Holman Day: His Ballad Books (1900-1904) and Their Lexical Features

Abstract

IN THE LIBRARY OF THE University of Maine at Orono is an excellent master's thesis on Holman Francis Day.' It is the only extensive work devoted solely to him, and it is likely to remain so. Although in emphasis the thesis is biographical-literary activity is treated only secondarily-it does give an idea of the enormous potential Day must have had, a potential especially evident in the first decade of the century. Day's twenty-three novels, his three books of ballads, his numerous magazine stories, and his radio and motion picture scenarios, bespeak an almost frantic productivity and occasionally suggest an artistic gift that might have risen far above mere journalistic talent. None of his publications, unfortunately, can be placed much above the level of the potboiler. Yet there may be an exception, the ballads, and it is in any case with these that the following remarks are concerned, since they possess not only a good, bluff charm that can come through quite well today but also certain features of value to the student of American folklore and dialect. Holman Day (1865-1935) was the second of three sons of Captain John and Mary Day of Vassalboro, Maine. He attended Oak Grove, the Quaker seminary at Vassalboro, and finished his formal education at Colby College in I887. His journalistic career began with work on the Fairfield Journal in the year of his graduation, work which included the writing of a column, Evenings in a Country Store. From i888 to 1892 he was part owner of a country weekly, the Dexter Gazette; from I892 to 1912 he was special correspondent and columnist for the Lewiston Evening Journal, one of the most important newspapers in Maine at the time. His years with the Journal were critical; his talent and private life seemed then most promising. In 1889 he had married Helen Rowell Gerald, the daughter of a Fairfield manufacturer, and he enjoyed, for a time, financial and professional stability. In 1900oo appeared his ballad book Up in Maine: Stories of Yankee Life Told in Verse, the first and best of his publica-