Laughton Osborn

Background

Laughton Osborn was born in 1809 in New York City, where his father was a well-known and wealthy physician.

Education

During his course of study at Columbia College, from which Laughton was graduated in 1827, he is said by at least one classmate to have been studious and popular. That he was studious there can be no doubt. If he was popular, a change must have come over him after he left college, perhaps owing to the death of a favorite sister, and aggravated by the unfavorable reception accorded to his books.

Career

After Laughton returned from a year of foreign travel, he lived for nearly half a century in retirement in New York, although he was surrounded by many who might have become his friends and associates in society and the world of letters. In 1831 his Sixty Years of the Life of Jeremy Levis was published in two volumes, its rambling style and varied material revealing beyond doubt that he had been a faithful student of Laurence Sterne and Tristram Shandy. The harsh and antagonistic comment of the press upon this book set him against the critics and reviewers, and thereafter he waged continuous verbal warfare with them. Many of his books were issued at his own expense and without his name, among his successive publications being The Dream of Alla-Ad-Deen; The Confessions of a Poet (1835); The Vision of Rubeta, an Epic Story of the Island of Manhattan: with Illustrations Done on Stone (1838), aimed particularly at William Leete Stone, 1792-1844, but which also contained a fierce attack on Wordsworth and replies to his critics, and Arthur Carryl (1841), a volume of miscellaneous poems and a "novel" in two cantos which gave the name to the volume. These were followed by numerous tragedies and comedies with such titles as The Heart's Sacrifice, Matilda of Denmark, Bianco Capello, and Mariamne, a Tragedy of Jewish History. He also wrote a Handbook of Young Artists and Amateurs in Oil Painting, published in 1845. His plays were obviously for the library, and not for the footlights, and a search of dramatic records fails to disclose any mention of their production in New York or elsewhere.

Achievements

• Laughton Osborn's major works: Sixty Years of the Life of Jeremy Levis (1831); The Dream of Alla-Ad-Deen; The Confessions of a Poet (1835); The Vision of Rubeta, an Epic Story of the Island of Manhattan: with Illustrations Done on Stone (1838); Arthur Carryl (1841); Handbook of Young Artists and Amateurs in Oil Painting (1845), etc.

Works

More photos

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  • The Last Mandeville; The Heart' Sacrifice; The Monk; Matilda of Denmark: Tragedies, Being in Completion of the Second Volume of the Dramatic Series (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Last Mandeville; The Heart' Sacrifice; T...)

  • The Montanini; The School for Critics; Comedies: Being in Continuation and Completion of the Fourth Volume of the Dramatic Series (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Montanini; The School for Critics; Comed...)

  • Sixty Years of the Life of Jeremy Levis, Volume 1

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

  • Sixty Years of the Life of Jeremy Levis, Volume 2

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

  • The vision of Rubeta, an epic of the island of Manhattan. With illustrations, done on Stone ..

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

  • The silver head; The double deceit; comedies

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

  • Alice, Or: The Painter's Story

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The Vision of Rubeta, an Epic of the Island of Manhattan

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultura...)

  • The Magnetiser The Prodigal: Comedies in Prose

    (The Magnetiser The Prodigal - Comedies in Prose is an unc...)

  • The vision of Rubeta: an epic story of the island of Manhattan. With illustrations, done on Stone

    (This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)

Personality

According to James Grant Wilson, Osborn was at least six feet tall, of fine physique and carriage, while Poe, writing of him when he was about the age of thirty-five, says that he was "probably five feet ten or eleven, muscular and active. " Poe also described him as "undoubtedly one of Nature's own noblemen, full of generosity, courage, honor - chivalrous in every respect, but unhappily, carrying his ideas of chivalry, or rather of independence, to the point of Quixotism, if not of absolute insanity. He has no doubt been misapprehended, and therefore wronged, by the world; but he should not fail to remember that the source of the wrong lay in his own idiosyncracy - one altogether unintelligible and unappreciable by the mass of mankind. "

Laughton Osborn used the alias Charles Erskine White, D. D.

Interests

• In addition to his literary gifts, Laughton was a painter and musician of some skill, and a master of several languages.