoon and others knew him as "Enrico". They corresponded, and Sassoon found Jones a sympathetic audience.[20][21] Bartholomew and Mansfield Forbes visited Jones, and gave him "guru" status.[22] Geoffrey Keynes and his wife were good friends.[19]

Other works
  • Diversions in Sicily (1909)
  • Castellinaria, and Other Sicilian Diversions (1911)
  • Mont Eryx, and Other Diversions of Travel (1921)

Jones was a student of the Opera dei Pupi.[23] Butler had visited Sicily almost annually in the last decade of his life, usually with Jones.[24]

References
  1. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  2. Peter Raby (1991). Samuel Butler: A Biography. University of Iowa Press. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-87745-331-4.
  3. Bernard Shaw; Brian Tyson (1996). Bernard Shaw's Book Reviews: 1884-1950. Penn State Press. p. 394. ISBN 0-271-01548-9.
  4. "Jones, Henry Festing (JNS870HF)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  5. James G. Paradis (2007). Samuel Butler, Victorian Against the Grain: A Critical Overview. University of Toronto Press. p. 373. ISBN 978-0-8020-9745-3.
  6. Blom. Eric. Stepchildren of Music (1925), pp.183-194
  7. Peter Raby (1991). Samuel Butler: A Biography. University of Iowa Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-0-87745-331-4.
  8. s:Butler, Samuel (DNB12)
  9. Shaffer, Elinor. "Butler, Samuel". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32217. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  10. "Letters from E. M. Forster to Henry Festing Jones (1909–13), St John's College, Cambridge". University of Cambridge. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
  11. An Historical and Critical Review of Samuel Butler's Literary Works. Ardent Media. 1925. p. 253 note 2. GGKEY:55JD28AASK6.
  12. P. N. Furbank (29 May 2014). Samuel Butler (1835–1902). Cambridge University Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-107-65316-0.
  13. Charles Darwin (15 February 2010). The Works of Charles Darwin, Volume 29: "Erasmus Darwin" by Ernest Krause, with a Preliminary Notice by Charles Darwin; "The Autobiography of Charles Darwin" Edited by Nora Barlow; and Consolidated Index. NYU Press. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-8147-2072-1.
  14. Rosenbaum, S. P. (1994). Edwardian Bloomsbury. Vol. 2. Macmillan. p. 265. ISBN 033340839X.
  15. Christine Franzen; Laurie Bauer (1993). Of Pavlova, Poetry and Paradigms: Essays in Honour of Harry Orsman. Victoria University Press. pp. 81–. ISBN 978-0-86473-247-7.
  16. Previous winners: Biography winners, The James Tait Black Prizes, The University of Edinburgh.
  17. Jenny Stringer (1996). The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Literature in English. Oxford University Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-19-212271-1.
  18. Jean Moorcroft Wilson (2003). Siegfried Sassoon: The Journey from the Trenches: a Biography (1918-1967). Psychology Press. p. 270. ISBN 978-0-415-96713-6.
  19. Geoffrey Keynes (10 December 1981). The gates of memory. Clarendon Press. p. 62.
  20. Jean Moorcroft Wilson (24 October 2013). Siegfried Sassoon: The Making of a War Poet: a Biography (1886-1918). Gerald Duckworth & Company Limited. p. 411. ISBN 978-0-7156-3389-2.
  21. Jean Moorcroft Wilson (2003). Siegfried Sassoon: The Journey from the Trenches: a Biography (1918-1967). Psychology Press. p. 150. ISBN 978-0-415-96713-6.
  22. Hugh Carey (18 October 1984). Mansfield Forbes and His Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-521-25680-3.
  23. Edward Chaney (14 January 2014). The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations Since the Renaissance. Routledge. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-317-97367-6.
  24. Carmine Rapisarda (4 November 2012). British and American writers in Sicily. Lulu.com. p. 25. ISBN 978-1-291-09222-6.
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