EGGLESTON, EDWARD: 1837-1902.
"Edward Eggleston (Dec. 10, 1837-Sept. 2, 1902), novelist, historian, was born at Vevay, Ind. His father, Joseph Cary Eggleston,
lawyer and politician, was a graduate of the
College of William and Mary and belonged
to a family of some importance in Virginia from colonial times; his mother,
Mary Jane Craig, was the daughter of Capt. George
Craig, Western frontiersman and Indian fighter. Before his
father's death, in 1846, the family spent much
time at the Craig farm, several miles from Vevay, so that the future author of The
Hoosier Schoolmaster early attended a country school. Some three years in Vevay
followed, and then young Eggleston was sent for a long visit in Decatur County,
where he enriched his knowledge of uncouth Hoosier dialect and backwoods manners.
Meantime, on Dec. 25, 1850, his mother had married
Williamson Terrell, a Methodist preacher, and Eggleston
returned home in March 1851, not to Vevay, but to New Albany. There the family remained a half year, then spent some two years at Madison, then returned to Vevay, in 1853. Here
Eggleston liked the high school and flourished under the special favor of the
locally famed Mrs. Julia Dumont, who pleased him with the
assurance that he was destined to be an author. In June
1854, he was off for thirteen months in Virginia, spent partly with relatives and partly at the Amelia Academy where his
accidental discovery of The Sketch Book began the slow process of liberation from
his almost fanatical devotion to a narrow religious creed (FORUM, August 1887). Meantime his growing hatred of slavery
caused him to refuse the offer of a course at the University of
Virginia; indeed, ill health prevented his attending any college, and his
formal schooling was now at an end.
"After his return to Indiana he was employed for some time as a Bible agent; but his health, always
precarious, was soon completely broken. Fearing death from consumption, he set out
westward, but suddenly changed his course for Minnesota, where during the summer of 1856 he restored
his health by vigorous labor in the open air; then, after an abortive attempt to
reach Kansas and aid the anti-slavery cause, he returned home. Some six months
(November 1856-April
1857) on a Methodist circuit in southeastern Indiana wrought, however, new disaster to his health, and he was back in Minnesota the following spring, this time for nine years: he was Bible agent
(1858-59); he was pastor of small
churches at Traverse and St. Peter (1857-58), St. Paul (1859-60 and 1862-63), Stillwater (1860-61), and Winona (1864-66); and he tried a
variety of other occupations, always frequently interrupted by ill health
(Forty-third Annual Report of the American Bible Society, 1859; Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, 1857-66; and Eggleston Papers). Early in 1866 he gave up the ministry for journalism and removed to
Evanston, Ill. He was associate editor
… June 1866-February
1867 … of the LITTLE CORPORAL of Chicago. In February 1867, he became editor of the
SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER, soon renamed the NATIONAL SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER; and even
after he had left the West he continued as its corresponding editor, until December, 1873. Meantime, as early as 1868, he was announced as 'a contributor to all the leading
juvenile periodicals in the United States' (SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER, vol. III, no. 12); and Mr.
Blake's Walking-Stick (1870) was
the first of several small volumes of fantastic fairy lore or moral tales of too
sentimental children.
"Migrating eastward, Eggleston began in May
1870 a period of about fourteen or fifteen months on the INDEPENDENT (New York), of which he had for some time been Western correspondent
(INDEPENDENT, May 12, 19,
1870; and SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY, September
1873). His editorial connection from August
1871, with the then moribund HEARTH AND HOME … seems to have
lasted only a year, but served both to revive the magazine and to start Eggleston on
his career as a popular novelist destined to have an important influence in turning
American literature toward realism. His first novel The Hoosier Schoolmaster (HEARTH
AND HOME, Sept. 30-Dec. 30,
1871), was already marked by the sentimental quality as well as by the
realism of his later writings… The Ohio River country is the setting of
The End of the World (HEARTH AND HOME, Apr. 20-Sept. 7, 1872), a story of religious fanaticism and
racial prejudice. In The Mystery of Metropolisville (HEARTH AND HOME, Dec. 7, 1872-Apr. 26,
1873) he turned to the Minnesota frontier and made, apparently, some use of
Dickens's method in his humorous character portrayals. The Circuit Rider
(CHRISTIAN UNION, Nov. 12, 1873-Mar. 18, 1874), with its setting in southern Ohio at the beginning of Madison's administration, pictures the
devoted members of a religious fraternity of which Eggleston himself was once a
member. Of the later novels, Roxy (SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY, November 1877-October 1878)
dealt with unusual frankness, for the period, with the problem of marital infidelity
against a background of old Vevay life; The Hoosier Schoolboy (ST. NICHOLAS, December 1881-April 1882)
preached a sentimental sermon against the harshness of rural schools …
"Eggleston's religious enthusiasm, long since waning, finally
spent itself entirely during his pastorate (1874-79) of the non-sectarian Church of Christian Endeavor, in Brooklyn (NEW YORK TRIBUNE, Dec. 27, 1877; NEW YORK TIMES, Dec. 27,
1879). At the same time with the end of his religious zeal came also the
change of his main literary interest from fiction to history. He had, indeed, early
come to look upon the novel as a means of making 'a contribution to the
history of civilization in America' …
"From 1870 until his first voyage to
Europe, late in 1879,
Eggleston's home was in Brooklyn; from 188: until his death he lived at Joshua's Rock, on
Lake George, but usually spent his winters in New York or other cities and delivered many lectures. His first wife,
Lizzie Snider, whom he had married at
St. Peter, Minn.Mar. 18, 1858, died in 1889 (Eggleston Papers), and on Sept. 14,
1891, he married Frances Goode, of
Madison, Ind. (NEW YORK
TIMES, Sept. 15, 1891). His last years,
like his earlier life, were troubled with serious illness. Some three years before
his death he suffered a stroke of apoplexy from which he never really recovered.
Another stroke in August 1902 was followed by his death
on Sept. 2 of that year."
Condensed from R. L. R., Dictionary of American Biography,
Vol. VI.
- Sunday-School Conventions and Institutes; With Suggestions on
County and Township Organization. Chicago,
1867.
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County and Township Organization" by EGGLESTON, EDWARD: 1837-1902. in:
Close X - Improved Sunday-School Record.
Chicago, 1869.
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Close X - The Manual: a Practical Guide to the Sunday-School
Work. Chicago, 1869.
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Close X - Mr. Blake's Walking-Stick: a Christmas Story for
Boys and Girls. Chicago, 1870.
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Boys and Girls" by EGGLESTON, EDWARD: 1837-1902. in:
Close X - Tracts for Sunday School Teachers.
Chicago, n.d.
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Close X - Book of Queer Stories and Stories Told on a Cellar
Door. Chicago, 1870.
(No copy is known to be in existencem the book was destroyed, plates
and all, in the Chicago Fire of 1871. It is listed in the Library of
Congress Catalog.)
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Door" by EGGLESTON, EDWARD: 1837-1902. in:
Close X - The Hoosier School-Master. A Novel.New York, n.d. [1871].
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Close X - The End of the World. A Love Story. New York, n.d. [1872].
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Close X - The Mystery of Metropolisville. New
York, n.d. [1873].
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Close X - The Circuit Rider: a Tale of the Heroic Age.
New York, 1874.
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Close X - The Schoolmaster's Stories for Boys and
Girls. Boston, 1874.
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Girls" by EGGLESTON, EDWARD: 1837-1902. in:
Close X - Roxy. New York, 1878.
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Close X - FAMOUS AMERICAN INDIANS series:Tecumseh and the Shawnee Prophet. Including
Sketches of George Rogers Clark, Simon Kenton, William Henry Harrison,
Corn Stalk, Black Hoof, Bluejacket, the Shawnee Logan, and Others Famous
in the Frontier Wars of Tecumseh's Time (withElizabeth Eggleston Seelye). New York, n.d. [1878].
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Sketches of George Rogers Clark, Simon Kenton, William Henry Harrison,
Corn Stalk, Black Hoof, Bluejacket, the Shawnee Logan, and Others Famous
in the Frontier Wars of Tecumseh's Time" by EGGLESTON, EDWARD: 1837-1902. in:
Close X - Pocahontas. Including an account of the Early
Settlement of Virginia and of the Adventures of Captain John
Smith (withElizabeth Eggleston Seelye). New York, n.d. [1879].
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Settlement of Virginia and of the Adventures of Captain John
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Close X - Brant and Red Jacket. Including an Account of the Early Wars of the Six Nations, and the
Border Warfare of the Revolution (withElizabeth Eggleston Seelye). New York, n.d. [1879].
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Close X - Montezuma and the Conquest of Mexico (withElizabeth Eggleston Seelye). New York, n.d. [1880].
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Close X - The Hoosier School-Boy. New York, 1883.
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York, 1884.
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Close X - The Graysons. A Story of Illinois. New
York, n.d. [1888].
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Close X - A History of the United States and Its People.
New York, 1888.
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Close X - A History of the United States and Its People for
the Use of Schools. New York, 1888.
(Virtually the same as the preceding book–it was reissued
in 1889 as The Household History of the United States and Its People for
Young Americans.)
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the Use of Schools" by EGGLESTON, EDWARD: 1837-1902. in:
Close X - A First Book in American History, with Special Reference to
the Lives and Deeds of Great Americans. New
York, 1889.
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the Lives and Deeds of Great Americans" by EGGLESTON, EDWARD: 1837-1902. in:
Close X - The Faith Doctor. A Story of New York. New
York, 1891.
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Close X - Duffels. New York, 1894.
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Close X - Stories of American Life and Adventure. New
York, n.d. [1895].
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Close X - Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans.
New York, n.d. [1895].
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Close X - Sister Tabea. New York, 1896.
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Close X - The Beginners of a Nation. A History of the
Source and Rise of the Earliest English Settlements in America with
Special Reference to the Life and Character of the People. New York, n.d. [1896].
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Source and Rise of the Earliest English Settlements in America with
Special Reference to the Life and Character of the People" by EGGLESTON, EDWARD: 1837-1902. in:
Close X - The Transit of Civilization from England to
America in the Seventeenth Century. New York, 1901.
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America in the Seventeenth Century" by EGGLESTON, EDWARD: 1837-1902. in:
Close X - The New Century History of the United States.
New York, n.d. [1904].
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