James Fenimor Cooper

1789-1851

James F. Cooper was born in New Jersey into the family of Judge William Cooper. When he was only a year old he was taken to what is now Cooperstown, New York State. Cooper was privately educated by an English tutor on the family estate, and grew up as a young aristocrat. He studied at Yale without much interest or distinction and left the University without taking a degree. In 1808 he entered the US Navy; three years later he married, left the Navy, and settled down in Cooper­stown to assume his inherited role as a cultivated country gentleman.

Cooper's first really noted novel was "The Spy"(1821), an absorbing tale of the American Revolution. The book met a long-felt desire of the American people to see their own heroic past, and had an immediate success. Its chief figure is the shrewd peddler, Harvey Birch, who played the role of American agent to perfection and "died as he had lived, devoted to his country, and a martyr to her liberties". Harvy Birch is one of the major character creations of early American fiction.

Thereafter Cooper devoted his life entirely to writing, producing thirty three novels in addition to numerous histories and other works.

Cooper moved the setting of his next novel "The Pioneers"(1823) to the life he knew as a boy in Cooperstown. The novel introduced Cooper's second and greatest character, Natty Bumpoo, the noble frontiersman. Such was the hold of the figure of the "white woodsman" on Cooper's imagination that he returned again and again to the character, presenting him successively in "The Last of the Mohicans", "ThePrairie", "The Pathfinder”. [62]

Immediately after "The Pioneers'" came "The Pilot" (1824), the first of Cooper's eleven sea novels, and the one which introduced his third major character. Long Tom Coffin, the prototype of tough, wise, salty Yankee sailor.

Within but three years Cooper opened three great literary themes based on native materials - the Revolution, the frontier, and the sea.

During the years 1826-1833 Cooper travelled in Europe, where he met W. Scott and other literary men. In 1828, he published his "Notions of the Americans", vindicating American society. Upon his return, however, he was dissatisfied with American democracy as being in contradiction with his aristocratic notions, and pursued his idea of agrarianism in pamphlet and novel. "Homeward Bound", "Home as Found" and "The American Democrat" were constructive critiques of the American way of life. All that brought Cooper into disfavour, but he persisted in his ideas to the very end of his life.

As well as Irving in short stories, Cooper in his novels began with transplantation of English models, their manner and style, at least. But the American subject, American history and geography he referred to, native habits and customs he described made his works the American product. Cooper was one of the first to prove that the world would read American authors.

Check yourself

1. What family and when was Fenimor Cooper born into?

2. What education did he get?

3. What was his first book? Who was its main character?

4. What novel introduced Cooper's second and greatest character?

5. When di d his first of eleven sea novels come?

6. What great literary themes did Cooper open within but three years?

7. How many novels did he produce?

8. When and where did Cooper meet W. Scott and other literary men?

9. What made Cooper's work American product? 10. What did Cooper prove with his writing? [63]

Lecture 4

EDGAR ALLAN POE

1809-1849

Edgar Allan Рое was born in Boston. His mother, itinerant actress, died in 1811, and the boy was adopted by John Allan, a wealthy merchant.

From 1815 to 1820 the Allans Jived in England, and the boy attended school there. When the family returned to Richmond, he went to the local academy.

By his seventeen Рое received the normal education of a young gentleman. In 1826 he went to the University of Virginia, but was removed from there in 1827.The same year he ran off to Boston where he published "Tamerlane and other poems". Then he enlisted in the army and in 1830 entered the Military Academy at West Point. In the meantime he had published his second volume of verse, "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and MinorPoems"(l829).

After being discharged from West Point in 1831, he went to Baltimore and spent there four years. Рое began writing short stories. After the success of "Ms Found in a Bottle"' (1833) he had editorial jobs in Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia, and was successfully engaged in writing articles and short stories for periodicals. While living in Philadelphia from 1838 to 1844 Foe wrote his best stories which were collected as "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque"(1840). Further editorial troubles caused him once again to move to New York, where he published "The Raven and Other Poems" and "Tales", both in 1845. By the middle ofthe forties Рое was a well-known member of the New York literary circle. The last of his works was "Eureka: A Prose Poem", published in 1848. [64]

Рое was, perhaps, the strangest and most extreme figure in romantic tradition of American literature. Brought in a society of merchants, lawyers and almost feudal landowners, Рое had to live and work among the inheritors ofthe northern bourgeoise conscience. And he never was under illusion that the northern progress would lead to the establishment of harmony. He disliked the general antipoetic quality of American life, the prevailing commercial values that had taken over America.

Рое is a great literary figure whose contribution is outstanding both in the field of short fiction and in the field of poetry. As a short story writer he is considered the inventor ofthe detective story, particularly that of "ratiocination" (like "The Purloined Letter"); and he is as attractive in his stories of "ratiocination" as in his stories of horror like "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Black Cat".

As a critic Рое laid down rules for creating a successful work of art. The most important aspects of his theory of poetry he developed in his Philosophy of Composition.

As a poet he showed American readers that "Beauty is the sole legitimate province of poem" that "Melancholy poetical tones". But for the years his poetry was considered meretricious by English-speaking readers.

Nevertheless by the end ofthe XIX century Рое became a poet of European merit due to Mallarme's translation into French and Brusov's and Balmont's translations into Russian.

Answer the questions

1. When and where was Edgar Рое born?

2. Why and when was he adopted by John Allan?

3. Where did he get his education?

4. What did he publish in 1827?

5. When and where did he begin writing short stories? What are the most famous of them?

6. What kind of figure was Рое in romantic tradition of American lite­rature?

7. Why is Poe's contribution to the field of short fiction and in the field of poetry outstanding?

8. What did Edgar Рое do as a critic and as a poet? [65]

Lecture 5

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

1807—1882

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Main, into the family of a judge. He attended Bowdoin College and was so exceptional a student that soon after graduation he was offered a professorship of modern languages at the college. From that time on his life was a record of success.

At twenty-seven Longfellow became professor of modern languages and literature at Harvard, which was the best and oldest university in the United States. By that time he had twice travelled to Europe and visited half a dozen countries. He had published several textbooks and magazine articles on European literature, and, in 1835, a collection of sketches and travel pieces.

Longfellow's first book of prose, "Hyperion", as well as his first volume of verse, "Voices of the Night" appeared in 1839. His success as a poet led him to produce a second book, "Ballads and Other Poems", two years later. His early prose was concerned with historical and moral themes. His poetry dealt with nature, except "Poems on Slavery", which he wrote in 1842 to support the antislavery struggle the most important social movement of the day. Though Longfellow lived in days of unrest, when revolutions exploded in Europe and Civil War (1861-64) rent America, there was scarcely a repercussion of these events in his poetry.

In 1843, "The Spanish Student", averse play, was published and in 1846, the highly popular "The Belfry Bruges".

At the age of forty-seven, Lonfellow resigned his professorship at Harvard in order to devote himself entirely to writing. [66]

Longfellow crossed the Atlantic several limes to visit the European countries and universities, to improve his knowledge of European languages and literature. He spent half a year in Heilderberg absorbed in German romanticism, which influenced the American poet very much. Studyingthe European epos as a professor of literature, Lonfellow could see that his native country had no epic poetry similar to that of European nations. This inspired him to gather and carefully examine Indian folklore, then having as a model Karelian-Finnish epos "Kalevala", he wrote "The Song of Hiawatha", a skilful and beautiful imitation of epic poetry.

After 1861 Longfellow turned to translation and published his version of Dante's "The Divine Comedy" between 1865 and 1867, he continued to be published throughout the seventies, but "The Song of Hiawatha" remained his best and greatest poetical work. The best Russian translation of the poem is that of Ivan Bunin.

In the XIX century Longfellow was probably the most widely known American author outside his own country.

Answer the questions

1. Where and when was Henry Longfellow born?

2. Why was he offered a professorship at the college?

3. When did Longfellow become professor of modern languages?

4. What had he done by that time?

5. When did Longfellow's first books appear?

6. What did his "Poem on Slavery" deal with?

7. When did Longfellow resign his professorship at Harvard? How old was he?

8. Why did he cross Atlantic several times?

9. What inspired Longfellow to gather and carefully examine Indian folklore? What was the result of it?

10. When did he turn to translation? [67]

Lecture 6

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

1811-1896

H. B. Stowe was born in Lichfield Connecticut to the family of a pastor. In 1832, the family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where Harriet became interested in the abolitionist case. There she met and married in 1836 Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor of theology. They lived for some time in the South where Mrs. Stowe carefully studied the life of Negro slaves and white plantators. Her best and most popular novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin", was the reflection of southern life. Her literary contemporaries spoke of the book as of the high-water mark, to which her genius never rose again. The novel made a great stir all over the world by its realistic descriptions of Negro slavery in the USA. Harriet Beecher Stowe was not an abolitionist herself but her book helped the abolitionist agitator to promote the antislavery movement.

To prove the truth of her descriptions in the novel H. B. Stowe published in 1853 a collection of documents on which her story in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was based. It was the book called "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin". Another antislavery novel "Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp", appeared in 1865, the last year of the Civil War. The other novels written during the 60's and 70's dealt with everyday life of the "average" New Englanders. "The Minister's Wooling" (1859) or "My Wife and I" (1871) were not of great social importance, but one can easily notice their artistic merits-their quiet humor and pure style. Marked with sentimental, even melodramatic, touch, full of religious moralization, the novels of H. B. Stowe demonstrated, however, the mixture of romantic and realistic features, the transition from romanticism to realism and. thus, the beginning of social novel in American fiction. [68]

The process mentioned was closely connected with the "'local colour movement", a term, which simply meant writing about life in particular, usually provincial, locality. An "old town" of England was such "locality" for H. B. Stowe, and her "Old-Town Folks", a truthful, sympathetic and skilful record of a small-town life, may serve as an example of such literature.

Check yourself

1. When was H. B. Stowe born?

2. Where did Harriet become interested in the abolitionist case?

3. Where did H. B. Stowe study the life of Negro slaves and white plan­tators?

4. What reflected her best novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin"?

5. Why did H. B. Stowe publish a collection of documents?

6. What did the novels of H. B. Stowe demonstrate? [69]

Lecture 7

HERMAN MELVILLE

1819-1891

Herman Melville was born in New York city. In 1839 the family moved to Albany, where Herman went to the local academy. After his father's death in 1832, the family was left in poverty. Melville worked as a clerk in Albany, sailed to Liverpool, and worked as a schoolteacher. In 1841 he shipped on a whaling vessel bound for the South Pacific, but in 1842 he deserted and spent about a month among the cannibals of the Marquesses Islands. This experience became the substance of his first novel "Typee" (1846). Another whaling vessel carried him to the Hawaiian Islands, which provided the material for his second novel "Omoo"(1847).

The two novels were highly successful and made Melville a favourite of the New York literary circle. The novels that followed, however, apart from "Redburn" and "White Jacket", had comparatively few readers, and were received with mixed feelings. Yet it is the writings of this period, the 50's, that survive as great literature. They are "Moby Dick", the supreme work of Melville's life, "Israel Potter", one of his best books, "The Piazza Tales", which contains such masterpieces as "Benito Cereno and Bartleby the Scrivener".

Melville's first volume of poetry, "Battle Pieces and Aspects of War", was published in 1866. Ten years later he published his long poem "Clarel", based on a trip to Palestine. Melville continued to work and publish through all the eighties. He was still working on "Billy Budd", preparing it for the press, when he died, on September 28, 1891. In "Moby Dick" Melville managed to combine an exciting narrative about the whaling industry with the eternal questions of human being. His novel is not merely a story about the men who went down to sea for whale hunting, but about the men viewed under the aspect of the universe and eternity, for Melville was deeply concerned with problems of man's life and soul. [70]

Symbolical figures, details and atmosphere seemed suitable to transfer the ideas to make them grand. The White Whale represents all the world's evil. The strange crew of the "Pequod", being made up of different races, might symbolize the humanity itself. Through Captain Ahab, a Prometheus- figure or anti Christ, Melville tried to get to the heart of the life force. Was there a benign God, or was there merely a blind and inscrutable force.

For most of his life Melville quarrelled with God. The seeds of his quarrel with religion as well as with civilization may be found in his first novels "Typee" and "Omoo", in which he notes the contrast between the happiness of the benighted heathen and the corruption he found among his shipfriends, the Christians.

In a narrative heavily weighted with symbolism as well as with factual and mythological details, in a style at times overdramatized, Melville dares to ask what was the unaskable, for the mid-nineteenth century America at least. And all the asking personages are destroyed. Of all the crew of the "Pequod", only one is saved-but on a coffin.

An undercurrent of urgency, even of anguish, distinguishes Melville's writing for no positive answers to the eternal questions could he found in his self, in his experience and life, no positive means to change that "civilized world".

Herman Melville is a symbolical figure of the artist, the isolated man, the potential spiritual leader who sees and feels greatly but whose voice, while carrying across a hundred years is not heard by his own generation.

Check yourself

1. When and where was Melville born?

2. Why was his family left in poverty? Where did he have to work?

3. What became the substance of his first novel "Typee" in 1846?

4. What novels appeared in the 50's?

5. When was Melville's first volume of poetry published?

6. What is Melville's supreme work "Moby Dick" about?

7. What represents all the world's evil in this novel?

8. What might the crew of the "Pequod" symbolize?

9. Whom did Melville quarrel for most of his life with?

10. Why are all the asking personages in Melville's novels destroyed? [71]

Lecture 8

WALT WHITMAN

1819-1892

The poet Walt Whitman was born in a small country place called West Hills, on Long Island, not far from New York. His father was a poor farmer and a carpenter. All his life Walt Whitman was proud of being "one of the people".

When Walt was eleven years old, he had to leave a school and start working. He became an office boy at a lawyer's office. Later he worked for a small newspaper where he learned printing.

At seventeen Walt Whitman became unemployed and could not find a job in a town. He went to the country where for some time he worked as a school teacher. Some people said that he was unpractical, because he was not interested in making money or getting a place in the society.

Whitman understood very well that his education was very poor and when he had time he studied literature or history and tried to write. He wrote poems, short stories and newspaper articles. Bourgeois critics did not like his poems and they were very seldom published, because he wrote about the ordinary people of America and of their hard life. Whitman loved the ordinary people of America whose life he knew very well.

In 1848 he went to New Orleans, where he did some editorial work. Soon after his return, in 1849, he left journalism for studying and writing supporting himself by carpenting and house-building with his father.

By this time Whitman had become attached to the ideals of Transcendentalism. He came to those ideals himself by way of Hegel's and Carlyle's writings, but there of an immediate influence that of Emerson. [72]

Whitman, however, had his own idea of man and democracy, which was his personal expression of those hopes for a new man and new life which had always existed abroad since the founding of the American Republic. The feelings and ideas he developed were the expressions of all which was finest in American people.

Whitman's greatest book, "Leaves of Grass", was printed privately in 1855. That was ten years after the publication of Emerson's "Nature"' and six years before the outbreak of the Civil War. When the book, which Whitman had been preparing ever since his visit to New Orleans, finally came out, it was so fresh in style and so original in subject and technique that it aroused sharp discussion. Whitman didn't follow the fashion of the age — he wrote his poems in free verse: he destroyed rhythm, he neglected regular line length.

The first edition continued twelve poems and had a Preface - a virtual manifesto of Whitman's aims - which was not subsequently re­printed. Thirty-tree new poems were added into the second edition (1856), and a hundred and twenty-two more into the edition of 1860. It was with the publication of this third edition that Whitman began to see the true scope and place of his book, how it was in reality one long poem, with "I, Walt" who stood for all men.

During the Civil War Whitman worked as a volunteer nurse. He expressed his experience as a nurse in his book "Drum Taps" (1866). After the war he remained in Washington until 1873, when he went to live in Camden, New Jersey. In 1879, Whitman made a lecturing journey across the continent.

By that time Whitman had a considerable reputation abroad particularly in England, where an edition of his highly popular "Specimen Days" had been published as early as 1868.

For the last eight years of his life Whitman lived alone in a little house in Camden, to which many famous men made a pilgrimage. By the age of seventy-three, when he died, he had achieved greatness in the eyes of the world.

A poet of free rhythm, Whitman was a poet of free spirit. He believed in the ultimate goodness of man's nature and hoped that everything would be for the best in his native land. Alas, he lived to discard those illusions to some extent by his seventies. His essay "Democratic Vistas", first published in 1871, contains bitter criticism of American civilization. [73]

73Whitman diagnoses the "deep disease" of America as "hollowness of heart". And yet, the book is still marked by optimism. The poet has not lost his faith in man and brotherhood, in transforming power of love, in humanity and life, and in the great poetry to come, which is "the stock of all". Whitman has not lost his faith in the future, but the future is the only thing that gives him hope.

Answer the questions

1. Where and when was Walt Whitman born?

2. What was Whitman proud of?

3. When did he have to leave school?

4. Where did Whitman work in his youth? Why did some people say that he was unpractical?

5. How did he get his education?

6. Why did bourgeois critics not like Whitman's poems and seldom publish them?

7. When and why did he leave journalism?

8. How did he come to the ideals of Transcendentalism?

9. What was Whitman's greatest book?

10. When did he begin to see the true scope and place of his book?

11. When did Whitman work as a nurse? Where did he express this experience?

12. Why did Whitman have a considerable reputation abroad?

13. What kind of poet was Whitman?

14. When and why did he achieve greatness in the eyes of the world? [74]

Lecture 9

AMERICAN LITERATURE

OF THE END OF THE XIX^th С -

THE BEGINNING OF THE XX^th С

At the end of the century it is not quite easy to achieve a really deep understanding of works by the authors belonging to the dawn of the century.

Since we are concerned here with the history of American literature we might try to follow its course of development in connection with historical forces, economic background, the nature of society and the intellectual currents that prevailed. Art is closely connected with sociology, philosophy and politics for it is a sort of superstructure over the economic basis. But it is also a means of cognition, for it helps, in a very special way, to make a study of surrounding reality.

At the close of the XIX^th century philosophers and some New England writers were inclined to see man as weak and helpless in the face of indifferent and impersonal Nature. And this Nature could not be identified with the increasingly hostile and seemingly impersonal monster of mass production, machine technology and finance capitalism. The ordinary man found himself the victim of sweatshops, starvation wages, cut­throat competition. He found himself depended on the unprincipled, avaricious and dollar-crazy robber of an industrialist for his bread and butter, for his happiness, for his children's future while it was blissful freedom that he was supposed to enjoy in "the Land of the free and the Home of brave", the statue of Liberty promised, as the patriotic songs went.

As for economic development, by the end of the end of the XIX^th century the United States was already a highly developed industrial country and the dawn of the XX^th с found it in a state of capitalist prosperity. [75]

The rapid rise of the industrial order (based on the system of private ownership and individual enterprise) had resulted in many economic situations that were sure to lead the country into disaster. In fact this was proved by the financial panics of 1869 and 1873 and as time went on an increasing number of people found themselves victims of economic circumstances.

The growth of big business had created great numbers of proletarians. Those were people deprived of any chance of education, ignorant and often unskilled workers dependent for their livelihood on the fluctuations of industry. Clerks, office workers and even fanners depended on bank credit, transportation and machinery. So then, in the frequently depressed economic conditions of the period, the ordinary man began to feel the effects of the ups and downs of business.

The foreign policy of the United States was a policy of aggressive tactics of domination and annexation of lands to which the United States had no legal title and with which they had no cultural affinity. Mark Twain in his pamphlet "We are Americanizing Europe"(1906) wrote: "For good or for evil we continue to educate Europe. We have had the post of instructor for more than a century and a quarter now. We were not elected to it, we merely took it. We are of the Anglo-Saxon race. And when the Anglo-Saxon wants a thing he just takes it."

Check yourself

1. Why do we connect the development of American literature with development of America itself?

2. Who saw man as weak and helpless in the face of impersonal Nature?

3. How did the ordinary man find himself?

4. What kind of country was the United States by the end of the XIX^th century?

5. What results did the rapid rise of the industrial order have?

6. Why did a great number of people find themselves victims of economic circumstances?

7. What created vast number of proletarians? What kind of people were they?

8. What did people depend on?

9. What was the foreign policy of the United States like?

10. What did Mark Twain write about Americans in his pamphlet? [76]

Lecture 10

KARL SANDBURG

1878-1967

Carl Sandburg, in his own original way, continued the traditions of Walt Whitman. He was born in Galesburg, Illinois. His parents had come to the United States from Sweden. In Galesburg his father worked at the railroad shops as a blacksmith's helper.

He developed an interest in literature early and he avidly read whatever he could get his hands on. He had to start earning his living quite early. At eleven, he worked at such jobs as sweeping the floors in an office, delivering newspapers, etc. (Enumerating all his jobs would take up too much space). He came into contact with a lot of different people, and his active mind has been registering many impressions.

At nineteen he went "to see the world" in a box-car of Santa Fe railroad line bound for Kansas without any luggage but a toothbrush and a bar of soap, also needle and thread, and with 3 dollars and some change in his pocket. He was gone during 3 months. And again the jobs he did put him into contact with a lot of various types: he unloaded some cargo from a steamboat, washed dishes, worked as a labourer repairing roads. Back home again, he enlisted when the Spanish American war broke out, and was sent to Puerto-Rico. That helped him, on his return, to get a year free tuition and an easy job with the Galesburg Fire Department. At college he enrolled for classes in Latin, English, chemistry, elocution, drama and public speaking. His interests were wide, he got to be captain of a basketball team and a member of the college choir, and editor of the college newspaper. Later he came into contact with a progressive professor who actually printed some of his early poems. He left the College of Galesburg before graduation and went on the road again as a hobo: he probably wanted his real education to continue. [77] He returned to Galesburg from time to time and worked on several small periodicals. In 1907 he joined the Socialist Party. In 1912 some of his works were published in "Poetry: A Magazine of Verse" founded by Harriet Monroe in 1912. His poem, "Chicago" was published in "Poetry" in 1914 and in 1916 his first serious book of poetry "Chicago Poems" was.

Since then, the working people, creators of the country's wealth, were his heroes in all his books of poetry: "Smoke and Steel", 1920, "Good Morning, America", 1928, "The People, Yes", 1936, "Early Moon", 1930, "Complete Poems", 1950, "Honey and Salt", 1963. All of these are distinguished by their democratic ardour, attention to the toilers creating this world, and highly impressive mastery of the poetical word.

Many poems by Carl Sandburg were successfully translated into Russian and Ukrainian by I. Kashkin, M. Zenkevich, A. Ibragimov, I. Kulik and V. Korotich.

Check yourself

1. When and where was Carl Sandburg born?

2. Where did his parents come from? What was his father?

3. How did Carl get his education?

4. Why did he have to earn his living quite early?

5. How did Carl Sandburg go "to see the world"?

6. What kind of jobs did he do?

7. What classes did he enroll at college for?

8. When was his first serious book of poetry published?

9. Who was the hero of Sandburg's books?

10. What are the names of his most popular works? [78]

Lecture 11

JOHN REED

1887-1920

John Reed's background was bourgeois. He went to a privileged preparatory school and aristocratic Harvard University, where he studied history, languages and literature preparing himself for a journalistic career. After graduation he travelled, went to Europe and on returning to New York worked for the local magazines as a poet and an essayist. His youth was closely connected with Greenwich Village, the part of New York that is inhabited by artists, writers, "Boheme". On the eve of First World War it was the center of intellectual unrest.

John Reed's friends called him "A Lion Cub". Lincoln Stiffens, "American Journalist N°. 1", realised how great the "Lion Cub's" talent was; he sensed the nobility of his nature and treated him as his adopted son. He recommended John Reed for a job at "The American Magazine", where he stayed three years, reading manuscripts and writing stories and verses. His early stories were sketches of "the lower depths", they were about the people of the slums ("The Capitalist", "Where the Heart Is"). Reed's manner is that of a newspaper reporter, an interview, a fact, an episode "in a belles-lettres frame".

Reed's ideological education was continued by his four-month stay in Mexico. He went there as a correspondent representing "The New York World" and the "Metropolitan", a monthly magazine. He walked hundreds of kilometers with the peasant army headed by Pancho Villa. Reed observed the peasant Civil War from inside: he was a participator, he did not only see the peasant revolution but he sensed, with all his heart, the profound social significance of that revolution. He understood the peasants' motivation, their needs and their dreams, his respect and his sympathy were given to the people. [79] Sensational material did not interest this reporter; it was the people's dedication to the cause of freedom from feudal oppression, independence, human dignity that appealed to his heart.

He arrived in September 1917, about a month before the October Revolution, and he plunged into the stormy political life of Russia. He knew some of Bolsheviks, met Lenin, went to Smolny. He was in Winter Palace on the night November, 7. He saw everything with his own in his eyes, and he described all he saw in his epoch - making book "Ten Days that Shook the World".

In 1919 he took part in founding the Communist Party of the USA, and that was the beginning of his life as a professional revolutionary. A few months later he went to Russia again this time illegally, with the idea of writing a new book and working for the Comintern. Gathering material for the new book he travelled to the furthest corners of Russia; he showed true heroism and selflessness. He died of typhoid fever in 1920 and was buried in Moscow near the Kremlin Wall.

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