Monthly, Howells exerted a strong and beneficent influence on American letters, promoting the work of many promising young artists, including Stephen Crane, Hamlin Garland, Frank Norris, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Robert Herrick, as well as Samuel Clemens and Henry James. A prolific essayist, reviewer, critic, and novelist, Howells best expressed his own realistic style in such works as A Modern Instance (1882), The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), Indian Summer (1886), and A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890). In his later years Howells received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Oxford universities, and he was the first president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a post he held until his death.
Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) Born in Florida, Hurston graduated from Howard University and studied anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University. In New York City in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, she began publishing stories. Her first novel, Jonah's Gourd Vine, was published in 1934, followed by her best- known work, Their Eyes Were Watching God, in 1937. Despite her fine early writings, Hurston fell into obscurity and poverty; she suffered a stroke in October 1959 and died in January 1960, to be buried in an unmarked grave at Fort Pierce, Florida. -785-
Washington Irving (1783–1859) Irving was born in New York City, youngest of eleven children. His health was delicate and he did not attend university; he did, however, gain fame as essayist, historian, biographer, and humorist, producing such works as the satirical A History of New York (by 'Diedrich Knickerbocker,' 1809) and The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1820), containing such classics as 'Rip Van Winkle' and 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.' He served as secretary of the United States legation in London (1829-32), as minister to Spain (1842-45), but declined opportunities to become mayor of New York, a United States Congressman, or Secretary of the Navy.
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-85) Born Helen Maria Hunt, in Amherst, Massachussets, Jackson was a poet and a friend of Emily Dickinson, who may be the subject of her novel Mercy Philbrick's Choice (1876). Her indictment of the United States government's policy toward Native Americans is conveyed in A Century of Dishonor (1881) and in her historical romance Ramona (1884), her most popular work, and the direct result of her participation in a governmental investigation of the plight of the California Mission Indians. The 'Ramona Pageant' is still acted annually outof-doors in its historical locale, near Hemet, California.
Harriet Jacobs (1818-96) Jacobs escaped from slavery, but freedom proved illusory. Jacobs was hidden in a small, windowless shed located off her grandmother's cabin. Incredibly, she remained concealed for seven years, before finally making her way to New York. Jacobs's autobiographical Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) describes her experiences. Originally published under the pseudonym Linda Brent, Jacobs's narrative was for many years attributed to her editor, Lydia Maria Child. Recent scholarship has discounted these claims, and Jacobs's account is today considered to be a major work in the canon of slave narratives. -786-
Henry James (1843–1916) Henry James, Jr., was born in New York City, the second son of Henry James, Sr., noted American religious philosopher, and younger brother of William James, pioneering psychological researcher. The James children received a various and dauntlessly experimental education on both sides of the Atlantic. Early immersion in European culture resulted in Henry's lifelong ambivalence toward his own American origins, and many of his best- known works — The American (1877), The Europeans (1878), Daisy Miller (1879), The Portrait of a Lady (1881) — deal with the conflicts between American and European values, customs, and character. A partial list of his novels includes such famous titles as Washington Square (1881), The Bostonians (1886), The Spoils of Poynton (1897), What Maisie Knew (1897), The Awkward Age (1899), The Sacred Fount (1901), The Wings of the Dove (1902), and The Golden Bowl (1904). He was a prolific writer of short stories ('The Beast in the Jungle'; 'The Figure in the Carpet'), criticism ('The Art of Fiction'), biography (Nathaniel Hawthorne; W. W. Story), and cultural essays (The American Scene [1907]) as well. James lived in England from 1876 until his death; in sympathy with the British cause during World War I, he became a British citizen in 1915. During his lifetime his reputation prospered and declined, but today he is highly respected as an early master of psychological realism, formal structure, and narrative ambiguity, as well as for his ability to convey the nuances of human emotion and human consciousness.
Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909) Raised in the village of South Berwick, Maine, Jewett wrote fiction that frequently drew upon her rural experiences. A lifelong New Englander, Jewett died in the same house in which she was born. In the 1880s Jewett began a lifelong relationship with Annie Fields and together they established a literary center in Boston. Influenced by Harriet Beecher Stowe and the previous generation of women writers, Jewett's work combined a sensitivity to the rural environment with an interest in a female community and sensibility. Jewett's books include Deephaven (1877), A Country Doctor (1884), A White-787- Heron and Other Stories (1886), and the celebrated The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896).
James Jones (1921-77) Raised in Robinson, Illinois, Jones was educated at the University of Hawaii and was then stationed in Hawaii during World War II. A boxer, Jones participated in Golden Glove tournaments. He received a National Book Award for From Here to Eternity (1951), a work that was made into a successful film. Other works include Some Came Running (1958), The Pistol (1959), The Thin Red Line (1962), and Go to the Widow-Maker (1967).
Maxine Hong Kingston (1940-) Kingston was born in New York City, the child of first-generation Chinese immigrants. She grew up in Stockton, California, where she witnessed the restricted life of the Asian American woman. In her autobiographical The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976) and China Men (1980), Kingston incorporated Chinese myth, family history, and personal experience, exploring and articulating the previously repressed voices of Stockton's Chinatown. Her most recent work is Tripmaster Monkey (1989).
Caroline Kirkland (1801-64) Caroline (Stansbury) Kirkland was born in New York City, but with her husband, Samuel Kirkland, moved in the 1830s to the frontier town of Detroit. Their experiences as early settlers of Pinckney, Michigan, supplied material for A New Home — Who'll Follow? (1839, published under the pseudonym Mrs. Mary Clavers, reissued in 1874 as Our New Home in the West), a humorous exposé of pioneer life. In 1843 the family returned to New York, where she continued to write and was active in various social reform movements. She was the mother of novelist Joseph Kirkland.
Joy Kogawa (1935-) Kogawa was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. During World War II the family was moved, along with other Canadians of Japa-788- nese descent, to the interior, an experience that provided the material for her novel Obasan (1981). Her volumes of poetry include The Splintered Moon (1968), A Choice of Dreams (1974), and Jericho Road (1978).
Margaret Laurence (1926-87) Laurence was born Jean Margaret Wemys in Neepawa, Manitoba. She was educated at the University of Manitoba and in 1950 married Jack Laurence, whose work as an engineer took them to Africa, the setting of her novel This Side Jordan (1960). Her best-known work is a series of novels set in the fictional town of Manawaka, including A Jest of God (1966), winner of a Governor General's Award and adapted for the screen as Rachel, Rachel.
