I lived from 1862-1922.
John Kendrick Bangs was born in Yonkers, New York on May 27, 1862. His father Francis Nehemiah Bangs (d.1886) was on of the most prominent lawyers in New York. His mother was Frances Amelia Bull. His grandfather was the Rev. Nathan Bangs, who was the first historian of the Methodist Church in America. Rev. Bangs was also the first editor of a Methodist paper, and president of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut for many years. John’s more notable works were his supernatural fictions based on humorous rather than terrifying ghosts. He was the creator of modern Bangsian fantasy, which is a school of fantasy writing that sets the plot wholly or partially in the afterlife.
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In 1879 Bangs entered Columbia University and wrote under pseudonyms for the Acta Columbiana, for which he was the editor from 1882 to1883. He earned a degree in Political Science and went to work in the law office of his father. He entered Columbia Law School, but dropped out as his desire for literature overpowered his plans for a legal profession. He got a job as an associate editor at Life magazine and had some of his sketches published in Puck and Life. John Bangs married his first cousin, Agnes Lawson Hyde in 1886. They had four children together. In 1887, Bangs went abroad, and during this absence from editorial work at Life magazine, he published his first book. In 1888, he left Life to work for Harper’s Magazine.
In the following years, Bangs proved himself to be a successful humorist, essayist and lecturer. In 1894 Mr. Bangs was nominated by the Democrats, and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Yonkers. His victorious rival offered him a subordinate position in his administration on the Board of Education and Mr. Bangs accepted. His wife, Agnes, died in 1903; he then married Mary Gray. In 1907, they moved to Ogunquit, Maine. John Kendrick Bangs died in 1922 at the age fifty-nine.
My poetry
I met a little Elf-man, once,
Down where the lilies blow.
9 lines, 2 comments
The ghosts of all things past parade,
Emerging from the mist and shade
22 lines
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