153-512: The Yankee (later retitled The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette ) was one of the first cultural publications in the United States, founded and edited by John Neal (1793–1876), and published in Portland, Maine as a weekly periodical and later converted to a longer, monthly format. Its two-year run concluded at the end of 1829. The magazine is considered unique for its independent journalism at
306-462: A "Puritan utopia". Other religious writers included Increase Mather and William Bradford , author of the journal published as a History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47 . Others like Roger Williams and Nathaniel Ward more fiercely argued state and church separation. Others, such as Thomas Morton , cared little for the church; Morton's The New English Canaan mocked the Puritans and declared that
459-538: A "renegade's base attempt to assassinate the reputation of this country" and continued with Neal's claim in The Yankee that Garrison was fired from his editorial position for attacking Neal in the paper. Journalist and historian Edward H. Elwell characterized Neal's willingness to publish these inflammatory back-and-forth letters and essays as the embodiment of "impulsive honesty and fair play". Neal stopped after receiving complaints from subscribers, which he also published in
612-603: A Boston periodical and changed the name to The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette , starting August 20, 1828 (volume 1, number 34). When The Yankee ceased publication at the end of 1829, it merged with the Ladies' Magazine . The common misconception that it merged with the New England Galaxy is based on a misinterpretation of a passage in Neal's autobiography. John Neal (writer) John Neal (August 25, 1793 – June 20, 1876)
765-717: A Native American in English, A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian , by Samson Occom, from the Mohegan tribe, was published and went through 19 editions. The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta (1854) by John Rollin Ridge (Cherokee, 1827–67) was the first novel by a Native American, and O-gi-maw-kwe Mit-I-gwa-ki ( Queen of the Woods ) (1899) by Simon Pokagon (Potawatomi, 1830–99)
918-448: A broader readership of minimally educated book buyers, thereby intending to guarantee the existence of an American national literature by ensuring its economic viability. Starting in the late 1820s, Neal shifted his focus from nationalism to regionalism to challenge the rise of Jacksonian populism in the US by showcasing and contrasting coexisting regional and multicultural differences within
1071-541: A broken gallop. I wheeled, made a dead set at the son-of-a-bitch in my rear, unhorsed him, and actually broke through the line." — John Neal, Seventy-Six , 1823 American literature American literature is literature written or produced in the United States and in the colonies that preceded it . The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature but also includes literature produced in languages other than English . The American Revolutionary Period (1775–1783)
1224-454: A contributor to the Ladies' Magazine shortly afterward – a relationship that may have been orchestrated by Neal. Whittier sought Neal's opinion in the magazine at a turning point in the poet's career, saying when he submitted a poem that "if you don't like it, say so privately; and 'I will quit poetry, and everything also of a literary nature, for I am sick at heart of the business'." In what may be
1377-487: A diary revealing the daily life of the late 17th century), and Sarah Kemble Knight (who likewise wrote a diary). New England was not the only area in the colonies with a literature: southern literature was also growing at this time. The diary of planter William Byrd and his The History of the Dividing Line (1728) described the expedition to survey the swamp between Virginia and North Carolina but also comments on
1530-500: A dozen [American] authors; and of these, only Washington Irving had received more than enough to pay for the salt in his porridge." Neal was nevertheless inspired by Pierpont's financial success with his poem The Airs of Palestine (1816) and encouraged by the reception of his initial submissions to The Portico . He resolved that "there was nothing left for me but authorship, or starvation, if I persisted in my plan of studying law". Composing his first and only bound volume of poetry
1683-559: A dry goods shop in Boston and moved to the larger city. In Boston, Neal established a partnership with John Pierpont and Pierpont's brother in-law, whereby they exploited supply chain constrictions caused by the War of 1812 to make quick profits smuggling contraband British dry goods between Boston, New York City, and Baltimore . They established stores in Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston before
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#17328513721811836-456: A few months on the assumption that "if people gave any thing [ sic ] for books here, they would not be able to starve me, since I could live upon air, and write faster than any man that ever lived." His financial situation had become desperate when William Blackwood asked Neal in April 1824 to become a regular contributor to Blackwood's Magazine . For the next year and a half, Neal
1989-502: A lecturer in 1829, reaching the height of his influence in the women's rights movement in 1843 when he was delivering speeches before large crowds in New York City and reaching wider audiences through the press. This period of juggling literary, activist, athletic, legal, artistic, social, and business pursuits was captured by Neal's law apprentice James Brooks in 1833: Neal was ... a boxing-master, and fencing-master too, and as
2142-677: A man in his early twenties who was smoking on a non-smoking streetcar. John Neal died on June 20, 1876, and was buried in the Neal family plot in Portland's Western Cemetery . Neal's body of literary work spans almost sixty years from the end of the War of 1812 to a decade following the Civil War , though he achieved his major literary accomplishments between 1817 and 1835. His writing both reflects and challenges shifting American ways of life over those years. He started his career as an American reading public
2295-414: A million and a half readers over a century and a half, Charlotte Temple was the biggest seller of the 19th century before Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin . Although Rowson was extremely popular in her time and is often acknowledged in accounts of the development of the early American novel, Charlotte Temple often is criticized as a sentimental novel of seduction. Hannah Webster Foster 's The Coquette: Or,
2448-609: A nearby cabin by a wooded pond, Thoreau wrote Walden (1854), a memoir that urges resistance to the dictates of society. Other Transcendentalists included Amos Bronson Alcott , Margaret Fuller , George Ripley , Orestes Brownson , and Jones Very . As one of the great works of the Revolutionary period was written by a Frenchman, so too was a work about America from this generation. Alexis de Tocqueville 's two-volume Democracy in America (1835 and 1840) described his travels through
2601-437: A person talks beautifully in his sorrow, it shows both great preparation and insincerity." Instead of relying on highly cultivated circumstances in the plot, "The incidents will be such as every man may hope or dread to see ...; for it is there, and there only, that we can judge of a hero, or of a nation, or sympathize with either." This "thorough revolution in plays and players, authors and actors" called for in "The Drama"
2754-531: A printer's devil came in, crying "copy, more copy," he would race with a huge swan's quill, full gallop, over sheets of paper as with a steam-pen, and off went one page, and off went another, and then a lesson in boxing, the thump of glove to glove, then the mask, and the stamp of the sandal, and the ringing of the foils. In 1828, Neal married his second cousin Eleanor Hall and together they had five children between 1829 and 1847. The couple raised their children in
2907-632: A proud and ambitious young man who viewed reliance on his own talents and resources as the key to his recovery and future success. Neal's time in Baltimore between his business failure in 1816 and his departure for London in 1823 was the busiest period of his life as he juggled overlapping careers in editorship, journalism, poetry, novels, law study, and later, law practice. During this period he taught himself to read and write in eleven languages, published seven books, read law for four years, completed an independent course of law study in eighteen months that
3060-534: A single exception." Fred Lewis Pattee corroborated this statement seventy years after Neal's death: "Where he condemned, time has almost without exception condemned also." As an American literary nationalist, he called for "faithful representations of native character" in literature that utilize the "abundant and hidden sources of fertility ... in the northern, as well as the southern Americas". His American Writers essay series in Blackwood's Magazine (1824)
3213-792: A source of income. James Neal died in 1832 and Stephen Neal in 1836, but the second inheritance was held up until 1858 in a legal battle involving Stephen's daughter, suffragist Lydia Neal Dennett . In 1845 he became the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company 's first agent in Maine, earning enough in commissions that he decided to retire from the lecture circuit, law practice, and most writing projects. Neal began developing and managing local real estate, operating multiple granite quarries, developing railroad connections to Portland, and investing in land speculation in Cairo, Illinois . He led
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#17328513721813366-456: A unique voice in existing literary genre, and this tendency was reflected in novels. European styles were frequently imitated, but critics usually considered the imitations inferior. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the first American novels were published. These fictions were too lengthy to be printed for public reading. Publishers took a chance on these works in hopes they would become steady sellers and need to be reprinted. This scheme
3519-469: Is a demonym used to refer to people from Maine and the other New England states. Holding his native state in high regard, Neal in the third issue of The Yankee claimed: "Her magnitude, her resources, and her character, we believe, are neither appreciated nor understood by the chief men" and the "great mass of the American people." To correct this, he published articles written by himself and others detailing
3672-447: Is a " gothic tapestry" of "superstition, supernatural suggestions, brutality, sensuality, colossal hatred, delirium, rape, insanity, murder ... incest and cannibalism". By "elevating emotional effect over coherence, the novel excites its readers to death." It challenged the national narrative of American Indians' foreordained disappearance in the face of White Americans' territorial expansion and collapsed racial boundaries between
3825-465: Is a drama, set in Puritan Massachusetts, about a woman cast out of her community for committing adultery with a minister who refuses to acknowledge his own sin. Herman Melville (1819–1891) made a name for himself with Typee and Omoo , adventure tales based loosely on his own life at sea and jumping ship to live among South Sea natives. Becoming a friend of Hawthorne's in 1850, Melville
3978-555: Is best known for her novel Charlotte: A Tale of Truth , published in London in 1791. In 1794 the novel was reissued in Philadelphia under the title, Charlotte Temple . Charlotte Temple is a seduction tale, written in the third person, which warns against listening to the voice of love and counsels resistance. She also wrote nine novels, six theatrical works, two collections of poetry, six textbooks, and countless songs. Reaching more than
4131-473: Is considered an author without a masterpiece, though his short stories are his highest literary achievements and ranked with the best of his age. Rachel Dyer is considered his best novel, "Otter-Bag, the Oneida Chief" and "David Whicher" his best tales, and The Yankee his most influential periodical. His "Rights of Women" speech (1843) at the peak of his influence as a feminist had a considerable impact on
4284-514: Is directly opposed to theirs ...; they are not eligible to office; and they are not, nor is their property protected at law. So much for the equality of the sexes here .... The solution, which he offered in "Woman" (March 26, 1828), was female solidarity and organizing to secure economic and political rights: "If woman would act with woman, there would be a stop to our tyranny". The Yankee also promoted female editors like Sarah Josepha Hale and Frances Harriet Whipple , and proclaimed
4437-641: Is not a landscape nor a portrait painter alive who dares to paint what he sees as he sees it; nor probably a dozen with power to see things as they are." Neal's essays in The Yankee about landscape painting and its potential role in America's artistic renaissance anticipate the rise of the Hudson River School and provide early coverage (1828) of its founders, Thomas Doughty , Asher Brown Durand , and Thomas Cole . These essays also offer unprecedented coverage of reproduction technology like engraving and lithography and American portrait painters trained in
4590-456: Is not to be bilked of his fee, a thimble-full of newspaper notoriety". Called "the inventor of the American short story", Neal's tales are "his highest literary achievement". He published an average of one per year between 1828 and 1846, helping to shape the relatively new short story genre, particularly early children's literature. Considered his best short stories, "Otter-Bag, the Oneida Chief" (1829) and "David Whicher" (1832) "overshadow
4743-654: Is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin , Alexander Hamilton , Thomas Paine , and Thomas Jefferson . An early novel is William Hill Brown 's The Power of Sympathy , published in 1791. Writer and critic John Neal in the early- to mid-nineteenth century helped advance America toward a unique literature and culture, by criticizing predecessors, such as Washington Irving , for imitating their British counterparts and by influencing writers such as Edgar Allan Poe . Edgar Allan Poe took American poetry and short fiction in new directions. Ralph Waldo Emerson pioneered
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4896-622: Is noteworthy as the first work of fiction to utilize psychotherapy . "The Old Pussy-Cat and the Two Little Pussy-Cats" and "The Life and Adventures of Tom Pop" (1835) are both considered pioneering works of children's literature . Like his magazine essays and lectures, Neal's stories challenged American socio-political phenomena that grew in the period leading up to and including Andrew Jackson 's terms as US president (1829–1837): manifest destiny , empire building, Indian removal , consolidation of federal power, racialized citizenship, and
5049-449: Is now worshipped under the name of classical English", which was "the deadest language I ever met with or heard of". Neal's voice was one of many following the War of 1812 calling for an American literary nationalism , but Neal felt his colleagues' work relied too much on British conventions. By contrast, he felt that "to succeed ..., I must be unlike all that have gone before me" and issue "another Declaration of Independence, in
5202-536: Is the earliest written history of American literature, and was reprinted as a collection in 1937. Neal dismissed almost all of the 120 authors he critiqued in that series as derivative of their British predecessors. John Neal used his role as critic, particularly in the pages of his magazine The Yankee , to draw attention to newer writers in whose work he saw promise. John Greenleaf Whittier , Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow all received their first "substantial sponsorship or praise" in
5355-620: The American Writers series was Neal's most noteworthy contribution to the magazine. Blackwood provided the platform for Neal's earliest written works on gender and women's rights and published Brother Jonathan , but a back-and-forth over manuscript revisions in autumn 1825 soured the relationship and Neal was once again without a source of income. After a short time earning much less money writing articles for other British periodicals, thirty-two year-old John Neal met seventy-seven year-old utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham through
5508-685: The Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), the Wonders of the Invisible World and The Biblia Americana . Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield represented the Great Awakening , a religious revival in the early 18th century that emphasized Calvinist thought . Other Puritan and religious writers include Thomas Hooker , Thomas Shepard , John Wise , and Samuel Willard . Less strict and serious writers included Samuel Sewall (who wrote
5661-636: The Cult of Domesticity . "David Whicher" challenged a body of popular literature that converged in the 1820s around a "divisive and destructive insistence on frontiersman and the Indian as implacable enemies". "Idiosyncrasies" is a "manifesto for human rights" in the face of "hegemonic patriarchalism". His stories in this period also used humor and satire to address social and political phenomena, most notably "Courtship" (1829), "The Utilitarian" (1830), "The Young Phrenologist" (1836), "Animal Magnetism" (1839), and "The Ins and
5814-596: The Declaration of Independence , his influence on the U.S. Constitution , his autobiography, his Notes on the State of Virginia , and his many letters. The Federalist essays by Alexander Hamilton , James Madison , and John Jay presented a significant historical discussion of American government organization and republican values. Fisher Ames , James Otis , and Patrick Henry are also valued for their political writings and orations. Early American literature struggled to find
5967-464: The District of Maine ), and later lived in Boston , then Baltimore , where he pursued a dual career in law and literature following the bankruptcy of his dry goods business in 1816. After gaining national recognition as a critic, poet, and novelist, he sailed to London , where he wrote for British magazines and served as Jeremy Bentham 's secretary. Upon returning to his native Portland in 1827, Neal
6120-599: The London Debating Societies . In late 1825 Bentham offered him rooms at his "Hermitage" and a position as his personal secretary. Neal spent the next year and a half writing for Bentham's Westminster Review . In spring 1827, Bentham financed Neal's return to the US. He left the UK having caught the attention of the British literary elite, published the novel he brought with him, and "succeeded to perfection" in educating
6273-735: The Salem witch trials as the basis for a novel ) in 1828. Catherine Maria Sedgwick wrote A New England Tale in 1822, Redwood in 1824, Hope Leslie in 1827, and The Linwoods in 1835. James Kirke Paulding wrote The Lion of the West in 1830, The Dutchman's Fireside in 1831, and Westward Ho! in 1832. Omar ibn Said , a Muslim slave in the Carolinas, wrote an autobiography in Arabic in 1831, considered an early example of African-American literature . Robert Montgomery Bird wrote Calavar in 1834 and Nick of
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6426-534: The Society of Friends after his participation in a street brawl. In reaction to insults against prominent lawyer William Pinkney published in Randolph just after Pinkney died, his son Edward Coote Pinkney challenged Neal to a duel. Having established himself six years earlier as an outspoken opponent of dueling, Neal refused and the two engaged in a battle of printed words in the fall of that year. Neal became "weary of
6579-528: The cultural identity of Maine and New England presented readers with a complex portrait of the region. Many new, predominantly female, writers and editors started their careers with contributions and criticism of their work published in The Yankee , including many who are familiar to modern readers. The articles on women's rights and early feminist ideas affirmed intellectual equality between men and women and demanded political and economic rights for women. John Neal grew up in Portland, Maine (then
6732-402: The "father of American subversive fiction". Generally regarded as a failure, the book shows that "the gulf between Neal's prophetic vision of a native literature and his own capacity to fulfill that vision is painfully apparent". The productivity of Neal's Baltimore days is "hard to believe—until one reads the novels" and notices the haste with which they were written. Logan, a Family History
6885-548: The "humbler contingencies" of sign painting and applied arts . Neal's opinions on art in The Yankee carry a "a pungency rare in nineteenth century criticism", according to art scholar John W. McCoubrey. Fellow art scholar Harold E. Dickson said they "to a remarkable degree ... have stood the trying test of time." At the time The Yankee was in circulation, Neal was one of the most important critics of American drama. His serial essay "The Drama" (July–December 1829) elaborates upon opinions on theater originally published in
7038-630: The 1820s: to supplant Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper as the leading American literary voice, to bring about a new distinctly American literary style, and to reverse the British literary establishment's disdain for American writers. He followed Irving's precedent of using temporary residence in London to earn more money and notoriety from the British literary market. London publishers had already pirated Seventy-Six and Logan , but Neal hoped those companies would pay him to publish Errata and Randolph if he were present to negotiate. They refused. Neal brought enough money to survive for only
7191-471: The 1838–1839 Aroostook War between the United States and the United Kingdom. He published a "vigorous campaign" of seventeen articles against lotteries over the course of 1828, claiming they encourage idle and reckless behavior among patrons, an argument he first conveyed in his novel Logan (1822). On a local level, Neal's advocacy in The Yankee contributed toward municipal funding being designated for
7344-603: The 18th century, writing shifted from the Puritanism of Winthrop and Bradford to Enlightenment ideas of reason. The belief that human and natural occurrences were messages from God no longer fit with the budding anthropocentric culture. Many intellectuals believed that the human mind could comprehend the universe through the laws of physics, as described by Isaac Newton . One of these was Cotton Mather . The first book published in North America that promoted Newton and natural theology
7497-568: The 1920s, but John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway , who became famous with The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms , and William Faulkner , adopted experimental forms. American modernist poets included diverse figures such as Wallace Stevens , T. S. Eliot , Robert Frost , Ezra Pound , and E. E. Cummings . Depression -era writers included John Steinbeck , author of The Grapes of Wrath (1939). America's involvement in World War II led to works such as Norman Mailer 's The Naked and
7650-429: The American frontier. In New England , a group of writers known as Boston Brahmins included James Russell Lowell , then in later years Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. In 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson , who had renounced his ministry, published his essay Nature , which argued that men should dispense with organized religion and reach a lofty spiritual state by studying and interacting with
7803-620: The Arkansas Supreme Court ), Grenville Mellen , Isaac Ray , and early published works by John Appleton (later chief justice of Maine ). Neal biographer Donald A. Sears felt that The Yankee ' s greatest impact was encouraging new authors through publication and criticism of their early works. For this, literature scholar John A. Pollard dubbed Neal "doctor of American literature". Poe, Whittier, Nathaniel Hawthorne , and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow all received their first impactful encouragement in The Yankee ' s pages. Most of
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#17328513721817956-497: The British about American institutions, habits, and prospects. Yet Brother Jonathan was not received as the great American novel and it failed to earn Neal the level of international fame he had hoped for, so he returned to the US no longer Cooper's chief rival. Neal returned to the United States from Europe in June 1827 with plans to settle in New York City, but stopped first in his native Portland to visit his mother and sister. There he
8109-843: The Dead (1948), Joseph Heller 's Catch-22 (1961) and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 's Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Prominent playwrights of these years include Eugene O'Neill , who won a Nobel Prize. In the mid-twentieth century, drama was dominated by Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller . Musical theater was also prominent. In late 20th century and early 21st century, there has been increased popular and academic acceptance of literature written by immigrant, ethnic, and LGBT writers, and of writings in languages other than English. Examples of pioneers in these areas include LGBT author Michael Cunningham , Asian American authors Maxine Hong Kingston and Ocean Vuong , and African Americans authors such as Ralph Ellison , James Baldwin , and Toni Morrison . In 2016,
8262-1034: The East Coast – in the border state of Missouri . His regional masterpieces were the memoir Life on the Mississippi and the novels Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Twain's style – influenced by journalism, wedded to the vernacular, direct and unadorned but also highly evocative and irreverently humorous – changed the way Americans write their language. His characters speak like real people and sound distinctively American, using local dialects, newly invented words, and regional accents. Other writers interested in regional differences and dialect were George W. Cable , Thomas Nelson Page , Joel Chandler Harris , Mary Noailles Murfree ( Charles Egbert Craddock ), Sarah Orne Jewett , Mary E. Wilkins Freeman , Henry Cuyler Bunner , and William Sydney Porter ( O. Henry ). A version of local color regionalism that focused on minority experiences can be seen in
8415-408: The English renaming it New York and changing the administrative language from Dutch to English. From 1696 to 1700, only about 250 separate items were issued from the major printing presses in the American colonies. This is a small number, compared to the output of the printers in London at the time. London printers published materials written by New England authors, so, the body of American literature
8568-536: The Execution of Moses Paul and a popular hymnbook, Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs , "the first Indian best-seller". The Revolutionary period also contained political writings, including those by colonists Samuel Adams , Josiah Quincy , John Dickinson , and Joseph Galloway , the last being a loyalist to the crown. Two key figures were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine . Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works, with their wit and influence toward
8721-451: The French immigrant J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur , whose Letters from an American Farmer (1782) addresses the question "What is an American?", by moving between praise for the opportunities and peace offered in the new society and recognition that the solid life of the farmer must rest, uneasily, between the oppressive aspects of the urban life and the lawless aspects of the frontier, where
8874-514: The History of Eliza Wharton was published in 1797 and was extremely popular. Told from Foster's point of view and based on the real life of Eliza Whitman, the novel is about a woman who is seduced and abandoned. Eliza is a "coquette" who is courted by two very different men: a clergyman who offers her a comfortable domestic life and a noted libertine. Unable to choose between them, she finds herself single when both men get married. She eventually yields to
9027-903: The Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) and Harriet Jacobs 's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). At this time, American Indian autobiography develops, most notably in William Apess 's A Son of the Forest (1829) and George Copway 's The Life, History and Travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh (1847). Moreover, minority authors were beginning to publish fiction, as in William Wells Brown 's Clotel; or, The President's Daughter (1853), Frank J. Webb 's The Garies and Their Friends , (1857) Martin Delany 's Blake; or, The Huts of America (1859–62) and Harriet E. Wilson 's Our Nig: Sketches from
9180-409: The Life of a Free Black (1859) as early African-American novels, and John Rollin Ridge 's The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta (1854), which is considered the first American Indian novel but is also an early story that talks about Mexican-American issues. Mark Twain (the pen name used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens , 1835–1910) was among the first major American writers to be born away from
9333-567: The Mohicans , 1826) treated uniquely American material in ways that were popular both in the new country and Europe. John Neal as a critic played a key role in developing American literary nationalism . Neal criticized Irving and Cooper for relying on old British conventions of authorship to frame American phenomena, arguing that "to succeed ... [the American writer] must resemble nobody ... [he] must be unlike all that have gone before [him]" and issue "another Declaration of Independence, in
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#17328513721819486-640: The Old World-New World dilemma by writing directly about it. Although he was born in New York City, James spent most of his adult life in England. Many of his novels center on Americans who live in or travel to Europe. With its intricate, highly qualified sentences and dissection of emotional and psychological nuance, James's fiction can be daunting. Among his more accessible works are the novellas Daisy Miller (1878), about an American girl in Europe, and The Turn of
9639-755: The Outs" (1841). With the exception of True Womanhood (1859), John Neal published all of his novels between 1817 and 1833. The first five he wrote and published in Baltimore: Keep Cool (1817), Logan (1822), Seventy-Six (1823), Randolph (1823), and Errata (1823). He wrote Brother Jonathan in Baltimore, but revised and published it in London in 1825. He published Rachel Dyer (1828), Authorship (1830), and The Down-Easters (1833) while living in Portland, Maine, but all are reworkings of content he wrote in London. Keep Cool , Neal's first novel, made him "the first in America to be natural in his diction" and
9792-707: The People of Morosofia, and Other Lunarians . After the war with Britain in 1812 , there was an increasing desire to produce a uniquely American literature and culture. Literary figures who took up the cause included Washington Irving , William Cullen Bryant , and James Fenimore Cooper . Irving wrote humorous works in Salmagundi and the satire A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809). Bryant wrote early romantic and nature-inspired poetry, which evolved away from their European origins. Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales about Natty Bumppo (which includes The Last of
9945-879: The Red Death ", " The Pit and the Pendulum ", and " The Fall of the House of Usher ", that explore hidden depths of human psychology and push the boundaries of fiction. Poe's " The Murders in the Rue Morgue ", is seen as the first detective story . Humorous writers were also popular and included Seba Smith and Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber in New England and Davy Crockett , Augustus Baldwin Longstreet , Johnson J. Hooper , Thomas Bangs Thorpe , and George Washington Harris writing about
10098-601: The Screw (1898), a ghost story. Stephen Crane (1871–1900), best known for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage (1895), depicted the life of New York City prostitutes in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893). And in Sister Carrie (1900), Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) portrayed a country girl who moves to Chicago and becomes a kept woman. Frank Norris 's (1870–1902) fiction
10251-478: The US gymnastics movement, provided a forum for new writers, and promoted Neal's own accomplishments. Because Neal included a high proportion of his own work, self-promotion, and details of feuds with other public figures, "no magazine ever bore more fully the stamp of a personality", according to scholar Irving T. Richards. Around fifty authors contributed to the magazine, including John Greenleaf Whittier , Edgar Allan Poe , Albert Pike (later associate justice of
10404-491: The United States. The collection of essays and stories he published in his magazine The Yankee "lays the groundwork for reading the nation itself as a collection of voices in conversation" and "asks readers to decide for themselves how to manage the multiple and contending sides of a federal union." To preserve variations in American English he feared might disappear in an increasingly nationalist climate, he became one of
10557-572: The Western hemisphere; Stephen Daye printed 1,000 copies on the first printing press in the American colonies. Of the second generation of New England settlers, Cotton Mather stands out as a theologian and historian, who wrote the history of the colonies with a view to God's activity in their midst and to connecting the Puritan leaders with the great heroes of the Christian faith. His best-known works include
10710-529: The Woods in 1837. James Fenimore Cooper was a notable author best known for his novel The Last of the Mohicans written in 1826. George Tucker produced in 1824 the first fiction of Virginia colonial life with The Valley of Shenandoah . He followed in 1827 with one of the country's first science fictions: A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Manners and Customs, Science and Philosophy, of
10863-426: The artful libertine and gives birth to an illegitimate stillborn child at an inn. The Coquette is praised for its demonstration of the era's contradictory ideas of womanhood. even as it has been criticized for delegitimizing protest against women's subordination. Both The Coquette and Charlotte Temple are novels that treat the right of women to live as equals as the new democratic experiment. These novels are of
11016-474: The bar and started practicing law in Baltimore in 1820. Neal's final years in Baltimore were his most productive as a novelist. He published one novel in 1822 and three more the following year, eventually rising to the status of James Fenimore Cooper 's chief rival for recognition as America's leading novelist. In this turbulent period he quit the Delphian Club on bad terms and accepted excommunication from
11169-412: The bar despite opposition, founded Maine's first athletic program, and established The Yankee . The first issue was published on January 1, 1828. The idea came from a local bookseller who urged Neal shortly after his return to Portland to establish a new magazine or newspaper. Neal initially refused, not wanting to be the financial backer of his literary undertaking. The bookseller then offered to publish
11322-554: The bar. Neal defiantly resolved to settle in Portland instead of New York. " 'Verily, verily,' said I, 'if they take that position, here I will stay, till I am both rooted and grounded—grounded in the graveyard, if nowhere else. ' " Neal became a proponent in the US of athletics he had practiced abroad, including Friedrich Jahn 's early Turnen gymnastics and boxing and fencing techniques he learned in Paris, London, and Baltimore. He opened Maine's first gymnasium in 1827, making him
11475-537: The catalyst to move to London was a dinner party with an English friend who quoted Sydney Smith 's 1820 then-notorious remark, "in the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?". Whether it had more to do with Smith or Pinkney, Neal took less than a month after that dinner date to settle his affairs in Baltimore and secure passage on a ship bound for the UK on December 15, 1823. Neal's relocation to London figured into three professional goals that guided him through
11628-444: The commercial viability of his works, and craft a new American literature. As a pioneer of "talk[ing] on paper" or "natural writing", Neal was "the first in America to be natural in his diction " and his work represents "the first deviation from ... Irvingesque graciousness" in which "not only characters but also genres converse, and are interrogated, challenged, and transformed." Neal declared that he "never shall write what
11781-490: The conflicting claims of duty and compassion on board a ship in time of war. His more profound books sold poorly, and he had been long forgotten by the time of his death. He was rediscovered in the 1920s. Anti-transcendental works from Melville, Hawthorne, and Poe all comprise the Dark romanticism sub-genre of popular literature at this time. Slave narrative autobiography from this period include Frederick Douglass 's Narrative of
11934-406: The construction of Portland's first sidewalks . In March 1828, Neal advertised his gymnasium in The Yankee as "accessible here to every body, without distinction of age or color", but when he sponsored six Black men to join, only two other members of three hundred voted to accept them. In May, Neal used his magazine to call out his fellow gymnasts' racial prejudice. He ended his involvement with
12087-530: The continent among the numerous different Native American tribes. However, with the onset of English settlement of North America, the English language established a foothold in North America that would spread with the growth of England's political influence in the continent and the continued arrival of settlers from the British Isles. This included the English capture of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1664, with
12240-404: The continuation of the slave narrative autobiography. In 1837, the young Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) collected some of his stories as Twice-Told Tales , a volume rich in symbolism and occult incidents. Hawthorne went on to write full-length "romances", quasi-allegorical novels that explore the themes of guilt, pride, and emotional repression. His masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter (1850),
12393-458: The country that nourished him" and a "renegado" who "basely traduced his native town and country for hire". Neal experienced verbal taunting and physical violence in the streets and an attempt to block his admission to the local bar association , though he had been a practicing lawyer in Baltimore (1820–1823). In the second half of 1827, he pursued several projects to further his personal goals and to vindicate himself to his local community. He joined
12546-467: The country's first daily columnist. The same year he wrote three-quarters of History of the American Revolution , otherwise credited to Paul Allen . Neal's substantial literary output earned him the moniker " Jehu O' Cataract " from his Delphian Club associates. By these means he was able to pay his expenses while completing his apprenticeship and independently studying law. He was admitted to
12699-519: The country's regions in a state of constant cultural evolution that beckons but thwarts characterization. Described by one scholar as "vinegary", the first volume of The Yankee (January 1 – December 24, 1828) documents literary feuds between Neal and other New England journalists like William Lloyd Garrison , Francis Ormand Jonathan Smith , and Joseph T. Buckingham . Tensions between Neal and Garrison started with Garrison's denunciation of Neal's literary criticism in Blackwood's Magazine (1824–1825) as
12852-518: The differences between American Indians and the white settlers in the area. In a similar book, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West , William Bartram described the Southern landscape and the Indian tribes he encountered; Bartram's book was popular in Europe, being translated into German, French and Dutch. As the colonies moved toward independence from Britain, an important discussion of American culture and identity came from
13005-455: The end of slavery and racial prejudice, and helped establish the American gymnastics movement . The first American author to use natural diction and a pioneer of colloquialism , Neal was the first to use the phrase son-of-a-bitch in a US work of fiction. He attained his greatest literary achievements between 1817 and 1835, during which time he was America's first daily newspaper columnist,
13158-592: The example of economic freedom these women provided: "We hope to see the day when she-editors will be as common as he-editors; and when our women of all ages ... will be able to maintain herself, without being obliged to marry for bread." In other articles, The Yankee affirmed intellectual equality between men and women, opining that "When minds meet, all distinctions of sex are abolished" and "women are not inferior to men; they are unlike men. They cannot do all that men may do – any more than men may do all that women may do." The magazine's title word, Yankee ,
13311-664: The first American published in British literary journals , author of the first history of American literature , America's first art critic , a short story pioneer, a children's literature pioneer, and a forerunner of the American Renaissance . As one of the first men to advocate women's rights in the US and the first American lecturer on the issue, for over fifty years he supported female writers and organizers, affirmed intellectual equality between men and women, fought coverture laws against women's economic rights, and demanded suffrage , equal pay, and better education for women. He
13464-676: The first American to establish a public gym in the US. He offered lessons in boxing and fencing in his law office. The same year he started gyms in nearby Saco and at Bowdoin College . The year before he had published articles on German gymnastics in the American Journal of Education and urged Thomas Jefferson to include a gymnastics school at the University of Virginia . Neal's athletic pursuits modeled "a new sense of maleness" that favored "forbearance based on strength" and helped him regulate
13617-526: The first European settlements in North America had been founded elsewhere, many years earlier. The first item printed in Pennsylvania was in German and was the largest book printed in any of the colonies before the American Revolution. Spanish and French had two of the strongest colonial literary traditions in the areas that now comprise the United States. Moreover, a wealth of oral literary traditions existed on
13770-444: The first review of Hawthorne's first novel, The Yankee referred to Fanshawe as "powerful and pathetic" and said that the author "should be encouraged to persevering efforts by a fair prospect of future success". An 1828 review of Longfellow noted "a fine genius and a pure and safe taste" but also cited the need for "a little more energy, and a little more stoutness". Neal was the first American art critic. Scholars find his work in
13923-497: The first writers to employ colloquialism and regional dialects in his writing. Neal used literary criticism in magazines and novels to encourage desired changes in the field and to uplift new writers, most of them women. Noted for his "critical vision", Neal expressed judgments that were widely accepted in his lifetime. "My opinion of other [people's] writings", he said, "has never been ill received; and in every case ... my judgment has been confirmed, sooner or later, without
14076-508: The folk-rock songwriter Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Oral literature and storytelling has existed among the various Indigenous tribes , prior to the arrival of European colonists. The traditional territories of some tribes traverse national boundaries and such literature is not homogeneous but reflects the different cultures of these peoples . In 1771 the first work by
14229-521: The formation of a budding American identity. Paine's pamphlet Common Sense and The American Crisis writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the political tone of the time. During the Revolutionary War , poems and songs such as " Nathan Hale " were popular. Major satirists included John Trumbull and Francis Hopkinson . Philip Morin Freneau also wrote poems about the War. During
14382-506: The future of the movement. John Neal and his twin sister Rachel were born in the town of Portland in the Massachusetts District of Maine on August 25, 1793, the only children of parents John and Rachel Hall Neal. The senior John Neal, a school teacher, died a month later. Neal's mother, described by former pupil Elizabeth Oakes Smith as a woman of "clear intellect, and no little self-reliance and independence of will", made up
14535-488: The great Republic of Letters ." To achieve this he exploited distinctly American characters, settings, historical events, and manners of speech in his writing. This was a "caustic assault" on British literary elites viewed as aristocrats writing for personal amusement, in contrast to American authors as middle class professionals plying a commercial trade for sustenance. By mimicking the common and sometimes profane language of his countrymen in fiction, Neal hoped to appeal to
14688-509: The great Republic of Letters." As a pioneer of the literary device he referred to "natural writing", Neal was "the first in America to be natural in his diction" and his work represents "the first deviation from ... Irvingesque graciousness." Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston but raised in Virginia and identified with the South. In 1832, he began writing short stories, such as " The Masque of
14841-433: The gym shortly thereafter. Neal's writing on gender and women's rights in The Yankee show his focus moving beyond inter-gender social manners and female educational opportunities and toward women's economic and political rights. In the first issue of the second volume, he asserted that unmarried women are treated unfairly "as if it were better for a woman to marry anybody than not to marry at all; or even to marry one that
14994-631: The house he built on Portland's prestigious State Street in 1836. Also in 1836 he received an honorary master's degree from Bowdoin College, the same institution at which Neal made a living as a self-employed teenage penmanship instructor and that later educated the more economically privileged Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . After the 1830s, Neal became less active in literary circles and increasingly occupied with business, activism, and local arts and civic projects, particularly after receiving inheritances from two paternal uncles that dramatically reduced his need to rely on writing as
15147-491: The influence of the British literary elite and to develop a rival American literature were largely credited to his successors until more recent twenty-first century scholarship shifted that credit to Neal. His short stories are "his highest literary achievement" and are ranked with those of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe , Herman Melville , and Rudyard Kipling . John Neal is often considered an influential American literary figure with no masterpiece of his own. Defying
15300-445: The influential Transcendentalism movement; Henry David Thoreau , author of Walden , was influenced by this movement. The conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired writers, like Harriet Beecher Stowe , and authors of slave narratives, such as Frederick Douglass . Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the dark side of American history, as did Herman Melville 's Moby-Dick (1851). Major American poets of
15453-409: The lack of social structures leads to the loss of civilized living. This same period saw the beginning of African-American literature , through the poet Phillis Wheatley and the slave narrative of Olaudah Equiano , The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789). At this time, American Indian literature also began to flourish. Samson Occom published his A Sermon Preached at
15606-455: The late 1820s and the mid 1840s and was during this time a highly sought-after contributor on a variety of topics. Neal published three novels from material he produced in London and focused his new creative writing efforts on a body of short stories that represents his greatest literary achievement. Neal published an average of one tale per year between 1828 and 1846, helping to shape the relatively new short story genre. He began traveling as
15759-413: The law—weary as death", feeling that he spent those years in "open war, with the whole tribe of lawyers in America". "Ironically, ... at precisely the moment when [Neal] was endeavoring to establish himself as the American writer, Neal was also alienating friends, critics, and the general public at an alarming rate." By late 1823, Neal was ready to relocate away from Baltimore. According to him,
15912-521: The less inspired efforts of his more famous contemporaries and add a dimension to the art of storytelling not to be found in Irving and Poe, rarely in Hawthorne, and rarely in American fiction until Melville and Twain decades later (and Faulkner a century later) began telling their tales." Ironically, "David Whicher" was published anonymously and not attributed to Neal until the 1960s. "The Haunted Man" (1832)
16065-610: The local Native Americans were better people than them. Other late writings described conflicts and interaction with the Indians, as seen in writings by Daniel Gookin , Alexander Whitaker , John Mason , Benjamin Church , and Daniel J. Tan . John Eliot translated the Bible into the Algonquin language (1663) as Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God . It was the first complete Bible printed in
16218-438: The lost family income by establishing her own school and renting rooms in her home to boarders . She also received assistance from the siblings' unmarried uncle, James Neal, and others in their Quaker community. Neal grew up in "genteel poverty", attending his mother's school, a Quaker boarding school, and the public school in Portland. Neal claimed his lifelong struggle with a short temper and violent tendencies originated in
16371-675: The magazine's pages. When submitting poetry to Neal for review, Whittier made the request, "if you don't like it, say so privately; and I will quit poetry, and everything also of a literary nature ". Poe was Neal's most historically impactful discovery and when he quit poetry for short stories it was likely due to Neal's influence. Poe thanked Neal for "the very first words of encouragement I ever remember to have heard". After Poe's death two decades later, Neal defended his legacy against attacks in Rufus Wilmot Griswold 's unsympathetic obituary of Poe, labeling Griswold "a Rhadamanthus , who
16524-474: The magazine. The Yankee published regularly from the beginning of 1828 through the end of 1829, during which time the magazine changed its name, printing format, frequency, and volume numbering system. Volumes 1 and 2 (January 1, 1828, through July 3, 1829) are composed of eight-page weekly issues in quarto . New series volume 1 (July through December 1829) is composed of six, 56-page monthly issues in octavo . For financial reasons, Neal merged The Yankee with
16677-581: The movement to incorporate Portland as a city and build the community's first parks and sidewalks. He became interested in architecture, interior design, and furniture design, developing pioneering, simple, and functional solutions that influenced other designers outside his local area. Many of his literary contemporaries interpreted Neal's change in focus as a disappearance. Hawthorne wrote in 1845 of "that wild fellow, John Neal", who "surely has long been dead, else he never could keep himself so quiet." James Russell Lowell in 1848 claimed he had "wasted in Maine
16830-557: The natural world. He expanded his influence with his lecture " The American Scholar ", delivered in Cambridge in 1837, which called upon Americans to create a uniquely American writing style. Both the nation and the individual should declare independence. Emerson's influence fostered the movement now known as Transcendentalism . Among the leaders was Emerson's friend, Henry David Thoreau , a nonconformist and critic of American commercial culture. After living mostly by himself for two years in
16983-406: The new authors whose careers it started were women, including Elizabeth Oakes Smith and others lesser known to history. The Yankee is credited with having "discovered" Poe, and influenced the young writer's style with the magazine's essays. Poe considered Neal's September 1829 review of the poem " Fairy-Land " to be "the very first words of encouragement I ever remember to have heard". Poe became
17136-401: The nineteenth century include Walt Whitman , Melville, and Emily Dickinson . Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born in the West. Henry James achieved international recognition with novels like The Portrait of a Lady (1881). Following World War I , modernist literature rejected nineteenth-century forms and values. F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the carefree mood of
17289-517: The novel Randolph (1823), Blackwood's Magazine (1824), and The Yankee to be the most historically important, in which he discussed leading American artists and their work "with unprecedented acumen and enthusiasm". The essay "Landscape and Portrait-Painting" (September 1829) anticipated John Ruskin 's groundbreaking Modern Painters (1843) by distinguishing between "things seen by the artist" and "things as they are", as Ruskin put it more famously fourteen years later. In Neal's words in 1829, "There
17442-410: The periodical if Neal would serve as editor, which Neal accepted. Subscription to the new weekly magazine cost $ 3 a year, or $ 2.50 paid in advance. The Yankee was Maine's first literary periodical and one of America's first cultural publications. Controversial at the time for its lack of association with any political party or interest group, it was a precursor for the independent American press that
17595-424: The population of the colonies numbered approximately 111,000. Thirty years later, it was more than 250,000. By 1760, it reached 1,600,000. The growth of communities, and therefore social life, led people to become more interested in the progress of individuals and their shared experience in the colonies. These new ideas can be seen in the popularity of Benjamin Franklin 's Autobiography . Even earlier than Franklin
17748-409: The prefaces to his first play, Otho (1819) and his second poetry collection, The Battle of Niagara: Second Edition (1819). The essay dismissed well-accepted Shakespearean standards and outlined a prophecy for the future American drama that largely played out by the end of the century. Neal predicted that characters would become more relatable by expressing feelings "in common language" because "when
17901-736: The public school, at which he was bullied and physically abused by classmates and the schoolmaster. To reduce his mother's financial burden, Neal left school and home at the age of twelve for full-time employment. As an adolescent haberdasher and dry goods salesman in Portland and Portsmouth , Neal learned dishonest business practices like passing off counterfeit money and misrepresenting merchandise quality and quantity. Laid off multiple times due to business failures resulting from US embargoes against British imports , Neal traveled through Maine as an itinerant penmanship instructor, watercolor teacher, and miniature portrait artist. At twenty years of age in 1814, he answered an ad for employment with
18054-432: The recession following the war upended the firm and left Pierpont and Neal bankrupt in Baltimore in 1816. Though the "Pierpont, Lord, and Neal" wholesale/retail chain proved to be short-lived, Neal's relationship with Pierpont grew into the closest and longest-lived friendship of his life. Neal's experience in business riding out the multiple booms and busts that eventually left him bankrupt at age twenty-two made him into
18207-550: The region's customs, traditions, and speech, particularly the series "Live Yankees" (March–June 1828), "New England As It Was" (March–November 1828), and "New England As It Is" (March–November 1828). He juxtaposed articles by separate authors with conflicting views and inserted his own editorial footnotes into others' essays to encourage discourse over the region's identity. Nineteenth-century American regionalists are known for sentimentally posing rural traditions in conflict with America's urbanization. In contrast, The Yankee presented
18360-662: The religious foundations of the Massachusetts Bay Colony . Edward Winslow also recorded a diary of the first years after the Mayflower 's arrival. " A modell of Christian Charity " by John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, was a Sermon preached on the Arbella (the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet ) in 1630. This work outlined the ideal society that he and the other Separatists would build, in an attempt to realize
18513-419: The rigid moralism and sentimentality of his American contemporaries Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, Neal's early novels between the late 1810s and 1820s depict dark, physically-flawed, conflicted Byronesque heroes of great intellect and morals. His brand of Romanticism reflected an aversion for self-criticism and revision, relying instead on "nearly automatic writing" to define his style, enhance
18666-460: The sentimental genre, characterized by overindulgence in emotion, an invitation to listen to the voice of reason against misleading passions, as well as an optimistic overemphasis on the essential goodness of humanity. Sentimentalism is often thought to be a reaction against the Calvinistic belief in the depravity of human nature. While many of these novels were popular, the economic infrastructure of
18819-765: The sinews and cords of his pugilist brain". Friend and fellow Portland native Henry Wadsworth Longfellow described Neal in 1860 as "a good deal tempered down but fire enough still". After years of vaguely affiliating with Unitarianism and universalism , Neal converted to Congregationalism in 1851. Through deepened religiosity he found new moral arguments for women's rights, potential release from his violent tendencies, and inspiration for seven religious essays. Neal collected these "exhortations" in One Word More (1854), which "rambles passionately for two hundred pages and closes with breathless metaphor" in an effort to convert "the reasoning and thoughtful among believers". At
18972-922: The time consisted of pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies to both a European and colonial audience. Captain John Smith could be considered the first American author with his works A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Happened in Virginia ;... (1608) and The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Other writers of this genre included Daniel Denton , Thomas Ashe , William Penn , George Percy , William Strachey , Daniel Coxe , Gabriel Thomas, and John Lawson . The religious disputes that prompted settlement in America were important topics of early American literature. A journal written by John Winthrop , The History of New England , discussed
19125-479: The time did not allow these writers to make a living through their writing alone. Charles Brockden Brown is the earliest American novelist whose works are still commonly read. He published Wieland in 1798, and in 1799 published Ormond , Edgar Huntly , and Arthur Mervyn . These novels are of the Gothic genre. The first writer to be able to support himself through the income generated by his publications alone
19278-420: The time. Neal used creative control of the magazine to improve his social status, help establish the American gymnastics movement, cover national politics , and critique American literature , art , theater , and social issues. Essays by Neal on American art and theater anticipated major changes and movements in those fields realized in the following decades. Conflicting opinions published in The Yankee on
19431-408: The two groups. "It was there," said he, "there exactly where that horse is passing now, that they first fired upon me. I set off at a speed up that hill, but, finding nine of the party there, I determined to dash over that elevation in front; I attempted it, but shot after shot was fired after me, until I preferred making one desperate attempt, sword in hand, to being shot down, like a fat goose, upon
19584-472: The urging of Longfellow and other friends, John Neal returned to novel writing late in life, publishing True Womanhood in 1859. To fill a gap in his income between 1863 and 1866 he wrote three dime novels . In 1869 he published his "most readable book, and certainly one of the most entertaining autobiographies to come out of nineteenth-century America". Reflecting on his life this way inspired Neal to amplify his activism and assume regional leadership roles in
19737-497: The violent tendencies with which he struggled throughout his life. In 1828, Neal established The Yankee magazine with himself as editor, and continued publication through the end of 1829. He used its pages to vindicate himself to fellow Portlanders, critique American art and drama, host a discourse on the nature of New Englander identity, advance his developing feminist ideas, and encourage new literary voices, most of them women. Neal also edited many other periodicals between
19890-536: The women's suffrage movement. His last two books are a collection of pieces for and about children titled Great Mysteries and Little Plagues (1870), and a guidebook for his hometown titled Portland Illustrated (1874). By 1870, in his old age, he had amassed a comfortable fortune, valued at $ 80,000. His last appearance in the public eye was likely an 1875 syndicated article from the Portland Advertiser about an eighty-one year-old Neal physically overpowering
20043-495: The works of Charles W. Chesnutt (writing about African Americans), of María Ruiz de Burton , one of the earliest Mexican-American novelists to write in English, and in the Yiddish -inflected works of Abraham Cahan . William Dean Howells also represented the realist tradition through his novels, including The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) and his work as editor of The Atlantic Monthly . Henry James (1843–1916) confronted
20196-401: The young nation, making observations about the relations between American politics, individualism, and community. The political conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired the writings of William Lloyd Garrison and his paper The Liberator , along with poet John Greenleaf Whittier and Harriet Beecher Stowe in her world-famous Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). These efforts were supported by
20349-504: Was Cadwallader Colden (1689–1776), whose book The History of the Five Indian Nations , published in 1727 was one of the first texts published on Iroquois history. Colden also wrote a book on botany, which attracted the attention of Carl Linnaeus , and he maintained a long term correspondence with Benjamin Franklin. In the post-war period, Thomas Jefferson established his place in American literature through his authorship of
20502-1162: Was Washington Irving . He completed his first major book in 1809 titled A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty . Of the picaresque genre, Hugh Henry Brackenridge published Modern Chivalry in 1792–1815; Tabitha Gilman Tenney wrote Female Quixotism: Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventure of Dorcasina Sheldon in 1801; Royall Tyler wrote The Algerine Captive in 1797. Other notable authors include William Gilmore Simms , who wrote Martin Faber in 1833, Guy Rivers in 1834, and The Yemassee in 1835. Lydia Maria Child wrote Hobomok in 1824 and The Rebels in 1825. John Neal wrote Keep Cool in 1817, Logan in 1822, Seventy-Six in 1823, Randolph in 1823, Errata in 1823, Brother Jonathan in 1825, and Rachel Dyer (earliest use of
20655-409: Was "handsomely paid" to be one of the magazine's most prolific contributors. His first Blackwood's article, a profile on the 1824 candidates for US president and the five presidents who had served to that point, was the first article by an American to appear in a British literary journal and was quoted and republished widely throughout Europe. As the first written history of American literature,
20808-457: Was "the first Native American novel devoted to the subject of Indian life". A significant event in the development of Native American literature in English came with the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 to N. Scott Momaday ( Kiowa tribe) for his novel House Made of Dawn (1968). The Thirteen Colonies have often been regarded as the center of early American literature. However,
20961-472: Was Mather's The Christian Philosopher (1721). The enormous scientific, economic, social, and philosophical, changes of the 18th century, called the Enlightenment , impacted the authority of clergyman and scripture, making way for democratic principles. The increase in population helped account for the greater diversity of opinion in religious and political life, as seen in the literature of this time. In 1670,
21114-416: Was Neal's nighttime distraction from laboring sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, for more than four months to produce an index for six years of weekly publications of Hezekiah Niles 's Weekly Register magazine, which Niles admitted was "the most laborious work of the kind that ever appeared in any country". In 1819, he published a play and took his first paying job as a newspaper editor, becoming
21267-427: Was an American writer, critic, editor, lecturer, and activist. Considered both eccentric and influential, he delivered speeches and published essays, novels, poems, and short stories between the 1810s and 1870s in the United States and Great Britain, championing American literary nationalism and regionalism in their earliest stages. Neal advanced the development of American art , fought for women's rights , advocated
21420-462: Was confronted by citizens offended by his derision of prominent citizens in the semi-autobiographical Errata , the way he depicted New England dialect and habits in Brother Jonathan , and his criticism of American writers in Blackwood's Magazine . Residents posted broadsides , engaged in verbally and physically violent exchanges with Neal in the streets, and conspired to block his admission to
21573-522: Was confronted by community members who were offended by his literary work in the preceding years: the unsympathetic depiction of his hometown in his semi-autobiographical novel Errata (1823), the way he depicted New England dialect and customs in his novel Brother Jonathan (1825), and the criticism in his American Writers series in Blackwood's Magazine (1824–1825). Residents posted inflammatory broadsides calling Neal "a panderer for scandal against
21726-464: Was designed to be completed in seven-to-eight years, earned admission to the bar in a community known for rigorous requirements, and contributed prodigiously to newspapers and literary magazines, two of which he edited at different points. Two months after Neal's bankruptcy trial, he submitted his first contribution to The Portico and quickly became the magazine's second-most prolific contributor of poems, essays, and literary criticism, though he
21879-550: Was established later in the century. When asked why he would establish such a magazine outside a major city, Neal said, "We mean to publish in Portland. Whatever the people of New-York, or Boston or Philadelphia or Baltimore might say, Portland is the place for us." The Yankee functioned to educate Americans about England, spread Jeremy Bentham-inspired utilitarian philosophy, publish literary contributions, and critique American literature , American art , theater , politics, and social issues. The magazine also aided in establishing
22032-458: Was inspired by his work. Moby-Dick (1851) became not only an adventure tale about the pursuit of a white whale, but also an exploration of obsession, the nature of evil, and human struggle against the elements. It was a critical and commercial failure, as were his subsequent novels. He turned to poetry and did not return to fiction until the short novel Billy Budd , Sailor , which he left unfinished at his death in 1891. In it, Melville dramatizes
22185-446: Was just beginning to emerge, working immediately and consistently within the nation's developing "complex web of print culture". Throughout his adult life, especially in the 1830s, Neal was a prolific contributor to newspapers and magazines, writing essays on a wide variety of topics including but not limited to art criticism, literary criticism, phrenology , women's rights, early German gymnastics, and slavery. His efforts to subvert
22338-464: Was larger than what was published in North America. However, printing was established in the American colonies before it was allowed in most of England. In England, restrictive laws had long confined printing to four locations, where the government could monitor what was published: London, York, Oxford, and Cambridge. Because of this, the colonies ventured into the modern world earlier than their provincial English counterparts. Some American literature of
22491-559: Was never paid. Two years later he took over as editor for what ended up being the last issue. The magazine was closely associated with the Delphian Club , which he founded in 1816 with Dr. Tobias Watkins , John Pierpont, and four other men. Neal felt indebted to this "high-minded, generous, unselfish" association of "intellectual and companionable" people for many of the happy memories and employment connections he enjoyed in Baltimore. While writing his earliest poetry, novels, and essays he
22644-448: Was not her selected and preferred of all than to go unmarried to her grave." The article "Rights of Women" (March 5, 1829) includes some of the "angriest and most assertive feminist claims" of his career, saying of coverture and suffrage that: The truth is, that women are not citizens here; they pay taxes without being represented ...; if they are represented, it is by those whose interest, instead of being included in theirs,
22797-619: Was predominantly in the naturalist genre. His notable works include McTeague: A Story of San Francisco (1899), The Octopus: A Story of California (1901) and The Pit (1903). Norris along with Hamlin Garland (1860–1940) wrote about the problems of American farmers and other social issues from a naturalist perspective. Garland is best known for his fiction involving hard-working Midwestern farmers. ( Main-Travelled Roads (1891), Prairie Folks (1892), Jason Edwards (1892). ) Edward Bellamy 's utopian novel Looking Backward (1888)
22950-548: Was still in process 60 years later when William Dean Howells was considered innovative for issuing the same criticism. The Yankee documented and offered commentary upon the period's nationally relevant social and political topics, such as the nullification crisis , the Tariff of Abominations , Andrew Jackson 's spoils system , lotteries , temperance , women's rights , and the Maine-New Brunswick border issues that led to
23103-455: Was studying law as an unpaid apprentice in the office of William H. Winder , a fellow Delphian. Neal's business failure had left him without enough "money to take a letter from the post-office", so Neal "cast about for something better to do ... and, after considering the matter for ten minutes or so, determined to try my hand at a novel." When he wrote his first book, fewer than seventy novels had been published by "not more than half
23256-571: Was the first American to establish a public gymnasium in the US and championed athletics to regulate violent tendencies with which he himself had struggled throughout his life. A largely self-educated man who attended no schools after the age of twelve, Neal was a child laborer who left self-employment in dry goods at twenty-two to pursue dual careers in law and literature. By middle age, Neal had attained comfortable wealth and community standing in his native Portland, Maine , through varied business investments, arts patronage, and civic leadership. Neal
23409-475: Was ultimately successful because male and female literacy rates were increasing at the time. Among the first American novels are Thomas Attwood Digges 's Adventures of Alonso , published in London in 1775 and William Hill Brown 's The Power of Sympathy published in 1789. Brown's novel depicts a tragic love story between siblings who fell in love without knowing they were related. In the next decade, important women writers also published novels. Susanna Rowson
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