Edmund Flagg, traveler, journalist, and poet, was born at Wiscasset,
Maine, November 24, 1815. Immediately upon his graduation from Bowdoin
College, in 1835, he removed to Louisville, Kentucky, and became a
teacher. His letters written to the _Louisville Journal_ while
traveling in the states of the Middle West, were afterwards collected,
revised, and published anonymously, entitled _The Far West, or a Tour
beyond the Mountains_ (New York, 1838, two vols.). This work has been
edited by Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites and published as volumes 26 and 27
of _Early Western Travels_ (Cleveland, 1906). In 1839 Flagg became
associate editor of the Louisville _Literary News-Letter_, of which
George D. Prentice was editor. All of his poems of merit were
published in the _Journal_, and _News-Letter_. Flagg contributed both
prose and verse to the Louisville papers for nearly thirty-five years.
Ill-health compelled him to abandon journalism for law, and at
Vicksburg, Mississippi, he formed a partnership with the celebrated
Sargent Smith Prentiss. Two years later he became editor of the
_Gazette_ at Marietta, Ohio. Flagg's first two novels were issued
about this time, entitled _Carrero_ (New York, 1842), and _Francois of
Valois_ (New York, 1842). He was next editor of a publication at St.
Louis; and in 1849 he was secretary of the American legation at
Berlin. In 1850-1851 he was United States consul at Venice. He
afterwards returned to St. Louis and to journalism. Two of his plays,
_Blanche of Artois_, and _The Howard Queen_, were well received at
Louisville, Cincinnati, and several other cities. In 1853 Flagg's
_Venice, the City of the Sea_, appeared, and it won him a wide
reputation. _North Italy since 1849_, issued some years later, resumed
the story of Venice where his first work had left off, and brought it
down to date. Flagg was afterwards connected with the State department
in Washington, and under an order from Congress he prepared his
famous _Report on the Commercial Relations of the United States with
all Foreign Nations_ (Washington, 1856-1857, four vols.). His final
work was a novel, _De Molai, the Last of the Military Templars_
(1888). Edmund Flagg died at Salem, Virginia, in 1890. He is most
certainly a Kentucky poet, journalist, and traveler, but his fame as a
dramatist, historian, and novelist belongs wholly to other states.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Literature of the Louisiana Territory_, by A. N.
DeMenil (St. Louis, 1904); Adams's _Dictionary of American
Authors_ (Boston, 1905).