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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Charles Leland Biography LELAND,
Charles Godfrey (1824-1903). An American poet, journalist, humorist, and
miscellaneous writer, born in Philadelphia, Aug. 15, 1824. Some years before his
graduation at Princeton, in 1845, his precocious talent had found voice in short
poems contributed to the newspapers. After graduation he studied at Heidelberg,
Munich, and Paris, and was one of the American deputation to congratulate the
French Provisional Government on the revolution of 1848, in the course of which
he joined the students of the Latin Quarter behind the Paris barricades. In that
year he returned to Philadelphia, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1851,
continued to write for periodicals, and soon devoted himself entirely to
literary and journalistic work. He made a special study of the Gypsy language
and history and attained much reputation both as a German scholar and as a
portrayer of German and German-American life. Leland's widely read Hans
Breitmann's Ballads (1871; many later eds.) tells, in the patois called
Pennsylvania Dutch, many humorous conceits and droll adventures of their
clownish hero. Leland himself was sometimes spoken of as Hans Breitmann. He
wrote, however, under his own name. Leland's editorial work took him for a time
to New York, but be returned to Philadelphia in 1855, and in 1861 established in
Boston the Continental
Magazine,
in which he pleaded for the emancipation of the slaves. He soon returned again
to Philadelphia, however; traveled in the Middle West, and was from 1869 to 1880
resident chiefly in London, pursuing Gypsy studies. Returning to Philadelphia,
he was active in furthering industrial-art education in the public schools, and
wrote for this purpose several manuals, after his visit to the United States in
1880; but thenceforward he lived in Europe and he died in Florence, Italy, March
20, 1903. His published volumes comprise, among others: The
Poetry and Mystery of Dreams (1855); Meister
Karl's Sketch Book (1855), sketches of foreign travel; Pictures
of Travel (1856), the first of his translations of Heine;
Sunshine in Thought (1862); Heine's Book of Songs (1862); Legends
of Birds (1864); Hans Breitmann's
Ballads; Hans Breitmann About Town and
Other New Ballads; Hans Breitmann in
Politics; Hans Breitmann and His
Philosopede; Hans Breitmann's Party,
with Other New Ballads; Hans Breitmann
as an Uhlan (1867-70). A complete edition of all the Ballads was issued in
1871, and many later editions have appeared. Other of Leland's writings include:
The Music Lesson of Confucius (1870),
philosophic verses; Gaudeamus (1871),
humorous songs translated from the German; Egyptian Sketch Book (1873) English
Gypsies and their Language (1873) English
Gypsy Songs (1875, in collaboration) Fu-Sang,
or the Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century
(1875); Abraham Lincoln (1879) The
Minor Arts (1880); The Gypsies
(1882) Algonquin Legends of New England (1884); Autobiographical Memoirs (1893) Songs
of the Sea and Lays of the Land (1805) Hans
Breitmann in Tyrol (1895); One Hundred
Profitable Acts (1897); The
Unpublished Legends of Vergil (1899). His last work was a volume of Indian
folklore verses (1903), called Kuloskap
the Master, and Other Algonkin Poems. This was done in collaboration with
Dr. John Dyneley Prince. Consult E. R. Pennell, Charles Godfrey Leland: A Biography (2 vols., New York,
1906). The New International
Encyclopaedia, Vol.
XIII
(New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920)
755-756.
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