Charles Dudley Warner was an American essayist, novelist best known for the novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today that is written in co-authorship with Mark Twain. Warner was very activ in public life as well; he was interested in prison reform, city park supervision, and other movements for the public good. He is an auther of a famous remark: Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
Background
Charles Dudley Warner was born on the 12th of September 1829 on a farm in Plainfield, Massachusetts. His father died when Charles was just five years old. Few years later the family moved to Cazenovia, New York where his mother's brother lived. He graduated from Hamilton College, Clinton, NY and later on studied law at the University of Pennsylvania.
Education
Graduate Hamilton College, 1851.
Career
In 1853 Warner traveled to Missouri where he became a railroad surveyor.It was one of his first jobs. After graduating from the university Warner spent four unhappy years practicing law in Chicago (1856-1860). Then his old friend, Joseph Roswell Hawley, whom he met at Hamilton College, invited him to become a co-editor of The Evening Press in Hartford, and he quickly accepted, as practice of law never agreed with him. He found this profession very harassing. Then he worked at The Hartford Courant, that was the first newspaper that published his works. It was a series of Warner’s essays about working in the garden. Later a book was composed of them; it was a bestseller. Warner became one of the country’s most popular writers. In 1884 he joined the editorial staff of Harper's Magazine, for which he conducted The Editors Drawer until 1892.