. Appleton's cyclopaedia of American biography . ions were for medicine, he studiedlaw at eighteen, but never practised to any 1827 he published in Charleston a volume ofLyrical and other Poems—his first attempt inliterature. In 1828 he became editor and partial 534 SIMMS SIMOX owner of the Charleston City Gazette, whichtook the Union side in politics in nullificationdays. In 1829 he brought out another volume ofpoems. •• The Vision of Cortes. and in 1830 • TheTricolor. His paper proved a bad investment,and through its failure, in 1833, he was left inpoverty. Thenceforth he determine
. Appleton's cyclopaedia of American biography . ions were for medicine, he studiedlaw at eighteen, but never practised to any 1827 he published in Charleston a volume ofLyrical and other Poems—his first attempt inliterature. In 1828 he became editor and partial 534 SIMMS SIMOX owner of the Charleston City Gazette, whichtook the Union side in politics in nullificationdays. In 1829 he brought out another volume ofpoems. •• The Vision of Cortes. and in 1830 • TheTricolor. His paper proved a bad investment,and through its failure, in 1833, he was left inpoverty. Thenceforth he determined to devotehimself to literature, and he began that long seriesof volumes which did not end till within threeyears of his death. Accordingly, he published apoem entitled Atalantis, a Tale of the Sea (NewYork, 1832). the best and longest of all his poeticworks. But Mr. Simms is mainly known as awriter of fiction. His pen was never idle. Thescene of his novels is almost wholly southern, andmarked invaritiblv with local color; manv of them. :••.• •. • -• -.• are historical, but for the most part they aim toreproduce the various types of southern and south-western life. He spent half of the year on hisplantation, Woodlands, near Midway, S. C., seenin the illustration, where he had a beautiful home,amid the live-oaks and the long-leaved pines peculiarto his native state. Here he dispensed a wide hos-pitality, and wrote most of his works. He was formany years a member of the legislature, and in1846 was defeated for lieutenant-governor by onlyone vote. Mr. Simms had immense fertility, avivid imagination, and a true realistic handling ofwhatever he touched. But he was not a finishedscholar, and, although Edgar A. Poe pronouncedhim the best novelist America had produced afterCooper, his style lacked finished elegance and accu-racy. Yet he has done much in preserving theearly history and traditions and local coloring ofhis native state. The Yemassee is consideredhis
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