416 



LITERATURE, AMERICAN, IN 1899. 



The complexion of the literature of the year was 

 much colored by the disputed questions of the 

 conquest and retention of the Philippine Islands. 

 Biography. Much of the biographical litera- 

 ture of the year was ephemeral in character. 

 American Naval Heroes, by J. Howard Brown, led 

 naturally to Dewey and Other Great Naval Com- 

 manders, by William Henry Davenport Adams; 

 A Life of Admiral George Dewey, and Dewey 

 Family History, edited by Adelbert Milton Dewey, 

 filled a sumptuous volume ; Admiral George Dew- 

 ey: A Sketch of the Mail came from John Bar- 

 rett: The Hero of Manila: Dewey on the Missis- 

 sippi and the Pacific, by Rossiter Johnson, in 

 the Youn" Heroes of the Navy Series, was illus- 

 trated by B. West Clinedinst and others; Admiral 

 Dewev, the Hero of Manila, was from the pen of 

 Thomas W. Handford, who also portrayed for 

 us Theodore Roosevelt, the Pride of the Rough 

 Riders, as an ideal American; and Will M. Clem- 

 ens, in addition to his Life of Admiral George 

 Dewey, gave a brief portrayal of Theodore Roose- 

 velt, the American. From Reefer to Rear Admiral 

 was the title of reminiscences and journal jot- 

 tings of nearly half a century of naval life (1827- 

 74), vouchsafed by Benjamin F. Sands, while a 

 still longer period was covered in the autobio- 

 graphical Life of Charles Henry Davis, Rear Ad- 

 miral, 1807-1877. David G. Farragut, by James 

 Barnes, belonged to the Beacon Biographies, ed- 

 ited by M. A. De Wolfe Howe, other issues of 

 which were Robert E. Lee, by William P. Trent; 

 Daniel Webster, by Norman Hapgood; Aaron 

 Burr, by Henry Childs Merwin; John Brown, by 

 Joseph Edgar Chamberlain; and Frederick Doug- 

 lass, by Charles W. Chesnutt. Abraham Lincoln: 

 The Man of the People was the subject of a spe- 

 cial study by Norman Hapgood; Truth is 

 Stranger than Fiction, by James H. Cathey, con- 

 tained a North Carolina tradition relative to the 

 ancestry of Lincoln; Nancy Hanks, by Mrs. Caro- 

 line Hanks Hitchcock, told the story of his 

 mother, also revived in The Sorrows of Nancy, 

 by L. Boyd. Two volumes contained the Life 

 and Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton, by 

 George C. Gorham. General Sherman, by Man- 

 ning Ferguson Force, in the Great Commander 

 Series, contained the most accurate and complete 

 account of the battle of Shiloh said to have been 

 yet published; the Life of Nathan Bedford For- 

 rest, by John Allan Wyeth, M. D., contained much 

 history in addition to the career of the brilliant 

 Confederate cavalry leader, and was profusely il- 

 lustrated; and from John G. Gittings came Per- 

 sonal Recollections of Stonewall Jackson. The 

 Reminiscences of Neal Dow (born 1804; died 

 1897) contained the recollections of eighty years, 

 and to James F. Rusling we owe an account of 

 Men and Things I saw in Civil War Days. The 

 Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin was from 

 the pen of Charles Eugene Hamlin, and The Life 

 of Oliver P. Morton, by William Dudley Foulke, 

 in two volumes, included his important speeches. 

 The Life of Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, 1806-1876, 

 Mas written by his grandson, Barton H. Wise. 

 Salmon Portland Chase, by Albert Bushnell Hart, 

 and Thaddeus Stevens, by Samuel W. McCall, ap- 

 peared in the American Statesmen Series. John 

 Murray Forbes's Letters and Recollections, edited 

 by his daughter, Sarah Forbes Hughes, contained 

 the life of a man who played no small part in 

 New England during the civil war, and in this 

 connection may be mentioned the interesting 

 Reminiscences, 1819-1899, of Mrs. Julia Ward 

 Howe. John Hooker gave Some Reminiscences 

 of a Long Life, and especially delightful were 

 The Reminiscences of a very Old Man, 1808- 



1897, by John Sartain, containing personal phases 

 of the development of American art and letters 

 for over sixty years. Recollections of my Mother 

 (Mrs. Anne Jean Lyman), by Mrs. Susan Inches 

 Lesley, gave a picture of domestic and social 

 life in New England in the first half of the nine- 

 teenth century. Of present-day interest was 

 The Life of Prince Otto von Bismarck, by Frank 

 Preston Stearns. Dreyfus, the Prisoner of Devil's 

 Island, was from the pen of William Harding, 

 and Lettres d'un Innocent was the title of letters 

 of Capt. Dreyfus to his wife, translated by L. 

 G. Moreau and published for his vindication in 

 the United States. The Memoirs of a Revolution- 

 ist, by Prince Kropotkin, was also a book of 

 American manufacture. R. W. Hale also told 

 briefly The Dreyfus Story. Maximilian in Mex- 

 ico, by Mrs. Sara Yorke Stevenson, contained a 

 woman's reminiscences of the French interven- 

 tion, 1862-'67. Returning to the Revolutionary 

 period, we have a presentation of Washington 

 the Soldier, by Henry B. Carrington, with chrono- 

 logical index and appendices, and a second vol- 

 ume of Letters to Washington, edited by Stanis- 

 laus Murray Hamilton, covering the period 1756- 

 7>8, while Washington's Farewell Address was 

 again given to the reading public, this time with 

 a prefatory note by Worthington Chauncey Ford. 

 Paul Leicester Ford presented views of The Many- 

 sided Franklin in an entertaining volume, in ad- 

 dition to completing his edition of the Writings 

 of Thomas Jefferson with the tenth and final 

 volume, and Franklin with his friends is the 

 theme of a most readable collection of Historic 

 Side Lights, made by Howard Payson Arnold. 

 Stanislaus Murray Hamilton sent out the second 

 volume of The Writings of James Monroe, being 

 a collection of public and private papers and cor- 

 respondence, now for the first time printed, which 

 he has undertaken the task of editing in six or 

 seven volumes. Edward Field gave us Esek Hop- 

 kins. Commander in Chief of the Continental 

 Navy, 1775-1778, Master Mariner, Politician, 

 Brigadier General, Naval Officer, and Philan- 

 thropist, while from Augustine Jones we had 

 The Life and Work of Thomas Dudley, Second 

 Governor of Massachusetts. Sydney George Fish- 

 er, the author of The True Benjamin Franklin, 

 proved The True William Penn widely different 

 from the accepted ideal of the first proprietor of 

 Pennsylvania. The True Story of Lafayette, 

 called the Friend of America, was written for 

 the series of Children's Lives of Great Men by 

 Elbridge Streeter Brooks; Herbert B. Adams ed- 

 ited a brief collection of letters anent Jared 

 Sparks and Alexis de Tocqueville. An edition 

 limited to 290 copies was made of the Journal; 

 or, Historical Recollections of American Events 

 during the Revolutionary War, by Elias Boudinot, 

 President of the Continental Congress and com- 

 missary general of prisoners during the war of 

 independence. La Salle in the Valley of the St. 

 Joseph was the theme of Charles H. Bartlett and 

 Richard H. Lyon. To literary biography belong 

 Letters from Ralph Waldo Emerson to a -Friend, 

 1838-1853, edited by Charles Eliot Norton, and 

 Letters of Sidney Lanier, selections from his cor- 

 respondence, 1866-'81. James Russell Lowell and 

 his Friends, by Edward Everett Hale, was sup- 

 plemented by Edward Everett Hale, Jr.'s, sketch 

 of James Russell Lowell in the Beacon Biogra- 

 phies, to which Mrs. Annie Adams Fields contrib- 

 uted Nathaniel Hawthorne. A gentle and gra- 

 cious personality was that of John Sullivan 

 Dwight, Brook Farmer, Editor, and Critic of 

 Music, as portrayed by George Willis Cooke; 

 Recollections of an Old Musician came from 



