A New Kind of Literary Pulse

Hamilton Wright Mabie was an American writer, critic, lecturer and editor during the 19th and early 20th centuries. After law school, he was hired to work for the Christian Union magazine and was later promoted to associate editor.

American novelist, poet, essayist and short story writer, Hamlin Garland is generally acknowledged for his fictional works involving hard-working Midwestern farmers.

He was made member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1918 and won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1922 with his book A Daughter of the Middle Border.

Harriet Spofford is still today one of the most widely-published American writers. She wrote novels, poems, and detective stories, spanning her career across more than six decades and many literary genres. She had an extraordinary gift for language and wrote beautiful, moving descriptions, evoking intense feelings.

Henry Jackson van Dyke, Jr. was an American author, educator, and clergyman, especially well known for his poetry and two Christmas stories, "The Other Wise Man" and "The First Christmas Tree." You will find various religious themes expressed throughout his works. van Dyke was educated and would go on to teach English literature at Princeton University.

A member of the Romantic movement, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the best loved American poet of his lifetime. However, even though he was widely respected, he was also criticized for imitating European ways of writing and styles as well as for writing for masses exclusively. Nevertheless, he helped American literary life develop by exemplifying the possibility of a successful authorial career.

The American novelist, short story writer and poet, Herman Melville, was a part of the American Renaissance period. His best known work, Moby Dick, was sold poorly before becoming his masterpiece. This novel is based on both Melville’s years of experience abroad as a crew member of whaleships and on the real life disaster of the Essex whaleship. Melville also wrote several other sea adventure ... [+]

Having very little opportunity for formal schooling because of family conditions, J. W. Hammond is a self-taught poet. She was included in James Weldon Johnson's "Book of American Negro Poetry" as a demonstration of "native ability to the highest degree."

Jack London was the pen name of the American novelist, short story writer, journalist and social activist John Griffith Chaney. He was a part of the radical literary group "The Crowd", based in San Francisco. He also was a spokesman of unionization, socialism and fought for the workers’ rights. His best known works, The Call of the Wild and White Fang, are based on the elemental struggles fo ... [+]

James Weldon Johnson, who was a talented American poet and novelist, made a name for himself as a man of letters and as a civil rights leader in the early decades of the 20th century. He is credited with bringing a new standard of artistry and realism to black literature. He was head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during the 1920s and helped remove the legal ... [+]