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1783 AD (search for this): chapter 5
elphia's position of authority in literary matters became gradually less firm. The best verse of the period had come from Connecticut and New Jersey, and the best prose from New York and Virginia. The removal of the first Congress to New York in 1783 was a sign of waning political prestige; and when six years later New York was chosen as the scene of the final organization of the American Republic, in April, 1789, the transfer of authority, political, social, and literary, was made sure. Soe period, Miss Vining of Philadelphia,--who was a correspondent of Lafayette and was so much admired by the French officers that Marie Antoinette invited her, through Mr. Jefferson, to the Tuileries,--complains in a letter to Governor Dickinson in 1783 that Philadelphia has lost all its gaiety with the removal of Congress from the city, but adds, You know, however, that here alone [i. e., in Philadelphia] can be found a truly intellectual and refined society, such as one naturally expects in the
1789 AD (search for this): chapter 5
at editions almost innumerable have appeared of it, both in England and America. Up to the time of Scott, he says, no fiction had compared to it in England, and he claims that even in America, up to the time at which his memoir was written (in 1870), a greater number of persons could be found who had read it than who had read any one of the Waverley novels. It was with her and her alone, that Cooper at the outset had to compete. James Fenimore Cooper. James Fenimore Cooper was born in 1789, the year of Washington's inauguration and the establishment of the new republic. Irving's first book appeared just twenty years afterward, and Cooper's eleven years later still. It took that much time, not unreasonably, for the long-expected child, literature, to be born. The immediate literary descendants of these two writers were, as is not uncommon, of less merit than their ancestors; though many of them had their period of popularity and died celebrities before the American public aw
April, 1789 AD (search for this): chapter 5
period A New centre. During the course of the Revolution, as we have seen, Philadelphia's position of authority in literary matters became gradually less firm. The best verse of the period had come from Connecticut and New Jersey, and the best prose from New York and Virginia. The removal of the first Congress to New York in 1783 was a sign of waning political prestige; and when six years later New York was chosen as the scene of the final organization of the American Republic, in April, 1789, the transfer of authority, political, social, and literary, was made sure. Social conditions. At this date what is commonly called the National Period of American literature begins; but it will be seen that from this time political belief or practice had very little to do with the substance or quality of the best literature which was produced. Social conditions, on the other hand, had much to do with the character of this work; and it is quite necessary to understand the composit
1794 AD (search for this): chapter 5
tts, this being published in Boston in 1797. It was the work of Hannah Webster of Boston, who married the Rev. John Foster, D. D., and who also wrote The Lessons of a Preceptress in 1]798, perhaps to excuse herself for the daring deed of writing fiction about a coquette. Many editions of her novel were published, the thirteenth appearing so lately as 1833, in Boston. Another book of similar popularity was Charlotte Temple, a tale of truth, by Mrs. Rowson of the New Theatre, Philadelphia, 1794. It was a little book containing one hundred and seventy-five pages of unmixed tragedy for the benefit of the young and thoughtless. If you took the headlines of a modern yellow journal and bound them up in a volume of one hundred and seventy-five pages you could scarcely equal their horrors. Yet Mr. Joseph T. Buckingham, the leading Boston editor of that period, describes it as a book over which thousands have sighed and wept and sighed again, and which had the most extensive sale of any
1797 AD (search for this): chapter 5
er European criticism, though as stormy as Irving's was peaceful, was the career of James Fenimore Cooper. He was not, of course, our earliest novelist, inasmuch as Charles Brockden Brown had preceded him and a series of minor works of fiction had intervened; novels commonly of small size but of wide circulation and written usually by women. First of these was The coquette, or the history of Eliza Wharton, a novel founded on fact by a lady of Massachusetts, this being published in Boston in 1797. It was the work of Hannah Webster of Boston, who married the Rev. John Foster, D. D., and who also wrote The Lessons of a Preceptress in 1]798, perhaps to excuse herself for the daring deed of writing fiction about a coquette. Many editions of her novel were published, the thirteenth appearing so lately as 1833, in Boston. Another book of similar popularity was Charlotte Temple, a tale of truth, by Mrs. Rowson of the New Theatre, Philadelphia, 1794. It was a little book containing one
1807 AD (search for this): chapter 5
this field, and that never thereafter, though he tried very hard, did he succeed in producing anything which could be called deeply imaginative. This, however, is equally true of the great English writers to whom (without being in any proper sense their imitator) he was most nearly akin. John Trumbull had produced, just before the Revolution, a series of Addisonian essays of real elegance and acuteness. In the Salmagundi papers, written mainly by Irving and his friend James K. Paulding in 1807, the method of the eighteenth-century essayists is employed with a much freer hand. It pretends to be nothing but a humorous commentary upon town follies, though in the opening number the authors whimsically profess their intention to be to instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age. Whatever we may now think of the limitations of this work — its exuberance not seldom degenerating into facetiousness, its inequality, its occasional lapses into banality, we mu
1811 AD (search for this): chapter 5
ight of Scott's fame, and his novels have held their own in popularity beside Scott's, ever since. Indeed, the lists of German booksellers show a greater number of editions and versions to the credit of the American romancer. Cooper's novels. Cooper's childhood was spent at Cooperstown, N. Y., then on the frontier. After some years in Yale College, and a dismissal for insubordination, he spent nearly five years at sea, became a midshipman, and intended to enter the navy for life. In 1811, however, he married, resigned from the navy, and became a man of leisure. His first strictly American novel appeared ten years later, and in the thirty years following he produced more than thirty novels, of which eight or ten are still widely read. Of these the Leather-Stocking tales are of course the most famous. Like Scott, Cooper was less successful with his heroes and heroines than with his minor characters. The conversation of his civilian worthies is, as Professor Lounsbury has
May, 1815 AD (search for this): chapter 5
was at hand, when, ten years later, the pinch of necessity forced him to begin his career as a professional man of letters. The sketch book was published in 1819. Two years later Bryant's first volume of poems was printed and Cooper's novels had begun to appear; but at this time Irving had the field to himself. The sketch book was the best original piece of literature yet produced in America. It was followed during the next five years by Bracebridge hall and Tales of a Traveller. In May, 1815, Irving had embarked for Liverpool, with no very distinct plans, but without expectation of being long abroad. It was seventeen years before he saw America again. The qualified success of the Tales of a Traveller (1824) led him to feel that his vein was running out, and he began to turn toward the historical studies which were to occupy him mainly during the rest of his life. Not long after his return to America, in May, 1832, the Tales of the Alhambra were published. In the somewhat
1819 AD (search for this): chapter 5
t. The book was a real success. Irving had proved himself master of a fluent humorous style which might have been employed indefinitely in the treatment of similar themes. But for many years he was, according to the New York standard, a man of fashion, with no need and no desire to write for a living. The sketch book. Middle age was at hand, when, ten years later, the pinch of necessity forced him to begin his career as a professional man of letters. The sketch book was published in 1819. Two years later Bryant's first volume of poems was printed and Cooper's novels had begun to appear; but at this time Irving had the field to himself. The sketch book was the best original piece of literature yet produced in America. It was followed during the next five years by Bracebridge hall and Tales of a Traveller. In May, 1815, Irving had embarked for Liverpool, with no very distinct plans, but without expectation of being long abroad. It was seventeen years before he saw Americ
1821 AD (search for this): chapter 5
el Ricketson, well calls the sublime chant of wild geese --and to bring it into human song. His merely boyish poems sent by his kindred for publication,--the Thanatopsis in particular, written at seventeen,--have perhaps never been equaled in literature by any boy of that age; his blank verse was beyond that of any American poet. His fame has not quite held its own, and the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica does not mention him at all, but his collected poems, which appeared in 1821,--in the same year with Cooper's Spy and two years after the Sketch book,--form the true beginning of our literary annals. In 1825 his verses brought him an invitation to New York which he accepted, and he became thenceforth a part of the New York influence. It was said of Mr. Bryant by an accomplished English critic that he partook, in an eminent degree, of that curious and almost rarefied refinement, in which, oddly enough, American literature seems to surpass even the literature of the
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