PAUL LAURENCE

See also:

• DUNBAR, GEORGE (1774—1851)
• PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR (1872–1906)
• DUNBAR, WILLIAM (c. 1460-c. 1520)

DUNBAR (1872–1906)  , American author, of negro descent, was born in Dayton, Ohio, on the 27th of June 1872 . He graduated (1891) from the Dayton high school, had a varied experience as elevator boy, mechanic and journalist, and in 1897—1898 held a position on the staff of the Library of Congress, resigning in December 1898 to devote himself to literary work . He died of consumption at his home in Dayton on the 8th of February 1906 . His poetry was brought to the attention of American readers by William Dean Howells, who wrote an appreciative introduction to his Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896) . Subsequently Dunbar published eleven other volumes of verse, three novels and five collections of short stories . Some of his short stories and sketches, especially those dealing with the American negro, are charming; they are far superior to his novels, which deal with scenes in which the author is not so much at home . His most enduring work, however, is his poetry . Some of this is in literary English, but the best is in the dialect of his people . In it he has preserved much of their very temperament and outlook on life, usually with truth and freshness of feeling, united with a happy choice of language and muchlyrical grace and sweetness, and often with rare humour and pathos . These poems of the soil are a distinct contribution to American literature, and entitle the author to be called pre-eminently the poet of his race in America . See Life and Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar (Naperville, Ill., 1907), with a biography by L . K .

Wiggins .