A long-lost literary treasure with an absorbing tale of its own. In
the course of a distinguished career, James (d. 1955) - winner of
two Pulitzers, for The Raven (1930) and Andrew Jackson (1938) -
developed the lucrative sideline of producing corporate histories.
Commissioned in 1944 to write the life story of William Russell
Grace (founder of the multinational enterprise that still bears his
name), James completed a manuscript that Viking was set to publish
in 1948. For reasons still not entirely clear, the project was
aborted and the galleys consigned to a warehouse. They were
unearthed years later by Lawrence A. Clayton, a University of
Alabama professor researching a scholarly history of W.R. Grace
& Co. in Latin America. The finder arranged for the text's
publication and here has contributed an informative introduction on
the belated appearance of an altogether engrossing period piece.
Drawing on unrestricted access to corporate archives and personal
papers, James offers a detailed account of an immensely successful
emigre. A son of Ireland's impoverished gentry, Grace (1832-1904)
decided early on to make his way across the water. Having amassed a
small fortune as a supplier to the sailing vessels that exported
Peru's vast guano deposits, after the Civil War he moved his base
of operations and family to Manhattan. There, Grace became even
wealthier, building a mercantile empire whose far-flung interests
ranged from railroads and rubber plantations through global
shipping lines. He also found time for politics, bucking Tammany
Hall to win election as the city's first Roman Catholic mayor. More
merchant prince than robber baron, Grace earned considerable
influence in the highest councils of the Democratic Party as an
advocate of good government and reform. A lively chronicle, doubly
welcome because it rescues from undeserved obscurity one of the
Gilded Age's more consequential players - as well as a master
annalist's handiwork. (Kirkus Reviews)
This biography was written by two-time Pulitzer winner Marquis
James in 1948, but was never published. W.R. Grace's son
commissioned James to write it when the author was at the height of
his career. However, as Viking Press was about to print the book,
the Grace company decided not to release it. It then lay in the
firm's archives until it was uncovered by Lawrence Clayton of the
University of Alabama. "Merchant Adventurer" tells the story of one
of America's most successful immigrants. First arriving in America
in 1846, Irish-born William R. Grace worked his way up from
ordinary seaman to become master of a vast commercial empire,
reformer of the Democratic party and New York City's first Catholic
mayor. Grace's fortune quickly rose once he began supplying ships
in the Peruvian guano trade. By the late 1860s, Grace was a rich
man; his firm, headquartered in New York, operated vessels all over
the world, helped build railroads in Latin America, and ran guns to
Peru for its disastrous war against Chile. Yet Grace's energies did
not stop with his business dealings. In the 1880s he served twice
as mayor of New York, successfully fighting the corruption of
Tammany Hall. As the century waned, he battled to control the
rubber market and nearly won a contract to build what is now the
Panama Canal.
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