Charles Morris (American writer)
Encyclopedia
Charles Morris was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 journalist, novelist and author of popular historical textbooks.

He was born in Chester, Pennsylvania
Chester, Pennsylvania
Chester is a city in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, with a population of 33,972 at the 2010 census. Chester is situated on the Delaware River, between the cities of Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware.- History :...

, the son of Samuel Pearson Morris and Margaret Burns. After studying locally he worked as a teacher in Chester, but in 1856 moved to Philadelphia where he became professor of languages at the Academy of Ancient and Modern Languages.

He abandoned his academic career in 1860, working in business up to 1878, while developing his reputation as a professional creative writer and journalist. He published short stories, poems, and serial novels in Beadle's Saturday Journal.

After becoming a full-time writer he published a large number of history textbooks, including The War with Spain, histories of the United States, a general History of the World, The Story of Mexico, and History of Pennsylvania. Other publications include Civilization, a Study of its Elements, The Aryan Race: its Origin and Achievements, The Greater Republic and the Dictionary of Universal Biography. He also compiled a series of Historical Tales. These are retold legends and historical events meant to be read for enjoyment rather than used as textbooks. He also wrote biographies, notably of Queen Victoria and William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...

.

He edited collections of interviews with writers under the titles Half Hours with the Best American Authors and Half Hours with the Best British Authors.

Morris also wrote dime novel
Dime novel
Dime novel, though it has a specific meaning, has also become a catch-all term for several different forms of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S...

s. As was common practice at the time, these were often published under a variety of pseudonyms. These names included, "Redmond Blake", "Edward Lytton", "Jo Pierce", "C. E. Tripp", "R. R. Inman", and "George S. Kaine", "Paul Preston", "William Murry", "E. L.Vincent", "J. H. Southard", "Roland Dare", "S. M. Frazier", "Hugh Allen", "J. D. Ballard", and "Paul Pastnor".

Immediately after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...

, he was sent by his publisher to write a first-hand report on the event which was published as The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire.

External links

  • Works by Charles Morris at LibriVox
    LibriVox
    LibriVox is an online digital library of free public domain audiobooks, read by volunteers and is probably, since 2007, the world's most prolific audiobook publisher...

    (audiobooks)
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