Howard Sturgis

"Howdie," as he was known to his intimates, was born in London on 30 January 1855 into an affluent New England American family.[1] His father, Russell Sturgis,[2] was a China trader and lawyer who later became head of Barings Bank in London.[3] His mother was Russell's third wife, Julia Overing (née Boit) Sturgis. Among his siblings were brothers Julian (who also became a novelist) and Henry (who became MP for South Dorset) and sister Mary (wife of Bertram Falle, 1st Baron Portsea).[4] From his father's earlier marriage, he had an elder half-brother, John Hubbard Sturgis, who was a noted Boston architect.[5]

He was described as "a delicate child, closely attached to his mother, and fond of such girlish hobbies as needlepoint and knitting, which he continued to practice throughout his life."[6] His parents sent him to be educated at Eton College. He went on to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA degree in 1878.[7] He became a friend of the novelists Henry James and Edith Wharton.[6]

Henry James, Edith Wharton and Howard Sturgis on the veranda at The Mount.

Sturgis's first novel, Tim: A Story of School Life (1891), was published anonymously and was dedicated to the "love that surpasses the love of women." It describes the love of two youths at boarding-school and was "based on his unhappy days at Eton."[6] It was followed in 1895 by All that was possible, an epistolary novel about an actress who retires from London to a remote valley in Wales.[8]

Sturgis' first two novels were successful as far as sales were concerned; but his third, Belchamber (1904), failed to gain the same plaudits.[6][9] Although Edith Wharton praised it, Henry James found it unsatisfactory,[10] and let Sturgis know in several letters. Afterwards Sturgis went on to publish only one short story (1908), about a lesser writer driven suicidal by the criticism of a greater, and a memorial on his friend, Anne Thackeray.[8]

After the death of his mother in 1888, he bought a country house named Queen's Acre ("Qu’acre"), near Windsor Great Park and moved there with his lover, William Haynes-Smith (1871–1937), known to all as "the Babe."[8] Haynes-Smith was the son of the English colonial administrator Sir William Haynes-Smith. At Qu’acre, they frequently entertained a wide group of friends, including Wharton, James and the translator Gerard Hopkins.[6]

Sturgis died at Windsor, Berkshire on 7 February 1920.[10] Four years after his death, Haynes-Smith married Howard's niece, Alice Maud Russell Sturgis (a daughter of his elder half-brother John Hubbard Sturgis),[11] at Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. Both were in their 50s when they married.[12]

• Tim: A Story of School Life (1891) [Anonymously published]
• All That Was Possible (1895)
• Belchamber (1904)
• 'On the Pottlecombe Cornice', in Fortnightly Review (1908) [short story]

• M. Seymour, A Ring of Conspirators: Henry James and his literary circle (1986)
• E. Borklund, 'Howard Sturgis, Henry James and Belchamber ', in Modern Philology; 58 (1961), p. 255-269
• George Santayana, Persons and Places (1944; repr. 1986)
• E. M. Forster, 'Howard Overing Sturgis', in Abinger Harvest (1936), p. 121-129
• Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance (1934; repr. 1985)
• A. C. Benson, Memories and friends (1924)

• GLBTQ.com
• Works by or about Howard Sturgis at Internet Archive
• Works by Howard Sturgis at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)