hide Sorting

You can sort these results in two ways:

By entity
Chronological order for dates, alphabetical order for places and people.
By position (current method)
As the entities appear in the document.

You are currently sorting in ascending order. Sort in descending order.

hide Most Frequent Entities

The entities that appear most frequently in this document are shown below.

Entity Max. Freq Min. Freq
Europe 76 0 Browse Search
Americans 44 0 Browse Search
Lowell 41 5 Browse Search
United States (United States) 36 0 Browse Search
1896 AD 32 32 Browse Search
Walter Scott 32 2 Browse Search
Emerson 26 0 Browse Search
America (Netherlands) 26 0 Browse Search
Matthew Arnold 22 0 Browse Search
Shelley 21 1 Browse Search
View all entities in this document...

Browsing named entities in a specific section of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and heart: essays on literature and life. Search the whole document.

Found 74 total hits in 59 results.

1 2 3 4 5 6
Beautiful Story (search for this): chapter 10
lvanus 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 reached a sale of nearly 300,000 copies in two years; his Living World and The Story of Man were sold to the number of nearly 250,000 each, and were endorsed by Gladstone and Bismarck. This was only ten years ago, for in 1888 he received for copyright $33,000, and in 1889 $50,000; yet I have at hand no book of reference or library catalogue that contains his name. Is it not better to be unknown in one's lifetime, and yet live forever by one poem, like Blanco White with his sonnet cal
Young (search for this): chapter 10
Five different reprints of Channing's Self-Culture appeared in London in a single year; and the English issue of Parker's works remains the only complete one. Again, writers of equal ability may vary immensely in their power of producing quotable passages on which their names may float. No one can help noticing the number of pages occupied by Pope, for instance, in every dictionary of quotations — a number quite out of proportion to his real ability or fame. The same was formerly true of Young's Night Thoughts and Thomson's Seasons, now rarely opened. Many of the most potent thinkers, on the other hand, are in the position of that General Clive, once famous for his wealth and gorgeous jewelry, whom Walpole excused for alleged parsimony on the ground that he probably had about him no small brilliants. In these various ways a man sometimes escapes, perhaps forever, from the personal renown that should seemingly be his. Even if he gains this, how limited it is, at the best! Stri
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (search for this): chapter 10
of the money, but cares little for the criticism, since he rarely sees it. What is hard for authors, foreign or native, to understand is that fame is apt to be most transitory where it is readiest, and that they should make hay while the sun shines. A year ago the bookseller's monthly returns, as seen in The Bookman and elsewhere, gave the leadership in the sales of every American city to English or Scotch books; now one sees the recent American tales by Hopkinson Smith or Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, for example, leading in every town. There is no deep national principle involved-only a casual change, like that which takes athletic prizes for a few years from one college and gives them to another. Novels and even whole schools of fiction emerge and disappear like the flash or darkening of a revolving light in a light-house; you must use the glimpse while you have it. The highways of literature are spread over, says Holmes, with the shells of dead novels, each of which h
Hopkinson Smith (search for this): chapter 10
while the Englishman is glad of the money, but cares little for the criticism, since he rarely sees it. What is hard for authors, foreign or native, to understand is that fame is apt to be most transitory where it is readiest, and that they should make hay while the sun shines. A year ago the bookseller's monthly returns, as seen in The Bookman and elsewhere, gave the leadership in the sales of every American city to English or Scotch books; now one sees the recent American tales by Hopkinson Smith or Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, for example, leading in every town. There is no deep national principle involved-only a casual change, like that which takes athletic prizes for a few years from one college and gives them to another. Novels and even whole schools of fiction emerge and disappear like the flash or darkening of a revolving light in a light-house; you must use the glimpse while you have it. The highways of literature are spread over, says Holmes, with the shells of
J. H. Robinson (search for this): chapter 10
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 reached a sale of nearly 300,000 copies in two years; his Living World and The Story of Man
Maria Edgeworth (search for this): chapter 10
nnet called Life and light, or by one saying, like Fletcher of Saltoun with his I care not who makes the laws of a people, so I can make its ballads, than to achieve such evanescent splendors as this? It is not more than sixty years since Maria Edgeworth rivalled Scott in English and American popularity, and Scott's publisher, James Ballantyne, says that he could most gratify the author of Waverley when he could say: Positively this is equal to Miss Edgeworth. Fifty years ago Frederika BremMiss Edgeworth. Fifty years ago Frederika Bremer's works were in English--speaking countries the object of such enthusiasm that publishers quarrelled for the right to reproduce them in English, and old friendships were sundered by the competition to translate them. At that time all young men who wished for a brilliant social career still took for their models either Pelham or Vivian Grey,; and I remember that a man of fine intellect, who had worked in a factory till he was eighteen, once told me that he had met with no intellectual influen
Bookman (search for this): chapter 10
tige and influence still blows from Europe hither; the American author does not expect money from England, for instance, but values its praise or blame; while the Englishman is glad of the money, but cares little for the criticism, since he rarely sees it. What is hard for authors, foreign or native, to understand is that fame is apt to be most transitory where it is readiest, and that they should make hay while the sun shines. A year ago the bookseller's monthly returns, as seen in The Bookman and elsewhere, gave the leadership in the sales of every American city to English or Scotch books; now one sees the recent American tales by Hopkinson Smith or Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, for example, leading in every town. There is no deep national principle involved-only a casual change, like that which takes athletic prizes for a few years from one college and gives them to another. Novels and even whole schools of fiction emerge and disappear like the flash or darkening of a r
Night Thoughts (search for this): chapter 10
nt reprints of Channing's Self-Culture appeared in London in a single year; and the English issue of Parker's works remains the only complete one. Again, writers of equal ability may vary immensely in their power of producing quotable passages on which their names may float. No one can help noticing the number of pages occupied by Pope, for instance, in every dictionary of quotations — a number quite out of proportion to his real ability or fame. The same was formerly true of Young's Night Thoughts and Thomson's Seasons, now rarely opened. Many of the most potent thinkers, on the other hand, are in the position of that General Clive, once famous for his wealth and gorgeous jewelry, whom Walpole excused for alleged parsimony on the ground that he probably had about him no small brilliants. In these various ways a man sometimes escapes, perhaps forever, from the personal renown that should seemingly be his. Even if he gains this, how limited it is, at the best! Strictly speaking
Pope (search for this): chapter 10
Channing and Parker, make their views so permeate the thoughts of their time that, while their books pass partially out of sight, their work goes on. Five different reprints of Channing's Self-Culture appeared in London in a single year; and the English issue of Parker's works remains the only complete one. Again, writers of equal ability may vary immensely in their power of producing quotable passages on which their names may float. No one can help noticing the number of pages occupied by Pope, for instance, in every dictionary of quotations — a number quite out of proportion to his real ability or fame. The same was formerly true of Young's Night Thoughts and Thomson's Seasons, now rarely opened. Many of the most potent thinkers, on the other hand, are in the position of that General Clive, once famous for his wealth and gorgeous jewelry, whom Walpole excused for alleged parsimony on the ground that he probably had about him no small brilliants. In these various ways a man s
Bulwer (search for this): chapter 10
object of such enthusiasm that publishers quarrelled for the right to reproduce them in English, and old friendships were sundered by the competition to translate them. At that time all young men who wished for a brilliant social career still took for their models either Pelham or Vivian Grey,; and I remember that a man of fine intellect, who had worked in a factory till he was eighteen, once told me that he had met with no intellectual influence to be compared with that exerted upon him by Bulwer's novels. The historical tales of G. P. R. James were watched for by thousands of eager readers, and his solitary horseman rode through the opening page among the plaudits of a myriad hearts. Dickens laughed all these away, as Cervantes smiled away Spain's chivalry; and now Dickens himself is set aside by critics as boisterous in his fun and maudlin in his sentiment. All teaches us that fame is, in numberless cases, the most fleeting of all harvests; that it is, indeed, like parched corn
1 2 3 4 5 6