Book I, The Descent
Motto by Robert Louis Stevenson:
"As long as you keep in the upper regions, with all the world bowing to you as you go, social arrangements have a very handsome air, but once get under the wheels, and you wish society were at the devil. I will give most respectable men a fortnight of such a life, and then I will offer them twopence for what remains of their morality."

Book I, Chapter 1, I Emigrate:
Phil Branden describes how, at age 24, he crossed the Atlantic on board of a White Star Liner from Liverpool to Montreal. It was late in July, and he had to make do with "second cabin." He explains his affluent Anglo-Swedish family background, his cosmopolitan upbringing, and the circumstances leading to his emigration: just as he was ready to explore more of the world, his plans were curtailed by his father's sudden poverty. This shock is compounded by the refusal of wealthy friends to lend him the money his father could no longer provide. Not long after this, his father died a hermit in Étaples, France. The last straw was that Phil found himself snubbed by former acquaintances in a Stockholm café. He therefore decided to turn his back on Europe. His destination he left up to chance, and since the first available boat was bound for Canada, Canada happened to be his lot.

Note that thanks to the precision of the clues planted in these first few pages of A Search for America, Greve's second class passage in late July 1909 on the White Star Liner Megantic could at last be documented in late 1998, after several decades of fruitless searching by numerous scholars. The immigration records in Ottawa confirm beyond the four facts mentioned in the text –- a ship of the White Star Line, the second class accommodation, the month of travel (July), and the route from Liverpool to Montreal -- that FPG was German, and that he was 30 years old. Since Phil’s age in ASA is so emphatically 24, it is worth looking at what Greve was doing when he was twenty-four. Since he was born in 1879, this leads us to 1903, which was indeed a memorable year for Greve: he eloped with Else Endell to Palermo in late January; he was arrested for fraud in Bonn; in late May, he started serving his prison term in this city where he had previously been a student of archaeology. In prison, he established his incredibly prolific translation career with several works by H. G. Wells and André Gide. For details of Greve’s passage and its implications for Grove’s autobiographical fiction, see detailed entries in the UML’s online catalogue BISON, and Divay’s contribution to Walter Pache’s Festschrift, 2000 (submitted in January 1999, shortly after the important discovery, but not published until January 2000). For Greve’s activities during this time, see the UM Archives' Spettigue Collection, and there in particular, Greve’s correspondence with Gide, Wolfskehl, and O. A. H. Schmitz [from Deutsches Literatur-Archiv, Marbach], as well as a complete set of his letters to Insel Publishers [from Weimar archives] and H. G. Wells [from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign] in the UM Archives' Divay Collection.

Book I, Chapter 2, I Land on American Soil:
Phil portrays himself in the immigration hall of Montreal, with many pieces of luggage and overcoats. He boards the train for Toronto, and is at pains trying to find a plausible reason for this choice of destination. In spite of Phil's ability to hide his feelings behind impenetrable masks, a fellow passenger on the train knows that Phil has stepped straight off the boat, and he tells Phil what he can expect for wages, by way of his own example and that of his fifteen year old son.

Note: For the first time, Phil resorts here to his failing memory. It will be evoked whenever something refuses to fit into his/the author’s narrative. Bruce Thomson, who unearthed the passage documents in Ottawa in mid-October 1998 with support of the FPG Endowment Fund, believes that Grove had bought a package-deal which included railroad travel from London to Liverpool before, and from Montreal to Toronto after the week-long sea voyage. The emphasis on masks evokes both Nietzsche and Oscar Wilde, and can be interpreted as one of the numerous veiled references to Greve’s past, and here specifically to his early preoccupation with these two authors.

Book I, Chapter 3, I Secure Work:
Phil describes his experiences in Toronto, where he lives in a rented room downtown. He follows up on the advertisements in newspapers, but does not easily find suitable work. Discouraged, he decides to apply for a waiter's position. In an elegant restaurant, his hopes are raised when he can demonstrate his fluency in Parisian French. However, he is judged unsuitable for the position, precisely because his refinement makes him overqualified. The rejection is softened slightly by the kind advice to apply for a job at a nearby establishment. There, Phil is hired in the lowly capacity of an "omnibus," or a waiter's helper.

Book I, Chapter 4, I Submerge:
Phil describes in graphic detail the hellish onslaught of the rushed luncheon crowds. Little else actually happens in this chapter: Phil arrives, literally descends into the locker room which is “an underground cave" (p. 37). The manager assigns him to an experienced waiter who shows Phil around, and instructs him in his duties. When the customers arrive, all hell breaks loose. Twice, the term "hell" is used explicitly, once by the good-hearted waitress Ella (p. 53), and again by Phil himself who confirms Ella’s comparison (p. 58). When the "battle" is over, and the "avalanche of dishes" (p. 59) has finally slowed down, only Frank, whom Ella describes as the best among all the waiters (p. 53), is not utterly exhausted and still cheerful.

Note: The description of the working conditions in the cheap eatery is excellent: it provides an impressive example of the narrative techniques practiced by FPG, and has been compared to Dante's Inferno. There is no doubt that Grove is at his best when he can, like here, make a display of his superior education, and apply his ability to juggle with various layers of meaning. He imitates his admired model Flaubert, whose “symbolic realism” is a happy blend of the objective descriptions characteristic of realism, and of the metaphoric or mythological dimensions of symbolism. “Symbolic realism” avoids the excesses of both these literary trends. Greve adopted Flaubert’s aesthetics while in Bonn prison in 1903/4. As Grove, he remained faithful to his new master’s ideals. To confer the august title “Master” was a common affectation in Stefan George’s entourage, and for his poetry, FPG applied George’s techniques throughout his life. For his prose works, however, Greve had replaced his previous “Master,” Oscar Wilde, with Flaubert by 1904. This change of heart represented a 180-degree turn-about in the decadent l’art-pour-l’art dichotomy of "Art" and "Life". See Greve’s confessional letters to Gide, UML Archives, Spettigue & Divay Collections, Mss 57 & Mss 12.

Book I, Chapter 5, I Earn a Promotion:
Phil reflects on his lowly position in the hierarchy of the restaurant, and how the waiters treat him accordingly, despite his vastly superior education. His well-bred origins are of no use in this environment. Phil is intrigued by the “cavernous” old man, whom he had already noticed on his first day. He wonders why this "veteran of waiterdom" has not risen in the ranks of the restaurant, being on the continent of equal opportunities (p 63). The old man blames Mr. Carlton, the manager, for not keeping his promise of promotion. Phil asks Ella why the old man had not opted for retirement, finds out that no social security system is in place, and observes in retrospect that he was advocating "socialism" like he had seen it practiced by Bernard Shaw (p. 69). There is a hilarious description of the crude staff in the kitchen: "They called me 'the baron' there, addressed me as 'Sir Phil', and in high-sounding phrases spoke to me mostly of things and parts of the body that will not bear print." The "mutual dislike" reigning in the kitchen is compensated by the excellent rapport he develops with the star-waiter Frank. Phil is doing so well, that he is promoted after only five days. Elated by this success, Phil indulges in highflying plans. For several pages he expounds a Nietzschean view of "genius", of "leadership" reserved to men of vision, and of nations who can become "great" rather than rich by championing "practical things" (p. 73-75). He describes how he ingratiates himself with his first patrons, and the generous tips he consequently receives from them. The only depressing part of Phil’s success is the old man who is deeply hurt by being surpassed once again.

Note that Grove implies that he knew Shaw personally. Greve could have met him on one or the other of his visits to H. G. Wells in 1904, 1905 or 1906. These are attested in his correspondence with Gide (UM Archives, Spettigue Collection, Mss 57) and H. G. Wells (UM Archives, Divay Collection, Mss12). Else reports independently in her autobiography that Wells was expecting Shaw on one occasion, but that he failed to come. Later, Else chose Shaw and Gide, among others, as targets for her letters of extortion, urging them to support her and her art (around 1920/21, in her collection at the University of Maryland, College Park; copies also in UML Archives, and in Divay Collection).

Book I, Chapter 6, I Meet the Explanation for One Kind of Success:
This chapter is devoted to Phil's friend Frank, who is described as having superior qualities and who seems far more refined than the rest of the staff. To show just how crude his colleagues are, Phil describes a gross scene he has witnessed: a coarse, disgruntled waiter spits into the soup of a dissatisfied customer, and proceeds to serve it anew, to the delight of the employees. Only Phil and Frank abstain from falling in with the merriment. Frank has confided in Phil that he was really a trained engineer. Phil only learns later that this professional label has a rather loose definition in America, where it ranges "from the street-car driver to Thomas A. Edison" (p. 83). Frank is furthering his education with correspondence courses. He lets Phil know that everybody, including Frank himself, have the highest regards for Phil’s aptitude as a waiter. Only Frank is a cut above him in this respect. Frank also initiates Phil into the trade mysteries of extracting good tips: he “forgets” to charge for several refills of pie and coffee, or he orders an expensive dish for his customer, while charging him for a cheaper choice. For these crooked transactions, he is rewarded with hefty tips. Phil is aghast, and loses instantly much of his admiration for Frank. After preaching a bit on morals in general, and insisting once again on his "arduous task of telling the truth,” he confesses that it was the pettiness of Frank's "graft" which repulsed him. Had the crime been bolder, it might even have appealed to him on aesthetic grounds (p. 86-87). Frank justifies his questionable behaviour with the urgency to make fast money, regardless of the means: he has left a hysterical wife in Buffalo, and he has assumed a false name. He also argues that "graft" is practiced everywhere, and on a far larger scale (p. 88). Phil insists that, no matter how dire the circumstances or how far-spread the corruption, he would never take part in any dishonest venture. But Phil also asserts that he can sympathize with Frank’s marriage problems: he has had opportunity to observe many a difficult union in Europe, where a trend towards "five-year trial marriages" was apparently in fashion. Frank, who wants to remain in Phil's good graces, suggests that Phil go to New York, where Frank once worked as "a waiter at Sherry's, and as a bell-hop at the Belmont" (p. 91), and where his connections might be of service to Phil.

Note: Frank is so similar to Phil that he is clearly conceived as an alter ego of the author-narrator. With the soup anecdote, Grove allows the reader an intimate glimpse into his impressionistic technique of realism: in order to justify its inclusion in his narrative, Phil remarks that it is meant as "one glaring colour-patch" in his tableau of the cheap restaurant. About p. 83: a euphemism for the position of Greve's father in Hamburg was "civil-servant." He was in fact a "tram conductor" and a "collector" of tram fares (Spettigue, FPG, p. 36). About p. 92: Frank’s abandonment mirrors Greve’s, who unilaterally ended his common-law union with Else by leaving her in Sparta, Kentucky. Like in Phil’s reported experience, their “trial marriage” had lasted five years, from 1904, when Greve was released from prison, to 1909 when he left Berlin with an alleged suicide. Else, in her open recollections, counts differently, and arrives at a time-span nearly twice as long: from October 1902, when she became infatuated with Greve, to the summer or fall of 1911, when he permanently disappeared from Kentucky and from her life. From her perspective, their relationship lasted indeed almost a decade (AB, p. 30). About ASA, p. 91: Phil’s reasons for moving to New York are very tenuous and lack conviction. The aesthetic grounds of Phil's judgement on Frank's crookedness are interesting, and recall Gide's essay about his first encounter with Greve in June 1904: the ethics and aesthetics of crime, even murder, were part of what was much later published as "Conversation avec un Allemand" -- a historical-critical edition of this text was prepared by the eminent Gide scholar Claude Martin in the Bulletin des amis d'André Gide.

Book I, Chapter 7, I Move on:
After only three of the seven weeks he works in the Toronto restaurant, Phil rises to the top, and is outdoing even Frank. He describes in three examples how his own, utterly honest methods are rewarded with generous tips given by grateful customers. Then Phil feels the need to justify why he is dwelling so much on his experience as a waiter: it gave him confidence in himself, and without it, he "might have gone down into the underworld "with which [he] was to come into contact anyway" (p. 99). One Sunday in September, he experiences "Nature" in a Toronto park. Then the "captain" at the restaurant is more or less dismissed, and Phil feels that he ought to be given the function of seating the customers. But his hopes do not materialize. When the new captain turns out to be a rather unpleasant individual, who takes offence when Phil is serving his accustomed clientele, Phil decides to leave. He follows his intuition, and believes in a highly successful future for himself in New York. After soliciting addresses from Frank and bidding him farewell, he departs for the metropolis. On his way, he looks up Frank's parents in Buffalo, as he had promised. There, an unexpectedly cold welcome awaits him, which leaves him in such a depressed mood that even the grand spectacle of the nearby Niagara Falls fails to cheer him. Reflecting about his situation, he reaches the conclusion that "economic success," the very reason why he has come to America, is not essential to his or anybody else's well-being, and that his "search for this one bit of soil which might fill [his] needs might not be a geographical search at all" (p. 115-116).

Note about p. 99: the nature description in the Toronto park and similar lyrical passages are reminiscent of several autumn poems by both FPGs. The "economic success" mentioned here is the first subtle intimation that Phil/Greve had counted on material success when he opted for America. Else expresses Greve's ambitions less neutrally in her remark that he had planned to become a "business genius or potato king" (AB, p. 34).

Book II, The Relapse
Motto by Henry David Thoreau:
"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run."

Book II, Chapter 1, The Issue is Obscured:
Phil arrives in Jersey City in the early morning of a beautiful, clear autumn day. Studying his map, he walks to the address of Frank's lodgings, and finds to his dismay that it is fictitious. In Madison Square he consults his guidebook and, avoiding "the Astor, the Waldorf, the Knickerbocker, and the Plaza, he chooses at random among the more modest hotels. He takes a room (with bath) in the Prince George Hotel on 27th Street. After he has checked in, he goes to relax in Bronx Park. In the evening, while reading in the lobby of his hotel, he falls victim to a pair of crooks: young Hannan from St. Louis, "the city of beer, tobacco and boots" (p. 123), strikes up an acquaintance with Phil. They transfer to the Holland House near-by, and there they run into the drunk tobacco planter Howard from Missouri. Howard forces himself and a bottle of champaign "Mumm, extra dry" onto Hannan and Phil (p. 126), and proposes a game of luck. Hannan urges Phil to play along, under the pretext of winning an impressive roll of bills away from Howard, and thus safeguard it for him. Phil admits to the reader that he is not altogether inexperienced at gambling (p. 129). The game he now indulges in is called "flip" and it is played by throwing three coins. The scene takes place in a side-room, where first beer, then whiskey are served. Howard drinks a lot, Phil sips moderately, and Hannan does not drink at all. Howard pulls out a wad of 10,000-dollar bills, Phil produces $60 (p. 133). Just when Howard is giving up, and Phil is about to pick up $250 of his winnings, he is called to the telephone. Nobody is on the other end of the line, and when he returns, there is sign of neither Howard nor Hannan. At his hotel, Phil discovers that Hannan is not registered there at all, and only now he realizes that he has been conned (p. 137). The next day, he finds out exactly how he was duped: he makes arrangements to rent a room on a weekly basis, and when he checks out of his hotel, he is arrested. The one-hundred dollar bill he was using to settle his bill turned out to be counterfeit. At the police station, Phil reports on his experience with his two gambling partners from the night before, learns that they are well-known crooks, nicknamed "Han the Hook and Big Heinie," and is set free to go (p. 142).

Note: Grove's 1909 edition of Baedeker' guide to the United States is extant in the UML Rare Book Room's Frederick Philip Grove Library Collection. The Prince George Hotel was very close to Madison Square, where Phil consults his guide-book. It is among the hotels described in Grove's Baedeker on p. 13. Located at "27^th St., between Fifth Ave. and Madison Ave.;" it is "suitable for ladies, R. with bath from $2", and can be found in square F3 on the big coloured fold-out map between pp.10 & 11, and also on Map II, "Centre of New York", between p. 42/43. Near-by Holland House on Fifth Ave and 30^th St., where the gambling takes place, is listed on p. 12. See detail on Baedeker's map "Centre of New York". About FPG's gambling experience, see the rumours about Greve's habits in a letter to Insel Publishers in November 1902 in the UM Archives' Divay Collection. This manuscript source from the Insel Archives in Weimar is also published, in German and English, in Desmond Pacey's fine edition of FPG's Letters, 1976, 522-524.

Book II, Chapter 2, I Scour the City for Work:
Looking for work, Phil finds out that all of Frank's connections are not any more real than the one he has already tried in vain. Frank fails to answer Phil's letters, and when Phil finally receives a reply from Frank's mother, he learns that to her knowledge, Frank has never been to New York. To compound his misery, Phil now finds his photo on the front page of the newspapers, depicting him as a hardened counterfeit criminal (p. 144). And two employment agencies offer little encouragement, though one sends him for a position at the famous Belmont Hotel. When he enters through the main portal, he is indignantly motioned to the servants' entrance. Interviewed in English, French, and German, he is accepted, once again, as "an omnibus" (p. 148), but this time, formal attire and black "swallow-tails" are required. The pay is $4 a week, a grave disappointment to Phil, who has earned double this amount in Toronto, and whose new lodging alone costs him $5. Seeing Phil's dismay, the hotel's recruitment "captain" suddenly flies into a rage, and dismisses Phil with an outburst of unprovoked abuse. Now Phil decides that, for the fortune of $90, he will advertise his services in three major newspapers (p. 150). While waiting for a suitable response, he enjoys the beautiful September days. He explains how his rapport with nature has been of an abstract, literary kind so far. So, for instance, had his experience of Italy been mediated by "Goethe, Browning, Byron, Shelley" and "Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikowsky" (p. 152). Sitting at a beach on the Atlantic coast, he reflects on the billions of shells that make up the fine, white sands. It occurs to him that he also is like "such a shell thrown on these shores, in the process of being ground to pieces and fragments, in order to furnish the soil for others to stand on." When he returns to New York, his mood is "nearly suicidal" (p. 153). Not one of the fifteen replies he receives for his lavish advertisement is suitable. His aspirations and his savings are dwindling fast, though he starts to walk and lives on forty-five cents a day. He applies for work at banks, at bookstores, at a cable company, at an agency for servants, and even at the slaughterhouses -- all to no avail. He first sells his expensive clothes, then his rare books. But he also escapes into reading, and discovers American literature, especially "Lincoln, Lowell, Thoreau" (p. 162). Then, one day, he is visited by an agent of "Dr. Elliot's Five-Foot Shelf of the Best Books of the World," and he is "fascinated by a display of oratorical and histrionic powers ..." (p. 165). According to his caller, wages in this line of work average twelve dollars a day, and there are plenty of openings, as pertinent classified sections of the newspapers prove.

Note: Various German book-dealers, where Phil allegedly sells his books, are marked off in pencil in Grove's 1909 Baedeker on p. 25. Their addresses on Broadway, 16th or 33rd St., Park or 6th Avenues are all within easy walking distance from Madison Square and the Prince George Hotel where Phil stayed initially. Phil's financial situation is not convincingly described – he spends $5 a week for his room, and $90 for his advertisements. How he becomes a book-agent is equally unconvincing, after his claims of having hunted high and low for almost any kind of job.

Book II, Chapter 3, I Go on the Road:
Following up on three branches of the same publishing firm, Phil's application is accepted by the third. Mr. Tinker, the senior sales-person there, teaches Phil "the canvass," the ready-made sales strategy for selling the books. Phil is "swept off [his] feet" by Tinker's skilled demonstration (p. 169). He learns that the Travellogues come in three different bindings, but are sold on the same terms: $2 down, $2 in monthly payments for a variety of duration. Phil returns the next day, having mastered the canvass exceptionally fast and well. Equipped with a long list of "do's" and "don'ts", he is released into the field, a none-too-prosperous neighbourhood in the Bronx. After a week of thirty calls a day, and eighteen "interviews," he is both exhausted and discouraged, because he has not been able to sell a single set of books. Phil's problem is that he cannot press for a sale, being sympathetic with the financial plights of his potential customers. Mr. Tinker points out that their sales are "missionary work," and that the agents know better than their clients what is good for them (p. 171). A second week goes by without a sale, and now Mr. Tinker accompanies Phil to help him get over his "weakness in closing" (p. 178). With his expertise, Mr. Tinker succeeds in selling a set to a poor, elderly lady. Despite this success, Phil decides that he cannot and will not sell in impoverished neighbourhoods. The sales-tactics he has witnessed remind him of prey animals -- a cat, a hawk, or a snake -- when they are closing in for the kill. Mr. Tinker is disappointed by Phil's squeamishness, but he allows him to work in the open country as part of a crew under the leadership of a certain Mrs. McMurchy.

Book II, Chapter 4, I Seek New Fields:
Phil meets the crew, which, besides the leader, consists of a middle-aged lady, Mrs. Coldwell; a winning young man called Mr. Ray, and Mrs. Henders, "a pretty little Jewess" (p. 184).* Phil quickly becomes the social centre of the small group, and, of course, its most successful member in sales. He describes how he sells three sets in short succession, each to a young and happy couple. Very humourous are his observations about an ongoing feud between the leader Mrs. McMurchy and Mrs. Coldwell, regarding their respective family backgrounds, and the importance of their late husbands (p. 195). The winter months fly by with combing the countryside of New York and Connecticut. Phil becomes quite disillusioned when, against Mr. Tinker's explicit warning, he actually reads what he sells, and finds it far from inspiring (p. 202). Just as Phil thinks about changing company, watchdogs attack him while on duty, and he is released from his sales obligations with $150 severance pay.

Note: *Every once in a while, FPG will reveal racial prejudices of this kind. It is sad to say that compared to Else's blatant antisemitic slurs, Greve/Grove's racist lapses appear relatively minor.

Book II, Chapter 5, I Join a New Company:
In New York, Phil calls "on Mr. Wilbur, the president of the North American Historians' Publishing Company" (p. 207). This prestigious establishment has recently brought out "a composite history of the world" written by the best scholars in the field. From the presumptuous office floor of a Manhattan skyscraper, Wilbur takes Phil for lunch to his favourite, exclusive Club in a limousine. There, Phil has occasion to impress his host with a superior knowledge of fine wines. Wilbur, in turn, explains that he is selling exclusively the de-luxe edition of the twenty-volume history set, which can be had elsewhere in a popular edition for $60. The physical aspects of Wilbur's product are more important to his clientele than the scholarly content. The bindings in parchment or morocco leather imitate those of famous rare books, which brings the price up to $500-$1,400. With a commission of 20%, Phil can expect to earn between $100-$280 a month, even if he were to sell only a single set. In this line of work his continental "lisp and drawl" and his elegance are not regarded a hindrance. They are rather considered an asset in view of a privileged clientele (p. 213). For starters, Phil will accompany an experienced agent to Pittsburgh, where an appointment with a "steel-magnate" named Kirsty has been arranged (p. 215). Phil stands by and observes how Williams skillfully sells the gullible industrialist no. 8 of the numbered and limited edition in parchment bindings. When Phil later asks Williams if there really were only four sets left of the precious numbered edition, Williams is much amused by Phil's naivety, and threatens to order him milk in a bottle to express his contempt for such incredible ignorance about the finer points of business deals.

Book II, Chapter 6, I Land Somewhere:
Back in New York, Phil asks permission to sell the books strictly for their scholarly merit. Reluctantly, Wilbur agrees, and arranges for an appointment with a prospective client in Connecticut. Although Dr. Watson has no money himself to buy the books on the spot, Phil manages to sell two sets to the doctor's local friends. Instead of objecting to the term payments Phil has arranged with these two clients, Mr. Wilbur is only mildly reproachful that Phil has not sold more expensive kinds of the set. He also seems to worry that Phil has made promises for a particular number of the limited edition, and he is visibly relieved when Phil can reassure him on that point. It never even occurred to Phil to mention any other than the lowest priced option of the prestige edition. (p. 234). Phil is now sent to Cleveland, Lansing, and Grand Rapids for a week, and he returns without any sales. His report of this futile excursion convinces Mr. Wilbur to let him sell the books to scholars in New England, at his own risk. On the first anniversary of his immigration, Phil is in a mood of "retrospection" (p. 235; that first anniversary points to August of 1910). He is cultivating an ardent admiration for Nature, the simple life, and for Lincoln. Matthew Arnold's essays he throws into the fire, because the critic dared call Lincoln "crude" (p. 237). Phil's aims have changed from "making his pile" -- yet another confirmation that Greve harboured materialistic ambitions in America! -- to more nebulous, idealistic goals, namely, the quest for "the real America." The reflective mood has a negative effect on his sales. In spite of another day with a double success, Phil has to dip deeply into his expense account. The next time he sees Wilbur, he is deeply indebted to him. Wilbur himself seems changed, he looks exhausted and nervous. Once more, he sends Phil along with Williams, this time to a location in up-state New York. During the ten-hour ride, Williams explains to a shocked and disillusioned Phil, that the entire undertaking is "a con-game on a gigantic scale." But the only thing Williams objects to is the danger of pursuing three prospects in the same small town (p. 240). Phil wishes to withdraw immediately from such a crooked operation, but he gives in to Williams' plea to accompany him. They find all three of the potential buyers assembled in the same room. Rather than showing any inclination of buying one of the expensive sets, they have notified the police. Williams has the decency to exclude Phil from this ugly situation, and soon gives full "state's evidence" against Wilbur. The latter has meanwhile fled to safety with at least "a cool million" dollars, by Williams' calculations (p. 241, 246).

Note: In November 1999, the publisher and the title of this set of a comprehensive world history in 20 volumes was identified. Also, Mr. Wilbur or the venture's figure-head, and FPG's function within the publishing firm have been ascertained. And there are traces of a lawsuit waged against this publisher by an individual in Rochester in upstate New York, in 1910: the publisher lost the initial round, appealed, and lost again. The sketchy information does unfortunately not reveal the substance of the dispute, but it is hoped that further research will confirm that this was a fraud case in the near future.

Book II, Chapter 7, I Wind Things Up:
Phil returns to New York, hedging vague plans "of breaking away" and going "out west" (p. 248). At random, he finds a useful formula in Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, namely, the advice to lower his expectations in return for increased happiness (p. 250). Phil wants to put this ingenious principle of a stoic flavour into practice by looking for a hotel in an outright cheap New York neighbourhood. But he runs into his friend from the Travellogue team, young Ray, who lodges him for free. Phil now sells the remainder of his expensive wardrobe, except for an "English riding suit with breeches ... and a raincoat." He even hands his cherished books over to Ray, taking only the New Testament and the Odyssey with him. Having thus reduced his worldly possessions to an absolute minimum, he sets out on his tramp "in search of Abraham Lincoln" (p. 253).

Note: See below for Carlyle's sentence, which is used as the motto for Book Three, ASA, p. [255].

Book III, Chapter 1, I Go Exploring:
In the first chapter of Book Three, Phil confesses that for the following episodes his memories are dulled, and that he feels obliged to leave out what he cannot pinpoint with precision (p. 257). Allegedly, he turns south and west via Newark in New Jersey, then Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and the Susquehanna valley in Pennsylvania. Every once in a while, Phil feels the need to say something like "I don't remember a great deal of this part of my tramps" (p. 269), or to explain that he kept a notebook, which unfortunately "seems to have been lost" (p. 270). The reader knows from the changes in the seasons mentioned in the text, that Phil turns his back on New York and starts to live like a tramp in the late summer or early fall of his second year in America.

Note: The reference to the Susquehanna river is an indirect homage to the English romantics Coleridge and Southey who, influenced by Rousseau's ideas, planned to establish an utopian "pantisocracy" there in 1794. All the rather unconvincing excuses of Phil/Grove's failing memory, the lost notebook, etc., are a poor justification why this chapter, and the next, fall short of the vivid narrative the reader has enjoyed in the previous two books. The real reason is, we believe, that Grove has simply not experienced what he has his mouthpiece Phil Branden describe here. In reality, Else rejoined Greve in Pittsburgh in June 1910, in time for the first anniversary of his new life (Spettigue, in his introduction of Else's autobiography as Baroness Elsa, 1992, p. 24). We know from her frank autobiography, that he spent his second year with her on a small farm in Kentucky, not far from Cincinnati, and that he left her there and then in the summer of 1911 (AB, p. 72, 36). That the location was near "Sparta, Kentucky, am Eagle Creek" we know exclusively from the dedication on Else's German poem "Schalk" at the University of Maryland, College Park. It was first published as a facsimile in the bilingual edition of Grove/Greve' German and English poetry, Poems/Gedichte, 1993, p. 49b).

Book III, Chapter 2, I Lose Sight of Mankind:
Here, Phil follows the Ohio River, allegedly along the West Virginia border. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of Wheeling, he falls ill with "a touch of pleurisy" (p. 277). The river rises, and from its raging flood-waters, he rescues a teakettle, a pumpkin, a ham, a table -- in short, all one can desire for a hearty meal, and more: swimming out into the roaring floods, he also manages to assemble enough material for a raft. As irony will have it, his raft-trip, which provides him with enough experiences to fill a book and which he remembers in vivid detail, he cannot dwell on: it must be skipped, because all of a sudden he realizes that "it has little bearing upon the present story" (p. 282). He only is willing to tell the reader how he lost his raft one night in a vicious storm (p. 284). Miraculously, his coats (this is the first mention that he carried more than one coat with him!), his kettle, his oatmeal and his tea have survived the accident. He notices that the crops have been harvested, and starts worrying about the approach of winter.

Note: The adventures in this chapter are suspiciously like those like those in Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer (1876) and Huckleberry Finn (1884). Greve likely did live through an episode of tramping, but a year later than he says in his story, and elsewhere. Rather than starting out from New York, he would have followed the Ohio River south from Sparta and Warsaw towards Carrollton or Louisville, and on the Kentucky rather than on the Indiana banks of the river. Kentucky is not mentioned once, and the entire year with Else is conspicuously lacking in A Search for America. Grove felt perhaps, that he had dealt with the entire Else complex in Settlers of the Marsh in 1925. As a result, Phil Branden's narrative only covers two-and-a-half of the three-and-a-half years FPG spent in the U.S. When Grove mentions nearly twenty years later that "in 1893, at the end of the year, I settled down to write the story of what I had lived through since August, 1892" (ISM, p. 181), he seems to have forgotten his own text-internal timing of his 1927 Search. After one year on American soil, Grove's Phil is still peddling books in New England. The discrepancy between the real and the told time-frame may be an indication that Grove initially meant to limit his story to his early experiences in America, from his arrival in August 1909 to his reunion with Else in June 1910.

Book III, Chapter 3, I Come into Contact with Humanity again:
Phil watches a man in a boat, struggling against an eddy. When he falls into the water, Phil realizes that the man cannot swim, and he promptly rescues him from drowning (p. 288). For three days he lives with this man, to whom he attributes "a face like Mark Twain" (p. 289). Not a single word is exchanged during this time, and Phil concludes that he has rescued a deaf-mute. Only when Phil rolls up his bundle when he is about to leave, his host articulates, with enormous difficulty, two words of consent (p. 297). Next, Phil joins a chatty vagrant at his camp-fire for a tasty squirrel-stew. This man tells him proudly that he is wanted "for bravery" in Cincinnati (p. 301). He has assaulted a guard, so he could have a roof over his head in prison. Soon, he will ask a friend to call the police for yet another arrest. All concerned will gain by this arrangement: the vagrant has a shelter for the coming winter, the friend reaps a substantial cash reward, and the authorities have apprehended another fugitive. As they part, the man tells Phil about a large farm near Cincinnati where he might find work.

Note: The imitation of Mark Twain we observed earlier in relation to the previous chapter is confirmed here by the explicit reference to this writer.

Book III, Chapter 4, I Try to Find Work for the Winter:
As Phil approaches the farm recommended by the squirrel-cook, he decides that he has enough experience with horses to apply for the job of a teamster (p. 304). The manager tells him that no help is needed since harvest-time is over. He advises Phil to seek employment in the town nearby. At least, he is welcome to a good supper in the large cookhouse. After this, however, he is sent on his way before nightfall. Phil admits to feeling rather sorry for himself. Soon he meets a man with a boat, and gets a ride down the Ohio, bypassing Cincinnati, Ohio (p. 307). Again, Phil remembers little about this trip. Also, his tramp south after landing in Vevay, Indiana, "is a blank in [his] memory." One night, sitting by a fire on the beach, Phil is joined by the owner of a nearby house, who not only shelters him in his hayloft for the night, but also suggests two opportunities for work in town. Phil follows up on these, and spends fifteen of his remaining seventeen cents on a haircut for the interviews. The first option is an office job. The owner asks Phil to solve a problem in arithmetic for his son's homework. When Phil does, he objects that Phil has used algebra. Phil points out, that the problem demanded such algebraic method, whereupon the owner throws him out as "a know-it-all." Phil is demoralized, because it seems to him that he is antagonizing more people than he would care to admit. Pulling himself together, he goes to see Heini the miller at his flourmill (p. 316). The dialogue with this German-American is one of the funniest in all of Greve/Grove's oeuvre. Heini needs Phil to solve a grave problem of logistics: he has a coal-yard; he has a team of mules, "chentle as lambs" (p. 321); he even has customers in town. But he has nobody to deliver his merchandise. Phil offers his help as the solution to this dilemma, and Heini would like to hire him, especially since Phil refuses to be terrified by Heini's vicious mules. However, he needs his wife's consent. This "fine woman" (p. 320) turns out to be a veritable "dragoon" (p. 311), and with one look, she cuts Phil down to size, so that he stands "bared of every pretence of respectability" (p. 322). She does not approve of Phil, and Heini does not dare hire him.

Note: Phil is strangely anxious to avoid Cincinnati. Twice in the same paragraph he insists on that point, which makes it rather suspect, especially since no motive is given. In his second autobiography, In Search of Myself (1946), Grove mentions that he paid a visit to the last of his many alleged sisters in that town, "a widow of forty, with two children" (ISM, p. 175). Greve only had one sister, Henny, who was about two years older. Little is known what became of her. It is possible that she, or else one of his mother's five sisters lived in Cincinnati (Spettigue, FPG, p. 27). But why would Greve's Phil want to avoid his sister or aunt? On the other hand, a well-justified fear of Else, who became an artist's model at the Cincinnati School of Art after Greve left her, would have provided him with an excellent reason for bypassing this city.

Book III, Chapter 5, I Become a 'Hand':
Now Phil falls seriously ill. He has a bad cough and a high fever. The owners of a small farm allow him to stay in their smokehouse, which is dry at least, if not exactly warm. The wife brings him some broth, and, hardly aware what is going on, he is transferred into the family's modest home (p. 327). By the time Phil has recovered, he has become very fond of the old physician, Dr. Goodwin, who has treated him while he was nearly unconscious. The good doctor works in unison with Nature, and can therefore relieve Phil's pain much better than two young and sophisticated rival physicians, who look down on the outmoded methods of their old-fashioned colleague (p. 328). On a mild winter day, Dr. Goodwin takes Phil along on his rounds to poor patients in town or country. As a surprise, he has arranged for Phil to have a small house of his own, and for getting a job in the glue-room of the local veneer factory (p. 335).

Book III, Chapter 6, I Widen My Outlook:
Phil has only good things to say about the management of the small factory. Needless to say, within three weeks, he is the boss of the glue-department, takes orders only from the superintendent, Mr. Warburton, and earns top wages (p. 338). Phil describes the manager, Mr. Mansfield, whose shifty eyes have nothing to hide except his exceptional modesty. This man simply loves his machines, which he regards as living organisms, and he has passed up several managerial promotions in order to continue working closely with them. He is also a voracious reader (p. 338). Then there is a Russian, who hasn't been in the country for more than four months, and who is separated from his family in Russia. The superintendent sends him to buy timber in Cincinnati, because the Russian has an uncanny ability to judge the quality of wooden logs with a glance. Phil teaches him to write and speak English (p. 341). When spring arrives, Phil has shaped up the three young men in the glue-room sufficiently to carry on without him, and he decides that it is time for him to move on to Indianapolis or Chicago. Before he leaves, he gives Dr. Goodwin four-fifths of his savings for the benefit of the poor (p. 345). The chapter closes with lengthy reflections of a philosophical nature, about society (like Nietzsche, who is not mentioned by name, Phil sees "born leaders, and born slaves"), about schooling and education, about the role of work, and about the need for craftsmen instead of mere unskilled labourers (p. 346-350).

Book III, Chapter 7, I Am Kidnapped:
When Phil leaves, it is May again (p. 352). At his chosen destination, he will observe the "labourer in the mass," or, presumably in a fully industrialized setting. He is looking forward to travelling some 150 miles by foot, like the "journeymen of old." This time, Phil is welcome anywhere he goes, because he can present himself as a skilled veneer worker. He mentions three farms where he found temporary hospitality in exchange for easy chores. Able now to see "the big picture," he concludes that the future belongs to farmers, and that he must study these "real masters of the world" eventually (p. 356). As he nears Indianapolis, he dreamily ponders his fortunes. But fate intervenes with his immediate plans: resting in an open boxcar, he falls asleep. When he awakes, he is trapped inside a westbound train. After three miserable days, when he is finally released, he finds himself in the vicinity of Springfield, Missouri (p. 359).

Note that, according to the seasonal pointers in the narrative, Phil's second year is now two months shy of completion! In reality, Greve/Grove has spent already three years in America, but he has suppressed his year with Else on a small farm near Sparta, Kentucky, from his story. The reference to "journeymen of old" is reminiscent of the rhymed epic fragment "Konrad, the Builder" in which Grove draws heavily on Goethe's Faust. The medieval mason-protagonist journeys as an apprentice to all the centres of gothic cathedrals along the Rhine in order to learn his trade (Grove/Greve, Poems/Gedichte, 1993, p. 164-174).

Book IV, Chapter 1, I Learn to Beat My Way:
Phil stubbornly sets out again in direction of his initial goal, Indianapolis. On the way, he becomes a successful "peripatetic tree-pruner" (p. 367). He even invests part of his ten-dollar fortune in tools for his newly adopted, itinerant trade. By the time he has reached St. Louis, he is experiencing, without knowing it, the metamorphosis from "tramp" to "hobo," or from an outcast to a romantic lover of freedom (p. 369). He follows the Osage River to the confluence of the Missouri. Here he meets the refined Russian Ivan. This highly unlikely representative of the hobo community turns out to be an experienced one. He looks like Titian's portrait of Christ, reminds Phil of Tolstoi's Sergei Ivanovitch, reads books, speaks perfect English, French and German, and is as strong as an ox. This marvel of a man teaches Phil how to ride the trains, and where to make a living in the west. They team up to go to Kansas City, Council Bluffs, Omaha, and Sioux City where they leave the Missouri and turn north towards the Dakotas. Large numbers of hobos are assembling for the harvest everywhere they go (p. 383). Like the hellish rush-hours in the Toronto restaurant, "riding the rods" of freight trains is equated once again to a "purgatory" and an "inferno" (p. 381, 382).

Note: The term "peripatetic" is a reference to Aristotle's reputed way of philosophizing while ambulating about. It is curious that the French surrealists should fall back on the same term, and that it also occurs in relation to the Pre-Raphaelite critic Ruskin. The unveiled references to Dante may serve as a good example of Grove's "obtrusive symbolism", as Walter Pache says in his article on Greve/Grove in Canadian Writers, 1890-1920 (1990, p. 150). He is also critical of Grove's annoying "didactic explicitness". The regretted Walter Pache was a renowned Professor of English, American and Canadian Literature at the universities of Trier and Augsburg, and one of the first to write about Greve/Grove in the mid-1970s.

Book IV, Chapter 2, I Start Work in the Harvest:
At a large hobo gathering in South Dakota, Ivan decides to work on a huge Bonanza farm further north (p. 389). At the height of "Walloh" (= Fargo), the pair set out west for fifteen miles, and Phil has ample time to reflect, with "a German philosopher," upon the re-valuation of values (p. 392). They meet Nelson, the superintendent of the Bonanza farm, who assigns them to camp 8 for haying, and sends them to headquarters for registration. Phil is duly impressed with the unbelievable size of this agricultural operation, which encompasses up to thirty-thousand acres. Some of the numerous camps are outposts as far as twenty-five miles from headquarters. The land was acquired by the Mackenzie family at ten cents an acre before the railroad construction, and each acre was now worth fifty dollars (p. 394). Phil describes the headquarters' compound, with its blacksmith shop, cement sidewalks, residential areas, a small park, and "the White House" where the young owner lives with his widowed mother (p. 395). At camp 8, conditions are not quite as luxurious, and the partners sleep in the hayloft, because the bunkhouse is hopelessly infested with vermin. Phil finds the physical work hard, but Ivan makes up for what Phil cannot handle. One day, their foreman is dismissed for drunkenness, and with his replacement, trouble develops. The new foreman assaults Phil, Ivan comes to the rescue, and they both quit (p. 403). Out of solidarity, forty more hobos are following their example. Now young Mackenzie steps in and inquires about the commotion. Phil explains the situation, and is promptly promoted to the position of "store-boss" which requires more brains and honesty than strength (p. 405).

Note: The "Mackenzie" Bonanza farm Grove describes here with fair accuracy in Chapters 2, 3, & 4 of Book Four, was in reality the Amenia & Sharon Land Company near Fargo, North Dakota. See the introduction for details of this identification made in early 1996. The reference to values is pointing to Nietzsche and his 'Umwertung aller Werte', 1886.

Book IV, Chapter 3, I Become Acquainted with the Hobo:
Phil describes his new functions, which put him in close contact with the management (p. 407). Ivan conveniently moves on to realize his dreams of owning a farm of his own and raising a family. He can afford to leave tramping behind, since he has four thousand dollars of savings sewn in the lining of his coat. Phil, in his new elevated position, is in charge of opening one of the many outpost camps, which entails moving provisions, fifteen binders and wagons, a hundred draft-horses, etc., some twenty-five miles north from headquarters (p. 413). Phil's admiration for young Mackenzie is waxing and waning, depending on what the young millionaire does. Overall, Phil has reason to like and admire him, for instance, when he helps one of the harvest hands rejoin his family in an emergency (p. 417), or when he confiscates liquor smuggled into the infamous bunkhouse (p. 418). Like a close-up with a camera, Phil observes minutely the dynamics of a poker-game, played with high stakes, in this rowdy gathering place. It is dominated by a disagreeable young engineer from St. Paul, "who had nothing to recommend him except his never-failing nerve" (p. 420; he is nameless here, but appears as "Pat Parker" in ISM, p. 238). In the description of this game, in which a farmhand loses everything he owns to the cunning engineer despite far superior cards, Grove succeeds in conveying the tension of the gripping scene with merciless realism (p. 421-424). He also drops a curious hint about the attraction the seedier sides of life hold for him, and which he describes as a "kind of fascination, I suppose, which in former years, … had lured me on occasional adventurous trips into the 'dives' of the criminal underworld" (p. 418).

Note: Phil refers to Paris in this context, but for FPG, the red-light districts in Hamburg and gambling halls in Berlin are more likely places for such undocumented experiences. Rumours about Greve's gambling habits were circulating in November of 1902, when Greve was in Berlin, and kept Else company when Endell was at work (see UM Archives, Mss 12, Insel Correspondence; also in Pacey's edition of Grove's Letters, p. 522ff).

Book IV, Chapter 4, I Meet Mother and Son:
The driving-barn, where Phil has his sleeping quarters, is described in detail. One day, the ill-tempered driving-boss goes on a drinking-spree, and young Mackenzie asks Phil to take over his functions. His new, additional duties lie in the care of magnificent horses, and serving as coachman for Mackenzie's mother, who is described as a white-haired, "dowdy old lady" with expensive tastes. She is fond of charity work and visiting (p. 426/7). On one occasion, Phil, in uniform, drives her on very short notice to a church function in the near-by town, demanding the utmost from the fine horses. Her son usually prefers his car to the horses. He is on good terms with Phil, who often accompanies him on bird-shooting excursions. Phil uses these occasions for some philosophizing, educating and consciousness-raising, with the promising, immediate result that the young millionaire has the unsanitary conditions of the bunkhouse remedied (p. 431). When the harvest ends, Phil draws his pay and leaves, declining young Mackenzie's attractive and lucrative offer to stay on as a bookkeeper (p. 434).

Note: With the alleged telephone connections to the office and to the residences of young Mackenzie and superintendent Nelson, Grove is caught on one of several snares he has laid himself with his invented chronology. Phil's narrated events allegedly range from 1892 to 1894, and telephone lines were not established at the Amenia & Sharon farm headquarters until 1896. The distance of five miles which is specified on occasion of the unreasonable buggy ride ordered by the young owner's widowed mother corresponds neatly to the five miles separating Amenia from Casselton. Charity work in that town are attested for the real Carrie Chaffee, who survived the April 1912 Titanic disaster (see biographies for her and her husband from the Encyclopedia Titanica). She is wrongly depicted here as an old lady. The teaching, or rather, preaching scenes echo faintly what is known of young Alexander the Great, or Nero, who had the philosophers Aristotle and Seneca for their respective tutors. Young Mackenzie's car is yet another of Grove's "anachronisms" which he so summarily dismissed in his "Author's Note" on p. [vi]: one of the first Ford cars was indeed introduced at Amenia in 1904 by H. F. Chaffee, father of H. L. Chaffee who is the model for the young millionaire.

Book IV, Chapter 5, My Problem Defines Itself, and I Solve It:
Phil makes a number of sweeping comparisons between Europe and America, using such opposites as individual versus social, or historical versus ethical. He clumsily reaches the conclusion that America's ideals are worth striving for. In a footnote Grove adds that he has seen these ideals "abandoned by the U.S.A.", which is why he has ultimately opted for becoming a Canadian (p. 436). On his way north, Phil becomes a teamster at a farm owned by two lawyers. They also own the livery stable, the real estate firm, and the farm loans corporation in the small town. Phil describes how an unfortunate Finnish immigrant loses the land on which he has slaved for six long years, because the half-crop payment arrangement was working to his disadvantage (p. 438/9). Phil, too, is soon dismissed from the lawyers' farm: he is considered an "agitator," because he has informed the restless harvest hands that their wages were lower on this particular farm than anywhere else (p. 444). Phil now falls back on pruning trees, and one day, he is robbed of a full day's pay by one of his former employers, the two crooked, but all-important lawyers. The chief of police orders Phil to leave town, and he obliges (p. 446). He now takes up painting sign-posts for one of America's great railroad companies. This occupation reminds him of young Ray in New York, and he writes to him, giving Winnipeg as his anticipated address. His savings from the harvest season amount to $249.35. He buys a train ticket, relocates to Winnipeg, has some interviews, and becomes a teacher. But Phil wants his teaching to be understood in a wider and nobler sense, since he is instructing other immigrants in important skills. With the last sentence, the narrator Phil and the author Grove merge: "And twenty-seven years after the end of my rambles I published the first of my few books" (p. 448).