Excuse me? John Steinbeck is a "northern author"? Since when did they move Salinas California to the Union states?
It's farther south than Lexington Kentucky, son.
Steinbeck spent most of his life in the Monterey/Salinas/Pacific Grove region of California. He placed most of his stories in that area, also (so much so that the area is well-known as "Steinbeck Country"). If you had actually *read* any of his books, you couldn't help but notice that they were deeply rooted in California. How on earth do you figure he's a "northern author"?
He may have lived briefly in his New York residence and died in New York, but he was born and lived as a Californian, and that' where his heart ever was.
Mark Twain lived in New York longer than Steinbeck ever did, and is buried there (died in Connecticutt). Are you going to try to claim him as a "northern author" too?
Hemingway? Here's an actual picture of Ernest Hemingway as a child -- nuff said:
James Fennemore Cooper
Who? Try "Fenimore". You can have him, he was the starry-eyed ivory tower writer who started the whole "noble savage" PC nonsense:
"Few men exhibit greater diversity, or, if we may so express it, greater antithesis of character than the native warrior of North America. In war, he is daring, boastful, cunning, ruthless, self-denying, and self-devoted; in peace, just, generous, hospitable, revengeful, superstitious, modest, and commonly chaste."Puh-leaze... I can't say much for the turgid literary style, either.
(from The Last of the Mohicans)
Nathaniel Hawthorn
*cough*Hawthorne*cough*. You can keep him, too. The House of the Seven Gables was one of the most waste-of-time books I've ever read. Very overrated.
Henry David Throreau
Drop the extraneous "r" and you'll have it right. Are you sure you're as familiar with these authors as you like to imply?
Louisa Mae Alcott
Sigh. "May".
Julia Ward Howe
Are you sure you want to include such cultural literary icons as the woman whose best remembered work today is the lyrics (but not the music) of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"? She was an admirable reformer, but her lasting value as an author leaves something to be desired.
Walt Whitman
Whitman certainly had a way with the language, but there's no doubt why Clinton gave out copies of "Leaves of Grass" to the objects of his sexual desire:
Through me forbidden voices,Horatio Alger
Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil,
Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd.
I wasn't aware that the Unitarian minster wrote anything of note. Perhaps you meant Horatio Alger Jr.
Henry James
Henry James may have been born in New York, but it's a gross oversimplification to try to label him a "northern author". Most of his youthful education was with tutors in Geneva, London, Paris, Bologna and Bonn. He omnivorously read British, French, German, and Russian classics.
He continued to travel in Europe, and from the age of 26 until his death at the age of 72, he lived in Europe. He wrote his first novel while traveling through Venice and Paris.
He lived mostly in Britain, in Rye and London, which he loved so much that he wrote, "It is a real stroke of luck for a particular country that the capital of the human race happens to be British. Surely every other people would have it theirs if they could." He became a naturalized British citizen, and was decorated by King George V with the Order of Merit. When he visited the US in 1905, it was the first time he had been to the US in twenty five years.
It would be arguably more accurate to call Henry James a "European author" than a "northern author".
Edith Wharton
Wharton, too, spend some of her formative years in Europe, visited Europe frequently as a young adult, and adopted France as her home for the last half (and most literarily productive years) of her life. She never visited the US in the last 16 years of her life -- her last visit was only made to return briefly to accept her Pulitzer prize and bring it back home to France.
Upton Sinclair
Keep him. He was a lifelong crusader for Socialism. Even his most famous work, "The Jungle", is as much a screed for socialism as a broadside against the unacceptable practices of the meatpacking industry as it was in 1904. Six publishing houses rejected it, one (Macmillan) with the insightful comment that "One feels that what is at the bottom of his fierceness is not nearly so much desire to help the poor as hatred of the rich."
Jack London
There you go again -- Jack London is another Californian who you are trying to misappropriate as a "northern author". London was born in California, died in California, and lived the majority of his life in California, the exceptions being time in Alaska and a few years living on his boat cruising the Pacific Ocean.
O. Henry
And yet again... O. Henry was born in North Carolina (which was part of the Confederacy, son), and lived there until moving to Texas when he was 20. Only the last ten years of his life were spent in New York. Does this somehow make him a "northern author" in your book?
e.e. cummings
Cummings is yet another US-born author who did most of his writing while in France. I'm not sure he would consider himself a "northern author".
and, well you get the idea
I'm indeed getting an idea, but probably not the one you intended.