Caroline M. Sedgwick with her
;
Fittingly after Poe comes the name of Na thaniel Hawthorne (q.v.), for it was in 1850, the year following Poe's death, that 'The Scarlet Letter' was published. This was the first if not the only great American novel. There had been nothing like it in American literature, and scarcely anything like it in the world's literature. At the time of its publi cation, Hawthorne was 45 years of age; he had been writing since boyhood and his name had been known for 15 years as that of a novelist and short-story writer of peculiar style, extraordinary gifts and sombre tenden cies. 'The Scarlet Letter,' however, imme diately showed the unique and unapproachable power of his genius, and with (The House of the Seven Gables' (1851), 'The Blithedale Romance) (1852) and 'The Marble Faun) (1860), which followed, it placed Hawthorne among the greatest of the world's fiction writers. During this era of Hawthorne's prog ress the art of writing fiction was growing apace. In 1852,
Tom's Cabin' achieved three things: it made Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe (q.v.) a famous woman, it aroused an enormous public sentiment against slavery and it created a desire for novel reading among hundreds of thousands of people who could not before have been persuaded even to look into a work of fiction. Mrs. Stowe, as was to be ex pected, never repeated the triumphant success of (Uncle Tom's Cabin,' although during her long life she wrote many novels. Nathaniel P. Willis, at this time at the height of his fame, was turning out volume after volume of fan tastic work in poetry, fiction and essays. George William Curtis' long and versatile career cov ered both the ante-bellum and the post-bellum periods; his
J. H. Ingraham, who from writing many lurid, sensational novels turned in his later days to sacred history and evolved
As early as 1839, the poet Longfellow (q.v.), returned from a European trip which had filled his receptive brain with Old World fancies and mediteval legends, wrote his 'Hyperion,' a ro mantic tale, the heroine of which was Miss Frances Appleton, of Boston, whom he married in 1843. Ten years later Longfellow again turned his thoughts to prose romance, produc ing in 'Kavanagh' a story remarkable more for its psychological elements than for any of those active phases of thought which should characterize a notable work of fiction. His success was so slight, however, and lie was so keenly criticized for his venturesomeness in at tempting to leap the bounds of his own field of poetry into an untraveled highway, that there after he was content to express his romantic feelings wholly in verse. Among the other American poets whose versatility led them to the writing of novels, Oliver Wendell Holmes (q.v.) is the best known. His famous 'Break fast Table' series is a compound of romance, essay and poesy, and its four volumes of genial miscellany and philosophy will doubtless live long after his two novels --
Venner' (1861), and 'The Guardian Angel) (1867)—are forgotten. It was also in the same decade that Bayard Taylor (q.v.) added his first work of fiction to his rapid lengthening list of works in almost every branch of literature. His novels comprise 'Hannah Thurston,' (John God frey's Fortunes,' (The Story of Kennett,' and