Edgar Fawcett was an American novelist and poet.

Biography

Fawcett was born in New York

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...

 on May 26, 1847, and spent much of his life there. Educated at Columbia College, he obtained the A.B.

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 there in 1867 and his M.A.

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 three years later. At Columbia, he was a member of the Fraternity of Delta Phi

Delta Phi

Delta Phi is a fraternity founded in 1827 at Union College in Schenectady, New York. Founded as part of the Union Triad, along with the Kappa Alpha Society and Sigma Phi Society, Delta Phi was the third and last member of the Triad...

  and the Philolexian Society

Philolexian Society

The Philolexian Society of Columbia University is one of the oldest college literary societies in the United States, and the oldest student group at Columbia...

.Although successful in his time, his works are mostly forgotten today. His best known novels, such as 1873's Purple and Fine Linen and 1898's New York, were satirical studies of New York high society. Fawcett also wrote a parody of the King Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

 legends entitled the New King Arthur: An Opera Without Music (1885), as well as numerous works for children, such as 1872's Short Poems for Short People. His volumes of verse included 1884's Song and Story and 1891's Songs of Doubt and Dream. His verse was frequently anthologized. Fawcett spent many of the last years of his life in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where he died on May 2, 1904. A study by Stanley R. Harrison, entitled Edgar Fawcett, was published in 1972.

The rather remarkable novels Solarion (about a dog given human intelligence) and Douglas Duane (1885) (on scientific body-switching) as well as The Ghost of Guy Thryle (1895) (which has astral projection as a means of interplanetary travel) deserve to be better known. The Harrison volume above lists many unpublished manuscripts sent in for copyright with such titles as "The Man from Mars" and "The Destruction of the Moon," but no trace of most of these beyond the listing seems to exist; "The Man from Mars" was published in the June 1892 issue of Short Stories: A Magazine of Select Fiction.

External links

• Poems by Fawcett at Sonnets.org