Higginson, Thomas Wentworth
Entry updated 25 November 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1823-1911) US minister, soldier, Feminist, poet and author, now best remembered for his friendship with and mentoring of Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), and for his partial recognition of her genius. He is also remembered as an abolitionist who served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers (1862-1864), a Black regiment that (because of the racist code then legally enforced) could not be commanded by a Black man; his Army Life in a Black Regiment (1870; rev 1890) is an important and incisive commentary on these circumstances. His poetry is not now highly regarded. Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic (coll 1898; vt Tales of Atlantis and the Enchanted Islands 1977) assembles legends and tales, among them a Lost Race story concerning Atlantis. Of greater sf interest is The Monarch of Dreams (1887 chap), in which an adventurous Scientist succeeds in experiencing lucid dreaming at will; but is eventually trapped in his dream world. [JC]
Thomas Wentworth Storrow Higginson
born Cambridge, Massachusetts: 23 December 1823
died Cambridge, Massachusetts: 9 May 1911
works (highly selected)
- The Monarch of Dreams (Boston, Massachusetts: Lee and Shepard, 1887) [chap: hb/nonpictorial]
- Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1898) [coll: hb/uncredited]
- Tales of Atlantis and the Enchanted Islands (San Bernardino, California: Borgo Press/Newcastle Publishing, 1977) [coll: vt of the above: pb/uncredited]
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