John Neal Biography

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Dictionary of Literary Biography on John Neal

A staunch advocate of American literary nationalism, John Neal wrote fiction, poetry, and essays throughout a literary career that spanned nearly six decades. Neal was a contemporary of James Fenimore Cooper and, like Cooper, was one of the earliest American writers to experiment with historical fiction in the wake of Sir Walter Scott's popularity. Yet, after a meteoric rise to prominence based on his extravagantly plotted historical romances, Neal's notoriety gradually faded, prompting Nathaniel Hawthorne to observe somewhat disingenuously in 1845 in the sketch "P.'s Correspondence" from Mosses from an Old Manse: "How slowly our literature grows up! Most of our writers of promise have come to untimely ends. There was that wild fellow, John Neal, who almost turned my boyish brain with his romances; he surely has long been dead, else he never could keep himself so quiet." Neal's novels and poetry are seldom read today, but he remains important for his prescient literary criticism of other American authors, including his praise of Edgar Allan Poe early in Poe's career and his insightful assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of Washington Irving and a host of other writers.

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