Many histories of special occurrences of the war have since appeared, and many biographies of those who played prominent parts in it, and when time shall have given these, and the great events they commemorate, their true perspective, the poet, novelist, and historian of the future will find in them ample material for a truly national literature.
Among the poets of the time only a few of the more prominent can be named. Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) is equally distinguished as a poet and prose writer of fiction and travels. His translation of Faust in the original metre is accepted as the best representation of the German master in the English tongue, and apart from its merits as a translation, it has added to the literature by the beauty and power of its versification. His poem of "Deukalion" shows great originality and power of imagination. Richard H. Stoddard (b. 1825) is a poet and critic, equally distinguished in both departments. Edmund C. Stedman (b. 1833) is known by his translations from the Greek poets and his original poems marked by vigor and spontaneity of thought, poetic power, and precision in art. His critical volume on the Victorian poets is notable for dispassionate, conscientious, and skillful and sympathetic criticism.
Walt Whitman (b. 1819) writes with great force, originality, and sympathy with all forms of struggle and suffering, but with utter contempt for conventionalities and for the acknowledged limits of true art. Richard W. Gilder has a delicate fancy and power of poetic expression. William Winter, as a writer of occasional verses, has rare felicity of thought and execution. William W. Story adds to his many other gifts those of a true poet. Charles De Kay is the author of many poems original in conception and execution. Thomas Bailey Aldrich has written much dainty and musical verse and several successful novels. Will Carleton, the author of "Farm Ballads," displays a keen sympathy for the harder phases of common life. Charles G. Leland, in prose and humorous poetry, is widely read, and known also by his efforts to introduce industrial art into schools. Henry Howard Brownell is the author of "War Lyrics," among the best of their kind. Edgar Fawcett is equally known as a poet and novelist. Joaquin Miller, in his poems, gives pictures of lawless and adventurous life.
Of the many distinguished women in contemporary American literature only a few can here be named. Helen Jackson (H. H.) is a brilliant prose writer and a poet of originality and power. She is the author of many essays and works of fiction, and of an exhaustive work on the Indian question. Emma Lazarus has written many poems of a high order. Annie Fields recalls the spirit and imagination of the Greek mythology. Edith M. Thomas, in her poems, shows high culture, originality, and imagination. Those of Lucy Larcom belong to every-day life, and are truthful and pathetic. Mary Mapes Dodge is a charming writer of tales and poems for children, and of other poems, Celia Thaxter dwells on the picturesque features of nature on sea and land. Julia Dorr in her novels and poems gives proof of great versatility of talents. Ellen Hutchinson is a writer of imaginative and musical verses. Elizabeth Stoddard is the author of several powerful novels and of some fine poems. Of equal merit are the productions of Louise Chandler Moulton, Nora Perry, Edna Dean Proctor, S. M. B. Piatt, Margaret Preston, Harriet Preston, Elizabeth Akers Allen, Sarah Woolsey (Susan Coolidge), Laura Johnson, Mary Clemmer, Mary C. Bradley, Kate Putnam Osgood, Harriet Kimball, Marian Douglas, Mary Prescott, Laura C. Redden.
In prose Frances Hodgson Burnett is the author of many interesting novels and stories; Harriet Spofford, of original tales; Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, of popular and highly wrought novels; Adeline Whitney, of entertaining novels of every-day life; Rebecca Harding Davis, of powerful though sombre novels, of pictures of contemporary life, society, and thought; Louisa Alcott, of a series of charming New England stories for the young. Rose Terry Cooke, in her short stories, has presented many striking studies of New England life and character; and Sarah Orne Jewett deals with the same material in a manner both strong and refined. Julia Fletcher and Blanche Willis Howard have each written successful novels, and Constance Fenimore Woolson is the author of many vivid and well written tales. Mary A. Dadge (Gail Hamilton) is a writer on many subjects, sparkling, witty, aggressive; Clara Erskine Waters writes ably on art; Kate Field is a vigorous and brilliant writer in journalism, travels, and criticism.
FICTION.—Theodore Winthrop (1828-1861) fell an early sacrifice in the war. His descriptions of prairie life, his fresh and vigorous individualization of character and power of narrative indicate a vein of original genius which was foil of promise. William Dean Howells and Henry James are foremost as writers of the analytic and realistic school. Their studies of character are life-like and finished, their satire keen and good-natured. The romances of Julian Hawthorne deal with the marvelous and unreal. Bret Harte (b. 1839) presents us with vivid and lifelike pictures of wild Californian life, of the rude hate and love which prevail in an atmosphere of lawlessness, redeemed by touching exhibitions of gratitude and magnanimity. His dialect poems and those of John Hay enjoy a wide popularity. The latter will also be remembered for his "Castilian Days," a volume of fascinating studies of Spanish subjects. George W. Cable is known for his pictures of Creole life; Edward Eggleston, for his sketches of the shrewd and kindly humorous Western life. Albion Tourgée has been the first to avail himself in fiction of the political conditions growing out of the war. Joel Chandler Harris delineates the character, dialect, and peculiarities of the negro race in his "Sketches in Black and White," and Richard Malcolm Johnston has graphically described phases of Southern life which have almost passed away. F. Marion Crawford shows originality and promise in the novels he has so far given to the public; the same may be said of Arthur S. Hardy, George P. Lathrop, W.H. Bishop, Frank R. Stockton, and F.J. Stinson.
SCIENCE.—In astronomy, Young, Henry Draper, and Langley may be named; in geology, Dana and Leconte; in physiology, Flint and Dalton; Marsh, in palaeontology, and Leidy, in zöology; Professor Whitney is an able writer on philology and Oriental literature. Professor E.L. Youmans has organized the simultaneous publication, in this country, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia, of an international series of scientific works by the ablest living writers, which has proved eminently successful. Among the theologians representing various schools may be named, Philip Schaff, Roswell D. Hitchcock, Samuel Osgood, Henry W. Bellows, Frederick H. Hedge, Edward E. Hale, Newman Smyth, William R. Alger, and Octavius B. Frothingham.
MISCELLANEOUS.—John Fiske is an able and versatile thinker and an expounder of the philosophy of Herbert Spencer, and a writer on American history, and on the leading subjects of scientific thought. Charles Brace is the author of many volumes on various social problems. Moses Coit Tyler is a writer on American literature and history; Andrew D. White, on French history, and on science and religion. Professor McMaster's "History of the People of the United States" is considered a scholarly and picturesque work. Professor Lounsbury has written, in his "Cooper," one of the best of modern biographies. Charles Dudley Warner is distinguished by the great geniality and humor of his writings, alternately quaint, delicate, and pungent. The charm and purity of his diction recall the best school of English essayists. Paul Du Chaillu is widely known for his accounts of travel in Africa and elsewhere; Moncure D. Conway, as a writer on social, literary, and artistic themes. John Burroughs is a close observer of nature; Eugene Schuyler is the author of a history of Peter the Great; Parkman throws much light on early American history; Parton is the author of many attractive biographies; Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) is known for his humorous writings.
CONCLUSION.
In the preceding pages the progress of literature has been briefly traced through its various periods—from the time when its meagre records were confined to inscriptions engraved on stone, or inscribed on clay tablets or papyrus leaves, or in its later and more perfect development when, written on parchment, it was the possession of the learned few, hidden in libraries and so precious that a book was sometimes the ransom of a city— till the invention of printing gave to the world the accumulated treasures of the past; and from that time to the present, when the press has poured forth from year to year an ever increasing succession of books, the records of human thought, achievement, and emotion which constitute literature.