[KS] Percival Lowell

[Robert Provine]

Dear Hyung Il and others:

Two small things to point out:

1) The biography of Percival Lowell was written by A. Lawrence Lowell, a 
brother, who was later President of Harvard, and not by the sister Amy 
Lowell, who was noted as a poet. The Lowells are institutionally 
remembered by the Harvard residence named Lowell House, where I lived as 
an undergraduate and which I visited last week (for the Opera, not for 
the Lowells).

2) Much earlier on this list I asked for the collective wisdom on the 
identity of Gordon Haddo, or Haddo Gordon, and received no response. 
There seem to be two articles by him, one clearly forename-surname 
Gordon Haddo and one equally clearly Haddo Gordon. That would seem to be 
a pseudonym, and my conjecture (since Lowell knew Korea, knew Sô 
Kwangbôm, and would have had access to him in the USA in the 1890s) is 
that Percival Lowell is this obscure person who wrote with confidence 
about the Progressive Party and about Sô Kwangbôm. Does the currently 
aroused set of experts have a definitive answer?

Cheers,

Rob Provine


On 7/4/2015 21:19, Robert N wrote:
> Prof. Pai,
>
> It definitely seems like you have access to far more information than I
> do so I will share some information.  I agree with Frank Hoffman's list
> and would add the following Korean Customs employees stationed in Seoul:
> H. G. Arnous (My apologies to Frank - I neglected to notice he was
> stationed in Seoul at the time), J. R. MacBeth and possibly the
> Austro-Hungarian Consul at Shanghai, Haas.
>
> As for when Lowell left Korea - not really sure of the date but we do
> know he was in Chemulpo on March 20th, 1884.
>
> Robert Neff
>
> On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 2:45 AM, Hyung Pai <hyungpai at eastasian.ucsb.edu
> <mailto:hyungpai at eastasian.ucsb.edu>> wrote:
>
>     Dear members,
>     Thank you for the many helpful comments and suggestions for
>     resources from Ed, Frank, Wayne, and Oak.
>     My original intent was to just work on the photographs but then I
>     found that only a handful were included or described in his book-
>     and I had a hard time identifying the landmarks and so now this
>     research has expanded beyond my comfort zone.
>
>     I apologize about the years typos.
>       According to his sister, the poet Amy Lowell's biography on
>     Lowell, Percival arrived around Christmas 1883 and stayed for less
>     than two months, and left sometime after Feb 17th 1884
>       when he wrote a letter to another sister, Bessie saying he had
>     taken more than 53 negatives of scenes in about Soul, groups and
>     individuals and that he had been urged by the Coreans to write a
>     book; as well as he intended to send to his majesty a collection of
>     my photographs printed in Japan upon my return ( Amy Lowell ,
>     Biography of Percival Lowell (1935), page 16. He kept both his promises.
>
>     I believe many of the people that Frank mentioned were residing in
>     Chemulpo since many were customs officials and Lowell’s count of 9
>     individuals were the ones he encountered living in central Seoul.
>     At present I am going through his correspondence compiled in five
>     volumes so see what I can find. Looks like it is going to take a while
>
>
>     Hyung Il Pai
>     Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies
>     HSSB Building, University of California, Santa Barbara
>     CA 93106
>     Fax: 805-893-7671
>     Email: hyungpai at eastasian.ucsb.edu <mailto:hyungpai at eastasian.ucsb.edu>
>     Dept Home-page profile:
>     http://www.eastasian.ucsb.edu/home/faculty/hyung-il-pai/
>
>     On Apr 6, 2015, at 10:51 AM, Hyung Pai <hyungpai at eastasian.ucsb.edu
>     <mailto:hyungpai at eastasian.ucsb.edu>> wrote:
>
>>     Dear Koreanists,
>>
>>     I am working on a paper on Percival Lowell and his travel
>>     photographs, In his widely read travelogue ( Land of the Morning
>>     Calm during the Winter of 1882-83, he brags that he was amongst 9
>>     Westerners residing in Seoul at the time
>>     He mentions Lucius Foote, and Von Moellendorf ( not including his
>>     Japanese wife and two kids),
>>     Is this true? Who would the 7 others be? Can we confirm who they
>>     are. This time period early 1880s in Korean history is a new area
>>     for me .
>>     Hyung Il Pai
>>     Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies
>>     HSSB Building, University of California, Santa Barbara
>>     CA 93106
>>     Fax: 805-893-7671
>>     Email: hyungpai at eastasian.ucsb.edu
>>     <mailto:hyungpai at eastasian.ucsb.edu>
>>     Dept Home-page profile:
>>     http://www.eastasian.ucsb.edu/home/faculty/hyung-il-pai/
>>
>
>