Joel Chandler Harris.—Joel Chandler Harris (1848–1908) used to describe himself as a journalist who became a literary man by accident. Few accidents have been luckier. He was born at Eatonton, Putnam County, Georgia. At fourteen he began to set type in a country newspaper office, contributing surreptitiously to its columns, setting his articles from the case instead of committing them to paper. Then he studied law and practised for a time at Forsyth, Georgia, at the same time doing literary work. In 1876, he joined the staff of the Atlanta Constitution, of which he became editor in 1890. To this paper he contributed the beast stories collected in 1881 under the title of “Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings,” which have ever since been immensely popular. Uncle Remus, a shrewd and witty old negro, has an inexhaustible supply of stories of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and the other creatures; these “the little boy” and the rest of us never tire of hearing. The stories themselves, brought from Africa by the negroes, are interesting variant forms of the great beast epic, the classic example of which is “Reynard the Fox.”[18] They celebrate the victory of craft over strength, of brain over brawn. Two other series afterward appeared, “Nights with Uncle Remus” (1883) and “Uncle Remus and His Friends” (1892); and now there is an Uncle Remus’ Magazine. Mr. Harris’ other books have helped to complete an admirably faithful picture of Middle Georgia rural life before, during, and after the Civil War. They include “At Teague Poteet’s” (published in 1883 in The Century), “Mingo, and Other Sketches in Black and White” (1884), “Free Joe” (1887), “Balaam and His Master, and Other Sketches and Stories” (1891), in which melancholy and pathos predominate, “Aaron in the Wildwoods” (1897), “Tales of the Home Folks in Peace and War” (1898), “The Chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann” (1899), “On the Wing of Occasions” (1900). With the single exception of “Gabriel Tolliver” (1902), which was not successful, Mr. Harris’ constant work in journalism prevented him from undertaking any long novel of plantation life; shorter flights were better suited to his ability.
Maurice Thompson.—Maurice Thompson (1844–1901), of Indiana, wrote several romances. The first three, dealing with Southern life, “A Tallahassee Girl” (1882), “His Second Campaign” (1883), and “At Love’s Extremes” (1885), were not very successful. In “A Banker of Bankersville” (1886) he succeeded better, giving a true and fresh picture of life in Indiana. The novel by which he is best known is “Alice of Old Vincennes” (1901), a stirring tale of French Indiana and the War of Independence. “Sweetheart Manette” (1901) gives an agreeable sketch of life in a Creole town on the Gulf Coast.
Francis Marion Crawford.—“The most versatile and various of modern novelists,” if Mr. Andrew Lang’s opinion is to be accepted, is Mr. F. Marion Crawford. Not only has he been prolific in a high degree, having written over thirty novels, but his scenes and characters have a wide range both in time and in place. He was born at Bagni di Lucca, Italy, in 1854, the son of Thomas Crawford the sculptor (who was of Scotch-Irish parentage) and Louisa Ward Crawford, a sister of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Prepared for college at St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire, he entered Harvard, but remained there only a short time. He spent the years 1870–74 mainly at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1874–76 at Karlsruhe and Heidelberg, and 1877–78 at the University of Rome, where he studied Sanskrit. In 1879 he went to India and for two years was connected with the Allahabad Indian Herald. Returning to America, he spent two years in New York and Boston, continuing his Sanskrit and Zend studies under Professor Lanman of Harvard. No other American novelist save Mr. James has had so cosmopolitan a training. Relating a story of a Persian jewel merchant’s adventure in India to his uncle, Samuel Ward, he was advised to make a novel of it; the result was the fascinating “Mr. Isaacs” (1882). Soon afterward Mr. Crawford returned to Italy, where, near Sorrento, he has since lived.
Mr. Crawford has a gift of rapid composition, sometimes completing a novel in less than a month; but his work as a whole is markedly free from slovenliness or signs of undue haste. His stories can be only briefly described: “Dr. Claudius” (1883), a highly romantic old-fashioned love-story of a learned Heidelberg Ph.D.; “To Leeward” (1883), a clever story of a wife’s infidelity and of Roman society; “A Roman Singer” (1884), the story of an Italian peasant boy who became a great tenor and married a German countess; “An American Politician” (1885), which deals, in the style of Henry James, and with indifferent success, with the corruption in American politics; “Zoroaster” (1885), a strong romance written also in French, and brilliantly treating of the court of King Darius and the prophet Daniel; “A Tale of a Lonely Parish” (1886), a quiet and charming story of English rural life; “Paul Patoff” (1887), “a tale and nothing else,” the scene of which is laid in modern Constantinople; “Marzio’s Crucifix” (1887, written also in French), which is exceptional among his works in that it portrays Italian lower- and middle-class life, and which is considered by many his best work; “Saracinesca” (1887), “Sant’ Ilario” (1889), “Don Orsino” (1892), and “Corleone” (1898), four novels forming a sequence and presenting on a broad canvas a remarkable picture of Roman society in the last third of the nineteenth century; “Greifenstein” (1889), a tragedy of the Black Forest, “a true story,” containing accurate descriptions of German student life; “A Cigarette-Maker’s Romance” (1890), a perfectly constructed romantic and absorbing story of Russian and Polish people living in Munich; “Khaled, a Romance of Arabia” (1891), of which a genie is the hero; “The Witch of Prague” (1891), which deals with hypnotism, a theme difficult to handle in fiction; “The Three Fates” (1892), a realistic story of New York society life and the best of Mr. Crawford’s American studies; “Marion Darche” (1893), another story of New York and of the devotion of a forger’s wife; “The Children of the King” (1893), a melodramatic story of Calabrian peasant life; “Pietro Ghisleri” (1893), in which both romantic and realistic elements are found and which pictures the gay society of Rome; “Katharine Lauderdale” and its sequel “The Ralstons” (1894), chronicles of a New York family; “Casa Braccio” (1895), a melodrama of passion; “Taquisara” (1896), an unpleasant story of the last representative of a great Saracen family and a princess of Acireale; “Via Crucis” (1899), a historical romance of the Second Crusade; “In the Palace of the King” (1900), a tale of passion, the hero of which is Don John of Austria, and the scene of which is the court of Philip II. of Spain; “Marietta, a Maid of Venice” (1901), a fifteenth-century story; “The Heart of Rome” (1903), the motif of which is modern Rome’s treatment of its artistic heritage; “Fair Margaret” (1905), published in London as “Soprano, a Portrait,” recounting the fascinating career of Margaret Donne, who becomes a successful opera singer; “Whosoever Shall Offend” (1905), an effective story of crime; and “A Lady of Rome” (1906), a study of character moulded by strong religious belief.
Of this remarkable series, the most noteworthy, though probably not the most popular, are those dealing with Italian life. Mr. Crawford has been markedly successful in his portraiture of Italian middle-class life, and only a little less so in writing of the aristocracy. He excels in representing agreeable, well-bred men and women; under his touch they are natural, human, lifelike. He is fertile in invention and lavish of characters and plot-incident, using in quite a subordinate connection materials which other novelists would reserve for the main plots of future novels. In general, his plots are skilfully constructed; occasionally, as in “Taquisara” (which is almost two separate stories), he fails to weld his material insolubly together. He has a remarkably bold and vigorous imagination, and does not hesitate to introduce daring conceptions and incidents; a romantic cast of mind is necessary if one would fully enjoy him. A Roman Catholic himself, he has had the amplest opportunity for studying the Catholic temperament and point of view, which he interprets admirably; it is natural that he should be weakest in portraying the characters of unbelievers or heretics. He is always dispassionate, calm, never losing himself in any storm of passion. His fiction as a whole is remarkably even, and it cannot be affirmed that his latest work shows deterioration. For the skill with which he has utilised vast stores of learning, for the effective though restrained use of a virile and picturesque imagination, for “astonishing literary tact” and breadth of view, Mr. Crawford has not his equal among living American writers, and his place is among the writers who only just miss the first rank.
Frederic Jesup Stimson.—Frederic J. Stimson, a native of Dedham, Massachusetts (born in 1855), has led a busy life as lawyer, legal writer, Harvard professor, and novelist. His earlier novels were published over the pen name of “J. S. of Dale.” He has written, among others, “Guerndale” (1882), “The Crime of Henry Vane” (1884), the plot of which is unconvincing, “First Harvests” (1888), “Mrs. Knollys and Other Stories” (1894), “Pirate Gold” (1896), “King Noanett” (1896), carefully worked out, an exciting story of mystery and adventure, “Jethro Bacon of Sandwich” (1902), and “In Cure of Her Soul” (1906). Mr. Stimson has not taken high rank as a novelist, but his stories are generally interesting and the later ones may be commended to those who are fond of good romances. “The Weaker Sex” (The Atlantic, April, 1901) is a powerful short story.
Henry Cuyler Bunner.—Henry C. Bunner (1855–96), for many years the editor of Puck, wrote many short stories and some good novels. He was a native of Oswego, New York, and received his literary training in the school of journalism, being connected first with The Sun and then with The Arcadian, a literary weekly. “A Woman of Honor” (1883) gave some promise in plot and incident. “Love in Old Cloathes” (The Century, September, 1883) brought him a reputation as a clever story-teller. His next novel, “The Midge,” an ingenious story of the New York French quarter, appeared in 1886; it was followed by “The Story of a New York House” (1887), the somewhat melancholy history of a house, typifying the family which occupies it. “Natural Selection” appeared serially in Scribner’s (1888). “Zadoc Pine, and Other Stories” (1891) are tales the skilful construction of which shows how carefully Bunner studied Boccaccio; while in “Short Sixes” (1891), his most popular stories, he avowed his discipleship to Maupassant. He was more successful in his short stories than in his novels.
Arthur Sherburne Hardy.—Arthur S. Hardy (born in 1847 at Andover, Mass.), in 1902–6 United States Minister Plenipotentiary at Madrid, has had a varied career. Graduating at West Point in 1869, he served for a year in the Third United States Artillery, then became in succession professor of civil engineering, first at Iowa College, later at Dartmouth, professor of mathematics at Dartmouth, editor of The Cosmopolitan, and United States Minister to Persia, to Greece, Roumania, and Servia, and to Switzerland. Well known for several mathematical publications, he is the author of three novels, two of which are distinguished for happy description, graceful diction, and profound reflection rather than for individuality of plot or able development of character. “But Yet a Woman” (1883) is a story, somewhat deficient in local colour, of the coming of love to a French maiden destined for the convent. “The Wind of Destiny” (1886) is a story of a weak woman and two men which, though it lacks dramatic interest, offers some compensation in “the peculiarly noble air which pervades it, the extreme beauty of many of its passages, the revelation of life flashed occasionally as from a diamond of light, and perhaps more than all for the very subtle charm which hangs over the whole movement of the story.”[19] “Passe Rose” (1889) is a charming poetical romance of Provence in the stirring times of Charles the Great, and is decidedly Mr. Hardy’s most successful novel. His latest story is “His Daughter First” (1903). With rare sympathy, which he makes no attempt to conceal, he has interpreted several diverse types, and his men and women are alive.
Mary Hallock Foote.—Born at Milton-on-the-Hudson, New York, in 1847, Mary Hallock early showed artistic talent and at sixteen began to study design in Cooper Institute, New York City. She was married in 1876 to Arthur D. Foote, a California mining engineer, and travelled extensively in the Southwest. Her varied experiences have been utilised with marked literary skill in a series of stories, the first of which was “The Led Horse Claim” (1883), in which the story of Romeo and Juliet was repeated in a California mining camp, though with a happy ending. “The Chosen Valley” (1892) is a study in contrasts, recounting an episode in the reclaiming by irrigation of the waste lands of the West. In 1894 appeared “Cœur d’Alene,” a love-story with a background in the labour troubles. She has also written “John Bowdoin’s Testimony” (1886), “The Last Assembly Ball” (1889), “In Exile” (1894), and “The Cup of Trembling” (1895). Her latest stories, “The Desert and the Sown” (1902), a study of ideal self-sacrifice, and “A Touch of Sun, and Other Stories” (1903), are hardly up to the level of her earlier work, which, in its vivid representation of wild Western life, entitles her to a place with Bret Harte.
Wolcott Balestier.—The promise of the too short life of Charles Wolcott Balestier (1861–91) deserves record. He was born at Rochester, New York, studied at Cornell University and the University of Virginia, and became first the editor of Tid-Bits and then the junior partner of Heinemann & Balestier, publishers of The English Library, an attempt to popularise British and American books on the Continent. His interest in literature was intense, and that he would have produced stories worth remembering, doubtless in the vein of Mr. Howells, whom he greatly admired, is evidenced by his few published works: “A Patent Philtre” (1884), “A Fair Device” (1884), “A Victorious Defeat” (1886), “A Common Story” (1891), “The Average Woman” (1892), three stories, with a memorial note by Henry James, and “Benefits Forgot” (1891), first published serially in The Century. With Mr. Kipling, his brother-in-law, he collaborated in “The Naulahka” (1892).