James Howell

For the U.S. Senator named James Howell, see James B. Howell

James Howell

James Howell (c. 1594 - 1666), was a British writer who is in many ways an emblematic figure of his age. The son of a Welsh clergyman, he was for much of his life in the shadow of his elder brother Thomas Howell, who became Bishop of Bristol. In 1613 he gained his B.A. from Jesus College, Oxford, and thereafter had a variety of employments, as an administrator for a glass manufacturer, and in the often combined roles of secretary and instructor to several noble families. As factory agent and negotiator he traveled widely in Europe and learned to speak several languages, apparently with great facility. He also met and befriended numerous literary figures, among them Ben Jonson. Paramount amongst his priorities, though, was Royal, or at least aristocratic patronage.

On the eve of the English Civil War, he finally gained a secretaryship of the Privy Council, which according to Daniel Woolf was "very close to the type of appointment that he had sought for 20 years" . The conflict meant that he never took up the position, and at about the same time, he wrote his first book, or "maiden Fancy", Dodona's Grove, which represented the history of England and Europe through the allegorical framework of a typology of trees. It is worth noting that he started to publish at this time of ferment although he was already well established as a writer of what we would know today as 'newsletters' but were then known as 'tracts' or 'pamphlets'. He was the first writer to earn his living solely from writing in the English language, and the first writer of an Epistolary novel,the novel of letters,in the English Language(Familiar Letters). "Lexicon Tetragloton" was not a dictionary written by him in four languages, as its name would suggest, but in six; a dictionary of Latin vernacular (Romance language) proverbs. It is a highly respected work in the Portuguese and Spanish languages as well, quite apart from his native Welsh. He was a prolific writer.

Principal literary works

Howell, James. Dendrologia, Dodona's Grove, or the Vocall Forest.(Part 2) Allegory. 1640.

England’s Teares for the present Warres (addendum to some editions Dodona's grove)

Familiar Letters or Epistolae Ho-Elianae.

Instructions for Forraine Travell. 1642

A Perfect Description of the Country of Scotland 1649

Londonopolis: An Historical Discourse or Perlustration of the City of London. 1657

Lexicon Tetraglotton. 1660.

Preheminence and Pedigree of Parliament 1677

Literary criticism:

Daniel Woolf :

Javier Escribano : Proverbios,Refránes Y Traducción (Lexicon Tetraglotton)

External links

• 1911 Encyclopædia Britannia article
• Essays by James Howell at Quotidiana.org