Background

Joel Tyler Headley was born on 30 December 1813, at Walton, New York, United States, the son of Isaac and Irene (Benedict) Headley, and a descendant of Leonard Headley, who emigrated from England to New Jersey in 1665. Phineas Camp Headley was his younger brother.

Education

Graduating from Union College in 1839, Joel Headley studied at Auburn Theological Seminary.

Career

After graduation Joel Headley was licensed to preach in New York, and was called to a New York church. Because of poor health his physician dissuaded him from accepting, but, reluctant to abandon the profession of his father, he accepted a small charge at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. After several years he suffered a complete breakdown and in the summer of 1842 went to Italy. To New York newspapers he contributed travel letters that achieved considerable popularity and were republished as Italy and the Italians (1844). In Europe his health had grown worse and, returning to America, he definitely gave up the ministry.

The success of Headley's book had made him an author, and a second volume, Letters from Italy, appeared in 1845. Having succeeded Henry J. Raymond, in 1846, as associate editor of the New York Tribune, he devoted himself assiduously to journalism and to popular historical writing. Napoleon and his Marshals (1846) and Washington and his Generals (1847) were quickly and widely successful. An attack on the brain induced him to spend the summer of 1847 in the Adirondacks, then a wild and little-known region. He returned the following summer; his many letters describing the beauty and predicting the popularity of the region were collected under the title The Adirondack (1849). Despite his poor health Headley for almost half a century applied amazing and unwearied industry to the production of printed matter. His later life, spent in editing and writing, passed quietly at his home in Newburgh, where he died in 1897.

While a large public regarded him as a scholar and a historian, many of his books were mere compilations without taste, judgment, or insight. His vivid, nervous style often sank to bombast and prolixity, as in his Sacred Mountains (1847) which Edgar Allan Poe declared was “written in that kind of phraseology in which John Philpot Curran, when drunk, would have made a speech at a public dinner. ” Headley’s industry and enthusiasm were but little compensation for his lack of training; Poe dubbed him “The Autocrat of all the Quacks. ”

Achievements

• Prolific and popular, Joel Headley produced during his long career more than thirty biographies, histories, and books of travel. Their patriotic, moral tone and sweet vivacity appealed to many thousands. In 1853 his books had reached a total sale of 200, 000 volumes. In 1866 the New York Nation remarked that Washington and his Generals was one of the five secular books to be found on the typical American bookshelf.

Works

More photos

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  • The Great Riots of New York, 1712 to 1873

    (The history of the riots that have taken place in a great...)

  • The Chaplains and Clergy of the Revolution (Classic Reprint)

    (In writing the biographies of the chaplains and clergymen...)

  • Stanley's Adventures in the Wilds of Africa A Graphic Account of the Several Expeditions of Henry M. Stanley into the Heart of the Dark Continent

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • The life of Oliver Cromwell

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Second War with England, Vol. 1 of 2

    (Joel Tyler Headley was an American clergyman, historian, ...)

  • Adirondack: or, Life in the woods

    (This volume is produced from digital images from the Corn...)

Connections

In May 1850 Headley married Anna Allston Russel and settled at Newburgh, New York.

Father:

Isaac Headley

Mother:

Irene (Benedict) Headley

Spouse:

Anna Allston (Russel) Headley

Brother:

Phineas Camp Headley