Bristed, Charles Astor, 1820-1874

Charles A. Bristed, Jr. was the son of author and scholar Charles Astor Bristed and Grace Sedgwick Bristed.

From the guide to the Charles Astor Bristed, Jr. papers, 1888-1906, (Manuscripts and Archives)

Charles Astor Bristed, author, was the son of Reverend John Bristed and Magdalen Astor, daughter of John Jacob Astor II. He was born in New York City and educated at home by tutors before attending Yale University (1835-1839) and the University of Cambridge (1840-1845). Following his studies at Cambridge and some travel in Europe, he returned to the United States and began writing, sometimes under the name of Carl Benson. Under this pseudonym he was a regular contributor to the sporting journals Porter's Spirit of the Times and Wilkes's Spirit of the Times . Published works include: Selections from Catullus (1849); A Letter to the Hon. Horace Mann (1850); The Upper Ten Thousand: Sketches of New York Society (1852); Five Years in an English University (1852); Pieces of a Broken-Down Critic (1858); The Interference Theory of Government (1867); Anacreontics (1872); and On Some Exaggerations in Comparative Philology (1873).

In 1847 Bristed married Laura Brevoort of New York, who died in 1860. In 1867 he married Grace Sedgwick of Lenox, Massachusetts.

Biographical information taken from "Charles Astor Bristed." Dictionary of American Biography . New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936. Gale Biography in Context . (accessed 3 May 2011).

From the guide to the Charles Astor Bristed notebooks and other material, 1838-1888, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)