Who was the most influential literary critic of the late nineteenth century?

ADAMS, HENRY (1838-1918). Essayist and autobiographer, author of The Education of Henry Adams, scion of the famous Adams family.

ALCOTT, LOUISA MAY (1832-1888). Woman novelist and story writer, author of Little Women and many sensationalist-type novels written for money.

BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN (1794-1878). New England-born nature poet, author of the poems "Thanatopsis" and "To a Water-fowl," and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post.

CHESNUTT, CHARLES WADDELL (1858-1932). African American novelist and story writer.

CHILD, LYDIA MARIA (1802-1880). Ardent abolitionist and early feminist, she was a successful author of fiction, non-fiction, and children's books throughout her life.

CHOPIN, KATE (1850-1904). American woman novelist and story writer, author of The Awakening; associated with local color writing, New Orleans, and stories about women's lives.

COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE (1789-1851). Prolific and popular American novelist, author of the Leatherstocking Tales.

CRANE, STEPHEN (1871-1900). American author of realistic novels and stories, best known for the Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage.

DANA, RICHARD HENRY (1815-1882). Harvard student who wrote about his experiences as a common seaman in the popular and influential Two Years Before the Mast (1840).

DICKINSON, EMILY (1830-1886). A towering figure in American poetry, a woman who lived quietly all her life in Amherst, Mass.

DOUGLASS, FREDERICK (1818-1895). An African American born a slave, a writer, journalist, autobiographer, race leader, abolitionist. Author of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE (1872-1906). Nineteenth-century African American poet, considered the first important Black poet in America.

EMERSON, RALPH WALDO (1803-1882). Major American essayist, speaker, and poet. Unitarian and transcendentalist, associated with Boston.

FIRESIDE POETS. A group of popular American poets associated with 19th-century New England and the Boston publisher Ticknor & Fields: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, William Cullen Bryant.

FULLER, MARGARET (1810-1850). Woman writer and intellectual from New England, friend of Emerson, early feminist, author of Woman in the Nineteenth Century.

GILMAN, CHARLOTTE PERKINS (1860-1935). American woman feminist and novelist, author of The Yellow Wallpaper.

HARRIS, JOEL CHANDLER (1848-1908). White southern journalist who created folk tales about African American slaves in the pre-Civil War south, author of the Uncle Remus tales.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864). Great American novelist and story writer, associated with New England, America's Puritan heritage, author of The Scarlet Letter.

HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL, SR. (1809-1894). Poet, essayist, physician, educator, and dean of the Harvard Medical School. Author of the prose series "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" and the poems "Old Ironsides" and "The Chambered Nautilus." Also known as Dr. Holmes, because he was an M.D.; not to be confused with his oldest son, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-1935), who became Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN (1837-1920). American novelist and influential critic of wide-ranging taste, editor of the Atlantic Monthly 1871-1881.

IRVING, WASHINGTON (1783-1859). Early professional writer in America, associated with New York, author of Rip Van Winkle.

JAMES, HENRY (1843-1916). Major late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century novelist and story writer, American-born, who lived and wrote primarily in England, "the writer's writer."

JEWETT, SARAH ORNE (1849-1909). American woman novelist and short story writer from Maine.

JOHNSON, JAMES WELDON (1871-1938). African American poet and writer, author of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.

LONDON, JACK (1876-1916). Author of adventure novels, best known for The Call of the Wild, associated with San Francisco.

LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH (1807-1882). American poet who lived in Cambridge, Mass., author of the long poems Evangeline, about two lovers who were parted when the British drove the French from Nova Scotia, and Hiawatha, about Native American life; also the often-memorized "Paul Revere's Ride." In the nineteenth century he was the most famous and financially successful poet of his day.

LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL (1819-1891). Born in Cambridge, Mass. Poet, critic, satirist, essayist, diplomat, journalist, and abolitionist, editor of the Pioneer and first editor of the Atlantic Monthly, author of the political verse-satire The Biglow Papers (1848). He was the first cousin of poet Amy Lowell and great-grand-uncle of poet Robert Lowell.

MELVILLE, HERMAN (1819-1891). Important American novelist and short story writer, author of Moby-Dick.

POE, EDGAR ALLAN (1809-1849). Major American poet and writer of sensational and detective stories, associated with Baltimore, Maryland.

SINCLAIR, UPTON (1878-1968). American novelist and social critic, author of the famous book about the meatpacking industry, The Jungle.

STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER (1811-1896). American novelist, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, associated with abolitionism and the Beecher family.

THOREAU, HENRY DAVID (1817-1862). Beloved American naturalist and writer, associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson, civil disobedience, author of Walden.

TWAIN, MARK (1835-1910). Revered American novelist and story writer, author of Huckleberry Finn.

WHEATLEY, PHILLIS. (1753-1784). Eighteenth-century American poet. Born in Africa and brought to Boston as a slave, she was the first black American to publish a book. Later freed, she became internationally famous.

WHITMAN, WALT (1819-1892). The great nineteenth-century American poet, author of Leaves of Grass.

WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF (1807-1892). Born in Haverhill, Mass., a devout Quaker, social reformer, journalist, poet, and editor, who wrote passionately for abolition. His most famous book was the long poem Snow-Bound (1866).

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Who was the most influential literary critic of the late nineteenth century?

Public domain image. Mural, South Corridor, Great Hall, Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C., by H.O. Walker, 1896.

English, British, and American Poets of the Nineteenth Century

Romantic Poets | Victorian & Edwardian Poets | American 19th-C Poets

British Poets, Romantic Period

Blake, William (1757-1827)

Burns, Robert (1759-1796)

Byron, Lord George Gordon (1788-1824)

Clare, John (1793-1864)

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)

Hemans, Felicia (1772-1834)

Keats, John (1795-1821)

Robinson, Mary (1758-1800)

Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)

Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Southey, Robert (1774-1843)

Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

British Poets, Victorian & Edwardian Periods

Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888)

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861)

Browning, Robert (1812-1889)

FitzGerald, Edward (1809–-1883)

Carroll, Lewis (1832-1898)

Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928)

Hopkins, G.M. (1844-1889)

Housman, A.E. (1859-1936)

Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936)

Lear, Edward (1812-1888)

Meredith, George (1828-1909)

Morris, William (1834-1896)

Rossetti, Christina Georgina (1830-1894)

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882)

Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837-1909)

Tennyson, Alfred (1809-1892)

Minor Victorian Poets and Authors

American 19th-Century Poets

Main Page | 19th-Century Literature | About LiteraryHistory.com

1998-2018 by Jan Pridmore

Published in 1998, J. M. Robertson: Rationalist and Literary Critic is a study of the life of one of the most erudite and prolific critics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Scotsman John MacKinnon Robertson (1856-1933), rationalist and enemy of religion to the core, published over one hundred books and thousands of articles in fields as diverse as sociology, economics, history, anthropology, biblical criticism and literary criticism. This once widely known (and feared!) author was all too quickly forgotten after his death and his work is now seldom read. The aim of this book is to demonstrate that Robertson’s writings and in particular his acute and powerful literary criticism – much respected by T. S. Eliot – have not lost their relevance for late twentieth century readers.

Moreover, through the examinations of Robertson’s work in its contextual framework, this study provides a wide-ranging perspective on the late-Victorian literary scene, which perhaps present-day literary historians have not given the detailed attention it deserves.

Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism assembles critical responses to the works of 19th-century authors of all sorts—novelists, poets, playwrights, journalists, philosophers, political leaders, scientists, mathematicians and other creative writers from every region of the world.

The series currently covers nearly 600 authors and also includes numerous entries focusing on literary topics and individual works. Students writing papers or class presentations, instructors preparing their syllabi, or anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the 19th century will find this a highly useful resource. 

Each of the more than 300 volumes in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism profiles approximately three to six novelists, poets, playwrights, journalists, philosophers or other creative and nonfiction writers by providing full-text or excerpted criticism reproduced from books, magazines, literary reviews, newspapers and scholarly journals.

Clear, accessible introductory essays followed by carefully selected critical responses allow end-users to engage with a variety of scholarly views and conversations about authors, works, and literary topics. Introductory essays are written and entries compiled by professional literature researchers and other subject matter experts; many include an author portrait. A full citation and annotation precede each of the approximately 50 essays per volume.

Each volume in this long-standing series profiles approximately four to eight literary figures who died between 1800 and 1899 by providing full-text or excerpted criticism taken from books, magazines, literary reviews, newspapers, and scholarly journals.