“My Summer in a Garden” (1870), his first literary work, was first written as a series of weekly articles for the Hartford “Courant,” and their reception at once made him a man of note.
This work is a delightful prose pastoral, in which the author described his experiences with gardening and finds quaint and subtle connections between “pusley” and “original sin,” while its humorous touches of nature and human nature give it a peculiar charm. “Saunterings,” a volume of reminiscences of European travel, was also published the same year.
“Back-Log Studies” (1872), written in praise of the sweet and kindly influences of the home fireside, appeared first as a series in “Scribner’s Magazine” and added much to the author’s reputation, as it marked a decided advance in style and elegance of diction.
His carefully prepared occasional addresses, on such subjects as Education, Culture and Progress, show that he has deep convictions and an earnestness of heart, as well as the delicate fancy and playful humor which first made him a favorite author. If he is an apostle of culture, he is no less the herald of the truth that “the scholar must make his poetry and learning subserve the wants of the toiling and aspiring multitude.”
“Baddeck, and That Sort of Thing” (1874) is a delightful sketch of travels, a field of literature in which Warner is a master. “My Winter on the Nile” (1876), “In the Levant” (1877), “In the Wilderness” (1878), “Roundabout Journey” (1883), and “Their Pilgrimage” (1886) are his other contributions to this department of literature.
In 1884 he became coeditor of “Harper’s Magazine,” to which he has contributed a valuable series of papers on “Studies in the South,” “Studies in the Great West,” and “Mexican Papers,” critically discussing the educational, political, and social condition of these states.
He is the author of “Captain John Smith,” and of “Washington Irving” in the “Men of Letters Series” of which he is editor.
Nowhere is his humor more free and unrestrained than in “Being A Boy” and in “How I Shot the Bear.”
His home is at Hartford, Conn.