History of American Literature

Like Mark Twain, Walt Whitman received from the schools only a common education but from life he had an uncommon training. His chief education came from associating with all sorts and conditions of people. In Brooklyn he worked as a printer, carpenter, and editor. His closest friends were the pilots and deck hands of ferry boats, the drivers of New York City omnibuses, factory hands, and sailors. After he had become well known, he was unconventional enough to sit with a street car driver in front of a grocery store in a crowded city and eat a watermelon. When people smiled, he said, "They can have the laugh—we have the melon."

[Illustration: WHITMAN AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-SIX]

His Suffolk County life might have left him democratic but insular; but he traveled widely and gained cosmopolitan experience. In 1848 he went leisurely to New Orleans, where he edited a newspaper, but in a short time he journeyed north along the Mississippi, traveled in Canada, and finally returned to New York, having completed a trip of eight thousand miles.

After his return, he seems to have worked with his father in Brooklyn for about three years, building and selling houses. He was then also engaged on a collection of poems, which, in 1855, he published under the title of Leaves of Grass. From this time he was known as an author.

In 1862 he went South to nurse his brother, who was wounded in the Civil War. For nearly three years, the poet served as a volunteer nurse in the army hospitals in Washington and its vicinity. Few good Samaritans have performed better service. He estimated that he attended on the field and in the hospital eighty thousand of the sick and wounded. In after days many a soldier testified that his recovery was aided by Whitman's kindly ministrations. Finally, however, his own iron constitution gave way under this strain.

When the war closed, he was given a government clerkship in Washington, but was dismissed in 1865, because of hostility aroused by his Leaves of Grass. He soon received another appointment, however, which he held until 1873, when a stroke of paralysis forced him to relinquish his position. He went to Camden, New Jersey, where he lived the life of a semi-invalid during the rest of his existence, writing as his health would permit. He died in 1892, and was buried in Harleigh Cemetery, near Camden.

POETRY.—Whitman gave to the world in 1855 the first edition of the poems, which he called Leaves of Grass. His favorite expression, "words simple as grass," and his line:—

"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,"

give a clue to the idea which prompted the choice of such an unusual title. He continued to add to these poems during the rest of his life, and he published in 1892 the tenth edition of Leaves of Grass, in a volume containing four hundred and twenty-two closely printed octavo pages.

Whitman intended Leaves of Grass to be a realistic epic of American democracy. He tried to sing this song as he heard it echoed in the life of man and man's companion, Nature. While many of Whitman's poems have the most dissimilar titles, and record experiences as unlike as his early life on Long Island, his dressing of wounds during the Civil War, his comradeship with the democratic mass, his almost Homeric communion with the sea, and his memories of Lincoln, yet according to his scheme, all of this verse was necessary to constitute a complete song of democracy. His poem, I Hear America Singing, shows the variety that he wished to give to his democratic songs:—

  "I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
   Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and
         strong,
   The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
   The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
   The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
         singing on the steamboat deck,
   The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as
         he stands,
   The woodcutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or
         at noon intermission or at sundown,
   The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
         the girl sewing or washing,
   Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else."

His ambition was to put human life in America "freely, fully, and truly on record."

His longest and one of his most typical poems in this collection is called Song of Myself, in which he paints himself as a representative member of the democratic mass. He says:—

  "Agonies are one of my changes of garments,
   I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the
         wounded person,
   My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.
       * * * * *
   Not a youngster is taken for larceny but I go up too, and am tried and
         sentenced."

In these four lines, he states simply what must be the moving impulse of a democratic government if it is to survive. Here is the spirit that is to-day growing among us, the spirit that forbids child labor, cares for orphans, enacts model tenement laws, strives to regenerate the slum districts, and is increasing the altruistic activities of clubs and churches throughout the country. But these verses will not submit to iambic or trochaic scansion, and their form is as strange as a democratic government was a century and a half ago to the monarchies of Europe. Place these lines beside the following couplet from Pope:—

"Self-love and Reason to one end aspire,
Pain their aversion, Pleasure their desire."

Here the scansion is regular, the verse polished, the thought undemocratic. The world had long been used to such regular poetry. The form of Whitman's verse came as a distinct shock to the majority.

Sometimes what he said was a greater shock, as, for instance, the line:—

"I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

For a considerable time many people knew Whitman by this one line alone. They concluded that he was a barbarian and that all that he said was "yawp." Although much of his work certainly deserved this characterization, yet those who persisted in reading him soon discovered that their condemnation was too sweeping, as most were willing to admit after they had read, for instance, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, a poem that Swinburne called "the most sonorous nocturn yet chanted in the church of the world." The three motifs of this song are the lilac, the evening star, and the hermit thrush:—

"Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim."

In the same class we may place such poems as Out of the Cradle Endlessly
Rocking, where we listen to a song as if from

"Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle."

Whitman also wrote in almost regular meter his dirge on Lincoln, the greatest dirge of the Civil War:—

  "O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
   The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
   The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting."

In 1888 Whitman wrote that "from a worldly and business point of view, Leaves of Grass has been worse than a failure—that public criticism on the book and myself as author of it yet shows mark'd anger and contempt more than anything else." But he says that he had comfort in "a small band of the dearest friends and upholders ever vouchsafed to man or cause." He was also well received in England. He met with cordial appreciation from Tennyson. John Addington Symonds (1840-1893), a graduate of Oxford and an authority on Greek poetry and the Renaissance, wrote, "Leaves of Grass, which I first read at the age of twenty-five, influenced me more, perhaps, than any other book has done except the Bible; more than Plato, more than Goethe." Had Whitman lived until 1908, he would probably have been satisfied with the following statement from his biographer, Bliss Perry, formerly professor of English at Princeton, "These primal and ultimate things Whitman felt as few men have ever felt them, and he expressed them, at his best, with a nobility and beauty such as only the world's very greatest poets have surpassed."

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. His most pronounced single characteristic is his presentation of democracy:—

"Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is
fine."

He said emphatically, "Without yielding an inch, the working man and working woman were to be in my pages from first to last." He is the only American poet of his rank who remained through life the close companion of day laborers. Yet, although he is the poet of democracy, his poetry is too difficult to be read by the masses, who are for the most part ignorant of the fact that he is their greatest representative poet.

He not only preached democracy, but he also showed in practical ways his intense feeling of comradeship and his sympathy with all. One of his favorite verses was

"And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own
funeral drest in his shroud."

His Civil War experiences still further intensified this feeling. He looked on the lifeless face of a son of the South, and wrote:—

"… my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead."

Like Thoreau, Whitman welcomed the return to nature. He says:—

"I am enamour'd of growing out-doors,
Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods."

He is the poet of nature as well as of man. He tells us how nature educated him:—

  "The early lilacs became part of this child,
   And grass and white and red morning-glories, and white and red
         clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,
   And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the
         mare's foal and the cow's calf."

He delights us

  "… with meadows, rippling tides and trees and flowers and grass,
   And the low hum of living breeze—and in the midst God's beautiful
         eternal right hand."

No American poet was more fond of the ocean. Its aspect and music, more than any other object of nature, influenced his verse. He addresses the sea in lines like these:—

  "With husky-haughty lips, O sea!
   Where day and night I wend thy surf-beat shore,
   Imaging to my sense thy varied strange suggestions,
   (I see and plainly list thy talk and conference here,)
   Thy troops of white-maned racers racing to the goal,
   Thy ample, smiling face, dash'd with the sparkling dimples of the sun."

He especially loves motion in nature. His poetry abounds in the so-called motor images. [Footnote: For a discussion of the various types of images of the different poets, see the author's Education of the Central Nervous System, Chaps. VII., VIII., IX., X.] He takes pleasure in picturing a scene

"Where the heifers browse, where geese nip their food with short jerks,"

or in watching

"The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing."

While his verse is fortunately not without idealistic touches, his poetic theory is uncompromisingly realistic, as may be seen in his critical prose essays, some of which deserve to rank only a little below those of Lowell and Poe. Whitman says:—

"For grounds for Leaves of Grass, as a poem, I abandoned the conventional themes, which do not appear in it: none of the stock ornamentation, or choice plots of love or war, or high exceptional personages of Old-World song; nothing, as I may say, for beauty's sake—no legend or myth or romance, nor euphemism, nor rhyme."

His unbalanced desire for realism led him into two mistakes. In the first place, his determination to avoid ornamentation often caused him to insert in his poems mere catalogues of names, which are not bound together by a particle of poetic cement. The following from his Song of Myself is an instance:—

  "Land of coal and iron! land of gold! land of cotton, sugar, rice!
   Land of wheat, beef, pork! land of wool and hemp! land of the apple
         and the grape!"

In the second place, he thought that genuine realism forbade his being selective and commanded him to put everything in his verse. He accordingly included some offensive material which was outside the pale of poetic treatment. Had he followed the same rule with his cooking, his chickens would have been served to him without removing the feathers. His refusal to eliminate unpoetic material from his verse has cost him very many readers.

He further concluded that it was unfitting for a democratic poet to be hampered by the verse forms of the Old World. He discarded rhyme almost entirely, but he did employ rhythm, which is determined by the tone of the ideas, not by the number of syllables. This rhythm is often not evident in a single line, but usually becomes manifest as the thought is developed. His verse was intended to be read aloud or chanted. He himself says that his verse construction is "apparently lawless at first perusal, although on closer examination a certain regularity appears, like the recurrence of lesser and larger waves on the seashore, rolling in without intermission, and fitfully rising and falling." There is little doubt that he carried in his ear the music of the waves and endeavored to make his verse in some measure conform to that. He says specifically that while he was listening to the call of a seabird

  "… on Paumanok's [Footnote: The Indian name for Long Island.] gray
         beach,
   With the thousand responsive songs at random,
   My own songs awaked from that hour,
   And with them the key, the word up from the waves."

In ideals he is most like Emerson. Critics have called Whitman a concrete translation of Emerson, and have noticed that he practiced the independence which Emerson preached in the famous lecture on The American Scholar (p. 185). In 1855 Emerson wrote to Whitman: "I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of Leaves of Grass. I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed."

Whitman is America's strangest compound of unfiltered realism, alloyed with rich veins of noble idealism. No students of American democracy, its ideals and social spirit, can afford to leave him unread. He sings, "unwarped by any influence save democracy,"

"Of Life, immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine."

Intelligent sympathy with the humblest, the power to see himself "in prison shaped like another man and feel the dull unintermitted pain," prompts him to exclaim:—

"I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will."

An elemental poet of democracy, embodying its faults as well as its virtues, Whitman is noteworthy for voicing the new social spirit on which the twentieth century is relying for the regeneration of the masses.

SUMMARY

American fiction had for the most part been romantic from its beginning until the last part of the nineteenth century. Charles Brockden Brown, Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, Poe, Bret Harte, and Mark Twain were all tinged with romanticism. In the latter part of the last century, there arose a school of realists who insisted that life should be painted as it is, without any addition to or subtraction from reality. This school did not ask, "Is the matter interesting or exciting?" but, "Is it true to life?"

Howells and James were the leaders of the realists. Howells uses everyday incidents and conversations. James not infrequently takes unusual situations, so long as they conform to reality, and subjects them to the most searching psychological analysis. Mary Wilkins Freeman, a pupil of Howells, shows exceptional skill in depicting with realistic interest the humble life of provincial New England. While this school did not turn all writers into extreme realists, its influence was felt on the mass of contemporary fiction.

Walt Whitman brings excessive realism into the form and matter of verse. For fear of using stock poetic ornaments, he sometimes introduces mere catalogues of names, uninvested with a single poetic touch. He is America's greatest poet of democracy. His work is characterized by altruism, by all-embracing sympathy, by emphasis on the social side of democracy, and by love of nature and the sea.

REFERENCES

Stanton's A Manual of American Literature.

Alden's Magazine Writing and the New Literature.

Perry's A Study of Prose Fiction, Chap. IX., Realism.

Howells's Criticism and Fiction.

Burt and Howells's The Howells Story Book. (Contains biographical matter.)

Henry James's The Art of Fiction.

Phelps's William Dean Howells, in Essays on Modern Novelists.

Brownell's Henry James, in American Prose Masters.

Canby's The Short Story in English. (James.)

Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1897), 446 pp. (Contains all of his poems, the publication of which was authorized by himself.)

Triggs's Selections from the Prose and Poetry of Walt Whitman. (The best for general readers.)

Perry's Walt Whitman, his Life, and Work. (Excellent.)

G. R. Carpenter's Walt Whitman.

Platt's Walt Whitman. (Beacon Biographies)

Noyes's An Approach to Walt Whitman. (Excellent.)

Bucke's Walt Whitman. (A biography by one of his executors.)

In Re Walt Whitman, edited by his literary executors. (Supplements Bucke.)

Burroughs's Whitman: A Study.

Symonds's Walt Whitman: A Study.

Dowden's The Poetry of Democracy, in Studies in Literature.

Stevenson's Familiar Studies of Men and Books. (Whitman.)

Whitman's Works, edited by Triggs. (Putnam Subscription Edition.) Vol. X. contains a bibliography and reference list of 98 pp.

QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

THE PROSE REALISTS.—To what school did the best writers in American fiction belong, prior to the last quarter of the nineteenth century? What was the subject of each? What is the realistic theory advanced by Howells? In what respects does this differ from the practice of the romantic school?

Take any chapter of Silas Lapham and of either The Portrait of a Lady, or of Roderick Hudson, and show how Howells and James differ from the romanticists. What difference do you notice in the realistic method and in the style of Howells and of James?

What special qualities characterize the work of Mary Wilkins Freeman? What is the secret of her success in so employing a little realistic incident as to hold the reader's attention? Compare the two short stories, The Madonna of the Future (James) and A New England Nun (Wilkins Freeman) and show how James's interest lies in the subtle psychological problem, while Mrs. Freeman's depends on the unfolding of simple emotions. It will also be found interesting to compare the method of that early English realist Jane Austen, e.g. in her novel Emma, with the work of the American realists.

In general, do you think that the romantic or the realistic school has the truer conception of the mission and art of fiction? Why is it desirable that each school should hold the other in check?

WALT WHITMAN.—How did his early life prepare him to be the poet of democracy? To what voices does he specially listen in his poem, I Hear America Singing? In his Song of Myself, point out some passages that show the modern spirit of altruism. In Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, what lines best show his lyric gift? What individual objects stand out most strongly and poetically? Could this poem have been written by one reared in the middle West? Why does he select the lilacs, evening star, and hermit thrush, as the motifs of the poem, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd? In Patrolling Barnegat, do you notice any resemblance to Anglo-Saxon poetry of the sea, e.g. to Beowulf or The Seafarer? In With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea! what touches are unlike those of Anglo-Saxon poets? (See the author's History of English Literature, pp. 21, 25, 33, 35, 37.) Which of Whitman's references to nature do you consider the most poetic? How does O Captain! My Captain! differ in form from the other poems indicated for reading? What qualities in his verse impress you most?

A GLANCE BACKWARD

Lack of originality is a frequent charge against young literatures, but the best foreign critics have testified to the originality of the Knickerbocker Legend, of Leatherstocking, of the great Puritan romances, in which the Ten Commandments are the supreme law, of the work of that southern wizard who has taught a great part of the world the art of the modern short story and who has charmed the ear of death with his melodies, of America's unique humor, so conspicuous in the service of reform and in rendering the New World philosophy doubly impressive.

American literature has not only produced original work, but it has also delivered a worthy message to humanity. Franklin has voiced an unsurpassed philosophy of the practical. Emerson is a great apostle of the ideal, an unexcelled preacher of New World self-reliance. His teachings, which have become almost as widely diffused as the air we breathe, have added a cubit to the stature of unnumbered pupils. We still respond to the half Celtic, half Saxon, song of one of these:—

"Luck hates the slow and loves the bold,
Soon come the darkness and the cold."

American poets and prose writers have disclosed the glory of a new companionship with nature and have shown how we,

"… pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth."

After association with them, we also feel like exclaiming:—

    "Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
      … rich apple-blossom'd earth!
     Smile, for your lover comes."

No other literature has so forcibly expressed such an inspiring belief in individuality, the aim to have each human being realize that this plastic world expects to find in him an individual hero. Emerson emphasized "the new importance given to the single person." No philosophy of individuality could be more explicit than Walt Whitman's:—

"The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual,—namely to You."

This emphasis on individuality is an added incentive to try "to yield that particular fruit which each was created to bear." We feel that the universe is our property and that we shall not stop until we have a clear title to that part which we desire. As we study this literature, the moral greatness of the race seems to course afresh through our veins, and our individual strength becomes the strength of ten.

No other nation could have sung America's song of democracy:—

"Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff
that is fine."

The East and the West have vied in singing the song of a new social democracy, in holding up as an ideal a

"… love that lives
On the errors it forgives,"

in teaching each mother to sing to her child:—

  "Thou art one with the world—though I love thee the best,
   And to save thee from pain, I must save all the rest.
   Thou wilt weep; and thy mother must dry
   The tears of the world, lest her darling should cry."

True poets, like the great physicians, minister to life by awakening faith. The singers of New England have made us feel that the Divine Presence stands behind the darkest shadow, that the feeble hands groping blindly in the darkness will touch God's strengthening right hand. Amid the snows of his Northland, Whittier wrote:—

  "I know not where his islands lift
   Their fronded palms in air;
   I only know I cannot drift
   Beyond his love and care."

Lanier calls from the southern marshes, fringed with the live oaks "and woven shades of the vine":—

  "I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies
   In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies:
   By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod
   I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God."

The impressive moral lesson taught by American literature is a presence not to be put by. Lowell's utterance is typical of our greatest authors:—

"Not failure, but low aim, is crime."

Hawthorne wrote his great masterpiece to express this central truth:—

"To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,—it is impalpable,—
it shrinks to nothing within his grasp."

Finally, American literature has striven to impress the truth voiced in these lines:—

"As children of the Infinite Soul
Our Birthright is the boundless whole….

"High truths which have not yet been dreamed,
Realities of all that seemed….

"No fate can rob the earnest soul
Of his great Birthright in the boundless whole!"

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS AND THEIR CHIEF WORKS

[Footnote: For a complete record of the work of contemporary authors, consult Who's Who in America.]

EASTERN AUTHORS

ABBOTT, JACOB (1803-1879), b. Hallowell, Maine. One of America's most voluminous writers on all classes of popular subjects. He wrote one hundred and eighty volumes and aided in the preparation of thirty-one more. Illustrated Histories, The Rollo Books.

ADAMS, HENRY (1838- ), b. Boston, Mass. Historian. History of the United States from 1801 to 1817, that is, under Jefferson's and Madison's administrations. 9 vols. Excellent for this important period.

ALCOTT, LOUISA MAY (1832-1888), b. Germantown, Pa. Daughter of Amos Bronson
Alcott. Writer of wholesome, humorous, and interesting stories for young
people. Little Women, An Old-Fashioned Girl, Eight Cousins, Rose in
Bloom.

ALLSTON, WASHINGTON (1779-1843), b. Waccamaw, S. C. Moved to New England and graduated at Harvard in 1800. Artist; early poet of Wordsworthian school. The Sylphs of the Seasons, and Other Poems.

AMES, FISHER (1758-1808), b. Dedham, Mass. Orator, statesman. Best speech, On the British Treaty (1796).

AUSTIN, JANE G. (1831-1894), b. Worcester, Mass. Novelist of early colonial
New England. Standish of Standish, Betty Alden, Dr. Le Baron and his
Daughters, A Nameless Nobleman, David Alden's Daughter, and Other
Stories of Colonial Times.

BACHELLER, IRVING (1859- ), b. Pierrepont, N. Y. Novelist. Eben
Holden, D'ri and I, Darrel of the Blessed Isles.

BANCROFT, GEORGE (1800-1891), b. Worcester, Mass. Historian, diplomatist. History of the United States, from the Discovery of the Continent to the Establishment of the Constitution in 1789, 6 vols. History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States, 2 vols. Covers the period to the inauguration of Washington. The volumes on the Revolutionary War and the formation of the Constitution are the best part of the work. While Bancroft's improved methods of research among original authorities almost entitle him to be called the founder of the new American school of historical writing, yet the best critics do not to-day consider his work scientific. They regard it more as an apotheosis of democracy, written by a man who loved truth intensely, who shirked no drudgery in original investigations, but who shows the strong bias of the days of Andrew Jackson in the tendency to believe that what democracy does is almost necessarily right.

BANGS, JOHN KENDRICK (1862- ), b. Yonkers, N. Y. Humorist. House-Boat on the Styx, The Idiot at Home, A Rebellious Heroine.

BARR, AMELIA E. (1831- ), b. Ulverston, Lancashire, Eng. Anglo-American novelist. A Bow of Orange Ribbon, Jan Vedder's Wife, A Daughter of Fife, and Between Two Loves.

BATES, ARLO (1850- ), b. East Machias, Me. Educator, author. Under the
Beech Tree (poems), Talks on the Study of Literature.

BEDOTT, WIDOW. See WHITCHER, FRANCES.

BEECHER, HENRY WARD (1813-1887), b. Litchfield, Conn. Congregational clergyman, widely popular as a preacher and lecturer. Delivered noted anti-slavery lectures in England. Some of his published works are Eyes and Ears, Life Thoughts, Star Papers, Yale Lectures on Preaching.

"BILLINGS, JOSH." See SHAW, HENRY WHEELER.

BOKER, GEO. H. (1823-1890), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Dramatist, poet, diplomat. Francesca da Rimini, Dirge for a Soldier.

"BREITMANN, HANS." See LELAND, CHARLES GODFREY.

BROOKS, PHILLIPS (1835-1893), b. Boston, Mass. Bishop of the Episcopal
Diocese of Massachusetts. One of the foremost preachers of his day. Wrote
many works on religious subjects, also Essays and Addresses, Letters of
Travel.

BROWN, ALICE (1857- ), b. Hampton Falls, N. H. Novelist, The Story of
Thyrza, John Winterburn's Family, Country Neighbors, Tiverton Tales, The
Mannerings.

BROWNE, CHARLES F. ("Artemus Ward") (1834-1867), b. Waterford, Maine. Newspaper writer and lecturer. Famous humorist of the middle of the nineteenth century. Artemus Ward: His Book, Artemus Ward: His Travels, Artemus Ward in London.

BROWNSON, ORESTES A. (1803-1876), b. Stockbridge, Vt. Clergyman, journalist, Christian socialist. Brownson's Quarterly Review (1844-1875), New Views of Christianity, Society, and the Church.

BUNNER, HENRY CUYLER (1855-1896), b. Oswego, N. Y. Editor of Puck for many years. A clever and successful short-story writer. Short Sixes, Love in Old Cloathes, Zadoc Pine and Other Stories.

BURROUGHS, JOHN (1837- ), b. Roxbury, N. Y. An exact observer of life in the woods and one of the most conservative and entertaining writers on nature. He tells only what he sees and does not draw on his fancy to endow animals with man's power to reason. Some of his nature books are: Wake-Robin, Signs and Seasons, Pepacton, Riverby, Locusts and Wild Honey, Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers. Indoor Studies and Whitman, A Study, show keen critical powers and genuine literary appreciation. Burroughs reminds the reader of Thoreau in closeness of observation and honesty of expression, but Burroughs is less of a philosopher and poet and more of a scientist.

CARY, ALICE (1820-1871) and her sister Phoebe Gary (1824-1871), b. Miami
Valley, near Cincinnati, Ohio. Moved to New York, N. Y. Poets. Poems by
Alice and Phoebe Cary.

CHAMBERS, ROBERT W. (1865- ), b. Brooklyn, N. Y. Author of exciting romances. The Red Republic, A King and a Few Dukes, The Conspirators.

CHARMING, WILLIAM ELLERY (1780-1842), b. Newport, R. I. Great Unitarian preacher and reformer. Spiritual Freedom, Evidences of Christianity and of Revealed Religion, Self-Culture, Slavery.

CHILD, LYDIA MARIA (1802-1880), b. Medford, Mass. Novelist, editor.
Hobomok, a story of life in colonial Salem; The Rebels, a tale of the
Revolution, introduces James Otis, Governor Hutchinson, and the Boston
Massacre; Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans.

CHURCHILL, WINSTON (1871- ), b. St. Louis, Mo. Home in Cornish, N. H. Novelist. Richard Carvel, The Crisis, and The Crossing are interesting novels of American historical events. Mr. Crewe's Career.

CLARKE, JAMES FREEMAN (1810-1888), b. Hanover, N. H. Noted Unitarian clergyman. Orthodoxy: Its Truths and Errors, Ten Great Religions, Self-Culture.

CONE, HELEN GRAY (1859- ), b. New York, N. Y. Poet. Oberon and Puck, The Ride to the Lady, Verses Grave and Gay.

COOKE, ROSE TERRY (1827-1892), b. West Hartford, Conn. Poet and short-story writer. The Two Villages is her best-known poem, and The Deacon's Week one of her best stories.

CRAIGIE, PEARL MARY TERESA ("John Oliver Hobbes") (1867-1906), b. Boston, Mass. Novelist. School for Saints, The Herb Moon, The Flute of Pan, The Tales of John Oliver Hobbes.

CRANCH, CHRISTOPHER PEARSE (1813-1892), b. Alexandria, Va. Educated in
Massachusetts. Artist, transcendental poet, and contributor to The Dial.
Best poems, Gnosis, I in Thee.

CRANE, STEPHEN (1870-1900), b. Newark, N. J. Novelist. The Red Badge of
Courage is a remarkable romance of the American Civil War.

CRAWFORD, FRANCIS MARION (1854-1909), b. Bagni di Lucca, Italy. Voluminous writer of novels and romances. Some are historical, and the scenes of the best of them are laid in Italy. He wrote his Zoroaster and Marzio's Crucifix in both English and French, and received a reward of one thousand francs from the French Academy. Saracinesca, Sant' Ilario, and Don Orsino, a trio of novels about one Roman family, and Katherine Lauderdale and its sequel, The Ralstons, are among his best works.

CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM (1824-1892), b. Providence, R. I. Literary and political essayist, civil service reformer, and critic. Was a resident in his youth at Brook Farm. Spent four years of his early life in foreign travel. Nile Notes of a Howadji and The Howadji in Syria are poetic descriptions of his trip. His masterpiece is Prue and I, a prose idyl of simple, contented, humble life. The largest part of his work was done as editor. He was editor of Putnam's Magazine at the time of its failure in 1857, and undertook to pay up every creditor, a task which consumed sixteen years. He wrote the Easy Chair papers in Harper's Monthly. A volume of these essays contains some of his easiest, most urbane, and humorous writings. They are light and in the vein of Addison's Spectator. In Orations and Addresses are to be found some of his strongest and most polished speeches on moral, historical, and political subjects.

DANA, RICHARD HENRY, SR. (1787-1879), b. Cambridge, Mass. Author, diplomat, judge. Co-editor North American Review when it published Bryant's Thanatopsis. Champion of the romantic school of Wordsworth and Coleridge. Dana's best known poem, The Buccaneer, shows the influence of this school.

DANA, RICHARD HENRY, JR. (1815-1882), b. Cambridge, Mass. Lawyer, statesman, author. His Two Years before the Mast keeps, its place among the best books written for boys during the nineteenth century. The British admiralty officially adopted this book for circulation in the navy.

DAVIS, RICHARD HARDING (1864-1916), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Journalist, playwright, novelist. Best works are short stones of New York life, such as Van Bibber and Others, Gallegher and Other Stories. The Bar Sinister, which holds boys spellbound, is an excellent story of a dog.

DELAND, MARGARETTA WADE (1857- ), b. Allegheny, Pa. Voluminous writer of stories. Old Chester Tales, Dr. Lavendar's People, John Ward, Preacher.

DICKINSON, EMILY (1830-1886), b. Amherst, Mass. Author of unique short lyrics. Poems.

DICKINSON, JOHN (1732-1808), b. Crosia, Md. Statesman. The Farmer's
Letters to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies.

DODGE, MARY MAPES (1838-1905), b. New York, N. Y. Editor of Saint Nicholas Magazine. Among her juvenile books may be mentioned Hans Brinker, Donald and Dorothy, The Land of Pluck.

DORR, JULIA C. R. (1825- ), b. Charleston, S. C. Moved to Vermont. Poet, novelist. Poems, In Kings' Houses, Farmingdale.

DWIGHT, JOHN S. (1813-1893), b. Boston, Mass. Musician, transcendentalist.
Best poem, Rest, appeared in first number of The Dial.

EGAN, MAURICE FRANCIS (1852- ), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Diplomat, poet, essayist, novelist. Preludes, Songs and Sonnets, Lectures on English Literature, The Ghost of Hamlet.

EVERETT, EDWARD (1794-1865), b. Dorchester, Mass. Orator, statesman. Orations and Speeches.

FIELDS, JAMES T. (1817-1881), b. Portsmouth, N. H. Editor Atlantic
Monthly and publisher. Yesterdays with Authors.

FISKE, JOHN (1842-1901), b. Hartford, Conn. Scientist and historian. His
histories are both philosophical and interesting. The Critical Period of
American History, The Beginnings of New England, The American
Revolution, The Discovery of America.

FORD, PAUL LEICESTER (1865-1902), b. Brooklyn, N. Y. Novelist, historian. The Honorable Peter Stirling, Janice Meredith.

FOSTER, STEPHEN COLLINS (1826-1864), b. Pittsburgh, Pa. Writer of some of the most widely known songs of the nineteenth century. Old Folks at Home ("Down on the Suwanee River"), My Old Kentucky Home, Nellie was a Lady.

FREDERIC, HAROLD (1856-1898), b. Utica, N.Y. Novelist, journalist. The
Damnation of Theron Ware, Gloria Mundi.

GILDER, RICHARD WATSON (1844-1909), b. Bordentown, N. J. Editor and poet.
Editor of Century Magazine until his death. Poems: The New Day, Five
Books of Song, For the Country.

GOODWIN, MAUD WILDER (1856- ), b. Ballston Spa, N. Y. Writer of romances, chiefly historical. The Colonial Cavalier, or Southern Life before the Revolution, Four Roads to Paradise.

GRANT, ROBERT (1852- ), b. Boston, Mass. Novelist, essayist, jurist. Confessions of a Frivolous Girl, An Average Man, The Art of Living.

GREELEY, HORACE (1811-1872), b. Amherst, N. H. Founder and editor of The Tribune, New York, N. Y. Exerted strong influence on the thought of his time. Recollections of a Busy Life.

GREEN, ANNA KATHARINE (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs) (1846- ), b. Brooklyn, N. Y.
Voluminous writer of interesting detective stories, of which The
Leavenworth Case is the most noted.

GUINEY, LOUISE IMOGEN (1861- ), b. Boston, Mass. Poet, essayist. The
White Sail and Other Poems, A Roadside Harp, The Martyr's Idyl and
Shorter Poems.

HALE, EDWARD EVERETT (1822-1909), b. Boston, Mass. Unitarian divine, author, philanthropist. Best known story, The Man without a Country. Wrote many miscellaneous essays.

HARDY, ARTHUR S. (1847- ), b. Andover, Mass. Educator, novelist, diplomat. But Yet a Woman, Wind of Destiny, Passe Rose.

HARLAND, HENRY ("Sidney Luska") (1861-1905), b. Petrograd, Russia.
Novelist. The Cardinal's Snuff-Box, My Friend Prospero, The Lady
Paramount.

HAWTHORNE, JULIAN (1846- ), b. Boston, Mass., son of Nathaniel
Hawthorne. Novelist, essayist. Deserves to be called his father's Boswell
for the excellent and sympathetic two volumes, entitled Nathaniel
Hawthorne and his Wife.

HEDGE, FREDERICK H. (1805-1890), b. Cambridge, Mass. Clergyman, transcendentalist. Best poem, Questionings, appeared in The Dial.

HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH (1823- ), b. Cambridge, Mass. Unitarian minister, prominent anti-slavery agitator, author. Life of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Cheerful Yesterdays, Contemporaries, Old Cambridge.

"HOBBES, JOHN OLIVER," See CRAIGIE, PEARL MARY TERESA.

HOLLAND, J. G. (1819-1881), b. Belchertown, Mass. Editor of the first series of Scribner's Monthly, wrote several poems, of which Bitter-Sweet was the most popular, and several novels, the best of which is Arthur Bonnicastle.

HOLLEY, MARIETTA (1850- ), b. Ellisburg, N. Y. Humorist, Author of Josiah Allen's Wife, My Opinions and Betsey Bobbet's, Sweet Cicely, Samantha at Saratoga, and Poems.

HOWARD, BLANCHE WILLIS (1847-1898), b. Bangor, Maine. Novelist. Guenn is an unusually strong novel. One Summer, Aunt Serena, and The Open Door are wholesome, pleasing stories.

HOWE, JULIA WARD (1819-1910), b. New York, N. Y. Philanthropist, author of the famous Battle Hymn of the Republic.

HUTCHINSON, THOMAS (1711-1780), b. Boston, Mass. America's greatest historical writer before the nineteenth century. His great work is The History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

IRELAND, JOHN (1838- ), b. Ireland. Roman Catholic archbishop. The
Church and Modern Society.

JANVIER, THOMAS ALLIBONE (1849-1913), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Journalist and author. Color Studies, Stories of Old New Spain, An Embassy to Provence, The Passing of Thomas.

JEWETT, SARAH ORNE (1849-1909), b. South Berwick, Maine. Artistic novelist of old New England villages. Deephaven, The Country of the Pointed Firs, The Tory Lover. She shows a more genial side of New England life than Miss Wilkins gives.

KING, CHARLES (1844- ), b. Albany, N. Y. Soldier, novelist. A War-Time
Wooing, The Colonel's Daughter, The Deserter, The General's Double.

KIRK, ELLEN OLNEY (1842- ), b. Southington, Conn. Novelist. Through Winding Ways, A Midsummer Madness, The Story of Margaret Kent, Marcia.

LARCOM, LUCY (1826-1893), b. Beverly Farms, Mass. A factory hand in Lowell, encouraged by Whittier to write. Poems; A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory.

LATHROP, GEORGE P. (1851-1898), b. Oahu, Hawaii. Son-in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne, editor, author. A Study of Hawthorne, Spanish Vistas, Newport.

LAZARUS, EMMA (1849-1887), b. New York, N. Y. Poet, translator, essayist. Admetus, Songs of a Semite, Poems.

LELAND, CHARLES GODFREY ("Hans Breitmann") (1824-1903), b. Philadelphia,
Pa. Humorist. Hans Breitmann's Ballads, written in what is known as
Pennsylvania Dutch dialect.

LOCKE, DAVID ROSS ("Petroleum V. Nasby") (1833-1888), b. Vestal, N. Y.
Political satirist. Nasby Letters.

LODGE, HENRY CABOT (1850- ), b. Boston, Mass. Statesman, historian,
essayist. A Short History of the English Colonies in America, Alexander
Hamilton, Daniel Webster, Studies in History, Hero Tales from American
History (with Theodore Roosevelt).

"LUSKA, SIDNEY." See HARLAND, HENRY.

MABIE, HAMILTON W. (1846-1916), b. Cold Spring, N. Y. Editor, essayist. My Study Fire, William Shakespeare: Poet, Dramatist, and Man, Essays on Books and Culture.

MACKAYE, PERCY WALLACE (1875- ), b. New York, N. Y. Dramatist. Jeanne d'Arc, Sappho and Phaon, The Canterbury Pilgrims, Ticonderoga and Other Poems.

MCMASTER, JOHN BACH (1852- ), b. Brooklyn, N. Y. Historian and professor of American history. A History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War. 7 vols. An entertaining history, sometimes suggestive of Macaulay.

MARKS, MRS. LIONEL. See PEABODY, JOSEPHINE PRESTON.

"MARVEL, IK." See MITCHELL, DONALD G.

MELVILLE, HERMAN (1819-1891), b. New York, N. Y. Novelist. Typee Omoo, Mardi, White Jacket or the World in a Man of War, Moby Dick or the White Whale contain interesting accounts of his wide travels.

MITCHELL, DONALD GRANT ("Ik Marvel") (1822-1908), b. Norwich, Conn.
Essayist. Reveries of a Bachelor, Dream Life.

MITCHELL, S. WEIR (1829- ), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Physician, novelist, and poet. Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker; The Adventures of Francois; Dr. North and his Friends; and Constance Trescot.

MOORE, CLEMENT CLARKE (1779-1863), b. New York, N. Y. Oriental scholar and poet. Known to children to-day for his poem, 'Twas the Night before Christmas.

MOULTON, ELLEN LOUISE CHANDLER (1835-1908), b. Pomfret, Conn. Story writer, poet, correspondent. Some Women's Hearts, Swallow Flights and Other Poems, In Childhood's Country.

"NASBY, PETROLEUM V." See LOCKE, DAVID ROSS.

ODELL, JONATHAN (1737-1818), b. Newark, N.J. Clergyman, greatest anti-Revolution poetic satirist. Shows influence of Dryden and Pope. The American Congress, The American Times.

O'REILLY, JOHN BOYLE (1844-1890), b. Ireland. Journalist, poet. Songs,
Legends and Ballads; Moondyne; Songs from the Southern Seas.

"PARTINGTON, MRS." See SHILLABER, BENJAMIN P.

PAULDING, JAMES KIRKE (1779-1860), b. Pleasant Valley, N.Y. Satirical humorist and descriptive writer. The Dutchman's Fireside. Assisted Irving in the Salmagundi papers.

PAYNE, JOHN HOWARD (1792-1852), b. New York, N.Y. Dramatist. Author of the song, Home, Sweet Home.

PEABODY, JOSEPHINE PRESTON (Mrs. Lionel Marks) (1874- ), b. New York, N.Y. Poet, dramatist. The Singing Leaves, Fortune and Men's Eyes, Marlowe, The Piper (Stratford-on-Avon prize drama). Author of excellent poems for children.

PERRY, BLISS (1860- ), b. Williamstown, Mass. Educator, editor, author. Walt Whitman, A Study of Prose Fiction, John Greenleaf Whittier.

READ, THOMAS BUCHANAN (1822-1872), b. Chester Co., Pa. Poet and painter. The New Pastoral, Sheridan's Ride.

REPPLIER, AGNES (1857- ), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Witty essayist. Books and Men, Points of View, Essays in Idleness.

RIGGS, MRS. See WIGGIN, KATE DOUGLAS.

ROE, EDWARD PAYSON (1838-1888), b. New Windsor, N.Y. Clergyman, novelist. Barriers Burned Away, Opening a Chestnut Burr, Nature's Serial Story.

ROHLFS, MRS. CHARLES. See GREEN, ANNA KATHERINE.

ROOSEVELT, THEODORE (1858-1919), b. New York, N. Y. Ex-President of the United States. Lived for awhile on a western ranch and amassed material for some of his most popular works. Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, The Winning of the West, The Rough Riders. He has written also on civil, economic, and ethical subjects with great vigor and incisive clearness. His African Game Trails is the record of his trip to Africa.

SANGSTER, MARGARET (1838- ), b. New Rochelle, N. Y. Editor, writer of stories and poems. Poems of the Household, Home Fairies and Heart Flowers.

SAXE, JOHN GODFREY (1816-1887), b. Highgate, Vt. Journalist, writer of humorous verse. Humorous and Satirical Poems, The Money King and Other Poems.

SCHOULER, JAMES (1839- ), b. Arlington, Mass. Lawyer, historian. A
History of the United States under the Constitution. 6 vols.

SCOLLARD, CLINTON (1860- ), b. Clinton, N. Y. Educator, poet. With Reed and Lyre, The Hills of Song, Voices and Visions.

SEDGWICK, CATHERINE M. (1789-1867), b. Stockbridge, Mass. Novelist. Her best stories are those of simple New England country life. Redwood, Clarence, A New England Tale.

SHAW, HENRY WHEELER (Josh Billings) (1818-1885), b. Lanesborough, Mass.
Humorist. Farmers' Allminax, Every Boddy's Friend, Josh Billings'
Spice Box.

SHEA, JOHN DAWSON GILMARY (1824-1892), b. New York, N. Y. Editor, historian. Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States, History of the Catholic Church in the United States, and many other historical and religious studies.

SHERMAN, FRANK DEMPSTER (1860-1916), b. Peekskill, N.Y. Professor of architecture, poet. Madrigals and Catches, Lyrics for a Lute, Lyrics of Joy.

SHILLABER, BENJAMIN P. ("Mrs. Partington") (1814-1890), b. Portsmouth, N.
H. Humorist of Mrs. Malaprop's style, mistaking words of similar sounds but
dissimilar sense. Life and Sayings of Mrs. Partington, Partingtonian
Patchwork, Ike and his Friend.

SMITH, SAMUEL F. (1808-1895), b. Boston, Mass. Clergyman. Author of our national poem, America. Of him, Holmes wrote, "Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith."

SPARKS, JARED (1789-1866), b. Willington, Conn. Unitarian minister and historian. Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, The Writings of George Washington, The Works of Benjamin Franklin.

SPOFFORD, HARRIET PRESCOTT (1835- ), b. Calais, Maine. Novelist, poet. The Amber Gods and Other Stories, New England Legends, Poems.

STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE (1833-1908), b. Hartford, Conn. Poet, critic. One of America's fairest critics. Did valuable work in compiling and criticizing modern English and American literature. A Victorian Anthology, An American Anthology, Victorian Poets, Poets of America. Co-editor of Library of American Literature in eleven large octavo volumes.

STOCKTON, FRANK R. (1834-1902), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Novelist and humorist.
His novels have a farcical humor, due to ridiculous situations and
absurdities, treated in a mock-serious vein. The Lady or the Tiger? The
Late Mrs. Null, The Casting away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine, The
Hundredth Man.

STODDARD, CHARLES WARREN (1843-1909), b. Rochester, N.Y. Author, educator, traveler. South Sea Idyls, Lepers of Molokai, Poems.

STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY (1825-1903), b. Hingham, Mass. Journalist, editor, poet. Songs of Summer, Abraham Lincoln: a Horatian Ode, The Lion's Cub.

STORY, WILLIAM WETMORE (1819-1895), b. Salem, Mass. Sculptor, author. Roba di Roma, or Walks and Talks about Rome, Poems, Conversations in a Studio, Excursions in Art and Letters.

SUMNER, CHAS. (1811-1874), b. Boston, Mass. Noted anti-slavery statesman.
His published speeches and orations fill fifteen volumes.

TAYLOR, BAYARD (1825-1878), b. Kennett Square, Chester Co., Pa. Extensive traveler, wrote twelve different volumes of travels, the first being Views Afoot, or Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff (1846). He wrote also much poetry. Among the best of his shorter poems are The Bedouin Song, Nubia, and The Song of the Camp. Lars: a Pastoral of Norway is his best long poem. The work by which he will probably remain longest known in literature is his excellent translation of Goethe's Faust.

THAXTER, CELIA LAIGHTON (1836-1894), b. Portsmouth, N.H. Spent most of life upon Isles of Shoals. Artist, author. Poems (Appledore Edition, 1896). Best single poem, The Sandpiper.

THOMAS, EDITH MATILDA (1854- ), b. Chatham, Ohio. Poet. A New Year's
Masque, A Winter Swallow, and Other Verse, Fair Shadow Land, Lyrics and
Sonnets.

TICKNOR, GEORGE (1791-1871), b. Boston, Mass. A History of Spanish
Literature.

TORREY, BRADFORD (1843-1912), b. Weymouth, Mass. Nature writer. Birds in the Bush, The Footpath Way, Footing it in Franconia. Editor of Thoreau's Journal.

TOURGEE, ALBION W. (1838-1905), b. Williamsfield, Ohio. Educated in New
York. Soldier, judge, novelist of the reconstruction period. A Fool's
Errand, Bricks without Straw.

TROWBRIDGE, JOHN TOWNSEND (1827-1916), b. Ogden, N.Y. Editor, novelist, poet, juvenile writer. My Own Story (biography) Among his stories for young people are The Drummer Boy, The Prize Cup, The Tide-Mill Stories. Best known poem, The Vagabonds.

VAN DYKE, HENRY (1852- ), b. Germantown, Pa. Clergyman, professor, essayist, poet. The Builders and Other Poems, Fisherman's Luck and Some Other Uncertain Things, The Story of the Other Wise Man. An interesting, optimistic philosopher, and lover of nature, whose works deserve the widest reading.

WARD, ARTEMUS. See BROWNE, CHARLES F.

WARD, ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS (1844-1911), b. Boston, Mass. Novelist. The
Gates Ajar, The Story of Avis, A Singular Life.

WARNER, CHARLES DUDLEY (1829-1900), b. Plainfield, Mass. Traveler, journalist, essayist. Wrote the Editor's Drawer and Editor's Study of Harper's Magazine. My Summer in a Garden and Backlog Studies are delightful for their subtle humor and style. He wrote many entertaining books of travel, such as Saunerings, In the Levant, My Winter on the Nile, Baddeck and that Sort of Thing. He wrote The Gilded Age in collaboration with Mark Twain.

WEBSTER, NOAH (1758-1843), b. Hartford, Conn. Philologist. Published in 1783 his famous Speller, which superseded The New England Primer, and which almost deserves to be called "literature by reason of its admirable fables." More than sixty million copies of this Speller have been sold.

WESTCOTT, EDWARD NOYES (1847-1898), b. Syracuse, N. Y. Banker, author of one remarkable novel which was published posthumously, David Harum, a story of central New York.

WHARTON, EDITH (1862- ), b. New York, N. Y. Essayist, novelist. Her fiction deals largely with modern society problems. She treats subtle psychological questions with especial skill in the short story. The Valley of Decision, Crucial Instances, The House of Mirth, The Fruit of the Tree, Italian Backgrounds.

WHIPPLE, EDWIN PERCY (1819-1886), b. Gloucester, Mass. Critic, essayist. Essays and Reviews, American Literature and Other Papers, Recollections of Eminent Men.

WHITCHER, FRANCES ("Widow Bedott") (1811-1852), b. Whitestown, N. Y.
Humorist. The Widow Bedott Papers.

WHITNEY, ADELINE BUTTON TRAIN (1824-1906), b. Boston, Mass. Poet, novelist, and writer of juvenile stories. Faith Gartney's Girlhood, We Girls, Boys at Chequasset, Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life, Poems.

WIGGIN, KATE DOUGLAS (Mrs. Riggs) (1857- ), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Novelist and writer on kindergarten subjects. Author of The Bird's Christmas Carol, Timothy's Quest, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Penelope's Progress, A Cathedral Courtship. Pathos, humor, and sympathy for the poor, the weak, and the helpless are characteristic qualities of her work. There are few better children's stories than the first two mentioned.

WILLIAMS, ROGER (1604?-1683), b. probably in London. Founder of Rhode
Island. The first great preacher of "soul liberty" in America. The Bloody
Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed, The Bloody
Tenent yet More Bloody.

WILLIS, N.P. (1806-1867), b. Portland, Maine. Traveler, prose writer, poet, editor. While his work has proved ephemeral, he taught many writers of his day the necessity of artistic finish in their prose. His prose Letters from under a Bridge, and his poems, Parrhasius and Unseen Spirits, may be mentioned.

WINSOR, JUSTIN (1831-1897), b. Boston, Mass. Librarian at Harvard, historian, editor of Narrative and Critical History of America. Author of The Mississippi Basin: the Struggle in America between England and France, 1697-1763; The Westward Movement, 1763-1798; Reader's Handbook of the American Revolution, Christopher Columbus.

WINTER, WILLIAM (1836- ), b. Gloucester, Mass. Dramatic editor of the
New York Tribune from 1865 to 1909. Edited numbers of plays. Author of
Shakespeare's England, Gray Days and Gold, Life and Art of Edwin
Booth, Wanderers (poems).

WINTHROP, THEODORE (1828-1861), b. New Haven, Conn. Novelist. His best story, John Brent, contains some of his western experiences.

WISTER, OWEN (1860- ), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Lawyer and novelist. Gives
realistic pictures of the middle West. New Swiss Family Robinson, The
Dragon of Wantley, Red Men and White, Lin McLean, Lady Baltimore, and The
Virginian.

WOODBERRY, GEO. E. (1855- ), b. Beverly, Mass. Educator, author of excellent biographies of Poe, Hawthorne, and Emerson. America in Literature, Poems.

WOOLSON, CONSTANCE FENIMORE (1848-1894), b. Claremont, N. H. Novelist. Best novel, Horace Chase. Some of her other novels are Castle Nowhere, Anne, East Angels, Jupiter Lights, The Old Stone House.

SOUTHERN AUTHORS

ALSOP, GEORGE (1638-?), b. England. Published in 1666 an entertaining volume, A Character of the Province of Maryland.

AUDUBON, JOHN J. (1780-1851), b. near New Orleans, La. Noted ornithologist and painter of birds. Published Birds of America at one thousand dollars a copy and Ornithological Biography in 5 vols.

AZARIAS, BROTHER. See MULLANY, P. F.

BURNETT, FRANCES HODGSON (1849- ), b. Manchester, Eng. Anglo-American novelist. Little Lord Fauntleroy, That Lass o' Lowrie's, Haworth's, A Fair Barbarian, A Lady of Quality.

CALHOUN, JOHN C. (1782-1850), b. Abbeville District, S.C. Statesman, orator. Best work, Disquisition on Government and Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States. Best speech, Nullification and the Force Bill (1833).

CLAY, HENRY (1777-1852), b. near Richmond, Va. Orator, statesman. Best speeches: On the War of 1812 (1813), The Seminole War (1819), The American System (1832).

COOKE, JOHN ESTEN (1830-1886), b. Winchester, Va. Colonial and military story writer. Best romance, The Virginia Comedians.

DIXON, THOMAS (1864- ), b. Shelby, N. C. Clergyman, novelist. The
Leopard's Spots, The One Woman, The Clansman.

EVANS, AUGUSTA. See WILSON, AUGUSTA EVANS.

FOX, JOHN JR. (1863- ), b. in Bourbon Co., Kentucky. Novelist of life in the Kentucky mountains. The Kentuckians, A Mountain Europa, A Cumberland Vendetta, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.

GAYARRE, CHARLES E. A. (1805-1895), b. New Orleans, La. Jurist, historian. History of Louisiana.

GIBBONS, JAMES (1834- ), b. Baltimore, Md. Roman Catholic cardinal. The
Faith of Our Fathers, The Ambassador of Christ.

GLASGOW, ELLEN ANDERSON GHOLSON (1874- ), b. Richmond, Va. Novelist. The Descendant, The Voice of the People, The Deliverance.

GRADY, HENRY W. (1851-1889), b. Athens, Ga. Editor, orator. Best oration, The New South.

HEARN, LAFCADIO (1850-1904), b. in Ionian Islands of Irish and Greek parentage. Journalist, author. Lived many years in New Orleans, went thence to New York, and still later to Japan. Author of Stray Leaves from Strange Literature, Two Years in the French West Indies, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, Out of the East. Shows marked descriptive ability.

HEGAN, ALICE. See RICE, ALICE HEGAN.

"HENRY, O." See PORTER, SIDNEY.

JOHNSTON, MARY (1870- ), b. Buchanan, Va. Writer of vigorous, well-handled romances of Virginia history. Prisoners of Hope, To Have and to Hold, Audrey, Lewis Rand.

JOHNSTON, RICHARD MALCOLM (1822-1898), b. Hancock Co., Ga. Lawyer, professor of English. Writer of Georgia stories. Dukesborough Tales.

KENNEDY, J. P. (1795-1870), b. Baltimore, Md. Wrote three works of fiction, Swallow Barn, a picture of the manners and customs of Virginia at the end of the eighteenth century, Horse-Shoe Robinson, a Tale of the Tory Ascendency, Rob of the Bowl, a story of colonial Maryland.

KEY, FRANCIS SCOTT (1780-1843), b. Frederick Co., Md. The Star-Spangled
Banner.

KING, GRACE E. (1852- ), b. New Orleans, La. Novels of Creole life and historical works on De Soto and New Orleans: Monsieur Motte, Tales of Time and Place, Balcony Stones.

LONGSTREET, AUGUSTUS B. (1790-1870), b. Augusta, Ga. Judge, and (later) a Methodist minister. His Georgia Scenes is one of the liveliest pictures of provincial Georgia life.

MARSHALL, JOHN (1755-1835), b. Germantown, Va. Great Chief Justice of U. S. The Life of George Washington.

MARTIN, GEORGE MADDEN (1866- ), b. Louisville, Ky. Novelist. Emmy
Lou—Her Book and Heart.

MATTHEWS, JAMES BRANDER (1852- ), b. New Orleans, La. Lecturer on literature at Columbia College. Critic and story writer. French Dramatists of the Nineteenth Century, Margery's Lovers, A Secret of the Sea and Other Stories, The Story of a Story, The Historical Novel, Study of the Drama, The Short Story.

MULLANY, P. F. (Brother Azarias) (1847-1893), b. Ireland. Educator, essayist. The Development of Old English Thought, Phases of Thought and Criticism.

O'HARA, THEODORE (1820-1867), b. Danville, Ky. Poet. The Bivouac of the
Dead.

PECK, SAMUEL MINTURN (1854- ), b. Tuscaloosa, Ala. Poet and novelist. Caps and Bells, Rhymes and Roses.