Hergesheimer, Joseph

Hergesheimer, Joseph hûr´gəshī´mər [key], 1880–1954, American novelist, b. Philadelphia. He first achieved literary distinction with the publication ofThe Three Black Pennys(1917). This novel, set against the background of the Pennsylvania iron industry, portrays the changing fortunes of a family of ironmasters. His other important works includeJava Head(1919), dealing with miscegenation in a New England sea-trading family, andLinda Condon(1919), a character study of an emotionally repressed girl. Among his later colorful novels, generally considered less artistic, areBalisand(1924) andTampico(1926). Hergesheimer, who has been called a naturalist writing of the romantic past, is also the author of short stories, essays, biographies, and the autobiography,From an Old House(1925).

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