James Gibbons Huneker

James Gibbons Huneker , 1860-1921, American essayist and music critic, b. Philadelphia. The originality and pungency of his style and the soundness of his criticism made him one of the most important critics of his time. He was music, art, and drama critic for the New York Sun (1902-17), then music critic for the Times (1917-19), and later for the World (from 1919 until his death). He also wrote several books.

Bibliography: See his Letters (1922) and Intimate Letters (1924).

Huneker, James Gibbons (1860–1921), American dramatic critic, born in Philadelphia, of Irish-Hungarian extraction. In 1890 he became music and drama critic of the Morning Advertiser and the New York Recorder and in 1902 joined the staff of the Sun, leaving in 1912 for the New York Times. He was perhaps more of an interpreter than a critic, battling in print with William Winter over Ibsen and Shaw, and his gusto and worldly knowledge shocked the puritans of the day. He edited a two-volume edition of Shaw's criticisms from the Saturday Review, and through his contacts with Europe—as a young man, he had lived in Paris for some years—was able to introduce and explain foreign dramatic literature to his compatriots.

Huneker, James Gibbons (1859?–1921), critic. Born in Philadelphia of Irish‐Hungarian parentage, he became a music critic before he was hired as a theatre reviewer for the New York Sun in 1902. Huneker immediately took up the cudgels for Ibsen and Shaw, two playwrights who were confusing and infuriating the more traditional critics. He wrote of Ibsen, “In his bones he is a moralist, in practice an artist.” Although he later was to have reservations about Shaw, he wrote the introduction to a 1906 edition of Shaw's collected criticisms and called him “jester to the cosmos and the most serious man on the planet.” He also warred against the prudery that infused so much contemporary dramatic criticism. In 1912 he left the Sun to write for the New York Times but eventually returned to the former. Brooks Atkinson called him “the best critic Broadway ever had.” Among his books, which ranged broadly and knowingly among all the arts, was Iconoclasts: A Book of Dramatists.