The enormous quantity and richness of the fiction of the period make impossible extended criticism of any save those who were leaders or innovators. Many did most excellent work, work indeed in some cases that seems to point to permanence, yet since they brought nothing new either in material or in method we need not dwell long upon them.
No type of fiction, for instance, was more abundant all through the period than that which we have called the E. P. Roe type, and the most voluminous producer of it undoubtedly was Captain, later General, Charles King, who created no fewer than fifty-five novels of the half-sensational, half-sentimental type which we associate with the name of Roe. With his wide knowledge of army life, especially as lived in the frontier camps of the West after the Civil War, he was able to give his work a verisimilitude that added greatly to their popularity. The love story was skilfully blended with what seemed to be real history. The frontier stories of Mary Hallock Foote, wife of a civil engineer whose work called him into the mining camps of Colorado and Idaho, have the same characteristics. Their author, a clever illustrator, was able to extend her art to her descriptions of the primitive regions and savage humanity of the frontier, and for a time she was compared even with Bret Harte. But not for long. Her books, save for their novelty of setting, have no characteristics that are not conventional. Better is the work of Clara Louise Burnham. There is in her fiction more of imaginative power and more command of the subtleties of style, but even her best efforts fall far short of distinction.
Of the romancers of the period the leader for a time unquestionably was Julian Hawthorne, only son of the greatest of American romancers. In his earlier days he devoted himself to themes worthy of the Hawthorne name and treated them in what fairly may be called the Hawthorne manner. His novels, like Bressant and Archibald Malmaison, were hailed everywhere as remarkably promising work and there were many who predicted for him a place second only to his father's. But the man lacked seriousness, conscience, depth of life, knowledge of the human heart. After a short period of worthy endeavor he turned to the sensational and the trivial, and became a yellow journalist. No literary career seemingly so promising has ever failed more dismally.
Stronger romancers by far have been Blanche Willis Howard, Frederick J. Stimson, and Arthur Sherburne Hardy. Few American women have been more brilliant than Miss Howard. Her One Summer has a sprightliness and a humor about it that are perennial, and her Breton romance Guenn is among the greatest romances of the period in either England or America. The spirit of true romance breathes from it; and it came alive from its creator's heart and life. So far does it surpass all her other work that she is rated more and more now as a single-work artist. She passed her last years away from America in Stuttgart, where her husband, Herr von Teuffel, was acting as court physician to the king of Würtemberg. Hardy also was a romancer, a stylist of the French type, brilliant, finished. Few have ever brought to fiction a mind more keenly alert and more analytical. He was a mathematician of note, a writer of treatises on least squares and quarternions. But he was a poet as well and a romancer. His But yet a Woman has an atmosphere about it that is rarely found in literature in English. His Passe Rose is the most idealistic of all the historical romances: it moves like a prose poem. Stimson too had artistic imagination, grace of style of the old type joined to the freshness and vigor of the new period. It is to be regretted that he chose to devote himself to the law and write legal treatises that are everywhere recognized as authoritative rather than to do highly distinctive work in the more creative field of prose romance. None of these writers may be said to have added anything really new to the province in which they worked and so may be dismissed with a brief comment. They worked in old material with old methods and largely with old ideals, and though they worked often with surpassing skill, they were followers rather than leaders.
Several novels made much stir in the day of their first appearance, Bellamy's Looking Backward, for instance, John Hay's The Bread-Winners (1884), and Fuller's The Cliff Dwellers, that picture of Chicago life that for a time was thought to be as promising as Frank Norris's realistic work. Robert Grant's humorous and sprightly studies of society and life were also at various times much discussed, but all of them are seen now to have been written for their own generation alone. With every decade almost there comes a newness that for a time is supposed to put into eclipse even the fixed stars. A quarter of a century, however, tells the story. The Norwegian scholar and poet and novelist Boyesen, who did what Howells really did not do, take Tolstoy as his master, was thought for two decades to be of highest rank, but to-day his work, save for certain sections of his critical studies, is no longer read.
Even F. Hopkinson Smith is too near just at present for us to prophesy with confidence, yet it is hard to believe that his Colonel Carter is to be forgotten, and there are other parts of his work, like Tom Grogan and Caleb West, books that centered about his profession of lighthouse architect, that seem now like permanent additions to American fiction. There was a breeziness about his style, a cosmopolitanism, a sense of knowledge and authority that is most convincing. Some of his short stories, like those for instance in At Close Range—"A Night Out," to be still more specific—have a picturing power, a perfect naturalness, an accuracy of diction, that mark them as triumphs of realism in its best sense. Like Dr. Mitchell, he came late to literature, but when he did come he came strongly, laden with a wealth of materials, and he has left behind him a handful at least of novels and studies that bid fair to endure long.
VIII
Of the younger group of novelists, those writers born in the sixties and early seventies and publishing their first novels during the first decade of the new century, we shall say little. The new spirit of nationality that came in the seventies did not furnish the impulse that produced the work of this second generation of the period. It is a school of novelists distinct and by itself. We may only call the roll of its leaders, arranging it, perhaps, in the order of seniority: Gertrude Franklin Atherton (1859——), Bliss Perry (1860——), Owen Wister (1860——), John Fox, Jr. (1863——), Holman F. Day (1865——), Robert W. Chambers (1865——), Meredith Nicholson (1866——), David Graham Philips (1867–1911), Robert Herrick (1868——), Newton Booth Tarkington (1869——), Mary Johnston (1870——), Edith Wharton (——), Alice Hegan Rice (1870——), Winston Churchill (1871——), Stewart Edward White (1873——), Ellen Anderson Glasgow (1874——), Jack London (1876–1916). The earlier work of some of these writers falls under classifications which we have already discussed, as for instance Churchill's Richard Carvel, Mary Johnston's Prisoners of Hope, Chambers's Cardigan, and Wister's The Virginian. Of the great mass of the fiction of the group, however, and of a still younger group we shall say nothing. It was not inspired by the impulse that in the sixties and the seventies produced the National Period.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Josiah Gilbert Holland. (1819–1881.) History of Western Massachusetts, 1855; The Bay Path, 1857; Bitter-Sweet Letters to Young People, 1858; Gold Foil, 1859; Miss Gilbert's Career, 1860; Lessons in Life, 1861; Letter to the Joneses, 1863; Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects, 1865; Life of Lincoln, 1865; Kathrina The Marble Prophecy, 1872; Arthur Bonnicastle, 1873; Garnered Sheaves, 1873; Mistress of the Manse, 1874; Seven Oaks, 1875; Nicholas Minturn, 1877; Every-Day Topics (two series), 1870, 1882.
Edward Payson Roe. (1838–1888.) Barriers Burned Away, 1872; What Can She Do? 1873; The Opening of a Chestnut Burr, 1874; From Jest to Earnest, 1875; Near to Nature's Heart, 1876; A Knight of the Nineteenth Century, 1877; A Face Illumined, 1878; A Day of Fate, 1880; Without a Home, 1881; His Somber Rivals, 1883; An Unexpected Result, 1883; Nature's Serial Story, 1884; A Young Girl's Wooing, 1884; Driven Back to Eden, 1885; An Original Belle, 1885; He Fell in Love with His Wife, 1886; The Earth Trembled, 1887; Found, yet Lost, 1888; Miss Lou, 1888; E. P. Roe: Reminiscences of His Life. By his sister, Mary A. Roe, 1899.
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett. (1849——.) That Lass o' Lowrie's, 1877; Surly Tim, 1877; Haworth's, 1879; Louisiana, 1880; A Fair Barbarian, 1881; Through One Administration, 1883; Little Lord Fauntleroy, 1886; Editha's Burglar, 1888; Sara Crewe, 1888; The Pretty Sister of José, 1889; Little Saint Elizabeth, 1890; Giovanni and the Other, 1892; The One I Knew Best of All [autobiography], 1893; Two Little Pilgrims' Progress, 1895; A Lady of Quality, 1896; His Grace of Osmonde, 1897; In Connection with the De-Willoughby Claim, 1899; The Making of a Marchioness, 1901; The Methods of Lady Walderhurst, 1902; In the Closed Room, 1904; A Little Princess: Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe, 1905; Dawn of a To-morrow, 1906; Earlier Stories, first and second series, 1906; Queen Silver-Bell, 1906; Racketty-Packetty House, 1906; The Shuttle, 1907; Cozy Lion, 1907; Good Wolf, 1908; Spring Cleaning; as Told by Queen Crosspatch, 1908; Land of the Blue Flower, 1909; Baby Crusoe and His Man Saturday, 1909; Secret Garden, 1911; My Robin, 1912; T. Tembaron, 1913.
Francis Marion Crawford. (1854–1909.) Mr. Isaacs, 1882; Doctor Claudius, 1883; A Roman Singer, To Leeward, and An American Politician, 1884; Zoroaster, 1885; A Tale of a Lonely Parish, 1886; Marzio's Crucifix, Paul Patoff, and Saracinesca, 1887; With the Immortals, 1888; Greifenstein and Sant' Ilario, 1889; The Cigarette-maker's Romance, 1890; Kahled and The Witch of Prague, 1891; The Three Fates, The Children of the King, and Don Orsino, 1892; Marion Darche, Pietro Ghisleri, and The Novel: What It Is, 1893; Katherine Lauderdale, Love in Idleness, The Ralstons, Casa Braccio, and Adam Johnstone's Son, 1894; Taquisara, and Corleone, 1896; Ave Roma Immortalis, 1898; Via Crucis, 1899; In the Palace of the King, Southern Italy and Sicily, and The Rulers of the South, 1900; Marietta, a Maid of Venice, 1901; Cecilia, A Story of Modern Rome, 1902; The Heart of Rome, and Man Overboard, 1903; Whosoever Shall Offend, 1904; Fair Margaret and Salve Venetia, 1905; A Lady of Rome, 1906; Arethusa and The Little City of Hope, 1907; The Primadonna and The Diva's Ruby, 1908; The White Sister, 1909.
Margaretta Wade Deland. (1857——.) The Old Garden and Other Verses, 1886; John Ward, Preacher, 1888; Florida Days, 1889; Sidney, 1890; Story of a Child, 1892; Mr. Tommy Dove, and Other Stories, 1893; Philip and His Wife, 1894; The Wisdom of Fools, 1897; Old Chester Tales, 1898; Dr. Lavendar's People, 1903; The Common Way, 1904; The Awakening of Helena Ritchie, 1906; An Encore, 1907; R. J. Mother and Some Other People, 1908; Where the Laborers Are Few, 1909; The Way of Peace, 1910; The Iron Woman, 1911; The Voice, 1912; Partners, 1913; The Hands of Esau, 1914.
Stephen Crane. (1871–1900.) The Black Riders and Other Lines, 1895; The Red Badge of Courage: Episode of the American Civil War, 1895; Maggie: a Girl of the Streets, 1896; George's Mother, 1896; The Little Regiment, and Other Episodes of the American Civil War, 1896; The Third Violet, 1897; The Open Boat, and Other Tales of Adventure, 1898; The Monster and Other Stories, 1899; Active Service: a Novel, 1899; War Is Kind, 1899; Whilomville Stories, 1900; Great Battles of the World, 1900; Wounds in the Rain: War Stories, 1900.
Frank Norris. (1870–1902.) Moran of "The Lady Letty," 1898; Blix, 1899; McTeague: a Story of San Francisco, 1899; A Man's Woman, 1900; The Octopus: a Story of California, 1901; The Pit: a Story of Chicago, 1902; A Deal in Wheat, and Other Stories, 1903; Complete Works. Golden Gate Edition. Seven Volumes, 1903; Responsibilities of the Novelist and Other Literary Essays, 1903; Vandover and the Brute.
Harold Frederic. (1856–1898.) Seth's Brother's Wife: a Study of Life in the Greater New York, 1887; The Lawton Girl, 1890; In the Valley, 1891; Young Emperor William II. of Germany, 1891; The New Exodus: a Study of Israel in Russia, 1892; The Return of O'Mahony, 1892; The Copperhead, 1893; Marsena, and Other Stories of the War Time, 1894; Mrs. Albert Grundy: Observations in Philistia, 1896; The Damnation of Theron Ware, 1896; March Hares, 1896; The Deserter and Other Stories: a Book of Two Wars, 1898; Gloria Mundi, 1899; The Market-Place, 1899.
Paul Leicester Ford. (1865–1902.) Who Was the Mother of Franklin's Son? 1889; The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him, 1894; The True George Washington, 1896; The Great K. and A. Robbery, 1897; The Story of an Untold Love, 1897; Tattle Tales of Cupid, 1898; Janice Meredith: a Story of the American Revolution, 1899; The Many-sided Franklin, 1899; Wanted: a Match-maker, 1900; A House Party, 1901; Wanted: a Chaperon, 1902; A Checked Love Affair; and the Cortelyou Feud, 1903; Love Finds a Way, 1904; Thomas Jefferson, 1904. His bibliographies and edited work not listed.
Silas Weir Mitchell. (1829–1914.) Hephzibah Guiness, 1880; Thee and You, 1880; A Draft on the Bank of Spain, 1880; In War Time, 1882; The Hill of Stones and Other Poems, 1883; Roland Blake, 1886; Far in the Forest, 1889; The Cup of Youth and Other Poems, 1889; The Psalm of Death and Other Poems, 1890; Characteristics, 1892; Francis Blake: a Tragedy of the Sea, 1892; The Mother and Other Poems, 1892; Mr. Kris Kringle: a Christmas Tale, 1893; Philip Vernon: a Tale in Prose and Verse, 1895; When All the Woods Are Green: a Novel, 1894; Madeira's Party, 1895; Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker, 1897; Adventures of Francois, Foundling, Thief, Juggler, and Fencing Master, During the French Revolution, 1898; Autobiography of a Quack, 1900; Dr. North and His Friends, 1900; The Wager and Other Poems, 1900; Circumstance, 1901; A Comedy of Conscience, 1903; Little Stories, 1903; New Samaria and The Summer of St. Martin, 1904; The Youth of Washington, 1904; Constance Trescott, 1905; A Diplomatic Adventure, 1905; The Red City: a Novel of the Second Administration of President Washington, 1907; John Sherwood, Ironmaster, 1910; The Guillotine Club and Other Stories, 1910; Westways, 1913. His many medical works not listed.
Charles King. (1844——.) The Colonel's Daughter; or, Winning His Spurs, 1883; Marion's Faith, 1886; The Deserter, 1887; From the Ranks, 1887; A War-Time Wooing, 1888; Between the Lines, 1889; Sunset Pass, 1889; Laramie; or, the Queen of Bedlam: a Story of the Sioux War of 1876, 1889; Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier, 1890; The Colonel's Christmas Dinner, 1890; Campaigning with Crook and Stories of Army Life, 1890; Trials of a Staff Officer, 1891; Two Soldiers, 1891; Dunraven Ranch, 1891; Captain Blake, 1891; Foes in Ambush, 1893; A Soldier's Secret: a Story of the Sioux War of 1890, 1893; Waring's Peril, 1894; Initial Experience and Other Stories, 1894; Cadet Days: a Story of West Point, 1894; Under Fire, 1895; Story of Fort Frayne, 1895; Rancho del Muerlo, 1895; Captain Close, 1895; Sergeant Crœsus, 1895; An Army Wife, 1896; A Garrison Tangle, 1896; A Tame Surrender: a Story of the Chicago Strike, 1896; Trooper Ross, 1896; Trumpeter Fred: a Story of the Plains, 1896; Warrior Gap: a Story of the Sioux Outbreak of 1868, 1897; Ray's Recruit, 1898; The General's Double: a Story of the Army of the Potomac, 1898; A Wounded Name, 1898; Trooper Galahad, 1899; From School to Battlefield, 1899; In Spite of Foes, 1901; From the Ranks, 1901; Norman Holt: a Story of the Army of the Cumberland, 1901; Ray's Daughter: a Story of Manila, 1901; Conquering Corps Badge and Other Stories of the Philippines, 1902; The Iron Brigade, 1902; Way Out West, 1902; An Apache Princess, 1903; A Daughter of the Sioux, 1903; Comrades in Arms, 1904; A Knight of Columbia, 1904; A Medal of Honor, 1905; Famous and Decisive Battles of the World, 1905; A Soldier's Trial: an Episode of the Canteen Crusade, 1905; Farther Story of Lieutenant Sandy Ray, 1906; Tonio, Son of the Sierras, 1906; Captured: a Story of Sandy Bay, 1907; The Rock of Chicamauga, 1907; To the Front, 1908; Lanier of the Cavalry, 1909; The True Ulysses S. Grant, 1914.
Mary Hallock Foote. (1847——.) The Led-Horse Claim: Romance of a Mining Camp, 1883; John Bodewin's Testimony, 1885; The Last Assembly Ball, 1886; The Chosen Valley, 1892; Cœur d'Alene, 1894; In Exile and Other Stories, 1894; The Cup of Trembling and Other Stories, 1895; Little Fig-tree Stories, 1899; The Prodigal, 1900; The Desert and The Sown, 1902; A Touch of Sin and Other Stories, 1903; Royal Americans, 1910; Picked Company: a Novel, 1912.
Clara Louise Burnham. (1854——.) No Gentleman, 1881; A Sane Lunatic, 1882; Dearly Bought, 1884; Next Door, 1886; Young Maids and Old, 1888; The Mistress of Beech Knoll, 1890; Miss Bragg's Secretary, 1892; Dr. Latimer, 1893; Sweet Clover, 1894; The Wise Woman, 1895; Miss Archer Archer, 1897; A Great Love, 1898; A West Point Wooing, 1899; Miss Prichard's Wedding Trip, 1901; The Right Princess, 1902; Jewel, 1903; Jewel's Story Book, 1904; The Opened Shutters, 1906; The Leaven of Love, 1908; Clever Betsey, 1910; The Inner Flame, 1912.
Julian Hawthorne. (1846——.) Bressant, 1873; Idolatry, 1874; Saxon Studies, 1875; Garth, 1877; Mrs. Gainsborough's Diamonds, 1878; Archibald Malmaison, 1879; Sebastian Strome, 1880; Fortune's Fool, 1883; Dust: a Novel, 1883; Beatrix Randolph, 1883; Prince Saroni's Wife, 1884; Noble Blood, 1884; Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife: a Biography, 1885; Love—or a Name, 1885; Sinfire, 1886; The Trial of Gideon, 1886; John Parmelee's Curse, 1886; Confessions and Criticisms, 1887; five novels from the Diary of Inspector Byrnes: The Tragic Mystery, The Great Bank Robbery, An American Penman, Section 558, 1887, and Another's Crime, 1888; The Professor's Sister: a Romance; A Miser of Second Avenue, 1888; A Dream and a Forgetting, 1888; David Poindexter's Disappearance, 1888; Kildhurin's Oak, 1889; Constance, 1889; Pauline, 1890; A Stage Friend, 1890; American Literature: an Elementary Textbook [with Leonard Lemmon], 1891; Humors of the Fair, 1893; Six Cent Sam's, 1893; The Golden Fleece: a Romance, 1896; A Fool of Nature, 1896; Love Is a Spirit, 1896; A History of the United States, 1898; Hawthorne and His Circle, 1903; The Secret of Solomon, 1909; Lovers in Heaven, 1910; The Subterranean Brotherhood, 1914.
Blanche Willis Howard, Mrs. von Teuffel. (1847–1898.) One Summer, 1877; One Year Abroad, 1877; Aunt Serena, 1881; Guenn: a Wave of the Breton Coast, 1884; The Open Door, 1891; A Fellowe and His Wife [with W. Sharp], 1892; A Battle and a Boy, 1892; No Heroes, 1893; Seven on the Highways, 1897; Dionysius, the Weaver's Heart's Dearest, 1899; The Garden of Eden, 1900.
Edward Bellamy. (1850–1898.) Six to One: a Nantucket Idyl, 1878; Dr. Heidenhoff's Process, 1880; Miss Luddington's Sister: a Romance of Immortality, 1884; Looking Backward, 2000–1881, 1888; Equality, 1897; A Blindman's World, and Other Stories, 1898; The Duke of Stockbridge: a Romance of Shay's Rebellion, 1900.
Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen. (1848–1895.) Gunnar, 1874; A Norseman's Pilgrimage, 1875; Tales from Two Hemispheres, 1876; Falconberg, 1879; Goethe and Schiller: Their Lives and Works, 1879; Queen Titania, 1881; Ilka on the Hill-Top, 1881; Idyls of Norway and Other Poems, 1882; A Daughter of the Philistines, 1883; The Story of Norway, 1886; The Modern Vikings, 1887; Vagabond Tales, 1889; The Light of Her Countenance, 1889; The Mammon of Unrighteousness, 1891; Essays on German Literature, 1892; Boyhood in Norway, 1892; The Golden Calf: a Novel, 1892; Social Strugglers, 1893; Commentary on the Writings of Henrik Ibsen, 1894; Literary and Social Silhouettes, 1894; Essays on Scandinavian Literature, 1895.
Arthur Sherburne Hardy. (1847——.) Francesca of Rimini: a Poem, 1878; But Yet a Woman, 1883; The Wind of Destiny, 1886; Passe Rose, 1889; Life and Letters of Joseph Hardy Neesima, 1891; Songs of Two, 1900; His Daughter First, 1903; Aurélie, 1912; Diane and Her Friends, 1914. His mathematical works not listed.
Robert Grant. (1852——.) The Little Tin Gods-on-Wheels; or, Society in Our Modern Athens, 1879; The Confessions of a Frivolous Girl, 1880; The Lambs: a Tragedy, 1882; An Average Man, 1884; Face to Face, 1886; The Knave of Hearts: a Fairy Story, 1886; A Romantic Young Lady, 1886; Jack Hall, 1887; Jack in the Bush; or, a Summer on a Salmon River, 1888; The Carletons, 1891; Mrs. Harold Stagg, 1891; The Reflections of a Married Man, 1892; The Opinions of a Philosopher, 1893; The Art of Living, 1895; A Bachelor's Christmas, 1895; The North Shore of Massachusetts, 1896; Search-Light Letters, 1899; Unleavened Bread, 1900; The Undercurrent, 1904; The Orchid, 1905; Law-breakers and Other Stories, 1906; The Chippendales, 1909; Confessions of a Grandfather, 1912.
Frederick Jesup Stimson, "J. S. of Dale." (1855——.) Rollo's Journey to Cambridge, 1879; Guerndale, an Old Story, 1882; The Crime of Henry Vane, 1884; The Sentimental Calendar, 1886; First Harvests, 1888; Mrs. Knollys and Other Stories, 1894; Pirate Gold, 1896; King Noanett: a Story of Old Virginia and Massachusetts Bay, 1896; Jethro Bacon of Sandwich, 1902; In Cure of Her Soul, 1906. His law publications not listed.
Henry Blake Fuller. (1857——.) The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani, 1891; The Chatelaine of La Trinité, 1892; The Cliff-Dwellers, 1893; With the Procession, 1895; The Puppet-Booth: Twelve Plays, 1896; From the Other Side: Stories of Transatlantic Travel, 1898; The Last Refuge: a Sicilian Romance, 1900; Under the Skylights, 1901; Waldo Trench and Others: Stories of Americans in Italy, 1908.
Francis Hopkinson Smith. (1838–1915.) Old Lines in New Black and White, 1885; Well-Worn Roads, 1886; A White Umbrella in Mexico, 1889; A Book of the Tile Club, 1890; Col. Carter of Cartersville, 1891; A Day at Laguerre's, 1892; American Illustrators, 1892; A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others, 1895; Tom Grogan, 1896; Gondola Days, 1897; Venice of To-day, 1897; Caleb West, 1898; The Other Fellow, 1899; The Fortunes of Oliver Horn, 1902; The Under Dog, 1903; Col. Carter's Christmas, 1904; At Close Range, 1905; The Wood Fire in Number 3, 1905; The Tides of Barnegat, 1906; The Veiled Lady, 1907; The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman, 1907; Peter, 1908; Forty Minutes Late, 1909; Kennedy Square, 1911; The Arm-Chair at the Inn, 1912; In Thackeray's London, 1913; In Dickens's London, 1914.