The Complete Writings, Volume 3

This is the third volume of the complete works of Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900), the nineteenth-century American author and editor. It is Project Gutenberg eBook No. 2673 and a public-domain English-language original. The volume gathers Warner's essays on New England rural life and historical figures, with principal pieces including "In the Wilderness," "How Spring Came in New England," "Captain John Smith," "Pocahontas," and the reminiscence "How I Killed a Bear." These essays continue Warner's signature unhurried humor: he writes of carrying a six-quart pail and a rifle he scarcely knew how to use up the hill to pick blackberries, only to meet a bear likewise gathering berries; and of how spring advances step by step over the New England hills, with seasonal signs, farm work, and neighbors' small affairs woven in, in a tone as genial as fireside talk. Other pieces turn to the legends and history of early American colonization, retelling the stories of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas in a light manner marked by the assumptions of their era. Warner co-wrote The Gilded Age with Mark Twain and was close to him, and the gentle irony and worldly wisdom of his essays are visible here. As Volume 3 of the series, it suits readers who wish to read nineteenth-century American essays in the original English.