Richard Malcolm Johnston
Richard Malcolm Johnston | |
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| Born | March 8, 1822 Powelton, Georgia, U.S. |
| Died | September 23, 1898 (aged 76) |
| Alma mater | Mercer University |
| Occupations | Educator, author |
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Richard Malcolm Johnston (March 8, 1822 – September 23, 1898) was an American author.
Biography
Johnson was born in Powelton, Hancock County, Georgia.[1][2] His father was a Baptist minister, and his early education was received at a country school and finished at Mercer University. After graduating there he spent a year teaching and then took up the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1843. In 1857, he accepted an appointment to the chair of belles-lettres and oratory at the University of Georgia in Athens, retaining it until the opening of the Civil War, when he began a school for boys on his farm near Sparta. This he kept going during the war, serving also for a time on the staff of Confederate general Joseph E. Brown, and helping to organize the state militia.
Johnson was a slave owner. Among the people he enslaved was Lucius Henry Holsey, who would go on to become a bishop in the Methodist church.[3]
At the close of the war he moved to Maryland, where he opened the Pen Lucy School for boys in Baltimore. One of his teaching staff was Georgia-born poet Sidney Lanier, who persuaded him to begin to write for publication, although he was then more than 50 years old. His first stories were sent to Southern Magazine; others to The Century followed, and became immediately popular. His stories presented a nostalgic view of Southern plantation-based slavery that became the foundation of Lost Cause ideology.
He died in Baltimore, Maryland on September 23, 1898.[2]
Works
Johnston's published works include:
- Dukesborough Tales (1871–81), recounting his early school days in Georgia
- Old Mark Langston (1884)
- Two Gray Tourists (1885)
- Mr. Absolom Billingslea and Other Georgia Folks (1888)
- The Primes (1891)
- Widow Guthrie (1890)
- Ogeechee Cross Firings (1889)
- Old Times in New Georgia (1897)
- Life of Alexander H. Stephens (1878), a biography of his partner in a law practice
- Lectures on Literature (1897), on English, French and Spanish. Published for the Catholic Summer and Winter School Library. D.H.McBride & CO., Akron, Ohio
His autobiography was posthumously published in 1900.
References
- ↑ The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. I. James T. White & Company. 1893. p. 440. Retrieved April 23, 2021 – via Google Books.
- 1 2 "Richard Malcom Johnston Dead". Brooklyn Citizen. Baltimore, Maryland. September 23, 1898. p. 12. Retrieved April 23, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ Shattuck, Gardiner H. (2000). "Holsey, Lucius Henry (1842-1920), minister and denominational leader". American National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0800700.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Meehan, Thomas Francis (1910). "Richard Malcolm Johnston". Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8.
External links
- Works by Richard Malcolm Johnston at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Richard Malcolm Johnston at the Internet Archive
- Works by Richard Malcolm Johnston at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Autobiography of Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston. Washington: The Neale Company, 1900.
- Rockby historical marker
- 1822 births
- 1898 deaths
- American short story writers
- American non-fiction writers
- Writers from Georgia (U.S. state)
- Converts to Roman Catholicism from Baptist denominations
- University of Georgia faculty
- People from Hancock County, Georgia
- Writers from Baltimore
- Catholics from Georgia (U.S. state)
- American male non-fiction writers