Edwin Percy Whipple

Edwin Percy Whipple (March 8, 1819 – June 16, 1886)^[1] was an American essayist andcritic.

Biography

He was born inGloucester,Massachusetts in 1819. For a time, he was the main literary critic for Philadelphia-basedGraham's Magazine.^[2] Later, in 1848, he became the Boston correspondent toThe Literary World underEvert Augustus Duyckinck andGeorge Long Duyckinck.^[3] HistorianPerry Miller called Whipple "Boston's most popular critic".^[4]

Whipple was also a public lecturer. In 1850, he defended the intelligence ofGeorge Washington and compared him to other brilliant men of his time in a speech which later became known as "The Genius of Washington".

Whipple was a close friend ofNathaniel Hawthorne. After Hawthorne's death in 1864, Whipple served as a pallbearer for his funeral alongsideAmos Bronson Alcott,Ralph Waldo Emerson,James T. Fields,Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., andHenry Wadsworth Longfellow.^[5] Whipple's close relationship with other Boston-area authors occasionally tinted his reviews.Edward Emerson later noted, "No other member of theSaturday Club has ever been more loyally felicitous in characterizing the literary work of his associates."^[6]

Whipple died in 1886 and was interred atMount Auburn Cemetery inCambridge, Massachusetts.

Selected list of works

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Family headstone for Edwin Percy Whipple atMount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts

His first book wasEssays and Reviews (two volumes, 1848), which was followed by:

Literature and Life (1850)
Character and Characteristic Men (1866)
Success and its Conditions (1871)
Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1876)
Recollections of Eminent Men (1887)
American Literature and Other Papers (1887)
Outlooks on Society, Literature and Politics (1888)

An edition of hisCharles Dickens (two volumes, Boston), with an introduction byArlo Bates, appeared in 1912.

References

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^Whipple, Blaine (2007).15 Generations of Whipples: Descendants of Matthew Whipple of Ipswich, Massachusetts. Baltimore, Maryland: Gateway Press, Inc. p. G395.ISBN 978-0-9801022-4-6.
^Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson.The Literary History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1906: 283.ISBN 1-932109-45-5
^Miller, Perry.The Raven and the Whale: Poe, Melville, and the New York Literary Scene. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997 (first printed 1956): 239.ISBN 0-8018-5750-3
^Miller, Perry.The Raven and the Whale: Poe, Melville, and the New York Literary Scene. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997 (first printed 1956): 75.ISBN 0-8018-5750-3
^Baker, Carlos.Emerson Among the Eccentrics: A Group Portrait. New York: Viking Press, 1996: 448.ISBN 0-670-86675-X.
^Buell, Lawrence.New England Literary Culture: From Revolution Through Renaissance. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986: 44.ISBN 0-521-37801-X

Sources

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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Cousin, John William (1910).A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – viaWikisource.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905).New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.{{cite encyclopedia}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)