William Gilmore Simms, novelist, poet, historian, biographer, lecturer, essayist, literary critic, editor, politician, planter, and the only writer of the American South, other than Poe, to rank as a major national literary figure before the Civil War, was born 17 April 1806 in Charleston, South Carolina. His grandparents, William and Elizabeth Sims, emigrated from Ireland to South Carolina shortly after the American Revolution. Simms’s father, also named William Gilmore, added the second “m” to the family name. He operated a tavern and grocery in Charleston and married Harriet Singleton in 1804. Simms was the couple’s second child, born soon after their first son died in infancy, and when Simms’s mother died in childbirth with a third child in 1808, Simms’s father, whose…
2967 words
Citation: Meats, Stephen E.. "William Gilmore Simms". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 February 2005; last revised 01 March 2024. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4078, accessed 25 November 2024.]
