_Major John William de Forest._--Major John William de Forest (born in 1826) began writing fiction with a very romantic and very poor novel called “Witching Times,” published serially in _Putnam’s_, 1856-57, and followed it with a number of works which made him one of the most popular novelists of the seventies--“Seacliff” (1859), “Miss Ravenel’s Conversion” (1867), a book out of his own experience, and his first in realistic vein, “Overland” (1871), “Kate Beaumont” (1872), “Honest John Vane” (1875), “Playing the Mischief” (1875), and many others. Of “Miss Ravenel’s Conversion” Mr. Howells has said: “It was one of the best American novels that I had known, and was of an advanced realism before realism was known by that name.” _Robert Lowell._--In 1858 appeared “The New Priest of Conception Bay,” in which the Rev. Robert Traill Spence Lowell (1816-91), an elder brother of James Russell Lowell, and an Episcopal clergyman, painted in bright and cheerful colours the rural life of Newfoundland with which he became familiar during his sojourn at Bay Roberts in 1843-47. No truer picture of the simple fisher folk of Newfoundland was ever produced--even to a delicate discrimination of dialects. Mr. Lowell’s reputation was not ill sustained by his later though less known books, “Antony Brade” (1874) and “A Story or Two from an Old Dutch Town” (1878), which dealt with the quaint life in the Dutch villages of eastern New York. _Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford._--Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford (born in 1835), a native of Maine who has passed most of her life in Massachusetts, made her reputation with a short story of Parisian life, “In a Cellar,” in _The Atlantic_ in 1859. In “Sir Rohan’s Ghost” (1859), “The Amber Gods” (in _The Atlantic_, 1860), which gave her a considerable reputation, “Azarian,” (1864), and “A Thief in the Night” (1872), she produced sombre works vividly imaginative and intense in feeling. She was among the first to work the mine of ghostly romance. Her stories have never been very popular; her fondness for the sensuous and the splendid repels many readers. Yet for sheer and overwhelming intensity and for complete success in producing the effect sought, “A Thief in the Night” must be given a high place as a work of art. _Mrs. Miriam Coles Harris._--Mrs. Miriam Coles Harris (born in 1834), who has spent most of her life in and near New York City, wrote a number of stories popular in their day, some of them being still read. “Rutledge” (1860) and “The Sutherlands” (1862) were widely circulated. Her later stories include “A Perfect Adonis” (1875), “Phœbe” (1884), “Missy” (1885), and “An Utter Failure” (1890).