The New International Encyclopædia/Jackson, Helen Fiske Hunt

JACKSON, Helen Fiske Hunt (1831-85). An American poet and novelist, better known by her pen-name of ‘H. H.’ She was born at Amherst, Mass., October 18, 1831. Her father was Professor N. W. Fiske. At twenty-one she married Major Edward B. Hunt, of the United States Engineers, who died in 1863. She married afterwards (1875) William S. Jackson, a banker of Colorado Springs, Col. She died at San Francisco, August 12, 1885. Helen Hunt was educated at Ipswich, Mass., and in New York, and began to write for periodicals during her residence as a widow at Newport. R. I. Her poems won her friends, and in 1870 she published a volume of “Verses by H. H.,” which was read widely. From this time her pen was constantly employed. The most ambitious of her works are the novels Mercy Philbrick's Choice (1876), Hetty's Strange History (1877)—both in the “No Name Series;” a plea for better treatment of the Indians, A Century of Dishonor (1881); and the romance on the same theme entitled Ramona (1884). Mrs. Jackson also wrote some books for children, and several posthumous volumes were brought out shortly after her death, among them Sonnets and Lyrics (1886). The “Saxe Holm Series” are said to be hers; but it is becoming plain that her chief reputation is to rest upon her poems, some of which, e.g. Habeas Corpus, have a lyric power hardly surpassed by that of any American poet. For an appreciation of her genius, consult Higginson, Contemporaries (Boston, 1899).