Howells’s Contemporaries

Charles W. Chesnutt Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) Stephen Crane Theodore Dreiser Paul Laurence Dunbar Harold Frederic

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman Benito Pérez Galdós Hamlin Garland Henry James Sarah Orne Jewett James Weldon Johnson

Mary N. Murfree (Charles Egbert Craddock) Charles Gilman Norris Frank Norris Edith Wharton Constance Fenimore Woolson

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Welcome to the Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar.  This site at the University of Dayton includes a biographical sketch, poems both in text form and read aloud by Herbert Woodward Martin, professor emeritus at the University of Dayton, links to sites about Dunbar,  teaching resources, and other materials. Image is courtesy of this site.The Dunbar Digital Text Collection at Wright State University Library includes over two hundred poems from these collections as well as images of the covers: Howdy Honey Howdy (Dodd Mead and Company, 1905); Li’L Gal (Dodd Mead and Company, ca. 1896, 1904); and Lyrics of Lowly Life (Dodd Mead and Company, 1896) with introduction by W.D. Howells. The Scriptorium exhibit at Duke University provides biographical information and audio clips of a performance of William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony (1931), to which Grant added poetry by Dunbar.

Hamlin Garland

Hamlin Garland. Keith Newlin’s extensive scholarly site includes an essay on Garland’s literary creed, Garland’s essay on French impressionism, a collection of photographs, information on editing Garland, and even 1937 film clips of Garland at his desk and making coffee. Picture is courtesy of this site.The Hamlin Garland Society site contains a gallery of photographs, links to Garland’s works and other resources, an online membership form (no dues are required), instructions for joining GARLAND-L, and many other materials.

Henry James 

The Henry James Scholar’s Guide to Web Sites. This extensive site at New Paltz contains e-texts of The Sacred Fount, The Golden Bowl, The Ambassadors, and other works.  It also includes  movie reviews and many links to other sites where James’s works are available. Picture is courtesy of this site.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain in His Times. Stephen Railton’s excellent archival site contains much interpretive material as well as illustrated e-texts of The Innocents Abroad, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Pudd’nhead Wilson.Mark Twain. Jim Zwick’s extensive site includes a great deal of material on the later Twain and imperialism, a large photo gallery of Twain and his associates (including Howells), chapters from Albert Bigelow Paine’s biography of Twain, and some selected works by Howells.TwainWeb. TwainWeb is the homepage of the Mark Twain Forum, a scholarly e-mail list devoted to the life and writings of Mark Twain. This site includesaddenda to Tenney’s Mark Twain: A Reference Guide and other bibliographic materials as well as a page about the Mark Twain Circle.Mark Twain Circular. Newletter of the Mark Twain Circle. The Mark Twain Papers and Project at the Bancroft Library.  Extensive description of the collection (but no online materials). Searchable Database of Mark Twain Letters at the Bancroft Library. Photo courtesy of The Electronic  Text Center at the University of Virginia.

Stephen Crane Stephen Crane Collection at Columbia University. Includes a searchable index of materials.The Red Badge of Courage: Critical Reception. An extensive site at the University of Virginia with contemporary critical reviews.The Stephen Crane Society Home Page. This updated site includes comprehensive links to Crane’s works, some edited by noted Crane scholar Stanley Wertheim, tables of contents for Stephen Crane Studies, a Crane bibliography, and other materials.

Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser Society. This site contains membership information, a link to the Dreiser listserv, information on Dreiser Studies, and even a Dreiser quiz.Dreiser Archives at the University of Pennsylvania.Photo courtesy of the Theodore Dreiser Papers, Special Collections, University of Pennsylvania, and the Theodore Dreiser Society.

Frank Norris 

Frank Norris. Links to all of Norris’s works available on the web as well as an NPR “Book Club of the Air” discussion with Norris scholar Joseph McElrath, Jr.Frank Norris Society. Charles Gilman Norris.  Although none of Charles Norris’s works are available online as yet, this page provides a  list of  his works and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s comments on his novel Salt. Photo reproduced from A Novelist in the Making, ed. James D. Hart (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard U P, 1970)

Benito Pérez Galdós

“I may say of the ‘Dona Perfecta’ of Galdos that no book, if I except those of the greatest Russians, has given me a keener and deeper impression; it is infinitely pathetic, and is full of humor, which, if more caustic than that of Valdes, is not less delicious.  But I like all the books of Galdos that I have read, and though he seems to have worked more tardily out of his romanticism than Valdes, since be has worked finally into such realism as that of Leon Roch, his greatness leaves nothing to be desired.” W. D. Howells, Literary Friends and Acquaintance Benito Pérez Galdós in the Columbia Encyclopedia A picture of Galdos (site in Spanish) Bibliography and suggested essay topics

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton’s World. An outstanding photo collection from an exhibit at the Smithsonian curated by Eleanor Dwight and Viola Hopkins Winner. Edith Wharton Society. The Edith Wharton Society includes links to all of Wharton’s texts available online, links to other sites, bibliographies, queries and responses, membership information, calls for papers, and an index to the Edith Wharton Review. Photograph reproduced from The Letters of Edith Wharton, edited by R. W. B. Lewis and Nancy Lewis (New York: Macmillan/Collier Books, 1988).

Sarah Orne Jewett 

The Sarah Orne Jewett Text Project.  This site at Coe College is dedicated to putting all of Jewett’s texts online.More links for Jewett.

Constance Fenimore Woolson

http://blogs.bgsu.edu/cfwoolson/   Constance Fenimore Woolson Society .Constance Fenimore Woolson. This page includes links to Woolson’s works, including many stories from the University of Michigan’s Making of America Project. Photograph reproduced from Fred Kaplan’s Henry James :  The Imagination of Genius (New York: William Morrow, 1992)

General Sites about Howells’s Contemporaries

Paul P. Reuben’s Perspectives in American Literature Pages. Part of Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide, this site includes links to sites about and extensive secondary bibliographies on Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles W. Chesnutt, Frances E. W. Harper, and most other contemporaries of Howells.