The Flickr Williamgilmoresimms Image Generatr

“This imaginary scene shows fifteen celebrated literary figures gathered at the home of Washington Irving, author of such popular tales as “Rip Van Winkle” (1819) and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820). Ads in the “New York Times” in December 1863 announced the painting’s exhibition at a Manhattan art gallery, where visitors could purchase a fifty-four-page booklet describing the work. ‘It is, in the truest and completest sense, a National picture,’ the anonymous author declared, and its production ‘will be universally regarded as a National event.’

“The painting resulted from a collaborative effort. The photographer Mathew Brady captured the likeness of each writer (including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Irving himself), and the artist F. O. C. Darley designed the group composition. Working from those materials, Christian Schussele painted this canvas while Thomas Oldham Barlow engraved a widely reproduced print.” [From the accompanying text]

Standing (Left to Right): Henry T. Tuckerman (1813-1871), Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-1867), James K. Paulding (1778-1860), William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), and John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870).

Seated (Left to Right): William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870), Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867), William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859), Washington Irving (1783-1859), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), and George Bancroft (1800-1891).

In 1845 Edgar Allan Poe pronounced Wm Gilmore Simms "the best novelist America had ever produced."

A popular and well regarded poet, novelist, and historian in his time, Wm. Gilmore Simms has largely been purged from the canon of American literature.

With digitization many of his books are once again available in e-book form.


Sony a5000

This bronze bust of Simms by John Quincy Adams Ward stands atop a granite column. The monument was dedicated June 11, 1879.

"William Gilmore Simms (April 17, 1806 – June 11, 1870) was a poet, novelist and historian from the American South. His writings achieved great prominence during the 19th century, with Edgar Allan Poe pronouncing him the best novelist America had ever produced. In recent decades, Simms's novels have fallen out of favor, although he is still known among literary scholars as a major force in antebellum Southern literature. He is also remembered for his strong support of slavery and for his opposition to Uncle Tom's Cabin, in response to which he wrote reviews and a novel." --https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gilmore_Simms

The Monument to William Gilmore Simms, or Simms Bust, designed by sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward and architect Edward B. White in 1878 was dedicated in White Point Garden on June 11, 1879--on the ninth anniversary of Simm's death. William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) was a native of Charleston and a writer called "the antebellum South's leading man of letters."

White Point Garden, often incorrectly called White Point Gardens, is a 5.7 acre public park located at the southern tip of peninsular Charleston. Originally known as Oyster Point and later White Point because of the piles of sun-bleached oyster shells that would pile up at the water’s edge, it was first used as a public garden in 1837.