American author, born at Oakland Plantation, Hanover county, VA, on the 23rd of April 1853, the great-grandson of Thomas Nelson (1738–1789) and of John Page (1744–1808), both governors of Virginia, the former being a signer of the Declaration of Independence. After a course at Washington and Lee University (1869–1872) he graduated in law at the university of Virginia (1874), and practised, chiefly in Richmond, until 1893, when he removed to Washington, DC, and devoted himself to writing and lecturing. In 1884 he had published in the Century Magazine “Marse Chan,” a tale of life in Virginia during the Civil War, which immediately attracted attention. He wrote other stories of negro life and character (“Meh Lady,” “Unc’ Edinburg’s Drowndin’,” and “Ole ’Stracted”), which, with two others, were published in 1887 with the title In Ole Virginia, perhaps his most characteristic book. This was followed by Befo’ de War (1888), dialect poems, written with Armistead Churchill Gordon (1855–1931); On Newfound River (1891); The Old South (1891), social and political essays; Elsket and Other Stories (1892); The Burial of the Guns (1894); Pastime Stories (1894); The Old Gentleman of the Black Stock (1897); Social Life in Old Virginia before the War (1897); Two Prisoners (1898); Red Rock (1898), a novel of the Reconstruction period; Gordon Keith (1903) The Negro: the Southerner’s Problem (1904); Bred in the Bone and Other Stories (1904); The Coast of Bohemia (1906), poems; The Old Dominion: Her Making and her Manners (1907), a collection of essays; Under the Crust (1907), stories; Robert E. Lee, the Southerner (1908); John Marvel, Assistant (1909), a novel; and various books for children. He is at his best in those short stories in which, through negro character and dialect, he pictures the life of the Virginia gentry, especially as it centred about the mutual devotion of master and servant.
He was appointed ambassador to Italy by President Wilson in April 1913. In 1914 he announced his discovery of the house, 66 Piazza di Spragna, in which Byron had lived at Rome in 1817. In 1915 he induced the Italian Government to raise the ban on the re-exportation of cotton goods routed by American shippers via Italy to other countries. He earned the gratitude of the Italians by his relief work during the Avezzano earthquake in 1917. After America entered the World War he defended Italy against the charge of backwardness in conducting her campaign by pointing out the obstacles confronting her soldiers in the Alps.
He resigned as ambassador in April 1918 and returned to America. His writings after 1910 included Robert E. Lee, Man and Soldier (1912); The Land of the Spirit (1913); Tommaso Jefferson, Apostolo della Libertà (1918, prepared for an Italian series); Italy’s Relation to the War (1920) and Italy and the World War (1921). See also “Uncle Gabe’s White Folks,” “Valentine Verses” and “Ashcake.”
