Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911), an American author, was born in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. He took a degree at Harvard in 1841, and six
years later graduated from the Harvard Divinity School. He became pastor
of a Unitarian Church at Newburyport, but, becoming prominent in the
antislavery agitation, he resigned his pastorate, realizing that his
views were unacceptable to his congregation. During the Civil War he
was captain of the 51st Massachusetts regiment of volunteers. In 1862 he
was made colonel of the First South Carolina volunteers, the first
regiment of freed slaves. He was obliged to resign from the army before
the close of the war on account of disability. Since that time he has
devoted himself to literature.
Among his works are:
Young Folks History
of the United States,
Larger History of the United States,
The Monarch
of Dreams,
Cheerful Yesterdays,
Life of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, and
Life
of Henry W. Longfellow. Mr. Higginson also published several volumes of
poetry:
The Afternoon Landscape and
Such as They are, the latter in
collaboration with Ms Higginson. His principal work in fiction is
Melbourne, an Oldport Romance.
