first in an attempt to win independence for
Italy and later giving himself heart and soul
to the cause of Greek independence. He died
of a fever while serving in the Greek army,
April, 1824.

CARMAN, BLISS (1861- ), was born in
Frederickton, New Brunswick. He was edu-
cated at New Brunswick University, Harvard
University, and the University of Edinburgh.
He was editor of the Independent, and later of
the Chap-Book. Among his later works are
Echoes from Vagabondia, and April Airs, from
which "Trees" is taken.

COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR (1772-1834).
Born in Devonshire, England, the youngest
child of the vicar and schoolmaster at Ottery
St. Mary's. His father was skilled in unusual
kinds of learning and passed on to his son his
love of philosophy and Nature. When he was
ten years old, Coleridge was sent to Christ's
Hospital, a preparatory school in which he spent
nine years. Even at this time poetry, theology,
and history were his favorite subjects. He had
excellent training in literature and composition,
being taught to avoid meaningless and high-
flown language and to admire the skill with
which great writers expressed their thoughts.
He was strongly influenced by a series of sonnets
about Nature that had recently appeared, and
his first poems illustrate the new interest in
this source of poetry. In 1791 he entered upon
his college course at Cambridge, where he won
prizes for Greek composition, took an active
interest in politics, and became famous for
his brilliant conversation. He wrote in de-

fense of liberty, became interested in political
journalism, and planned to emigrate to America
in order to set up a socialistic colony. For
some details about these early interests, and
about the friendship with Wordsworth which
led to the publication of the Lyrical Ballads
(1798), see the sketch on pages 269-271. Out
of his associations with Wordsworth grew his
greatest poems: "The Ancient Mariner,"
"Christabel," "Kubla Khan," and others.
Late in 1798 he went to Germany to study the
language and literature, especially the philos-
ophy and criticism for which that country was
famous. After his return he translated several
dramas and incorporated into his own thought
much of the theory of literature and art that
he had learned abroad. He lived, with Words-
worth and Southey, in the beautiful Lake
country in the north of England, but he wrote
little poetry. Beginning in 1808 he delivered
several series of lectures on literary topics, and
became one of the most influential thinkers
England has produced. Much of his in-

fluence was exerted through his wonderful
personality.

COLUM, PADRAIC (1881- ), an Irish poet
who has lived since 1914 in the United States,
was editor of the Irish Review (Dublin) and a
founder of the Irish National Theater. His
poems deal with Nature and are collected in
Wild Earth and Other Poems. He contributes
to the North American Review, the New Re-

public, and other magazines.

COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE (1789-1851). When
he was one year old, Cooper's parents moved
from New Jersey to Otsego Lake in central
New York, and there the boy grew up in a
mansion surrounded by a wilderness filled with
Indians and trappers, and with wonderful op-
portunities for learning all about woodcraft,
the secrets of animals, and the life of savages.
After three years at Yale he went to sea, where
he secured the knowledge that enabled him to
write sea stories as successfully as those dealing
with the wilderness. After a short service as a
naval officer on Lake Ontario he married and
settled down to an uneventful life. When past
thirty years of age he suddenly decided that
he could write a novel (Precaution, 1820). The
Spy followed in 1821, and two years later he
published The Pioneer and The Pilot. Some
details about these and later novels are given
on pages 206-207. After the appearance of
The Last of the Mohicans (1826) the author went
abroad for seven years of travel, chiefly in
France, Italy, and Germany. The Prairie,
Red Rover, The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, and The
Water Witch were added to his novels; after his
return, The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer com-
pleted the famous Leatherstocking series. His
popularity rivaled that of Scott, with whom he
is often compared. He wrote a Naval History
of the United States and engaged in several
controversies about some statements contained
in it and some criticisms that he had written
of America when he was abroad. He wrote over
thirty novels and romances, many of which
were translated into various foreign languages.
His stories are rich in incident and appeal to
every lover of outdoor life. They are often
careless in expression, owing to the speed with
which the novelist wrote and his impatience of
revision. Although they do not portray the
more complex shades of character, such as
Shakespeare could express with infinite variety,
Cooper has to his credit a few characters that
will last as long as books are read.

CRAWFORD, CHARLOTTE HOLMES, is one of the
group of younger writers who contributed to
the literature of the World War. Her poem,
"Vive La France!" first appeared in Scribner's,
September, 1916.

DICKENS, CHARLES (1812-1870). His father
was a poor government clerk at Portsea, Eng-
land, and the son retained vivid memories of
poverty and hardship, which influenced his
novels. Only a year or two of schooling were
allowed him, in a school of the type which he
afterwards described so vividly that he helped
to bring about reform. He learned shorthand
and became a newspaper reporter; through this
work he added many more impressions of life
that afterwards he turned to good account.
A series of descriptive and humorous sketches
was reprinted in two volumes in 1835-1836.
He worked with great energy, spending all his
spare hours in a library, reading to supplement
his defective education. Out of his newspaper
experience grew the book that first gave him
fame, Pickwick Papers (1837). His first novel,
Oliver Twist (1838), is a tragic story of life in
the London slums. Other novels followed with
astonishing rapidity, among them being Nich-
olas Nickleby (1839), Old Curiosity Shop (1840),
Barnaby Rudge (1841), Martin Chuzzlewit (con-
taining severe criticism of America, 1843), and
David Copperfield (1850). The last of these is
mainly a story of his own life, and is the one
that he liked the best. He also wrote a series
of Christmas Books during this period, and
these contain some of his most charming stories
such as "The Christmas Carol" and "The
Cricket on the Hearth." The best known
novel of his later life is A Tale of Two Cities
(1859), a story of the French Revolution, in
which for the second time he ventured into the
field of historical fiction. Dickens was a great
traveler. After he had become famous all
over the world he visited many places, giving
readings from his works. He was a splendid
actor, and was able to read with such dramatic
effectiveness that he attained a great following.
He was fond of walking, often tramping twenty
or thirty miles at a time. London was a never-
ending source of fascination to him, and few
men have known it as thoroughly as he. The
novels of Dickens are an inexhaustible portrait
gallery. Many of the characteristic sayings
and mannerisms of his personages have become,
proverbial. His abounding humor, his unfail-
ing sympathy for all sorts and conditions of
men, his mastery of pathos, and above all, the
unending variety of his characters, all have
given him a place very near the highest among
creators of fiction.

DWYER, JAMES FRANCIS (1874-

), maga-
zine writer and traveler, is a native of Australia.
He came to America in 1907, and is a con-
tributor to the leading American magazines.
"The Citizen" appeared in Collier's, Novem-
ber, 1915.

FROST, ROBERT (1875- ), a present-day
American poet, was born in San Francisco.
He was educated at Dartmouth College and
Harvard University and was for a time pro-
fessor of English at Amherst College. A Boy's
Will is his best known collection of poems.

HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL (1804-1864). Born
in Salem, Massachusetts, where the Hawthorne
family had lived since 1637. His father died
when Hawthorne was four years old, and his
mother ever afterwards lived a retired life, not
even joining her children at their meals. An
uncle provided for his education, and he entered
Bowdoin College in 1821, where Longfellow
and Franklin Pierce were among his fellow
students. After graduation he returned to
Salem where he spent more than twelve years
in seclusion. He wrote constantly, and some
of the tales and sketches that afterwards ap-
peared in Twice-Told Tales were printed in
newspapers. Much of what he wrote he de-
stroyed; his object was to learn to write. He
earned a little money by an experiment in edit-
ing a magazine and by a book on Universal
History, but for eleven years he published
nothing in his own name. In 1837 he collected
the stories that had been published in the
periodicals, giving the book the happy title of
Twice-Told Tales. Soon after this he secured
a position in the Boston Custom House, his work
being of the most prosaic character. Three
volumes of stories for children were published
during this time, the best known of these being
Grandfather's Chair. In 1841 he joined the
Brook Farm community, an experiment in co-
öperative living which he afterwards described
in The Blithedale Romance (1852). In 1842 he
married Sophia Peabody and went to Concord
to live. With the publication of The Scarlet
Letter in 1850 he won fame. This book was
followed by another romance of New England
life, The House of the Seven Gables. The Wonder
Book and Tanglewood Tales are charming ver-
sions of classical stories written for children.
After the election to the Presidency of Pierce,
his old college friend, he became consul at
Liverpool, where he remained four years,
moving to Italy in 1857. Here he gathered
the material that he afterwards used in The
Marble Faun (1859). Besides his romances,
he wrote very complete notebooks in which he
set down his observations about life and char-
acter and his plans for his stories. These have
since been published, and form a valuable
autobiography.

HENRY, O. (1862-1910). William Sidney
Porter, better known by his pen name, O. Henry,
was born at Greensboro, North Carolina. He
holds a prominent place among the world's

greatest short story writers. His best known
books are The Four Million, from which "The
Romance of a Busy Broker" is taken, Whirligigs,
and Heart of the West.

HUSBAND, JOSEPH (1885- ), magazine
writer, was born in Rochester, New York, and
was graduated from Harvard University in
1908. He is a contributor to The World's Work,
The Atlantic Monthly, and other magazines,
and is the author of A Year in a Coal Mine and
other books.

Born in

IRVING, WASHINGTON (1783-1859).
New York, where his father was a hardware
merchant with a good business. On account
of delicate health Irving had little formal
schooling; he studied law but did not practice.
He was a lover of New York and of the Hudson
River country, some of his best works growing
out of this devotion to the scenes of his boyhood.
It was his purpose, he said, to give to American
scenes something of the romantic charm that
old legends had given to English scenes and to
the Rhine region of Germany. To that end he
retold some of these legends with American
backgrounds, the stories of Rip Van Winkle
and of Ichabod Crane being examples. His
first work, a humorous history of the Dutch
colony of New Amsterdam, also illustrates this
general purpose; in it he created a story about
the founding of New York that is better known
than most authentic history. He pretended
that he had found a manuscript written by a
certain Dr. Diedrich Knickerbocker; this he
"edited" and published in 1809, the first im-
portant piece of pure literature in America.
In 1815 he went to England as the representa-
tive of the hardware business, then managed
by his brothers. While there he wrote the
papers which we now know as The Sketch Book
(1819-1820). For a time (1820-1826) he trav-
eled in France and Germany, moving to Spain
in 1826, where he spent three years collecting
the materials which he afterwards published
in The Life of Columbus (1828), The Conquest
of Granada (1829), and The Alhambra (1832).
From 1829 to 1832 he was secretary of the
American Legation in London, and then re-
turned to America, where he lived for ten years
at Tarrytown, New York, writing several books
dealing especially with the western parts of
the United States. From 1842 to 1846 he
was Minister to Spain. His last works of
importance were biographies of Oliver Gold-
smith (1849) and Washington (1859).

KAUFMAN, HERBERT (1878- ), author
and editor, was born in Washington, D. C.
He was educated at Johns Hopkins University.
He is a contributor to the leading magazines
and is the author of numerous short stories

and books, among them Poems. "The Hell-
Gate of Soissons" was first published in England
under the title "The Song of the Guns," and
was later republished in The New York
American.

KEATS, JOHN (1795-1821). Born in London,
and at fifteen began the study of medicine.
His taste for poetry was so strong, however,
that he gave his strength mainly to the study
of literature. He was especially influenced by
Spenser among the English poets, and by Homer,
whose epics he read in an English translation
dating from the time of Shakespeare. In 1817
he published a small volume of poetry, which
was severely attacked by the critics. Other
poems appeared in 1818 and 1820, the last
representing much more mature work than the
poems that had appeared only two years
previously. In part this was due to the in-
cessant study he carried on, but his genius
matured rapidly, as if he knew that he had
but a short time in which to work. On account
of increasing ill health he went to Italy in the
hope of regaining his strength, but the effort
was unavailing, and he died at the age of
twenty-five. His greatest poems are "En-
dymion," "The Eve of St. Agnes," "Lamia,"
and “Hyperion," all of them narrative, but he
also wrote many sonnets and other lyrics of
great distinction. These poems are remarkable
for their lyrical charm, their imaginative
splendor, their descriptions of Nature, and their
passionate love of beauty.

KIPLING, RUDYARD (1865- ), master of
the art of telling stories, either in prose or
verse, lives in England. He was born in
Bombay, India, of British parents. His
Barrack-Room Ballads have a ring and a move-
ment that suggest the old days when the
ballad-maker was a man of action, living the
adventures that he celebrated in song. Kipling
is best known to boys and girls as the author of
the Jungle Books.

English essay-

He was edu-

LAMB, CHARLES (1775-1834).
ist and critic, born in London.
cated at Christ's Hospital School, being a fellow
pupil of Coleridge. In 1789 he became a clerk
in the office of the East India Company, one of
the great commercial organizations of England,
and followed this occupation for nearly forty
years. He was a great friend of Coleridge and
Wordsworth, and was one of the first to recog-
nize their genius. His clerkship was merely a
means of earning a livelihood; his real life was
among his books and his friends. Studies in
the English drama led to the famous Tales from
Shakespeare (1807), which he wrote with his
sister, and to many critical essays. His fame,
however, rests on the Essays of Elia (1823;

second series 1833), which first appeared in a
magazine. These illustrate his mastery of that
type of essay in which a writer talks informally
with his readers, much as in brilliant conver-
sation. The essays are on a great variety of
topics: personal, humorous, fanciful, narrative,
with some serious criticism of life and letters.
Lamb is chiefly remembered for his humor, his
exquisite sense of style, and his lovable per-
sonality. He had an infinite capacity for
friendship, and this he revealed not only in
conversation but also in his letters, which are
among the most charming in English literature.

LANIER, SIDNEY (1842-1881). American poet,
born in Macon, Georgia, and educated at
Oglethorpe College. His plan was to study
abroad and then to return to the South to be
a college teacher, but the Civil War prevented
his carrying out this purpose. After his service
in the Confederate Army he tried business,
teaching, and work in his father's law office, but
did not return to his boyhood purpose until
1872. He had become an excellent musician
and went to Baltimore, where he played first
flute in the Peabody orchestra. His spare time
he devoted to the study of English literature.
He had little money and was already stricken
with the disease which was to cut short his
life. In 1875 he won recognition for a poem
entitled "Corn" and two years later published
a collection of poems. He wrote several books
for boys, in which he retold legends and
famous romances. He also wrote a scholarly
discussion of English verse. Other poems,
together with some letters, essays, and a series
of papers on the English novel, were published
after his death. For two years prior to his
death he was lecturer in English literature at
Johns Hopkins University. Lanier's greatest
contribution to American literature was in
his lyric poems. His musical genius enabled
him to illustrate very skillfully the connection
between lyric poetry and song. In "The
Symphony," for example, the stanzas suggest
the various instruments of the great orchestra,
each contributing its interpretation of the main
theme. Besides their lyrical beauty, his poems
reveal the lovable personality that made him
one of the noblest of men.

LOCKHART, JOHN GIBSON (1794-1854). Edi-
tor, critic, and biographer; the son-in-law of
Sir Walter Scott. He edited Blackwood's, one
of a group of famous quarterly reviews of lit-
erature and politics, and was connected with
other similar journals. His fame rests on his
authorship of two important biographies:
The Life of Burns (1828), and The Life of Scott
(1838).

LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH (1807-
1882). Born in Portland, Maine, where his
father was a lawyer; educated at Bowdoin
College; distinguished as a boy for his reading
and as a writer of verse. His father wanted
him to study law, but he was offered a position
at Bowdoin, and went abroad for three years
of study in France, Spain, and Italy, in prepara-
tion for the work. On his return he wrote
essays for the North American Review and
other periodicals. In 1834 he was elected to
a professorship at Harvard and went abroad
once more for study in Sweden and Denmark.
In 1839 he published a romance, Hyperion, and
a small volume of poems. The first was really
a journal of travel; the second, Voices of the
Night, was a collection of ballads and lyrics.
In 1841 he published more ballads, and other
books followed rapidly, among them Evangeline
(1847), The Golden Legend (1851), Hiawatha
(1855), and Miles Standish (1858). After
1854 he gave himself entirely to his literary
work. His wife met a tragic death in 1861,
and Longfellow turned to his translation of
Dante's Divine Comedy and to verse narratives
of various medieval legends. He was a man of
lovable personality, devoted to his home, his
friends, and his books. His best-known poems
deal with homely sentiment and aspiration,
with love and death and the common experience
of men.
He has therefore been called "the
household poet," and he is the most widely
read of American poets. Besides this, he is
to be remembered for his service in bringing
the European literatures within the range of
the developing American culture. His studies
in Dante and other medieval literature, his
ballads, his verse legends drawn from or in-
fluenced by the heroic tales of northern Europe,
his love for Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the older
English writers, all made him a sort of mis-
sionary of culture to his fellow-countrymen.

LOWELL, AMY (1874- ), poet and critic,
is a native of Brookline, Massachusetts. She
is a sister of A. Lawrence Lowell, the Presi-
dent of Harvard University. She has written
many beautiful poems on trees, flowers, and
gardens. Among her volumes of poetry are
the following: A Dome of Many-Colored Glass;
Sword Blades and Poppy Seeds; and Men,
Women, and Ghosts.

LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL (1819-1891). Born
of a distinguished family in Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts; educated at Harvard; studied law
and was graduated from the Harvard Law
School in 1840. While in college he had been
a great reader, edited the college magazine,
and was a member of a group of young men
interested in literature. His engagement to

Miss Maria White turned his attention definitely
away from law and resulted in the publication
of his first volume of poems, A Year's Life, in
1841. He also published a series of papers on
the early English dramatists, and started, with
a friend, a literary magazine which lasted only
three months. A second volume of poems
appeared in 1844 and also a volume of prose
entitled Conversations on Some of the Old Poets.
In 1848 "A Fable for Critics" appeared; this
was a rimed review of American literature.
"The Vision of Sir Launfal" belongs to the
same year, and also a volume of miscellaneous
poems. He went abroad in 1851, and after his
return succeeded Longfellow as professor of
Modern Languages at Harvard. In 1857 he
became the first editor of the Atlantic Monthly,
which has long exerted a powerful influence
on the development of American litera-
ture. His own contributions to this maga-
zine and to the North American Review, of
which he later became an associate editor, were
papers of distinction on politics and literature.
He was, in fact, interested almost equally in
these three fields: poetry, literary criticism,
and politics. Some of his poetry is of a political
nature, such as the "Bigelow Papers" (first
series, 1848; second series, 1862-1866). His
great "Commemoration Ode" (1865), read in
honor of Harvard men who had died in the
war, is an example of poetry of lofty vein
united to a political idealism thoroughly ex-
pressive of America. His public services, aside
from his writings, were very great. He was
for three years minister to Spain, and after-
wards became one of the most distinguished of
all ambassadors sent by the United States to
England. Some additional biographical details
will be found on pages 449-450.

LUBBOCK, SIR JOHN (1834-1913), the son of
Sir John Lubbock, was a famous astronomer and
mathematician; he was born in London and edu-
cated at Eton. At the age of fourteen he was
taken into his father's bank and, in 1856,
became a partner. He says, "Though I was
thus early brought into harness, I had plenty of
holidays," and these holidays he spent in
studying natural history long before it was
taught in the schools. It was due to Darwin,
the great scientist, who was much interested
in the boy, that he was given a microscope, with
which to pursue his scientific studies. In later
life he was a member of many famous societies
and served on many public commissions. He
is best known for his scientific writings. His
book, Ants, Bees, and Wasps, ran through five
editions in less than a year, and The Pleasures
of Life, the most popular of his books, had
an even greater sale. The Beauties of Nature,

from which the selection in this book is taken,
was published in 1892, and has been translated
into many languages.

), poet and

MARKHAM, EDWIN (1852-
writer, is a native of Oregon. He taught school
in California, and is now a resident of West
New Brighton, New York. He has written
poems since early boyhood, and is honorary
President of the Poetry Society of America.
His best-known poems are "Lincoln, the Man
of the People," and "The Man With the Hoe."

MARSHALL, EDISON (1894- ), author and
magazine writer, is a native of Indiana.
He was educated at the University of Oregon,
where he wrote, while a student, his first short
story. He is a contributor to the American
Magazine, Everybody's, Metropolitan Magazine,
and to the Saturday Evening Post. He is the
author of The Voice of the Pack, The Snowshoe
Trail, and The Strength of the Pines. Mr.
Marshall was awarded the first prize in the
O. Henry Memorial Short Story Collection for
1922.

MONROE, HARRIET, poet and writer, author
of "April-North Carolina," is editor of Poetry,
A Magazine of Verse. She lives in Chicago and
is one of the foremost poets of the new school
of modern verse.

NORRIS, FRANK (1870-1902), a journalist and
novelist, was born in Chicago. He was edu-
cated at the University of California and Har-
vard University. During the Spanish-American
War he was war correspondent for McClure's
Magazine. He gained distinction as a promis-
ing member of the group of younger novelists
through The Octopus, which was the first of a
series of three novels in which he planned
"the epic of the wheat." The second story,
The Pit, followed, but the third one, The Wolf,
was not written.

NOYES, ALFRED (1880- ), an English poet,
lives in London. He was educated at Oxford
University, and has since devoted himself to
literature. He is a contributor to the leading
British and American magazines, and has writ-
ten many beautiful poems and ballads. In
1918-1919 Mr. Noyes lectured in the United
States and taught literature at Princeton
University.

POE, EDGAR ALLAN (1809-1849). Born in
Boston, of Southern parentage. His parents
were actors who died when Poe was very young,
and he was adopted by Mr. Allan, a merchant
of Richmond. From 1815 to 1820 the Allans
were abroad, and Poe was placed in school in
England. On his return he spent a year at the
University of Virginia, but his college course
was not completed because of a break with