About this Item
Published: 1844. Originally published 1842. DESCRIPTION: Full black leather binding with four ridged decorated spine with black leather title plate. Marbled endpapers. Language: English. Book Condition: Very Good: Light wear to corners, edges and spine ends. Light warping to boards. Tightly bound with clean intact endpapers and strong hinges. Lightly toned pages with small stain mark to lower edge of most pages. DJ Condition: No DJ Pages 122. Size: 13cm by 9cm. AUTHOR: Charles Fenno Hoffman, born in New York City in 1806, the son of New York Attorney General Josiah Ogden Hoffman and Maria (née Fenno) Hoffman. Hoffman, who was proud of his ancestry, was the grandson of John Fenno, the Federalist editor of the Gazette of the United States. One aunt, Harriet Fenno (d. 1808), was married to John Rodman, the New York County District Attorney, and other aunt, Mary Eliza Fenno (d. 1817), was married to Gulian C. Verplanck, a New York State Senator and U. S. Representative. He was descended from Martin Hermanzen Hoffman, who emigrated to New Netherland in 1657. He attended New York University and Columbia College, and studied law with Harmanus Bleecker. Admitted to the bar in 1827, but practiced law intermittently. In 1833, he led a group of other students to establish The Knickerbocker magazine, which he edited for the first three issues. In 1835, Hoffman edited The New-York Book of Poetry which first attributed A Visit From St. Nicholas to Clement Clarke Moore. In 1836, Park Benjamin, Sr. merged his New England Monthly Magazine with the American Monthly and hired Hoffman as editor. Hoffmans first book was A Winter in the Far West (1835), recounting his travels as far west as St. Louis, Missouri. It was followed by Wild Scenes in Forest and Prairie (1839) based on actual experiences in search of health. He wrote a successful novel, Greyslaer (1840), based on the murder of Colonel Solomon P. Sharp by Jereboam O. Beauchamp. Hoffmans fame rested chiefly upon his poems, first collected in The Vigil of Faith (1842). Literary critic Rufus Wilmot Griswold that year dedicated twice as much space to Hoffman than any other author in his respected anthology The Poets and Poetry of America. Griswold helped Hoffman publish The Echo, another collection of poetry, in 1844. Hoffman remained a successful editor and author throughout the 1840s. He officially began a new role as editor of The Literary World magazine on May 1, 1847. Under the strain of work, he went insane in 1849, supposedly after a servant used his manuscripts to start a fire. He was hospitalized briefly in April 1849 and, after his release, he accepted a position with the Department of State in Washington, D. C. By autumn, however, he was declared permanently insane. He spent the last 30 years of his life in the Harrisburg State Hospital, a state asylum in Pennsylvania. It was in Harrisburg that he was diagnosed with chronic mania, or manic-depressive psychosis. Hoffman died in Harrisburg on June 7, 1884. He was buried at Christ Church Burial Ground following funeral services at the home of his sister-in-law in Philadelphia. Seller Inventory # 10527
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