Josiah Gilbert Holland

Josiah Gilbert Holland combined poetry, novels, journalism, and magazine editing within popular literature with the expanding magazine culture of the nineteenth century. The Marble Prophecy appeared in 1872 in a volume of poems issued by Scribner, Armstrong and Company. Its title poem takes the ancient sculpture of Laocoön as the basis for a meditation, while the collection belongs to the same productive period as Holland’s narrative poetry and public lectures. Trained as a physician, Holland moved toward teaching and journalism, spending many years at the Springfield Republican before helping to establish Scribner’s Monthly in New York. He served as the magazine’s editor and published fiction in its pages, including work later issued as novels. His broader bibliography includes Bitter-Sweet, Kathrina, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, and Sevenoaks. for modern readership.