John William De Forest
This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2012) |
John William De Forest | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | Seymour, Connecticut | May 31, 1826
Died | July 17, 1906 New Haven, Connecticut | (aged 80)
Occupation | Writer |
Nationality | American |
Genre | Realistic fiction |
Subject | American Civil War |
Notable works | Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty |
Military career | |
Allegiance | ![]() Union |
Service/ | United States Army Union Army |
Rank | ![]() ![]() |
Unit | 12th Connecticut Volunteers |
Battles/wars | American Civil War |
John William De Forest (May 31, 1826 – July 17, 1906) was an American soldier and writer of literary realism, who was best known for his Civil War novel Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty. He also coined the term for the Great American Novel (GAN), one which would embody the country in one text.
Biography
Early life and career
De Forest was born in
One of his earliest works, The History of the Indians of Connecticut, from the Earliest known Period to 1850, shows his interest in history. Written from 1847 to 1850, The History of the Indians of Connecticut is critical of the settlers treatment of the Pequots and of King Philip's War, which is somewhat surprising given the early date of the scholarship.[clarification needed][1] The non-fictional work also foreshadows De Forest's later fiction in its subject, realism, and occasional violence.
In 1856, De Forest married Harriet Stillman Shepherd and the couple spent the early years of their marriage in Charleston, South Carolina. Their only child, Louis Shepherd De Forest, was born there in 1857.[2]
De Forest serialized his first novel, Witching Times, in Putnam's Monthly Magazine in 1856 and 1857.[2]
He received the honorary degree of A. M. by Amherst College in 1859.
Civil War
With the advent of the American Civil War, De Forest returned to the United States. As a
Graphic descriptions of battle scenes in Louisiana, and of Sheridan's battles in the valley of the Shenandoah, were published in Harper's Monthly during the war by Major De Forest, who was present on all the occasions thus mentioned, and though experiencing forty-six days under fire, received but one trifling wound.
De Forest mustered out from the volunteer army in 1865 with the brevet rank of major.
Postbellum
After being mustered out of the army with the rest of the
His magazine articles of his time in the army were also collected published posthumously as A Volunteer's Adventures.
In 1867, De Forest published his most significant novel, Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty. William Dean Howells praised him as a "realist before realism was named," but most early critics argued that the Romantic elements of De Forest's plot mixed poorly with the admirable realism of the battle scenes, and the novel fell through with the audience in 1867. Reeditions in 1939 and 1956 reintroduced De Forest as an author, but the full range of his experimentalism in this early novel has still not been fully understood. In Miss Ravenel's Conversion, De Forest tried to come to grips with writing experiences he himself had had, and which did not fit any of the idealist and romantic patterns that war literature had followed so far. Consequently, there are a number of scenes that portray war with a graphic sense of bloody reality (f. i. the siege of Port Hudson), but there are also burlesque and comical passages, as well as reflective moments.
In 1868, De Forest called for a new type of literature in an essay for
He died of heart disease in New Haven, Connecticut, on July 17, 1906.[2]
Writing
De Forest wrote essays, a few poems, and about fifty short stories, numerous military sketches, and book reviews, most of which were anonymous. His published books include:
- The History of the Indians of Connecticut, from the Earliest known Period to 1850 (Hartford, 1851)
- Oriental Acquaintance, a sketch of travels in Asia Minor (New York, 1856)
- Witching Times (1856)
- European Acquaintance (1858)
- Seacliff, or The Mystery of the Westervelts (Boston, 1859)
- Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty (New York, 1867)
- Overland (New York, 1871)
- Kate Beaumont (Boston, 1872)
- The Wetherell Affair (New York, 1873)
- Honest John Vane (New Haven, 1875)
- Justine Vane (New York, 1875)
- Playing the Mischief (1875)
- Irene Vane (1877)
- Irene, the Missionary (Boston, 1879)
- The Oddest of Courtships, or the Bloody Chasm (New York, 1881)
- A Lover's Revolt (1898) (set in the American Revolution)
- The De Forests of Avesnes (and of New Netherland) a Huguenot thread in American colonial history (New Haven, 1900)
- The Downing legends; stories in rhyme (New Haven, 1901)
- Poems; Medley and Palestina (New Haven, 1902)
- A Union Officer in the Reconstruction (1948)
Notes
- ^ Trigger, Bruce G. & Washburn, Wilcomb E. The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas. Cambridge University Press (2000)
- ^ ISBN 0-313-33075-1
- ISBN 978-0-19-060454-7
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1891). Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: Missing or empty|title=
(help)