Epes Sargent (September 27, 1813– December 30, 1880) was an American editor, poet and playwright.
Early life
Epes Sargent was the son of Epes Sargent (1784–1853) and Hannah Dane Coffin (1787–1819), and was born in
Gloucester, Massachusetts
Gloucester () is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It sits on Cape Ann and is a part of Massachusetts's North Shore. The population was 29,729 at the 2020 U.S. Census. An important center of the fishing industry and a ...
, on September 27, 1813, where his father was a ship master.
In 1818 the family moved to
Roxbury Roxbury may refer to:
Places
;Canada
* Roxbury, Nova Scotia
* Roxbury, Prince Edward Island
;United States
* Roxbury, Connecticut
* Roxbury, Kansas
* Roxbury, Maine
* Roxbury, Boston, a municipality that was later integrated into the city of Bo ...
, Massachusetts. From 1823 to 1829 he attended the
Boston Latin School
The Boston Latin School is a public exam school in Boston, Massachusetts. It was established on April 23, 1635, making it both the oldest public school in the British America and the oldest existing school in the United States. Its curriculum f ...
, but his education was put on hold while he traveled for six months to
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, Russia with his father. Upon his return he helped start the school's first literary journal, where he wrote about his travels to Russia. He then attended
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
where he contributed to the ''Harvard Collegian'', a college literary journal which was started by his older brother, John Osborn Sargent (1811–1891), who became a successful politician and journalist.
Career
By 1831 he was working as an editor for the ''
Boston Daily Advertiser''. He then went to work editing the Boston ''Daily Atlas'' where he also served as its Washington D.C. correspondent. While reporting political affairs he became friends with
Henry Clay
Henry Clay Sr. (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American attorney and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate, U.S. Senate and United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives. He was the seven ...
,
Daniel Webster and
John C. Calhoun
John Caldwell Calhoun (; March 18, 1782March 31, 1850) was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina who held many important positions including being the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He ...
. During this time he also collaborated with
Samuel Griswold Goodrich
Samuel Griswold Goodrich (August 19, 1793 – May 9, 1860), better known under his pseudonym Peter Parley, was an American author.
Biography
Goodrich was born at Ridgefield, Connecticut, the son of a Congregational minister. Goodrich was l ...
, writing the
Peter Parley books, which embellished the biographies of our founding fathers with "fancy and legend".
Sargent's first play, ''The Bride of Genoa'', premiered at Boston's
Tremont Theatre on February 13, 1837, with a lead role written for American actress
Josephine Clifton. Set in
Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...
in 1593, the play was based on the historical Antonio Montaldo, a commoner who falls in love with the daughter of a nobleman named Laura Catelli, a role given to
Charlotte Cushman when it played at the
Park Theater in New York in November. In 1837, he wrote the tragedy ''Velasco'' for British actress
Ellen Tree
Ellen Kean (12 December 1805 – 20 August 1880) was an English actress. She was known as Ellen Tree until her marriage in 1842, after which she was known both privately and professionally as Mrs Charles Kean and always appeared in productions ...
. It was produced in several theaters in the United States and had moderate success in London. ''Velasco'' was critically admired by playwright
Thomas Talfourd and
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...
, who wrote "compared with American tragedies generally, is a good tragedy — indeed, an excellent one, but, positively considered, its merits are very inconsiderable".
Around this time, Sargent wrote the words to the song, "
A Life on the Ocean Wave".
In 1839, Sargent moved to New York where he was associated with a succession of newspapers and magazines. He was first hired by
George Pope Morris to edit the ''
New York Mirror
The ''New-York Mirror'' was a weekly newspaper published in New York City from 1823 to 1842, succeeded by ''The New Mirror'' in 1843 and 1844. Its producers then launched a daily newspaper named ''The Evening Mirror'', which published from 18 ...
''.
Eventually he left the ''Mirror'' and went to work for
Park Benjamin, Sr. as the editor of ''The New World''. He published a biography on Henry Clay in 1842 and in 1843 started his own, short-lived, literary magazine, ''Sargent's New Monthly Magazine''. In 1844 his collection ''The Light of the Lighthouse and Other Poems'' was published and then in 1845, he published his first novel, ''Fleetwood, or the Stain of Birth'', a novel about American life.
In 1846 he wrote and edited ''The Modern Standard Drama'', a seven volume collection of the most popular acting plays of the time.
Sargent was considered a member of the "
Knickerbocker group The Knickerbocker Group was a somewhat indistinct group of 19th-century American writers. Its most prominent members included Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and William Cullen Bryant. Each was a pioneer in general literature— novels, ...
", a group which also included
Washington Irving
Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and " The Legen ...
,
William Cullen Bryant,
James Kirke Paulding
James Kirke Paulding (August 22, 1778 – April 6, 1860) was an American writer and, for a time, the United States Secretary of the Navy. Paulding's early writings were satirical and violently anti-British, as shown in ''The Diverting History of ...
,
Gulian Verplanck,
Fitz-Greene Halleck
Fitz-Greene Halleck (July 8, 1790 – November 19, 1867) was an American poet and member of the Knickerbocker Group. Born and raised in Guilford, Connecticut, he went to New York City at the age of 20, and lived and worked there for nearly fo ...
,
Joseph Rodman Drake
Joseph Rodman Drake (August 7, 1795 – September 21, 1820) was an early American poet.
Biography
Born in New York City, he was orphaned when young and entered a mercantile house. While still a child, he showed a talent for writing poems. He w ...
,
Robert Charles Sands,
Lydia M. Child, and
Nathaniel Parker Willis.
[Nelson, Randy F. ''The Almanac of American Letters''. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 30. ]
Later years
Sargent was a very respected literary figure by the time he returned to Boston in 1847, when he became editor to ''The
Boston Evening Transcript''. It was noted that under his care the newspaper "showed an increasing tenderness toward the Abolitionists".
In 1848 he married Elizabeth Weld (1820–1902); the couple had no children.
He developed a series of school books, ''The Standard Speaker'' and ''The Standard Reader'', which were used in Boston schools for many years. In 1858 he started a children's monthly periodical, ''Sargent's School Monthly'', but by the end of the year it was absorbed by the magazine, ''Forrester's Playmate.''
He continued to publish poems, fiction and dramas prodigiously.
Sargent became captivated with the notion of communicating with "the beyond". He hosted many
séances, and philosophical discussions. He published ''Planchette, or the Despair of Science'' (1869), ''The Proof Palpable of Immortality'' (1875), and ''The Scientific Basis of Spiritualism'' (1880).
His monumental book, ''Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poets'' (1881), was not published until after his death. Sargent died in Boston from
oral cancer on December 30, 1880.
Works
*''The Bride of Genoa'' (1836)
''Velasco: A Tragedy in Five Acts''(1839)
''Wealth and Worth: or, Which Makes the Man?''(1842)
*''The Light of the Lighthouse and Other Poems'' (1844)
*''Fleetwood, or the Stain of Birth'' (1845)
''Songs of the Sea and Other Poems''(1847)
''The Life and Services of Henry Clay''(1848)
*''Poems'' (1858)
''Peculiar: A Tale of the Great Transition''(1864)
''Planchette, or the Despair of Science''(1869)
''The Woman Who Dared''(1870)
''The Proof Palpable of Immortality''(1875)
''The Scientific Basis of Spiritualism''(1880)
''Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poets''(1881)
''The Scientific Basis of Spiritualism''(1891)
References
External links
*
*
*
Epes Sargentat
Google Book Search
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sargent, Epes
1813 births
1881 deaths
19th-century American dramatists and playwrights
19th-century American journalists
19th-century American poets
19th-century male writers
American male journalists
American male dramatists and playwrights
American male poets
American spiritualists
Boston Daily Advertiser people
Boston Evening Transcript people
Harvard University alumni