Page, Thomas Nelson (1853–1922), Virginia author distinguished as a leader of the local‐color movement. His first short story appeared in 1884, and in 1893 he forsook his legal career to become a professional writer. His first volume of stories,
In Ole Virginia (1887), depicts romantic aspects of his region before and during the Civil War. Frequently employing Negro dialect, his stories are generally concerned sentimentally with the aristocratic Old South, as in such collections as
Elsket and Other Stories (1891),
The Burial of the Guns (1894), and
Bred in the Bone (1904). Page's novels, dealing with the same background, include
On Newfound River (1891), the story of a Virginia feud in the period before the Civil War;
The Old Gentleman of the Black Stock (1897), a romantic tale of an old man who reunites a quarreling pair of young lovers;
Red Rock (1898), telling of the oppressive military rule of the South during Reconstruction;
Gordon Keith (1903), contrasting a well‐born Southerner with a Northern
nouveau riche; John Marvel, Assistant (1909), presenting a typical Southerner against the background of contemporary Chicago. His essays and social studies, linked to his fiction in theme and tone, include
The Old South (1892),
Social Life in Old Virginia (1897), and
The Old Dominion (1908). He also wrote semi‐historical works and eulogistic biographies, such as
Robert E. Lee, Man and Soldier (1911), and a volume of dialect verse,
Befo' de War (1888). His literary career ended when he became U.S. ambassador to Italy (1913–19).
