Francis Henry Underwood (January 12, 1825 – August 7, 1894) was an American editor and writer. He was the founder and first associate editor of The Atlantic Monthly in 1857 while still working as a publisher's assistant.
Biography Underwood was born on January 12, 1825, in Enfield, Massachusetts, the son of Phoebe (Hall) and Roswell Underwood.
Underwood worked in Kentucky from 1845 to 1850, but his hatred of slavery caused him to quit the state. He became an ardent supporter of the Free Soil Party. Originally, he planned to launch a Free-soil magazine in 1853, but the idea did not come to fruition until The Atlantic Monthly in 1857.John Wilson Townsend. Kentucky in American Letters, 1784-1912. 1976 "Francis Henry Underwood, 'the editor who was never the editor' of The Atlantic Monthly, though he was indeed the projector and first associate editor of that famous magazine, was born at Enfield, Massachusetts, January 12, 1825, the son of Roswell Underwood. ... Underwood's intense hatred of slavery caused him to quit Kentucky, in 1850, after having lived for six years in this State, and to return. ... He enlisted in the Free-soil movement with heart and soul."
Underwood traveled to Britain in August 1885 on SS Cephalonia. He arrived in Liverpool and then traveled by railway to Glasgow.Edinburgh Evening News (newspaper) 18 August 1885
In 1885, Underwood was appointed American Consul at Glasgow in Scotland.Edinburgh Evening News (newspaper). 10 August 1885 In 1893, he was Consul for Leith. He is noted as being a member of Edinburgh's "Pen and Pencil Club".Edinburgh Evening News (newspaper) 22 November 1893
He lived at 35 Mansionhouse Road in the Grange, Edinburgh.Edinburgh and Leith Post Office Directory 1894-5
He died in Edinburgh on August 7, 1894.London Evening Standard. 8 August 1894Dundee Advertiser (newspaper). 8 August 1894
Works Cloud Pictures, a novel Hand-books of English Literature Builders of American Literature Lord of Himself Man Proposes Dr. Gray's Quest Quabbin: the Story of a Small Town with Outlooks Upon Puritan Life Biographies of Lowell, Longfellow, and Whittier
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