{{short description|British novelist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox writer | name = Howard Sturgis | image = Howard Sturgis and William Haynes Smith on the steps with two dogs at Queen's Acres, Windsor, before 1920.jpg | imagesize = | caption = ''Sturgis and William Haynes Smith with two dogs at Queen's Acres, Windsor, before 1920'' | pseudonym = | birth_name = Howard Overing Sturgis | birth_date = {{Birth date|1855|01|30|mf=y}} | birth_place = London, England | death_date = {{Death date and age|1920|2|7|1855|01|30}} | death_place = Windsor, Berkshire, England | nationality = British | education = Eton College<br />Trinity College, Cambridge | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | partner = William Haynes-Smith | notable_works = ''Tim: A Story of School Life'', ''All that was possible'', ''Belchamber'' | influences = | signature = }}
'''Howard Overing Sturgis''' (January 30, 1855 – February 7, 1920) was an English-language novelist who wrote about same-sex love. Of American parentage, he lived and worked in Britain.
==Early life== "Howdie," as he was known to his intimates, was born in London on 30 January 1855 into an affluent New England American family.<ref name="Roberts1898">{{cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=Oliver Ayer |title=History of the Military Company of the Massachusetts, Now Called the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. 1637-1888 |date=1898 |publisher=A. Mudge & son, printers |page=75 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rTCcX3FvTPcC&pg=PA75 |access-date=1 April 2020 |language=en}}</ref> His father, Russell Sturgis,<ref name="1888Will">{{cite news |title=WILLS AND BEQUESTS |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/47813251/wills-and-bequests/ |access-date=1 April 2020 |work=The Star |date=3 January 1888 |pages=4}}</ref> was a China trader and lawyer who later became head of Barings Bank in London.<ref name="White2008">{{cite journal |last1=White, Edmund |author-link=Edmund White |title=Portrait of a Sissy |journal=The New York Review of Books |date=6 March 2008 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2008/03/06/portrait-of-a-sissy/ |access-date=1 April 2020 |language=en |issn=0028-7504}}</ref> His mother was Russell's third wife, Julia Overing (née Boit) Sturgis. Among his siblings were brothers Julian (who also became a novelist) and Henry (who became MP for South Dorset) and sister Mary (wife of Bertram Falle, 1st Baron Portsea).<ref name="Lee1912">{{cite book |last1=Lee |first1=Sir Sidney |title=Dictionary of National Biography: Neil-Young |date=1912 |publisher=Macmillan |page=451 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qFxHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA451 |access-date=1 April 2020 |language=en}}</ref> From his father's earlier marriage, he had an elder half-brother, John Hubbard Sturgis, who was a noted Boston architect.<ref>{{cite book |author=Boit, Robert Apthorp| title=Chronicles of the Boit Family and Their Descendants and of Other Allied Families| publisher= Bibliobazaar| year=2009|isbn=978-1-113-65501-1}}</ref>
He was described as "a delicate child, closely attached to his mother, and fond of such girlish hobbies as needlepoint and knitting, which he continued to practice throughout his life."<ref name="New York Review of Books"/> His parents sent him to be educated at Eton College. He went on to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA degree in 1878.<ref>{{acad|id=STRS874HO|name=Sturgis, Howard Overing}}</ref> He became a friend of the novelists Henry James and Edith Wharton.<ref name="New York Review of Books">{{cite web |title=Howard Sturgis |url=https://www.nyrb.com/collections/howard-sturgis |website=www.nyrb.com |publisher=New York Review of Books |access-date=3 April 2025}}</ref>
==Career== [[File:Henry James, Edith Wharton and Howard Sturgis on the veranda at The Mount.jpg|thumb|right|Henry James, Edith Wharton and Howard Sturgis on the veranda at The Mount.]] Sturgis's first novel, ''Tim: A Story of School Life'' (1891), was published anonymously and was dedicated to the "love that surpasses the love of women." It describes the love of two youths at boarding-school and was "based on his unhappy days at Eton."<ref name="New York Review of Books"/> It was followed in 1895 by ''All that was possible,'' an epistolary novel about an actress who retires from London to a remote valley in Wales.<ref name="Hollinghurst2008"/>
Sturgis' first two novels were successful as far as sales were concerned; but his third, ''Belchamber'' (1904), failed to gain the same plaudits.<ref name="New York Review of Books"/><ref name="NYT1905">{{cite news |title=A Tragedy of Misguidedness.; BELCHAMBER. By Howard Overing Sturgis, Author of "Tim" and "All That Was Possible." 12mo. Pp. 360. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1905/06/10/archives/a-tragedy-of-misguidedness-belchamber-by-howard-overing-sturgis.html |access-date=1 April 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=10 June 1905}}</ref> Although Edith Wharton praised it, Henry James found it unsatisfactory,<ref name="Jstor">Borklund, Elmer. "[https://www.jstor.org/pss/435203 Howard Sturgis, Henry James, and ''Belchamber'']". ''Modern Philology'', Vol. 58, No. 4 (May, 1961)</ref> and let Sturgis know in several letters. Afterwards Sturgis went on to publish only one short story (1908), about a lesser writer driven suicidal by the criticism of a greater, and a memorial on his friend, Anne Thackeray.<ref name="Hollinghurst2008">{{cite news |last1=Hollinghurst, Alan |author-link=Alan Hollinghurst |title=Don't Ask Henry: Sissiness |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n19/alan-hollinghurst/don-t-ask-henry |access-date=1 April 2020 |work=London Review of Books |date=9 October 2008 |language=en}}</ref>
==Personal life== After the death of his mother in 1888, he bought a country house named Queen's Acre ("Qu’acre"), near Windsor Great Park and moved there with his lover, William Haynes-Smith (1871–1937), known to all as "the Babe."<ref name="Hollinghurst2008"/> Haynes-Smith was the son of the English colonial administrator Sir William Haynes-Smith. At Qu’acre, they frequently entertained a wide group of friends, including Wharton and James. <ref name="New York Review of Books"/>
Sturgis died at Windsor, Berkshire on 7 February 1920.<ref name="Jstor"/> Four years after his death, Haynes-Smith married Howard's niece, Alice Maud Russell Sturgis (a daughter of his elder half-brother John Hubbard Sturgis),<ref>{{cite news |title=Died |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/10/29/archives/obituary-1-no-title.html |access-date=1 April 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=29 October 1964}}</ref> at Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. Both were in their 50s when they married.<ref name="1924Wedding">{{cite news |title=HAYNES-SMITH -- STURGIS |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1924/06/23/archives/marriage-announcement-1-no-title.html |access-date=1 April 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=23 June 1924}}</ref>
===Legacy=== After his death appreciations of him were published by A. C. Benson (1924), Edith Wharton (1934), E. M. Forster (1936) and George Santayana (1944), his cousin. His great-nephew is the journalist and novelist Henry Porter.
==Works== *''Tim: A Story of School Life'' (1891) [Anonymously published] *''All That Was Possible'' (1895) *''Belchamber'' (1904) *'On the Pottlecombe Cornice', in ''Fortnightly Review'' (1908) [short story]
==Further reading== * M. Seymour, ''A Ring of Conspirators: Henry James and his literary circle'' (1986) * E. Borklund, 'Howard Sturgis, Henry James and ''Belchamber'' ', in ''Modern Philology''; 58 (1961), p. 255-269 * George Santayana, ''Persons and Places'' (1944; repr. 1986) * E. M. Forster, 'Howard Overing Sturgis', in ''Abinger Harvest'' (1936), p. 121-129 * Edith Wharton, ''A Backward Glance'' (1934; repr. 1985) * A. C. Benson, ''Memories and friends'' (1924)
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20120208144429/http://www.glbtq.com/literature/sturgis_ho.html GLBTQ.com] * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Howard Overing Sturgis}} * {{Librivox author |id=1161}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sturgis, Howard}} Category:1855 births Category:1920 deaths Category:People educated at Eton College Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Category:British people of American descent Category:English gay writers Category:Novelists from London Category:19th-century British novelists Category:20th-century British novelists Category:19th-century American novelists Category:20th-century American novelists Category:American male novelists Category:English LGBTQ novelists Category:19th-century American male writers Category:20th-century English male writers Category:20th-century American male writers Howard