American writer, orator, and, especially, civil service reformer, George William Curtis (1824-1892) was a patrician whose ideals and causes are blurred in historical retrospect by a personal elitism that bordered on priggishness and was out of step even in his own time.

George William Curtis was born into a very old New England family in Providence, R.I. After attending school in Massachusetts, he spent several years in New York City, where he worked as a clerk. Already a disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Curtis lived for 2 years at the transcendentalist utopian colony, Brook Farm. He returned to New York City, then in 1846 left on the grand tour of Europe fashionable for well-to-do New Englanders. However, he added to this an unusual side trip to the Near East and wrote two books on his impressions of Egypt and Syria.

Curtis also published a satire of New York City...