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William James Linton

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William James Linton

William James Linton (1812-1897), from Threescore and Ten Years: Recollections, 1894. Courtesy Internet Archive.

William James Linton (December 7, 1812 - December 29, 1897) was an English-American poet and prose writer, wood engraver, landscape painter, and political reformer, who published under the name of "Spartacus".

Life[]

Youth and education[]

Linton was born in Mile End, London. His family moved to Stratford, Essex, in 1818.

The young Linton was educated at Chigwell Grammar School, an early 17th-century foundation attended by many sons of the Essex and City of London middle classes.

In his 16th year Linton was apprenticed to wood-engraver George Wilmot Bonner (1796-1836). His earliest known work is to be found in Martin and Westall's Pictorial Illustrations of the Bible (1833). He rapidly rose to a place amongst the foremost wood-engravers of the time.[1]

Career in England[]

After working as a journeyman engraver with 2 or 3 firms, losing his money over a cheap political library called the "National," and writing a life of Thomas Paine, he went into partnership in 1842 with John Orrin Smith. The firm was immediately employed on the Illustrated London News, just then projected. The following year Orrin Smith died, and Linton, who had married a sister of Thomas Wade, editor of Bell's Weekly Messenger, found himself in sole charge of a business upon which 2 families were dependent.[1]

For years he had concerned himself with the social and European political problems of the time, and was now actively engaged in republican propaganda. In 1844 he took a prominent part in exposing the violation by the English post office of Giuseppe Mazzini's correspondence. This led to a friendship with the Italian revolutionist, and Linton threw himself with ardor into European politics. He carried the first congratulatory address of English workmen to the French Provisional Government in 1848.[1]

He edited a 2-penny weekly paper, The Cause of the People, published in the Isle of Man, and he wrote political verses for the Dublin Nation, signed "Spartacus." He helped to found the "International League" of patriots, and, in 1850, with George Henry Lewes and Thornton Leigh Hunt, started The Leader, an organ which, however, did not satisfy his advanced republicanism, and from which he soon withdrew. The same year he wrote a series of articles propounding the views of Mazzini in The Red Republican.[1]

In 1852 he took up his residence at Brantwood, which afterward he sold to John Ruskin, and from there issued The English Republic, initially in the form of weekly tracts and afterward as a monthly magazine "a useful exponent of republican principles, a faithful record ef republican progress throughout the world; an organ of propagandism and a medium of communication for the active republicans in England." Most of the paper, which never paid its way and was abandoned in 1855, was written by himself.[1]

In 1852 he also printed for private circulation an anonymous volume of poems entitled The Plaint of Freedom.[1]

After the failure of his paper he returned to his proper work of wood-engraving. In 1857 his wife died, and in the following year he married Eliza Lynn (afterward known as Mrs. Lynn Linton) and returned to London. In 1864 he retired to Brantwood, his wife remaining in London.[1]

Career in the U.S.[]

In 1867, pressed by financial difficulties, he determined to try his fortune in America, and finally separated from his wife (with whom, however, he always corresponded affectionately).[1]

With his children he settled at Appledore, Hamden, Connecticut, where he set up a printing press.[1]

He died at Hamden on 29 December 1897.[1]

Recognition[]

Linton was a singularly gifted man, who, in the words of his wife, if he had not bitten the Dead Sea apple of impracticable politics, would have risen higher in the world of both art and letters. As an engraver on wood he reached the highest point of execution in his own line. He carried on the tradition of Bewick, fought for intelligent as against merely manipulative excellence in the use of the graver, and championed the use of the "white line" as well as of the black, believing with Ruskin that the former was the truer and more telling basis of aesthetic expression in the wood-block printed upon paper.[1]

Publications[]

Poetry[]

Plays[]

  • Famine: A masque. New Haven, CT: Appledore, 1875.

Non-fiction[]

  • The Jubilee of Trade: A vision of the nineteenth century after Christ. 1843.
  • The English Republic. London: J. Watson, 1851.
    • (with introduction by Kineton Parkes). London: Sonnenschein, 1891.
  • Republican Organization. London: James Watson, [185-?]
  • Specimens of a new process of engraving for surface-printing. London: privately published, 1861.
  • Some Practical Hints on Wood-Engraving. Boston: Lee & Shepherd, 1879.
  • James Watson: A memoir of Chartist times. Hamden, CT: Appledore, 1879; Manchester, UK: Abel Heywood & Son, 1880; New York: A.M. Kelley, 1971.
  • The History of Wood-Engraving in America. Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1882.
  • Wood-Engraving: A manual of instruction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1884.
  • The Masters of Wood-Engraving. New Haven, CT: printed for the author, 1889.
  • European Republicans: Reflections of Mazzini and His Friends. London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1892.
  • Life of Thomas Paine. London: P. Eckler, 1892.
  • Life of John Greenleaf Whittier. London: Walter Scott, 1893.
  • Threescore and Ten Years: Recollections. New York: Scribner, 1894
  • published in UK as Memories. London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1895.

Juvenile[]

  • Master Woodbine's Alphabet for All Good Children. London: C. Honeysuckle, [185-?]
  • The Flower and the Star, and other stories for children. London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1891.

Edited[]


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[2]

See also[]

References[]

  •  Layard, George Somes (1911). "Linton, William James". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 736. 

Notes[]

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Layard, 736.
  2. ↑ Search results = au:William James Linton, WorlCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Web, Feb. 18, 2017.

External links[]

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 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Original article is at Linton, William James

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