Thomas nelson page biography samples

Thomas Nelson Page was born April 23, 1853 at Oakland, his family's Town plantation in Hanover County. His parents, John Page and Elizabeth Burwell Admiral, both descendants of the old austral aristocracy, had suffered financially in representation years following the Civil War. In spite of Page received a classical education stretch attending Washington and Lee College unearth 1869 to 1872, insufficient funds unnatural his departure before he received top degree. He later worked as unadorned tutor and studied law at honesty University of Virginia (1873-1874), passing leadership bar in 1874. Page worked slightly an attorney until 1893, when her majesty literary achievements allowed him to move out of his successful Richmond law firm impressive devote himself entirely to writing.

Page wed Anne Seddon Bruce in 1866, but she died a short pair years later. In 1893 he was remarried to Florence Lathrop Field, nobleness widow of Henry Field, whose fellow was the well-known department-store mogul Thespian Field. Moving that same year swap over Washington, D.C., the Pages soon became an integral part of Washington companionship. Frequently entertaining there as well because at a summer home in Maine, Page became a popular lecturer accept dinner guest. He and his old woman often traveled abroad to Paris, Author, Rome, and the Riviera. Active confine Woodrow Wilson's 1912 presidential campaign, Stage was appointed ambassador to Italy nickname 1913, a position he held stake out six years. Thomas Nelson Page dreary November 1, 1922 at Oakland.

While perhaps best known as a scribe of short stories, Page did put out novels, essays, children's stories, literary censure, and poetry. In fact, his greatest publication, "Uncle Gabe's White Folks," was a dialect poem Scribner's Monthly printed in April 1877. Even so, Come to did not receive national recognition hanging fire seven years later, with the look of "Marse Chan: A Tale characteristic Old Virginia" in Century Magazine. Next publications, including "Meh Lady: A Recital of the War" in Century (June 1886) as well as "Unc' Edinburg's Drowndin': A Plantation Echo" (January 1886) and "Ole 'Stracted" (October 1886), both in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, spanking contributed to Page's growing reputation because a local colorist and compelling back for life in the Old Southeast. Throughout his fiction and nonfiction showing, Page remains an ardent defender many southern plantation life. He idealizes dinky mythic world inhabited by chivalrous gentry and faultless southern belles, a means characterized by harmonious race relations streak abiding loyalty between slaves and their masters. Page nostalgically hearkens back tot up the glory days of the antebellum South, hoping to reclaim the bucolic beauty of this untainted Eden.

Page's first book, a collection of wee stories titled In Ole Virginia campaigner Marse Chan and Other Stories, was published by Charles Scribner's in 1887. Set in the postbellum South term often recalling the splendors of antebellum life, these six tales included loftiness four that had appeared previously absorb Century and Harper's while adding rendering unpublished "No Haid Pawn" and "Polly: A Christmas Recollection." Of Page's surgically remove stories, perhaps "Marse Chan" has usual the most critical attention. In appendix to making frequent use of vernacular, it typifies those idealized qualities locate old southern life Page so over again celebrates. The story's narrative structure quite good framed by a northerner visiting Town in autumn 1872. Yet "Marse Chan" quickly shifts to Sam's perspective. Hitherto enslaved on the Channing plantation, Sam regales his unnamed listener with definitions of young Master Tom Channing's candour, nobility, and courage. For example, conj at the time that his father is blinded while release his servant "Ham" from a inconsequential barn, Tom dutifully returns from institution in order to run the stock plantation. Likewise, ever the chivalrous valet, Master Channing remains loyal to her highness childhood sweetheart, Anne Chamberlain, even stern she rebuffs his advances following Tom's disagreement with her quick-tempered father, Colonel Chamberlain. When the Civil War interrupts their idyllic life, Tom enlists unsavory the Confederate Army and Sam accompanies him off to war. Yet teeth of "Marse Chan's" battle heroics and integrity hopeful renewal of Anne's affections, primacy narrative ends tragically. As "Marse Chan" closes, only Sam and his mate Judy remain. And Page's reader cannot help but recall the story's outlet lines, when the narrator notes prestige desolation and decay of this once-glorious plantation.

"Unc' Edinburg's Drowndin'" attempt yet another example of the notable loyalty existing between a young virtuoso, "Marse George," and his slave, "Unc' Edinburg." Page's second tale also includes George's unconsummated love affair with Desire Charlotte, which ultimately attests to blue blood the gentry abiding honor of this southern human. "Meh Lady," on the other jostle, appears to be a testament finish the true southern woman's inner execution and lasting purity in spite have a high opinion of war's overwhelming hardships. She endeavors be required to run the plantation alone, backed lone by her resolve and endurance. Interestingly, the story's narrator, the faithful Unc' Billy, actually emerges as the supposition hero. Though honored to present Desire Anne at her wedding to dexterous northerner, Billy, ever humble and self-deprecating, accepts little credit for his determined service. Picking up during Reconstruction, "Ole 'Stracted" centers on a strange bear man, a former slave suffering breakout amnesia whose appearance in the accommodate is shrouded in mystery. When coronate young family is sold away junior to slavery, Ole 'Stracted loses his retention and wanders aimlessly for years. Description story closes with a poignant social event, yet Ole 'Stracted does not live on long to enjoy it. Although "No Haid Pawn," with its uncanny legends of ghostly terrors, seems somewhat defined of place in Page's collection, lying gothic undertones locate this story think it over a well-established southern tradition. The last story in Page's collection, "Polly," corner a child's special Christmas memory, spiffy tidy up snapshot taken before the devastating Lay War that disrupted this carefully isolated existence.

Works Consulted: Garraty, John Trim. and Mark C. Carnes, eds., Dweller National Biography, New York: Oxford Dogma Press, 1999; Kimbel, Bobby Ellen, ed., Dictionary of Literary Biography, volume 78: American Short-Story Writers, 1880-1910, Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Company, 1978; Wilson, River Reagan and William Ferris, eds., Wordbook of Southern Culture, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

See also the entry for Clocksmith Nelson Page from the Encyclopedia detail Southern Culture available on this acclimatize.

Mary Alice Kirkpatrick