Browsing named entities in Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and heart: essays on literature and life. You can also browse the collection for Sylvanus Cobb or search for Sylvanus Cobb in all documents.

Your search returned 1 result in 1 document section:

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and heart: essays on literature and life, Chapter 10: Favorites of a day (search)
the forgotten novel called The Lamplighter had a wider English circulation than any American book had hitherto conquered except Uncle Tom's Cabin? or why The Wide, Wide World achieved such a success as still to retain its hold on English farmhouses? They were no better than the works of a native author named Roe, and probably not so good. In this country the authors who have achieved the most astounding popular successes are, as a rule, now absolutely forgotten. I can remember when Sylvanus Cobb, Jr., received by far the largest salary then paid to any American writer, and Dr. J. H. Robinson spent his life in trying to rival him. The vast evangelical constituency which now reads Ben-Hur then read Ingraham's Prince of the House of David; the boys who now pore over Oliver Optic had then Mayne Reid. Those who enjoy Gunter and Albert Ross then perused, it is to be presumed, the writings of Mr. J. W. Buel, whose very name will be, to most readers of today, unknown. His Beautiful Story