author
Joel Benton
1832–1911
A 19th-century American poet, critic, and lecturer, he wrote with a strong interest in literary lives and ideas. His books on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe's circle, and Phineas T. Barnum show a writer drawn to both cultural history and memorable personalities.
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About the author
Born in Amenia, New York, in 1832, Joel Benton was an American writer, poet, and lecturer. He also worked as a teacher, and over the course of his career he built a varied body of work that included poetry, essays, criticism, and biography.
Benton is especially remembered for books such as Emerson as a Poet, In the Poe Circle, and The Life of Phineas T. Barnum. Those titles reflect the range of his interests: literary criticism, personal portraits, and the stories behind well-known public figures.
He died in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1911. Though not as widely read today as some of the people he wrote about, his work still offers a window into American literary culture in the late 19th century.