IV. NOVELISTS AND HUMORISTS. Southern Romancers.

Writers of fiction were numerous during the first half of the century, in the South as well as in the North. While Cooper and Poe were the only ones who attained eminence in this field, there was no lack of story-telling, and in several instances a wide local reputation was built upon the success of a single book. The influence of Cooper is strongly felt in the work of three Southern novelists, Kennedy, Bird, and Simms, of whom the last-named deserves a wider fame. John P. Kennedy (1795-1870), a native of Baltimore and a successful lawyer who represented his state in Congress and was also Secretary of the Navy under President Fillmore, is chiefly remembered as the author of Horse-Shoe Robinson (1835), his best work; a capital romance of the Revolution in the South. The Indian novel, Nick of the Woods (1837), constitutes the principal claim of Dr. Robert M. Bird (1803-1854) to recognition in this group. He was, however, the author of several romances dealing with the Spanish Conquest of Mexico, and also of two or three plays, among which The Gladiator holds the principal place.

W.G. Simms, 1806-1870.

William Gilmore Simms is, next to Poe, the most representative and most talented among the writers of the South previous to the Civil War. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina. As his family belonged to the poorer class, he received little in the way of formal education, but exhibited unusual energy in literary pursuits. At twenty-three, Simms had already published three volumes of youthful verse. His first novel, Martin Faber (1833), reflects the influence of Charles Brockden Browne; but Guy Rivers (1834) was the first of a series of border romances in which the influence of Cooper is plainly seen. In 1835, Simms published The Partisan, one of his best stories, a vivid and entertaining narrative of the partisan warfare conducted in the South during the Revolutionary struggle. In Mellichampe (1836), The Kinsmen (1841), and Katharine Walton (1851), he continued the story of the characters thus introduced. His historical tales were as numerous as those of Cooper, and continued to appear down to the period of the Civil War. Although defective in technical construction and by no means comparable to Cooper's best novels, they nevertheless constitute a remarkable collection and are not unworthy the attention of the modern reader. A voluminous writer, Simms was the author of biographies, plays, and poems, in addition to the long list of romances, only the most important of which have been named.

A follower of Simms was John Esten Cooke (1830-1886), whose novels, The Virginia Comedians (1854), and Fairfax (1868), are representative of this author's work in the same historical field.

Fiction in the North.

Rev. William Ware (1797-1852), a Massachusetts clergyman, was the author of three sober narratives dealing with the persecution of the Christians at Rome. To some extent Zenobia (1837), Aurelian (1838), and Julian (1841) still maintain their place among popular religious romances. Rev. Sylvester Judd (1813-1853) is more dimly remembered as the author of a transcendental romance, Margaret (1845), which was admired by Lowell for its description of humble rural life. The fiction of adventure is represented at its best in the novels of Herman Melville (1819-1891), a native of New York City. His own experiences on land and sea supplied the material of his most successful books, Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), and Moby Dick, or the White Whale (1851). This last, a masterpiece, is one of the greatest sea stories ever written, a real epic. The tales of Catherine M. Sedgwick (1789-1867) employed an historical background; of these Hope Leslie, or Early Times in Massachusetts (1827), and The Linwoods, or Sixty Years Since in America (1835), were especially admired. Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880), whose philanthropic spirit brought her prominently into the anti-slavery agitation, began her modest literary career with the publication of two historical novels: Hobomok (1824), which depicted life in the colony at Salem, and The Rebels (1825), the scene of which is laid in Boston just previous to the Revolution. Realistic Fiction.

One of the famous novels of its time -- and still reckoned a classic by lovers of sentimental fiction -- was that tearful work The Wide, Wide World (1850), written by Susan Warner (1819-1885). Queechy followed in 1852. The Lamplighter (1854), by Maria S. Cummins, was another example of the sentimental novel, which enjoyed widespread popularity. But while these works of fiction had a large contemporary fame, they were altogether eclipsed by the production of another New England woman -- the most widely read and best known of all American novels, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was published in 1852.

Harriet B. Stowe, 1812-1896.

Harriet Beecher, one year older than her famous brother, Henry Ward, was the daughter of Rev. Lyman Beecher, who was settled in the little town of Litchfield, Connecticut, when Harriet was born. She was a precocious child intellectually and emotionally. A part of her early life was spent in Cincinnati, whither, in 1832, her father had been called to become the president of a theological seminary. Here Harriet Beecher was married to Dr. Stowe in 1836. During this period of residence in the Ohio city, she visited friends in Kentucky and gained her knowledge of slavery, as she observed the institution there. In 1850, the Stowes removed to Brunswick, Maine, Dr. Stowe having been called to a professorship in Bowdoin College; and it was here that she wrote her novel. Uncle Tom's Cabin appeared first as a serial in the National Era, the anti-slavery organ at Washington, with which Whittier was at one time associated. The history of this book is unique in American literature. It has been translated into more than forty languages. It was dramatized immediately, and still makes its melodramatic appeal from the stage -- to a larger audience than any other single play. Although severely handled by modern critics with reference both to its portrayal of slavery as an institution and to its artistic defects, the strong pathos of the novel and its humanitarian spirit appear to insure its literary immortality. It has been well said of Uncle Tom's Cabin that "a book that stirs the world and is instrumental in bringing on a civil war and freeing an enslaved race may well elicit the admiration of a more sophisticated generation." Mrs. Stowe's next novel, Dred, a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), was also a story about slavery. In 1858, she began in the Atlantic Monthly a realistic story of colonial life, The Minister's Wooing. The Pearl of Orr's Island appeared in 1862. The novel, Agnes of Sorrento, published the same year, was the fruit of a European trip. For many readers, Mrs. Stowe's most attractive work appears in Oldtown Folks (1869), a realistic study of the quaint and wholesome New England character as she had known it intimately in childhood as well as in later life. After 1863, the Stowes lived in Hartford. The husband died in 1886; Mrs. Stowe survived, an invalid, until 1896.

Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909), an indefatigable gleaner in many fields, won merited fame with his story, now classic, The Man without a Country, which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1863. A long series of tales and narratives -- mostly with a purpose -- includes the novel Philip Nolan's Friends (1876) and the religious romance, In His Name (1873). John Townsend Trowbridge (1827-1916) is a representative of the earlier generation, whose works were popular with old and young. His best-known novels are Neighbor Jackwood (1857) and Cudjo's Cave (1863). The narrative of Jack Hazard and his Fortunes (1871) began a series of entertaining stories for boys which long maintained their place in the affections of the New England youth.

Juvenile Fiction.

Indeed juvenile fiction flourished early in New England. The famous "Rollo" and "Lucy" books of Jacob Abbott (1803-1879), which began to appear about 1840, are now recalled as quaint examples of the old-fashioned children's books in which instruction was generously mixed with entertainment.

The "Jack Hazard" books were of a different type and were the delight of the younger generation that followed; so were the "Elm Island" stories written by Rev. Elijah Kellogg (1813-1901), like Jacob Abbott, a native of Maine. Mrs. Adeline D. T. Whitney (1824-1906), author of Faith Gartney's Girlhood (1863), Leslie Goldthwaite, and We Girls (1870), and Louisa M. Alcott (1832-1888) were the most popular writers for girls.

American Humor.

The quality of humor has been already noted in connection with the work of more than one American writer. The homely wit of Franklin gives a distinct coloring to his pages. Irving, not only in the robust mirthfulness of the Knickerbocker History, but also in the delightful pages of his several sketch-books, appears as a humorist of genial type. Lowell and Holmes have conspicuous places among the exponents of American humor; and there are scores of minor writers whose gifts in this field have not been concealed. The Political Humorists.

The political humorist has long been in evidence. "Major Jack Downing" was the character assumed in the days of President Jackson by a young journalist of Portland, Maine, a graduate of Bowdoin College, Seba Smith (1792-1868). The war with Mexico later inspired his pen. The Civil War brought out several journalistic humorists, among whom one, Robert Henry Newell (1836-1901), of New York, wrote under the name of "Orpheus C. Kerr"; and another, David Ross Locke (1833-1888), an Ohio editor, figured as "Rev. Petroleum V. Nasby." His book Swingin' round the Cirkle (1866) was immensely popular throughout the North.

Philosophy and Humor.

Representative of a broader field and not connected with politics are the comic characters "Widow Bedott," the creation of Mrs. Frances Whitcher (1812-1852), and the oft-quoted "Mrs. Partington" of Benjamin P. Shillaber (1814-1890), whose Life and Sayings of Mrs. Partington appeared in 1854. Henry W. Shaw (1818-1885), "Josh Billings," and Charles F. Browne (1834-1867), "Artemus Ward," are the real leaders in this group of humorous professionals. Both appeared as entertainers on the public platform, as well as in the columns of the newspapers. In 1866, Browne visited England, where his lecture on The Mormons created as much merriment as it had occasioned in the United States. His complete writings were published in 1875. Shaw's humorous philosophy was embodied chiefly in Josh Billings' Farmer's Allminax, his absurd system of spelling contributing to the fun.

Poets.

Of those who have written humorously in verse, we may mention John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887), whose humor mingling with sentiment is inferior to that of Thomas Hood, which it otherwise resembles, and Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903), of Philadelphia, author of the Hans Breitmann Ballads, published complete in 1871.

"Mark Twain," 1835-1910.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, born near Hannibal, Missouri, a distinctly western product, has come to hold the foremost place among American humorists, although his distinction as a man of letters is by no means limited to this single field. His humor is broad and virile, often edged with satire. Reverence for tradition is not one of his traits; the rôle of the iconoclast is one which he assumes with vigor and with zest. After an apprenticeship in a newspaper office, beginning at twelve years of age, and a brief career as pilot on the Mississippi packets (it was the call of the leadsman as he reported his soundings which supplied the peculiar pen-name), Mr. Clemens went to Nevada, where for a time he filled the post of territorial secretary. Later, in San Francisco, he again took up newspaper work, and here made his first literary success with the story of The Celebrated Jumping Frog, which, at the suggestion of Bret Harte, he published in The Californian, a short-lived literary journal, in 1867. His first book, Innocents Abroad (1869), was the humorous record of a trip through Europe; it brought immediate fame. Roughing It (1872) was based upon early experiences in the far West. The Gilded Age (1873), written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner, introduced the noteworthy character "Col. Sellers," with his sanguine temperament and his famous declaration "There's millions in it!" Tom Sawyer appeared in 1876, -- a remarkable study of boy character, and reminiscent of the author's youth. Another European trip resulted in A Tramp Abroad (1880). Mr. Clemens then entered a province new to him and surprised his readers with The Prince and the Pauper (1882), a charmingly written romance for children. Life on the Mississippi (1883) was followed by another strong story of boy-life amid rude surroundings, Huckleberry Finn (1884). The broad burlesque, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, appeared in 1889. A serious novel, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and a historical romance seriously conceived, Joan of Arc (1896), increased the literary reputation of the author. Mr. Clemens was the author also of numerous short stories distinguished by their originality, rather in the vein of the satirist than in that of the mere humorist. His last work was a leisurely autobiography, the chapters of which were enlivened with the old-time humor, mellowed and unimpaired by age.

Bret Harte, 1839-1902.

The early work of Francis Bret Harte, in verse at least, was largely humorous. His first success was as a humorist. Born in Albany, New York, Harte's school training came to an end with his father's death in 1854, and the fifteen-year-old boy, who had already become a lover of Charles Dickens, and had also published in a New York newspaper some immature verse of his own, went with his mother to the Pacific coast. The first few years of his life in California brought him little except experience and intimate acquaintance with the picturesque characters that later figured to such advantage in his poems and tales. He was a school teacher at Sonora, in Calaveras Country; he tried placer mining in the gold-fields; he was a messenger in the employ of the Wells-Fargo Express Company; finally he became a compositor on a San Francisco paper, and began to write sketches for the Golden Era. In 1861, while holding an appointment as secretary to the superintendent of the San Francisco Mint, Harte became the editor of the newly founded Overland Monthly; and in the second number of that publication appeared his first noteworthy tale, The Luck of Roaring Camp. Then followed The Outcasts of Poker Flat, Tennessee's Partner, and the other narratives which contain his inimitable portraitures of the primitive western civilization. A little later, he wrote the first and best of his dialect poems, Plain Language from Truthful James, or, as it was afterwards entitled, The Heathen Chinee.

In 1870, Bret Harte left California. The popularity of his stories and poems was unbounded, especially throughout the East, and in England. His subsequent career was a disappointment. Such literary work as he undertook was desultory and either an imitation of his earlier efforts, or something inferior. He was given, in 1878, a minor German consulate and two years later was transferred to Glasgow. Of this office he was relieved in 1885. He continued to live in England and published numerous volumes which did not increase his fame. He died at the home of friends in Surrey, in 1902.