Criminal logo

Reason First: Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough and the Writer he Murdered

Novelist David Graham Phillips did not expect to die from his writings. So how did it all play out in the end?

By Skyler SaundersPublished 4 years ago 3 min read
Like

At a clip of 6,000 words a day, David Graham Phillips built up a reputation as a successful novelist dedicated to his art. The writer lived in New York City with his sister. He did not know that his work would lead someone else to consider him a target for murder. On the evening of January 23, 1911, Phillips, dressed in the gentleman’s style completed by a black alpine hat, journeyed to his social club in New York, the Princeton.

Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough whirled around and prevented him from moving any further. He produced a .32 caliber firearm and sent six shots into Phillip’s body. His assailant, a Harvard educated socialist and musician, then pointed the pistol at his own head and snuffed himself like a candle.

Princeton Club members Newton James and Frank Davis and florist John Jacoby lifted Phillips up and brought him to a couch in the foyer of the club. With the speed of an ambulance, paramedics escorted Phillips to nearby Bellevue Hospital.

Phillips survived...for the moment. He had enough strength to tell his beloved sister that he had opened several postal items concerning death threats and telephone calls. Over time, Phillip’s health began to deteriorate. Internal hemorrhaging of the stomach and a lung put a permanent damper on his life. Phillips died at the 11 o’clock hour on January 24.

As for Goldsborough, people suspected that he had taken umbrage with a character from Phillip’s work, The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig. Goldsborough felt that Phillips had affronted his sister’s honor in the character Margaret Severance. While Goldsborough’s family contends that he had suffered the flu from which he had caused his mental instability. This is bunk.

Goldsborough was allegedly envious of Phillip’s success. Though he could speak of his own accomplishments, he had harbored rancor based on an unfounded association between him and the person in the novel and his real life sister. He had been possessed by the false ideal that Phillip had cast a dark shadow of a real person under the guise of something created out of fiction. But in Goldsborough’s twisted mind he found that reality and invention had coalesced into a chunk of disaster.

Phillip’s acumen as a novelist with considerable acclaim at the time of his writings, could have produced many would-be artists to commit such a dastardly act like Goldsborough’s. The way that he sprung out in dramatic fashion and delivered those six shots into Phillips could have been fired from anyone who may have viewed fictional characters as real life figures. Goldsborough is just a ping in the long line of bullets against the metal of the world. At least John Wilkes Booth performed as a decent actor. Before he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, he had been acclaimed for his work on the stage. His monstrous act is a touchstone in the pantheon of disgruntled artists.

As far back as the ancient Greeks, playwrights like Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles used fictional characters to embody real people. But Goldsborough obviously took this fact too seriously. In his mind, he emoted and made the grave decision to steal Phillip’s life like a loaf of bread.

And to turn the gun against himself only solidified his placement as one of the most heinous violinists of all time. He couldn’t even face justice.

His art could not match that of Phillip’s so he took it upon himself to concoct a plan to dispatch the novelist to satisfy his craving for killing artists that bothered him. Putting down words on the page should not engender rage enough to murder someone. Wickedness resided in Goldsborough’s deranged mind. By withdrawing and shooting his victim, this brought about the ugly side of humanity. The creators, both Phillips and Goldsborough could’ve been collaborators.

Instead, Goldsborough stooped to the level of a beast in the streets. As low as you can possibly get, Goldsborough knew that what he was doing would be heinous in nature. That’s why he took his own life. He would not have survived long either with a life sentence or a one-way trip to the electric chair.

He escaped both fates by executing himself. Phillips just made worlds peopled with characters that may or may not have resembled real individuals. This artistic touch did not lead to his death. An insane collectivist with a fervor for the crude act of initiation of physical force caused his life to cease. But Phillip’s words will forever live on in his novels. That much can be said about the man and his work.

fact or fiction
Like

About the Creator

Skyler Saunders

Cash App: $SkylerSaunders1

PayPal: paypal.me/SkylerSaunders

Join Skyler’s 100 Club by contributing $100 a month to the page. Thank you!

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.