Edgar Saltus


Edgar Evertson Saltus was an American writer known for his highly refined prose style. His works paralleled those by European decadent authors such as Joris-Karl Huysmans, Gabriele D'Annunzio and Oscar Wilde.

Life

Edgar Saltus was born in New York City on October 8, 1855 to Francis Henry Saltus and his second wife, Eliza Evertson, both of Dutch descent. He attended St. Paul's in Concord, New Hampshire. After two semesters at Yale University, Saltus entered Columbia Law School in 1878, graduating with a law degree in 1880.
He wrote two books on philosophy: The Philosophy of Disenchantment focused on pessimism and in particular the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Eduard Von Hartmann, while The Anatomy of Negation tried "to convey a tableau of anti-theism from Kapila to Leconte de Lisle".
After a conversion experience, the once anti-theist and pessimist credited Ralph Waldo Emerson with having transformed his views. In an 1896 Collier's column, he wrote, "I began to see, and what to me was even more marvelous, I began to think." In time, he became a member of the Theosophical Society, an organization that studied, synthesized and experimented with the more esoteric concepts and practices of world religions.
Saltus was married three times: Helen Sturgis Read in 1883, Elsie Welch Smith in 1895 and author Marie Flores Giles in 1911. Saltus had a three-year love affair in the 1890s with heiress Aimée Crocker, confirmed in her memoir And I'd Do It Again.
Saltus and his first wife appeared in the 1887 first edition of the New York, Social Register.
His elder half-brother Francis Saltus Saltus was a minor poet. Both brothers are buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Legacy

Acclaimed by fellow writers in his day, Saltus fell into obscurity after his death.
His novel The Paliser Case was adapted to film in 1920, and his novel Daughters of the Rich was filmed in 1923.
A biography by his third wife Marie Saltus, Edgar Saltus: The Man was published in 1925. Edgar Saltus, a critical study by Claire Sprague, appeared in 1968.
The writer and photographer Carl Van Vechten, was instrumental in convincing Saltus's daughter, Elsie Saltus Munds, to donate to Yale what is now known as the Edgar Saltus Papers, consisting of thirty-eight first editions, two of them inscribed, and eighteen letters written in 1918.

Works

  1. Balzac
  2. The Philosophy of Disenchantment
  3. The Anatomy of Negation
  4. Mr. Incoul's Misadventure
  5. The Truth About Tristrem Varick
  6. Eden: An Episode
  7. The Pace That Kills
  8. A Transient Guest and Other Episodes
  9. A Transaction in Hearts
  10. Love And Lore
  11. Mary Magdalen
  12. Imperial Purple
  13. Madame Sapphira
  14. Enthralled
  15. When Dreams Come True: A Story of Emotional Life
  16. Daughters of the Rich
  17. Purple and Fine Women
  18. The Pomps of Satan
  19. The Perfume of Eros: A Fifth Avenue Incident
  20. Vanity Square
  21. Historia Amoris
  22. The Lords of the Ghostland
  23. The Monster
  24. Oscar Wilde: An Idler's Impressions
  25. The Gates of Life
  26. The Paliser Case
  27. The Imperial Orgy: An Account of the Tsars From the First to the Last
  28. The Ghost Girl
  29. Uplands of Dream
  30. The Philosophical Writings of Edgar Saltus: The Philosophy of Disenchantment & The Anatomy of Negation