Albert Bigelow Paine
Albert Bigelow Paine was an influential American author and biographer, renowned for his works on Mark Twain. Born in 1861 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, he experienced a nomadic childhood, moving to various towns due to his father’s endeavors and the impact of the Civil War. Paine's early career began in photography, which he pursued for nearly a decade before transitioning to writing. He published his first book of poetry with William Allen White in 1893 and quickly gained recognition for his storytelling skills, leading to a successful writing career in New York.
Paine is best remembered for his profound connection with Twain, serving as his secretary and biographer. After Twain's death in 1910, Paine authored the comprehensive three-volume biography, "Mark Twain: A Biography," and served as the literary executor for Twain's works. Aside from his Twain-related endeavors, Paine also wrote on French history and culture, earning honors from the French government. Throughout his life, he remained active in literary circles, including serving on the Pulitzer Prize Committee, and had a lasting influence on American literature. He passed away in 1937, leaving behind a legacy that intertwines with the literary history of his time.
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Subject Terms
Albert Bigelow Paine
Author
- Born: July 10, 1861
- Birthplace: New Bedford, Massachusetts
- Died: April 9, 1937
- Place of death: New Smyrna, Florida
Biography
Albert Bigelow Paine, best known for his biography of Mark Twain, was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1861, the fifth child of Samuel Estabrook Paine, a storekeeper and farmer from Vermont, and Mercy Coval Kirby Paine, who came from a Massachusetts seafaring family. Paine was only one year old when his family left New England for Bentonsport, Iowa, where his father had little time to establish his farm and store before joining in the Civil War. Following the war, the family relocated to Xenia, Illinois, and young Paine received his early education in a one-room school. At the age of twenty, Paine struck out on his own in St. Louis and took up the study of photography, traveling with his camera through the South for three years, after which he became a photography supply salesman in Fort Scott, Kansas.
While managing his photography business, which he ran for ten years, Paine was also writing. He and William Allen White published their first book, a joint collection of verse entitled Rhymes by Two Friends, in 1893. Two years later, Richard Harding Davis of Harper’s Weekly accepted, with praise, one of Paine’s stories. Energized about a writing career, Paine sold his business and moved to New York with his family in 1895. In 1892, he had married Dora Locey, with whom he had several children, four of whom survived infancy: Louise Kirby, Frances Bigelow, Eleanor Temple, and Joy.
In his subsequent editorial and writing career, Paine penned novels, travel books, poetry, and humorous sketches and was the children’s editor of the New York Herald and an editor of St. Nicholas magazine. He also wrote several biographies, his first being Thomas Nast: His Period and His Pictures, published in 1904. However, Paine’s most memorable endeavors involved his work with Mark Twain. Serving as the great writer’s secretary, Paine lived and traveled with him for four years. After Twain’s death in 1910, Paine wrote biographical texts about his mentor, including the authorized three-volume biography Mark Twain: A Biography, published in 1912. As Twain’s literary executor, Paine compiled a volume of correspondence, Mark Twain’s Letters, published in 1917.
Paine spent much of his time in Europe. While living in France, Paine wrote books about French history and culture, including Joan of Arc, Maid of France (1925), for which the French government named him a chevalier in the Legion of Honor. Paine was a member of the Pulitzer Prize Committee, and at least one of his children followed in his literary footsteps; his daughter Louise Paine Benjamin was associate editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal at the time of her father’s death in 1937.