author
Edwin Percy Whipple
1819–1886
A sharp 19th-century American essayist and critic, he became known for lively lectures and clear-minded literary judgment. His work helped shape Boston’s literary culture, blending wide reading with an energetic, accessible style.
1 Audiobook
The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster With an Essay on Daniel Webster as a Master of English Style
by Daniel Webster, Edwin Percy Whipple
About the author
Born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on March 8, 1819, Edwin Percy Whipple grew into one of the best-known American essayists and critics of his time. He had only limited formal schooling and lost part of his left hand in childhood, but he educated himself through determined reading and began publishing while still young. He later worked in Boston and built a reputation through journalism, criticism, and public lecturing.
Whipple wrote for major literary periodicals and became especially admired for essays that brought authors, ideas, and public life to a broad audience. His books include Essays and Reviews, Lectures on Literature and Life, Character and Characteristic Men, and Success and Its Conditions. Readers valued him for criticism that was intelligent and forceful without losing its warmth.
He died in Boston on June 16, 1886. Though not as widely read now as some of the writers he discussed, he remains an important figure in 19th-century American letters: a self-made man of books whose criticism helped connect serious literature with general readers.