In an
article published some years ago in "Book News" Alice M. Tyler refers to
Colonel William Byrd, who founded Richmond in 1733, as the sprightliest
and most genial native American writer before Franklin. In the time of
Chief Justice Marshall, Richmond had a considerable group of novelists,
historians and essayists, but the great literary name connected with the
place is that of Edgar Allan Poe, who spent much of his boyhood in the
city and later edited the "Southern Literary Messenger." Matthew
Fontaine Maury, the great scientist, mentioned in an earlier chapter,
was, at another time, editor of the same periodical, as was also John
Reuben Thompson, "Poet of the Confederacy," who wrote, among other
poems, "Music in Camp," and who translated Gustave Nadaud's familiar
poem, "Carcassonne."
Thomas Nelson Page made his home in Richmond for thirty years; Amelie
Rives was born there and still maintains her residence in Albemarle
County, Virginia, while among other writers of the present time
connected with the city either by birth or long association are, Henry
Sydnor Harrison, Mary Johnston, Ellen Glasgow, Marion Harland, Kate
Langley Bosher, James Branch Cabell, Edward Peple, dramatist, J.H.
Whitty, biographer of Poe, and Colonel W. Gordon McCabe, soldier,
historian, essayist, and local character--a gentleman upon whose
shoulders such imported expressions as _litterateur_, _bon viveur_, and
_raconteur_ alight as naturally as doves on friendly shoulders.
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