Chapter Chapter 7 of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

Romance and Idealistic Fiction.

There are other well-known writers of fiction who belong to New England, -- at least by birth, -- whose work does not permit of such definite classification as that of the group just considered; it is not concerned with the local type. Here belongs the name of Jane G. Austin (1831-1894), whose historical novels, Standish of Standish (1889), Betty Alden (1891), etc., deal with Old Colony times. Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835-1921) is the author of numerous romantic tales beginning with Sir Rohan's Ghost (1859). Her more mature novels include Priscilla's Love Story (1898), The Maid He Married (1899), and The Great Procession (1902). Ellen Olney Kirk (born in Connecticut, 1842) published her first novel, Love in Idleness, in 1877. She has written a score of popular stories, including Through Winding Ways (1880), The Story of Margaret Kent (1886), Sons and Daughters (1887), The Apology of Ayliffe (1904), and Marcia (1907). Blanche Willis Howard (1847-1898), a native of Maine, became the wife of Dr. von Teuffel, of Stuttgart in Würtemberg, in 1890. She died at Munich. Her first story, One Summer, a delicate idyl, appeared in 1875; Guenn, a Breton Romance, in 1882. Clara Louise Burnham (born in Massachusetts, 1854) is the author of numerous works of fiction, beginning with No Gentlemen, in 1881. Among her novels, which deal largely with the teachings of Christian Science, the most successful are The Wise Woman (1895), The Right Princess (1902), Jewel (1903), The Opened Shutters (1906), and The Leaven of Love (1908). Arthur Sherburne Hardy (born in Massachusetts, 1847), a graduate of West Point and at one time professor of mathematics in Dartmouth College, has written novels of unusual charm and strength. These are But Yet a Woman (1883), The Wind of Destiny (1886), Passe Rose (1889), His Daughter First (1903), Aurélie (1912), Diane and Her Friends (1914). Edward Bellamy (1850-1898) is best known by two popular studies in political economy presented through the medium of romance: Looking Backward (1888) and Equality (1897). Robert Grant (born at Boston, 1852), a jurist, is well known as a writer of stimulating essays and an author of several successful novels. He has found American society a fruitful field for his realistic studies, of which the most prominent are: An Average Man (1883), The Carletons (1891), Unleavened Bread (1900), The Undercurrent (1904), and The Chippendales (1909). Frederic J. Stimson (born in Massachusetts, 1855), like Judge Grant, a representative of the legal profession, wrote his earlier novels under the pen-name "J. S. of Dale." Guerndale (1882), King Noanett (1896), and In Cure of Her Soul (1906) are representative works.

New York and Pennsylvania.

Silas Weir Mitchell (1830-1914), a distinguished Philadelphia physician, after several essays in fiction became famous with the publication of Hugh Wynne, in 1897. This was the beginning of a notable revival of interest in the historical novel dealing with the American Revolution. Another historical novel,The Adventures of François, appeared in 1898, and a third, The Red City, a picture of Washington's second administration, in 1908. Francis R. Stockton (1834-1902), a native of Philadelphia, best known, perhaps, as the author of The Lady or the Tiger (1884), is unique among American story-writers for the whimsical mingling of the serious and the humorous in fiction. His first notable work was Rudder Grange (1879), which one hardly knows whether to classify as a novel or as romance; but its very original vein of humor is delicious and runs through all of Stockton's succeeding work. Mrs. Amelia Edith Barr (1831-1919), born in England, after 1869 a resident of New York, was the prolific author of more than thirty works of fiction, including Jan Vedder's Wife (1885), The Black Shilling, The Bow of Orange Ribbon (1886), etc. Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (1848-1895), another successful American novelist not American born, was a native of Norway. After coming to this country, he filled professorships at Cornell and Columbia. Gunnar, a Norse Romance, his first novel, appeared in 1874. Edgar Fawcett (1847- 1904), also a writer of verse, wrote novels depicting some phases of society in New York. Among these are An Ambitious Woman (1883), Social Silhouettes (1885), The House at High Bridge (1886). Brander Matthews (born at New Orleans, 1852), since 1892 a professor at Columbia, a well-known essayist and critic, has written realistic studies -- both novels and short stories -- of New York life; such are included in the volumes Vignettes of Manhattan (1894), His Father's Son (1895), and A Confident To-morrow (1899). Harold Frederic (1856-1898), a New York journalist and foreign correspondent at the time of his death, is best remembered by his strong, purposeful novel, The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896). Kate Douglas Wiggin (1857-1923) published her first notable story, The Birds' Christmas Carol, in 1888,