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Rossiter Johnson
1840–1931
A prolific 19th- and early 20th-century American man of letters, he wrote poetry, history, and reference works while helping shape major encyclopedias and anthologies. His career ranged from newspaper work to literary editing, with a lasting gift for making knowledge readable.
4 Audiobooks
Campfire and Battlefield
by Selden Connor, John Brown Gordon, Henry W. B. (Henry Ward Beecher) Howard, O. O. (Oliver Otis) Howard, Rossiter Johnson, John Tyler Morgan, John Clark Ridpath
A History, of the War of 1812-15 Between the United States and Great Britain
by Rossiter Johnson
The Hero of Manila: Dewey on the Mississippi and the Pacific
by Rossiter Johnson
Phaeton Rogers: A Novel of Boy Life
by Rossiter Johnson
About the author
Born in Rochester, New York, on January 27, 1840, Rossiter Johnson became an American author, editor, and poet whose work reached across journalism, literature, and reference publishing. He studied at the University of Rochester, served in the Civil War era as a private secretary to Union officer General Fitz John Porter, and later moved into newspaper and editorial work.
Johnson is especially remembered for his long career as an editor and compiler. He worked on important reference projects including editions of The American Cyclopaedia and The Annual Cyclopaedia, and he later became associated with The Encyclopaedia Americana. Alongside that work, he published poetry, literary collections, and books on history and current events, showing an unusual range for a single writer.
What makes his career interesting is how comfortably he moved between creative writing and practical scholarship. He helped bring large bodies of information to general readers at a time when encyclopedias and anthologies were central to home learning, and his books reflect the broad curiosity of that age. He died in 1931.