Charles Frederick Briggs - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Charles Frederick Briggs (December 30, 1804 – June 20, 1877), also called C. F. Briggs, was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, author and editor, born in Nantucket

Nantucket, Massachusetts

Nantucket is an island south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the United States. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and the coterminous Nantucket County, which are consolidated. Part of the town is designated the Nantucket...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

. He was also known under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

"Harry Franco", having written The Adventures of Harry Franco in 1839, which was followed by a series of works dealing more or less humorously with life in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

Biography

Briggs had been a sailor

Sailor

A sailor, mariner, or seaman is a person who navigates water-borne vessels or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses...

in Nantucket, Massachusetts

Nantucket, Massachusetts

then a wholesale grocer

Grocer

A grocer is a bulk seller of food. Beginning as early as the 14th century, a grocer was a dealer in comestible dry goods such as spices, pepper, sugar, and cocoa, tea and coffee...

. When his novel The Adventures of Harry Franco was suddenly successful, he pursued a career in journalism. The publication of this humorous adventure story in 1839 was an immediate sensation and led to even his friends nicknaming him "Franco", much to his dismay. In The Knickerbocker
The Knickerbocker
The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, was a literary magazine of New York City, founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833, and published until 1865 under various titles, including:...

, Briggs began a series of humorous stories, including a serialized story that, though incomplete, was produced as the novel The Haunted Merchant in 1843.

Briggs founded the Copyright Club in 1843. The organization sought to spread awareness of the need for international copyright

Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

law, though Briggs left the Club when a magazine named Centurion "contrived to monopolize all the credit".

Briggs started the Broadway Journal
Broadway Journal
The Broadway Journal was a short-lived New York City-based periodical founded by Charles Frederick Briggs and John Bisco in 1844. A year later, the publication was bought by Edgar Allan Poe, becoming the only magazine he ever owned, though it failed after only a few months under his...

in 1844 in New York City

New York City

. He handled editorial duties and solicited for publications while his business partner, former schoolteacher John Bisco, handled publishing and financial concerns. One of his contributors was his friend James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets...

, though Briggs disapproved of Lowell's "hot and excited" abolitionism. In December 1844, Lowell wrote to Briggs to recommend Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

for a job at the new magazine. Poe became associate editor of the publication in January 1845 and co-editor a month later, also becoming one-third owner. Though Poe was a partial owner of the journal, Briggs never considered him a partner but "only an assistant". Poe called Briggs "grossly uneducated" and said that he "has never composed in his life three consecutive sentences of grammatical English." In June 1845, Briggs resigned due to financial difficulties and, in October, Bisco sold his part of the magazine to Poe for $50 (Poe paid with a note endorsed by Horace Greeley

Horace Greeley

Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...

). The magazine's final publication was dated January 3, 1846.

C. F. Briggs later worked as editor for several other publications including Holden's Dollar Magazine and as managing editor for Putnam's Magazine
Putnam's Magazine
Putnam’s Monthly Magazine of American Literature, Science and Art was a monthly periodical published by G. P. Putnam's Sons featuring American literature and articles on science, art, and politics...

(1853-1856) in connection with associate editors George William Curtis

George William Curtis

George William Curtis was an American writer and public speaker, born in Providence, Rhode Island, of old New England stock.-Biography:...

and Parke Godwin

Parke Godwin (journalist)

Parke Godwin was an American journalist associated with New York.-Biography:Godwin was born on February 28, 1816, in Paterson, New Jersey. His father was an officer in the war of 1812, and his grandfather a soldier of the American Revolution...

. With Curtis and Godwin, he also produced a gift book

Gift book

Gift books, literary annuals or a keepsake, were 19th century books, often lavishly decorated, which collected essays, short fiction, and poetry. They were primarily published in the autumn, in time for the holiday season and were intended to be given away rather than read by the purchaser...

called The Homes of American Authors (1852). Later he served on the staff of the Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, the Evening Mirror, the Brooklyn Union, and, finally, the Independent. Briggs died on June 20, 1877, in Brooklyn.

Critical response

Lowell wrote of Briggs in his A Fable for Critics
A Fable for Critics
A Fable for Critics is a book-length poem by American writer James Russell Lowell, first published anonymously in 1848. The poem made fun of well-known poets and critics of the time and brought notoriety to its author.-Overview:...

: "He's in joke half the time when he seems to be sternest / When he seems to be joking, be sure he's in earnest". He went on:

...as he draws near
You find that's a smile you took for a sneer;
One half of him contradicts t'other; his wont
Is to say very sharp things and do very blunt,
His manners as hard as his feelings are tender

Later, Lowell wrote to him in 1844, "You Gothamites strain hard to attain a metropolitan character, but I think if you felt very metropolitan you would not be showing it on all occasions".

Selected list of works

The Adventures of Harry Franco: A Tale of the Great Panic (1839)
The Haunted Merchant (1843)
Bankrupt Stories (1843)
Working a Passage, or Life in a Liner (1844)
The Trippings of Tom Pepper; or, The Results of Romancing, an Autobiography (1847)
Asmodeus; or, The iniquities of New York (1849)

External links

Charles Frederick Briggs at Nantucket Historical Society
Charles Frederick Briggs at the Edgar Allan Poe Society online
Charles Frederick Briggs at the Early American Fiction Collection at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
Obituary from the New York Times (June 1877)
’Sconset-born Charles Frederick Briggs: Early New York Novelist and Editor by Bette S. Weidman

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