Henry James, James Russell Lowell, and George Du Maurier in Whitby

Abstract

READERS of either David Lodge's recent novel Author, Author or H. P. Kendall's booklet Whitby in Literature will be familiar with accounts of visits to Whitby by George du Maurier, James Russell Lowell, and Henry James, although some details are dubious.1 Lodge says James visited Whitby in 1887, when both the du Maurier family and Lowell were there; in 1889, ‘when Lowell alone was the attraction’; and in 1893, when ‘he took Lowell's old rooms in a cottage down by the harbour, near the drawbridge’, and one morning walked to Staithes with du Maurier. James certainly made visits to Lowell at Whitby in 1887 and 1889, and stayed in Lowell's old rooms in 1893; but the rooms were with the Misses Gallilee at 3 Wellington Terrace, not a cottage by the harbour, the drawbridge had been replaced by a swing bridge fifty years earlier, and the walk from Whitby to Staithes seems implausible. Lowell and James are said to have enjoyed watching the drawbridge being raised to let ships pass; perhaps they liked watching the swing bridge, but what they both say, in their letters, is that they enjoyed the view from Wellington Terrace, across the old town towards the abbey ruins. The walk to Staithes is said to have been ten miles, ‘mostly level going once you had climbed out of Whitby’, although Lodge admits it is ‘not based on any record’ (p. 388). The distance may not be much above ten miles, but it is far from level going, and not easily accomplished between breakfast and lunch. A walk to Robin Hood's Bay, for which there is documentary evidence, would have been more plausible.