Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

Robert Montgomery Bird (Author), Christopher Looby (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: New York Review Books Classics | Publication Date: January 15, 2008

Originally published in 1836.

Sheppard Lee, Written By Himself is a work of dark satire from the early years of the American Republic. Published as an autobiography and praised by Edgar Allan Poe, this is the story of a young idler who goes in search of buried treasure and finds instead the power to transfer his soul into other men's bodies. What follows is one increasingly practiced body snatcher's picaresque journey through early American pursuits of happiness, as each new form Sheppard Lee assumes disappoints him anew while making him want more and more. When Lee's metempsychosis draws him into the marriage market, the money market, and the slave market, Bird's fable of American upward mobility takes a more sinister turn. Lee learns that everything in America, even virtue and vice, are interchangeable; everything is an object and has its price. 
 
Looking forward to Melville's The Confidence-Man and beyond that to William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch, this strange and compelling story is a penetrating critique of American life and values as well as a crucial addition to the canon of American literature.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Popular and well-regarded in his time as a playwright and novelist, Bird (1806-1854) has slipped out of American literature, but this 1830s medley of satire mingled with moral philosophy, while a period artifact, riffs winningly on the social and political culture of Bird's America. Hoping to find buried treasure, the indolent Lee stumbles upon a "stone dead" neighbor. No sooner does he utter, "Oh, that I might be Squire Higginson!" than his wish is granted. Alas, Lee finds himself not only "with the gout and a scolding wife," but accused of murdering himself. Thus begin his peregrinations by metempsychosis, with a lesson to be had from each new body taken. As Dulmer Dawkins, Lee finds that the price of being "a favorite among the women" is debt. Arriving South a few jumps later, Lee becomes Nigger Tom, a body he soon exigently escapes, only to pick a body that suffers from "dyspepsy." From there, Lee explores the animal world (a dog), the inanimate (a coffee pot), and the dubiously historical (a French emperor). The various morals, as clear as they are, don't spoil the fun of following Lee as he tries to get back to the farm.
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Review

"Sheppard Lee is an antebellum novel like no other: a psychological picaresque in which the narrator survives the death of his body only to possess a succession of corpses as a spirit. Moving up and down the social and economic ladder in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Virginia, Sheppard Lee embodies, among other identities, a gouty brewer, a miserly moneylender, and a slave. Equal parts comedy of manners, satire of sentimentality, and critique of antebellum political culture, Sheppard Lee also offers a vivid portrait of early American life."
— Justine Murison, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

"An unjustly forgotten masterpiece, Sheppard Lee inspired Poe's tales of metempsychosis, 'The Gold Bug,' and the juiciest parts of Melville's Israel Potter. It also gave Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom his name. This novel of lost bodies and wandering spirits, with slavery's transformations of persons into things as background, introduces that 'other' American Renaissance—one of surreal disguises and hidden taints—which depended not on fiction but on history for its most gothic plots."
— Colin Dayan, Vanderbilt University

“Like Philothea, this novel is an original in American Belles Lettres at least; and these deviations, however indecisive, from the more beaten paths of imitation, look well for our future literary prospects...We must regard Sheppard Lee, upon the whole, as a very clever…jeu d’esprit.” —Edgar Allen Poe, Southern Literary Messenger

“There is a fund of amusement in it, displaying an intimate acquaintance with the lights and shades of human character.” —The New Yorker

“Of all the native productions of the season, commend us to Sheppard Lee…a delicious bundle of all sorts of clever intellectual wares.” —New York Monthly Magazine

“This is one of the most original and ingenious works of fiction that has been produced in the United States. As a mere novel, it is exceedingly entertaining; as a satire, with much of broad caricature, it is still generally pointed and just; as a ‘morality,’ it is excellent…the author...is a bold and vigorous writer; and we acknowledge that it is long, very long, since we read an American novel that gave us half the pleasure we have derived from the perusal of Sheppard Lee…a work completely sui generis.” —The American Monthly Magazine

“One of the most amusing books that has been published for a long time, and one for which we predict an extensive demand…The book will well repay one for its perusal.” —Family Magazine

“The book abounds with whim and burlesque, pointed but playful satire, and felicitous sketches of society.” —Home Journal

“Of the many books of the present season, Sheppard Lee is most to our liking.” —The Ladies’ Companion

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 472 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (January 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590172299
• ISBN-13: 978-1590172292
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #279,916 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful American masterpiece, March 14, 2008

By 

Robert C. Ross (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

I spent four days reading and enjoying this wonderful novel, and spent another four days reading about it in the pages of Google Books. I found that this unsigned review captures everything I loved about the book. It appeared in the September, 1836 issue of "The Knickerbocker: Or New York Monthly Magazine."

*******

OF all the native productions of the season, commend us to Sheppard Lee. We must however initiate the reader into the proper manner of perusing the work, before adverting more particularly to its qualities. The various 'books' which it contains should be read at short intervals; the volumes should be closed at the termination of each metamorphose of the author, as the curtain falls upon the different scenes of a drama; in this wise, the reader may enjoy in parcels a delicious bundle of all sorts of clever intellectual wares. The writer wins at once upon our regard, by the choice requisites of truth and freshness, and a plain unvarnished delivery of what he has to say. The separate characters which he assumes are each a picture, drawn to the life, and some of them, without doubt, from life. He gives the reins to an exuberant fancy, but is not so profusely inventive as to distract attention or curiosity. His humor is capital, and always naturally displayed, and his satire bites shrewdly, without any appearance of ill nature or malignity, which too often accompany sarcasm.

[The Reviewer then quotes extensively from Sheppard Lee's life as a politician; reviews of the time often contained dozens of pages of the books being reviewed.]

On throwing off his first existence, Lee becomes a rich brewer of Philadelphia: but although he has suddenly risen from poverty to affluence, he is not without his troubles. For example, [and again the book is extensively quoted; this is a small section that gives the modern reader a flavor of the whole book]:

"You see, gentlemen -- (I'll take another glass of that port, Mr. Doolittle) -- you see
what we must all come to! This is one of the small penalties one must pay for being
a gentleman; when one dances, one must pay the piper. Now would my friend Hig-
ginson there give a whole year of his best brewing, that all the pale ale and purple port
that have passed his lips had been nothing better than elder-wine and bonny-clabber.

But never mind, my dear sir,' said the son of AEsculapins, with a coolness that shocked
me; 'as long as it's only in your foot, it's a small matter.'

" 'A small matter !' -- I grinned at him ; but the unfeeling wretch only repeated his
words -- 'A small matter!' "

I had never been sick before in my life. As John H. Higglnson, my worst complaints
had been only an occasional surfeit, or a moderate attack of booziness; and as Shep-
pard Lee, I had never known any disease except laziness, which, being chronic, I had
grown so accustomed to that it never troubled me. But now, ah, now! my first step
into the world of enjoyment was to be made on red-hot ploughshares and pokers; my
first hour of a life of content was to be passed in grinning, and groaning, and -- but it
is hardly worth while to say it. The gout should be confined to religious people ; for
men of the world will swear, and that roundly."

His next transformations are, first into a slave, and then into a master of slaves; both which characters, it is evident close observation has enabled him faithfully to describe. We take leave of this work -- which is American in every thing -- with the single remark, that beside being amusing in a high degree, it is calculated in many respects.

******

And so say I!