American Authors in the 19^th Century

 

Selected from our archives is a range of authors writing in America in the years 1800-1901.

 

Two authors here are known for their eerie tales of the supernatural, Edgar Allan Poe and Washington Irving. Irving is credited for the first American horror story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, in 1820. We are proud to present the only surviving page of this enduring story. Poe's heart stopping stories are well known, but few know that he was a scholar and a well known and respected essayist, as shown in The Rationale of Verse, published in 1848.

 

Two children's writers, Frances Hodgson Butnett and Mary Mapes Dodge represent the softer side of literature from this period. Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates, by Dodge, is a timeless tale about a boy who saved Holland from severe flooding by sticking his finger in a dike, thereby holding the water back.  Burnett's works are a romantic look at idealized Victorian childhood which contrasts the lives of rich well-born children with genteel but poor American youngsters, such as Little Lord Fauntleroy.

 

The next two authors are Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Mark Twain's writings remain everlastingly popular, even into the 21^st century. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin will live well into the future as the story that some say caused the American Civil War. She tackled the problems of unjust and cruel slavery, thus dramatizing the need for the emancipation of black slaves. It was a worldwide bestseller.

 

Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick  decried that he "is unpracticed in the kind of writing that exacts so much heedfulness."

 

These American writers demonstrate their talent, diligence, and ingenuity by giving us an American perspective into the 19^th century.