All the writers treated in the immediately foregoing paragraphs won at least a partial recognition before the Civil War. Their fame has not, however, entirely cast in the shade such writers as Richard Henry Dana, Jr., author of Two Years Before the Most (1840), and Herman Melville, whose ypce (1846), Onmo (1847), and Nobly Dick (1851), are among the best books of adventure in our literature. Nor is the work of Bayard Taylor, Donald G. Mitchell, Richard Grant White, James T. Fields, Thomas Went worth Iligginson, and Charles Eliot Norton, to be omitted even in so brief a sketch as the present. Mention should he made also of George William Curtis, E. P. Whipple, and the two Southern poets, Paul H. Hayne and Henry Tim rod, as well as of the worthy Philadelphia dra matist and poet, George ]henry Poker. Two other writers who .merged before the Civil War have attained positions only just below the highest. One, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, stirred the sympathies of the civilized world by her pathetic story of American slavery. Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) ; the other, Walt Whitman. by his Leaves of Grass (1855-83) poetically expressed the democratic ideal in a way that appealed pro foundly to European readers, and has won him quite a large circle of devote-es at home.
The most noteworthy name in the decade to which the Civil War belongs is that of Samuel L. Clemens, who, over the pseudonym of "Mark Twain," won a world-wide reputation as a hu morist and writer of fiction. With him ap peared a number of authors whose later and more mature work has made them known throughout the country. One of the most im portant books of the decade was The Man With oat a Country (1863), by Edward Everett Hale. Appearing at a time when the feelings of the nation were so divided, it did much to strengthen a spirit of loyalty to the Union. Two other writers, who first came to notice in the sixties, were cut off in what promised to be most fruit ful careers—Theodore Winthrop, the novelist, whose John Brent (1862) was full of racy vigor, and Sidney Lanier, regarded by some critics as the most important American poet of the last forty years.
Since 1870, the number of publications has been constantly and rapidly increasing, and two dominant types have appeared—the local short story and an exaggerated form of the romantic novel. As the Middle and Western States be came more settled, a new type of literature arose, which was especially adapted to the new con ditions. As early as 1868 a magazine, The Overland Monthly, had been established in San Francisco; and in it appeared the vivid, racy, unconventional story, The Lack of Roaring Camp, by Bret Ilarte. From the appearance of this tale may be dated the vogue of the short story dealing with the local conditions in vari ous sections of the United States. Following Bret Harte, a score of writers appeared all over the country, each depicting the life and man ners of his own particular section. For the
most part, they emphasized local conditions by employing the dialect peculiar to their division of the country. Among the more successful of these dialect writers were Joel Chandler Harris, with his Uncle Remus stories; Edward Eggles ton, the author of Tie Hoosier Schoolmaster (1871), and other tales of the Middle West; G. W. Cable, who so skillfully depicted the French Creole life of New Orleans; and Mary Noailles Murfree, better known under her pseu donym "Charles Egbert Craddock," whose novels of the mountain whites of Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina and Georgia first attracted the attention of the country to these peculiar people. But although the majority of short-story writers used dialect forms, there were a number who adhered to more conventional styles of ex pression, depending upon their power of charac terization and the enumeration of salient details to give the necessary semblance of reality. Among these wore Harold Frederic, who dealt with the crude life of West-Central New York; Hamlin Garland, who wrote of the North-West; James Lane Allen, who depicted the people of Kentucky; and Mary E. Wilkins, who with de served success wrote her vignettes of the narrow er life of New England. F. R. Stockton drew with much quaint humor some familiar and very characteristic. American types in Rudder Grange; and Ernest Seton-Thompson described the lives of wild animals by the original and interesting method of looking at their environment from their own standpoint.
Boddes these writers there were a. few suc cessful authors whose works cannot be classi fied under any one division. First of these is General Lew Wallace, whose Ben Ilur (1880), a tale of the early days of Christianity, was im mensely popular. It was a forerunner of the re action against the short dialect story; for just as the psychological novel had given place to the story, so it in turn was to be superseded by the unalloyed romance. A prolific and interesting writer was Francis Marion Crawford, who was an exponent of the theory that a novel should be essentially a drama, in which descriptions should take the place of scenery. At the same time, William Dean Howells and Ilenry James were working along lines which, though parallel, were nevertheless clearly separated. The former prac tically created the novel of American social life. Ilis material was found in men and women rather than in incidents; and in his stories the most commonplace occurrences are rich in fas cination, because of his skillful realization of the of whom he writes. Henry James has been characterized as the "creator of the international novel." his psychology is ad mirable, though almost too subtle, and his style is refined to a degree.