1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mitchell, Donald Grant

MITCHELL, DONALD GRANT (1822–1908) American author, was born in Norwich, Connecticut, on the 12th of April 1822. He graduated at Yale College in 1841; studied law, but soon took up literature. Throughout his life he showed a particular interest in agriculture and landscape-gardening, which he followed at first in pursuit of health. He produced books of travel, volumes of essays on rural themes, of which My Farm of Edgewood (1863) is the best; sketchy studies of English monarchs and of English and American literature; and a character-novel entitled Doctor Johns (1866), &c.; but is best known as the author (under the pseudonym of “Ik Marvel”), of the sentimental essays contained in the volumes Reveries of a Bachelor, or a Book of the Heart (1850), and Dream Life, a Fable of the Seasons (1851).