American novelist and historian, born in Vevay, IN, on the 10th of December 1837, of Virginia stock. Delicate health, by which he was more or less handicapped throughout his life, prevented his going to college, but he was naturally a diligent student. He was a Methodist circuit rider and pastor in Indiana and Minnesota (1857–1866); associate editor (1866–1867) of The Little Corporal, Chicago; editor of The National Sunday School Teacher, Chicago (1867–1870); literary editor and later editor-in-chief of The Independent, New York (1870–1871); and editor of Hearth and Home in 1871–1872. He was pastor of the church of Christian Endeavour, Brooklyn, in 1874–1879. From 1880 until his death on the 2nd of September 1902, at his home on Lake George, NY, he devoted himself to literary work. His fiction includes Mr. Blake’s Walking Stick (1869), for children; The Hoosier Schoolmaster (1871); The End of the World (1872); The Mystery of Metropolisville (1873); The Circuit Rider (1874); Roxy (1878); The Hoosier Schoolboy (1883); The Book of Queer Stories (1884), for children; The Graysons (1888), an excellent novel; The Faith Doctor (1891); and Duffels (1893), short stories. Most of his stories portray the pioneer manners and dialect of the Central West, and the Hoosier Schoolmaster was one of the first examples of American local realistic fiction; it was very popular, and was translated into French, German and Danish. During the last third of his life Eggleston laboured on a History of Life in the United States, but he lived to finish only two volumes—The Beginners of a Nation (1896) and The Transit of Civilization (1900). In addition he wrote several popular compendiums of American history for schools and homes. Brother of George Cary Eggleston.
See G. C. Eggleston, The First of the Hoosiers (Philadelphia, 1903), and Meredith Nicholson, The Hoosiers (1900). See also “Roger Williams: the Prophet of Religious Freedom”; Literary Criticism.
