Edward Greey
| Edward Greey | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| File:Greey, Edward.jpg | |||||||
| Born | 1835 | ||||||
| Died | 1888 | ||||||
| Residence |
36 Piccadilly New York, c/o 96 Strand, WC [1867 list] | ||||||
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Contents
Notes
Office Notes
House Notes
proposed 1867.05.14
Notes From Elsewhere
One of the more unusual authors of nineteenth-century sensational literature was Edward Greey (1835-1888), an English officer, diplomat and art dealer. Born in Sandwich, he received a military education and was commissioned an army captain in 1860, in time for the Chinese War of 1860, (also known as the “Arrow” War or Second Opium War.) Greey was one of an 11,000-man English force under General James Hope Grant. He led a company of marines in storming Pekin (Beijing), and may have participated in the orgy of looting within the Forbidden City. Soon afterwards he was sent as an attaché to the British Legation in Japan. Like Lafcadio Hearn and several other westerners, he fell in love with everything Japanese and immersed himself in the language, literature, art and customs of the island kingdom.
Around 1868 he moved to New York City, where he began a fairly successful business as an importer and dealer in Asian ceramics, textiles and art objects, specializing in Japonica. Six years earlier, New York had been seized by a fad for all things Japanese after the first Japanese embassy visited the city during the summer of 1860, but the intervening Civil War of 1861-1865 had almost eradicated the memory by the time Greey set up shop. He seems to have created a new appreciation for Japanese art in New York collecting circles through his gallery, loan exhibitions and his extensive writings. He possessed a gift for design and drawing, as well as writing and music. No photographs of Greey have come to light thus far. His obituary describes him as a corpulent man who wore a moustache.
Greey had eight children.
Despite his prolific output, Edward Greey seems to have been plagued by financial problems and resultant ill health. His business required personal visits to the Far East – no easy undertaking in the days of steam. By 1888 the overweight 53-year-old importer was not the dashing vigorous 25-year-old officer who had stormed Pekin. His final trip to Japan proved lethal.
Edward Greey, the dealer in Japanese and Chinese art ware, of 20 East Seventeenth-street, committed suicide yesterday afternoon by shooting himself in the head with a pistol.
Publications
External Publications
To augment his modest income from the art business, he took up writing. His first productions were all Japanese-themed: The Queen’s Sailors: A Nautical Novel (1870), Blue Jackets; or, The Adventures of J. Thompson, A.B. Among the “Heathen Chinee.” A Nautical Novel (1871), The Loyal Ronins; An Historical Romance (1880) a retelling of the famous story of the 47 samurai of Ako (Chushingura), Young Americans in Japan; or, The Adventures of the Jewett Family and their Friend Oto Nambo (1882), The Wonderful City of Tokio; or, Further Adventures of the Jewett Family and their Friend Oto Nambo (1883), The Golden Lotus And Other Legends of Japan (1883), The Bear Worshippers of Yezo And the Island of Karafuto (Saghalin); or, The Adventures of the Jewett Family and their Friend Oto Nambo (1884) and A Captive of Love (1885), a translation of a work by Bakin. He also wrote two plays, “Mirah” and “Vendome,” and found time to adapt folk music for publication. He is credited with the words and arrangement of “Under De Mango Tree: West Indian Song and Chorus,” published by William A. Pond & Co. in 1872. (Not the same ditty sung by Sean Connery to Ursula Andress in Dr. No, however.) He occasionally used a Chinese-sounding pen name, “Sung-Tie.”
In 1874 Greey began writing adventure yarns for Frank Leslie and crude comic stories for Norman L. Munro under the distinctive pseudonym of “Commodore Ah-Look of New Bedford.” His stories soon appeared among the slapstick ethnic humor of “Bricktop” (George G. Small), “Tom Teaser” (Edward E. Ten Eyck), “Peter Pad” and “Sam Smiley” (both Cecil Burleigh). After Norman L. Munro assigned the rights to several of his juvenile story papers to his ex-partner Frank Tousey in 1878, Tousey launched several reprint series that included Greey’s stories. The Five Cent Wide Awake Library, which ran to 1,353 issues from 1878 to 1898, carried several “comic” numbers credited to “Commodore Ah-Look.” These were in turn reprinted in The Five Cent Comic Library in 1892-1897 and the colored-cover Snaps: A Comic Weekly of Comic Stories by Comic Authors, 1899-1901. Street and Smith published at least one of his stories
Greey's popular fiction included:
In Frank Leslie’s Boys’ and Girls’ Weekly:
Three Yankee Boys (announced as “Cheeky Bob”), February 18, 1874 - December 12, 1874
Inventive Ben; or, How A Boy Became Jack-of-All-Trades, February-April 1879
Orville and Dan; or, Adventures in Japan, May-July 1879
The Chums at Harvard College, A Sequel to “Orville and Dan,” August-October 1879
Through the Heart of Japan, October 1879 - January 1880
Left to Himself, June-October 1880
Ned Iceberg, March-April 1881
In Frank Leslie’s Boys of America:
Cheeky Bob, January-June 1878 (A reprint of Three Yankee Boys)
In Norman L. Munro’s Our Boys:
Cheeky and Chipper; or, Through Thick and Thin, August-November 1876
London Bob; or, An English Boy in America, December 1876 - January 1877
Highfalutin’ Jim; or, He’d Fetch ‘em Somehow, February-April 1877
Johnny Burgoo; or, The Mystery of a Boy’s Life, July-October 1877
Free and Easy Ned; or, “Time Enough, Sir,” October-December 1877
Master of Himself; or, A Boy’s Fight in the World, February-April, 1878
Big Silas; or, The Adventures of a Young Giant, April-June 1878
In Frank Tousey’s Wide Awake Library, Five-Cent Comic Library and Snaps:
Extree Nick, the New York Newsboy
Sassy Sam; or, A Bootblack’s Voyage Around the World
Sassy Sam Sumner. A Sequel to Sassy Sam
Barnum’s Boy Ben
Billy Bakkus, the Boy With the Big Mouth
Cheeky and Chipper; or, Through Thick and Thin
In Street and Smith’s Nugget Library:
Bouncer Brown; or He Was Bound to Find His Father, (1889)