Charles Joseph Finger (December 25, 1869 – January 7, 1941) was a British born American writer. He also directed an orchestra and taught piano.
Biography
Finger was born in
Willesden
Willesden () is an area of northwest London, situated 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Charing Cross. It is historically a parish in the county of Middlesex that was incorporated as the Municipal Borough of Willesden in 1933, and has forme ...
, England, and educated at
King's College London. He had a strong literary and musical formation, and was quite active in the Fabian movement. Finger was a keen disciple of
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...
. As a youth and young man he reveled in the homosociality of the Regent Street Polytechnic created by
Quintin Hogg, and as a bisexual, throughout his life he sought to create communities of like-minded readers. Intrinsic to his literary accomplishments were his future life in South America and Texas, and his love of men. At age 20 he began to travel extensively, visiting first
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla ...
and
Patagonia
Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...
, where he worked as gold seeker, guide, and cook for the first sheep farming stations, in the period of
Selknam Selknam or Selk'nam may refer to:
*Selk'nam people
The Selk'nam, also known as the Onawo or Ona people, are an indigenous people in the Patagonian region of southern Argentina and Chile, including the Tierra del Fuego islands. They were one ...
genocide. He moved to
New York and London, thereafter, and to a number of cities in
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
. He worked as an accountant and musician, eventually settling in
Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he began to concentrate on writing.
[
In 1902, Finger married Eleanor (Nellie) Ferguson, daughter of a sheep rancher, with whom he would have five children.
He became the acting editor of the '']Reedy's Mirror
''Reedy's Mirror'' was a literary journal in St. Louis, Missouri in the fin de siècle era.Joseph Griffin''The Small Canvas: Introduction to Dreiser's Short Stories'' Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985, p. 36 It billed itself "The Mid-West ...
'' after William Marion Reedy
William Marion Reedy (1862 – July 28, 1920) was a St. Louis-based editor best known for his promotion of the poets Sara Teasdale, Edgar Lee Masters, and Carl Sandburg to the audience of his newspaper, '' Reedy's Mirror''. Politically, Reedy was ...
's death in 1920.
Finger won the 1925 Newbery Medal
The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished cont ...
for the book ''Tales from Silver Lands
''Tales from Silver Lands'' is a book by Charles Finger that won the Newbery Medal in 1925. '' (1924), a collection of stories from Central and South America. Some of his other works are ''Bushrangers'' (1924), ''Tales Worth Telling'' (1927), ''Courageous Companions'' (1929), and ''A Dog at His Heel'' (1936). His autobiography is ''Seven Horizons'' (1930).
Finger was an accomplished musician. He directed the San Angelo Conservatory of Music in Texas, from 1898 to 1904. One of his piano students in San Angelo
San Angelo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Tom Green County, Texas, United States. Its location is in the Concho Valley, a region of West Texas between the Permian Basin to the northwest, Chihuahuan Desert to the southwest, Osage Pl ...
was David Wendel Guion, who achieved notability for arranging and popularizing the ballad "Home on the Range
"Home on the Range" is a classic cowboy song, sometimes called the "unofficial anthem" of the American West. Dr. Brewster M. Higley (also spelled Highley) of Smith County, Kansas, wrote the lyrics as the poem "My Western Home" in 1872 or 1873 ...
".
Finger, whose daughter Helen Finger was a lithographer, took special pains to promote the work of Arkansas painter and lithographer James Duard Marshall
James Duard Marshall (September 29, 1914 – January 26, 2010) was a painter, lithographer, museum director, and art conservator who lived most of his life in Kansas City. Duard ronounced "doo-erd"was a student of Thomas Hart Benton and is b ...
. Helen Finger and James Duard Marshall
James Duard Marshall (September 29, 1914 – January 26, 2010) was a painter, lithographer, museum director, and art conservator who lived most of his life in Kansas City. Duard ronounced "doo-erd"was a student of Thomas Hart Benton and is b ...
had worked together teaching adult art classes in Fayetteville, Arkansas, under the Federal Emergency Relief Act
The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was a program established by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, building on the Hoover administration's Emergency Relief and Construction Act. It was replaced in 1935 by the Works Progress Ad ...
.["Six FERA Classes Taught in County," ''Fayetteville Daily Democrat,'' 12 December 1934, p. 1.]
The epitaph on Finger's gravestone is "This voyage done, set sail and steer once more
To further landfall on some nobler shore." He is buried in the Farmington, Arkansas
Farmington is a city in Washington County, Arkansas, United States. The community is nestled in a valley among the Boston Mountains, a subset of the Ozark Mountains. Although the first settlers came from the Deep South in 1828, the community did ...
cemetery.
Literary works
* ''Choice Of The Crowd'', (1921)
* ''The Ice Age'', (1922)
* ''Joseph Addison And His Time'', (1922)
* ''Lost Civilizations'', (1922)
* ''Historic Crimes And Criminals'', (1922)
* ''Oscar Wilde In Outline'', (c1922)
* ''Mahomet'', (1923)
* ''Hints On Writing One-Act Plays'', (1923)
* ''Highwaymen: A Book Of Gallant Rogues'', (1923)
* ''The Tragic Story Of Oscar Wilde's Life'', (1923)
* ''The Essence Of Confucianism'', (1923)
* ''Book Of Real Adventures'', (1924)
* ''Free Fantasia On Books And Reading'', (1924)
* ''Mark Twain: The Philosopher Who Laughed At The World'', (1924)
* ''The Travels Of Marco Polo'', (1924)
* ''Life Of Barnum, The Man Who Lured The Herd'', (1924)
* ''Great Pirates'', (1924)
* ''Magellan And The Pacific'', (1924)
* ''Life Of Theodore Roosevelt'', (1924)
* ''Bushrangers'', (1924)
* ''Tales From Silver Lands'', (1924)
* ''In Lawless Lands'', (1924)
* ''Robin Hood And His Merry Men'', (1924)
* ''The Gist Of Burton's Anatomy Of Melancholy'', (1924)
* ''A Book Of Strange Murders'', (1925)
* ''David Livingstone: Explorer And Prophet'', (1927)
* ''Romantic Rascals'', (1927)
* ''The Spreading Stain'', (1927)
* ''Frontier Ballads'', (1927)
* ''Tales Worth Telling'', (1927)
* ''Courageous Companions'', (1929)
* ''A Man For A' That: The Story Of Robert Burns'', (1929)
* ''Seven Horizons'', (1930)
* ''Adventure Under Sapphire Skies'', (1931)
* ''A Paul Bunyan Geography'', (1931)
* ''The Affair At The Inn'', (1931)
* ''Foot-Loose In The West'', (1932)
* ''The Magic Tower'', (1933)
* ''After The Great Companions'', (1934)
* ''The Distant Prize'', (1935)
* ''A Dog At His Heel'', (1936)
* ''Valiant Vagabonds'', (1936)
* ''Our Navy: An Outline History For Young People'', (1936)
* ''When Guns Thundered At Tripoli'', (1937)
* ''Bobbie And Jock And The Mailman'', (1938)
* ''Give A Man A Horse'', (1938)
* ''Cape Horn Snorter: A Story Of War Of 1812'', (1939)
* ''Golden Tales From Far Away'', (1940)
* ''The Yankee Captain In Patagonia'', (1941)
* ''High Water In Arkansas'', (1943)
Source:
References
Bibliography
* Finger, C. J. (Ed.). (1923). ''Sailor Chanties and Cowboy Songs''. Girard: E. Haldeman-Julius.
* Finger, C. J. (1927). ''Frontier ballads. Songs from lawless lands. Heard and gathered by Charles J. Finger''. Woodcuts by Paul Honore. London: William Heinemann.
* Finger, C. J. (1936, Aug. 1). Forty Years in Patagonia. ''The Saturday Review'', 7.
* Harambour, A. (2017). “Ficción, verdad, mentira. Breve historia de una canción de Navidad y boxeo en Tierra del Fuego y el fin del mundo (fines del siglo XIX)”, ''Magallania'' 45: 2, pp. 55–66. https://goo.gl/uPRmuJ
External links
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*
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*
Helen Finger
(daughter) at LC Authorities, with 4 records, an
at WorldCat
Charles Finger Typescript and Letters
at Dartmouth College Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Finger, Charles
1869 births
1941 deaths
Alumni of King's College London
American children's writers
American magazine editors
British children's writers
British expatriates in the United States
Newbery Medal winners
People from Willesden
Place of death missing
Texas classical music