Nathan Haskell Dole
Encyclopedia
Nathan Haskell Dole was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 editor, translator, and author. He attended Phillips Academy, Andover, and graduated from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1874. He was a writer and journalist in Philadelphia, New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, and Boston. He translated many works of Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...

, and books of other Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

ns; novels of the Spaniard Armando Palacio Valdés
Armando Palacio Valdés
Armando Palacio Valdés was a Spanish novelist and critic.-Biography:Valdés was born at Entralgo in the province of Asturias on the October 4, 1853.His first writings were printed in the Revista Europea...

 (1886–90); a variety of works from the French and Italian.

Biography

Nathan Haskell Dole was born August 31, 1852, in Chelsea, Massachusetts
Chelsea, Massachusetts
Chelsea is a city in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States directly across the Mystic River from the city of Boston. It is the smallest city in Massachusetts in land area, and the 26th most densely populated incorporated place in the country.-History:...

 He was the second son of his father Reverend Nathan Dole (1811–1855) and mother Caroline (Fletcher) Dole. Dole grew up in the Fletcher homestead, a strict Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

 home, in Norridgewock, Maine, where his grandmother lived and where his mother moved with her two boys after his father died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

.

Sophie May wrote her Prudy Books in Norridgewock, which probably showed the sort of life Nathan and his older brother Charles Fletcher Dole
Charles Fletcher Dole
Charles Fletcher Dole was an influential Unitarian minister, speaker, and writer in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, Massachusetts, and Chairman of the Association to Abolish War...

 (1845–1927), lived. A newspaper article about Nathan in the Boston Evening Transcript, February 8, 1929, suggested that Nathan, lively from the start, may have offered good material for the mischievous boys who acted as foil for the goody-good ones in the Prudy Books. The same Boston Evening Transcript article said that Nathan was an omnivorous reader, who soon taught himself to read in French, German, Greek and Latin. He studied at the Eaton School in Norridgewock, and then under private tutors. Later he went to the Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...

 and Phillips Andover Academy, graduating in 1870, and then to Harvard, from which he graduated in 1874. Years later he received an L.H. Doctorate and Honorary Alumnus from Oglethorp University in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

.

After college, Dole taught at De Veaux College from 1874 to 1875, and at Worcester High School from 1875 to 1876. From 1876 to 1878, he was preceptor at Derby Academy, in Hingham, Massachusetts. In 1881, he left teaching to work for the Philadelphia Press, where he was musical art and literary editor until 1878. (For a time his work appeared in both the morning and evening edition of the Press, affording him the opportunity of contradicting in the evening paper what he had said in the morning edition, and vice versa. From 1887 to 1901 he was literary advisor to T. Y. Crowell Publishing Company. He was Secretary of the department of publicity at D. Appleton and Co. for five months in 1901.

In 1892, Dole married Helen James Bennett. They moved to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, where he concentrated on writing, translating, editing and lecturing. He and his family lived in Jamaica Plain for many years, spending their summers in Ogunquit, Maine
Ogunquit, Maine
Ogunquit is a town in York County, Maine, United States. As of the 2000 census its population was 1,226. The popularity of the town as a summer resort is epitomized by its motto, "Beautiful Place by the Sea."...

. They were popular members of the Boston social and literary set. Their home was full of both music and literature, and was well known for good conversation at the four o'clock teas every afternoon.

In 1928, when he was seventy-six, they moved to New York City to be near their daughter and grandchildren and lived in Riverdale-on-Hudson.

Dole knew such literary giants as Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...

 (who was his father's instructor in Bowdoin College), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was an American physician, professor, lecturer, and author. Regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the 19th century, he is considered a member of the Fireside Poets. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat...

, William Cullen Bryant
William Cullen Bryant
William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post.-Youth and education:...

, James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets...

, Charles Anderson Dana
Charles Anderson Dana
Charles Anderson Dana was an American journalist, author, and government official, best known for his association with Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War and his aggressive political advocacy after the war....

, Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...

, William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells was an American realist author and literary critic. Nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters", he was particularly known for his tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novel The Rise of...

, John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He is usually listed as one of the Fireside Poets...

, Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism...

, Edward Everett Hale
Edward Everett Hale
Edward Everett Hale was an American author, historian and Unitarian clergyman. He was a child prodigy who exhibited extraordinary literary skills and at age thirteen was enrolled at Harvard University where he graduated second in his class...

, Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet, most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".-Biography:...

, Louise Chandler Moulton
Louise Chandler Moulton
Louise Chandler Moulton was an American poet, story-writer and critic.-Biography:She was born in 1835, the daughter of Lucius L. Chandler, in Pomfret, Connecticut....

 and many others.

Dole died May 9, 1935, at Yonkers, New York
Yonkers, New York
Yonkers is the fourth most populous city in the state of New York , and the most populous city in Westchester County, with a population of 195,976...

 of a heart attack. Nixon Waterman had this to say about Dole in his article in the Boston Evening Transcript:

For while the versifying strain in the Dole family made its first striking and lasting presence felt in the publishing of Michael Wigglesworth's Day of Doom, certainly Nathan Haskell Dole has never given the world the slightest reason to believe that his mind was dwelling on Doomsday. Anyone who has ever sought to interview him seriously must retain the sparkling, mirthful impression that the result was about the same as it would prove if grandmother were to attempt to pin a bevy of dancing, multicolored soap-bubbles on her Sunday hat. His is a many-track mind, and while he entertains solid, serious thought, as is so amply proved by his splendid work in life and literature, there usually accompanies them a flight of word-winged butterflies of flashing wit and wisdom. Naturally such interpolated brilliancy is likely to cause one to be credited with (or shall I say, blamed for?) possessing a fondness for punning that someone has said is the lowest form of wit and someone else had added, 'Yes, because puns are at the foundation of all wit.' But it is with puns as it is with everything else, there are good puns and bad puns. As a maker of good puns, doubtless Mr. Dole is more famous (cynics who do not possess the nimbleness of wit to make puns may insist 1 should say 'notorious' instead of 'famous') than any other recent citizen of 'The Athens of America'. His most notable predecessor in the art of pun-making, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, is still most kindly remembered for his many clever plays upon words. Mr. Dole has so long been considered the 'ace' of Boston's punsters that it is a common saying that –

In Boston, if one makes a pun,
And it's a truly clever one
Somebody's sure to say he stole
The quip from Nathan Haskell Dole;

Mr. Dole has, himself, termed the habit of punning to be 'the St.Vitus dance of the mind' ... While he is always most kindly in his purpose, Mr. Dole spares no one, no matter how high his station or solemn the occasion, when it seems fitting that a pun should be forthcoming.
A number of years ago Mr. Dole was visiting the Berkeley School in New York City, a very select school for boys, so select that boys applying for admission were required to bring references from bishops of their diocese, and from other eminent persons. On a table in the reception room and under a glass bell, Mr. Dole saw a large volume labeled, 'Holy Bible with References', when he remarked to the school president: 'Mercy on us! Do you make your Bible, as well as the boys attending your school give references?';

One of Nathan's famous puns, made in relation to his work on Omar Khayyám was: ;O-mark-I-am an Omar Khayyamiculturist.;

A newspaper article in August 1922 said this about Nathan: Nathan Haskell Dole, who ought to have the office of social secretary for the city of Boston created for him to fill, for the reason that he knows more worth-while people here and everywhere, than anybody else, is summering up at his summer home, 'The Moorings', at Ogunquit, Maine... People distinguish him from his brother, the Rev. Charles Fletcher Dole
Charles Fletcher Dole
Charles Fletcher Dole was an influential Unitarian minister, speaker, and writer in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, Massachusetts, and Chairman of the Association to Abolish War...

, by remarking that Charles is the reverend Mr. Dole, while Nathan is the irreverent Mr. Dole... Nathan has written and edited a whack of interesting books – poetry, history, biography and everything, and he translates from almost every known language and from many unknown to most of us. Think of his satisfaction, when some flivverist nearly runs over him, of telling him what he thinks in 17 different tongues.

It was a shock to those in Boston, when Nathan planned to move from Boston to New York City. In an article in the Boston Transcript, Nixon Waterman wrote: "As well, almost, propose removing the Boston Common or the Bunker Hill monument from this city and its environs as to suggest transferring Mr. Dole from Boston's Literary interests," and "There is about to be sensed a feeling of lonesomeness in Boston's social and literary circles for some time to come till the people of their 'old home town' have resignedly accustomed themselves to the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Haskell Dole."

Nathan was a prolific author and translator and edited many books. He translated nearly all of the Russian Count Tolstoi's novels. Starting in 1899, he edited Tolstoi's complete works in twenty volumes for Charles Scribner's Sons. He won world-wide recognition for his work in connection with Omar Khayyám
Omar Khayyám
Omar Khayyám was aPersian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and theology....

, his multivariorum [sic] edition of which, containing carefully collated translations in English. French. German and Danish, brought him a medal from the Shah of Persia and led to his being president of the Omar Khayyam Society of America until 1919. Besides that two-volume work he edited no less than five other editions of the famous poem, including that published in the smallest book ever made.

In addition he also translated works of Valdes, Von Scheffle, Von Koch, Daudet, Verga, Santangelo, the Baroness von Luttner and other European authors. He edited Rombaud's History of Russia in 1882, the Greek Poets in 1904, and the Latin Poets in 1905. He translated the Cavelleria Rusticana, Samson and Dalila, and other operas and hundreds of songs for music. (When I, EDP, was at Vassar, his name was often listed as the translator of the songs we sang in chapel.)

Nat also lectured on Russian, French, Italian and English literature and other subjects. Nat was president of the Bibliophile Society from 1901-1902, the Omar Khayyam Club of America (President from its beginning to 1919), and was a member of the Twentieth Century Club, The New England Poetry Club, Boston, the Brookline Arts and Letters Club, the Ruskin Club, the Poetry Society of America, the Craftman Poetry Group in N.Y. (Member and Vice-President), the Dante Society in N.Y. He was also a member and advisor of the Council of the Simplified Spelling Board
Simplified Spelling Board
The Simplified Spelling Board was an American organization created in 1906 to reform the spelling of the English language, making it simpler and easier to learn, and eliminating many of its inconsistencies...

.

Works

Among his original writings are:
  • A Score of Famous Composers (1891-1902-1924) (Enlarged and revised as in 1927.)
  • The Hawthorne Tree
    Crataegus
    Crataegus , commonly called hawthorn or thornapple, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the rose family, Rosaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in Europe, Asia and North America. The name hawthorn was originally applied to the species native to northern Europe,...

     and other Poems (1895)
  • Joseph Jefferson
    Joseph Jefferson
    Joseph Jefferson, commonly known as Joe Jefferson , was an American actor. He was the third actor of this name in a family of actors and managers, and one of the most famous of all American comedians....

     at Home (1898)
  • Life of Count Tolstoi
    Leo Tolstoy
    Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...

     (1911)
  • The Spell of Switzerland
    Switzerland
    Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

     (1913)

  • Young Folks History of Russia, 1881.
  • Not Angela Quite (fiction) 1893.
  • On the Point (fiction) 1893 Famous Composers;,
  • The Hawthorne Tree and Other Poems, 1896.
  • Poem for the Educational Music Courses, 1896.
  • Joseph Jefferson At Home, 1896.
  • Life of Francis William Bird, 1897.
  • Omar the Tentmaker, A Romance of Old Persia, 1898, in 1921 and 1928.
  • Peace and Progress, The Building of the Organ, 1904.
  • Italian Essays, 1907.
  • The Pilgrims (a symphonic poem) and other Poems for Public Occasions, 1907.
  • Rote Songs for Boston Public Schools, 1915-1916.
  • America in Spitsbergen (two volumes),1922.
  • The Mistakes We Make, 1898.
  • The Latin Poets, 1905.
  • Breviary Treasure (10 Vols.) 1905-1906.
  • The Greek Poets, 1907.


He contributed to:
  • Boston Evening Transcript
  • The Portland News
  • The Independent
  • Also The New York Times Literary Supplement
  • Also many magazines.


Dole was Associate Editor of:
  • The Internal Library of Famous Literature, 1890
  • Flowers from Persia Poets 1901
  • The Young Folks Library, 1902
  • The Encyclopedia Americana, 1905
  • Vocations, 1909-1910. (10 vols., in collaboration with Pres. Hyde and Caroline Ticknor.)
  • The 10th Edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotation, with additions. Poems of Dr. Samuel S. Curry, with Biography, 1923.


His editorial works include:
  • Omar Khayyám
    Omar Khayyám
    Omar Khayyám was aPersian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and theology....

     (1896)
  • Tolstoi's
    Leo Tolstoy
    Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...

     Collected Works (20 volumes, 1899)
  • Poetical Works of Keats
    John Keats
    John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...

     and Shelley
    Percy Bysshe Shelley
    Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...

     (1905)
  • Vocations (10 volumes, with William DeWitt Hyde
    William DeWitt Hyde
    William DeWitt Hyde was an American college president, born at Winchendon, Mass. He graduated from Harvard University in 1879 and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1882. Ordained to the Congregational ministry in 1883, he was a pastor at Newark, N...

    and Carolyn Ticknor, 1909–10)

External links

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