Marse Henry

Henry Watterson was born in a party camp and grew up on a political battlefield—but his first ambition was to become “one of those damned literary fellows.” His great American novel even found a publisher in London, until fate intervened.

Born in Washington in 1840, Watterson spends his boyhood between the capital and family homes in Tennessee, amid the country’s political contests and the fervor of camp-meeting religion. He recalls a world of stump oratory, partisan feuds and revival hymns—and a young man eager for literary laurels, whose poems go unpublished and whose novel never reaches readers. With a sharp eye for character and a raconteur’s humor, Watterson traces the unlikely road from thwarted writer to Kentucky journalist, while guarding his freedom to speak his mind. How does a would-be novelist make his way on a political battlefield?

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