ability from his father, the romancer. As an infant he was delicate; at
seven his health was good, but having been kept out of school he could
neither read nor write. Entering Harvard in 1863, he became known as
an all-around athlete. After leaving Harvard without graduating, he
lived in Dresden for some years, then returned to America and became a
hydrographic engineer in New York. In 1871 he began to win attention
to his short stories, and since 1872 has devoted himself to literature
and journalism, living successively in Dresden, London, and New York.
“Bressant,” his first novel, published in _Appleton’s Journal_ in 1872,
is somewhat crude and not without sensational elements, but holds the
interest. Then came “Idolatry” (1874), which, though rewritten in whole
or in part seven times, is now unknown, “Garth” (1877), a long story of
New Hampshire, the chief part being a painter’s love-story, “Sebastian
Strome” (1880), a study of the chastening of a selfish character,
strongly reminding us of “Adam Bede,” “Dust” (1883), a story of extreme
self-sacrifice, “Fortune’s Fool” (1884), “Archibald Malmaison” (1884),
a novelette, and “Beatrix Randolph” (1884). In general his stories
are not pleasant reading. Impossible characters are not infrequent
and there is a tendency toward the choice of morbid subjects. Many
descriptive passages, however, are superbly done, and the general
impression one gets is that of power, but of power unrestrained,
a strong imagination capable of greater things than Mr. Hawthorne
has done. Yet the qualities characteristic of his best books, like
“Archibald Malmaison,” are such as led the late Richard Henry Stoddard,
a man by no means deficient in judgment, and familiar with the best in
modern literature, to pronounce Mr. Hawthorne “clearly and easily the
first of living romancers.”
In recent years, Mr. Hawthorne has forsaken the paths of pure
literature, with which he seems never to have been in love,[17] for
those of journalism.
_William Dean Howells._--The apostle of latter-day realism, and one
of the most noted of our writers of fiction, is Mr. Howells. He has
been prominent in literary circles for more than forty years. The son
of a journalist and printer, Mr. Howells was born at Martin’s Ferry,
Belmont County, Ohio, in 1837. His father had adopted Swedenborgian
tenets and the boy was reared in this faith. His boyhood life has been
admirably described in “A Boy’s Town.” The family lived successively
at several places in Ohio, and young Howells was in turn compositor,
correspondent, and news editor. In 1859 he began contributing to _The
Atlantic Monthly_, his first poem, “Andenken,” appearing anonymously
in January, 1860. Nearly every volume of _The Atlantic_ down to 1900
contains some of his work. A campaign “Life of Abraham Lincoln” (1860)
netted him $160, and enabled him to make his first trip East and to
meet Emerson, Lowell, and other New England writers; it also won for
him the post of Consul at Venice, which he held from 1861 till 1865.
The first fruits of his Italian residence were “Venetian Life” (1866)
and “Italian Journeys” (1867), two descriptive works which revealed a
truly poetic temperament and a refined taste. On his return to America,
Mr. Howells became an editorial writer for the New York _Times_ and a
contributor to _The Nation_. The next year (1866), removing to Boston,
he became assistant editor of _The Atlantic_; in 1871 he became the
editor and made the magazine a stronger force than ever in criticism.
On resigning this post in 1880, he spent a year or two abroad; since
1888 he has lived in New York, engaged chiefly in literary work. From
1886 till 1891 he conducted the Editor’s Study in _Harper’s_.
While Mr. Howells has been prolific in criticism, description,
narratives of travel, literary and personal reminiscences, and lighter
essays, his most significant work has been done in his novels. His
first appearance as a writer of fiction was in 1871, with “Their
Wedding Journey,” a slight but delicately humorous tale of a Boston
couple, the Marches, who go to Canada to spend their honeymoon. “A
Chance Acquaintance” (1873) is a subtle study of incompatibility of
temperament. “A Foregone Conclusion” (1875) transports us to Venice,
where we watch the unhappy love story, dramatically told, of an
agnostic priest and an American girl. “The Lady of the Aroostook”
(1879) is an amusing, healthy story of New England provincial manners.
The theme of “The Undiscovered Country” (1880) is spiritualism and
mesmerism. “A Fearful Responsibility” (1881) is the story of an
American professor in Venice whose charge, a young girl, is loved by an
Austrian officer. In “Dr. Breen’s Practice” (1881) we have pictures of
summer life in a small seaside village in Maine and a study of modern
Puritanism. With “A Modern Instance” (1881) may be said to begin the
extremely realistic stories in Mr. Howells’ later manner; others are:
“A Woman’s Reason” (1883), “The Rise of Silas Lapham” (1885), “Indian
Summer” (1886), “The Minister’s Charge, or The Apprenticeship of Lemuel
Barker” (1887), “April Hopes” (1887), “Annie Kilburn” (1888), “A Hazard
of New Fortunes” (1890), in which the Marches have characteristic
experiences in New York, “The Quality of Mercy” (1892), a painful
but well told story, “The Coast of Bohemia” (1893), “An Open-Eyed
Conspiracy” (1897), “Ragged Lady” (1899), “The Flight of Pony Baker”
(1902), a captivating boys’ story, belonging with “A Boy’s Town,”
“The Kentons” (1903), and “The Son of Royal Langbrith” (1905). From
these novels, after the manner of Tolstoi, the romantic and even the
ideal are rigorously excluded; we are treated to exhaustive, minutely
detailed accounts of the daily lives of ordinary, generally commonplace
people. Plot and incident are of secondary importance, although some
chapters fairly bristle with incident; Mr. Howells holds that any
transcript of real life, even though made at random, if skilfully
handled, is of sufficient interest to form a good story. Naturally
this view of the novel has found many opponents, and Mr. Howells’
books have been somewhat less popular of late years than they were in
the eighties. After all, the hunger for the ideal cannot be wholly
appeased by disagreeable actualities; and there are people whom we know
all too well in the flesh to care to see them, in all their pettiness
and meanness and duplicity, in the pages of fiction. Mr. Howells’
followers, however,--and there are many of them--contend that nothing
is so interesting as real, actual, present life; that no detail of our
daily round is without its significance; that the slightest act or
omission of an act may affect our destiny. After all, the realists and
the romanticists we have always with us; the former are just now in the
majority; but the reaction is just as inevitable as the return of the
pendulum.
In some of his later stories, as “The Traveller from Altruria” (1894)
and “Through the Eye of the Needle” (1907), Mr. Howells has shown an
increasing interest in the more serious problems of society--poverty,
strikes, the causes of crime, “the tyranny of individualism,” and the
conditions that hinder the spread of sympathy and human brotherhood.
The effect of this increased ethical and human interest has probably
not been to enhance the artistic value of his work; and some deplore
his lapse from the high ideal of art for art’s sake. Others see in
Mr. Howells’ recent works a greater attention to substance, a firmer
tissue, a broader humanity. And always, be it said, in reading Mr.
Howells, one is conscious of that fine and careful workmanship, that
care for correct and proper form, that artistic conscience, without
which, whatever his literary creed, Mr. Howells could never have become
the foremost and representative American novelist of his time.
_Frances Hodgson Burnett._--Frances H. Burnett was born in Manchester,
England, in 1849, but came to America with her parents in 1865
and lived for eight years, until her marriage, in New Market and
Knoxville, Tennessee. Since then she has lived in Washington and in
Kent, England. She first gained notice with “Surly Tim’s Trouble”
(_Scribner’s Monthly_, June, 1872), a story of Lancashire, as were
also “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s” (1877), “Dolly” (1877, republished in
1883 as “Vagabondia”), and “Haworth’s” (1879) said to be a favourite
with its author. With “Louisiana” (1880) she turned to America for
material, describing life in the mountains of North Carolina. “Through
One Administration” (1883) is a pathetic and powerful story of social
and political life in Washington. “Little Lord Fauntleroy” (1886), the
Anglo-American story of a seven-year-old hero, has become a children’s
classic; similar but less known are the tales in “Sara Crewe, and
Other Stories” (1888), and “The Captain’s Youngest, Piccino, and Other
Stories” (1894). In “The Pretty Sister of José” (1889), Mrs. Burnett
deals with picturesque and striking Spanish characters and scenes. “A
Lady of Quality” (1896) and its sequel, “His Grace of Osmonde” (1897),
are melodramatic stories of English aristocrats in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. “In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim”
(1899) deals with country life in Tennessee in the early sixties.
Her latest stories are “The Dawn of a To-Morrow” (1906) and “The
Shuttle” (1907), the latter a fascinating international novel. She has
thoroughly demonstrated her power to delineate character as moulded by
passion.
_Philander Deming._--Philander Deming (born in Carlisle, New York,
in 1829), a lawyer by profession, in 1873 began publishing in _The
Atlantic Monthly_ stories and sketches the scene of which is laid in
the Adirondack region of northern New York. Devoid of sensationalism,
these stories portray simply and effectively the rude but sound life of
plain country folk. Mr. Deming has published in book form “Adirondack
Stories” (1880), “Tompkins and Other Folks” (1885), and “The Story of a
Pathfinder” (1907).
_Lew Wallace._--General Lewis Wallace (1827-1905), an Indiana lawyer
and soldier in the Mexican and Civil Wars, was the author of three
novels, “The Fair God” (1873), “Ben Hur, a Tale of the Christ” (1880),
and “The Prince of India” (1893), which deserve mention chiefly because
of their popularity. The second, especially, in this respect, ranks
close to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Written in a spirit of deep reverence for
the traditional view of Jesus of Nazareth, and making small demands
upon the imagination, it could hardly fail to make a strong appeal to a
large body of readers. As literature, however, Wallace’s books are of
only transient importance.
_Charles Dudley Warner._--Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) belongs
mainly with the essayists, but wrote a few novels that deserve to live.
With Mark Twain he wrote “The Gilded Age” (1873). “Their Pilgrimage”
(1887) has a slight plot, but gives minute and accurate descriptions of
Southern watering-places. “A Little Journey in the World” (1889) and
its sequel, “The Golden House” (1895), are vivid pictures of decadent
New York society. “That Fortune” (1899) is a picture, drawn from expert
knowledge, of the New York financial world.
_Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen._--Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (1848-95) realised
the dream of many in successfully combining the careers of authorship
and teaching. Born at Frederiksvärn, Norway, and educated at
Christiania, he came to America in 1869. He first became editor of a
Scandinavian journal in Chicago. Then he studied philology at Leipsic
for two years (1872-74). From 1874 till 1880 he was professor of
German at Cornell University, and from 1881 till his death he filled a
similar chair at Columbia University. Besides some poetry and essays,
he wrote “Gunnar, a Norse Romance” (1874), his one effort in romance,
“Tales from Two Hemispheres” (1876), “Falconberg” (1879), “Ilka on the
Hilltop” (1881), a collection of short stories, “Queen Titania” (1881),
“A Daughter of the Philistines” (1883), “Social Strugglers” (1893),
“The Mammon of Unrighteousness” (1891), and “The Golden Calf” (1892).
His later stories were realistic novels concerned with vital problems,
such as the conflict between wealth and essential culture. Their vogue
was not great, but their workmanship was genuine.
_Blanche Willis Howard._--Blanche Willis Howard (1847-98) was born in
Bangor, Maine, was educated in New York, and in 1878 went to Stuttgart,
Germany, to engage in teaching and writing. In 1890 she was married
to Baron von Teuffel, a physician. She wrote a number of novels,
of which “One Summer” (1875), “Aunt Serena” (1880), “Guenn” (1882),
“Aulnay Tower” (1886), “The Open Door” (1889), “No Heroes” (1893), a
boys’ story, and “Seven on the Highway” (1897), a collection of short
stories, may be mentioned. In collaboration with William Sharp she
wrote “A Fellowe and His Wife” (1892), in which a comic atmosphere
prevails. Perhaps “Guenn,” the pathetic story of a Breton maiden’s
hopeless love, is the book by which she will be longest remembered.
_Edgar Fawcett._--Edgar Fawcett (1847-1904) was in his day a prominent
and popular poet, dramatist, and novelist. Born and reared in New
York, and at twenty graduated from Columbia College, he early saw the
rich possibilities of the life around him, and confined himself to the
delineation of New York people. The best of his novels are “Rutherford”
(written in 1876, but not published in book form till 1884), “A
Hopeless Case” (1880), “A Gentleman of Leisure” (1881), “An Ambitious
Woman” (1883), “The House at High Bridge” (1886), perhaps his best
story, “Fair Fame” (1894), “Outrageous Fortune” (1894), and “The Ghost
of Guy Thyrle” (1897). He was fond of attacking the petty conventions
of social life and his satire was not ineffective. Partly because of
this unpleasant realism his books have already ceased to be much read.
_Edwin Lassetter Bynner._--Edwin L. Bynner (1842-93), a New England
lawyer and journalist, for a time librarian of the Boston Law Library,
achieved success in the field of the historical romance. Beginning
with “Nimport” (1877), he produced a large number of novels and short
stories, of which the best are “Penelope’s Suitors” (_The Atlantic_,
December, 1884), “Agnes Surriage” (1887), “The Begum’s Daughter”
(1889), a story of New Amsterdam in 1689, and “Zachary Phips” (1892),
which introduces the mysterious Western expedition of Aaron Burr.
Accurate on the historical side, his works are not distinguished
artistic successes; yet they make the past live again.
_Sarah Orne Jewett._--Sarah Orne Jewett (born in 1849) has written some
interesting and even powerful stories of the coast of New England. She
was reared at South Berwick, near the Maine coast. While accompanying
her father, a physician, on his rounds, she heard from him many local
and family histories and traditions. Her first story was “Deephaven”
(1877); and she has since written, among others, “Country By-Ways”
(1881), eight sketches; “The Mate of the _Daylight_, and Friends
Ashore” (1884), short stories and sketches; “A Country Doctor” (1884),
“A Marsh Island” (1885), and “A White Heron” (1886), three stories
of rural New England; “Strangers and Wayfarers” (1890); “A Native of
Winby, and Other Tales” (1893); “The Country of the Pointed Firs”
(1896), which contains her most successful character studies; “The
Queen’s Twin, and Other Stories” (1899); “The Tory Lover” (1901), a
love-story of the Revolution, introducing John Paul Jones, which cannot
be pronounced successful. Miss Jewett is at her best in her kindly
humorous and sympathetic interpretations of humble but self-respecting
New Englanders of the present day. Her humour is healthy and contagious
and her style is for the most part simple, clear, and vigorous.
_Mrs. Ellen Olney Kirk._--Ellen Olney Kirk (“Henry Hayes,” born in
Connecticut in 1842) has been popular as a novelist. She received her
education at Stratford, Conn., and was married to John Foster Kirk,
the historian, in 1879. Her stories include “Love in Idleness” (1877),
“A Lesson in Love” (1883), a study in character, “A Midsummer Madness”
(1885), “The Story of Margaret Kent” (1886), “Queen Money” (1888), “The
Story of Lawrence Garth” (1894), her best book, in which the difficult
character of an adventuress is well drawn, “The Revolt of a Daughter”
(1898), “Dorothy Deane” (1899), “Our Lady Vanity” (1901), “The Apology
of Ayliffe” (1904), and “Marcia” (1907). The moral in her stories is
generally not obtrusive and the humour is genial.
_Edward Bellamy._--Edward Bellamy (1850-98), a native of Massachusetts,
studied at Union College and in Germany, and in 1871 was admitted to
the bar, but devoted his life to journalism and literature. After a
year in the Sandwich Islands, in 1878 he published his first novel,
“A Nantucket Idyl,” which was followed by “Dr. Heidenhoff’s Process”
(1880), in its own way a supremely effective romance, and “Miss
Ludington’s Sister, a Romance of Immortality” (1884), none of them very
successful with the public. His best known work, “Looking Backward,
or 2000-1887” (1888), a Utopian romance, was unexpectedly received as
a gospel of socialism; it was widely read and translated into many
languages. Much inferior artistically was its sequel, “Equality”
(1897). In his best work Bellamy showed a rare gift of romantic
portraiture of average types “in the village environment by which he
interpreted the heart of the American nation.”
_Mrs. Burton N. Harrison._--Mrs. Burton Harrison (born Constance
Cary, at Vaucluse, Virginia, in 1846) has written interesting and
highly realistic novels of New York City life, full of local colour
and effective in background; and some novels of Virginia life. Mr.
Harrison, to whom she was married in 1867, had been private secretary
to President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy. The couple soon
removed to New York, which has since been their permanent home. Mrs.
Harrison’s first venture in literature was “A Little Centennial Lady”
(_Scribner’s Monthly_, July, 1876), a sprightly historical sketch. Her
novels dealing with Northern society are “Golden Rod” (1878), “Helen
Troy” (1881), “The Anglomaniacs” (1890), “Sweet Bells out of Tune”
(1893), “A Bachelor Maid” (1894), “An Errant Wooing” (1895), “Good
Americans” (1897), “A Triple Entanglement” (1897), “The Carcelline
Emerald” (1899), and “The Circle of a Century.” Perhaps the chief
excellence of these stories is the dialogue, in the management of
which Mrs. Harrison shows great skill. Although the attitude of the
author is that of a satirist, her laughter at the foibles of society is
not unkindly. Of Virginia she has written “Crow’s Nest and Bellhaven
Tales” (1892) and “A Son of the Old Dominion” (1897), which deals
with pre-Revolutionary times. “A Daughter of the South” (1892) is an
exquisitely told story of New Orleans Creole life thrown into the
environment of Paris under the Second Empire.
_Charles Egbert Craddock._--Charles Egbert Craddock is the pen name
of Mary Noailles Murfree (born in 1850), who contributed to _The
Atlantic_ for several years before it was suspected that her stories
were written by a woman. She is the daughter of a once prominent lawyer
of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, who in 1883 removed to St. Louis. Because
of an accident, Miss Murfree was for several years unable to walk. She
was a diligent student and somehow gained an intimate knowledge of the
mountaineers of Eastern Tennessee, who figure in all of her stories.
Her first story of any importance was “The Dancin’ Party at Harrison’s
Cove” (_The Atlantic_, May, 1878). It was largely due to Mr. Aldrich’s
urgent representations that her first collection of stories, “In the
Tennessee Mountains,” found a publisher (1884). Of this a writer in
_The Nation_ said, with justice: “We have not only one mountain valley,
but a whole country of hills--not a man and a woman here and there,
but the people of a whole district--not merely a day of winter or of
summer, but all the year--not lives, but life.” This is substantially
true of all her works, in which she described prosaic and pathetic
mountaineer life, being always inspired, however, by the solitude and
grandeur of the Great Smoky Mountains. The list of her works is a long
one: “Where the Battle was Fought” (1884); “Down the Ravine” (1885);
“The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains” (1885), which recounts the
history of “a Bunyan worsted by his doubts”; “In the Clouds” (1887), a
tragic story likewise dealing with religious experiences; “The Story
of Keedon Bluffs” (1887); “The Despot of Broomsedge Cove” (1889), the
plot of which hinges on a mysterious murder; “In the Stranger People’s
Country” (1891); “His Vanished Star” (1894); “The Mystery of Witch-Face
Mountain, and Other Stories” (1895); “The Juggler” (1897); “The Young
Mountaineers” (1897), short stories; “The Champion” (1902); “A Spectre
of Power” (1903), which is laid in the year 1763 and is full of Indian
love; “The Frontiersmen” (1904); and “The Storm Centre” (1905). Her
later work suffers from repetition of certain mannerisms and from
excessive attention to description; possibly also from too rapid
production. On the whole, however, in her ability to present the pathos
and tragedy of simple lives, Miss Murfree has a place of honour among
present-day writers.
_Anna Katharine Green._--Through the publication, in 1878, of “The
Leavenworth Case,” a clever detective story, this author, then a girl
of nineteen, was brought into immediate notice on both sides of the
Atlantic. “The Leavenworth Case” was followed in successive years by
“A Strange Disappearance,” “The Sword of Damocles,” “Hand and Ring,”
“Behind Closed Doors,” “Marked ‘Personal,’” “That Affair Next Door,”
“Lost Man’s Lane,” “One of My Sons,” and other volumes. Some critics
have spoken of Miss Green (who is now Mrs. Charles Rohlfs) as the
“Wilkie Collins of America.” Nearly all of her books have appeared in
transatlantic editions. Mrs. Rohlfs is also responsible for two volumes
of poems, “The Defence of the Bride” (1882) and “Risifi’s Daughter”
(1886).
_Frank R. Stockton._--The unique and kindly humour of Mr. Stockton’s
books attracted many readers. He was born in Philadelphia in 1834 and
was the son of William S. Stockton, an ardent temperance reformer,
abolitionist, and Methodist layman who helped to establish the
Methodist Protestant Church. Educated in the schools of Philadelphia,
young Stockton first tried the study of medicine, then worked as a
wood-engraver for some years, devoting his leisure time to prose and
verse writing. In 1872, he gave up wood-engraving to join the staff of
the Philadelphia _Morning Post_, and for the next ten years was engaged
in editorial and journalistic work on _Scribner’s Monthly_, _St.
Nicholas_, _Hearth and Home_, etc. From 1882 until his death in 1902,
Mr. Stockton was independently engaged in literary work, producing a
large number of delightfully humorous stories and novels. The tale
which made him famous was “Rudder Grange” (1879), which recounts the
experiences of a young married couple who begin housekeeping in a
castaway barge with an absurd handmaid named Pomona. “The Lady or the
Tiger? and Other Stories” appeared in 1884; the title story is the
best known of Stockton’s works. Other stories are “The Late Mrs. Null”
(1886); “The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine” (1886), a
Crusoe-like narrative, a sequel to which is “The Dusantes” (1888); “The
Hundredth Man” (1887); “The Merry Chanter” (1890); “The Squirrel Inn”
(1891); “Pomona’s Travels” (1894), which narrates the wedding journey
of the amusing Pomona through England and Scotland; “The Adventures
of Captain Horn” (1895) and its sequel, “Mrs. Cliff’s Yacht” (1896),
which deal with adventures in quest of the treasure of the Incas of
Peru; “A Bicycle of Cathay” (1900); and “Afield and Afloat” (1901),
a collection of short stories. While his style is remarkably simple
and free from mannerisms, “the art that conceals art, until it can
pass for nature itself,” his method of handling plot and character
is distinctively his own. His reasoning is always logical, but he
contrives that it shall bring about the most amusing absurdities
conceivable. If, as one writer alleges, “his whimsicality played on the
surface of men and things,” one may reply that that is precisely where
it should play. His stories are none the less wholesome, even though he
rarely or never touches on the pathetic. He was equally at home with
the novel and the short story; but probably it is by his short stories
that he will be longest known.