CHAPTER V

The National Period - Earlier Years

1815-1865

THE ANTI-SLAVERY WRITERS

The anti-slavery movement — John Greenleaf Whittier : his first

printed poem; editorial work ; Snow-Bound; his ballads; love

of children - Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin ; cause

of its large sale ; The Minister's Wooing; The Pearl of Orr's

Island; Oldtown Folks — Orators: William Lloyd Garrison ;

Edward Everett; Wendell Phillips ; Charles Sumner; Rufus

Choate; Daniel Webster

59

Similarity in the lives of the Cambridge Poets — Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow: Hyperion ; Voices of the Night; The Skeleton in

Armor; translations ; literary style; Longfellow's sympathy -

James Russell Lowell : The Vision of Sir Launfal; A Fable for

Critics ; The Biglow Papers; scope of Lowell's work — Oliver

Wendell Holmes: Old Ironsides ; Poems; first contributor to

the Atlantic; The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table ; Elsie Ven-

ner; occasional verse ; Holmes's charm

69

Isabella; The Conquest of Mexico; The Conquest of Peru; The

History of the Reign of Philip the Second - John Lothrop Mot-

ley: The Rise of the Dutch Republic; The United Netherlands;

The Life and Death of John of Barneveld — Francis Parkman:

The Oregon Trail; literary style; his plan completed — Hig-

ginson's summary of these historians Minor writers: John

Gorham Palfrey ; Jeremy Belknap; Richard Hildreth ; Edwin

Percy Whipple; Richard Henry Dana ; Donald Grant Mitchell ;

George William Curtis – Webster's Dictionary and Spelling

Book - Conscientious tone of New England literature 82

Why there was little writing in the South — Henry Clay - Patrick

Henry — Robert Young Hayne — John Caldwell Calhoun

William Wirt William Gilmore Simms : The Yemassee

Paul Hamilton Hayne — Henry Timrod — Edgar Allan Poe: his

critical powers; the Tales; The Fall of the House of Usher;
Poe's poetry – Sidney Lanier: prose; poetry

93

Present literary activity - Fiction : William Dean Howells; Henry

James; Marion Crawford ; Edward Everett Hale; Frank Stock-
ton; George W. Cable; Richard Johnston ; John Esten Cooke;
Thomas Nelson Page; Joel Chandler Harris; Mary N. Murfree;
James Lane Allen; Edward Eggleston; J. T. Trowbridge; Mary
Wilkins Freeman; Sarah Orne Jewett; Alice Brown; Elizabeth
Stuart Phelps Ward; Rose Terry Cooke; Kate Douglas Wiggin
Riggs; Helen Hunt Jackson ; Mary Hallock Foote; Frances
Hodgson Burnett — The Short Story — Poetry: Bayard Taylor :
Views Afoot; Poems of the Orient; Bedouin Song ; Home Pas-
torals; Faust - Richard Henry Stoddard – Edmund Clarence

&

Stedman — Thomas Bailey Aldrich: Baby Bell ; Marjorie Daw

Francis Bret Harte : Condensed Novels; The Luck of Roaring

Camp - Walt Whitman: O Captain! My Captain ?; Leaves of

Grass — Minor Poets : Celia Thaxter; Lucy Larcom; John Hay;

Jones Very; Edward Rowland ill; Richard Watson Gilder -

Humorous writings: Charles Dudley Warner; Charles Farrar

Browne; Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber; David Ross Locke;

Henry Wheeler Shaw ; Samuel Langhorne Clemens: Innocents

Abroad; The Personal Memoirs of Joan of Arc; The Prince

and the Pauper - History and Biograpny: John Fiske; Henry

Adams; James Schouler; Thomas Wentworth Higginson ; Jus-

tin Winsor; John Bach McMaster; Hubert H. Bancroft; James

Parton; Horace E. Scudder – John Burroughs — The Magazine

article: Agnes Repplier; Samuel M. Crothers American

scholars : Charles Eliot Norton ; Francis James Child; Francis

Andrew March ; Felix Emanuel Schelling ; Cornelius Felton;

Howard Horace Furness - Juvenile literature: Jacob Abbott ;

Louisa M. Alcott; Frances Hodgson Burnett - Young people's

magazines — Literary progress of America in 300 years . . 106

SELECTIONS FROM COLONIAL AND REVOLUTION-

ARY AUTHORS

.

George Sandys

John Smith

William Bradford

John Winthrop

The Bay Psalm Book

Michael Wigglesworth

Anne Bradstreet

The New England Primer.

Cotton Mather

Samuel Sewall

Jonathan Edwards

Roger Williams

John Eliot

Nathaniel Ward

William Byrd

John Woolman

The Boston News-Letter

131

135

138

141

144

148

152

155

159

163

. 168

171

175

. 178

181

183

187

.

.

Benjamin Franklin

James Otis

Richard Henry Lee

Patrick Henry

Thomas Paine

Thomas Jefferson

George Washington

Alexander Hamilton

John Jay

James Madison

Timothy Dwight

John Trumbull

Joel Barlow

Philip Freneau

Charles Brockden Brown

189

. 193

195

199

• 202

205

209

213

216

219

.

.

• 222

.

.

225

229

232

236

REFERENCES

241

INDEX

247

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

.

5 7 II 16 19

21

.

THE CHIEF AMERICAN POETS

Frontispiece
THE TITLE-PAGE OF ANNE BRADSTREET'S BOOK OF POEMS
THE ALPHABET IN THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER
JONATHAN EDWARDS
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
PATRICK HENRY MAKING HIS TARQUIN AND CÆSAR SPEECH
THE AUTHORS OF THE FEDERALIST
WASHINGTON IRVING
SUNNYSIDE.
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
THREE TRANSCENDENTALISTS
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
THOREAU'S HOUSE AT WALDEN
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
THE KITCHEN OF SNOW-BOUND
A GROUP OF AMERICAN ORATORS
CAMBRIDGE IN 1824
CRAIGIE HOUSE
ELMWOOD
THE AUTOCRAT LEAVING HIS BOSTON HOME FOR A MORN-

ING WALK
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
FRANCIS PARKMAN
WILLIAM WIRT
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
A GROUP OF AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
The Portrait of Helen Hunt Jackson is reproduced by the courtesy of Little,

Brown and Company.
JOHN BURROUGHS
GEORGE SANDYS
SMITH RESCUED BY POCAHONTAS
JOHN WINTHROP
TITLE-PAGE OF THE BAY PSALM BOOK
AUTOGRAPH OF ANNE BRADSTREET

29 33 34 45 49 52 53 62 65 69 72 74

78 86 88 93 95 109

123 133 136 142 145 155