Josiah Gilbert Holland

( Originally Published Early 1900's )

Dr. Josiah Gilbert Holland did good work in editing the "Springfield Republican," and founding "Scribner's Monthly," which became the "Century Magazine." He was born at Belchertown, Massachusetts, in 1819, and in spite of poverty and ill-health, won a doctor's degree from Berkshire Medical College at the age of twenty-five. Yet he was obliged to turn to teaching and other employment until in 1839 he became editor of the "Springfield Republican," just founded by Samuel Bowles. To this paper, under the name Timothy Titcomb, he contributed "Letters to Young People, Married and Single," which by their moral earnestness, sprightliness and good sense, obtained wide popularity, especially when published in book form. In 187o Dr. Holland assisted in founding "Scribner's Monthly," which was intended to be (like "Macmillan's Magazine," then just started in England) unobjectionable to religious readers and at the same time of high literary quality. Its success was very great from the start. Afterward, on a change of proprietorship, it became the "Century Magazine," Dr. Holland remaining editor until his death in 1881. His best writing is in his short lyrics and his mixed narrative and dramatic poems of American home life, "Bittersweet" (1858), "Katrina" (1868), and "The Mistress of the Manse" (1881). His novels, "Arthur Bonnicastle" (1873), "Sevenoaks" (1876), and "Nicholas Minturn" (1877), did not attain popularity. In all his writings a high moral aim was manifest.