DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE American author, of negro descent, was born in Dayton (O.), June 27, 1872. In high school he wrote the class poem and was editor-in-chief of the school paper. While earning his living as an elevator boy, assistant in the library of Congress, etc., he continued to write, recite, and publish his work; and after 1898, the year of his mar riage, he gave his full time to writing. He died of consumption at his home in Dayton, Feb. 8, 1906. His poetry was brought to the attention of American readers by William Dean Howells, who reviewed Majors and Minors (1896) in Harper's Weekly and wrote an appreciative introduction to his Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896), which was subsequently used in his Complete Poems (1913). Dunbar published numerous volumes of verse, novels and short stories. Some of his short stories and sketches, especially those dealing with the American negro, are charming ; they are far superior to his novels, which deal with scenes in which the author is not so much at home. His most enduring work, however, is his poetry. Some of this is in literary English, but the best is in the dialect of his people.
See L. K. Wiggins, Life and Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar (Naperville (Ill.), 1907). Tributes to him by his wife, Alice Moore Dunbar, also a writer, and by others, were reprinted from the A.M.E. Church Review under the title Paul Laurence Dunbar, Poet Laureate of the Negro Race.