(March 1, 1837–May 11, 1920), was a poet, novelist, editor and literary critic. He was one of America’s first realistic fiction writers. He was the U.S. Consul in Venice; a writer for the New York Tribune and the Nation; assistant editor of the Atlantic Monthly; and, in 1886, joined the staff of Harper’s Monthly.
Elected the first president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, William Dean Howells was a friend of Mark Twain, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman. His works include: A Boy’s Town; Their Wedding Journey; A Modern Instance; A Foregone Conclusion; Hazard of New Fortunes; and The Rise of Silas Lapham, 1885.
In his work A Thanksgiving, William Dean Howells wrote:
Lord, for the erring thought
Not for the evil wrought:
Lord, for the wicked will
Betrayed and baffled still:
For the heart from itself kept,
Our thanksgiving accept.2764