JACKSON, Helen Maria Fiske Hunt, °H. H.," American novelist and poet: b. Am herst, Mass., 18 Oct. 1831; d. San Francisco, 12 Aug. 1885. At 21 she married Capt. Edward Hunt (d. 1863) of the United States army, and began the wandering existence of an army of ficer's wife. From 1867 to her death, 16 years later, her pen hardly rested. She wrote verses, sketches of travel, essays, children's stories, novels and tracts for the time, generally over the pen-name °H. H." Her life in the West after her marriage to W. S. Jackson, a banker of Colorado Springs, revealed to her the wrongs of the Indian, which she set herself at once to redress. Newspaper letters, appeals to govern ment officialism, and finally her 'Century of Dishonor' (1881), a sharp arraignment of the nation for perfidy and cruelty toward its help less wards, were her service to this cause. Her most popular story, (1884), a ro mance whose protagonists are of Indian blood, was also an appeal for 'justice. This book, however, rose far above its polemic intention; the beauty of its descriptions, its dramatic movement, its admirable characterization, and its imaginative insight entitling it to high rank.
Two novels in the No Name Series' — (Mercy Philbrick's Choice' (1876) and 'Hetty's Strange History' (1877)—show the qualities that in fuse her prose: color, brilliancy of touch, grace of form, certainty of intuition and occa sional admirable humor. She had not the gift of construction and lacked the power of self criticism ; so that she is singularly uneven. It is no doubt chiefly her poems which have gained for °H. H." a place in literature. They reveal genuine lyrical power, although at times marred by defective technique. Among books of hers not already named are 'Bits of (1873) ; 'Glimpses of Three Coasts'; 'Sonnets and Lyrics' (1886). To her have often been attributed the noted 'Saxe Holm) stories. Con sult Higginson, T. W., 'Contemporaries' (Bos ton 1900). See Ramortn.